by GB Williams
Her gaze slid to the corpse on the floor, then to the gun sitting only a few inches from her. Sighing, she pushed herself back into a sitting position to face the man standing over her. Her head swam from the concussion and broken nose, but oddly, sitting upright soon made that feel better. The outpouring of blood was lessening the pressure in her head. She didn’t try to stem the flow, just let it happen. As she looked up at the man over her, she hoped the blood didn’t stain the picture of Sasha stashed in her corset. Only it wasn’t stashed there any more. It was in a dead man’s pocket. Someone else she’d never see again.
‘You’re the one with the gun.’ Though right now, even though he wasn’t even pointing that gun at her, she was all too aware of it being at his side. ‘So, I’m wondering, why not just shoot me and fuck off with your woman over there?’ He didn’t move, just looked down on her. A new idea occurred to her. She sat forward, well aware that would allow him to see right down her corset. If it worked for Carol, she could use the same tactics. ‘Oh Andy.’ She smiled, made her voice as sultry as she could. ‘Hw about a turn around? Shoot her and fuck off with me.’
She watched his eyes, they darkened. Oh, dear God, he’s actually thinking about it.
Then he smiled. ‘It’s always a possibility, but then again, maybe I’ll shoot you then fuck you.’
Teddington couldn’t quite hide her revulsion at that idea. She leaned back and looked up at him. ‘So what’s stopping you?’
He shrugged. ‘Depends how much Charlie told the police.’
‘What?’ She didn’t understand that. ‘Charlie’s dead, you’ve already made him pay for anything he might have done. What makes you think that he said anything to the police anyway?’
‘The van.’
Teddington frowned. ‘I must have been hit one too many times. What’s the van got to do with anything? You torched it.’
‘Not the van they gave us. The one Grimshaw saw in the street. He might not have noticed it straight off, but I did. It was there before we arrived. That means the police knew we were coming. Ergo, Bell grassed.’
‘Could’ve been Grimshaw,’ she pointed out.
‘Nah, he didn’t have the nous to make that kind of deal. He’d have fucked himself over at the bank, given it away that he knew what was going on. Had to be Bell.’
‘If you noticed that before you went into the job, why go through with it?’
‘Because I could.’
Could it really be that simple? Why take the risk? Because some people like risks. That was it.
‘You’re an adrenalin junkie.’
‘Yes I am.’ Andy laughed. ‘But I’m not an idiot. I always have an out.’ Stepping over Mr White’s legs, he squatted down beside Teddington. He reached to wipe some of the blood from her face. ‘You’re really not bad. Even banged about. I think—’ His hands went to her knees, and pushed up towards her crotch. She grabbed his wrists, glaring at him. He stopped but they both knew it was because he stopped. She hadn’t stopped him.
‘Hey!’ Carol objected.
He didn’t even bother looking at her.
‘I think you’re really quite resilient. You get knocked about but you bounce back.’
Teddington saw the cold, hard calculation in his eyes. Felt the way his fingers gripped, his thumbs pressing into her inner thighs. Her stomach churned. She’d met men like him before, men in jail. Men who’d thought they could control any woman just because of the gender difference. They liked to hurt a woman, got a sexual thrill from it. They liked to force themselves on women and make them beg for what they really wanted. They turned her stomach. But none of them had left her as cold as this man did.
‘You could be fun.’
Finding some last vestige of strength, she pushed Andy’s hands away. ‘I’ll never be your fun.’
‘This is ridiculous!’
Piper completely understood, but his phone was ringing and he needed to answer it. ‘Tough. Now sit down and wait.’ Giving Charlie no choice, he closed the interview room door and answered. ‘Give me some good news.’
‘Sorry.’
Not as sorry as Piper was when he heard what Siddig had to say. ‘Nothing?’ he repeated, blankly.
‘No, sir. There obviously had been something there but the place was spotless. I could smell the bleach.’
Piper thanked her. If she could smell bleach at the address they had for Andrew Beamish, then it had to be a recent clean up. As hollow a victory as it was, that meant they were getting closer, narrowing the gap. ‘Well there’s nothing more you can do there tonight.’
‘Not here no,’ Siddig agreed with him, ‘but I’ll start looking into that other matter when I get home. See what I can unearth about Teddington’s missing brother, Terrence Whittaker. I want to make a first run at it without using police resources.’
‘That can wait. Get some rest and have a life.’
He was surprised how easy her laugh was. ‘Maybe you don’t get it, sir, but I want the Force to be my life.’
After they ended the call, Piper looked at his phone. He wasn’t sure how he felt about a young woman thinking that way. Oh, you’re just getting old, you wouldn’t even turn a hair if a man had said that. Hoping that didn’t make him a complete sexist pig, he headed over to see if the incident room had any news on Carlisle.
Teddington was quaking inside.
The way Andy had looked at her put a collection of personal horrors in her head that she wanted to ditch, but couldn’t. To distance herself from that, she was having to distance herself from everything else.
Ignore the way Carol was trying to monopolise Andy.
Ignore the way Carol was glaring at her.
Ignore the way her heart was vibrating.
Vibrating?
You said vibrating.
There were times when she just wished the voice in her head would go away.
Vibrating!
It was annoying as the screaming of a phone.
Exactly.
Teddington tensed and blinked. She leant forward, resting her elbows on her knees she rested her head in her hands, starring at the floor. She’d put her phone on vibrate. Now someone was phoning her.
Please be Piper. Please be Piper. Please trace the call.
Find me.
Forcing his jaw to relax, Piper headed into the interview room. Broughton was bad enough, he didn’t need the dirty looks from everyone else. As he walked into the room, he saw Charlie straighten from his slouch.
‘What’s happening?’ Charlie demanded.
‘Wheels are in motion to trace the phone,’ Piper said as he sat opposite.
‘Is this really necessary?’ Charlie asked as he put his hands on the table. The cuffs clinked on the table top.
‘Surprisingly enough, yes.’ Charlie was the one wearing handcuffs, but Piper had run the gauntlet of resentment as he’d passed through the station. Several people wanted to know why such a traitor wasn’t back in jail. ‘Just be glad you’re here voluntarily. Broughton wanted you arrested and there are a lot of people in this station who’d be happy to comply. You aren’t exactly popular around here.’ Piper sighed. ‘So, okay, what is with you and Teddington?’
Charlie looked down at his hands. ‘I love her.’
Piper had figured as much, but he wasn’t letting Charlie off the hook that easily. ‘You barely know her. You haven’t even seen her in six months.’
‘Nearer to eight months,’ Charlie corrected. Then he sighed and shrugged. ‘Not that it seems to make any difference.’
No, Piper thought, probably wouldn’t. Three and a half years inside wouldn’t teach either that much about the other, but it had been enough. They had worked well together before, the common ground, the shared experience bringing them closer together. Piper had seen the synchronicity between the two of them. There were similarities between them and enough differences to make it interesting. If Piper was in the matchmaking game, putting this pair together would be a no-brainer. Just look how
well they’d worked together in that bank.
In that bank.
His most recent conversation with Broughton had not been a pleasant one. Driving to the station, Piper and Charlie had agreed their story. Charlie had told Broughton he’d passed the data to Piper in a phone call this morning, had re-joined the rest, only to be shot and left for dead. Charlie had even offered to stand in a line-up if Broughton wanted him to. That hadn’t been part of the agreement, and Piper knew why he’d offered. Of course, Broughton did too, or at least he’d be able to surmise. When Broughton insisted Charlie be arrested right then and there, he’d had to talk fast to prevent it.
‘Does Teddington know how you feel about her?’
‘Nope.’
Of course not. You idiot. ‘Has she said or done anything to indicate her own feelings?’
‘She said screws and cons shouldn’t mix.’
Piper considered that. ‘You’re a free man now.’
‘She said that too. She also said she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to forgive me for today.’
Equally understandable. It was an impossible situation. Well, near impossible. ‘Grovel,’ Piper suggested. ‘And then some.’
The unspoken fact that Charlie could only grovel if they found her alive stood over their shoulders like a spectre at the feast.
The door opened and Broughton strode in. He didn’t greet either of them, but barked out his question. ‘Were you in the Invicta Bank in Glenister Street this afternoon?’
‘No.’
‘Then we won’t find any contradictory evidence to that fact,’ Broughton said tightly, ‘when we search your flat.’
‘No.’ Again there was no pause and Charlie had no problem returning Broughton’s angry gaze.
Piper couldn’t fault Charlie’s confidence. There was nothing left in Charlie’s flat—it was all sitting in two black bags in the back of his car.
‘You’ll need a search warrant first,’ Piper pointed out. ‘We don’t really have time for such distractions.’
‘Got one.’
‘Here.’ Charlie winced as he stood. Had to take a moment to push down the pain.
‘You should be in hospital,’ Piper said. The amount of bruising he’d seen could cover something worse. ‘Your sternum could be fractured.’
‘If it was, the way Doc Moore pressed it, he’d have broken it into pieces.’
Moving awkwardly because of the damage to his chest and the cuffs on his wrists, Charlie reached into his jeans pocket. ‘Take my keys.’ He threw them on the table. ‘You want to waste your time, feel free, but for God’s sake stop screwing with me and go save Teddington’s life!’
37
The phone wasn’t ringing any more. But if the police knew it was on, they could still trace it. Or at least they could if all the conspiracy theories were even half right. She was in the middle of nowhere, so if the police could get any kind of signal, they’d be able to find the right building at least. Deciding to take that as a sign of hope—the cavalry was on its way—Teddington had to figure out how to survive in the meantime. Her ploy of winding the gang up against themselves was suddenly backfiring nicely. She should just have kept quiet and hoped they’d forget her. If her head wasn’t already in her hands she’d have slapped herself. If she could affect her own escape, so much the better. Her eyes again slid to the pistol Mr White had dropped when he died.
For a moment she wondered who he’d been. Did he have someone who’d mourn his loss? She didn’t—couldn’t—know and didn’t really care. She had someone who would mourn her, several someones, hopefully. But it was her mother who weighed most heavily on her mind. Her mother had lost a husband and a son; a daughter was all her mother had left. Teddington knew all too well what it was like to lose a daughter and she wouldn’t wish that on anyone. And she wasn’t going to cry over a dead scumbag.
She refocused her attention on the gun. She knew it wasn’t firing blanks. Were there any bullets left?
How many had Mr White fired?
Two into the bank’s ceiling and the one that shot Charlie. Three. She had no idea what type of gun it was, or what a standard magazine held. Old revolver guns like in Westerns held six bullets, so she’d guess more than that. How many more? Couldn’t be that many, the grip wasn’t that big. Maybe seven or eight. For caution, she’d assume seven and hope for more. That meant a minimum of four more bullets. Four bullets, four of them. She’d never fired a gun in her life, she was unlikely to be even vaguely accurate, but she couldn’t miss from a few inches. Hopefully. There was still the matter of four of them and one of her. Outnumbered and outgunned. Her chances were slim, but slim was better than zero.
Looking across, she saw Carol still admiring the diamond necklace. No. Teddington looked closer—this was a different necklace, no pendants on this one.
‘Why?’ The question was spoken before Teddington had a chance to think about it.
‘Why what?’ Andy asked.
‘I was wondering why your girlfriend likes diamond necklaces so much.’
‘Why not?’ Carol asked, coming around to stand closer. Holding the necklace in front of her. ‘They’re pretty. They’re rich.’
Carol was focused on the necklace; the men behind her on the money. Clearly the spoils had been divided. It was now or never.
Teddington slid off the sofa, grabbed the gun. It felt cold and heavy. Awkward. She moved it into her grip. Carol was shouting, the men were moving. Teddington squeezed the trigger. Carol hit the floor.
Teddington stared, felt sick. Oh God I’ve killed someone!
The moment didn’t last.
The men were shouting at her, Carol was screaming at them to shoot the bitch, Teddington was shouting for them to stay back. On her feet now, she held the gun two-handed away from her, neither her elbows nor her shoulders locked. Like she’d seen in the movies. Carol was holding her arm, the necklace still clasped between her fingers. She’d been winged. Some of the diamonds now looked like rubies.
The three men remained standing by the table, Andy to one side, Martin and the oriental man to the other. They were all pointing guns at her. Carol was on the floor, shouting.
‘Shut up!’ Andy screamed. ‘All of you be quiet!’
Teddington was half surprised they obeyed, but they did. She moved carefully backwards. Once she’d got past the sofa, there was nothing in her way. All she’d have to do was head for the door, so long as she could keep them pinned down. She could make for the Caravelle. The keys were still in the ignition. She could get away.
‘Nice move, Teddy-girl,’ Andy spoke as she inched away. ‘Smart, too. I should have got the gun out of your way.’
‘Always have an out,’ Teddington threw back at him. ‘That’s what you said. Well now I have one. Stay put.’
He’d started to move forward, but stopped. ‘Or what?’
Teddington was struggling to believe that she was looking at a man over the sights of two guns—down hers, and up his. Not that either was particularly clear in her vision. How the hell had life come to this? ‘Or I’ll shoot.’
Andy smiled. ‘You could barely hit Carol from less than a metre away. I doubt I’m in that much danger.’
‘But you know I could get lucky, and if I do…’ Teddington smiled, her peripheral vision telling her she was at the end of the sofa, she could start moving across soon, ‘You’re dead and you don’t strike me as the wanting-to-be-dead type.’
Suddenly Andy stood straighter with his gun to his side. He made an odd movement with his hand. Teddington saw the other two men as she stepped to her left. Martin was moving towards her; she swung her aim. Something hit her thighs. She squeezed the trigger as she was forced back, tipping over the arm of the sofa. Her head punched into the dusty cushions. The gun skittered away, dropping from her surprised hands as she found her head and chest pinned to the sofa.
Shit. She should have seen it coming, Andy deliberately distracted her and pushed the sofa against her. Effectively trapping
her. Shit, shit, shit.
Andy bunched his hand in her hair, pulling her more upright. She leaned up to avoid being scalped. The phone had slid uncomfortably down her corset, pressing her breast against her ribs. Andy pressing his gun up under her chin was more of a concern.
As she was brought to her feet, pushed against the wall, she focused on his eyes, expecting fury. The amusement she saw was more frightening.
‘Did you really think that was going to work?’
She had, but obviously she’d fucked up. ‘I live in hope.’
‘Not for much longer.’
Teddington ignored Carol’s grumble as the woman was helped to her feet.
‘Andy, just kill her and let’s get out of here.’
‘You going to let her boss you about like that?’ Teddington asked softly. ‘Who’s really in control here?’
The gun inched her chin higher.
‘Not you.’ Andy’s words were growled before he turned his head to look at the men behind him. ‘Go.’
Teddington looked past Andy’s head to watch Martin and the other man grab bags from the table and head out towards the garage.
Shit, shit, shit!
Andy and Carol were obviously a couple, they’d be leaving together. She was just a loose end now. The cavalry wouldn’t be arriving in time.
Charlie rubbed his wrists. He daren’t rub his aching chest, it was too painful. He’d been checked out by the police doctor, but there was nothing worse than what he’d diagnosed himself. The guy had recommended painkillers, but stopped short of providing any.
Broughton had finally agreed to the cuffs being removed, but only if Charlie was escorted out of the station. Kicked out would have been a better phrase. He’d tried to reason with Piper, but even he’d pulled rank, as far as he could these days. Piper had also put Charlie in a panda car and told the PC not to stop till she reached Charlie’s flat.
Now all Charlie could do was pace and worry.
Had they traced the phone?
Had they located it?
Did Teddington still have the phone on her when they left the bank?
He couldn’t remember for the life of him. The life of her. His heart was doing twenty to the dozen. He ignored the fact that his flat had effectively been tossed by the search team. At least he’d got his keys back. Out of curiosity, he opened the drawer. The two hundred quid had gone. Too much temptation, apparently. Still, he hadn’t been able to spend stolen money, anyway. If someone else could, he didn’t care. He should tell Piper, just to highlight one scumbag in the service, but he didn’t even a have a phone to call him any more. He slammed the drawer shut with too much force.
