Twice Shy

'Right,' I said. 'Take the pistol with you.' I gestured with the rifle barrel and jerked my head towards the open front door, and of the three of them it was Eddy who left with the least reluctance and the most speed.

From inside the hall I watched Angelo start the engine, slam the gears into reverse and make a rough exit into the road. Once there he deliberately side-swiped my car, damaging his own rear wing in the process, and accelerated down the street as if to prove his superior manhood.

With a feeling of terrible tension I closed the front door and went into the sitting-room. Crossed to Sarah, looked at the rubber straps which fastened her wrists and unbuckled them. Unbuckled those round her ankles. Then those round Donna.

Donna started crying. Sarah shoved herself stiffly off the chair and collapsed onto the softer contours of the sofa.

'Do you realise how long we've been sitting there?' she demanded bitterly. 'And before you damned well ask, yes, they did untie us now and then for us to go to the bathroom.'

'And to eat?'

'I hate you,' she said.

'I really wanted to know.'

'Yes, to eat. Twice. He made me cook.'

Donna said between sobs, 'It's been awful. Awful. You've no idea.'

'They didn't…?' I began anxiously.

'No they didn't,' Sarah said flatly. 'They just sneered.'

'Hateful,' Donna said. 'Called us mugs.' She hobbled across the carpet and lowered herself gingerly into an armchair. 'I hurt all over.' Tears trickled down her cheeks. I thought of Angelo's description of 'wet chick' and stifled it quickly.

'Look,' I said, 'I know you don't feel like it, but I'd be much happier if you'd stuff a few things into a suitcase and we all left this house.'

Donna helplessly shook her head, and Sarah said 'Why?' with mutiny.

'Angelo hated having to go. You saw him. Suppose he comes back? When he thinks we're off guard… he might.'

The idea alarmed them as much as me and also angered Sarah. 'Why did you give them the pistol?' she demanded. 'That was stupid. You're such a fool.'

'Are you coming?'

'You can't expect us…' Donna wailed.

I said to Sarah, 'I have to make a phone call. I can't do it from here.' I indicated the dead telephone. 'I'm going away in the car to do it. Do you want to come, or not?'

Sarah took stock of that rapidly and said that yes, they were coming, and despite Donna's protests she drove her stiffly upstairs. They came down a few minutes later carrying a hold-all each, and I noticed that Sarah had put on some lipstick. I smiled at her with some of the old pleasure in seeing her resurfacing briefly, and she looked both surprised and confused.

'Come on, then,' I said, and took the hold-alls from them to put in the boot. 'Best be off.' I fetched the rifle, once again wrapped loosely in towel to confuse the neighbours, and stowed it in the suitcase. Checked that Donna had brought the door keys: shut the front door; drove away.

'Where are we going?' Sarah said.

'Where would you like?'

'What about money?'

'Credit cards,' I said.

We drove a short way in a silence broken only by Donna's occasional sniffs and sobs, going along now with lights on everywhere and the long soft evening turning to full dark.

I pulled up beside a telephone box and put through a reversed charge call to the Suffolk police.

'Is Detective Chief Superintendent Irestone there?' I said. Hopeless question, but had to be asked.

'Your name, sir?'

'Jonathan Derry.'

'One moment.'

I waited through the usual mutterings and clicks, and then a voice that was still not Irestone's said, 'Mr Derry, Chief Superintendent Irestone left instructions that if you telephoned again, your message was to be taken down in full and passed on to him directly. Chief Superintendent Irestone asked me to say that owing to… er… a hitch in communications he was not aware that you had tried to reach him so often, not until this afternoon. I am Detective Inspector Robson. I came to your house with the Chief Superintendent, if you remember.'

'Yes,' I said. A man nearing forty, fair-headed, reddish skin.

'If you tell me why you rang, sir?'

'You'll take notes?'

'Yes, sir. And a recording.'

'Right. Well – the man who came to my house with a pistol is called Angelo Gilbert. His father is Harry Gilbert, who runs bingo halls all over Essex and north-east London. The man who came with Angelo is his cousin Eddy – don't know his last name. He does what Angelo tells him.'

I paused and Inspector Robson said, 'Is that the lot, sir?'