eyes stared dumbly at the Führer, awaiting his next order.
‘OK,’ the Führer said, as his titchy moustache bristled in a self satisfied way. ‘Three signatures by the Post-it notes.’
Scotty was serious about signing the documents, but the Führer’s smile and the happy little bounce of his size eight Dr Marten boots made him angry. Scotty loved the Brigands as much as – maybe even more than – he loved his family and the thought of handing in his patch and burning off his highwayman tattoo was too much to take.
With a powerful movement, Scotty sprang to his full height while simultaneously driving the pen through Felicity’s windpipe. Blood gurgled; Dante and Jordan nervously came down the staircase to see why their mum had screamed.
‘Shoot him now, Carol!’ Scotty shouted.
Dante’s mum raised the shotgun as Felicity staggered back to the wall. The giant still had the pen sticking out of his throat and he was choking on his own blood, but he managed to raise the pistol slightly.
Two triggers were pulled in the same second.
The shotgun erupted with two orange muzzle blasts, spraying shot over a wide area concentrated around Felicity’s head and torso, but also peppering the surrounding wall with tiny holes. The pistol made a sharper bang. Felicity hadn’t the strength to raise it high but the final act of his thirty-eight years on earth was to shoot a bullet into Scotty’s kneecap at such an angle that it bored on down, shattering his right fibula and exiting through the back of his calf after severing the main artery in his leg.
In the seconds before he passed out, Scotty groaned as he hit the carpet and reached for Felicity’s pistol. The Führer had ducked under the table and he too crawled towards the pistol as Carol pumped the shotgun to reload.
Carol had known the Führer since she’d been a fourteen-year-old tearaway hanging around the Brigands clubhouse looking for free marijuana. She knew that the Führer would kill her now that he was riled, but she felt calm as the empty cartridge flew out to her left.
To Carol the consequences of murder were nothing compared to her need to protect her kids. But as she pushed the barrel forward, there was lightness to the action and a hollow sound from inside. The shotgun was empty.
3. WITNESS
Carol turned. She saw Jordan at the bottom of the stairs and Dante halfway up as she dropped the gun and charged towards the front door.
‘Run,’ she screamed to her boys. ‘Get out of the house, now!’
Jordan followed his mum towards the front door, Dante started going downstairs but ducked out of the way when the Führer fired Felicity’s pistol. It was a wild shot from under the dining-table that punched through the wall and clattered into saucepans inside the cupboard on the other side.
The Führer sent the table flying with his boot and took proper aim with his second shot. It hit Carol in the back as she held the latch on the front door. Her body slumped against the frosted glass, blocking the doorway and forcing Jordan to turn back into the hall.
The Führer stepped out of the kitchen doorway, trailing blood from the rapidly growing puddle around Scotty.
‘Come on, Jordan!’ Dante pleaded, as he headed back up the stairs and charged towards the door of his parents’ room.
But Jordan knew he wouldn’t win a race to the top of the stairs with a bullet. Possibly hoping to save his own life, but more likely knowing he was doomed and trying to give Dante a better chance to reach his parents’ room, Jordan grabbed the only thing that came to hand and charged at the Führer.
The metal waste basket was filled with umbrellas and a collection of Holly’s toys. As the items flew through the air Jordan made a desperate lunge. He was as tall as the Führer, and his flying foot plus the debris forced the Führer back into the living-room – but not before he’d pulled the trigger and shot Jordan in the stomach.
The teenager crumpled against the tiled floor. As the umbrellas, Duplo bricks and Beanie Babies landed, the Führer pointed the muzzle of the pistol down and shot Jordan through the head.
Dante reached his parents’ bedroom. His legs felt hot, his stomach was somersaulting. It was a cramped space, with clothes piled out of the broken wardrobe doors and eleven-month-old Holly’s cot shoehorned at an angle between the double bed and the radiator. Holly lay on the bed kicking