Fragile Lives (24 page)

‘You staying off?' she asked him, seeing him in the doorway.

He nodded.

‘Right you are. Get some sleep and then catch up with your homework, yeah?'

George turned and went back to his room. He knew he'd now be the subject of conversation in the kitchen. Cheryl was mindful of confidentiality so far as she thought it useful, but she seemed to see it as her mission in life to campaign for sympathy on behalf of her charges and that, George had quickly realized, often led to her indulging in something that was very close to gossip.

A week ago, he thought, and he might really have resented that. Now he either didn't care, or he saw it in some odd way as parental and therefore rather comforting.

Confused by his own thoughts, he tumbled into bed and finally managed to sleep, woken only and briefly by the stampede down the stairs and the second surge as the house emptied into the minibus and departed down the drive.

Back at the farm they were still playing the waiting game. An hour had passed, no one had been seen through the downstairs windows, but Tyson was reluctant to send his men forward until he had established the risks. The fact that he stood openly on the gravel in front of the house, shouting up at the windows and in full view, he didn't really class as risk. No one had shot at him in the first few minutes and experience told him that was generally a good sign.

He'd been told that a negotiator had been mobilized but he was coming all the way from Bristol. Tyson hoped this would all be over long before he arrived.

‘You aren't going anywhere,' he said reasonably. ‘The place is surrounded by armed police. Lay your weapons down, come out with your hands up.'

He watched carefully for signs of life, thought he caught sight of something move in an upstairs room, but for all the response he was getting he might have been shouting at an empty house.

Grogan had moved everyone to the first floor while he considered what to do. He sat on the top step, looking down the stairs towards the front door, listening to the man burning up his lungs outside.

‘I count fifteen,' Thompson said, joining him. ‘And a helicopter. We're not going to get out of this any way but walking through that door.'

‘If Coran hadn't taken the kids …'

‘But he has.'

‘They don't know that.'

Thompson shrugged. ‘You're the boss,' he said, but Grogan could hear the sarcasm in his tone. He got up, went into the first-floor bedroom, keeping low as he crossed to the window. Standing to one side he could see the officer standing in the middle of the gravel frontage to the house. He could glimpse others in the field beyond. True, with a high-powered rifle he could probably have picked off a few, could have got the man in front with what he'd got now, but they weren't armed ready for a fire fight. Come out fighting, Grogan thought, and they'd all end up dead.

He reached around, and with the hand grip of his pistol, smashed a hole in the window. ‘Back off, or we'll kill the kids.' The reaction from those below told him they had understood. Grogan breathed hard. He had committed them all now, told the police they meant business, he'd demand transport and money and—

‘You bloody mad?' Thompson hissed from the doorway. ‘Look, the kids have gone, there's nothing we can do, nothing to bargain with.'

‘They don't know that. If they think we've still got them we've got a way of getting out of here.'

‘And what happens when we try to leave and they realize there's something missing. Like two somethings, about this high.' Thompson held his hand up as though measuring one of the twins.

‘I'll insist they back off far enough so they can't see,' Grogan insisted.

‘Oh, sure, they're really going to do that. Grogan, these are kids we've been holding. Little children. We lost the sympathy vote long ago. They want us, Grogan, and dead or alive ain't going to matter to them, you mark my words.'

‘And what do you suggest we do?'

‘What the man says. Walk out, hands up. Coran sold us out. We get out of here and we sell Coran, Haines, the whole bloody lot. Bargain.'

Grogan swung the gun around, Thompson in his sights. ‘One move and I'll make sure it's your last.'

‘Grogan, don't be so bloody stupid.'

‘Stupid, is it?'

‘One shot and they'll be in here like a swarm of frigging wasps. They think we've got kids in here, remember?'

Grogan turned his attention back to the window. Thompson took up position on the stairs.

Outside, Tyson realized that there was something going on. He'd caught the tone of a conversation, the sudden anger from the man beside the window even though the words eluded him. He had seen the movement as the gun hand just briefly crossed his line of sight.

‘I think we have dissension in the ranks,' he reported to Kendal.

‘Is that good or bad?'

‘Depends how we play things,' Tyson said. He lowered the radio and lifted the bull horn. ‘I'm sure you're reasonable people,' he said. ‘No one wants to get shot or to kill anyone, least of all little children, so I'm asking you again, like one civilized person to another, come out with your hands up.'

‘I don't want to be here,' Tina whispered. ‘I'm scared.'

She had come to sit down beside Thompson at the head of the stairs. ‘What if one of us went out, just to talk? Told them we didn't have the kids any more, we're not threatening anyone?'

‘Mood
he's
in they're likely to get shot,' Thompson said morosely.

‘I don't believe he'd do that. Let me try.'

He shook his head. Outside, the police officer was calling once again. It sounded inviting, Tina thought. She'd had enough of being here, enough of all this. She was tired and worried and mad as hell with Coran.

‘We could tell the police who has them. Tell them all about Haines. Just like you said.'

‘I don't know.' Thompson was wavering, but still not willing to give in.

‘Look,' she said, ‘we're in big trouble no matter what. All I know is the longer we hold out, the worse it'll get.'

Thompson shrugged. He got up and went back to the doorway. Grogan continued to watch. ‘So,' Thompson said, ‘what do we do?'

‘We wait,' Grogan said.

‘What for? The cavalry? You think Haines will fly in in a Chinook and lift us all off the roof? What's the bloody point?'

Grogan didn't respond. Instead he turned back to the window. ‘We ain't coming out,' he shouted down to Tyson. ‘We've got the kids and we've got demands. You give us what we want, you get the kids back … Now, start to deal.'

Tyson nodded. It was beginning, he thought.

‘Can I at least know who I'm talking to?'

Silence from the man in the window, but Tyson was not displeased. He'd had a response, opened a dialogue, the trick now was to keep it going.

Coran watched as the minibus descended the steep drive and wound down the hill and the police patrol car he had spotted in the drive on an earlier recce followed it moments later. Coran watched the road, wondering if it would be replaced, guessing that allocation of resources would mitigate against that. He'd presumed the kids would be leaving for school between half past seven and eight and been proved right about that. What staff would be left? He surmised he would not have to contend with more than a couple, nothing he could not easily control.

He had tried to get hold of Goldman but the man's phone was switched off, which puzzled Coran. Usually Haines kept the man on a string. He assumed Haines must have made contact, maybe warned Goldman that things had gone a little pear-shaped, maybe arranged a time to make contact instead of the usual ‘on call' system he preferred. It was troubling, though.

Coran didn't trust either Haines or Randall to honour the deals they'd made with him, but he was determined that someone was going to pay him. All he needed were the bank transfer codes and all he needed to get them was to put pressure on Goldman.

For that, he had to get hold of the man.

Sitting in the little blue hatchback he had acquired after leaving the
Spirit
, Coran tried again. This time the phone rang and a woman's voice replied.

‘Mrs Goldman?' Coran asked.

The woman hesitated for just a moment too long. ‘Yes. Who is this?'

Coran broke the connection. Something wasn't right. For one thing, Mrs Goldman never answered her husband's phone. Goldman had assured Haines of that. For another thing the woman's hesitation, her diffidence, it was wrong. Something was wrong.

What now?

The kids were starting to come round. He could hear them moving, not yet conscious enough to make a fuss, but it would not be long. He had to have a place to think; a place where he could keep them under control. So, back to the plan, work the rest out as he went along. If the police did have Goldman there might still be a way of getting what he wanted. The kids could still be useful.

Coran started the engine and drove up to the house. He took a good look at the place as he walked to the front door. No sign of life. He rang the bell and a woman came from out of a side room and into the hall.

Coran smiled and she came to the door, opened it on the chain.

‘Can I help you?'

‘Oh, I hope so. Open the door.'

‘What? Oh my God!' She looked down and saw the barrel of the gun pointing at her stomach. ‘Like I said, open the door. And before you decide to try anything remember bullets go through glass or wood and they can shift a lot faster than you can.'

Cheryl was trembling so much she could hardly release the chain. She didn't scream as he pulled her out on to the front step. She seemed beyond screaming, almost beyond breathing. He took her over to the car and opened the boot, uncovered the still dopey children.

‘Pick one up. I don't care which one, just do it.'

Cheryl gathered Deborah in her arms and, at gunpoint, walked through to the back of the house. She sat Deborah in a chair and then used the tie-backs from the curtains to secure her.

Sarah came next, then to the kitchen for tea towels, torn into strips to complete the restraints. She gagged them, hardly able to make the knots, her hands were shaking so much. She tried to tell them not to be scared, thought as she did so what a stupid thing that was to say.

And when she was done, Coran hit her hard with the butt of the gun. She fell at his feet and lay very still.

Coran took out his phone and tried Goldman's number again. The phone was switched off once more.

I
t was almost eleven when George woke up. The good weather promised at dawn had reneged and the clouds were gathering though he thought the wind had dropped; the waves did not look so fierce or so deeply steely grey.

He washed and dressed and padded down the stairs in stockinged feet. The house was so quiet. He's never known it be so silent.

Passing through the front hall he glanced through the glass panel and saw that the patrol car had gone. A light-blue hatchback had taken its place on the drive.

Visitors? He didn't recognize it and he had got to know the usual company that frequented Hill House.

Some instinct caused him to pause. It was, he thought,
too
quiet. It was not unusual for Cheryl to be on her own at this time of day. The day shift was made up of part-timers that covered the busy times, cooking meals, dealing with the chaos when everyone was there, but late morning was a slow time. Even so, Cheryl was by nature not a silent body. She bustled and clattered and made noise just standing still.

Had she gone out, left him alone?

No, that wouldn't happen. George was sure there were rules about leaving even the older kids alone.

Straining his ears, George heard a voice coming from the dining room right at the back of the house. It wasn't Cheryl, it wasn't anyone he could place. The voice, effectively coming from two rooms away, was muffled and unclear. George slipped out of the hall and through the television lounge, into the little sitting room beyond. From there he could get into the conservatory and, if he was careful, he'd be able to see into the dining room which, like both rooms at the rear of the house, had French doors that had once led out on to the terrace and down on to the lawn and which opened now into his and Ursula's favourite retreat.

He trod softly, willing the sitting room floorboards not to creak, glad that the conservatory floor was solid and would not give him away. He slipped through the sitting-room door and sidled along, keeping as flat to the wall as he could. He came finally to the dining-room doors and risked one look inside, thankful that he was shielded in part by the heavy curtains.

The door was closed but the voice was clearer now and George realized that it was a man speaking on the phone.

One look was enough.

George gasped, flattened himself closer to the wall, his heart pounding and the breath chafing in suddenly tightened lungs and throat.

The blond man.

Cheryl lay on the floor, very still, her body looked crumpled though George had been unable to see if she was badly hurt. Two little girls, dressed only in pyjamas, sat tied to two of the dining chairs. They were gagged with what looked to George like tea towels and they stared at the blond man with large, frightened eyes.

Gathering his courage, George crept back the way he had come. The conservatory doors were still locked after the alarm of the night before and he did not know where Cheryl kept the key. He suspected she might have it with her; she usually had a whole bunch of the things dangling from the belt loop of her jeans or tucked into an apron pocket. He could not get out that way. He'd have to go back into the hall and out of the main door. Then where? He had to get help but he dared not use the hall phone, he would be heard.

The hotel? Neighbours were a bit few and far between and George could think of nowhere but the hotel that had a public phone. How long would it take him to get there?