Shredder (9 page)

The news ended with a reprise of the lead item—yet another terrorist outrage. A bomb had gone off on a coach headed for Liverpool, killing two passengers and maiming six. It had used some new hightech liquid explosive, concealed in a backpack, and all that was left of the man carrying it was embedded in the other victims' bodies. No warning, no claim of responsibility, no kamikaze video where the bomber explained his motives; this was terrorism at its purest, just random carnage and cruelty, followed by shrill demands from the media and members of Parliament for the authorities to crack down—on what or whom exactly, no one seemed to know. The failed bomber Amobi's people had caught in Bristol was still being questioned, but reports suggested he was merely a courier who couldn't speak English and had no idea what had been in his bag, and the police were making no official comment.

I switched the telly off and headed for the
bedroom I'd been allotted, next door to Richard—presumably so he would notice if I tried sneaking about at night. I took a bath, as hot as I could bear, to ease the bruises and the stiffness that had set in since that morning. There were still a few crumbs of grit in my hair that I'd missed when I'd showered earlier, and on impulse I put them to my nose and smelled them. They were scorched rubber, I realized, from the tires of the car that had exploded, and the acrid stink set my eyes watering. Or maybe that was shock; when I shut my eyes I could hear screaming, see Martin's lifeless body take its last tottering step, see panicking parents dashing for safety with their kids in their arms.

Alone in my bed, I wished Zoe was there, and was grateful she wasn't. Amobi would keep her safe, I knew, until this war was over—and if I survived it, maybe she'd forgive me for involving her, in person. That reminded me how she'd said goodbye at the NCA offices, and how she'd slipped her tongue into my mouth, and thinking about that helped to take my mind off everything that had happened since, and what with one thing and another I managed to sleep.

I wasn't the only bloke longing for female company, I realized over breakfast, when I joined Victoria and the kids for a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice. Richard appeared, keen to know if we'd slept OK, but it was obviously only Victoria's sleeping arrangements that interested him. He flirted with her shamelessly, staying just this side of obscene for the sake of Kelly and Bonnie listening, and she lapped it up, her face going pink, giggling so much it drew puzzled looks from the kids.

The two lovebirds kept up the accidental encounters and the whispered innuendo all day. Richard was always loitering within earshot, Victoria throwing him distracted glances. I didn't know if the kids minded, but before long it was getting on my last nerve. How long was I going to be stuck in this highsecurity nursery watching these two make cow eyes at each other? What if the Guvnor's struggle with the Turk went on for months?

I'd done what the Turk had instructed. For all I knew, Zoe might already have gone back to York, while I twiddled my thumbs in McGovern's protective custody. I tried to work out some of my frustration on the running machine in the Guvnor's home gym; Cherry had set it at a decorous speed barely
faster than a jog, but I cranked the revs up to maximum and ran at full tilt for thirty minutes, then hit the weights. But it soon felt like I was working out in one of those cushy prisons where they send rich fraudsters and disgraced politicians, and I gave up in bored disgust.

I took a walk around the gardens instead, pretending to admire the roses while checking to see if there really was no way of getting over the walls. The kids had a trampoline, I discovered. Maybe I could drag it over to the foot of the wall and bounce my way to freedom, if I didn't mind breaking both legs when I landed on the road outside. The Guvnor's guards didn't seem to be paying me much attention; they were too busy conferring in grim knots of two and three. They didn't look happy. Maybe they thought they weren't getting enough overtime, or maybe they were as pissed off as me at being confined in here missing the action…or maybe there was bad news they didn't want to discuss out loud. When I strolled over and tried to eavesdrop on their conversation they clammed up, glaring at me like a basket of snakes.

The TV news that evening was the same as the day before, in a slightly different order, with more detail
on the victims of the coach bombing. The reporters were playing up the pathos and the dashed hopes, the way the media always do when they have nothing to offer as background or context or explanation, not even a gloating statement from some religious fanatic. They focused on the innocent victims instead, milking the tragedy until it got almost mawkish. For “analysis” they wheeled on some expert who tried to make sense of the bombing campaign and couldn't, because the terrorists hadn't bothered to give their reasons, issue bloodthirsty speeches or make impossible demands. There was nothing to analyze.

I lay in bed, sleepless in the heat until the early hours, thinking. I was going to have to do something—write a message to Amobi in a bottle and throw it over the wall, or pick someone's pocket for a phone. As a brat running wild in West London I'd tried that a few times. Drunks heading home in the evening made easy targets, but scoring in the daytime when the punters were alert? That was much harder. I still remembered the basics—the stall, the distraction and the dip—but most of those techniques needed an accomplice. Without one, the best target had to be Victoria. She was already
distracted a lot of the time, batting her eyelashes at Richard, and there was bound to be a mobile in that big handbag she always left lying about.

In fact, that sounded like Victoria's voice next door, in Richard's bedroom….

At this time of the night, when the rest of the house was asleep, that could only mean one thing. She must have had enough of the wistful looks and the smutty giggles and sneaked down to Richard's room. Yes, the Guvnor had told Richard to keep his pecker to himself, but if a girl as beautiful as Victoria slipped into my bedroom in the middle of the night, I too might have forgotten my orders.

Great, I sighed. In that other mansion there'd been two doors and a corridor between my room and Victoria's. Here there was nothing but a thin partition, and I was going to hear everything. I was about to go find some loo paper to make earplugs when I realized there was something off.

I couldn't hear what the two lovebirds were saying, but I could hear tension in their voices: Victoria's was pitching higher and higher, Richard's sinking into a lower murmur—were they having a tiff? I knew it was creepy to listen, but I couldn't help hearing. Victoria's voice grew more and more
shrill, and abruptly there was a thump of footsteps, then a door opening and almost immediately being slammed again. Then a scuffle, and a squeak—or a gasp—and then…silence.

I pulled back the bedclothes, slipped silently out of bed and tugged on my jeans.

I opened the door to my room as quietly as I could and peered out along the landing. The only light came from a halogen spotlight recessed into the ceiling over the stairs. I caught the tail end of a movement there—someone heading up to the next floor where the kids slept. Victoria flouncing out on Richard? But I felt sure that what I'd heard had been more than a lovers' squabble. There was no point in me just hanging around wondering what was going on; I stepped out into the hall, clicked my door softly shut behind me and padded along to Richard's. From the other side I heard a faint scratching, soft and subtle as a mouse gnawing on woodwork. Gingerly I tried the handle, composing an excuse in my head about going to find something to eat, and getting the rooms mixed up—but the door was locked. The scratching grew louder, becoming a frantic scrabbling, and I realized someone was fumbling at the lock from inside. I could sense their desperation,
and I was just about to barge my shoulder into the woodwork when the lock clicked and the handle turned.

Victoria was standing there, clutching her head and looking up at me, dazed and pale with shock. Blood was trickling through her fingers and soaking into the sleeve of her white cotton nightdress. On the floor lay a heavy marble ashtray stained with red. Richard had bludgeoned her with it. She staggered as if she was about to pass out, and I dashed forward to catch her and help her back towards the bed—but weak as she was, she resisted, plucking at the bare skin of my chest as if to grab the shirt I wasn't wearing, and muttered something.

“The k—” Her lips worked as if she was forgetting how to speak. “The kids—”

I stopped and watched her eyes roll back into her head as she lost consciousness. I eased her onto the bed as gently as I could, then turned and bolted through the doorway, heading for the stairs. I took them two a time, praying I was wrong about what was happening, praying I wasn't too late if I was right. None of McGovern's heavies were around now that I needed them—had Richard told them to stand down? How long had he been planning this?

There were low-level nightlights along the wall of the landing that led to the master bedroom where Cherry was sleeping. Halfway down was the bedroom Kelly and his sister shared, and Richard was the slim dark silhouette slipping through their door, something hard and narrow glinting in his hand. For an instant, absurdly, I worried about waking the kids—then I yelled, “Richard!” as loud as I could. I had to wake the children—they'd be terrified, but at least they'd have a chance, and if the racket brought the Guvnor's goons running, all the better.

Richard stepped back onto the landing, saw me coming, cursed and ducked back into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him. I heard the crash of furniture being pulled over—with no lock on the inside he'd tried to barricade the door, but when I threw my shoulder against it, it opened a few centimeters, and the next shove knocked the obstruction back—a toppled bookshelf, I saw as I squeezed through the gap, clambering over scattered storybooks that slid about under my feet.

The kids usually slept in twin single beds in opposite corners of the room, Bonnie's fluffy toys piled on one side, Kelly's robots and remote control cars on the other. Kelly, unbelievably, was still asleep,
but not Bonnie—Richard had dragged her from her bed and was restraining her, one hand clamped over her mouth, the other holding a knife to her throat. Bonnie was squeaking in terror, her fine blond hair tangled over her eyes. Richard grinned at me, but I could see from the way the blade twitched how wired he was. He was wearing gloves, I noticed.

“One move,” he said. “One word, and I slit her throat.”

But he was going to do that anyway, I knew—now that Bonnie was awake he had no choice. But how the hell did he plan to get away afterwards?

“You're too late,” I said. “Cherry will raise the alarm. You're not getting out of here.” Immediately I wished I'd kept my mouth shut. I sucked at negotiating—all I'd done was remind him he had nothing to lose. The Guvnor would show no mercy to someone who'd threatened his children.

“No she won't,” said Richard. “Silly slag necked half a bottle of wine tonight. And I threw a couple of bennies in, just in case.”

“How long have you been working for the Turk?” I said.

“Me?” Richard smirked. “I'm not working for him. You are.”

Then he snapped Bonnie's head back, exposing her pale white throat, and her mouth opened to whimper as the blade bit into her skin, and his little finger slipped between her teeth, and she bit down hard. He flinched in agony and I was on him before he even had time to yell, grabbing his wrist and wrenching the blade up and away.

Bonnie writhed, squealing, and Richard let her go so he could punch me in the face—and he did, hard, twice. I slammed my body up against his to close the range, and felt his hand crawl across my face like a spider, before he hooked two fingers up my nose and wrenched my head back. It was bloody agony, but I had to hold on to the hand that grasped the blade. I shook my head, twisted my body round and backed him up against the wall, folding his knife hand forward, trying my best to break his wrist. The blade fell from his fist and he ducked to scrabble for it with his left, and when I went for it too he jumped up and kneed me hard right in the nose.

Stars exploded behind my eyes and I staggered backwards, nearly stumbling over the fallen bookshelf. I blinked and shook my head, my vision clearing just in time to see him stoop and grasp the knife, then hesitate, scowling—I'd wrenched his right
wrist so badly he no longer had the strength to hold it. I saw Bonnie beyond him, blood streaming down her neck and staining her pajama top, shaking Kelly and shrieking in his ear. Richard tossed the blade from his right hand to his left while I grabbed at the chair that stood at the foot of Kelly's bed, still hung with his discarded clothes, and wielded it like a lion tamer.

Richard snorted—it was a kid's chair, and too small to be any use as a shield, but that wasn't what I'd been going for. When I flung the little chair at Richard's head he had to duck, so he didn't see me grab Kelly's jeans and flick them like a whip that tangled around his left hand and fouled the blade long enough for me to close the gap and punch him full in the teeth. A punch to the throat would have floored him, maybe killed him, but I wanted him alive—and that put me at a disadvantage, because Richard wanted me dead. He fell back spitting blood, raising his right arm to try to shield his head and body from my punches while he shook his left hand free of the jeans. Both the kids were cowering now on Kelly's bed, screaming, but still no one came.

“Run, you two!” I roared at them. “Go get help!”

My sheer volume snapped them out of their terror
and they scrambled down Kelly's bed, crying as they ran for the door. Seeing his last chance disintegrating, Richard threw himself at me, swiping and slashing wildly with the knife, while I fell back, ducking and dodging to stay out of range, and failing—the razor point parted the skin on my chest like a scalpel, so cleanly I barely felt pain, but forcing me to step back, square onto a lump of Lego that crunched into the bones of my foot.