Death in a Cold Spring (Pitkirtly Mysteries Book 9) (19 page)

Keith came back a few minutes later, wearing an anxious frown. Come to think of it, that was more or less his default expression these days. Christopher thought back to when he had first known Keith, and regretted the disappearance of the cheerful certainty that had once characterised him.

‘Mrs Ramsay’s coming here,’ Keith told them. ‘I don’t think she’s very happy.’

‘Well, she did tell you not to go back to work, didn’t she?’ commented Christopher.

‘This wasn’t supposed to be work,’ said Keith. ‘I didn’t know this was going to happen. We might have been able to get an ice-cream and walk away, for all I knew.’

There was a hammering sound.

‘That’s someone at the door of the flat,’ said Mrs Petrelli. ‘I must go and see...’

Keith caught at her arm to stop her in her tracks. ‘Don’t go. I’ll check this out. Stay here with the others.’

Christopher followed him on to the landing and watched as he crept down the stairs. Who was Keith expecting at the door? Sarah Ramsay might be a very scary woman, but surely Keith wasn’t so terrified that he wouldn’t even let her in.

The police officer was only halfway down the stairs when the hammering started up again. There was shouting now too, and it didn’t sound very friendly.

‘Open up. We want the girl. Hand her over and nobody’s going to get hurt.’

Keith turned and crept back up.

‘Get back in the kitchen,’ he murmured to Christopher. ‘We’ll try and make out there’s nobody here.’

‘I know you’re in there!’ came the voice. ‘There’s no hiding-place. Just give her up.’

In the kitchen, Sammy was huddled in on herself. Maybe it was the primitive instinct to make herself smaller so that the enemy wouldn’t see her. Christopher himself considered crawling under the table, but apart from any considerations of dignity, he wasn’t sure he would fit or that it would be any kind of a hiding place.

‘They cannot do this,’ said Mrs Petrelli with a sort of moan.

‘Just going to secure the back windows,’ said Amaryllis, and slipped out of the room.

So much for getting an ice-cream and walking away, thought Christopher.

Chapter 21 Under siege

There were men at the back too. This was serious. Amaryllis just hoped Jock McLean had had the sense to scarper, or to dive into the nearest hedge and stay there, if there had even been time to react when the intruders arrived. Then there were the restaurant staff. They had only seen one waiter, but there must be at least a cook as well, and both would be vulnerable. It was important now that the police did indeed arrive with a roar and disturb this quiet Saturday lunchtime with all their blue lights and sirens.

Ducking into a back room where none of the others could hear her, she got out her mobile phone and made a couple of calls.

Then she searched the flat for anything she could make into a weapon. She had no doubt that something like that would be required.

Everything had gone quiet downstairs at the door, which was slightly alarming, but she hoped the invaders were just regrouping before carrying out a more determined assault. She tried not to think about all the possible nightmare scenarios that could arise, or about solving the mystery of who was behind all this. She knew from experience that it was essential to focus on the immediate problem and to leave everything else until later.

Armed only with a couple of sheets, an umbrella with a long pointed end, a handful of clothes-pegs, two wire coat-hangers and some odd stockings, she returned to the kitchen.

‘Do you have a bucket, Mrs Petrelli?’ she asked politely. ‘Can someone please put the kettle on so we have hot water? And we might need to rip up the sheets a bit, I’m afraid.’

Keith blinked in surprise. ‘You’re not going to...? I suppose this is where I’d better remind you that it’s only reasonable force that’s acceptable in the circumstances.’

‘Hmph. Tell that to those people out there... Anyway, how do you know I don’t just want a cup of tea?’

‘You don’t drink tea, do you?’ he said.

‘Not unless it’s seasoned with the blood of my enemies,’ she told him, and laughed.

Right on cue, there was a huge crash from somewhere at the back of the apartment, and they all froze.

Amaryllis was the first to spring back to life. She moved slowly to a position where she could see the landing from the kitchen doorway. Smoke was heading their way from the back of the building. She began to give orders.

‘Christopher, fill the bucket – cold tap. Mrs Petrelli, Sammy – rip strips off the sheets. Stewie – start dipping the strips in water. We all need to cover our noses and mouths. There’s smoke, but it’s probably not going to last long or do much damage. They’re only trying to scare us.’

‘They’re succeeding,’ muttered Christopher.

‘Keith – take this, and come with me once you’ve got your strip of cloth.’ She thrust the umbrella into his hand and picked up two coat-hangers.

She grabbed the first two strips of cloth that had been torn off by a grim-faced Mrs Petrelli, pushed Christopher aside and ran them under the cold tap. She couldn’t expect any of the others to react anything like as quickly as she could. Keith was the only one who might be of some use, and his job was so hemmed in by rules and hierarchies that he might not be able to work flexibly enough or be ruthless enough in this situation.

‘Hang on to the clothes-pegs and the stockings,’ she said to the others over her shoulder as she and Keith went out to the landing. ‘We might need them later. Just stay where you are, close the door and watch out for smoke.’

Of course they wouldn’t enjoy being trapped in the kitchen with chaos erupting around them, but she didn’t want a bunch of civilians getting under her feet. It occurred to her that she herself was now a civilian. In an emergency that was surely academic, though.

‘I can’t use this,’ said Keith, waving the umbrella. ‘It could take somebody’s eye out.’

‘Just be careful with it, then. Threatening them might work too.’

Even as she said this, Amaryllis knew it wasn’t true. These men, whoever they were, were almost certainly willing to kill to get whatever it was they wanted. Threatening them wouldn’t be enough.

She and Keith covered their noses and mouths with the wet cloths. It was unpleasant, but the makeshift masks enabled them to move through to the back of the flat and find the window through which the smoke-bomb had been thrown. They were just in time to catch a large heavy-set man trying to climb in.

Relying on the element of surprise, Amaryllis simply rushed at him and gave him a push. He had been balanced on the sill at the time, with a very tenuous grip on the window-frame with one hand, and it didn’t take much force to destabilise him and send him crashing downwards. They heard a dull thud as he came in to land.

She brushed her hands together, grinned at Keith and said, ‘One down.’

But even as she spoke, there was activity elsewhere in the flat and she added urgently, ‘I’ll see to this – don’t let anybody in the back way.’

‘Leave it with me,’ grunted Keith, readying the umbrella for action. He seemed to have overcome his scruples. She hoped he would be determined enough when it came to the time for action, but she couldn’t worry about him now.

There were people at the downstairs door again, and this time it sounded as if they were making a concerted effort with some sort of battering instrument. Where on earth had they found a battering ram at short notice? Or had they simply ripped up a tree or a fence post from one of the neighbouring gardens? What was needed was a barricade across the stairs. Mrs Petrelli’s steel doors and extra-strong locks would hold them back for a bit longer, but they would soon find a way through.

The smoke was dispersing. Amaryllis returned to the kitchen.

‘Give me a hand with the fridge,’ she snapped at Stewie.

They all stared at her. It was disconcerting to see their eyes widen in unison above the cloth masks.

‘Come on – I need to use it to block the stairs.’

‘My fridge!’ moaned Mrs Petrelli. ‘What am I going to do?’

Amaryllis and Stewie tugged and shoved until they were able to manoeuvre the fridge out of its place. Amaryllis reached round behind and unplugged it, then they pushed it out of the kitchen, round to the top of the stairs. It didn’t take much effort after that to topple it over. It made an impressive crashing noise as it hurtled down the stairs, the door flying open and releasing a cascade of little plastic boxes of tomato sauce and milk cartons. Once it landed, lying right across the stairwell just in front of the door, there was silence except for the glugging of the milk as it escaped from the bashed and broken containers.

Amaryllis considered threatening them with the tomato sauce, but she didn’t want to upset Mrs Petrelli any more than she already had.

There was a lot of noise going on somewhere at the back, so she turned and dashed to where she had left Keith, only to find him hanging out of a window, apparently helpless to stop himself being dragged down by another heavy-set villainous-looking man who was standing halfway up a ladder. They were going to get serious hassle from the neighbours if they started stealing fence-posts and ladders. Amaryllis knew that people in this part of town tended to be very possessive about the contents of their gardens and outbuildings. She wouldn’t mind betting several homeowners in the street had already phoned the police. Good. Maybe they would take it more seriously if a complete stranger contacted them instead of someone already well-known to them.

The heavy-set villain didn’t seem to have calculated that he would undoubtedly fall off the ladder and hurt himself if he did succeed in pulling Keith down on top of him. On the other hand it wouldn’t do Keith any good either.

‘Grab Keith’s legs and hold on,’ she told Stewie, who had followed her. He might as well be of some use.

She gulped back a scream as a door opened off the landing and another man appeared.

This time it was serious. He had a gun, and he looked like the kind of man who wouldn’t just be prepared to use it, but who would actively enjoy using it. Amaryllis had encountered many of his kind in the circles she had moved in during her working life. Unfortunately some of them had purported to be on the same side as she was, but she didn’t think this man was on anyone’s side except his own.

She imagined she heard the sound of sirens, but they could be too late. She kept the wire coat-hangers hidden behind her back just in case she got the chance to attack with them. One idea she had come up with was to fashion them into a bow and arrow, but there wasn’t time to do that now. She might have to rely on the tried and tested method of stabbing him with the very sharp end she had unwound from the handle part. It would be messy, but unavoidable.

There was shouting from somewhere outside.

‘I can’t hang on any more!’ squeaked Stewie.

The man with the gun was slowly advancing.

Whoever was at the downstairs door renewed their banging. But she didn’t need to bother about that. The fridge had wedged itself between the door and one of the walls. It would take them a long time to work out how to get through.

Amaryllis’s phone rang.

She knew not to take her eye off the man with the gun, but his gaze had swung round for a moment, and that was enough. She launched herself forward just as he looked back towards her and fired...

No, not again! The thought flashed across her mind before she had even realised she wasn’t experiencing pain, numbness or loss of consciousness. Where had the shot landed?

She became aware that someone was lying across her and they were both on the floor. Someone gave an evil laugh and then a gasp. There was a thud, and the floor shook under her. It did it again almost at once, and then again.

‘That’s for my brother, you evil bastard!’

It was Sammy’s voice.

‘That’s right, cara, you tell him,’ said Mrs Petrelli from somewhere nearby.

‘Um – I think we might have to get her off him,’ said Christopher, almost in her ear.

He wriggled a bit and lifted himself carefully off her, and then took her arm to help her to her feet. He was blushing. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I had to get you out of the way in a hurry.’

She glanced around. Mrs Petrelli sat on the chest of the heavy-set villainous man who had wielded the gun, while Sammy hit him in the face repeatedly with a small fist. Evidently being an artist sometimes enabled people to build up a useful set of muscles.

‘Help me!’ squeaked Stewie from the window. ‘I can’t hold him – he’s going to fall.’

Amaryllis glanced out of the window. Firemen swarmed across the yard behind the restaurant.

‘It’s OK,’ shouted one of them. ‘We’ll get him down safely. Just hold on one more minute, son.’

‘Are the police there?’ Amaryllis called.

‘Round the front. You’ll be able to come out in a bit. Hang on.’

He gave her a friendly wave.  The sun glinted off the buttons of his uniform and, she imagined, off his even white teeth and wavy blond hair. He was a worthy rescuer.

‘Oh dear,’ said Amaryllis to the others, her lips curving into a smile. ‘We won’t be able to get down the stairs – they’re blocked. It looks as if we might have to rely on the firemen to get us out. It’s going to be an ordeal, but just grit your teeth and you’ll get through it.’