51

I stepped into a spacious drawing room, a glossy grand piano in the far corner. The man I’d talked to at the pub sat on a couch, a notepad in his hand. The woman from the pub sat next to him, making notes in her own pad.

At the side of the room, two young men sat on dining chairs set against the wall. One of them was writing and the other consulting a sheaf of papers. They looked up at me in alarm.

I fired a shot into the ceiling. The man and woman from the pub turned to look at me. They gave each other a knowing look, and the woman raised her hands, rather impishly, like it was a game.

‘That’s enough,’ I said.

I pointed my gun at the young man.

‘Stop the broadcast,’ I ordered.

He smirked. ‘Do you see any microphones?’ he asked.

‘How’s your English?’ I asked him.

‘We are English,’ he said. He sounded exasperated. He looked at the woman as if it were her job to solve this little problem for him. Get things back on track.

I assumed the woman was in charge. Probably had a plan for this. Did they have poison capsules in their teeth, like they did in the flicks? I gave them a second. If they wanted to take the honourable way out, that would give me fewer people to kill. A win all round.

The woman looked up at the ceiling, where hurried footsteps echoed, in reaction to my gunshot. I’d have company soon. She looked at me as if to say ‘now look what you’ve done’.

I stood with my back against the wall. I could cover the people in the room and keep my eye on the door, but if someone was out in the corridor they wouldn’t see me until they entered the room.

‘Anyone in here says a word I’ll shoot them first,’ I said, in my command voice.

‘Bunny!’ the woman shouted.

Keeping my eyes on the door, I pointed my gun at the woman. I’d given the ultimatum and she’d broken it deliberately. Like a test. You let one person do that and you’ve lost control. Only one response possible.

It took a moment to sink in, above the pounding blood in my ears. My finger was on the trigger.

‘Bunny!’ she shouted again. Her voice wobbled. She was scared. She knew she was hanging by a thread.

Bunny.

Heavy footsteps on the stairs – we were about to have company. Along the corridor, following the bundle of wires, past the kitchen door, over the bunched-up rug.

The door opened. A man hurried in. He was in his sixties, wearing a rumpled suit that looked like he’d slept in it. He beamed when he saw me.

‘Cook!’ he said, holding out his hand to shake. I moved the gun from the woman to him. He didn’t seem to notice.

‘You took your bloody time,’ he said. ‘I told these chaps you’d be here days ago.’