Matt Hilton - Cut and run

The word doppelganger went through my mind.

Viewing the photo-fit of the man who'd snatched Imogen Ballard, I'd whimsically thought of him as my evil twin. Now there was no whimsy in it. Luke Rickard did look very much like me. It was enough of a likeness that I'd thought of him as an abomination that I couldn't suffer to live. If anything the feeling was even stronger in me now and if I could I'd have concentrated on that there and then.

But my first priority was the safety of the young woman.

Rickard looked at me and his eyes went to slits. He smiled coldly, but then he continued his march towards the vehicle. The remaining gunman had made it all the way across the street and it looked like the fight had gone out of him. He went down on his backside, throwing down his gun. His hands came up in a pleading gesture but there wasn't an ounce of compassion in Rickard. He unloaded a spray of bullets at the man and I saw tatters of his body sifting in the breeze.

I was still running. Behind me I could hear the crunch of Rink's boots as he shadowed me. At a run I fired, but all my bullets went high and wide. I was too busy looking at Alisha to care. I shouted at her to come to me and finally it was as if she realised that I wasn't her husband and she came first to her knees, then to a crouch and began running towards me.

Rickard swivelled.

'No!' I yelled.

He aimed the Glock 18 at his wife, tracking her movement with a slow, lazy smile on his lips. Pulled the trigger. The machine pistol rattled and there was a corresponding jig from Alisha as if she was dancing to its beat.

I shouted in denial, then lunged to catch the woman in my arms. I pressed her to the ground, covering her with my body, even though it was probably a pointless act. She was deathly still beneath me and the coppery smell of blood was strong in my senses.

Beside me Rink skidded to a halt. His gun came up and the sound was like a roaring cannon.

'Frog-giggin' son of a bitch!'

I heard his snarl and knew that he'd missed Rickard. Lifting my head, I searched for the killer, but caught only a hint of shadow as he raced back round the side of the house.

'We can't let him get away…'

Even as I said the words, I knew that he was making a run for it and I jammed a knee under me ready to take up the chase. Alisha shuddered beneath me and mewled out a cry of agony. Then I forgot all about chasing Rickard as I rolled the woman towards me and cradled her body to mine. Coming to my feet, I held her in my arms, jogging with her back to our car. Rink covered our retreat as I took the woman out of the line of fire. There was no guarantee that Rickard had fled the scene and he might burst out of hiding at any second.

Laying her on the road, I pulled off my jacket and bunched it under her head. Then I checked her for wounds. She'd been hit in three places: two of the wounds weren't going to kill her yet but they could be serious enough to require amputation of her left leg to save her life. The final wound was the most pressing. It was in her lower back, but the angle of the bullet could mean that the round had torn through her liver and without immediate assistance she was going to die. I pressed my hand down hard on the wound, trying to stop the flow of blood. I looked up at Rink and my face was probably a picture of desperation judging by what I saw reflected there.

'Why…?'

Alisha's voice was as brittle as cracked ice. It was only one simple word but it would take more than I could offer to answer her.

'Hush,' I said. 'Don't talk. Try to be as still as you can be.'

'Am I… going to… die?'

'No.' I tilted away from her so that she couldn't see the lie in my face.

When I looked back at her she was watching my face, but there was little recognition in her eyes. The pupils were as small as pinpricks. 'Why did you do this to me, Luke?'

Whether her question was rhetorical or she was swimming through delirium, I felt her words like a vice closing on my throat. I wasn't like him: physically maybe, but not in my heart.

'Shush, now. Help's coming, Alisha.'

Rink nodded his head over us, and I became aware of the sound of sirens and vehicles braking to a halt. Seconds later there followed shouted orders and the clatter of running feet.

Somewhere along the line I'd put my gun back in my belt, and I noted now that Rink had put his away. My friend lifted his open hands to the cops shouting at him and then waved them over.

'This woman needs help now.' I stared up at the cop who had his sidearm pointed at my face. 'Get a goddamn medic.'

Other cops pounded by us, some doing a nervous dance as they approached the vehicle surrounded by dead men; others moved towards the house. I didn't give any of it much more than fleeting notice as I was too busy trying to keep Alisha alive. Next moment hands were pulling me away, and the people bending over Alisha wore different uniforms. I relinquished my hold on her, handing her over to the paramedics.

I looked down at her blood on my hands. Please… not another innocent, I prayed.

Next thing I was aware of was moving ahead with Rink, passing cops who tried to grab at us; we brushed them aside. Then we had passed the side of the house. My senses had pinholed during the last few minutes, but now they were returning as we took up the chase. The smell of gunpowder hung heavily in the air, and there was also the familiar tang of death. The house held no interest for us and we raced into the backyard. A man was dead on the floor and a little distance away a dog lay oozing its brains out of a hole in its skull. I barely glanced at them, heading for the open gate through which Rickard must have fled.

We went through another garden and on to a parallel street where we found another two dead men. People from the neighbouring houses were beginning to come out to see the show. It was a bad sign. It meant that Rickard was gone.

The appearance of me and Rink sent a few of them fleeing back to the relative safety of their homes, but there were others who were a little bolder. They thought we were cops and they felt they had a right to harangue us for not being there to serve and protect when they needed us most.

A fat man, his large belly protruding beneath the line of his T-shirt like a cow's udder, came at me and he was just about frothing at the mouth. 'You don't care about us. You don't care!'

Right then and there he was right: I stiff-armed him out of my way and he went down on his backside. There was a collective shout of anger. Someone shouted something about police brutality. People began to wheel round us and for a moment I thought they were going to attack us like a pack of hyenas.

'Where the fuck did he go?' Rink roared at the top of his lungs.

The pack was shredded by his anger, some of them actually taking off at a run as though Rink was about to blast them to death with the gun he waved.

'The man who killed these people…' I waved at the two on the ground. 'Where did he go? Someone must have seen something?'

From beyond the group of neighbours I heard a high-pitched whistle. Looking over their heads I saw a young black boy on a cycle. He was pointing his finger in stabbing motions to a junction further along. I knocked Rink's elbow and we shoved through the crowd towards the boy.

The boy wheeled ahead of us, all the way to the corner where he skidded to a halt using his feet as brakes.

'Up there,' he said. 'See the burned-down house? He ran in there.'

I nodded thanks at him.

'You see him, shoot him,' the boy ordered. 'He shouldn't have shot that poor dog.'

Under any other circumstances I'd have found the boy's statement absurd, but not this time. He had no love for the men Rickard had shot; in fact plenty of people would be secretly pleased that someone had done away with those blighting their neighbourhood with narcotics.