First Response

FULHAM (12.52 p.m.)

The phone behind the counter started to ring again and the three post-office workers turned to look at it. ‘Do you want me to answer it?’ asked the Indian woman in a headscarf, who was the closest employee to Ismail.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Let it ring.’

‘You should talk to them,’ said the woman he was chained to.

‘I’ve nothing to say.’ He glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘They have just over five hours in which to release the ISIS prisoners. If they don’t…’

‘If they don’t, we all die?’

Hussain heard a vehicle arrive to the left and craned his neck to look out of the window. A large Mercedes van had pulled up behind two police cars, which were blocking the road to the left of the post office. The rear doors opened and uniformed police piled out. He saw movement at the window of one of the offices overlooking the post office and ducked back.

‘I told you, they won’t shoot through the window,’ said the woman scornfully.

The phone stopped ringing. It had rung more than a dozen times since Hussain had been in the post office.

The black guy sitting behind the counter took a photograph of Hussain with his iPhone, then tapped away on his screen.

‘You don’t care that they’re taking your picture?’ asked the woman.

‘People need to see what’s happening here,’ said Hussain. ‘The pictures will show that we’re serious.’

‘Make sure you tell them my name,’ she called, to the man who’d taken the picture. ‘Rebecca Nicholls. Nicholls with two ls. And his name is Ismail Hussain. Tell them that!’

‘You think this is funny?’ Hussain hissed. ‘You think this is a game?’

‘It is what it is,’ she said. She tilted her head back and looked down her nose at him. ‘Why did you choose me, Ismail?’

‘Choose you?’

‘Why did you handcuff yourself to me?’

‘You were at the end of the queue. The nearest to the door.’

‘And that was the only reason?’

‘Why do you ask?’

She smiled. ‘Because you chose the one person who doesn’t care if she lives or dies.’

Hussain’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You know nothing about me, Ismail. You’ve handcuffed yourself to me and threatened to kill me, but you don’t know the first thing about me.’

‘You’re just a hostage. A body.’

‘That’s right. That’s all I am to you. Well, my name’s Rebecca. My friends call me Becky.’

Hussain shrugged.

‘Up until a week ago I was a wife and a mother. My husband’s name was William and my daughter’s name was Ruth.’

‘They died?’

‘Why, thank you for asking, Ismail,’ she said, her voice loaded with sarcasm. ‘Yes. They died.’

‘How?’

‘A stupid, senseless car crash. I wasn’t feeling great so William agreed to do the school run. Took Ruth and one of her classmates to school. Some bastard in a truck didn’t see that they’d stopped at a red light and ploughed into the back of them. The girls died immediately. They spent more than an hour trying to save William but he bled to death in the car. It was a Volvo. They say a Volvo is the safest car in the world but when a truck smashes into the back of you… Anyway, Ismail, every morning I wake up and wonder if today is the day I’m going to join my husband and daughter. I’ve got the tablets saved up. They’ll do the trick, with a couple of glasses of wine.’

‘You want to kill yourself?’

‘What do I have to live for? Do you have any idea what it’s like to lose the two people you love most in the world? I wish I’d died with them. In the car. Instead I was sitting at home watching some crap TV show and drinking coffee.’ She shuddered, then a slow smile spread across her face. ‘Maybe that’s why your God has sent you here today. Maybe this is the sign I’ve been waiting for. This way I don’t have to take the tablets and lie down. Maybe this is a better way to go.’ She nodded at the trigger in his hand. ‘You press that and it’s like flicking a light switch, isn’t it? Press it and the lights go out, just like that. Like the blinking of an eye.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Her smile widened and he saw the craziness in her eyes. ‘I want you to press it, Ismail. If there is a Heaven, then I want to be with William and Ruth. And if there isn’t, if there’s just an empty blackness, then fuck it, I want to be with them there, in the darkness.’ She leant towards him. ‘Press it, Ismail,’ she hissed. ‘Just press it.’

‘You’re fucking mad!’ he said, trying to pull away from her.

She shook her head. ‘No, I’m not. I’m the sanest person here. And the way it’s going, Ismail, if you don’t press that trigger, I might just do it myself. You think about that. When you’re not looking, when you’re distracted, I might just reach over, grab your hand and squeeze it.’

Hussain backed away from her until the chain tightened.

She laughed at his discomfort. ‘Now who’s scared, Ismail? Now who’s fucking scared?’