Relentless (19 page)

he recovered himself and switched the gun to his other hand. I
could see a tear in his jacket where he'd been hit, but he seemed
to be holding up.
Suddenly the front door flew open, slamming against the
shoe rack in the porch. The hearth was empty, the only view
the rain pouring down out of the darkness onto the driveway.
Behind us, the smoke poured into the room, black and choking.
Daniels waited, gun outstretched in front of him, still keeping
the crouching pose.
A hand came round the door containing a fuel-filled milk
bottle with a burning rag pushed into it, and as Daniels pulled
the trigger for the fourth time, the bottle skidded and bounced
along the floor towards him. He leaped to his feet, fired a fifth
shot wildly in the direction of the door, and charged towards the
staircase.
'Get up the fucking stairs!' he roared, bumping into my back.
I pushed Kathy forward, and she scrambled up the staircase
on her hands and knees, Daniels and I bringing up the rear.
There was a second's pause, and as I turned my head away the
fuel ignited and the petrol bomb exploded, a sheet of flame
shooting across the wood floorboards and engulfing the sofa.
'Is there an upstairs window we can get out of?' yelled Daniels
above the noise of the fire.
'The master bedroom,' I shouted in return, falling over in my
haste to get away from the thick, cloying smoke. 'It faces on to
the back garden. You can get out onto the extension from there.'
'Head for there, then.'
As we reached the top of the stairs, Kathy turned right onto
the landing. The light was on up here and it felt unusually bright,
causing me to squint momentarily. She ran over to the door of
the master bedroom and flung it open. I was right behind her, so

when she ran inside and suddenly cried out, I was there in
seconds. Not that it did me any good.
In the darkness of the room, a masked man in black - possibly
the same one who'd thrown in the first petrol bomb - had Kathy
in a chokehold. In his free hand he held a sawn-off shotgun
which was shoved roughly against her cheek. Both of them were
facing me, and Kathy's expression was one of absolute terror.
As I came into the room, the gunman retreated slowly, barely
visible in the gloom, still keeping a firm grip on Kathy, who was
forced to retreat with him, her upper body bent back at an
uncomfortable angle. Behind the two of them I could see that
the bedroom window was open, and as I watched, a second man,
identically dressed, appeared on the roof of the single-storey
extension that stretched out from the old part of the house, just
below the bedroom, and from which the gunman had obviously
made his entry. This other man didn't appear to be armed, and
as he negotiated a path along the roof, he slipped on the wet
tiles and landed on his behind.
Daniels appeared behind me, and instinctively I moved aside.
I heard him curse, and he raised his gun.
'Don't do a fucking thing, Daniels,' said the gunman, and I
immediately recognized his voice. It was that bastard Mantani.
'Now, drop it or she dies.'
'Let her go, Mantani,' said Daniels calmly. But then he could
; afford to be calm. It wasn't his wife in this position. 'Let her go \tor I'll kill you. And you know I'd do it too.'
'Do as he says, Daniels, please. Don't let him hurt my wife.'
Mantani was still retreating with Kathy. He was only five feet from the window now. Behind him, the second masked man had Ifound his feet after his initial fall and was approaching the window slowly.

'If you don't interfere, we'll let you go,' Mantani told Daniels.
'Even though I owe you for what you did to me earlier. We just
want Meron and his missus. That's all.'
Daniels took a step forward, then another. Black, choking
smoke was beginning to billow into the room now, and the
crackle of flames downstairs was growing louder.
'Move another fucking inch and she dies.' Mantani pushed the
barrel harder against Kathy's cheek, his face contorting into a
snarl behind the mask. 'I'll kill her. I fucking will, you know.
Another fucking step and she dies.'
Daniels took another step.
'What the fuck are you doing, Daniels?' I screamed in a voice
far higher than I'd ever managed before. 'He'll kill her!'
'No, he won't. You won't, will you, Mantani? Because if you
do, I'll kill you, and I can tell you don't want to die.'
I took a step forward myself, the kitchen knife still in my
hand, wondering what the hell I was going to do next.
'Don't fucking risk it, Daniels. Please. She's my wife.'
'I'll fucking do her, Daniels. You know I will. She don't mean
shit to me.'
Outside, the second man had reached the window. He saw
Daniels' gun for the first time and immediately ducked out of
sight. Mantani stopped and leaned back against the windowsill.
Kathy remained silent. Her jaw was quivering, her eyes
racing round in fear. I'd never seen her scared before. Nervous,
worried, but never terrified like this. I felt helpless. This bastard
was going to murder my wife in front of my eyes. I was sure of it.
And Daniels was pushing him into it. The smoke in the room
was getting thicker, and I could hear footsteps coming up the
stairs. We were trapped. My legs felt weak. I thought of my kids.
I thought of the day Chloe, my first child, was born. The joy on

Kathy's face; the joy I knew was in mine. Holding her, together,
after the first weigh-in. A new family. And now it was all going
to end in a burning, smoke-filled cottage, with my wife's betrayal
still acrid on my breath, and all for a reason I would probably
never know.
'Last chance, Mantani. Put the gun down. Now.'
Daniels took another step forward. He was now only six feet
away from his former colleague. His voice was even, yet it
bristled with tension. Mantani leaned back, as if trying to put as
much distance between him and his adversary as possible. It was
a sign of weakness, but his grip on the shotgun remained firm.
'Fuck you, Daniels. Put yours down. You're fucking
surrounded.'
The shot deafened me, and I jumped up in the air reflexively.
Mantani's head snapped back, striking the window, and a fine
spray of blood covered the glass. The shotgun waved about wildly
and then discharged into the ceiling with an even louder bang. His
t ody went limp and he toppled to one side as Kathy pulled away
from his grip and ran into Daniels' arms. The man outside the
window jumped up. He had a gun in his hand, but instead of firing
it, he ran away along the roof, slipped again, and disappeared
;.from view. Daniels pushed Kathy away and fired a parting shot
at him. I assume it missed because I thought I heard him ripping
isflje drainpipe from the wall as he jumped from the roof. 'Get out of here now!' shouted Daniels, turning in my
direction.
p. I ran towards the window, needing no second invitation.
Neither did Kathy, who was already halfway through it.
v 'There's someone coming up the stairs,' I told Daniels as I assed him, choking on the smoke that was now filling the room.

Ad that moment, another black-clad figure loomed in the

doorway, a pump-action shotgun in his hands. But this man was
different to the others. He was bigger. Much, much bigger, and
even surrounded by the thick black smoke he oozed a dark, easy
calm, oblivious to the drama going on around him and the death
of one of his men. I knew instantly that this was the man they called Lench, and that if he got hold of us we truly had no chance.
Daniels knocked me to one side and pulled the trigger,
grabbing Mantani's corpse. Lench returned fire once, the force of
the shotgun blast blowing out yet another of the windows, then
disappeared back behind the door. Daniels stumbled but hadn't
been hit. He hauled up the corpse and crouched down, using it
and the double bed as a shield, yelling at me again to move.
I scrambled past him and leaped bodily through the window,
knife still clutched tightly, as Lench reappeared, firing. I hit
the roof stomach first and began sliding down the tiles to the
right in the direction of the guttering, using my free hand to gain
some purchase and stop my descent. Directly below me was the
kitchen, and I could feel the heat coming from the fire within it.
This roof would collapse soon and whoever was on it would fall
straight into the flames.
Kathy was a few feet above me, straddling the roofs ridgeline
at the gable end, leaning forward and gripping the brickwork
with her hands. She was looking down to the right where the
second gunman was getting to his feet on the grass, the broken remains of the drainpipe beside him. Yet another man, the
fourth, was coming round the same side of the house in our
direction. He too had a gun. He pointed it up at us. From inside
came more shots - the shotgun and Daniels' pistol.
'This way!' Kathy shouted, and before I could say anything
she was sliding down the other side of the roof on her bottom. I
followed her, throwing the knife down into the garden and

swinging round so that I was hanging onto the guttering before
making the final jump to the ground, not daring to look back.
We both landed at the same time, a few feet apart. Fifteen yards
away at the end of the lawn was the single-storey wooden studio
that Midge liked to paint in. Through there lay safety.

'Run,' I hissed, fumbling in my pocket for my keys. I kept the
ones to the cottage on my main ring, but couldn't remember if
the studio key was still on there. I'd removed it months ago to
get a new one cut, and wasn't sure whether I'd put it back or not.
I prayed I had. With my other hand I grabbed the knife, and we
ran like hell towards the studio door, knowing that our pursuers
were right behind us.
In the darkness I couldn't see which key was which and I
began to panic as we reached the wooden door. It was a smaller
one than the others, I remembered that. Thin, with a round
handle. I felt each one as fast as I could, praying that the
damned thing was on there. Please let it be. Please. The shooting
in the bedroom had stopped now and all I could hear was the
driving rain and the roar of the fire as the cottage that was
meant to be a peaceful retreat from the stresses of the modern
world went up in a mass of unforgiving flames.
Kathy turned round. 'Hurry up, they're coming,' she
screamed. 'They're coming.'
I felt a round handle between thumb and forefinger. It was the
one. I shoved the key in the lock, trying to force it. I could hear
their footfalls approaching fast. Someone shouted for us to put iHir hands up, the voice sounding muffled but close.
The key finally slipped into the lock. I turned it once and the
door opened. I shoved Kathy inside and followed her into the
darkness, not even bothering to remove it. I slammed the door
shufcand felt for the bolt that would lock it from the inside. The

studio's interior smelled vaguely of varnish and incense sticks. I
knew Midge smoked dope in here when she was working, not
only because her abstract paintings were so bad they could only
have been the product of a drug-addled brain, but also because
I'd found roaches hidden away in corners of the room when I'd
come in here in the past.
The door was hit bodily from the outside with a huge shunt
that knocked the knife out of my hand. A gap six inches wide
appeared and a gloved hand shot through it, grabbing hold of
the door, and forcing it further open.
'Do something!' yelled Kathy, her voice shrill.
I pushed my full weight against the door, trying to narrow the

gap-
'I've dropped the fucking knife!'
The light came on as she flicked the switch on the wall. I felt
my feet sliding backwards on the bare floorboards and knew
that in a couple of seconds they'd be in here. I saw the knife. It
was a yard and a half away from my foot, well out of reach.
Kathy came forward fast, swept it up from the floor, and a
second later she had grabbed the gloved hand by the wrist and
sliced the blade deep into the bare flesh of the lower forearm. A
line of blood appeared, and a shower of heavy droplets splattered
onto the parquet flooring. The man to whom the hand belonged
howled in pain and withdrew it with a curse. Kathy slammed the
door shut, and I leaned over and shoved the bolt across.
A shot rang out, and the door splintered as the bullet passed
through between us at head height. I felt a stinging pain in my
face and turned away instinctively.
'Jesus!' cursed Kathy, dancing about on her feet.
I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her through the room.
Abstract paintings lined the available wallspace, great mish mashes of shapeless colour that seemed to represent nothing at
all. An easel and artist's chair were in the centre of the floor, and
a half-finished effort in blue and green that looked like it had
been put together by a boss-eyed chimp was mounted upon it.
A second shot rang out, the bullet passing straight through the
painting before pinging off the far wall. We kept on going, silent
now, until we reached the back window that opened directly out
on to the forest. I got there first and pulled the handle. It was
locked. The bastard thing was locked, and I knew for sure I
didn't have a key for it. Behind me, no more than fifteen feet
away, I could hear them kicking the door. It sounded like they
were trying to knock it off its hinges, and with some success. We
were trapped, and I had seconds to make a decision.
'For fuck's sake, break it!' Kathy shouted, looking around for
something to use. She pulled a china pot from one of the shelves
and heaved it against the glass. Nothing happened. The window
was new, so it probably had toughened glass.
A third shot rang out, and I heard one of the hinges of the
door go. I swung round, picked up the artist's chair and charged
it into the window with all the force I could muster. The glass
cracked, a thin line in the middle. I retreated and came forward
again, hitting harder this time, and the crack widened. I was
panting with the exertion. As I came back to do it a third time, I
saw that the door was now hanging inwards on its frame, one
hinge gone, the other just about to go. Both men were partly
visible in the gaps, and one was p oking a gun through.
Summoning everything I had, I smashed the chair into the
window a third time, and this time the glass broke into two
pieces and fell outwards with a clatter. A large shard was still
poking upwards so I hammered it side-on with the chair and
mo#t of it flew off.