Owning Jacob - SA (39 page)

What the fuck do you dunk you're doing? Get back! Wow!' The policeman's face was contorted with anger and fear.

Ben felt the man's spittle fleck his cheeks.

'I need to speak to Inspector Gr-' You fucking ieaf ? I said move!' The policeman seized him, began pushing him away. He could see the negotiator standing behind the Land Rover's open door, framed against the fal en car hulks. 'Greene! Greene!' he yel ed as he was propel ed backwards. The negotiator turned and saw him, seemed to hesitate, then came towards them in a stooped, shuffling run. His face looked haggard.e

'I told you to stay out of the way!'

'Let me talk to Kale!' The negotiator jerked his head at the policeman stil holding him. 'Take him back.'

'No, wait! Fucking get off me!' He tried to shrug off the policeman; failed. 'At least let me try!' he shouted to the negotiator's retreating back. 'He's not going to listen to you but he might me! For fuck's sake, wil you listen)' Greene halted, then signal ed to the policeman. Ben felt himself released, but he could sense the policeman poised like a heeled guard dog to take hold of him again, eager to vent his outrage on someone. His breath in Ben's face was sour with frustration as the negotiator said, 'What would you say to him?' 1 don't know, offer to go in myself if he lets Jacob go.' The negotiator gave an emphatic shake of his head and turned away. 'Al right, al right.' Ben rushed the words out. 'He wants his son. Al this is because he thinks people are trying to take Jacob away. I'l say I won't even try to see him again, that he can have him. I can tel him that I'l never bother them again if he gives himself up.' He stared at the man, wil ing him to agree. 'Please!' The negotiator glanced towards the shambles in the scrapyard.

He turned his back as he spoke into his radio. Ben heard the superintendent's gruff voice through a snap of static, but couldn't make out any words. Greene came back. He gave a terse nod.

'We're not going to let you speak to him. He's volatile enough as it is, and we don't want to risk doing anything that might provoke him into hurting himself or the boy. We've got to calm him down and get him talking to us, but you can stay near by in case he asks anything you can help with.' He motioned for Ben to fol ow. 'Keep behind me.' They went through the gates into the yard. Everything was suddenly much larger. The white lights and the smel of oil and metal lent it the surreal quality of an airport at night.

The sergeant gave him a hostile look as they reached the back of the Land Rover. 'Wait here,' the negotiator told Ben.

'He can't see to shoot over the cars, but I want you out of the way anyway. If I need you I'l let you know.' Leaving him, Greene went to where O'Donnel stood behind the Land Rover's door. Sirens wailed outside the yard as the loaded ambulances raced away. Ben looked past the policemen to the office building, just visible above the jumble of wrecked cars. They stil blocked the road but now it was in an untidy sprawl, as if they had been tipped out of a bucket. It looked like an adult version of the scrap pile in Kale's garden.

Facing the shadowy office across the top of the car door, the negotiator raised a loudhailer to his mouth.

"THIS IS IAN GREENE AGAIN, JOHN. WE'RE STILL HERE. NONE OF US ARE GOING ANYWHERE, SO WE MIGHT AS WELL TALK. I KNOW YOU'RE UPSET, BUT THIS ISN'T

GOING TO DO ANYONE ANY GOOD. THINK ABOUT WHAT IT'S DOING TO-' Ben lunged for his arm before he could finish the sentence.

'Don't say Jacob!' he said quickly as the negotiator furiously turned on him. 'Kale cal s him Steven!' The heat went from the negotiator's eyes. He motioned Ben to get back and put the loudhailer to his mouth again.

He continued in the same measured tones, a reasonable man, offering reasonable alternatives. It won't work. The conviction gripped Ben with a cold certainty. Kale wouldn't listen to reason. He had his own insane agenda, and rational solutions didn't figure in it. They wouldn't be able to talk him into giving himself up, and if they eventual y tried to rush him he would shoot Jacob, then himself.

Ben couldn't see any way out that didn't end in blood and death.

He was shivering uncontrol ably. Greene was trying to convince Kale to answer the phone. He could have been talking to himself in an empty room for al the effect it had. The negotiator paused, then said, I'VE SPOKEN TO BEN MURRAY, JOHN. HE DOESN'T WANT THIS EITHER. HE SAYS HE DOESN'T WANT TO SPLIT YOU AND STEVEN UP. TALK

TO US, JOHN. LET'S SEE IF WE CAN-' The shout carried clearly from the office building. 'Is Murray there?' Ben tensed at the sound of Kale's voice. The negotiator hesitated. 'YES, HE'S HERE, JOHN. DO YOU WANT TO SPEAK TO HIM? PICK UP THE PHONE AND-'

'Send him in.' YOU KNOW I CAN'T DO THAT, BUT YOU CAN TALK TO-' The blast of the shotgun made them al duck. This close, Ben could see the muzzle flash through the barricade. 'Send him in!' O'Donnel said, 'Shit!' Greene drew in a long breath. Ben reached him before he could use the loudhailer again.

'Let me go in!'

'I told you to stay back there!'

'Let me do as he says!' The shotgun bel owed again. 'You've got five minutes.' Ben clutched at Greene's arm. 'Please! I might be able to talk to him! If not you don't know what he might do!' The negotiator yanked his arm free. 'I know what he'l do if you go in. Get him out of here,' he told O'Donnel .

'He's got my son in there!' Ben shouted, realising for the first time that it was true. But the sergeant was already pul ing him away, signal ing to another policeman. 'Take him back to the command post.'

The policeman gripped his arm above the elbow and herded him through the gates. 'Al right, I can walk, let go!' Ben said, but the policeman didn't loosen his hold as they went outside. The ambulances had gone, but discarded pieces of equipment and uniforms stil littered the road like the detritus from a bloody street party. An armoured vest lay in the gutter like a run-over dog. A solitary boot stood upright, its leather glistening and wet. Here and there dark patches that weren't oil stained the frosted tarmac. Ben wondered how finding some old cuttings in a brass box could have led to this. He was shivering more than ever as they reached the white trailer.

I'm going to be sick,' he said.

The policeman stood back as Ben leaned against a lamppost.

His radio gave a hiss and a tinny voice squawked out. The policeman spoke into it, briskly, then put his hand on Ben's shoulder. "You going to be al right?'

'Just give me a few minutes.'

'Go in there when you've got yourself sorted. Someone'l get you a cup of tea.' Ben nodded thanks without looking up. The policeman left him outside the trailer and jogged back towards the scrapyard.

Stil bent over, Ben watched him disappear inside.

He straightened and looked around.

The activity of the police outside the scrapyard had subsided to a tense expectancy. They faced the gates from behind the protection of their cars and vans, waiting to see what Kale would do next No one looked back as Ben approached them.

He tried not to think of what he was doing as he headed for an empty gap between two police cars, as if even the noise of his thoughts might attract attention. Greene's voice was blaring from the loudspeaker again, but he barely heard it. When he reached the gap he hesitated. The nearest police were only yards away. Doubt immediately began to batter at him. Just do it.

He carried on walking.

He was past the cars, moving out into the open space in front of the gates. He could see through them to the Land Rover, the tangle of wrecks. He was in plain view now. He quickened his pace praying for a few extra seconds of confusion, shoulders tensing with the expectation of the sudden chal enge.

He had gone less than half a dozen steps when it came.ΠIt released him like a starting pistol. He sprinted for theΠgates as shouts and footsteps raced after him. Up ahead he saw O'Donnel and Greene turn, and veered around the other side of the Land Rover as the sergeant started moving to cut him off. His throat and chest hurt as he swerved away from another policeman, and then the tumbled barricade rose up in front of him.

He'd planned to go across where the fal en cars were lowest, but now there was no time to do anything but leap at the first wreck he came to. His foot skidded off an icy wing, but he grabbed on to something cold and sharp and hauled himself upward. There were yel s from behind and below him now.

A hand seized his ankle. He jerked his foot and kicked back.

Someone said, 'Bastard!' and his foot was released. The car bodies were icy and rough. He clawed his way up on to the roof of one and jumped from it on to the next as it shifted beneath him. He closed his mind to their see sawing instability as he scrambled over them, hearing the clamour at his back as the police fol owed. He reached the top, shouting, 'It's Ben Murray, I'm coming over!', and as he slipped and scrabbled down the other side there was a boom and a flash of light from the scrapyard office. Oh, Jesus, the bastard! he thought as he slipped and fel . He tried to turn it into a jump, pushing himself clear, and landed heavily on the broken concrete of the drive. He curled himself into a bal and wrapped his arms around his head as the shotgun crashed twice more, but the expected shock of pel ets ripping into him didn't come. Above him it sounded as though handfuls of pebbles were being thrown against the cars.

Someone screamed, 'Back! Back! Get down!,' and for a few seconds he thought the entire barricade was coming over on top of him as it rocked and clattered under the policemen's retreat.

Then it went quiet.

He slowly uncurled. He was lying at the foot of a car canted over on its side. He looked up at it rearing above him and hurriedly moved from underneath. He felt bruised and scraped in any number of places, and his ankle protested when he put his weight on it, but other than that he was unhurt.

He rubbed his arms to try to stop shaking, but he couldn't keep his teeth from chattering. 'Oh fuck,' he breathed. 'Oh fuck.' The memory of the shotgun explosions was stil reverberating in his head. But they had been to drive the policemen back, not aimed at him.

Kale wanted him inside.

Greene's voice, unamplified, came from the other side of the barricade. 'Murray! Murray! Can you hear me?' I'm al right.' The words were an inaudible croak. He put more force into them. I'm al right!' He could hear the negotiator's relief in his pause. 'Okay, just stay where you are. Get behind some cover if there's anything near by, but don't move away from the cars.

Just stay put.' Ben didn't answer. He looked down the drive to the darkened building. Slices of light from the police Land Rover shone through the barricade in fractured patterns, but none reached that far. It waited for him, impassive and silent. Ben started towards it.

'Murray? Mr Murray!' Greene's voice fel away. 'Look, don't be a bloody idiot …!' He kept walking. There was frost underfoot It gave a minute, frictionless crunch with every step. The towers of lifeless cars on either side of him were coated with it. As the shattered patches of light from the Land Rover were left behind and his eyes adjusted, he could see the wrecks shining with a pale luminescence in the moonlight.

His hands were sore and frozen from his scramble over the barricade. The armed police already seemed a long way away.

Greene began cal ing him through the loudhailer, tel ing him to go back, but even that seemed distant and unimportant, far less real than his footsteps on the icy concrete. It was between him and Kale now. As it always had been, he realised.

He remembered when he and Colin had come along this same drive. The scrapyard had figured in his thoughts so often since that he could hardly believe he'd only been there once.

He wondered if he'd made a single right decision since then.

He wondered if he was making one now.

He felt exposed and alone as he approached the unlit building. He glanced uneasily at the square black hole of the first-floor window. That was where the shots had come from.

It was wide open, but he couldn't see inside. He knew Kale would be watching, though. Sighting down the barrel.

He shivered under his bulky coat. He had no plan, no idea of what he would do when he reached the office. There was no chance of him overpowering the ex-soldier, and he didn't believe for a second that Kale might want to talk, that he could be persuaded to give himself up and let Jacob go.

There was only one reason why he wanted Ben to go inside, and for a second Ben felt a heady disbelief as the nearness of his own death confronted him.

But there was nothing else to do.

God, I'm frightened. He was almost at the building now. Its shadow lay across his path like a hole in the ground. He walked into it, more conscious than ever of the open window above, resisting the impulse to hurry from beneath it. Don't give him the satisfaction.

He could see the ground-floor room where he and Colin had met the fat scrap dealer. Next to it was the open maw of the passageway. It was a solid block of darkness. Ben halted at its edge. At its far end, invisible, were the steps leading up to the first floor where Kale would be waiting. And Jacob, please God. There was a smel of damp brick. He felt in his pockets for matches. He hadn't any. He looked around him, putting off the moment when he would have to go into the blackness. There was a lightening in the sky to the east, and he realised with surprise that dawn couldn't be very far off.

He stared at it for a long moment, then turned and entered the passageway.

He felt his way along by touch. It was impossible to see.

His foot kicked something hard, and he skittered back before he identified it as the first step. He groped around until he found the wal , and a cold steel railing. Holding on to it, he started up, treading as softly as he could. The steps came to a smal concrete landing, then turned back on themselves, stil rising. He paused on it, out of breath. A smal window was set high in the wal . It was almost obscured with dirt, but the steps here weren't quite so dark He continued up. He was almost at the top when Kale moved out of the shadows.