The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 7 Page 19

  “So, Colin,” said Bee, “why did you call your son ‘Roger’? It’s such a stupid name.”

  “We like it,” said Colin.

  “Which only proves how stupid it is,” said Margaret. “Almost as bad as Colin. Who wants to be five and be called ‘Roger’?”

  Bee turned to the boy. “Let’s ask Roger. Roger, do you like your name?”

  Roger looked at his mother.

  Margaret leaned across and pulled the tape off Roger’s mouth.

  “Do you like your name?” asked Liz, with a gentle tone.

  Roger shook his head.

  “Does that mean you like it or you don’t like it?” asked Margaret.

  “Don’t like it,” the boy said.

  The three hostage-takers all laughed.

  “You see,” said Bee. “Even he hates it.”

  “So,” asked Liz, “what would you like to be called?”

  Roger looked down into his chest.

  “Optimus Prime,” he said.

  “Right,” said Margaret. “From now on, you’re Optimus Prime. Which is going to sound pretty silly in twenty years’ time – but I don’t think there’s much reason to worry about that.”

  “Would you like some juice, Optimus Prime?” asked Liz.

  He said, “Yes, please.”

  “Very polite,” said Margaret. “That’s good.”

  Liz went and got him a beaker full of orange. He drank it very quickly.

  “Do you still wear a nappy, Optimus Prime?” Margaret asked.

  “No,” he said. “I’m a big boy.”

  “Then you must tell us if you need to go wee-wee,” said Margaret. “Do you understand?”

  “Okay,” said Optimus Prime.

  “Look,” said Colin. “What is it exactly that you want? Perhaps we can sort it all out before the police get here?”

  “What we want,” said Margaret, “is for the police to get here. Now, please, don’t speak again.”

  They watched the television for a while.

  “Do you like this programme, Optimus Prime?” asked Margaret.

  “No,” he said, becoming more confident. “It’s boring.”

  “What would you like?” Bee asked.

  “Cartoons,” he said.

  Margaret passed him the remote, which had been sitting on Colin’s arm of the sofa.

  “Choose something,” she said.

  Optimus Prime skipped through the channels until he came to a programme called “Robotboy”.

  “Ah, yes,” said Margaret.

  They watched it for ten minutes. Then Bee said, “Optimus Prime, do you have any guns?”

  Optimus nodded.

  “If we undo your legs, will you go with me and fetch them?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  Liz came across and cut through the tape with the chunky scissors.

  Bee took Optimus’ hand and led him into the bedroom.

  A few minutes later, they came back, arms full of imitation pistols, lasers and machine guns.

  “Which is your favourite?” asked Margaret.

  Optimus picked out a red and black laser.

  “You keep that one, then.”

  “And I’ll have this one,” said Liz, choosing an old-fashioned looking revolver. It had cowboys on the handle and a wagon train running along the barrel.

  “And can I have this one?” asked Bee, picking up a business-like automatic in black plastic.

  “Yes,” said Optimus. “As long as I can have them back.”

  “Of course you can have them back,” said Margaret.

  They sat down to watch the TV – all much happier, now they were armed.

  Colin had been looking at Margaret’s gun. “That one’s not real either, is it? You came in here and held us up with a toy!”

  “Shut up or we tape your mouth up,” Margaret said. “What do you think about that, Optimus Prime?”

  The boy looked surly.

  “Then he won’t be able to tell you to go to bed,” said Liz.

  “Or tell you to do anything at all,” said Bee.

  Optimus Prime said, “I do anything I want all the time.”

  “I bet you do,” said Margaret, and laughed. “But, shall we tape up your daddy’s mouth? Just for a game.”

  “Okay,” said Optimus Prime, with a sideways glance to see the effect of his words.

  “Roger!” Colin shouted.

  He struggled as Liz and Bee wound the camouflaged tape around his head. His face was pink by the time they finished. It became even more pink when Bee pinched his nostrils for half a minute, to check his mouth really was sealed. When she let go, he snorted raggedly.

  “I need a wee,” said Optimus Prime.

  The hostage-takers looked at one another.

  “I’ll take him,” said Margaret. She went and picked him up from the sofa. He put his arms around her neck. Colin flinched at this.

  Margaret carried Optimus Prime through the kitchen and into the toilet; she knew where it was. She pulled the boy’s pyjama bottoms down until they were around his knees, then lifted him on to the seat.

  He put his finger on his willy, to point it down, then peed almost immediately. They both listened to the small gush until it went quiet.

  “Finished?” asked Margaret.

  Optimus Prime nodded.

  “You don’t want a poo?”

  “No,” the boy said.

  “Come on, then.”

  Margaret dried Optimus Prime’s willy with a sheet of toilet paper, then hiked his pyjamas up.

  “All done,” she said, carrying him back into the living room.

  Just then, sirens came into earshot. They became louder quite gradually. And then blue lights flashed across the stripy wallpaper.

  “At last,” said Margaret.

  But it took another ten minutes before the phone rang.

  Bee picked it up.

  “We are surrounded,” she said, relaying the words to the other hostage-takers. “We can talk about this calmly. Whatever issues we have can be addressed. We can come outside with our hands above our heads. No, we’re not going to do that,” she said. “Where’s our helicopter?” She listened. “That’s not good enough. We wanted a helicopter. Half an hour? Okay, I want you to make helicopter noises. Yes, you heard me. Make helicopter noises, or we shoot the woman.”

  She held up the phone so the others could hear the chunka-chunka-chunka sound.

  “Very good,” said Bee. “But we want the real thing.”

  She put the phone down, then picked it up when it rang.

  “What else do we want?”

  Margaret and Liz nodded at her. The plan.

  “We will exchange the woman for a policewoman. A straight swap. You have five minutes to decide.”

  She put the phone down.

  It rang again two minutes later.

  “We can have a policewoman,” she said, after listening for a few seconds. “But they want the boy as well. No,” she said, “that’s not the deal. One for one.” A pause. “Alright. They’ll come out the front door.”

  Bee replaced the receiver.

  Liz cut the tape off Numfon’s ankles.

  “Don’t try to run,” she said. “Not until the policewoman’s inside.”

  Margaret took her into the hall, then slowly opened the door. She was disappointed to see so few police cars – only three.

  A WPC was standing beside the open passenger door of the nearest, her hands in the air.

  “Come towards me,” shouted Margaret, who could feel herself tickled by the sights of real guns.

  The policewoman walked steadily forwards, until she was halfway.

  “I want you here,” said Margaret, pointing to the paving stones with the gun-barrel.

  The WPC started moving again.

  When she was close enough, Margaret pushed Numfon away and grabbed the WPC by the neck.

  Numfon stood on the spot.

  “Run, you silly cow,” said the WPC.

&n
bsp; Numfon looked back, then started to walk away. She was bawling.

  Margaret pulled the WPC inside.

  “What’s your name?” she asked, leading her through into the living room.

  “Jane McDowell,” said the young woman.

  “Would you like a cup of tea?” asked Liz.

  “No, thank you,” said the WPC, assessing the situation.

  What she saw, on the floor, was a pile of toy guns. Then she looked at the guns the hostage takers were holding. First Bee’s, then Liz’s and, finally, turning her head round as far as it would go, at Margaret’s.

  “Is this some kind of sick joke?” she said.

  “Gag her,” said Margaret.

  “We can talk,” said the WPC.

  “Now, why would we want to do that?” asked Bee, before placing a strip of tape across Jane McDowell’s mouth.

  The phone rang, was answered.

  “They want to know what else we want,” said Bee.

  “Tell them ‘World Peace’,” said Margaret.

  “We want World Peace.”

  Bee listened.

  “He says, ‘Don’t we all?’”

  “No, we don’t,” said Liz. “That’s the whole point.”

  “World Peace, now!” shouted Bee, into the receiver. “Stop the violence.”

  She clattered it back on to the phone.

  “So, Optimus Prime,” began Margaret. “What should we do with the policewoman?”

  Optimus Prime looked at the dark uniform.

  “She hasn’t got a gun,” he said.

  “No,” said Bee. “But we do.”

  “Is she a real policeman?”

  “I don’t know,” said Liz. “What do you think?”

  “I think she’s not a real policeman because a real policeman wouldn’t just surrender and come in like that. They would fight and stop you.”

  “I think you’re right, Optimus Prime,” said Margaret. “I think she’s just pretending to be a policeman.”

  “That’s a very naughty thing to do, isn’t it?” said Bee. “Really bad.”

  The WPC looked about in panic.

  “Go on,” said Bee. “Shoot her with your laser.”

  Optimus Prime hesitated.

  “She deserves it,” said Liz.

  The boy stood up and pointed the laser at the WPC’s face. Then, making a shoom-shoom sound, he fired off two zaps straight between the eyes. A red light glowed faintly on Janet McDowell’s forehead; the thing’s batteries were going.

  “Good boy,” said the hostage-takers. “Well done. Fantastic.”

  Optimus Prime smiled a sideways smile. He did not look towards his father.

  “Into the kitchen,” said Margaret.

  She and Liz bundled the WPC through the door and slammed it shut.

  Two minutes later, Liz re-emerged, a smudge of blood on her left forehead. She was holding a carving knife.

  “Margaret says you can finish her off, if you like.”

  Colin looked through the doorway, and saw the black-stockinged legs of Janet McDowell lying on the wood-effect lino of the kitchen floor. They twitched, once, twice.

  Bee took the knife and went into the kitchen, leaving Liz to watch Colin and Optimus Prime. The father was trying to say something, making an anguished humming sound. He had known Janet McDowell since she was a baby. He had several times slept with her mother.

  “Did you kill the woman?” asked Optimus Prime.

  “Yes,” said Liz.

  “Why did you kill the woman?”

  “Because there was no other way.”

  This didn’t satisfy Optimus Prime, but he had no more questions.

  Liz, holding her toy gun, went across to the window and gazed out. Then she began to turn her head towards Colin, so the first shot ripped her left ear off. The second, coming almost immediately, took away the top half of the head to which the ear had been attached.

  In the kitchen, Margaret and Bee only had time to look up from the WPC’s blood-wet body before the window shattered and Bee’s left temple exploded.

  Margaret dived to the ground, pushed the kitchen door open and crawled through into the living room.

  She could hear the back door collapse as the police battering ram smashed through it.

  Optimus Prime was curled foetal on the sofa; Colin had managed to stand up, intending to hop across to his son.

  Margaret stood in the middle of the room, legs apart, pointing the toy gun defiantly at the doorway.

  The first policeman through took her out with a shot to the chest, then finished her with three to the head.

  “It’s alright, son,” he said to Optimus Prime, who had been spattered. “You’re safe now.”

  THE MASQUERADE

  Sarah Rayne

  I SELDOM ATTEND parties unless I think they might be of use in my career, so it was all the more remarkable to find myself attending this one. This reticence is not due to shyness, you understand, nor to a lack of self-confidence – I value myself and my attainments rather highly. But I have always shunned larger gatherings – the chattering, lovely-to-see-you, how-are-you-my-dear, type of event. Loud music, brittle conversation, ladies air-kissing one another and then shredding each other’s reputations in corners. Not for me. My wife, however, has always enjoyed all and any parties with shrieking glee, telling people I am an old sobersides, and saying with a laugh that she makes up for my quietness.

  But here I was, approaching the door of this house whose owners I did not know, and whose reasons for giving this party I could not, for the moment, recall.

  It was rather a grand-looking house – there was an air of quiet elegance about it which pleased me. One is not a snob, but there are certain standards. I admit that my own house, bought a few years ago, is – well – modest, but I named it “Lodge House” which I always felt conveyed an air of subdued grandeur. The edge of a former baronial estate, perhaps? That kind of thing, anyway. My wife, of course, never saw the point, and insisted on telling people that it was Number 78, halfway down the street, with a tube station just round the corner. I promise you, many is the time I have winced at hearing her say that.

  This house did not appear to have a name or a number, or to need one. There was even a doorman who beckoned me in; he seemed so delighted to see me I felt it would be discourteous to retreat.

  “Dear me,” I said, pausing on the threshold. I do not swear, and I do not approve of the modern habit of swearing, with teenagers effing and blinding as if it were a nervous tic, and even television programme-makers not deeming it always necessary to use the censoring bleep. So I said, “Dear me, I hadn’t realized this was a fancy-dress party. I am not really dressed for it—” You might think, you who read this, that someone could have mentioned that aspect to me, but no one had.

  “Oh, the costume isn’t important,” said the doorman at once. “People come as they are. You’ll do very nicely.”

  He was right, of course. Dressed as I was, I should have done very nicely anywhere. I am fastidious about my appearance although my wife says I am pernickety. Downright vain, she says: everyone laughs at you for your old-fashioned finicking. I was wearing evening clothes – one of the modern dress shirts the young men affect, with one of those narrow bow ties that give a rather 1920s look, and I was pleased with my appearance. Even the slightly thin patch on the top of my head would not be noticeable in this light.

  Once inside, the house was far bigger than I had realized; huge rooms opened one out of another and the concept put me in mind of something, although I could not quite pin down the memory. Some literary allusion, perhaps? It would be nice to think I had some arcane poet or philosopher in mind, but actually I believe I was thinking of Dr Who’s Tardis. (Pretentious, that’s what you are, my wife always says. We all have a good laugh at your pretensions behind your back.)

  There were drinks and a buffet, all excellent, and the service – Well! You have perhaps been to those exclusive, expensive restaur ants in your time? Or t
o one of the palatial gentlemen’s clubs that can still be found in London if one knows where to look? Then you will have encountered that discreet deference. Food seemed almost to materialize at one’s hand. I was given a glass of wine and a plate of smoked salmon sandwiches straight away and I retired with them to a corner, in order to observe the guests, hoping to see someone I knew.

  The term “fancy-dress” was not quite accurate after all, although a more bizarre collection of outfits would be hard to find anywhere. There was every imaginable garb, and every creed, colour, race, ethnic mix – every walk of society, every profession and calling. Try as I might I could see no familiar faces, and this may have been why, at that stage, I was diffident about approaching anyone. It was not due to my inherent reticence, you understand: in the right surroundings I can be as convivial as the next man. This was more a feeling of exclusion. In the end, I moved to a bay window to observe, and to drink my wine – it was a vintage I should not have minded having in my own cellars. Well, I say cellars, but actually it’s an under-stairs cupboard containing several wine-racks bought at our local DIY centre. It is not necessary to tell people this, however, and I always remonstrated with my wife when she did.

  By an odd coincidence, the wine seemed to be the one I had poured for my wife quite recently, although I have to say good wine was always a bit of a waste on her because she never had any discrimination; she enjoys sugary pink concoctions with paper umbrellas and frosted rims to the glass. Actually, she once even attended some sort of all-female party dressed as a Piña Colada: the memory of that still makes me shudder and I shall refrain from describing the outfit. (But I found out afterwards that Piña Colada translates, near enough, as strained pineapple, which seems to me very appropriate.)

  But on that evening we had been preparing to depart for my office Christmas dinner, so I was hoping there would be no jazzily-coloured skirts or ridiculous head-dresses. It’s a black tie affair, the office Christmas dinner, but when my wife came downstairs I was sorry to see that although she was more or less conventionally dressed, her outfit was cut extremely low and showed up the extra pounds she had accumulated. To be truthful, I would have preferred to go to the dinner without her, because she would drink too much and then flaunt herself at my colleagues all evening; they would leer and nudge one another and I should be curdled with anger and embarrassment. Those of you who have never actually walked through a big office and heard people whispering, “He’s the one with the slutty wife”, can have no idea of the humiliation I have suffered. I remember attending a small cocktail party for the celebration of a colleague’s retirement. Forty-three years he had been with the firm and I had been asked to make the presentation. A silver serving dish had been bought for him – I had chosen it myself and it was really a very nice thing indeed and a change from the usual clock. I had written a few words, touching on the man’s long and honourable service, drawing subtle attention to my own involvement in his department.