Chapter 25 #2
I smiled at her and gripped her hand back. “I’ll be fine,” I said. She was less than convinced.
“C’mon.” Nigella pulled her along as they fled. Verity gripped my hand for as long as she could.
“It’ll be alright,” I whispered.
The three of them ran from the room. I could hear Kennedy barking and the sirens coming closer.
“Why don’t we all sit at the table like civilised folk?” Katrina asked. Sweetness and light.
I dared to look. She was sitting at the table like this was a macabre coffee morning. Across the room, the others were all waiting for me. I nodded.
Standing gingerly, I held my hands in front, where she could see them. “Don’t shoot me yet, please, Katrina,” I said.
“Course not, love, wouldn’t dream of it.”
Fucking deranged. I cocked my head for the others to join me. Ollie looked stunned, and when he stood, his legs nearly gave way underneath him. Simon pulled him along and deposited him in a chair.
Guy was shaky but managed on his own. Simon was … well, Simon was scowling.
We sat. There was a silence.
“If it makes any difference, Katrina, I truly am sorry that Stuart died,” Simon said. “I enjoyed his company. I never wanted him to get hurt.”
She smiled. “Thank you. It changes nothing. But thank you, nonetheless.”
“Katrina, if it’s me you want, why don’t you let them go?” I asked. “It’ll be as horrible for them to know I’m dead from outside as it is in here.”
She tutted and shook her head. “Oh, no, they deserve to see.”
I pointed at Ollie. “He never even met Rabbie. He doesn’t know what’s going on! Trust me, I’d quite enjoy him to suffer, but not like this.”
She shook her head again. “Arden, sweet silly Arden. You remind me a bit of my Rabbie, you know. He was trusting as well. But no, your Oliver is nowhere near as innocent in this as he’s made you think.
” She smiled sweetly as my insides turned to ice.
Ollie stared at the ground; a tear fell down his cheek and onto Nigella’s plaster-dust-covered table.
“What did you do?” I could barely ask.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I never thought it— I didn’t know she was insane. I thought it’d help me get you back. I …” His voice choked.
“You knew who S Murray was the entire time?” Simon barked.
He nodded. “I’m sorry. She invited me to a meeting in Bristol. Pretended to be someone else. Told me if I helped her, she’d convince you to take me back. Otherwise, she’d tell you all about Jamie.”
“And the letter?” I asked.
“Oh – no, that was me being sneaky,” she said. “I gave that to Riz as insurance. If anything happened to me, he was to put it in the police’s hands. Oliver knew nothing of that. He did what he was told, so I never needed to use it.”
I nodded. Well. That settled that then. I turned to Katrina. “I’m ready. Where should we do this? Outside? I wouldn’t want to get my brains all over Nigella’s kitchen. Think of her kids. They’ll be home from school soon.”
Katrina nodded. “Very thoughtful. Outside it is then. You three watch.”
She stood, and I followed. As I rose, Simon gripped my hand. Katrina looked pleased with this. He held my hand, his eyes boring into me.
I touched his stubbly cheek and tried to shake my hand free. “It’s all going to be okay. Remember, the last time something like this happened? Kennedy burst into the room and knocked over Neuberger? Just remember that.” He gripped my hand but eventually let go.
“Guy,” I said, giving him a nod. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Ollie.
“Let’s make a start, shall we?” Katrina said filing us out. “Gents, you can stay seated, or stand and watch. Except you, Simon. You really must stand at the door. You need to see.”
We walked up the short path through the wreckage of Nigella’s house and stood in the middle of the garden.
It was scorching hot. The sunshine was blinding. “Nice day for it,” she said, loading her gun.
“Quite. You said you burnt every scrap of your old life, that’s why there was no trail?”
“Yes. Doesn’t matter anymore. I’ll hand myself over as soon as this is done.”
“So … you don’t have any photos of Rabbie?” I asked.
She shook her head. “A painful sacrifice. But the only one I have is the one I showed you.”
“Oh.”
“Right.” She cocked the gun. “Eyes open, please, you need to see it, but aside from that, your choice of pose.”
C’mon, c’mon, please. Where were the police?
Please, please, someone protect me. There was no help coming. No one was rushing to save me. My heart was in my mouth. There would be no flashes of inspiration this time. Katrina was not Tarquin with his bumbling attempts to cover up his crimes. No, she wanted me dead and all the world to see.
Nausea rode over me in waves. I fell to my knees. “Katrina, don’t do this,” I sobbed. Snot and tears rolling down my face. “Please, I never even met Rabbie, I barely know these people. I’ve only lived here a few months. Please, please!”
She looked at me sympathetically. She swung the gun up.
Death. I was going to die. I tried to stop the sobs that were ripping my chest open.
But I couldn’t. If you’ve ever thought you’d be calm and dignified in the face of your executioner, I can tell you now – you won’t be.
“Do you want me to beg?” I screamed, my voice breaking.
“I’ll beg, please! I don’t want to die!”
“Aw, Arden. No one does.”
“I’m only thirty-two. My life’s a mess. I want to … please, don’t kill me. I want to meet someone and have a family and grow old together,” I begged. “Please!”
There was a long pause. She gave me that sweet maternal smile. “You really do remind me of my Rabbie. Anyway, any last words?”
My chest was heaving with painful sobs. I was near hysterical. I looked around me. This was happening. No movie ending for me.
I saw something from the corner of my eye, blurry through the tears and sweat. I nodded at her. “My last words?”
“Yes?” she asked sweetly.
“Good boy,” I said.
“What?”
Forty kilograms of Alsatian/Dobermann cross launched himself at her. And this time, Kenny wasn’t playing. He was going in for the kill.
Her screams sounded out across the village. She dropped the gun. But I could see she had something else on her.
“No, you fucking don’t,” I said, launching myself at her, and kicked her hand as hard as I could before she could get to her pocket.
She screamed again. Simon and Guy came running.
Guy grabbed Kenny while Simon took the gun she’d been holding and used it to smack her across the face as hard as he could.
Blood and a tooth or two flew across the garden.
But it was too late. She took her small revolver from her pocket and aimed, and fired. “Simon!” I screamed.
He was lucky. He dived to avoid losing half his skull, but he dropped the other gun, and it scattered across the ground. I lunged for it. My hands were sweaty, but I managed to get it. Katrina and I stood there, weapons pointing at one another.
The others backed off, Guy cradling Kenny.
Ollie was standing at the doors of the house, looking stricken.
“You know, my husband did four tours in Northern Ireland. It’s easy to get guns out of there.
This is the one I shot Riz with,” she said, shaking her little revolver like it was a cool knick-knack.
She pointed it at them wildly. “No one make a move.”
We all took a pause. Above us, I could hear a chopper approaching. They’d brought in the big guns. A police siren was still whirring.
“Katrina Pettigrew,” came the sound of a voice through a megaphone from the street. “This is DI Neuberger. You are under arrest. Come out with your hands up, and you will not be hurt.” Katrina threw back her head and laughed.
None of us spoke for a long time. Just the sound of the helicopter coming closer and the ragged breathing of all involved. “You know that photo of your son,” I said. “Looks pretty flammable. It’d be a shame if you never saw your boy’s face again.
“You wouldn’t dare,” she said. I needed to get her away from everyone else. No matter what I did, she had a full cartridge in her gun. I couldn’t have much more than one or two bullets in this weapon. I was inching backwards, and she was coming towards me. Further from the others.
I smiled. “Wouldn’t I? Well, if you want to know, you gotta catch me first,” I said and took off with a jump over Nigella’s back fence.
She screamed in frustration. But that was all, I didn’t look back; instead, I ran as fast as my skinny little legs could carry me. Down the path to the end of Nigella’s street, through overgrown hedges and old rickety fences, rose bushes and thorns ripping at my exposed arms and legs.
I couldn’t hear her behind me, but I needed to believe she was.
The crack of a gun. A bullet zinged past my head, and a tree in front of me gave out a shower of bark as the shot lodged itself into the trunk. Yep, definitely behind me. I felt a sharp pain as a splinter punctured my forehead.
“Fuck!” I screamed and hung a left. I emerged onto the street going east through the village.
I was sweating and running – literally – on pure adrenaline.
My white T-shirt was already soaked through with sweat, plaster, and now stained red from the wound on my forehead, which was pumping out blood at an alarming rate.
I took off to the left, heading for Katrina’s house.
I reached the corner, sprinting madly. The door to one of the houses on the corner of the street to Katrina’s was opening, presumably someone out to look at the helicopter.
“Arden, I thought it’d be you involved in this, gosh, it was never like this before you moved here!
” She squinted in the bright sunlight. “Oh, look, Katrina is out jogging too. In this heat, and at her age! Hello, Katrina!” she yelled, which turned to a shriek as a huge chunk of Odette’s front door took a bullet.
“Fuck off, you annoying cow!” Katrina screamed.
While she tried to kill Odette, I dived onto the tiny path that ran behind the back of this street’s houses. The one Sonia and I had used to break into Katrina’s house when it was Arabella’s. A lifetime ago.
Sprinting along it, I had no idea what I was doing, or what would happen, but as long as Katrina was focused on me, she wouldn’t hurt anyone else.
I jumped the fence into her garden and crept along. I couldn’t hear her behind me. Clearly, she’d not come this way and instead gone to the front. I moved as quietly as I could.
The garden was overgrown and wild. The plants left to their own devices. Maybe it was because of the heat, causing some to wither, that it was passable at all. I got to the back door and decided, fuck subtlety. I smashed the window and reached through to unlock it.
“Hey, Katrina, I’m in your house, coming to get your son!” I yelled. “Your screwed up druggie son, who let any man who looked at him fuck him because of all his daddy issues!”
I heard a scream of annoyance from the front of the house.
“Dirty addict. He was a stupid little boy!” I kept taunting, a drip-drip of sweat and blood fell off me onto the hardwood floors as I walked.
“I bet he was filthy. Addicts always are. Bet he let Simon and Guy do whatever they wanted to him. Bet there were ten guys a night in his bed! None of them probably even knew his name.”
A gunshot split through the room. An ornament a few feet from me took the brunt. She was coming through the house. I needed to go forward. Meet in the middle and, hell, I don’t know … wrestle her?
My breathing was ragged, and I could barely stop myself from puking, so continuing to yell was not an option for a second. I paused behind a door. My sweaty hands were slipping on the gun.
“You were a terrible mother,” I yelled when I could eventually get words out again.
“You couldn’t keep him safe. You didn’t look after him.
You let your husband disown him when he came out.
Even my mother didn’t do that.” I heard her scream and come towards me.
“I bet he hated you,” I yelled as she came through the door.
I swung the gun’s barrel straight into her head.
She went down. Holy fuck, she hit the ground hard. Her gun scattered along the floor, and I grappled for it. She was down for the count. A huge dent in her head seemed to indicate that I’d done my job. It was over.
Crouching down beside her, I waited for my breathing to get back to normal.
“I mean what I said,” I spat at her. “People like you don’t deserve to be parents.
It’s supposed to be unconditional love.” I took the guns and walked through the front of the house, opened the front door, and went out onto the street.
“Arden!” Jack Maslin yelled. He had a bulletproof jacket on and was pounding the street as he ran towards me.
“I’m putting them down,” I shouted, holding the guns. “I’m not going to use them; I will put them down and do whatever you ask.”
More police arrived at the end of the street; Jack held up a hand to keep them back. He stopped about twenty metres away from me. The other officers all formed a line behind him. The chopper was right over our heads.
“Okay, Arden, you do exactly that. One at a time, nice and easy, and then I want you to walk two metres to the side of them and put your hands on your head. Understand?”
“I understand,” I called out over the distance between us.
Neuberger panted up behind Jack. “Where is Katrina?” he yelled.
“Inside,” I yelled. “She’s unarmed. She’s … alive,” I added, perhaps a bit weakly.
They nodded. I put the guns down. “That’s good, Arden. Now move to the side and put your hands on your head and kneel, okay? We’ll come towards you slowly,” Jack yelled.
I nodded and did what he said. I kept my eyes rooted on Jack and Neuberger. They watched me intently. It was going to be okay. I was not going to fuck this up. Everything would be okay. They wouldn’t shoot me, thinking I was an accomplice. I was going to get out of this alive.
I had one knee on the ground when Katrina came screaming through the door and held the stun gun she’d taken off Dhapinder to my throat and pressed it down.