‘No, I’m just
stating the facts. So do it. It’s me or you. Make your choice. I
won’t hold it against you.’
I sigh
inwardly. Of all the people to do this with, I had to get a budding
student suicide statistic.
‘Look,’ I say.
‘I don’t have time to give you counselling right now, so you’re
just going to have to take my word for this. You want to live. All
you need to do in order to live is be quiet. So just fucking do
it.’
She stares
blankly at me. I lower my voice to barely-audible.
‘I’m going to
fire my gun now. Don’t scream. If you scream, you’ll leave me no
choice but to put the next bullet in your heart.’ I stare as hard
as I can into her eyes. I’m struck by a sudden urge to confess
everything to her: that this is just a stupid idea that got out of
hand; that I’m not a killer, I’m just a kid who watches too many
movies; that I’m on the brink of tears, but I force the urge back.
‘I’m asking you;
please
don’t make me do that.’
She nods. The
strange glimmer I thought I saw in her eyes is back, suddenly. She
leans forward, and I can smell the fragrance of her skin in my
nostrils. I raise the gun into the air and pull the trigger. The
fragrance, and the moment, is lost, replaced by the stench of
gunpowder and the ringing of my ears.
‘Have you
still got the grenade with you?’ I ask Freddy the second that I
emerge from the stock room. All eight eyes are looking at me in
horror. The ruse must’ve worked. In Freddy’s eyes I’m a murderer
now, but that’s just collateral damage. He removes the grenade from
his pocket and hands it to me.
‘Go to the
Christmas display. Get as much ribbon as you can and tie the ends
together, then bring it back here. Make sure it’s not the flimsy
shit. Double it up if need be. I need two kilometres of it. Do it
fast.’
Freddy turns
and starts to run, as though keen to get out of my presence.
‘Wait!’ I
shout. He turns. ‘Give me the shotgun first; I’m going to need it.’
Without a word he hands it over, then scarpers off to the shop
floor. I turn to Sid.
‘Go into the
walk-in freezer and take your hoody and balaclava off, then hand
them to me. Stay behind the door, though; these two can’t see your
face.’
Every
drug-dealing, would-be hard-man inch of him obeys.
The two girls
and I stand in silence. Duty is cradling Abandonment in her arms.
Abandonment is weeping. I check my watch. Charlie should’ve bolted
by now, if he hadn’t left five minutes ago.
‘Okay, here’s
what’s going to happen,’ I say to the girls. ‘You,’ I point to
Duty, ‘are going to put on my partner’s outfit. I’m going to shoot
out one of the windows at the front of the shop, Then you’re going
to take her,’ I point to Abandonment, ‘as your hostage, and point
the gun I give you at someone driving by. There are plenty of cars
you can steal on the other side of the police cordon. Then you’re
going to drive away from here, at high speed, towards the
motorway.’
She stays
silent, so I ask her question for her.
‘Why would you
do that, instead of just giving yourself up to the nearest police
officer and telling him that you’re one of the hostages?’
Freddy
returns, in perfect time for once.
‘Because he’s
tied together two kilometres of ribbon.’ I say, holding my hand out
to Freddy. I pinch one end of the ribbon between the thumb and
forefinger of my right hand and bring my left hand, which holds the
grenade, up to meet it.
‘And now I’ve
tied the end of the ribbon to the pin of the grenade,’ I continue,
as I tie the end of the ribbon to the pin of the grenade, ‘I’ve got
two kilometres in which I can kill you any time I want, just by
yanking the ribbon backwards.’ As I’m telling her, I’m shoving the
grenade into her back pocket.
‘If you slow
down, I’ll know. If you throw the grenade out onto the road, I’ll
pull the pin, and you’ll be responsible for the deaths of a family
going to visit their grandparents for the weekend. If you think
you’re safe once you’re more than two kilometres away, bear in mind
that your ID is in your purse, which is in the pile by the
checkouts. We know your name, and where you live. If you’re not at
home, we’ll find your parents, or your housemates, and we’ll kill
them instead. Got it?’
Duty nods.
‘Good,’ I say.
I hold her eyes, and gesture for Freddy to grab the hoody and
balaclava that Sid is dangling out of the walk-in freezer door.
Freddy hands them to Duty, and Duty, easing Abandonment to the side
for a moment, squeezes them on. There will almost certainly be DNA
evidence on them, but if we never become suspects that won’t
matter, since they won’t have anything to match it with. When Duty
has suited up, she holds Abandonment around the neck, and holds her
hand out for the gun. I tuck my revolver into the back of my jeans
and stride over to the walk-in freezer. I shoot Sid a glare through
the crack in the door.
‘Give me your
gun,’ I order him. He hands it over quickly, as though he’s glad to
get rid of it. I eject the magazine, fire it once into the air and
hand it to Duty.
‘Let’s go,’ I
say.
With me
following close behind, shotgun in my hands and the ribbon pinched
firmly between my fingers, she barges through the double-doors and
back onto the shop floor. We go past the first set of shelves and I
duck to the left, hiding behind the world foods section as she
keeps walking towards the glass front of the store. There are four
police cars outside now; one on the left, one down the road that I
used to walk here, and two on the right. There’s a junction to the
right of the store, though, which should provide Duty with plenty
of space to slip past them, especially seeing as she’s got a
hostage in tow. English police are far more concerned about
collateral damage than their American equivalents, so they’ll
hopefully see no option but to let them through. The only thing I
care about is that they distract the police helicopter.
Duty and
Abandonment are only about ten feet from the window, now. Time for
action. Like the cover system in a thousand videogames taught me
to, I swing my right leg around 180 degrees so that I’m facing the
police cars, and I let off a blast from the shotgun. The glass
spiders as the buckshot clatters into it, and shatters at the
second. I swing my leg back around so that I’m once more hidden
behind the shelves. I’ll never see Duty or Abandonment again; at
this point, I’ve just got to hope that the threats keep them towing
the line.
‘We’ve got
maybe two minutes until the police get their hands on that bird and
realise she isn’t one of us,’ I gush to Freddy between pumping
breaths when I make it back to the staff area. ‘We need to get out
of here while the helicopter’s still following her!’
Sid has
emerged from the walk-in freezer. He slides the big backpack over
to Freddy, and Freddy kicks it towards me.
‘Bit burned,
but everything’s in one piece,’ he mutters. I know that tone of
voice. It’s the voice he uses when Johnny has come downstairs the
morning after plastering the living room in vomit, or when Charlie
has emerged the morning after bringing home a girl who was too
drunk to give convincing consent. I keep my balaclava on for the
moment, but Freddy tears off his hoody and mask and throws them
towards the bag. I dive into the big rucksack and pull out the
smaller, blue and red, rucksacks, then I roll up the big backpack
and shove it into the blue one, stuffing Fred’s mask, gloves and
hoody in after it, then, with difficulty, I zip it up.
‘You not
taking yours off?’ asks Sid.
‘Not yet,’ I
return. ‘That reminds me. Bronstein, you’re going to take the blue
one; my stuff won’t fit in here.’
He eyes me
with suspicion. I assure him that I’m not going to run off with the
takings, but he rolls his eyes as if to assure me, in turn, that’s
he’s suspicious for much grander reasons than that. Freddy throws
the money bag at me and I toss him back the blue one, then I zip
the money bag up in its red disguise.
‘So, did you
find a way onto the fire escape?’ I ask Sid.
‘There’s a
window in the cash office. Bit of a drop, but it doesn’t look out
onto the street. If the helicopter’s not there, we might just get
through.’
‘It leads down
onto the street eventually, though,’ Freddy interjects. ‘I, for
one, am
not
strolling down to make small talk with a dozen
police officers when I’ve got an orgy of evidence strapped to my
back.’
‘We’re not
going down,’ I tell him. ‘We’re going up. Head across the rooftops,
into the car park, down the stairs and out through the shopping
centre. By the time you get snapped by your first CCTV cameras,
you’ll just be two more nobodies in a Saturday afternoon full of
them.’
Despite
myself, I smile.
‘Oh, and I
know this goes without saying,’ I add, ‘but whichever of you is
going out second, don’t wait around for me.’
For a fraction
of a slice of a second, it looks as though Freddy is about to
protest, but he puts it to one side and gives me a curt nod
instead.
‘Then let’s
fucking go!’ I shout. Sid jumps, spins on his heel and runs off.
Freddy holds my eye for a couple of moments longer, but then he’s
gone too. I’m alone. Fear starts bubbling up inside my capillaries,
but I push it back down and hope it won’t resurface as an aneurysm
later on. Time for the next wave of diversions.
The blonde
girl appears to be meditating when I open the door to the stock
room; her eyes are closed and she’s sitting on the floor with her
legs crossed.
‘Can I go
now?’ she asks, without lifting the lids. She still speaks with the
same meek vocal chords as our last two encounters, but the way that
she’s sitting has changed the way her voice strikes me. It’s not
quite meekness anymore, but rather an eerie detachment.
‘Go ahead,’ I
reply. ‘The front door’s open.’
‘Okay.’ She
lifts herself to her feet and glides past me without a second
glance. Myself, I find myself transfixed as I watch her depart. For
just a fraction of a moment the fear disappears and I forget all of
the terrible left-turns that my life has taken today. This might be
the last such moment that I ever have, I think to myself; the last
chance that I’ll have to pretend that all these sins never
happened, how irrevocably stained I’ve become. Maybe the only
people who can really appreciate beauty are those who are ugly
inside.
By the time I
make it back up the stairs I’m breathing heavily again, and that
brief reprieve feels like forever ago.
‘Ladies;
gentlemen,’ I announce. ‘The time has come for us to part company.
I’d say it’s been a pleasure, but…’
I, along with
everyone else in the room, glance shiftily at the corpse.
‘But anyway,’
I resume. ‘That aside, the first five of you will be going back
down the stairs and out of the front door. Then three will go out
of the window in the cash office, down the fire escape and out onto
the street. Then four more go: two out of the front door; two out
of the window. Then the last five go out the front. Oh, and before
you leave, I think it’s only fair to warn you that we’ve had
someone check all of the IDs in the purses and wallets you gave us,
and, thanks to the wonder of the internet, we now have enough
information to hunt down and exact painful retribution on anyone
who says anything more eloquent than “I didn’t see nuffink” to the
police.’
It’s a big lie
for them all to swallow, but it can’t hurt to try the bluff. After
all, thanks to Phoebe, they’ve seen that we’re willing to murder
with little to no provocation. With the fear of God hopefully set
ablaze in them, I mush my first set of lambs off down the stairs. I
check my watch. Seventeen minutes gone. We’re well into Plan B
territory, here. Maybe even Plan C. My chance to get the fuck out
of this place won’t be coming for another couple of minutes,
either; I’ve got to time it so the police have just spotted the
first lot when the second wave is being released. Increase the
confusion, increase the chaos; create a curtain behind which the
criminals can escape.
‘Okay, next
lot out!’ I shout, opening the door but not bothering to look
inside. One, two three, four forlorn hostages shuffle past me. I
snap at them to hurry up, and their shuffles turn into limp
scuttles. I don’t think that Army Drill Instructor is ever going to
be a viable career option for me.
I bet the
fucking helicopter’s back
, I think to myself as I’m waiting for
the chance to release the last of the hostages. I strain my ear for
the sound of propeller blades, but all I can make out is some vague
commotion in the distance. I don’t know what it is, but it must be
pretty damn commotional to reach me all the way up here. Enough to
lure the chopper back, perhaps. Of course, it might just be the
sound of the blood pounding through the capillaries in my
brain.
The very
second my hand clamps back on the staff room door-handle, a new
idea jolts through me. It’s last-ditch, for sure, but, if the
chopper
has
come back overhead, it might just be the last
half-inch of protection which keeps me out of the hands of the law.
I open the door, fix my eyes onto the remaining guy, and say:
‘You. Give me
your coat.’
No sooner has
he handed it over than I’ve slammed the door again. I don’t lock it
this time, however. I still need them to make their way outside to
distract the police whilst I’m retreating. Remembering my own
advice about getting a sub-life prison sentence rather than gunning
down the two police officers my remaining ammo can take care of, I
break the shotgun, pull the revolver out of my waistband and thrust
them both in the space between the two layers of backpack. I swap
my hoody for the stolen mac and put the hoody on top of the other,
more incriminating stuff, then zip it shut. Time to go.