Good as Dead

SIXTY-FOUR

Helen Weeks’ phone rang out. Ten seconds, fifteen. Twenty…

‘They’re not going to answer,’ Chivers said.

‘ They? ’ Pascoe stared at him. ‘What exactly do you think is going on in there?’ Chivers started to answer, but Pascoe talked over him. ‘Because two and something days is a bit quick for Stockholm Syndrome to have kicked in, you know what I mean?’

Twenty-five seconds.

‘Neither the hostage nor the hostage taker is answering the phone,’ Chivers said. ‘I was stating a fact, that’s all. There was no-’

The call was answered and, almost simultaneously, all five people inside the truck held their breath. Pressed hands to headsets. There were a few, crackly seconds of near-silence, then Helen Weeks said, ‘Hello.’

‘Helen, it’s Sue Pascoe. I need to speak to Mr Mitchell.’ Calm, but authoritative. The tone she reserved for particular types of crisis intervention.

‘He’s asleep.’

‘I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to wake him up.’

‘Is there some sort of problem?’

‘I need to speak to him now, Helen. I need to know that he’s all right.’

There was a pause.

Chivers looked at Donnelly, turned his palms up.

‘Helen?’

‘Hang up now.’ Akhtar’s voice. Calm, but authoritative.

‘It was an accident.’

‘ Hang up! ’

The line went dead.

Pascoe removed her headset and dabbed fingers against the film of sweat on her ear. Donnelly and Chivers were already moving together towards the back doors, and their body language – their shoulders together, their heads low and close – made the manner of the conversation they were gearing up to have abundantly clear. Made it equally obvious that any further contribution from Pascoe would be entirely superfluous.

‘Going in through the front isn’t an option,’ Chivers said.

‘Right.’ Donnelly began nodding.

‘The shutters wouldn’t be a problem, but we’d be too far away. He’d have too much time to react. The back door’s the obvious entry point.’

‘How long?’

‘Best part of an hour to get set up. Forty minutes at a push.’

‘So let’s push it.’

Chivers jumped down from the back of the truck and immediately began shouting. Donnelly started talking to Pascoe. Something about how vital her role was going to be in this last hour or so, something about redeeming herself, but it took her a few seconds to focus. She was remembering something she had said to Tom Thorne.

The hostage is mine to lose.

And the nothing she’d had to say to Stephen Mitchell’s wife.