Dead Time (9 page)
Authors: Tony Parsons
‘I know,’ Whitestone said.
She looked back at the vehicles with their bright markings, the blocks of blue and yellow of the ARVs and the green and yellow of the RRVs. Between them I could see the dull metallic sheen on Glocks and Heckler & Kochs, the medieval curve of the combat helmets, the faces drawn tight with adrenaline.
Whitestone was shouting something at them. The green laser sight on the black hunting rifle gun played across the reindeer on her sweater and settled there.
‘Put him down!’ she said.
Then I heard their voices.
‘I have the trigger!’ somebody said.
But there was no shot.
And I thought of the palaver that came with every discharged firearm. The automatic suspension and then every shot endlessly analysed, pored over, suspected. The prospect of jail and the dole queue. No wonder they were scared to shoot.
But this was not the reason for holding fire.
When I looked back at the balcony I saw that the man was no longer alone. A woman was with him. She was wearing some kind of headscarf, although from this distance I could not tell if it was faith or fashion.
He was calling her names. He was calling her all the names that kind of man always call women. Then he seemed to shove her back and pick up something from the ground. Holding it by the scruff of the neck. Shaking it.
A child. A toddler of two or less. From where we were kneeling with the dead officer I could see the chubby look that they all get at that age. The kid squirmed like a tortured animal as the man held it over the edge of the balcony.
Four floors up.
Nothing but concrete below.
The man was shouting something. The woman was weeping by his side and without looking at her he struck her in the face with the butt of the black hunting rifle. She stumbled backwards.
Then the child was suddenly falling.
The woman screamed.
‘Take the shot!’ someone shouted.
There was a single crack that sounded very close to the back of my head and immediately a spurt of blood came from a hole in the neck of the man on the balcony. He did not fall. He staggered backwards and smashed though the glass window behind the balcony, and as he disappeared from view I thought how fragile we all are, how very easy to break, how always so close to ruin.
And then I was running, my shoes slipping on grass slick with ice, the call for God’s help coming unbidden from my lips, holding out my arms for the falling child.
But the distance between us was too great, and there was never enough time, and the child was always falling.
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Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781473518803
Published by Cornerstone Digital, 2015
24681097531
Copyright © Tony Parsons, 2015
Tony Parsons has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Cornerstone Digital
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