by GB Williams
‘What about sound?’
‘Can’t reach those buttons, they’re even higher up.’
‘Useless boy,’ Presswick muttered.
Teddington’s head snapped around and glared. The bank manager didn’t even bother to notice the censure.
‘Get the sound on!’ Mr Pink put his oar, and one of his guns, in.
‘I ca-ca-can’t.’ Samuel was near tears.
Mr Pink was clearly out of patience. For a second Teddington thought Mr Pink would shoot the cashier. Mr White reached out, jolted Samuel’s head forward, smacking it into the wall below the TV.
‘Back to your seat, short arse. You…’ Mr White glowered in Mr Pink’s direction. ‘Back to your post.’
As Samuel stumbled back to his place on the floor and Mr Pink went to the front of the building, Mr White reached up and found the volume control himself. Teddington could see a lump rising from Samuel’s forehead, but the skin wasn’t broken, it hadn’t been that hard a blow. Thankfully. A concussion was the last thing any of them needed.
Zanti reached out and took Samuel’s face in both hands to examine his forehead. ‘Bruised, but you’ll live.’
As Teddington watched, Samuel’s face went from white to pink. Was he a bit soft on his colleague? Given the skin colours, Zanti’s head scarf and the stereotypical Jewish-motherishness of Samuel’s mum, Teddington doubted that relationship was worth the effort of pursing. She remembered the day she’d seen Mrs Frankfort in the branch. Poor Samuel had been so awkward, she’d grown embarrassed just watching.
‘Pathetic.’
The word stunned several of the gathered hostages, and almost all turned to Presswick. Presswick was sneering down at Samuel.
‘You can’t do anything right can you?’
Samuel had been tentatively touching the growing lump on his forehead, but now he looked up at his boss, his top lip drew back, and he let every ounce of personal loathing show. ‘What would you know? You just don’t do anything. You’re all high and mighty like you’re king of the world, expect the rest of us to bow and scrape, while you sit on your fat backside doing bugger all. Trombenik!’
Never having expected Samuel to have such fight in him, Teddington was rather impressed, though she’d rather Samuel had followed his obviously usual route of just taking the punishment.
‘How dare you!’ Presswick shot to his feet. ‘You lazy good for—’
‘Sit down!’ The roar came from Mr Blue, who was again pointing his gun at Presswick.
The big man deflated and sat back down. His chair groaned, thrumming through the strained air like a jumping bean on a kettle drum.
Mr Blue went back to his lounging.
‘You’ll be sorry for what you just said,’ Presswick hissed the words at Samuel.
Seeing him drag air into his lungs, Teddington feared the smaller man’s response, but then she saw Samuel’s eyes move. His attention had shifted to Lucy, who was sobbing again. Teddington watched as Samuel took one last evil look at Presswick before he shifted to sit cross-legged, his head bowed. Others might think him a coward, but Teddington internally thanked the cashier for having the sense not to escalate the situation. He really was the bigger man after all.
Another weighty silence descended. Waiting was all they could do, and it was dragging at them all. Teddington wasn’t the only one who jumped when her phone beeped. She checked the text. ‘This one is from the police. I have their number, whenever you want to contact them.’ As she spoke, she started programming the number into her phone for easy use later.
‘Three five,’ Carlisle whispered in her ear.
She moved between the phone and the text screens, checked again, realised she’d transposed the numbers. She changed the five and three, added the last seven and saved the combination.
The TV, which was now loud enough to hear, but not too loud, seemed to have drawn everyone’s attention. Mr Blue wasn’t bothered by it; the position he was in, he’d struggle to see the screen. On the other side of the room, Mr Brown was still watching what was happening outside, but again as Teddington watched him, he shifted, returned her regard. That indefinable connection jumped in her gut again. She swallowed.
A noise behind, and the way Mr Brown looked over her head, made her turn. Mr Blue was going into the manager’s office. He reappeared a moment later with a pad and pen in hand. He thrust them towards Samuel Frankfort, who was now the furthest from Teddington. ‘Write your name and pass it on.’
Leaving him to get on with it, Mr Blue moved over to whisper with Mr White. As he turned, he caught her watching him and held her gaze. Finishing his conversation, he raised his gun towards her, mimed shooting her, mouthing the boom of the bullet. His mouth turned up in a vicious smile. She imagined blood-sucking fangs extending—
Oh, get a grip.
‘Mr Blue,’ Mr White said, ‘don’t you have a job to complete?’
Mr Blue disappeared into the back of the bank. The staff-only area.
The pad appeared at her side. Carlisle was writing on it. She was surprised that he wrote his own name, though she hadn’t known his first name was Dominic. He pushed the pad towards her, but she saw no reason to add her own name. The police already had it. She looked down the list, willing to bet that most, if not all, of these people normally had better handwriting. She wasn’t entirely convinced by the blonde’s name, Beth Arden, but fans did all sorts of weird things. Changing a name by deed poll was relatively minor. But what did it say about a woman to be that hung up on her make-up brands?
She sighed, looked up and saw Mr White striding over to Mr Pink, who was shifting his weight from foot to foot to a beat that certainly didn’t match the rhythm of the questions on the TV’s mid-afternoon movie review slot. Mr White put his hand on Mr Pink’s shoulder with a grip that looked really quite hard. Mr Pink stopped swaying, but it was only a heartbeat or two before his foot started bouncing. She remembered a similar nervous tic on her ex-husband, Edward, and the constant movement of his feet in her peripheral vision. It wound her up like a top. It was quite possibly Ward’s most annoying habit. Well, that and turning his back on her when she’d needed him most. Still, another of yesterday’s problems.
The worrying thing, of course, was that Mr Pink was brimming over with nervous energy—a bad thing in a man carrying two guns. A very bad thing.
Mr White had a short exchange with Mr Brown, then spotted the pad beside Teddington. ‘That the list of names?’
‘It is.’
Mr White looked down the list, though it was upside down to him. ‘It’s one short.’
‘They already have my name.’
Mr White’s gaze was scrutinising, assessing, as he decided whether he would react or not.
The silence weighed too heavily. The urge to break it was inescapable. ‘You really want to do this?’
‘Why not?’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe if the police have names, they’ll start seeing you lot as humans. They might even get their arses in gear to get the van, so we don’t have to start hurting people.’
If that was meant to scare her, it did. But more worryingly, it made Lucy whimper. The last thing she wanted or needed was for the kid to kick off again.
‘Okay. If that’s what you want, I’ll call Matt and read him the list.’ She brought up the phone.
‘No, not you,’ Mr White said. ‘Get the kid to read it.’
Teddington was hardly surprised when Lucy wailed a ‘no’ and gripped tighter to her mother. Presswick’s tut earned him a dirty look.
‘If you’ve got a problem with the kid,’ Sam snapped, ‘why don’t you move away and let Zanti or your visitor…’ He indicated to Miss Arden. ‘Have your seat?’
Teddington thought everyone in the room was stunned by Sam’s outburst, but no one looked overly surprised that Presswick just drew in a breath, tipped his chin up and looked away to the front windows. Of course, all of this and all of them were so far beneath him.
Looking up at Lucy, Teddington shifted
, the pain in her side making her fall back. Thankfully Carlisle caught her.
‘Cheers.’
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Mr White demanded.
‘Help me sit forward.’ Teddington gritted her teeth as Carlisle pushed her gently. She shifted her legs to the side, leaning on one arm, and holding her ribs with the other. The phone was on the floor. She looked up at Mr White, flicking her head to get the hair from her face. ‘If you want Lucy to give the names to the police, she’ll need to be a little calmer than she is right now. I was turning to talk to her, but the pain in my side stopped me.’
‘Mr White,’ Mr Brown called.
The man switched his attention.
‘We could move the other three chairs back for their use.’
Mr White glanced to where Mr Brown had indicated. At the front of the bank, before the window, were three tubular seats. Five of them were still sitting on the floor, but she suspected Carlisle and Samuel, gentlemen that they both were, would probably be okay with staying there. For herself, she would very much appreciate being able to sit upright. It would ease her breathing tremendously.
‘Fine,’ Mr White agreed.
‘I ain’t moving them,’ Mr Pink snapped.
‘You.’ Mr White pointed his gun at Carlisle, then Samuel. ‘And you. Stand up.’
Carefully, slowly, and with his hands clear from his body, Carlisle stood. Watching him, Teddington noticed that he was still keeping his head down, using the peak of his cap to shield his face. Samuel hadn’t shifted. His wide eyes darted from the gun to the others. All eyes were on Samuel as he sought either reassurance or protection. It seemed unlikely he found either; Teddington saw none. Peer pressure was a wonderful thing. Looking ready to cry, Samuel swallowed, then in shaky imitation of Carlisle, rose to his feet.
Mr White looked to Carlisle and tipped his head towards the seats. Carlisle took one step away from the group, waiting to make sure that Sam did the same, then led the way.
‘You take one, I’ll get the other two,’ Carlisle told Sam, who nodded, but nearly dropped the one chair he picked up because his hands were so sweaty. They carried them back to the group. Beth took the first seat, Sam helped Zanti into the second, before sitting back on the floor, cross-legged. Carlisle leaned down to help Teddington to her feet. She winced at the move, taking a moment once on her feet to catch her breath before stepping over, gripping the wooden arm rests and carefully lowering herself down. As Carlisle knelt beside her, she saw the concern in his face, grateful for the hand he placed on her knee.
‘You sure you’re okay?’
She nodded, laying her hand over his. ‘Bruised but not broken. I’m fine.’ As she sat down fully, she was glad he didn’t move his hand away. The human contact was oddly reassuring. He wasn’t the man she wanted, but he was the man here. She knew it was stupid to be so needy, but right now she was. She patted his hand and placed both of her own in her lap, watching the phone screen for a moment. Her mother was no longer trying to contact her, so Piper had been good to his word. As worried as she was by the constant calls, their absence left her bereft, like she was finally severed from her family.
Drawing in a shaky breath, she knew it was time to put her own personal problems aside. Family was important, and right now there was another family she needed to think about. Trying not to let the pain of reaching across show too much, she placed her hand on Lucy’s shoulder. The girl flinched under her touch.
‘Lucy, sweetheart,’ she said softly, ‘it’s okay, baby, can you just turn to look at me?’
The girl tensed up, her face buried in her mother’s neck. Time to try another tack.
‘Do you enjoy school, Lucy?’
The odd question obviously caught the kid’s attention. Though she didn’t look round, or say anything, Lucy did go suddenly very still. Teddington found she was almost holding her breath, waiting for Lucy to come back to her. Finally, there was a small shrug.
‘I used to love school when I was your age. Didn’t have many friends, except those I read about in books. Most of the girls were more interested in who had the latest fashions, who’d gone on the most expensive holidays, who led the most exciting life.’
The girl shifted, turned her head and looked at her from beneath her mother’s chin. She was all red eyes and just a touch of snot on her top lip.
‘You get that too, huh?’
A small nod.
‘And if the girls in your school are anything like the girls in mine, they’ll be relentless when they see your braces.’ Teddington could hear Mr Pink stomping around and muttering, though she couldn’t hear what he was saying, and she wasn’t interested in his opinions anyway. ‘But you know, you’ll have the last laugh.’
Lucy looked up at her. The question in her eyes convinced Teddington she had the girl’s attention and interest.
‘Because you’ll be the one with perfect teeth, and the one with the most exciting story that none of them are ever going to be able to beat.’
Lucy blinked. There was even the faintest ghost of a smile.
‘If you want to make the most of that excitement, I need you to do what you’ve been asked to do, alright? I’ll call Matt, you read the names on the list. That okay?’
Lucy was looking at her. Teddington knew that look, she knew that feeling. Wanting to do something, but terrified of doing it. Last time she’d felt that way she’d been signalling to the man she wanted to date. Fat lot of good finding her courage had done her. Sitting for an hour in a pub she didn’t much care for, feeling like a prize idiot. The hour had been enough, but she’d thanked the barman as she left. Somehow, she’d even managed to get home and to her bedroom before she sat down and let the tears go. Sitting there and silently crying, like a stupid love-sick teenager. For the first time since her husband’s defection, she’d dared to reach out to a man, to risk trusting. And he’d stamped all over her heart. Bloody man. Damn Charlie Bell and his bone-melting eyes.
‘I can’t.’
‘You could try,’ she said. ‘Remember, you’ll be talking to a policeman. His name’s Matt, you’ve heard him. He’s a good guy, he’ll listen to you, he’ll be nice. You can talk to a nice guy, can’t you?’
Lucy sat up a little to look at her mother.
Megan nodded. ‘It’s okay, Cwtchy, you can do it.’
Cwtchy? Teddington didn’t know where that came from, and kind of hoped never to find out. But for now, she turned to Mr White. ‘Shall I call Matt?’
Mr White nodded. Teddington returned the nod, just once. She found the number and the phone dialled as she put the handset to her ear. It rang on.
Mr White’s attention focused darkly on her.
It wasn’t a good sign that Piper wasn’t instantly answering. What the hell is he busy with? The idea of him being caught short during such an important call would normally have made her laugh, but current threats put that response on mute. Thinking fast, she took the phone from her ear, disconnecting as she did so. ‘Apparently I forget to press to connect,’ she lied, and started dialling again. It barely rang before she heard Piper answer.
‘Ari?’
He was short of breath, just enough to tell her he’d run to answer.
‘Hi Matt.’ She felt her hand grip the phone, her knuckles so tight it actually hurt.
‘This call sounds different,’ Matt said, ‘are we on speakerphone?’
‘No. I’ve been asked to call you. Mr White wants you to know something.’
‘What’s that, Ari?’
‘Our names.’ She paused deliberately.
‘Do you know any of the gang holding you?’
He spoke quietly, his voice going no further than her ear. She ran her hand over her forehead. There was so much she wanted to tell Piper, but she didn’t dare. She apparently did know two of them, but she didn’t know who they were. ‘No,’ she whispered, hoping Piper heard her. She looked up at White. ‘I have a list, but I’m not allowed to read it to you. Don’t worry,’ she
assured at the odd noise of confusion he made, ‘I’m going to hand you over to Lucy, the little girl you will have heard about. She’s scared, so be nice.’ She held out the phone to Lucy. The girl looked nervous, but reached out and took it.
‘Hello?’
She could imagine what Piper was like on the phone to the kid. Lucy’s voice shook, tears were close to the surface, but she made it through the list, and as she revealed each name, Teddington looked at the person belonging to each one.
Sam Frankfort. Cashier, sweet guy who didn’t like conflict and wasn’t coping as well as he might.
Zanti Bashir—Megan had to tell Lucy how to say that—clearly nervous, but coping. Something told Teddington this wasn’t the first time men had threatened Zanti.
Beth Arden. The woman in red.
Judith Montgomery. The woman who thought photo driver’s licences were ID cards by stealth.
Mallory Presswick. Bank manager and prick extraordinaire.
Megan Burton. Mum.
Lucy Burton. Kid.
Dominic Carlisle. At least Lucy couldn’t say that he was a Detective Sergeant.
As Lucy quivered over the last name, tears burst forth again. She let go of the phone and Megan had to catch it before it fell to the floor.
15
Piper heard the girl crying, an odd noise, a movement or two, then the line went dead. He looked at the list he’d scrawled. Wymark had the same list in a much neater hand. Carefully, he put the phone down and re-wrote the names, before he turned to face the open door. Sheldrake and Broughton had followed him out to the van, and Andrews was sitting by his side, silent as normal. Piper tore the second copy off the pad and passed it to Broughton. The older man nodded and disappeared from sight.
‘Why,’ Sheldrake asked softly, ‘would they give us the hostages’ names?’
Piper shrugged. ‘I suspect that they want us to see the hostages as humans, not just collateral. To make it harder for us to forget that lives are at stake.’
‘Humanisation,’ Sheldrake murmured. ‘They’re using our own tactics against us.’
Again all Piper could do was wait.