Good as Dead

FIFTY-NINE

Kim Yates looked up from his ‘extra-fiendish’ sudoku and glanced across at the woman sitting a few feet away. She was concentrating on the same puzzle in her own puzzle book. He looked at his watch. He and Annette Williams had been working together as technicians for almost a year now, but it did not look as though either of them was likely to beat their personal best on this occasion.

Today, it was just going to be about who finished first.

In their headphones, from the speakers, the sounds of some drama or other. One of those set in a hospital. Bar a short exchange about tea – asked for by the hostage and curtly refused by the hostage taker – it had been nothing but television for the last hour or so.

Behind him, on the other side of the van, Yates was aware that the hostage negotiator had her nose buried in one of those magazines. Hello! or some rubbish. He knew what Annette would think about that.

He wondered if he should let her finish the sudoku first. Beating him would put her in a good mood and she might be more inclined to say yes if he finally plucked up the courage to ask her out for a meal. He would need to think carefully though. Taking the standings between them into account, the fact that he had now won six in a row, she was far too smart not to at least suspect that he had let her win, and her reaction to that could only really go one of two ways. Would she think he was being gallant, or patronising? Would she be angry with him? Or would she pretend to be offended, but only because she was secretly pleased?

Hell’s bells, this was why he found women such a nightmare, he could never second-guess them.

He went back to the puzzle, filled in another couple of numbers.

Who was he trying to kid anyway? Like he was ever going to ask Annette out for a meal. Perhaps he should ask another woman what she thought. Yes, that was a sensible idea, he decided. Get a second opinion before deciding what to do next.

He would ask his mother when he got home.

Yates, Williams and Pascoe all looked up at the same time when the sound stopped suddenly. Magazines and puzzle books were pushed quickly aside.

‘TV’s off,’ Pascoe said.

The two technicians made a few minor adjustments to the levels. All three listened. Pascoe looked back to where Donnelly was talking to Chivers in the playground, just beyond the back doors of the truck.

She shouted, ‘Sir… ’

Akhtar: I think I have been very patient up to now, but I am running out of it. No more patience.

More adjustments, to cope with the sudden increase in volume level from the hostage taker.

Weeks: Please put the gun down, Javed-

Akhtar: I think I am being laughed at.

Weeks: That’s really not true.

Akhtar: Inspector Thorne thinks I am a fool, that he can tell me this and that and string me along while I sit in here like an idiot making bloody tea! Well, that’s enough.

There was a pause. Half a minute. Donnelly and Chivers stepped up into the van.

Akhtar: Does this have a camera on it?

Donnelly looked at Pascoe as he grabbed a pair of headphones. She shook her head, no wiser than he was. They all listened, but for the next few minutes until Akhtar spoke again the only sounds were generated by Helen Weeks. A grunt as she shifted position, the rattle of metal handcuffs against the radiator pipe.

Akhtar: There. Now we’ll see. Then, Sorry about the smell.

Weeks began to cough.

Akhtar: I brought this. Should help a bit.

There was a long hiss, then another. Donnelly looked at Pascoe.

‘Aerosol,’ she said.

Akhtar: That’s better.

A few seconds later the television was switched on again. The channels were changed in rapid succession; music, football, canned laughter, before Akhtar – presuming it was Akhtar – finally settled on the same drama they had been watching a few minutes earlier. There were a few more coughs from Helen Weeks, then the sound of something – a remote control or possibly the gun – being dropped on to a table.

Then nothing.

‘Hell was all that about?’ Donnelly asked.