Chapter Twenty-Seven
A bright light shines in the hallway. Perhaps a mobile-phone torch.
A man steps into the lounge.
He’s dressed all in black leather that squeaks as he advances into the room. A balaclava covers his features but Sam knows exactly who he is. She rises slowly to her feet, her dressing gown heavy around her. Her movement draws his attention and he turns, shining the light in her face.
“Hello, Samantha,” he says, his voice muffled by the fabric over his face.
He flicks his left wrist and a long, thin shape extends in front of him.
“Find your weapon in the victim’s house,” he says, paraphrasing Denver Brady and waving her own baton at her.
“This is better than a bread knife.” She never returned the baton to her utility belt after polishing it.
It was there, in the hallway, for him to pick up.
He laughs cruelly through the open mouth of the mask.
“I thought I might see you again,” she says, trying but failing to level her voice. Legs jelly. Heart pumping. Her hand extended to shield her face from the torchlight.
“You thought you’d see me again, but you still didn’t have the sense to lock your front door?” he asks.
“What do you want?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead he growls as he steps toward her.
Sam jumps but can’t go anywhere. She’s in the corner of the room and he’s still standing in the only doorway.
She notices his muddy footprints on the old carpet and wonders fleetingly if he’s wearing boots that are his own or have been bought especially for tonight, as Denver would have advised. “Where’s my girlfriend?” he growls.
“You murdered her, remember?”
“I’ll fuck you up,” he hisses.
She can’t help but bark a laugh at how predictable he is.
“Don’t you dare fucking la—”
“OK, Richie,” Sam says, holding her hands up. “I know where Lindsay is, and I’ll tell you. But first, tell me what happened with Julius Windsor. I want details. Did he beg?”
“You’re one twisted—”
“Bitch?” Sam suggests. “Julius told me I had daddy issues.” She shrugs. “He was right, I suppose. But I dealt with my daddy issues when I was nineteen.”
“Lindsay’s here, isn’t she?” he demands, spinning to look toward the hall and stairs.
Sam reaches calmly into her dressing gown pocket and pulls out her Taser. “Freeze!” she shouts, in as firm a voice as she can muster. “You’re under arrest for entering—”
“Lindsay!” Richie bellows. Sam deploys her Taser, firing it directly across the room and hitting him in the hip.
It’s a good body shot. Clean; well timed.
He falls to his knees, and her baton skitters across the hall tiles.
But the leather protects him from a strong jolt, and he begins to stand again.
“Taser! Taser!” Sam shouts, more out of habit than to warn Richie that she’s about to deliver another shock. Richie wobbles as she presses the trigger and gets him again, but remains in a kneeling position. He twists around, pulls the Taser from his bike leathers, drops it on the carpet.
“Fu … ck … ing … bitch,” he wheezes. The only light in the room now comes from the streetlamp outside.
Richie is just a silhouette. He tries to stand.
Sam has a split second to decide what to do.
Richie’s in the doorway between the lounge and hallway, blocking her only exit.
But he’s still wobbly on his feet, and once she’s past him, the front door is unlocked and she has plenty of neighbors to run to.
Alternatively, she could run up the stairs; he might not follow.
Sam charges at Richie, careening into his side like a rugby player. They both fall heavily, her on top. She pushes herself off him, to her feet and makes a run for it. He grabs at her dressing gown, yanking her back. She slides out of it and runs into the hallway. Turns right. Up the stairs.
She’s lived in this house almost her whole life; she needs no light.
Two stairs at a time. She hears him right behind her.
He flicks the hall light switch; it doesn’t work.
He pounds after Sam, up the unlit staircase, reaching the top step.
Then trips and crashes down heavily. Air splutters from him; he’s winded.
Prone on the small upstairs landing. Sam looms over him, a large, steel baseball bat in her hands.
She doesn’t hesitate, just swings. A strange whooshing sound comes out of him but he doesn’t scream.
Sam strikes once more, hears a crack. She quickly pushes open her bedroom door and flicks the switch, sending light spilling across the scene on the landing.
On the floor, Richie rolls on to his side, clutching between his legs.
He’s struggling to pull air into his lungs.
Sam swings the bat at his back. He cries out and then whimpers, still clutching his genitals.
She must have ruptured a testicle. Sam swings again, another blow to the back.
He’s barely moving now. Just lying there, trying to breathe.
“How does it feel, Richie?” she whispers. “To be the helpless one?” There is liquid pooling on the carpet. It’s coming from Richie’s waistline. He must have pissed himself, she thinks. She swings the bat casually in front of his face. He tries to push himself away from her, but can’t.
“Please,” he wheezes, “wait.”
“Did Melanie say please? Did Lindsay say please?”
“You … you…”
“Bitch?” Sam says. “That is so boring. Find a new word for us.” She swings the bat again, but he curls into a ball and she just catches his ankle. A small crack and a squeal.
“You won’t get … away … with…”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Richie,” she says slowly. “This is exactly how to get away with murder. You would have learned a lot more about it if you’d paid attention to what I’ve been up to, rather than Denver.”
She lands a final blow on the side of Richie Scott’s head. There’s a crunchy squelch that Sam thinks may have killed him. At this point, she’s not too bothered either way. It’s one hell or another for this asshole.
She takes a few deep breaths to gather her thoughts, then gets to work. On tiptoe, she tightens the landing light bulb that she’d loosened and turns it on. She can now see the scene in all its glory, just as the police and, later, the forensics team will.
She moves to the top of the stairs and unties the cable she’d fastened across the top step three weeks earlier, the day after her meeting with Julius Windsor.
She coils it neatly before stepping into her bedroom and placing it into her waiting laptop bag.
She’s pleased it’s back where it belongs, having tripped over it herself once or twice while packing up her things.
It’s the price you pay for booby-trapping your own house, she supposes. Just like in Home Alone.
Behind her, Richie begins to make a strange bubbling sound.
Probably dying, but she can’t be sure. She removes the glove on his left hand, takes her baseball bat and wraps his fingers around it several times.
Replacing the glove proves tricky, but she manages, then she leaves the bat next to Scott.
Given that his fingerprints will be all over it despite the gloves he’s wearing, all evidence will suggest that he brought it with him Arriving at her home armed will make Richie’s crime more serious, and her less likely to be charged with excessive self-defense.
If Richie dies, a postmortem will show that she only inflicted a few blows with the bat—hardly excessive.
If he lives, it’s back behind bars for him.
She stands and considers the scene for a second.
Richie lies bloody, on her landing, next to the bat.
He’s still breathing. She walks back downstairs.
It’s over. It occurs to her that Julius Windsor and Richie Scott could even end up in the same intensive care unit, and she begins to hum.
Something she hasn’t done in a long time.
Calmly, she collects her baton and Taser, wipes them down with an alcohol wipe from the kitchen then places them in her utility belt, which is hanging in the under-stairs cupboard.
She reconsiders, and hides the Taser in the drawer of her dad’s desk, in the basement.
She shouldn’t really have a Taser at home.
Finally, Sam stands at the front door and breathes for a second with her eyes closed. Then she walks the entire house again, making sure that everything looks how it should—like a lone female has had no choice but to defend herself from a criminal on the run.
After her walk-through, Sam perches on the sofa and takes some panting breaths, each one faster and shallower than the last. Once she’s sure she’s ready, she pulls her phone from her pocket, where it’s been the whole time, and dials 999.
“This is DI Samantha Hansen … I need police and an ambulance,” she says, infusing her voice with panic. “A wanted man … Richie Scott … Please, send help … He’s just tried to kill me in my home … My God … he had a weapon—a bat … I’ve defended myself … Oh Jesus … I think I’m going to…”
Sam lets the phone slide to the floor, then rests her head on the arm of the sofa, slows her breathing and waits for the cavalry to arrive.
Was her phone call overly dramatic, bordering on suspicious?
She doesn’t think so. She might be a detective, but she’s also just a woman.
She suspects her female hysteria will be deemed perfectly natural.