His object was a small window in the side of the house facing onto the back yard. Once you got up to it, it was hidden from view by a jutting-out corner of brickwork, and it gave onto one of the old pantries, the inside door of which was not lockable. As long as it hadn’t been nailed up – and he saw no reason why it should have been – he would be able to get into the rest of the house from there.
Nearing the house, he looked up at the sky, and then hunkered down amongst the bushes to wait. There was a swathe of clouds moving across the sky, which in five or ten minutes would obscure the moon. It would then be quite dark. He had only to wait. It was very unlikely that he would be seen – but if he was, what could they do? They couldn’t shoot him, or even shout at him. They could only wait for him to come out again – and he didn’t mind if they grabbed him after he came out.
The cloud shadow came up; the moon disappeared. In the blackness Gavin rose and ran quickly and silently across the open space and into the shelter of the house wall, and crept along it to the window. There he stood, listening. Everything was silent, inside and out. Good!
There was a board over the window, but it didn’t take him long with his knife to prise the nails out of the rotten wood and set the board aside. Behind it the window was totally innocent of glass: many a boy had wriggled in this way, he thought, over the years – he had done so himself. He thanked God that he was slim, and agile: he hoisted himself up, squeezed through, and dropped lightly to the floor in the empty pantry. The pantry door was not nailed up: it yielded to a push, and he opened it a crack, listened, opened it a little further, and finally slipped out into the empty kitchen passage.
There he stopped and listened again. The house was in silence, except for the pounding in his ears of his own heart. He stood still, breathing slowly and deeply until he was calm again; and then, all his senses on the stretch, he began his search.
It was easier than he had thought it would be to eliminate rooms in which they could not be concealed. There were no cellars to the house, but he wondered whether some secret underground room might have been dug out by the villains for the purpose, though he thought it unlikely they could have managed that in the time available, and without attracting attention. However, he concentrated on looking for doors, concealed or new, which might lead to some underground space, or any door to any room which was locked or barred.
He found nothing. At the foot of the stairs he listened again, but the house was in silence. The stairs yawned before him, empty and menacing. He hesitated. His instincts feared a trap. Anything might be up there, waiting for him. As soon as he started up, he would be vulnerable. But then he thought of Emma. Suddenly she came into his mind, and it was like looking at a fragment of video film: he saw her as he had never seen her in life, turning over in bed with a little sigh as she stirred in her sleep. Was it just imagination, or was she here somewhere, had she just turned like that in real life, and in his heightened state of awareness he had somehow seen her do it? He shook the thoughts away. They were needlessly distracting. But they had cured his hesitation: he had come too far now to be put off. He started up, keeping close to the wall where there was less likelihood of the stairs creaking.
On the first floor there were closed doors and open doors leading off the landing. He chose the nearest open door. It was empty of furniture, and dark – darker than anywhere else in the house. He couldn’t even see the outline of the window. Very cautiously, he put on his torch, aiming it at the floor. Dusty, naked floorboards. He advanced the beam slowly. No furniture, only bare boards and a cigarette butt trodden out on the floor. Bare white walls. Ah, that was why it was so dark in here – there was no window; only, on the far side, one of those huge, ugly Victorian wardrobes that often get left in houses when people move out because they won’t fit in the new house. He remembered this room, now, from his earlier visit with Moss, remembered the wardrobe. They had looked inside it, of course, and found it empty.
Next to it, against the wall, was a rickety kitchen table; and on the floor under the table was something white. A piece of paper? Had it been there before? He couldn’t remember. He crossed the room and picked it up. It was a handkerchief, ragged and torn. Was it a clue? Maybe. Maybe. He shoved it into his pocket, and was about to go when the thing that had been bothering him came up clearly into his mind at last. The room had no window. It was too large a room to be a cupboard: it was clearly a bedroom, but it had no window. That was not only odd, inexplicable, but he also knew that he had played in this house when he was a lad, and he didn’t remember a windowless bedroom.
He looked at the wardrobe again. He didn’t remember that being here when he was a lad, either. There hadn’t been any furniture at all. Of course, someone could have moved it in at any time – there may well have been tramps or squatters here over the years – but a large wardrobe was an odd choice of furniture to bother with. He opened the door and glanced in, shining his torch, but it was still empty – not even a scrap of fluff.
Perhaps, he thought, the window was behind the wardrobe. It would be an odd thing to do, to put a wardrobe over the window, but the wall where it stood was the logical place in the room to have a window. He walked round the side of it and shone his torch. He didn’t know what he had expected to see, but what he did see was that the wardrobe was absolutely flush with the wall, so close that not even a cigarette paper could have been slipped between. In fact, it looked as though it were part of the wall, joined to it like a built-in wardrobe.
Was this it? His heart was racing again, his palms sweating. He wiped them down his trouser legs. In doing so, he dropped the handkerchief, which he had not pushed into his pocket properly: the roughness of its torn surface caught on his fingers. He stooped to pick it up; and then, instead, flattened it out against the floorboards and shone his torch at it.
Through the white material the dark floorboards showed in the shape of frayed and crudely-cut letters, which seemed to shout at him like a shrill imperative – HELP POPPY!
They were here! He took another look at the wall and wardrobe, and understood everything. And now he must get out and get help, though every fibre of him wanted to tear the place apart with his bare hands. But he must do the sensible thing. He must not be caught now, when he had the information that was needed. His nerves were stretched to the limit, his hair was standing on end with the tension and the fear of being caught, and the adrenalin surging into his blood was screaming at him to run as fast as his legs could pump. It was the hardest thing he had ever had to do in his life, to make himself retrace his steps cautiously, quietly, slowly, on tiptoe, and without looking back. If the sound of his heart thudding didn’t wake the villains, he thought, nothing would …
As soon as he reached the bushes, he was seized ungently by two enormous pairs of hands. They must have seen him go in after all. Between them, two burly policemen bundled him hastily away from the house to a safe distance where they could bawl him out. He was not sorry for the support, since his own legs seemed to have gone temporarily on strike.
“You bloody idiot!” one of them hissed, so outraged he actually shook him. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”
Gavin had to search around for his voice, and when he found it, it didn’t sound terribly like his.
“They’re in there,” he said. “I know where. I’ve got the proof.”
“I should never have let you near the place,” Superintendent Moss grumbled. “That’s what comes of letting amateurs in on the game.” But he didn’t sound really put out about it. He had got his roaring over before Gavin came into his presence; and there was no doubt that Gavin’s lunatic prank had advanced matters considerably.
“I realised that you couldn’t be expected to break in,” Gavin justified himself, “so I thought I’d do it for you. And besides, I know the house; I’ve been in it a hundred times.”
“Well, as it happens, it’s turned out all right, but you could have blown the whole thing, you know, and got yourself k
illed, to say nothing of your sister.”
“I’m sure they didn’t hear me. They’d have been down to find out what was going on if they’d heard anything.”
“I won’t ask where you learned your house-breaking skills, but you seem to have been lamentably professional about it,” Moss said sternly. “But we must go carefully, now that we know your sister and Miss Ruskin are in there. What we don’t want is for a hostage situation to develop, especially if they’re armed. So no more unilateral action, all right, Mr Akroyd?”
“I promise you,” Gavin said. “I’m no hero, and I wouldn’t do anything to put them in danger. What are you going to do now?”
“Get the armed units in position, and then try and talk them out.”
“Please – you will let me come?”
“As long as I can trust you to stay out of the way.”
“I promise.”
“Right, then you may be useful. I may need you tell me the layout of the house.”
And he waved Gavin away to get himself a cup of coffee, while he got on the telephone and started issuing instructions.
Chapter Fourteen
The Boss did not sleep well on a camp-bed. A good measure of Scotch got him off all right, but then he tended to wake after an hour or two and toss and turn the rest of the night, finally dropping off at about six and sleeping heavily until Andy woke him. He was in the tossing and turning stage of this annoying regime when he came suddenly full awake, and lay for a moment staring at the ceiling, frowning. Something had disturbed him, and he had learned during a misspent life not to ignore his instincts.
The dawn chorus was going on outside – was it that which had woken him? No, wait: the dawn chorus was general, but had fallen silent in the immediate vicinity of the house. And, yes, leafing through memory he dredged up the sharp chack-chack-chack alarm call of a blackbird: that was what had brought him to consciousness. Now all his senses were prickling. Something was going on out there.
He crawled stiffly out of bed (never again, he thought as he threw an evil glance at the thing) and, keeping out of line of sight, made his way to the window. He saw nothing unusual, but he knew all the same that something was happening. And after watching for some time he at last spotted a movement in the bushes, and caught a glimpse of the blue baseball cap with the black-and-white check band which could only belong to a police marksman.
He jumped back from the window and cursed long and fluently. He knew the form, and he knew that Moss would not have been able to turn out an armed unit without convincing evidence that this was the right place. They were on to him, and in a big way. But what had given it away? He was sure Moss had been merely busking when he paid his visit here – though the Boss would have liked to know what brought the copper to this particular address in the first place. But Moss hadn’t known that the kid and the girl were here when he first came – the Boss would have staked his reputation on that. Evidently some new information had come his way. It had to be Billy Metcalf, didn’t it? The fool had got himself taken up and had given the game away. That must be it. The Boss cursed Metcalf, and indulged a brief dream of what he’d do to him when he got hold of it. That’s what came of working with kids. The Boss had never trusted Metcalf, who was a loud-mouthed, flash little sod; but of course he’d had to bring him in after Metcalf tipped him off about the girl.
Well, there was no use crying about it now. He was dressing himself with quick, economical movements, his mind running ahead. The thing now was to get out, while the cops still thought they had the jump on him. He didn’t want a shoot-out, particularly not with frustrated police marksmen, who yearned so much for the chance to pull the trigger they made Al Capone’s gang look like the Salvation Army. Once it got to a siege, it was only a matter of time before you gave up or got shot, and the Boss had no intention of doing either. He was going to get away with the kid, and live to collect the loot. If necessary he’d shoot Andy and the other female: they were expendable. If they slowed him down, they were out, he thought, slipping his gun into the waistband of his trousers, and went to wake Andy.
“Come on you, get up, get some clothes on,” he said, shaking him roughly.
“Wha? Whazza marra? Whassup?” Andy mumbled thickly, ungluing his eyes with difficulty. He was a revolting sight, the Boss thought dispassionately. God help anyone who had to rely on trash like this.
“Shut your mouth! The rozzers are outside. Billy must have blown us. Come on, get up! We’ve got to make a run for it.”
Gavin was as tense as an overstrung violin as he waited with Superintendent Moss while the various police officers got themselves into position. They were highly-trained professionals, and they moved quietly, but there were so many of them, Gavin could not believe that the criminals inside hadn’t been alerted. But the house remained quiet, and no faces showed at the windows.
Moss was checking the various units in on the radio link. Gavin thought about Poppy and Emma, and wondered if they were all right. Was Emma awake and wondering if she was going to be rescued? He imagined how frightened she must have been – probably still was, not knowing what was going to happen to her and Poppy. He tried to send her a thought wave: Not long now. We’re coming. Hold on.
At last Superintendent Moss nudged Gavin and beckoned. “Come with me,” he whispered.
“Is everyone in place?” Gavin asked.
“Nearly. I want you to come with me round the back and let me know any places you think they might make a break for it, any places we need to cover.”
“OK.”
“The place you broke in, for instance,” Moss added with grim humour.
“Right. And what happens then? When everyone’s in place?”
“We talk ’em out. There’s a regular procedure for this sort of thing.”
Gavin nodded. He’d seen it on the news and on films often enough. But in television dramas it never went right; someone always got killed. His mouth dry, he fell in behind Moss and they began to make their way round the house.
They had only gone half-way when there was a commotion from the back of the house: shouts, and a burst of gunfire. Moss’s radio suddenly crackled into life. He clamped it to his ear.
“Damn it, they’ve made a run for it!” he shouted, breaking into a run. “Two of ’em, and the girls. Might be more still inside.” And he shouted orders into the radio, for half the squad to close the circle round the house while the others pursued the fugitives.
The next few minutes seemed to Gavin a nightmare confusion of running and shouting. No one seemed to notice him. He simply stuck to the Superintendent, hoping no one would shoot him or turn him back. The man Harry James and another crook, with the hostages, had made a dash for it out of the back, shooting and wounding Simpson, who was just getting into position and had been in their way. Now they were running into the woods behind the house.
Alone, either of them could have got clean away, but the hostages were slowing them down. The Boss weighed the chances as they ran. He couldn’t yet bring himself to abandon his scheme, his last hope for the Big Score; and besides, the police wouldn’t fire on him while he had the kid as a shield. He jerked her along, and she stumbled again and almost tripped him. The wood was petering out up ahead, but there were too many people on their tails for them to run anywhere but straight on, up the slight slope and out of cover.
“Boss, let’s dump ’em,” Andy pleaded, panting. “We can make it on our own.” He had charge of Emma, whose arms were once more tied. Every time she stumbled over her long dressing-gown, he hauled her upright by main force, which was exhausting to him and agonising to her.
“Don’t be a fool,” the Boss snapped. “D’you want to get shot? Without these two, we’re sitting ducks.” Poppy was white-faced, dazed, staggering like a zombie as he hauled at her arm; she’d have him down any minute. He stopped, grabbed her round the waist and hoisted her over his shoulder like a sack. But though small, she was a solid little kid, and he was not a fit man. His lungs labou
red and his nerves screamed as he tried to keep his feet on the uneven, tussocky ground, hearing the police crashing through the undergrowth behind them like hunting dogs.
“’Sno use!” Andy gasped behind him. “We can’t make it!”
The Boss knew he was right. Like flushed game they had been driven out of the trees and into the open, and running uphill they were losing ground. And there was nothing in front of them but more of the same, open country, no cover, nowhere to hide, no chance of stealing a car. It was over. The Boss saw his golden vision of comfortable retirement in the sun dissolve into the prospect a long gaol sentence – the discomfort, the smells, the squalor, the hopelessness. It was a last stand now, or nothing.
He stopped and turned in his tracks, swinging Poppy down from his shoulder onto her feet, and dragging her round in front of him, holding her round the throat with one arm while he drew his gun and thumbed off the safety. Andy, seeing the action, did likewise, taking stand beside him with Emma as his shield.
“Stand still!” the Boss shouted. “Stay where you are!”
The command was hardly needed. The police stopped as soon as they saw what was happening. They were a few yards off. Superintendent Moss, with Gavin still at his elbow, came through to the front of the line. The Boss waved his pistol to make sure they had seen it. “That’s right, Mossy. Don’t come any closer or the kid gets it,” he said, putting the muzzle of the pistol against Poppy’s right temple. Everyone froze.
Poppy drooped in the Boss’s grip, looking dazed, as if she had only half an idea what was happening; but when her drifting gaze found Gavin, she stiffened and cried out “Gavin!” in a tone of desperate appeal. At the sound of her voice Gavin’s body jerked forward in automatic response, but the Boss made a savage gesture with the pistol and snarled, “You want some? You first, then the kid! I’m warning you! Moss, keep your dogs back. I’m not kidding.”
The Hostage Heart Page 17