The Murder Exchange

Today

Iversson

My eyes snapped open and I listened hard for a second. Nothing. It was dark in the room; the alarm clock by the bed said 2.57. Something had woken me. I was a good sleeper, usually went straight through, couldn’t remember the last time my slumber had been interrupted naturally. I could see through the gap in the door that the landing light was on, but that was how I’d left it when I’d come into the bedroom. Maybe someone had got up to go for a leak. I sat up and waited for a few moments. Still nothing. I picked up the Glock from the side of the bed and checked that it was loaded — there was a round in the chamber — then lay back down again, thinking that I was getting paranoid. No great surprise, I suppose, when you’re in a house with half a million in cash and three men with less than scrupulous backgrounds.

I shut my eyes and thought of Joe. Joe Riggs, the man who’d been good to me down the years. The man I’d betrayed by sleeping with his missus, and now the man who was almost certainly dead as a direct result of me getting him involved in a dangerous scheme when all he’d wanted to do was run a business in peace.

There was a noise downstairs. Footsteps on the bare floorboards in the hall, faint but distinctly audible. Someone was moving around down there. This time I slid out of bed, pulled on trousers and a shirt, and picked up the gun. I paused and listened again. It had stopped. I decided to investigate, just in case. The holdall was under the bed but I made the decision to leave it where it was. I’d be back in a few moments. To hinder anyone who thought they could sneak in and take it, I removed the lightbulb from the main light and placed it under the pillow.

Slowly, I unlocked the door and opened it as quietly as possible, then stepped outside, straining against the silence. The other doors on the landing were all shut, and nothing moved. Flicking the safety off the gun, I crept over to the stairs. The lights at the bottom were all extinguished, just as I’d left them, but that meant nothing. Someone had definitely been creeping about down there and, whatever the reason was, I was sure there was nothing innocent about it. Could it have been Kalinski deciding to ignore his instructions and to finish off Krys? If he had, he hadn’t come back up the stairs again, nobody had. Maybe he’d taken his share and left. But then I would have heard a car start, and I hadn’t.

The hairs on the back of my neck pricked up, the second time they’d done that in just over a fortnight. The first had been in the minutes before Tony Franks had started shooting, and sent us all down the rocky road to where we were now.

I took a step onto one of the stairs and it creaked loudly, interrupting the night’s silence. I stood still for a moment, resisting the urge to call out the way they always do in horror films, just before they get sliced into salami by the killer. Is anyone there? If someone was, he didn’t want to be discovered. Hearing nothing, I took a second step, paused, then continued down the stairs as cautiously as possible.

When I was at the bottom, I concentrated on trying to pick up any sound that might seem out of place. Breathing, the shuffling of feet … but the dead silence remained. My eyes scanned the gloom, the darkness almost inpenetrable, only thin shafts of half-light coming through the kitchen windows.

I took two rapid steps forward and switched on all the lights to the hall, then turned and started. Because I spotted it immediately.

The cellar door was half an inch ajar. I’d definitely locked it, no question, and I’d also been the last person in there. Which meant one of two things, neither very good. Either he’d escaped, or …

I stepped forward, and pushed the door wider. It was silent, and the air smelt fetid, as it always did. Krys Holtz had been incarcerated in there for three days. He stank, no question. I put a foot on the cellar steps, took a quick look round to check there was no one behind me, and switched on the light.

I could see Krys’s feet. So he was still there. I moved down the steps, one at a time, trying to make as little noise as possible …

And froze.

Krys lay back in his seat, still bound and gagged, still wearing the clothes I’d left him in, but very very dead. His throat had been sliced through deeply. The head was hanging back in the seat at such a precarious angle that only the fact that it was leaning against the wall prevented it from toppling off altogether. Blood had turned the front of his shirt a deep crimson and it had run down onto the tops of his legs. The blindfold had been removed, too, and his eyes were wide and terrified. The killer, then, had given him advance warning of what he’d intended.

I moved closer to the body and touched the forehead. Still warm. The flow of blood had stopped and it was coagulating rapidly round the throat region, so it was unlikely he’d been killed in the last few minutes, but it hadn’t been hours ago either.

I hurried back up the steps, switched the light off, listened for a few moments to check that no one was waiting at the top for me, and then stepped out. I walked back into the hallway, then round to the front door. It was locked. I doubled back and checked the back door of the house, which led into the utility room. Also locked. I went back through the hallway and into the kitchen, holding the Glock tightly, and went to check on the kitchen door, the last means of entry into the house.

It was unlocked. I couldn’t remember if I’d checked it earlier or not, but thought I had. I’d been security conscious these past few nights, even more so since we’d taken ownership of all that money, but so much had happened that I couldn’t recall anything for sure.

I stopped for a moment and thought about it. Who knew we were here? Who wanted Krys Holtz dead? Who would have bothered to remove his blindfold before he killed him? Only someone who had a personal reason for wanting him dead. Kalinski. It had to be Kalinski. I was going to have to wake the others. I turned round.

A shadow suddenly filled the doorway. I started, then brought up the gun instinctively, finger tensing on the trigger.

‘What the fuck’s going on?’

It was Tugger. I felt myself relaxing. ‘Something very fucking bad,’ I said, approaching him.

Tugger retreated, and I saw that he too was holding a gun by his side, though where he’d got it from I didn’t have a clue. He lifted it so it was pointing in my direction. ‘Hold on, stop there. What are you talking about?’

I stopped. ‘I think Kalinski’s snuffed Krys. I heard some movement down here; it woke me up. I came down, saw that the cellar door was open, and went to take a look.’

Tugger didn’t move. ‘Where were you going just now?’

‘I was checking the doors to see whether they were locked.’

‘And are they?’

‘That one isn’t,’ I said, motioning towards the kitchen door. ‘Look, you can put the gun down now, Tugger. I’m not the one who’s offed Krys.’

‘You put yours down, then.’

I did. ‘Look, Tug, how long have we known each other? A long time, right? I’m telling you the truth. If you don’t believe me, take a look. Krys is dead and there’s no way I’d want to kill him.’

He stepped over to the cellar door, and peered down, switching on the light as he did so. He watched me carefully out of the corner of his eye as he put his foot on the first step. It was funny what a lot of money did to people’s personalities.

‘I’m going to check on Kalinski,’ I said. ‘See if he’s done a runner.’

At that moment, the sound of a car starting came from out front. Tugger jumped back through the cellar door. ‘What the fuck?’

‘Go see who it is,’ I snapped. ‘I’ll see if Kalinski’s gone.’

Once again, he gave me a suspicious look, then turned and hurried out to the kitchen door. I ran up the stairs, wondering why Johnny hadn’t surfaced by now, and tried Kalinski’s door. It opened immediately and I knew he’d gone, an assumption that lasted as long as it took me to reach for the light switch and flick it on.

Kalinski lay on his back under the covers of his bed, his eyes open and staring at the beamed ceiling. The pale sheets covering him were stained with blood around the chest area, and he didn’t seem to have made any attempt at a struggle. I stepped forward and pulled them back. Three deep knife wounds an inch to the right of his left nipple suggested that death had been instantaneous, the result of stab wounds to the heart. Whoever had killed him had known what he was doing. But then, I already knew that, because he’d left two people dead with hardly a sound. My bedroom was right next door to Kalinski’s, and I’d been lying no more than ten feet away from him while the knife was going in. And I hadn’t heard a fucking thing. My luck was still holding, but only just. Whoever was trying to kill me — to kill us all — was getting closer and closer.

I thought I heard a shout from outside and it was at that point that I made a decision: something had gone badly wrong and I needed to get out of there with the money, and fast. I flung the sheets back over Kalinski, turned and ran back to my own room, knocking on Johnny’s door as I passed but not bothering to wait around for an answer. I wondered whether the Holtzes had the place surrounded and who among us was the one feeding information to the other side.

I pulled on some shoes, grabbed the holdall from under the bed, and went back out onto the landing. Johnny wasn’t responding. I knocked again, then opened the door. Even in the gloom, I could see that the bed was empty. What the fuck did that mean? Was Johnny the traitor? All kinds of thoughts were flying through my mind, clouding an issue that was already as murky as a peat bog. But there was no time to stand around and analyse, so I ran down the stairs and pulled open the front door.

The van we’d used for the ransom pick-up was about ten yards away in the middle of the driveway. It was in the exact spot where Kalinski had parked it earlier but the lights were on and the engine was idling. I stepped outside and looked for Tugger, but he was nowhere to be seen. The thick walls of trees on both sides of the driveway were silent and empty, but who knew what or who was behind them.

Clutching the gun in one hand and the holdall in the other, I jogged up to the driver’s side of the van, keeping my head down and turning round every so often, just to check I wasn’t being followed, and pulled open the door.

Johnny Hexham’s body tipped out unceremoniously and I had to jump out of the way to avoid being knocked over.

‘For Jesus’s sake …’

Johnny stared blankly up at me, glassy-eyed and dead, his throat, like Krys’s, cut from ear to ear. But this time the wound was fresh and bubbling, the blood still dripping down onto his shirt. Blood dribbled out of the sides of his mouth like something out of a horror film. For a moment I couldn’t move, so stunned was I by the turn of events. I’d been set up, and set up beautifully, and I still didn’t have a clue why, or by who. Johnny lay dead in front of me, probably murdered only a couple of minutes ago, if that, and his killer was almost certainly still in the vicinity. And where the fuck was Tugger? Had he taken out Krys and been coming after me when I’d turned round and spotted him? But there’d been no blood on his clothes. Still, that didn’t mean anything. He could have changed. Could have stood out of the way of the blood’s trajectory as it spurted from the wound. And what had he been doing creeping around down there?

I chucked the holdall across the driver’s side and onto the passenger seat of the van, then went to jump in.

Which was when I saw the front tyre. A deep slash ran all the way down it. I looked at the back tyre. The same. Set up perfectly, absolutely perfectly. I’d never been in a situation like this, one where I was so alone, so utterly out-thought, facing an enemy I couldn’t see, let alone identify, and who seemed to know every step I’d take before I’d even taken it. At that moment in time I was the most frightened I’d ever been in my life, and the most certain that this was a situation I wasn’t going to get out of alive.

I stopped for a few moments to compose myself, to calm down so I could take stock of the situation. But Johnny’s dead eyes continued to stare up at me like something out of some murderous, madness-inducing dream and I was forced to use every ounce of self-discipline to stop myself from falling into a blind panic.

Then I heard movement over by the side of the house. Turning round, trigger finger tensed, I saw Tugger coming back round. Shoot him, my instincts screamed. Shoot the bastard now! Except he was staggering drunkenly, not seeming to focus on anything. He stumbled, then fell to his knees, eyes making contact with mine, surprise in them, blood dribbling down his chin.

Instinctively, I started to run towards him, and that was when I saw the knife sticking straight out of his back, only an inch of blade still visible, and there was something in his eyes, and his mouth was opening in a desperate effort to speak. It looked like he was trying to warn me of something.

And then I heard footsteps coming round fast from behind the van, and the next thing I knew something smashed hard into my face, knocking me completely off balance. I felt the gun drop from my hand and I fell to my knees, my vision blurring into watery colours. Someone was standing above me and whoever it was had what looked like a sharpened spade in his hand. He hit me again, this time in the side of the head, and I felt my face smack against the concrete drive.

I was still conscious but couldn’t seem to move. Vaguely, I heard my assailant walk over and pick up my gun, and I knew that this was it. The end. Strangely the blows seemed to have knocked all the fear out of me as well. My head ached ferociously and I was still having difficulty focusing, but slowly, I rolled over and lifted my head up, wanting to at least take a look at the man who was about to kill me.

‘How are you feeling, Max?’ asked a smiling Joe Riggs, the shovel in his hands.

Even in my dazed state, I felt the shock surge through me. ‘Joe,’ I managed to say, through split and bloody lips, ‘what the fuck are you doing?’

‘Getting payback, Max. Getting payback.’

I spat blood out of my mouth and managed to sit up. I still couldn’t believe that it was Joe who’d killed Krys and the others. ‘Why? What for? I thought you were dead. I kept your share. I was waiting here for you.’

‘I know you were,’ he said. ‘I was watching. In fact, I was back here before you were.’

My whole world seemed like it was as blurred as my vision. ‘Why?’ I managed to ask again.

Joe stared down at me grimly. There was no humanity in his eyes, just a quiet intensity. I’d already come round to the fact that I was going to die but couldn’t work out whether the bang on the head was causing me to see things or whether it really was true that my friend and business partner was going to be the one doing the killing. ‘Why these blokes? Because it’s business. They mean nothing to me. Not your friend, Hexham, who’s a fucking coward, not Kalinski, not even Tugger Lewis. He was an OK bloke but nothing special, and I remember once he fucked me over in a game of cards. Cheated, and took money off me that wasn’t his. I don’t forget things like that.’

‘But why me, Joe? What did I ever do to you?’

‘You killed my wife, Max. You killed my wife.’

‘What the fuck are you-?’ I never finished the question. I saw Joe raising the spade, the metal gleaming in the moonlight, and threw up my arms to protect my face as it came crashing down on my elbows, blade first, sending a searing pain up them. I fell backwards and lay there, curled up in a ball. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Joe,’ I said, my voice muffled by the fact that my arms were still pressed close to my face. ‘Honest, I don’t.’

‘Modern technology, Max. That’s your problem. You remember Dietrich Fenzer, the guy who got convicted? Well, he committed suicide six months ago, still protesting his innocence. Said he definitely saw and argued with Elsa that night but that he never killed her. Three weeks ago, I got a call from the German authorities, saying that they were reopening the case. Apparently they’d started to get their own doubts about it, and they looked again at DNA samples taken from Elsa’s body at the time, and after further investigation it turned out that they didn’t come from Fenzer at all.’ He stopped and struck me hard across the back, making me cry out in pain. ‘Too late for him, but it got me thinking back. Because you see, at the time, I knew she was having affairs with other men. It upset me, but I could tolerate it because I really fucking loved her. But I remember things she said, things that made me think that maybe one of the men she was having an affair with was you.’

‘Joe, I swear-’

The spade came down again, this time on my fingers. I heard several of them break but didn’t move them, knowing that to do so would invite a further blow to my exposed head. I clenched my teeth hard against the excruciating pain.

‘I always tried to push those thoughts out of my head because you were Max Iversson, my good mate, my fucking drinking buddy.’

‘I was. I am.’

‘Like fuck you are!’ he snarled, smacking me again on the broken fingers. I wailed with the pain, my eyes watering. I wondered how much more of this I could stand. ‘But then the copper who phoned me said they were looking again at the soldiers on the base at the time because they believed that several of them had been having affairs with her, and I got to thinking about how you’d been after the murder, and how jittery you were, and that maybe, just maybe, if they hadn’t arrested Fenzer so quick I would have probably ended up suspecting you, even though you were my friend. And then I also thought that if you’d seen her arguing with Fenzer then maybe you could have planted the weapon you used in his house-’

‘Please, Joe … please. I didn’t do it, I swear.’

I felt the edge of the spade cut deep into my thigh as Joe brought it down with all his strength. Instinctively, I grabbed at the wound with one of my battered hands, feeling the blood gurgle out, and Joe lifted the spade high above his head ready to strike. ‘Why don’t you just admit it, Max? Why don’t you just fucking admit it? I know you-’

The gunshot cracked across the still night air and suddenly Joe’s expression changed from rage to mild surprise. He stumbled, and the spade fell from his hands, clanking loudly on the concrete. A second shot rang out, and this time he fell forwards, narrowly missing me, and rolled over. Within a couple of seconds he’d stopped moving.

Slowly and painfully, I manoeuvred my body round so I could see who the shooter was. Tugger was holding the gun, a.38 by the looks of things, different to the one he’d been holding when he’d bumped into me in the hallway. He was still lying on the ground, having propped himself up on one elbow to deliver the shots, and he looked close to death. His eyes seemed glazed and the blood was still coming out of his mouth. The knife, too, remained firmly embedded in his back.

Somehow I managed to stagger to my feet, wincing as I used my broken fingers to lift myself up. I limped over to Tugger, still holding my bleeding leg, but he was fading fast.

He rolled onto his side and coughed violently. A thick load of gluey blood and phlegm emerged, winding its way slowly towards the ground. I sat down in front of him, trying to think what I could do to save his life, but knowing it was a lost cause. His eyes tried to focus on me but they couldn’t. Finally, he spoke, slowly but emphatically, the effort looking like it might prove too much for him at any time.

‘I don’t cheat at cards,’ was all he said. Then he rolled onto his back and died.

For a long time I watched him, my mind so torn up by what had happened that I found it impossible to think straight and to come to terms with events. Eventually I forced myself to my feet and staggered towards the van, knowing that I had to get that flight to Bermuda if it was the last thing I ever did.

I had difficulty turning the key to let myself into her apartment, but managed it on the third go. It was five past seven in the morning and I looked a mess, probably the worst I’d ever looked. My eyes had been blackened, my lips were split, and I had a long, deep cut across my forehead. Three fingers were broken and the wound in my thigh looked like it might be getting infected. It had been a bastard of a journey to get here, but I’d made it.

The apartment was dark. I didn’t call her name, figuring that she was probably asleep. I needed sleep too, more than I’d ever needed it. I was going to have to get myself cleaned up before she saw me, otherwise the poor woman would get the shock of her life, but it was going to have to wait.

I walked down the hall to the bedroom and slowly opened the door. It was dark in there and the curtains were drawn, but I could make out her figure under the sheets. It was the most welcoming sight I thought I’d ever seen. I put the holdall on the floor and removed my jacket and shirt, chucking them down too. When I was naked, I checked my wounds again, and saw that my thigh was still oozing blood. I was going to have to bandage it before getting in beside her.

‘Max? Is that you?’ Elaine sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes. ‘What are you doing here? I thought you were coming back later.’

‘Nothing. Don’t worry. I’m coming to bed in a moment.’

She switched on the bedroom light and gasped. ‘What the fuck’s happened to you? Have you been attacked?’

I think I might have managed a grim smile. ‘You could say that. Look, don’t worry about it. I’m OK, I promise.’

‘Christ, come here.’ She stepped out of bed, dressed only in a baby doll nightie, and for a moment I felt my troubles fading. It’s amazing what female flesh can do for a man. We embraced, and I kissed her on the mouth, ignoring the pain in my lips. ‘It’s good to have you back,’ she whispered, looking up at me, her fingers stroking my inner thigh. In spite of everything that had happened, I began to get a hard on. ‘Did you get the money OK?’

I smiled as her fingers drifted across to my balls, and motioned towards the holdall. ‘Yeah, I got the money. And I think I’ve earned it.’

Gallan

I yawned. It was early, far too early for a Sunday, but it was all about surprise. Confront your quarry when they least expect it. However, quarter past seven on a Sunday morning could almost be construed as harassment. I was sure a clever lawyer would see it that way, but I’d worry about that later. I didn’t want to waste any time. With all the absentees on the Matthews case, it was good to get the chance to speak to someone who was still actually around.

I crossed the road and walked up to the entrance of the apartment building. An attractive middle-aged lady in jogging gear was coming out. I smiled at her, and she automatically kept the door open for me to walk through. Very careless, particularly in a city like London. I could have been anyone. I didn’t complain, though, since it made my job easier. Just smiled and thanked her, and she smiled back.

When I was inside, I started up the stairs.

Iversson

She pulled me towards her, kissing me hard, her tongue slithering and tumbling into my mouth like a three-legged lizard. ‘We’re rich, baby. Rich beyond our wildest fucking dreams.’ She laughed out loud, stroking my cock while I let loose with the old moans of pleasure, beginning to forget all my various aches and pains. Bending down in front of me, she brushed her lips across my nipple, gently nibbling it, before sinking slowly down to her knees in a way that was guaranteed to bring forth a bout of premature ejaculation. I let out a thin gasp like a hamster’s squeak as she slowly swallowed me up, all the time gazing up at me with those big brown bedroom eyes.

I smiled down at her, then let my eyes drift around the room as I tried to stop myself from coming, eager to prolong things as long as possible. My battered face stared back at me from the mirror on the opposite wall, grinning stupidly. I focused on it for a moment as Elaine’s tongue created sensations I could hardly stand.

And then, as I was beginning to turn away, I saw it. A wicked-looking silencer coming into view. Pointing straight towards the back of my head. I heard the creak of a floorboard behind me and knew immediately that I was one second away from death.

In one single movement I threw myself against the wall, ignoring the pain as Elaine bit me in the shock of my sudden withdrawal, and lashed out with my arm, knocking the gun flying. Its owner, a stocky bloke in a baseball cap, looked momentarily shocked. I took my chance and jumped forward, grabbing him as best I could and headbutting him on the bridge of his nose. The cut on my forehead immediately reopened but the gunman had been hurt. He took a step backwards but quickly recovered himself, delivering a sudden flurry of rabbit punches to my kidneys as he struggled to break my grip.

Every part of my body seemed to be burning with pain, and blood from the head wound was dripping down my forehead and into my eyes. But I knew I couldn’t give up. I had to protect us.

Summoning all my strength, I headbutted the gunman again and wrestled him through the bedroom door and out into the hallway, banging him hard against the opposite wall. His cap fell off, revealing a hairless head beneath, and for some reason this seemed to give him a renewed burst of strength, like Samson in reverse. He cursed and managed to push me away, before trying but failing to deliver a punch to my bollocks. I gasped as he got a better shot to my ribs, and took a step back as if hurt, before charging forward, head bowed like a bull, and delivering another ferocious headbutt right to the chin. Something cracked in there and the gunman made a sound half like a cough, half like a scream. Realizing my head was my best weapon, I shoved him back against the wall, then swung round so my back was facing him and delivered a skull-jarring reverse butt. His resistance simply evaporated and he slid down the wall, unconscious.

My head was spinning and my eyes stinging with blood, so much so that I could hardly see. Regaining my balance, I wiped at my face with my forearm, clearing the worst of the obstruction, and tried to focus again.

Which was the moment when the silencer hissed and a searing pain that eclipsed anything I’d yet felt surged through my shoulder, the force of it sending me reeling into the wall.

Gallan

I was just about to knock on the door when I heard a loud commotion from inside and the sound of shouting. I put my head against the wood and listened. It sounded like a fight between two men, and I wondered for a moment if I’d got the wrong place. One of the men howled in pain, and there was a crash as if they’d both just charged into a wall. They were big blokes, I could tell that from the force of the impact, and I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and that it was best just to call for reinforcement.

Then there was a pause in proceedings for a couple of seconds, followed by a faint popping sound, then a cry of pain and a dull thud.

I’d seen enough Hollywood films to know immediately that it was a gunshot from a silencer, and the damage it had done was obvious, even if I couldn’t see it. I stepped back from the door and dialled the station on my mobile. The controller answered after four rings. I gave my location and called for back-up.

‘I need firearms units as well as an ambulance,’ I hissed into the phone. ‘Someone in there is definitely armed, and it’s the address of a person we need to question with reference to a murder, although I must emphasize that at the moment the person is not, I repeat not, a suspect.’

I switched off the mobile and went back to the door and listened. There were voices coming from inside, one sounding in pain, the other dominant, firm. Ruthless. I knew I should wait for reinforcements. All my training told me there was no point confronting armed suspects in an enclosed space when unarmed, particularly when it was obvious that the suspect had just shot someone. All my instincts agreed. It was a united stand. But at the same time I also knew I couldn’t stand there and do nothing while someone was murdered, and from the tone of the conversation in there it sounded like that was exactly what was about to happen. Sometimes, like it or not, you simply have to stick your neck out. The alternative is the eternal knowledge that you could have done something to save a life but chose not to.

I pulled a credit card out of my pocket and, using the method a convicted burglar had once taught me, went to unlock the door.

Iversson

I was sitting back against the wall, shaking as my body went into shock. To my left lay the unconscious gunman. In front of me stood the woman I was in love with, half naked, very beautiful, and pointing a long-barrelled Browning at me, the end of the silencer only a few feet from my face. After everything else, it was a sight my mind really couldn’t fathom. It felt like I’d finally cracked and this was the beginning of my short and probably one-way route to the loony-bin.

‘Elaine,’ I managed to say through teeth that were chattering manically. ‘What are you doing?’

She managed a sympathetic smile. ‘I’m sorry, Max, I really am. If it’s any consolation, it’s just business. Nothing else. You’re actually not a bad bloke, even if Joe Riggs does say you murdered his missus a few years back; you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now, I didn’t want to do this — that was his job.’ She motioned towards the unconscious gunman. ‘In fact, it was Joe’s job, but the thing is, you don’t seem to want to die. And now it’s left to little old me to do the dirty deed. You know something, Max, I’ve never shot anyone before, and I’ve never really wanted to either, particularly someone who was such a good lay, and in my fucking flat as well, but you know what they say, never let emotions stop you from doing your job.’

Still I couldn’t get a grip on what was going on. I heard her words, delivered in a slightly weary matter-of-fact tone, saw her standing there pointing a gun at me, but none of it seemed to register. It seemed like maybe I’d fallen asleep, and that any second now I’d wake up in her arms with her stroking my head, telling me it was OK, it was just a bad dream, like my mum used to do when I was a kid.

‘Elaine,’ I whispered. ‘I love you.’ And I know it sounds stupid, but I really meant it.

‘I know you do, darling,’ she said, her finger tensing on the trigger. ‘I know you do.’

Gallan

The door lock clicked, and slowly, ever so slowly, I pushed it open.

Peeking my head round, I saw a naked man in the hallway about three yards away, bruised and bleeding, and apparently suffering from a bullet wound to the shoulder. He looked a mess, and he was shaking badly. Next to him lay another man in casual clothes, not moving, his head turned away. The naked man was staring into a room right in front of him, from which emerged a slender hand and forearm holding a long gun with a silencer attached, aimed at the naked man’s head. I couldn’t see the actual person holding the gun but I was pretty confident it was Elaine Toms, company secretary of Dagmar Holdings, who owned the flat in which I was now standing.

The naked man whispered something I couldn’t quite make out but which sounded a lot like ‘Elaine, I love you’, and his face suggested he meant what he was saying, which was a bit unfortunate. And I thought I had problems with my love life.

I took a step forward, then another one.

‘I know you do, darling,’ said Elaine Toms in her slightly grating north London accent. ‘I know you do.’

Her finger was tensing on the trigger, I could see it. I took another step forward, frantically calculating what I could possibly do to prevent her from killing him. The naked man’s eyes were widening and his mouth was opening, though no words were coming out. He knows, I thought. He knows he’s about to die.

‘Armed police!’ I yelled suddenly. ‘Drop your weapon and come out with your hands up. You’re surrounded. I repeat, you are surrounded!’ My voice was loud and authoritative, probably the most it had ever been. I hoped Elaine Toms didn’t recognize it from our earlier meeting.

It seemed she didn’t.

‘Get back!’ she called out, still not showing herself and making no effort to drop the weapon. ‘Get back or I’ll shoot him! Don’t think I’m bullshitting either. If you don’t get out of this flat now I’m going to kill him. Do you understand? And you’ll be the one who’s fucking responsible.’

The naked man, his face covered in blood, turned his head and looked at me quizzically, presumably wondering where my gun was.

‘Drop your weapon, Miss Toms,’ I demanded, desperately trying to keep the fear out of my voice. ‘You are in enough trouble as it is without adding murder to your crimes. If you drop your weapon, then this will end peacefully. If you don’t, then you risk being shot.’

‘Retreat now or I kill him. I mean it!’

‘Don’t do it, Miss Toms. You are surrounded. It won’t do any good.’

And then my heart sank as, still pointing the gun at the naked man’s head, she stepped out of the room and into the hallway.

For a second she looked confused, then the confusion turned to annoyance. Slowly, the barrel of the gun moved round so it was facing me.

There is no feeling in the world more hopeless, more desperate, more frightening, than when you are standing looking at the end of a gun that’s held steadily and calmly by someone you know is going to kill you. And impotent, too. It’s an impotent feeling realizing that nothing you do or say, no pleading, no begging, nothing, is going to change the dead angle of that weapon, or prevent the bullet from leaving it and entering your body, ripping up your insides, and ending every experience, every thought, every dream you’ve ever had. You think about people you care about, places you’ve been to that you liked, and you know you’re never going to see any of them again. Your guts churn, the nerves in your lower back jangle so wildly that you think you’re going to soil yourself, your legs feel like they’re going to go from under you like those newborn calves you sometimes see on the telly. And your eyes. You know that your eyes betray your sense of complete and utter defeat.

You are a dead man, and you know it.

And then two things happened.

First, Jack Merriweather sat up, rubbing his head and uttering the immortal words, ‘What the fuck’s going on?’

Second, the naked man kicked out with his right leg and struck Elaine Toms in the calf of her left one, knocking her off balance. She slipped, then fell forward, and the gun went off, the bullet ricocheting off the carpet before flying harmlessly into the ceiling. She landed on her front, gun arm outstretched, but still holding it. As she tried to right herself, I took my chance, running forward and stamping as hard as I could on her wrist. She yelped in pain, but didn’t release the gun, so I stamped again, and this time she did. I pulled it up by the barrel, stepped back, resisting the urge to kick her in the face for scaring me senseless, and turned the gun round. Toms massaged her wrist, wailing in pain and accusing me of breaking it, while Merriweather continued to rub at his head and face, smearing the blood over it, still unsure, it seemed, about what was happening. The naked man simply sat where he was, shivering and silent.

‘All right,’ I said, holding the weapon gingerly, and praying that no one chose this moment to make a break for it, ‘everyone stay where they are.’

‘I need a cloth for my face,’ said the naked man, and slowly got to his feet. ‘Please.’

He stood where he was for a moment, wiping the blood from his eyes. Something about him looked familiar. Very familiar, though the beard made it difficult to tell for sure.

In the distance, I could hear the sirens. ‘Just stay where you are for a moment, sir.’

‘Please, I need water.’ He stumbled forward into the room from which Elaine Toms had just emerged. At the same time, she started edging along the floor in my direction, eyes watching me like a hawk in search of a weakness.

I pointed the gun directly at her head. ‘Do not move,’ I told her.

‘The man with no clothes’, she said, motioning over her shoulder, ‘is Max Iversson. He’s wanted for murder.’

Iversson. Shit!

I heard a window opening in the other room, and the sound of someone clambering out. A second later, a noise like a crash came from outside. I stayed put, hoping he wouldn’t get far without any clothes, knowing that I had to make sure Toms didn’t escape. I cursed myself for not clocking Iversson immediately. It’s amazing what some blood and the Grizzly Adams look’ll do to a person’s face.

Toms looked like she was going to make a break for it. ‘You’re letting him get away,’ she said mockingly.

I smiled at her, holding the gun steady. ‘Then I’d better make sure I don’t make the same mistake with you.’

She gave me a very unladylike sneer but didn’t make any move. At the same time, the sirens seemed to close in from all sides, cars screeching to a halt in front of the building. There was a loud bang as the front door to the building was forced, followed by the sound of heavy footfalls on the stairs.

The cavalry had arrived.