Shaun Hutson - Captives

'They'll stick another five years on your sentence for what you did to Draper,' Nicholson told him.

Scott sneered.

'What's five more years on top of life?' he grunted.

'You would have been out in fifteen with good behaviour. Now you'll be an old man when they let you out.'

'What difference does it make to you? Who are you, anyway?'

Nicholson introduced himself.

'And, by the way,' he added, it makes no difference to me at all when and if you get out. You can rot in here for all I care.'

'So why the visit?' Scott wanted to know.

'Do you want to spend the rest of your life in here?'

'That's a fucking stupid question. What do you think?'

'I think that you'd settle for another six months in here instead of another twenty years,' Nicholson said cryptically. 'But there are risks.'

Scott looked vague.

'If I told you there was a possibility you could be out of here in six months, would you be interested?'

Six months is too long.

Scott looked wary.

'How?' he demanded.

'Would you be interested?' Nicholson persisted.

'Tell me how.'

Nicholson banged on the door and a warder opened it. He turned to leave.

'Tell me,' snarled Scott, getting to his feet, moving towards the Governor.

'Remember, there are risks,' Nicholson said as he stepped out of the cell. The door was slammed and locked. Scott was left with his face pressed against the metal.

'I don't care about the risks,' he shouted, banging his fist against the steel door. He struck it again, ignoring the pain as more of the blisters burst. Blood began to dribble down his arm. He pounded for long moments.

'I don't care,' he whispered breathlessly, but there was no one to hear his words.

He sank slowly to the floor of the cell and lay there gazing at the ceiling.

EIGHTY-FIVE

There was always one.

David Lane muttered to himself as he rang the bell and the bus pulled away, passing Kensington Market on the right.

Always one who wanted to sit upstairs. Always one who ensured that he, as conductor, would be forced to climb the bloody stairs. At the beginning of a shift he didn't mind; he'd happily bound up and down the stairs to collect fares. But today he could hardly manage to walk from one end of the bus to the other, let alone up to the top deck. He'd pulled a muscle in his thigh playing football the previous Sunday and it was giving him a lot of pain. He'd thought about calling in sick, but he had actually received a phone call asking if he'd work a double shift as someone else had called in to report an illness. Consequently Lane had been working for almost ten hours, with just a break for lunch, and his leg was killing him. He moved among the passengers on the lower deck, cursing the single passenger who had chosen to sit above.

The bus was moving slowly, picking up at nearly every stop as it moved down Kensington Road towards Hyde Park Corner. Just the odd one or two extra passengers but they all, luckily, chose to sit downstairs.

Except the one bloke who'd got on at the earlier stop.

Lane massaged the top of his thigh gently as he waited for an elderly woman to find her bus pass. Perhaps he was getting too old to be dashing about every Sunday morning. He was approaching thirty-three and his wife had told him he should be taking it easier now. But what the hell, he enjoyed playing, despite the fact that he'd picked up half a dozen niggling little knocks since Christmas. And his pub team were doing well in the league; he didn't want to forsake them now. Anyway, thirty-three was hardly an age to think about 'taking things easy'. Plenty of time for that when he got old. He smiled as he thought of his wife's concern. Michelle was always worrying about him. The long hours he worked, how little sleep he sometimes got. His musings were interrupted as the old girl found her bus pass and presented it to him. He smiled and handed it back to her, steadying himself as the bus came to a halt and two passengers got off. He rang the bell and continued collecting fares, making his way to the back of the bus, pausing at the bottom of the stairs. As they passed Hyde Park Corner he began to climb.

The pulled muscle in his thigh stiffened as he moved higher and it was with something akin to relief that he finally reached the top deck.

The man was sitting at the front, gazing out at the lights of London, oblivious to Lane's presence. The conductor moved towards him, using the backs of seats as support as the bus lurched on into Piccadilly.

'Fares, please,' called Lane. But still the man didn't turn, didn't even move to reach for money.

He continued staring out of the front window as if mesmerised by the lights, glancing to his left as they passed The Hard Rock Cafe.

'Fares, please,' Lane repeated more loudly as he drew level with the man.

'Where to, mate?' he asked, shifting his weight onto his other leg.

The man didn't answer.

Perhaps he was deaf, Lane wondered. He was in his mid-thirties, his hair short, his face covered by a dark carpet of stubble. The collar of his jacket was pulled up around his neck and there were holes in the knees of his jeans. Don't tell me you've got no fucking money.

'Where do you want to go?' Lane said, more loudly.

The man looked at him, his eyes large, almost bulging in their sockets. Lane could smell the drink on him.

Piss-artist. Great, that was all he needed. He turned the wheel of his ticket machine and cranked out an eighty pence ticket. If this bloke was smashed then he wanted him off at the next stop.

'Eighty pence, please, mate,' Lane said.

The man nodded and reached into his pocket, fumbling beneath his jacket.

'Eighty pence,' he repeated.

He smiled and looked up at the conductor.

'If you've got no money…' Lane began.

'I've got no money,' the man said, grinning. 'I got this.'

He pulled the.357 Magnum free and pointed it at Lane.

'Have you got change?' asked Gary Lucas.

Then he fired.

EIGHTY-SIX

The roar of the pistol was deafening in such a confined space. The muzzle-flash briefly lit the interior of the bus upper deck as the Magnum spat out its deadly load. Lucas fired from less than ten inches. The impact of the heavy grain shell bent Lane double at the waist as the bullet tore easily through his abdominal muscles, destroying part of his lower intestine before erupting from his back, tearing away most of one kidney. A sticky flux of viscera spattered the shattered window behind him and he fell backwards. Lucas got to his feet and fired again at the fallen man, the second bullet powering into his face just below the left eye, punching in the cheekbone and staving in the entire left side of his head. The skull seemed to burst as the bullet exited, greyish-pink slops of brain carried in its wake.

Lucas turned and headed for the stairs, noticing that the bus had slowed down slightly.

He reached the running platform in time to see two of the other passengers rising, obviously having heard the shots from above. One of them, a woman in her early twenties, screamed as she saw Lucas raising the gun.

He fired, hitting her in the left shoulder, the bullet shattering her clavicle. Blood spurted into the air as he turned towards the other passengers. There were four of them.

He shot the older woman in the back of the head, watching gleefully as her grey hair turned red, her skull riven by the bullet. She pitched forward, slamming what was left of her head against the seat in front.

The bus veered to one side and Lucas cursed as his next shot missed its target. Instead it smashed through the window at the front, glass spraying in all directions. He fired again, his next shot hitting a man in the chest, caving in his sternum and bursting one lung.