Ben Aaronovitch - Broken Homes

I cast a simple impello on the shotgun and yanked the twin barrels straight up before he had a chance to take aim. There was a double boom as he involuntarily squeezed both triggers and then I dropped the butt on his face. The man squealed, let go of the stock and staggered back clutching his nose.

I glanced around to see how Lesley was doing, and caught sight of a slim figure in a charcoal-grey trouser suit climb out of the Range Rover. Nightingale has been training us to cast certain spells practically by reflex, and as soon as I recognised her I had my shield up. It saved my life, because the next instant I was struck by a freight train full of icicles.

The impact cartwheeled me off my feet and I saw sky blue and frost white whirl around my head and then I hit the ground on my back hard enough to make my vision dim. I tried to get up, but what was unmistakably a boot crashed down on my chest and drove me back onto the ground.

Above me loomed the man with the shotgun, his nose was crooked and beginning to swell and blood was seeping from one of his nostrils. He’d retrieved his shotgun and had the business end pointing at my head. It was possible he hadn’t had a chance to reload, but strangely I didn’t feel at all tempted to find out.

Varvara Sidorovna’s face appeared above and looked down at me. When she saw me, she sighed and muttered something under her breath in Russian. Then she walked out of my view, her muttering getting louder until she was swearing noisily.

I was struck by what a good language Russian was for swearing in — very expressive.

Dog fighters don’t see themselves as criminals at all. They see themselves as upholders of a fine rural tradition that dates back centuries and has been unfairly penalised by sanctimonious urbanites. They don’t fight their dogs for the money — although the betting can be brisk and the stud fees lucrative — they fight them for honour, for ego and for the sheer thrill of the combat. The rules of a proper dog fight were codified in the 1830s. The ring is always a square with sides twelve feet long and two feet six inches high, and there’s normally an old carpet laid in the bottom to soak up the blood. It’s really very distinctive and makes them easy to recognise, especially when you’re kneeling in the middle of one with your hands on your head.

The ring was in the old barn, which was much better maintained than the new concrete one and had racks of empty dog cages along each wall. That explained why it had been so securely locked.

They had me and Lesley facing the barn door while behind us stood at least two of the combat trouser brigade — both armed with shotguns. Varvara Sidorovna knew our capabilities and wasn’t taking any chances. We’d been there long enough for my knees to start seizing up and for our guards to forget we were listening.

‘This is fucking stupid,’ said Max, who had repeated this statement at regular intervals since we’d arrived here. By a process of elimination I’d decided this was the round pink-faced guy, and we knew his name was Max because his partner had used it the last time he’d told him to shut the fuck up. I was pretty certain his partner was the squinty-eyed guy and I knew his name was Barry because Max had used it when he told him to fuck off.

‘Shut up,’ said Barry.

‘Well, it is fucking stupid,’ said Max. ‘We should be well out of here by now.’

‘Not until the Comrade Major says it’s time to go.’

‘Fuck the fucking Comrade Major,’ mumbled Max.

‘I wouldn’t try if I was you,’ said Barry. ‘She’ll freeze your balls off.’

‘Oh yeah,’ said Max. ‘Seriously frigid.’

‘Look,’ said Lesley. ‘It’s bad enough that you’re holding us prisoner, but can we at least dispense with the fucking sexism?’

‘You’re a mouthy cunt, aren’t you?’ said Barry.

‘What I am is a police officer,’ said Lesley. ‘And if anything happens to me or my partner here I personally guarantee that you won’t survive the subsequent arrest.’

‘What?’ asked Barry.

‘Damage us,’ I said, ‘and our colleagues will fuck you up big time.’

‘Shut up,’ said Max.

‘Yeah,’ said Barry. ‘Shut the fuck up.’

‘Not them, you dickhead,’ said Max. ‘You shut the fuck up as well.’

My stomach was churning. I didn’t want to die in a dog fighting ring. In Essex, for god’s sake, what would my dad say? And my mum would be so pissed off with me. Better all-round if I avoided the whole dying thing altogether.

‘You know, after today you two are going to be disposable,’ said Lesley.

‘She’s right,’ I said. ‘We tracked you here through the van and we reported in before we came here.’

‘She gets you to top us,’ said Lesley. ‘And then she leaves you hanging out for the police.’

My throat was dry and I had to cough before I could say, ‘That’s a bit too risky. More likely she zaps them and then burns down this place with them in it.’

‘People are always setting themselves on fire when they do arson,’ said Lesley. ‘They’ll think you murdered us and then did yourselves in by accident. Case closed, and the Comrade Major gets away scot free.’

There was a long pause and then Max said, ‘We’re not listening to you, you know.’

But I thought they might be.

I think we might have been there for another hour after that. Barry was complaining that he wanted a slash, my knees were killing me and I had shooting pains in my shoulders from keeping my hands on my head. I did wonder, given how long Max and Barry had been standing there, whether they might be equally stiff and unresponsive.

There was nothing in my forward field of view that I could grab with impello and the bloody Comrade Major Varvara Sidorovna had instructed Max and Barry to randomly move around behind my back and stay separated so that I couldn’t just blindly smack them down. Nothing I could do was going to be faster than their trigger fingers — however stiff they got.

Still, when the barn doors opened in front of me I did my best to clear my mind and be ready for any opportunity.

It was Varvara Sidorovna carrying, I couldn’t help noticing, two plastic jerry cans. Judging from the way they weighed on her shoulders they must have been nearly full and I didn’t think it was with water. By the time I’d registered that, she’d walked briskly out of our line of sight.

‘Okay,’ she said from behind us. ‘In a couple of minutes I want you two to shoot these two in the head and douse everything with petrol.’ She spoke English with the deliberately regionless accent of a BBC Radio 4 presenter.

Being held at gunpoint is a police nightmare and you always tell yourself that should push come to shove and some vile scrote is about to actually shoot you, you’d at least make a play. Go for the gun, duck, attack the bastard with your bare hands. I mean after all, at that instant, what would you have to lose? But shove had arrived and I found I couldn’t make myself move, not even a little bit. It was shameful. I had found the upper limit of my courage.

Fortunately for me, there is no known lower limit to human stupidity.

‘They’re police,’ said Barry, just as Varvara Sidorovna had crossed back into view and was heading for the barn doors. ‘I don’t think this is a good idea.’

Varvara Sidorovna turned and her face was a picture. I’m having a bad day, it said. And now there’s you — thinking!

‘Listen, Varvara,’ said Lesley. ‘You really want to talk to your boss before you do anything hasty.’

I was still trying to make myself move and practically trembling with frustration. It’s not like I’ve had trouble doing stupid things before, I thought. Why am I finding it so hard now?