FIFTY-SEVEN

The sound had gone back up on the television now, and as Helen watched, she imagined Pascoe and the others outside, huddled in their van, their eyes narrowed in concentration, with their headphones pressed to their ears, enjoying Emmerdale.

We’re listening.

If anything, she was surprised that it had taken them this long. Perhaps it had been her presence inside that had delayed the decision to bring in technical support until now. The notion that, as one of the hostages was a police officer, they had ‘ears’ on the inside anyway.

We’re listening.

The implication was obvious enough.

We’re listening … if there’s anything you want to tell us. Anything you think might help. Something to give us the advantage out here, put us ahead of the game.

She leaned back against the radiator, took her eyes from the screen and looked across at Akhtar. He had no interest in the television. He was sitting with his back to the wall opposite her, his head lowered, staring down at the gun. He had been doing this a lot more since the previous evening. Picking the gun up, carrying it around for a while, putting a hand on it. He was not pointing it, or even waving it around, and it seemed to Helen that it was simply a question of reminding himself that he had it, and why he had it.

That he was the one ahead of the game.

Helen felt something tighten in her chest each time he reached for it.

However much she thought she understood Javed Akhtar, she could no longer be sure what he was or was not capable of, and she did not need to be reminded what a loaded gun could do. She hoped to God that she was imagining it, but several times in the last few hours she had thought she could catch her first whiff of the body in the next room. A sharp stab of something sweet. Only for a moment, but enough to make her stomach turn over and her eyes begin to water.

We’re listening.

She felt as though she should say something to Akhtar, to warn him before he said the wrong thing, but she had no idea how. She could write something down perhaps – DON’T MENTION MITCHELL – but even asking for a pen and paper would probably sound suspicious to anyone listening in.

Inevitable in the end, she knew that. Same as the smell.

Now it was only a matter of time until they were found out. Until she was found out. A matter of time before the people on the outside stopped listening and took a rather more proactive approach.

Because of something they hadn’t heard.