now, Grandpa,’ she said.
Nadja had been roused by something and then she’d fallen asleep again. Andy had been there. For a moment she thought he was going to look after her, and then she remembered what had happened to her. To her sister.
She woke again and heard Katja say, ‘You’re Mark Price.’ Her sister shook her and said, ‘Nadja. It’s Mark Price.’
The plums were purple. Like bruises. She could almost taste them. She was awake now.
House of Mirth
‘Jesus Christ,’ Ronnie murmured. ‘What is this place?’
‘Watch out, there’s blood here,’ Reggie said. There was a bloody hand-print on the wall, like a cave-painting, and more stains and drops on the heavy old lino on the staircase. ‘Fresh. Don’t slip in it,’ she added as they followed the trail. Bloodhounds, Reggie thought. They’d had a look around downstairs and even without the blood there were enough signs to tell them that something very nasty was going on in this place.
There was a dog tied up in reception and they had eyed it warily at first, before realizing it was a patient old Labrador who wagged her tail in welcome when she saw them enter the building.
‘Hello, old girl,’ Reggie whispered to her, rubbing the velvet bone of her head.
Upstairs, the door to the first room they came across was wide open, and inside they caught a glimpse of a hellish tableau of broken, frightened women. There was a man bleeding on the floor who was moaning, probably too articulate to be dying, as he was vociferously claiming.
‘DC Ronnie Dibicki,’ Ronnie said, holding her warrant aloft like a shield. Reggie followed her into the room and it was only then that they saw the gun. ‘Vincent Ives,’ Ronnie murmured. Reggie considered a Taekwondo move on him, kicking the gun out of his hand (Hi-yah!), but it seemed too dangerous given the number of people in the room and the likelihood of one of them getting shot in the process.
Ronnie chose the softly-softly approach. ‘Mr Ives,’ she said gently, as if she was a kind teacher talking to a schoolboy, ‘do you remember me? Ronnie Dibicki. We talked the other day, in your flat. I’m asking you to put the gun down, before anyone gets hurt. Can you do that?’
‘No, not really. Sorry. Can you come in the room, please?’ Vince indicated with the gun, quite politely, like a cinema usher. Reggie remembered how he had swept the crumbs off his sofa before they sat on it the other day. She glanced at Ronnie. Were they really going to walk willingly into a hostage situation?
Apparently, yes.
Inside the room was crowded. It reminded Reggie of Barclay Jack’s dressing room at the Palace yesterday – a nightmare version of it with, as far as Reggie could tell, a completely new cast of characters. Thankfully there was no ventriloquist’s dummy this time. Finding Jackson Brodie at the heart of this melee seemed par for the course, somehow. He was a friend to anarchy.
Vincent Ives was pointing the gun at a man who was cowering in the corner of the room. ‘Arrest him,’ he said to Reggie. He moved closer to the man and held the gun over his head, execution style. ‘He’s called Stephen Mellors and he’s the mastermind behind all this. Because if you don’t arrest him, I’ll shoot him … It’s one or the other, you choose.’
There was no harm in arresting the man, Reggie supposed, she could always de-arrest him later if it turned out he hadn’t actually committed a crime, although what were the chances of that, given the circumstances they all found themselves in? It seemed more likely that other crimes would be added, not subtracted. So, after a moment’s consideration, she complied. ‘Stephen Mellors, I am arresting you on suspicion of …’ Reggie hesitated, unclear as to what exactly she could charge him with. She was furious with herself because she glanced over at Jackson Brodie, looking for authority. Somehow he was still the senior policeman in the room. The senior person, if it came to that.
She sighed with frustration at herself, at him, but took his advice. ‘Stephen Mellors, I am arresting you on suspicion of assault causing grievous bodily harm. You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
They say that in moments of crisis time slows down, but for Reggie