Ready or Not

by Thomas, Rachel

  ‘Negotiate this, Danny,’ Matthew said.

  Kate felt Sophie flinch as Matthew raised the gun at arms length, aiming it directly at Neil. Neil turned slowly. Kate braced herself for the shot, but it didn’t come. Neil held his arms wide and took a step closer to Matthew.

  ‘Come on then,’ he said quietly. ‘What are you waiting for?’

  Matthew’s arm quivered in mid air. Two points on his cheeks burned flaming red, yet the rest of his face was ghostly pale. ‘Don’t come any nearer,’ he warned.

  ‘Really?’ Neil said; his voice thick with contempt. ‘Are you really going to shoot me if I come any closer?’ He lifted a foot as if to take another step, lowered it and laughed contemptuously.

  ‘I thought we were brothers,’ Matthew said, his voice now shaking along with the arm that held the gun. ‘No matter what, you said. No matter what!’

  ‘So what now? Where did you expect to go from here?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Matthew shouted. His words were drenched in desperation and it was clear to Kate that he hadn’t thought any of this through. Just like Dean Williams had trusted his cousin, Nathan, Matthew had trusted Neil, unquestioningly.

  ‘I just didn’t think it was going to be like this,’ Matthew said pathetically. ‘We’ve found your family. What about mine?’

  Neil glanced over at Kate, who stopped fumbling with the tape around Sophie’s legs when she saw him looking. He crossed the room and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her to her feet again. Dragging her along with him, he returned to stand in front of Matthew, using Kate as a human shield in front of him. For a second, her heart stopped.

  ‘I didn’t want you to find out like this,’ Neil said to Matthew, though his voice showed no hint of regret, ‘but you have no family. You were an only child. Your parents died in a house fire.’

  Matthew shook his head. The gun swung carelessly in his hand. ‘No,’ he said, speaking the word through gritted teeth. ‘No! You’re lying to me – that’s not true!’

  Neil shrugged. ‘You can carry on looking for them if you like, but as a friend I suggest you give it up. You’ll be searching a very long time.’

  Matthew’s eyes became glassy with tears. ‘You’re no friend,’ he said angrily. ‘If you were you wouldn’t have brought me into this. How do I get out now? I’m up to my neck in it.’

  His voice broke and he began to cry; wild, uncontrolled tears of panic and frustration.

  ‘Just do the right thing, Matthew,’ Kate said coaxingly. ‘Don’t listen to him. We can put it right, but this has to stop, now.’

  Neil tightened his grip on Kate’s arm. ‘Are you going to listen to this crap?’ he said, shoving Kate’s head with the flat of his hand. ‘You’re an officer, Matthew – you know how it works. They tell you they’re on your side then they chop your legs from under you as soon as your head’s turned.’

  Matthew looked at them each in turn, from Kate’s face to Neil’s and back again.

  ‘You don’t know who to trust, do you?’ Kate said as calmly as was possible when she was held fast in Neil’s grip. ‘And it’s always been that way, hasn’t it, Matthew? You’ve never known who to trust, have you? Do the right thing. Don’t trust Neil.’

  ‘His name’s Danny,’ Matthew said angrily, fighting back his sobs. He stepped towards Kate and pointed the gun directly at her. ‘Just stop talking, both of you.’

  Kate braced herself, shutting her eyes tightly. She spared a thought for the outside world and wondered what was happening on the other side of the warehouse walls. She wished someone would hurry up and do something. She felt as though she had been trapped in this warehouse for hours and perhaps she had; she had lost all concept of time.

  She thought of Chris and swallowed back further tears.

  ‘There’s only one way you’re going to get out of this a free man,’ Neil told Matthew slowly, deliberately. ‘You know what you have to do. They all have to die. I’m the one they want – I’m the one they’ll find guilty. As far as they know,’ he continued, pointing to the outer wall of the warehouse, ‘you’re being held here too. You’re on their side. This is nothing to do with you. You can walk back into your life and no one will know a thing. But they all have to die first.’

  ‘Don’t listen to him, Matthew,’ Kate said softly. ‘Come on, you’re an officer – you know how it works. Your fingerprints and DNA are all over that gun.’

  Matthew looked down at the gun in his hand. Neil reached an arm around Kate and clasped his hand over her mouth, catching her nose and making her cry out in pain. ‘We can wipe a gun down,’ Neil said flippantly. ‘Not a big deal.’

  Matthew was still staring at the gun in his hand. It quivered slightly, getting heavier in his wavering grip. ‘No,’ he said, averting his eyes from Neil. ‘You don’t understand. She’s right. I’m all over this.’

  ‘How?’ Neil snapped, his short fuse burning rapidly. ‘They’re all worried about you out there! They think you’re one of them!’

  ‘Jamie Griffiths,’ Matthew said quietly, shaking his head. ‘I’m so sorry, Danny. My blood was all over him.’

  Fifty Seven

  ‘Neil,’ the negotiator said, speaking into a megaphone. ‘My name is John. Please come to the door. You don’t have to open it, but we need to talk.’

  John, a middle aged officer from Cardiff - trained as a negotiator but rarely called upon to act as such - stepped away from the door.

  ‘He’s not going to talk,’ Chris told Superintendent Clayton. ‘We’re way beyond that already.’

  The entrance to the industrial estate had been blocked and the armed response team surrounded the warehouse. Workers in all nearby warehouses and offices had been sent home early for the day. A handful had needed to be escorted away by police. One man had even taken his mobile phone out and was filming the action. Chris wondered when he’d be making his debut on YouTube and cursed human nature for being so sickeningly fascinated by anything even remotely morbid. People never failed to amaze and infuriate him.

  The negotiator and Clayton had met once before, a few years earlier, when he had successfully talked someone out of torching his own house; the man with the matches and the petrol bomb, his wife and their kids still inside it at the time.

  ‘Neil,’ he said again, louder this time. He banged the flat of his hand on the metal door. ‘We just want to talk, Neil. Just come to the door. You don’t have to open it.’

  They waited, but there was no response from within.

  ‘If we send them in,’ Chris said, gesturing to the armed men around them, ‘someone’s going to get hurt. Or worse. It’s too much of a risk.’

  Clayton scanned the building. It was windowless, with no other entrance than the one Neil had bolted shut from the inside.

  ‘He hasn’t made any requests even,’ Clayton said, thinking aloud. ‘So what’s he killing time for? What’s he after?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Chris admitted. ‘But there are two officers in there. The longer we leave it, the less the chance that two will come back out.’

  There was sudden shouting from within the building: a man’s voice; they couldn’t tell whose.

  ‘So what do you suggest?’ Clayton asked. His voice was uneasy; agitated.

  Chris looked at the roof of the warehouse; at the gaping holes that opened the building to the sky.

  ‘That should be a last resort,’ Clayton said, following his stare.

  Chris resisted the urge to grab the Superintendent by the collar. Clayton wasn’t thinking about Kate and Matthew’s safety; he was thinking about the cost of calling out further back up.

  He gritted his teeth. ‘What other choice do we have?’ he challenged.

  Clayton nodded to one of the uniformed men. ‘Get a fire engine with a tender and an extending ladder out here,’ he said. ‘If they’re not going to come out, we’ll have to go in.’

  Fifty Eight

  ‘You stupid son of a bitch.’

  Neil pushed Kate to one side,
squaring up fully to Matthew, despite the gun still held, still quivering in Matthew’s hand.

  ‘You told me everything went to plan.’

  Kate, forgotten for the moment, moved across the room and sat back on the floor by Sophie. The tape Kate had worked on earlier had already loosened slightly and Sophie was now pushing her legs forward and backwards, trying to free herself from the tape’s hold. Kate found that if she worked at it using the metal link between the handcuffs, she could loosen the tape holding Sophie’s arms.

  ‘It did,’ Matthew said. He held Neil’s stare. Neil, who had known him since childhood and knew when he was lying, saw straight through him.

  ‘What happened?’ he demanded.

  Matthew said nothing. He shifted nervously on the spot, shuffling his feet and murmuring to himself.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Matthew! What happened?!’

  Matthew swallowed tensely. His unusually prominent Adam’s apple danced frantically. ‘I told you,’ he said adamantly. ‘I followed him home from the pub. I did what you asked me to, just like you said.’

  ‘So how have they got your blood?’ Neil stepped forward, his fists clenched at his side.

  Matthew waved the gun, urging Neil to stay where he was. He suddenly sobbed; a loud and uncontrolled bawl that made Kate stop what she was doing.

  ‘I didn’t want to do it,’ he said, his voice desperate; childishly pitiful. ‘Kate,’ he turned, his eyes pleading with her. ‘I didn’t want to do it – you’ve got to believe me.’ He looked back at Neil. Words suddenly poured from his mouth, each one stumbling over the last. ‘I followed him,’ he blurted, ‘but I was never going to do it. I didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t want to let you down. I followed him – he was just like you said he was, just as horrible. There was a girl in the street, she was only young, and you should’ve heard the way he spoke to her, it was disgusting. I knew why you wanted me to do it, but I couldn’t – I just couldn’t. I’d already changed my mind and then…’ He paused and caught his breath. ‘Then he stopped at the bus shelter and he saw me.’

  Neil laughed bitterly. ‘I knew you’d balls it up.’ He turned his back on Matthew and walked away from him as Matthew continued with his explanation.

  ‘He went for me,’ Matthew said. ‘He asked what I was looking at and the next thing I know he’s attacking me like a madman. He cut my face: my blood was on his hands. He was looking for a fight. It was self defence.’ He turned back to Kate. ‘It was self defence, I swear it was. He was going to kill me. I had to do it! I did it for you though – just like you said. Brothers, right?’

  Neil shook his head. ‘Fuck,’ he shouted, spinning back to face him. ‘One thing, Matthew. One thing I asked you to do for me!’

  ‘And I did!’ Matthew shouted back. ‘I did fucking do it!’

  Neil’s face broke into an unexpected smile.

  ‘Well done, Matthew,’ he said, the smile breaking into a hideous laugh. He clapped his hands slowly as Matthew looked on in confusion. ‘Of course you did. Of course you did everything I told you to. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Did you think for a second that I didn’t know you’d fuck it up?’

  Sophie turned and looked anxiously at Kate as the tape around her legs fell to her ankles. Kate shook her head slowly, urging the girl to stay quiet and still and not draw any attention to them. Sophie turned back and Kate continued to rub at the tape holding Sophie’s arms, her own arms burning with the weight of the cuffs cutting into her wrists.

  ‘When were you going to tell me?’ Neil asked softly. He was walking back to Matthew, his face furrowed once again with rage; his bright eyes shining with anger.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Matthew admitted; the panic rising in his voice. ‘I don’t understand. I don’t want to go to prison, Danny. I can’t. I won’t last two minutes in there. Do you know what they’d do to me, an ex-cop?’

  The final piece of tape holding Sophie’s arms snapped and Kate had to stop herself from sighing with relief. She moved on the floor beside Sophie, who looked down at her, waiting for instruction. She raised a hand slowly, watching her father and Matthew to make sure neither of them noticed as she removed the gag from her mouth.

  ‘When I say,’ Kate mouthed. ‘Run.’

  If she hadn’t thought Sophie fast enough and gutsy enough, Kate would never have expected it of her. But the girl was brave, Kate knew. She had more fire burning in her at fifteen than Kate had ever had. And she wouldn’t let her come to harm.

  Anger had spread across Neil’s face like an unsightly rash. In contrast, Matthew was crushed. He had wanted Daniel to be proud of him, but all he had done was anger him. He had failed him. Now he was going to leave him, like he did when he left the children’s home all those years before; leave him on his own, with no one else to turn to for help.

  The gun held in his hand, Matthew thought about killing him. He had already killed once: he could do it again. He’d been set up. Danny, his only true friend, had planned this all along. Maybe Kate would help him. She would realise that it was Daniel, not him, who had really been behind all this. She would understand that he had pushed him into doing it. Maybe she would forgive him. Maybe they would all forgive him when they realised how persuasive Daniel could be.

  Daniel held his stare and in that moment, both men realised that Matthew wouldn’t pull the trigger. He couldn’t do it. He had killed once, but he had done it reluctantly, unintentionally and the memory of Jamie Griffith’s body lying dying in the bus shelter had haunted him ever since. Hadn’t he had to leave the room whenever the man’s name was mentioned back at the station? Didn’t he give himself away every time he failed to hide his nervousness? It had been killing him for over a year, eating away at his insides every time he saw the face of a small child whose father wasn’t coming home.

  For as long as he could remember now, Matthew had wanted to be Daniel. Growing up, Daniel was his best friend, his older brother; the only one who made sure he was safe. The one he looked up to. He was all he had. But who kept Daniel safe? No one. When Neil was Daniel he didn’t need to be looked out for; he looked out for himself and no one seemed to bother him as a result. Matthew wanted to be the same. He wanted to be Daniel, but when it came down to it, he just wasn’t him. He could never be him.

  Realising Matthew wasn’t going to pull the trigger Neil lunged forward and grabbed for the gun. Kate gave Sophie the cue to run and the girl sprang to her feet, racing across the room towards the door. Kate ran beside her, shielding her from a possible bullet.

  Neil and Matthew fought for the gun, and neither was quick enough to stop Sophie as she raced through the inside door and began to unlock the door that led back to the outside world. She turned back to Kate, who shook her head.

  ‘Go!’ she urged Sophie. ‘I’ve got to stay with them.’

  Kate pushed the inside door closed with her back. As she did, the noise of the gun shot blasted through the warehouse.

  Fifty Nine

  Sophie fell as she stumbled out of the building. A man in plain clothes came running towards her and it was then she noticed the small army of policemen dotted around the vast car park like toy soldiers, many of them armed with guns.

  ‘Come on,’ the man said, lifting her to her feet. ‘You’re safe now.’

  Chris took her to the ambulance that was waiting nearby. ‘I’m fine, honestly,’ she said, shrugging off the blanket that someone tried to put around her and refusing the offer of water.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Chris asked.

  ‘Sophie,’ she told him.

  ‘You’re Neil Davies’ daughter?’

  ‘Yes,’ she grimaced. ‘But I’d rather people didn’t know that.’

  ‘Who’s in there, Sophie?’

  ‘My brother’s still in there.’ The hard exterior crumbled and Sophie started to cry. ‘And my auntie.’

  ‘Claire?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Sophie pulled her sleeve over her hand and used it to wipe her eyes. ‘How do you know her name?
’

  ‘Is your father in there?’ Chris asked. He could explain how he knew later. Right now they needed to concentrate on getting everyone out of the warehouse alive.

  She nodded. ‘And two of your lot. Matthew, his name is, and Kate.’

  Chris looked back at the warehouse. The armed response unit had moved in, but something was wrong. He could see a few still in the doorway and the negotiator was now making his way inside the building.

  ‘Who was just shot, Sophie?’ Chris asked. He thought of Kate and held his breath, fearing the worst.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Kate managed to untie me. My father and Matthew were fighting so they weren’t looking. That’s when I made a run for it.’

  She pushed a hand through her blonde hair, moving it away from her face. Fat tears continued to well from her eyes.

  ‘Matthew and your father were fighting?’ Chris repeated. It was too incredible to believe. Chris would never have thought Matthew had it in him.

  Sophie looked up at him. ‘That one of yours, that Matthew,’ she said, ‘he isn’t who you think he is.’

  Chris looked back at the warehouse. The place had gone eerily quiet and armed response officers were coming back from the building. Chris didn’t have time to work out what was going on with Matthew now. All he could focus on was making sure Kate, Claire and Ben got out safely.

  ‘I have to go back,’ he said. ‘Stay with the paramedics – they’ll look after you, OK? We’re going to get the rest of your family out safely.’

  He began to walk back to the warehouse when Sophie called him to wait. She ran over to him. ‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ she told him, her faced creased with confusion. ‘But I think I’m Kate’s niece.’

  Sixty

  Neil bolted the inner door shut as armed police began entering the warehouse. Kate, cowering by the wall beside him, waited for the blow. It didn’t come. She looked up. Matthew lay on his back on the floor at the other side of the room. Blood pumped from the hole the bullet had made in his chest. Kate felt herself heave and fell to her knees, retching at the mess.