“Does that mean that if we moved to another town she might be all right?”
“If your wife’s asthma were purely allergic, a new part of the country might well offer relief: clay is a bad soil to live on, the country is filled with grass pollen at certain times of the year, the towns have air pollution. But since your wife’s asthma is also nervously based, I was speaking in terms of another country where the whole tempo of life is totally different. Even taking a siesta with an easy conscience might bring relief.”
The interview had cost them twenty pounds. For a couple of days after it they’d talked about moving abroad and then the realities had swamped them. Their ties, their mortgaged house, and his job were all in England. Banking was not one of those jobs which made it easy to find employment in another country and in any case her mother was a permanent invalid and unless Penelope could be certain that she could quickly return to England in an emergency she could never happily live abroad whilst her mother was alive: and the specialist had made it clear that such a life would have to be happily lived if she were to benefit…
A guard came along. He was well built, obviously strong, and moved with the easy rhythm of someone in good physical shape. He passed the captives without bothering to look at them and went up to the inside glass and wood doors which led into the six-foot-deep porch-like space before the outside wooden doors. He opened one of the glass and wood doors and pushed down the rubber stop to hold it open. The hostages watched, nervously trying to decide what his actions portended.
He unlocked and unbolted the wooden doors and pulled the right-hand one open. There was a rising hum of excitement from all the onlookers outside: TV cameras zoomed in, the police tensed and those with arms gripped them a shade more tightly.
He picked up the two metal containers that were on the top step immediately outside the door. He carried them through the porch and put them down, then returned to bolt and lock the outside door.
Abrahams, who lay a dozen people along from Steen, said loudly: “That’s got to be something to eat.”
Hodges, next to him, said: “But not for you — you’re on a diet.”
Someone laughed because Abrahams’s diet was a standing joke (‘And it stands sixteen stone on its twelve-size feet’).
Steen was surprised to discover how some of the fear and tension had been lifted from the situation, even though the threat to their lives had become no less.
*
It was night. Around the front of the bank were nine portable arc lamps, set in a semi-circle to supplement the street lighting: the brickwork looked shabby in such stark light, instead of mellow and soft-toned.
Rook stifled his yawn.
“Go and put your head down for a couple of hours,” said Detective Superintendent Mellon.
“It’s all right, thanks, sir.”
“We’ll try and get along without you.” Mellon grinned.
They did not like each other, but Rook worked very hard to hide the fact. Mellon was large in build and expansive in character. He had an easy, friendly manner which usually concealed the fact that he also had a sharp temper. At work he called for results and did not, unless necessary, enquire into how those had been obtained.
Rook tried not to yawn again and ended up watery-eyed and swallowing hard.
“For God’s sake, man, go away and put your head down somewhere.”
Now it was an order, not a suggestion. “I’ll go to the station, sir. If anything happens here while I’m away…”
“We’ll call for the fire brigade.”
Rook attempted to smile, but wasn’t very successful. He was always being caught between his disapproval of the inanities of life and the need to hide his disapproval when it was his seniors who perpetrated them.
He turned and walked away to his right. He passed several shops to come to the point where a uniform constable was keeping a narrow path free through the watching crowds. As he approached the gap a sloppily dressed, long-haired man called out: “Hey, Inspector, what’s fresh?” He identified the man as belonging to one of the TV teams. He stopped.
“There’s no change in the situation.”
“Are you sending more grub inside?”
“If that becomes necessary.”
“D’you know for certain how many gunmen there are?”
“No,” He resumed walking to go through the gap.
The TV reporter had dodged through the crowd. “Come on, unbutton. Give me something fresh to gnaw on.”
“The situation has in no way altered since the last press conference.”
“How can I turn that into news?” the reporter grumbled as he dropped back.
In fact, Rook thought with tired satisfaction, the situation had changed a great deal — the worst was over and had been from the moment the wooden doors had opened and the hooded man had come out to pick up the two containers. Now, it was only a question of time. The gunmen would become more and more dependent on the police and less and less able to carry out their threats of murder, because the bonds of a shared ordeal would emotionally bind closer together captors and captives. It had been a textbook — or H.Q. pamphlet — operation.
He turned right at the crossroads and went down Station Road. For him, this case was proving to be a slice of luck. When the gunmen filed out of the bank and threw down their guns to surrender, not even Mellon would be able to deny him his success. Next year there was going to be a vacancy at H.Q. for an administrative detective chief inspector and that was a job tailored for him.
He again turned to the right to pass a building site which only six months before had been the large front garden of the vicarage, and crossed the road to the ten storey, glass and concrete divisional H.Q., which four years before had replaced the then totally inadequate and ramshackle old H.Q.
Young, looking quite fresh, was in Rook’s room, talking over the telephone. He stood up and, still talking, moved round to sit on the edge of the desk. Rook, now that he was out of sight of the public, took off his coat to show he wore braces and sat down.
Young finally replaced the receiver. “Eastcote’s just rung in. They’ve picked up a couple of youngsters who broke into a house in their territory.”
“Have they…?”
“Not to fuss, Chief. Everything’s in order.”
“I’ve told you before, don’t call me that,” he snapped.
Young grinned as he stood up. “Well, I’ll be off and leave you to yourself.”
Rook watched Young leave. Far too big for his boots. One day he’d trip over them and fall flat on his face. People who breezed through life always came a cropper in the end.
He told the duty sergeant to call him in two hours and then slumped down in the chair and closed his eyes. Perhaps he ought to have rung Amy just to say he was O.K., but he was so tired, it was very late, and in any case she probably wasn’t worrying. Early in their marriage he’d unexpectedly been held up for hours and unable to contact her and when he’d finally returned home he’d thought to find her worried sick for his safety. She’d been so unperturbed that he’d become quite annoyed… Much to her kind amusement.
He cleared his mind for the sleep he so desperately needed and perversely it refused to come.
*
Thomas belched. He stared at the hostages, stretched along the floor as they tried to sleep, and that belch was a sign of the contempt he felt for them.
He pulled out a cigarette from the pack and since this was the last he crumpled up the pack and dropped it on to the floor. He lit the cigarette and smoked. Only a day and a half ago it had all looked so certain: a quick snatch, following weeks of surveillance, and enough money to make them all rich. But a woman had given one lousy scream…
There had to be some way out… Suppose they sliced off an ear from one of the hostages and slung that out of the bank and said that that was for starters? Mightn’t that stoke up public concern even more than a death?
After an attempted armed robbery, without violence
actually being used, the sentence was likely to be fifteen years. With full remission that would mean ten years in the nick. Ten years would take him over the hill.
He dropped the cigarette to the floor. He walked along to the swing door, pushed this open, and continued to the manager’s office, which he entered. He sat down behind the desk and thought with contempt that it wasn’t much of an office to set on top of millions of pounds.
How to escape the inescapable? He sat back in the chair, which tilted to accommodate the new angle of his body. There must be some way out… But how could you get past an army of coppers?
*
Steen awoke as he turned. His left arm was numb because he’d been lying on it and he rubbed it as the pins-and-needles started pricking. He looked at his wristwatch. Four-nineteen. Was Penelope awake at that moment?
He remembered her last bad attack. Every time she caught a cold they worried, whilst they assured each other there was no need to worry, fearful that the cold would develop into bronchitis and the bronchitis would trigger off asthma. For two days their optimism had been rewarded. Then, at three the next morning, the bronchitis had started.
The doctor had prescribed antibiotics. Ironically, the antibiotics which for her acted most effectively were often the ones which had the worst side effects. “Life’s got a bloody warped sense of humour,” the doctor had once said. This time the antibiotic had had to be changed and immediately the bronchitis had become worse. He’d listened to her whistling, laboured breathing and had known the old familiar fear and impotent anger that anyone who had never harmed another should so have to suffer.
Asthma had arrived like a bomb and within twenty-four hours she had been white-faced, dull-eyed, coughing, and with heart thumping. The doctor had given her an injection of adrenalin which had helped, but only temporarily.
He’d driven her to hospital and an oxygen tent. As she lay inside the transparent plastic tent, the oxygen gently hissing, he’d held her hand and stared at her as he’d tried to imprint in his mind every single one of her physical features because deep within him there had been the unspoken thought that this could be the last attack — that despite all her fighting courage she was going to prove wrong the medical aphorism that asthma never killed.
She’d returned home four days later, white-faced, drawn, weak, but smiling. And once again he’d wondered how much of her suffering had been due to marrying him and whether living abroad, no matter what the sacrifices, would really help.
His gloomy thoughts were interrupted by Gaitshead — a large, rugger-playing man — who lay next to him. “So you’re awake as well,” he said, in what he presumably thought was a whisper. “By God, Bill, I could murder a pint! What d’you reckon the police would say if we asked ’em to send in some beer?”
Steen again looked at his watch. “Sorry, it’s after closing time.”
“Hilarious! …Imagine a pint of bitter.”
“Stop torturing yourself and think of women instead.”
“I’ve tried and they all look like bottles. It’s that first swallow as it slides down the throat…”
“Can’t you stop talking?” said Miss Tucker severely. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”
“You’re lucky you don’t find the floor too hard,” replied Gaitshead.
It was unfortunate that Miss Tucker was on the plump side.
Chapter 3
The sunlight came at a low angle through the gap in the curtains to awaken Thomas. He was thick-headed and his mouth tasted like an uncollected dustbin. He stood up, brushed the palm of his hand over his head and then reluctantly pulled on the nylon hood. It was going to be another warm day and the hood quickly made his face prickle with sweat.
He walked round the desk to the window and pulled the curtains apart until he could look out. Two policemen’s heads cleared the brick wall as they kept watch from the other side. Knock ’em down like targets in a slot machine, he thought with sharp hate. But shoot a copper and you didn’t need to worry about what you’d do after you came out of the nick.
He returned to the desk and sat down on it. Ginger had been shouting his complaints and the others were becoming very restive, yet all of them still basically had enough faith in him to believe that he’d get them out of the trap. Couldn’t they yet see that he’d begun to lose faith in himself?
Was he hanging on in the bank from pride, because he couldn’t bear to turn his back on at least a million quid, or because he instinctively believed there was always a way out, however hopeless the situation looked? They were surrounded by the police who refused to give way before any pressure. Logically, then, they must give in. But to accept that was to accept defeat. Suddenly he realised that once he truly accepted the fact that there could be no escape then, and only then, was there a chance of escape for them.
*
The assistant chief constable stood facing the small semi-circle of senior officers: the chief superintendent from H.Q., the divisional superintendent, and the divisional chief inspector, were in uniform and looked smart, Mellon and Rook were in crumpled shirts and looked, with their stubbled chins, rather like tramps.
“All right, gentlemen,” Pollock concluded, “that’s quite clear, is it? We keep everything in very low key and carry on exactly as we have been?”
They nodded.
“Good.” Pollock nodded, turned, and walked towards the command patrol car.
Mellon turned to the left and Rook kept pace with him. “I’ll be glad when it’s all over,” said Mellon. “I’m getting too old to be up day and night.” He stopped and looked at the bank. “Why can’t they admit defeat and come on out? Then we could all go home and have a square meal and a bed to sleep on.”
“I suppose they’re hoping against hope we’ll break first.”
“I suppose.” Mellon now sounded bored by the conversation even though he had initiated it. He rubbed his thick, heavy chin which added the bulldog look to his features. “What d’you imagine they’re doing and thinking?”
Rook was not really surprised that Mellon should return to a subject he had a moment before apparently found boring: Mellon had the irritating habit of concealing the true direction of his thoughts and the kind of malicious sense of humour which gained amusement from someone else’s subsequent confusion. “The best estimate we can get is there’s over half a million in new cash inside, apart from all the customers’ valuables. They’ll still be trying desperately to work out a way to escape with some or all of that half million even though it’s obvious they can’t.”
“Yeah.” This time, Mellon’s tone of voice was thoughtful. “They’ll be twisting their brains dry for an answer. Killing the hostages is out, so what’s left? A shoot-out? No one’s caught sight of anything stronger than a sawn-off shotgun. However desperate, you don’t have a shoot-out if you’ve only saw-offs and the opposition’s got rifles. So what are they working on? There’s no way out of the building except through the front or back door.”
“Could they be thinking of somehow using explosives?”
“Why should they have any with them? They hit the bank after it had opened to the public so that the strong-room should be open. They’d not have been expecting to blow anything.”
“Then maybe all they’re trying to do is buy time because they reckon that when nothing happens for hour after hour we’ll get bored and a lot less sharp.”
“It’s your job to make certain every man is snap on the button,” said Mellon, as if he’d reason for supposing the D.I. had allowed slackness to creep in.
“Of course, sir,” said Rook stiffly. “But I can guarantee that every man is doing his job…”
“Relax.”
Rook suffered further resentment.
*
“Do you know what the record for drinking beer is?” asked Gaitshead.
“Thankfully, no,” replied Steen.
“Guinness won’t list it, but I was told it was twenty pints in the hour. When they let me out of here I’m h
eading for the nearest pub and I’m going to kick that miserable dribble straight down the plug-hole.”
If they were let out of the bank. Because he was both a realist and a dreamer, Steen could judge how thin was the safety line behind which the hostages lived. The realist said that if the gunmen judged that the death of one or more hostages would gain them their freedom, they would kill. The dreamer saw himself as the chosen victim. The quick order, the few moments of shocked understanding, the split second when eternity was nearly now, and then the shot…
The gunman who was clearly the leader walked the length of the bank and stopped by the right-hand window. He stared out at the street, his shoulders squared. Defying everyone, thought Steen, and became more frightened for his own and Penelope’s sake because all the time the gunmen were defiant they must surely be considering the benefits of killing?
*
Thomas once again checked off the others in his mind. Ginger was too obvious, both in looks and character. Because he was so large a man with bright red hair he was remarkable in almost any company and if something annoyed him he was liable to react immediately and without thought. Alf Brent was far more self-controlled, but he had a very noticeable scar on his right cheek. Flash Jenkins would be too sure of himself. From the start he’d be so certain of success that he’d get careless. That left Paul Drude. Ordinary-looking — no hint of his vicious nature — controlled in manner, and reliable. As an added bonus he had a wife and two kids and the fear of what could happen to them would keep him straight. But he was a bit slow to change his ideas to meet unexpected circumstances… He ought to choose himself, thought Thomas, but Ginger would immediately become suspicious. In any case, it was going to be very hard going to sell them the idea that solely by surrendering could they hope to escape — so only by staying with them would he persuade them to buy.
He turned. He studied the bank staff and momentarily grinned sardonically. With their stubbled chins, rumpled clothes, and unwashed faces and bodies, they looked the kind of people you wouldn’t lend a torn quid.
Hostage to Death Page 2