Richard wasn’t sure he did. But he nodded, because that’s what his intruder wanted from him.

  ‘I bumped into a friend of yours. In fact, I served him in a shop. And that’s when all the random fragments of memory sort of… jiggled into place.’

  Colin lazily dragged the blade of the kitchen knife across the bedsheet. It sliced through the silk with ease. ‘This is very sharp, Richard. It’s a quality knife you’ve got yourself here.’

  ‘Jesus… please…’

  ‘You have a very nice kitchen. A very nice home… and a very nice job. You’ve done well, haven’t you? How did you manage that… or was it all down to Daddy?’

  Richard shook his head. ‘H-hard work. Lots of hard work… Discipline. Ambition.’

  ‘Ambition?’ Colin repeated. ‘Yes. I had ambitions… once upon a time. Back then I wrote poetry – lyrics, actually. I suppose I wanted to form a band. Or join one. Become someone famous, see my face on the front of Melody Maker, NME. You know? I was a bit of a pretty boy. That was the big thing in those days, wasn’t it? Image.’

  Richard felt the smallest glimmer of hope. Maybe music would provide a much-needed common ground on which to build a dialogue. ‘Right, yeah,’ he said. ‘It was. I mean, remember Duran Duran… Depeche Mode…’

  Colin tutted. ‘Awful bloody music. I was into the Cure, the Cult. Decent music, Richard. Not plastic pop.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Richard conceded. ‘Back then… I… I was into acid house.’

  Colin nodded. ‘Oh yeah, some of it was bearable, I suppose. But not the shit you were playing that day. Do you remember, Richard?’

  He did. ‘Mate…’ he tried. ‘I was just playing the crap the others wanted to hear.’

  ‘Mate?’ Colin laughed. ‘I fucking hate that word. You could at least use my name.’

  Richard’s mind was a blank. He knew it wasn’t Alan Smithee.

  ‘Oh, that’s right, you didn’t bother to ask, did you? Well, it was Alistair… at the time you attacked me. It’s Colin now, though.’ He leant forward. ‘So, no more of this “mate” crap. All right? We’re not mates.’

  Richard nodded.

  ‘And in the time we have left together… we’re not going to become mates, either.’

  ‘Wh-what are you going to do with me?’

  ‘Oh, that question again.’ Colin sighed. ‘Well, it’s the same answer as last time, Richard… I’m deciding.’

  55

  Boyd rang Okeke’s phone. It was Minter who answered after the first ring.

  ‘Boss?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘We’re on our way back to Hastings. You managed to pick up Colin Holmes yet?’ he asked.

  ‘No. We’re at his place now,’ Boyd explained. ‘But he’s gone. Look, have you got Ledger’s phone number on you?’

  ‘Just a sec, boss… Lemme check my call history.’ He read out the number. Then: ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I think I fucked up,’ replied Boyd. ‘I think Colin Holmes may have already gone after Ledger.’

  ‘Shit. Get the local nick to do a welfare check,’ Minter suggested.

  ‘I have. But I’m going to try and get hold of him myself, now,’ Boyd said.

  ‘Then tell him to get out of his house,’ Minter said.

  Boyd sighed. ‘Yes, that’s the plan.’ He hung up and immediately dialled Richard Ledger’s number.

  Richard’s phone buzzed on the side table.

  ‘Now, I wonder who that is? Could it be… the police?’ Colin said.

  From where he was, Richard could see ‘Unknown Caller ID’. It wasn’t his lawyer and it wasn’t work. He suspected – hoped – that Colin was right. ‘It’s probably a client,’ he said.

  ‘Let it go,’ said Colin. ‘We’re busy.’

  The phone continued to buzz until it finally stopped and presumably flipped to voicemail. The room was silent once more.

  ‘So…’ Richard broke the silence. ‘What now?’ If, as Colin had said, he was genuinely undecided, there was surely room for persuasion, for a case to be made.

  ‘Colin, mate…’

  Colin raised a cautionary brow.

  ‘Sorry. Colin… this d-doesn’t have to end… with…’ Richard paused.

  ‘Me killing you?’ Colin suggested.

  ‘Look, Colin… I’m no legal expert, but I know that what was done to you, what we did to you, will be taken into account.’

  ‘The pain, trauma, the physical damage and the severe psychological scarring, you mean?’

  Richard nodded.

  ‘I very much doubt it,’ Colin said calmly. ‘I didn’t kill the other three in the heat of the moment. I tracked them down over a number of years. You could say I hunted them down. Then, of course, I interrogated and tortured them before I murdered them.’ Colin smiled. ‘I don’t think teenage trauma would wash as a defence, do you?’

  ‘I… I could be a witness… in your defence…’

  ‘Really? And what would you say on my behalf, Richard?’

  ‘I could describe how brutal the attack was. What horrific things they did to you…’

  Colin waggled the knife at him. ‘What you all did to me.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything!’ Richard pleaded. ‘I didn’t hold you down. I didn’t –’

  ‘Shove a pinecone up my arsehole? Kick and punch my head until I stopped screaming? Smash my head in with a rock and leave me for dead?’

  Richard shook his head. ‘I was screaming at them to stop… You must remember that?’

  ‘Do you know how life has been for me since that day?’ Colin asked him. ‘I can’t eat properly. I have piercing migraines nearly every day. I have nightmares. Oh, yes, they come at me every fucking night. Every time I look in the mirror, I see what a bloody mess you made of me…’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Richard whispered.

  ‘Oh no. Don’t you dare tell me you’re sorry. Not if you don’t want me to stick this in your throat right now!’

  Richard raised his hands. ‘Okay. Okay… Okay.’

  ‘And to answer your question, no,’ said Colin. ‘It might not have been you holding me down… but I don’t remember you screaming at them to stop. I remember you all egging each other on.’

  ‘What? I was trying to rein them in!’

  ‘When I asked them if it was your idea, they all nodded.’

  ‘Of course they fucking did! They were probably fucking terrified!’

  Colin cocked his head thoughtfully. ‘Yes, they were.’ He smiled. ‘Mark – I think it was Mark – actually shit himself in the chair he was sitting in.’ He sighed. ‘You know, all three of your friends were drunk when I snatched them. Alcohol, I think, lays bare who we really are, strips away the programmed personality. It unpeels the nurture, leaving only the nature, don’t you think? Andy tried fighting back; he threw a few wild punches. But Mark and Robin took one look at the knife I was holding and they couldn’t have been more helpful.’

  Colin got up from the end of the bed, ambled towards the floor-to-ceiling window and parted a couple of slats to peer out at the leafy suburban cul-de-sac. ‘But once I had them hog-tied… once they’d all sobered up a little… they all had the same little expressions on their faces.’ Colin turned to look at him. His eyes rounded, swivelling manically, his mouth wide open. He chuckled. ‘Like three little piggies.’

  Richard’s phone buzzed again on the side table.

  56

  Boyd hung up as the call flipped across to voicemail again.

  O’Neal glanced his way. ‘No answer?’

  ‘Christ. Eyes on the road,’ said Boyd. They were on blues-and-twos now, speeding westwards along the M25 towards Richmond, the traffic pulling over to make a run-through for them.

  There was no point leaving a message. If Colin Holmes was there with him, it was too late to give Ledger any warning. The message itself, if Colin heard it, might only exacerbate things. He wondered now if it had been a smart move to send the local police around for that welfare check. The knocking at Ledger’s front door might do the same thing.

  He was also concerned that he’d not given the local police enough detail. If they’d sent over a couple of newbie coppers expecting nothing more than an irritated man in a bathrobe to open the front door… they could be in for a shock.

  Shit.

  He glanced at the satnav on the dash, according to the screen they were still half an hour away. He dialled control again. The operator started to speak, but Boyd cut straight over her.

  ‘This is DCI Boyd, East Sussex CID. I called five minutes ago for a welfare check on a house in Carlton Mews, Richmond.’

  ‘Just a second…’

  He heard a muted exchange between operators, then the voice came back to him. ‘Yes, we’ve dispatched a patrol car. They should be there soon.’

  He needed to elevate this and fast. ‘It’s a potential hostage situation,’ he told the operator. ‘The suspect is Colin Holmes, almost certainly armed and extremely dangerous. You need to stand that patrol car down.’

  ‘Okay. Are you requesting an ARU?’ came the calm reply.

  ‘Yes. Absolutely,’ said Boyd.

  Colin sat back down on the bed. ‘I’ve got a nasty feeling the police are coming for me,’ he said.

  Richard felt both a glimmer of hope and a dawning realisation that the arrival of flickering blue lights outside might tip Colin over the edge.

  Reason with him. Dammit.

  ‘Look… Colin… that may well be. But y-you’ve got a chance here to… maybe leverage the situation.’

  Colin rolled his eyes as though that was the dumbest thing he’d heard in his life. ‘I’m not interested in leveraging anything,’ he said. ‘If they’re coming, then they already know I’ve murdered three people and they know you’re next on my list. To be honest with you, Richard, I don’t really care whether my sentence will be reduced by going quietly.’ He sighed. ‘I’m not even sure I give much of a shit whether I’m alive at the end of the day.’ He looked at Richard. ‘It’s not been a particularly wonderful life thus far.’

  ‘You’ll get help now,’ Richard replied. ‘Support.’

  ‘Well, wonderful as that is to hear… I’m not really after help.’ Colin studied the long glinting blade in his hand. ‘I can’t tell you how many times I’ve considered ending things over the last thirty years…’ He pushed his shirt sleeve up to reveal a ridged pattern of scars, both old and more recent, along his wrist and forearm.

  ‘Jesus…’

  ‘Oh, stop it. As if you care. Do you know what’s kept me going though?’ He smiled down at the knife as he played with the blade in his hands. ‘You, Richard. You and your little friends. Truth be told, Richard, tracking the four of you down has given me a reason to get out of bed in the morning.’ He grinned. ‘It’s been like a game, these last twelve years. A bit of honest-to-God fun… watching you all from afar, planning, preparing.’

  He looked up.

  Richard could see blood dripping down his fingers.

  ‘Have you ever watched The Jackal?’ Colin asked.

  Richard had once. The one with Bruce Willis. He nodded.

  ‘It’s been a little like that,’ Colin said. ‘Or it’s felt like it, at least.’

  ‘The killer… He fails in the end, though… doesn’t he, Colin?’ Richard said, regretting the words as soon as they’d left his mouth.

  But Colin just hunched his shoulders. ‘Yes. You’re quite right. He did. But… I suppose, that’s not really the point. It’s all about the journey… The heroic quest.’

  Again, a glimmer of hope.

  ‘Right. Right. Well, you found me, right? You managed to find all four of us.’

  Colin grinned. ‘Just like Pokémon. Gotta catch ’em all.’

  Richard forced a smile and laughed. ‘Right. Colin, look… I was interviewed by the police yesterday. I… I made a full confession to them – about what we did to you. I’ll… I’ll probably end up doing time for it.’

  ‘I’m not sure I really care that much about what happens to you.’

  ‘Well then, if you don’t care… Jesus… just let me go! Please!’

  Colin cocked his head, thoughtfully.

  Is he… considering it? Richard couldn’t help but think.

  A flicker of blue light danced through the blinds’ slats. Colin got up again to look out. ‘So… here they are at last…’ He nodded as half a dozen vans and patrol cars slewed to a halt outside. ‘God, it really is just like a movie, isn’t it? Come and see.’ He flicked the knife, beckoning Richard over to join him at the window.

  ‘Colin…’ whispered Richard, peering out at the scene below. ‘Come on. It’s over… Just put the knife down. Please?’

  Colin turned to stare at him. ‘Not quite yet.’ He waggled the blade from side to side in a silent eeny-meeny-miny-moe.

  ‘I think it’s about time for me to make my mind up.’

  O’Neal swung the pool car into the private estate. The gate was wide open, the leafy mews was packed with response vehicles: patrol cars, two police vans and a couple of ambulances – blue lights aplenty flickering unnecessarily in the mid-morning sun. He imagined, without the traffic, the uniformed coppers hurrying from house to house to clear the occupants and the paramedics busily preparing for casualties, it might have been a peaceful little oasis of calm amid the bustle of Richmond upon Thames.

  O’Neal found a space on the kerb and parked up.

  Boyd climbed out into the heat of the day, removed his jacket and tossed it back into the car. He was beginning to wonder now if he’d over-elevated the alert.

  ‘You two stay with the car,’ he said. O’Neal and Warren drooped with disappointment.

  He picked his way forward through the vehicles, towards what appeared to be the epicentre of everyone’s attention, a slate-coloured modernist cube of a building, wildly out of place, nestled among a crescent of mock-Tudor new builds. In front of it were two ARU vans parked at diagonals to provide cover for – he counted – twenty armed response officers who were currently checking their equipment.

  He spotted the command point and hurried over.

  ‘DCI Boyd, East Sussex CID,’ he announced, waggling the ID tag on the end of his lanyard.

  ‘I’m DSI Khan. You’re the one who called this in?’ replied the detective superintendent.

  Boyd nodded.

  ‘Can you give us a bit of detail?’ he asked. ‘Because all we have right now is “armed and dangerous” and –’ he nodded towards an upstairs window – ‘we’ve seen that for ourselves.’

  ‘You’ve seen them?’ Boyd repeated.

  Khan nodded. ‘Yes, and one of them is brandishing a knife. I’ve got a negotiator, Nigel Fuller – where is he?’ He looked around, spotted the negotiator and waved him over to join them.

  Boyd shook his hand and introduced himself. ‘Our hostage taker is Colin Holmes and it’s the owner of that house, Richard Ledger, who is on the wrong end of the knife,’ Boyd told him.

  ‘So what do you have on this Colin Holmes?’ asked Fuller, pulling out a notepad.

  57

  Colin surveyed the scene outside. So many vehicles, so many people. All of them here just for him. He smiled at the theatre and spectacle of it all. It was like a mini Nakatomi Plaza. But then what did that make him – John McClane or Hans Gruber?

  Perhaps McClane, he decided. The hero. Kind of. They’d both relieved the world of some nasty people, hadn’t they? Reduced the total sum of evil from the gene pool. But sadly, while the moral scales seemed to work just fine in the world of movies – the Avengers were allowed to wipe out thousands due to collateral damage in pursuit of justice – in the real world the same rules didn’t apply.

  He looked down at the bloodied blade in his hand.

  He wondered if the problem was in the optics. If Captain America had had a face like his and emerged from the carnage of a final showdown wearing a blood-smeared Primark shirt and brandishing a smeared kitchen knife in one hand, would he have still had that hero’s welcome?

  Richard’s phone buzzed in Colin’s other hand. He looked down at the screen.

  Unknown number.

  He peered out through the slats of the blind and spotted a cluster of police officers gathered around a patrol car. One of them had a phone to his ear. Colin answered the call. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Richard?’ a voice asked.

  ‘It’s Colin,’ he replied. ‘I’m afraid Richard can’t come to the phone right now.’

  ‘Okay, it’s nice to meet you, Colin. My name’s Nigel. I’m a –’

  ‘Negotiator. Yes, I’ve got that.’ Colin replied.

  ‘Good,’ Nigel said. ‘I’m going to start by asking you… how’s Richard?’

  Colin turned to look at the superking-sized bed and shrugged. ‘Well, he’s here.’

  ‘Good,’ Nigel said again. ‘That’s good. Could I speak to him?’

  ‘No. Not really.’ Colin sighed. ‘I thought the whole point of this… was to speak to me.’

  ‘It is, Colin. It is,’ Nigel assured him. ‘I need you to understand… it may look intimidating outside. But we’re not here to hurt you. We’re only here to help you.’

  ‘Help me?’ Colin laughed softly. ‘I’m beyond help, don’t you think? Besides, I’m pretty much done here.’

  ‘Done here? Can you tell me what you mean by that?’ Nigel asked.

  ‘I’ve done what I came here to do,’ Colin said. ‘It’s not rocket science.’

  ‘Have you hurt Richard?’ Nigel asked.

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Does he need medical assistance?’

  Colin looked back over his shoulder. ‘Not really.’ He could hear the voices of the other officers gathered nearby in the background. There were murmured exchanges.