this,” he said out loud, cutting Emma’s chatter dead, the edge in his voice letting Susie and Emma know he was serious. Emma had been told: there might be a situation, and if there was, then Shelley was in charge. Don’t question. Don’t hesitate. Just do everything he tells you. And this was one of those times.
Still no activity from the van. The guys in the Peugeot seemed even more animated than before, behaving like a couple of blokes trying to get a recalcitrant car restarted. Shelley was on a knife-edge, ready for something to happen, ready for it not to happen, hoping, praying that he’d be able to tell Susie and Emma, “False alarm, guys,” and go back to bantering about what he’d done “in the war.”
Eyes to the van. No movement. The indistinct shape of the driver looking bored. Eyes in front, the Peugeot double act still going strong.
And then came a movement he only saw in his peripheral vision. At the same time Susie, with fear in her voice, said, “Shelley . . .”
It was the woman from the VW Passat. She’d got out of the car and now stood by the BMW. In the next instant the locks to the BMW flicked open, the door was yanked wide, and she bent into the car, looking for all the world as if she was loading something into the back seat.
Except for the gun that she lodged into the back of Shelley’s neck, making him freeze.
“Awright, hero?” she said in a strange put-on northern accent. “Face front, hands through the steering wheel and flat on the dashboard.” Her short hair was ill-fitting, probably a wig. “Move your hands again and the last thing you’ll see is your teeth hit the windscreen.”
In the rearview he saw that in the other hand she held a lock remote, some kind of universal access, and with that hand she reached for Emma. “Get out of the car, honey,” she ordered. At her neck was the furry nodule of a microphone. Eyes front, Shelley saw that the two blokes in the Peugeot had put on headsets and were monitoring the situation behind. One of them turned to show him a handgun but made no move to leave the car. They wanted to do this discreetly, with the minimum of fuss.
Time stood still inside the BMW. Susie sat frozen, eyes round with fear, parental instincts kicking in, but at the same time abiding by Shelley’s instructions to let him take charge.
“I won’t tell you again,” said the short-haired woman. “Get out before I paint the car with your bodyguard.”
“What shall I do, Shelley?” asked Emma. The fear in her voice cut through a symphony of angry car horns from behind. The entire junction was locked, the whole street brought to a halt.
“Just do as she says, Emma,” replied Shelley, very aware that his words were being relayed to the car in front and wanting to put them at ease. “Just go with the lady. She won’t hurt you, I promise.”
“You heard the man,” said the woman in her awkward northern accent, like something she’d learned off Coronation Street.
Reluctantly, Emma moved across the seat toward the kidnapper, who took hold of her.
“Be lucky, sweetheart,” Shelley told Emma.
It was the signal they’d worked out in advance: If I say “Be lucky, sweetheart,” it means that the bad guy’s grabbed you and I’m ready to make my move and I want you to bite the hand he’s holding you with. And I mean bite. I don’t mean nibble, or chew. I mean bite, like you’re biting down on the biggest, toughest bit of steak you’ve ever eaten. You understand me?
Emma did as she had been told and bit down hard on the woman’s hand. The woman screamed and pulled the trigger in the same moment as Shelley twisted in his seat, praying the gun barrel wouldn’t follow.
It didn’t. The shot singed a sideburn and cost him the hearing in his right ear for a week, but it missed and struck the center of the steering wheel. Shelley heard another explosion and felt an almighty punch to the torso as the airbag deployed.
Pinned but half twisted in his seat, he grabbed the woman’s arm and with a shout of effort snapped it across the BMW’s midsection.
Her gun dropped and she screamed like a wounded animal as she yanked herself away from Shelley and free of Emma’s teeth, rebounding off her Passat and then running toward the Peugeot with her snapped arm