Tina stared at him, shaking her head softly. Telling him to keep his mouth shut.
Logan shouted over his shoulder: ‘Ms Peterson’s taken Rickards hostage. She’s got a knife to his throat.’
Tina’s eyes went wide. ‘You bastard!’ She clutched tighter at the constable’s crotch and he whimpered. Then groaned.
‘WHAT? Fuck …’ The rattling turned to booming. From the sound of things Steel was trying to kick the door down. And then it went silent, followed by a one-sided, muffled conversation. ‘You’re not a serial killer, Tina. It was an accident. Yes you fantasize about it, but it’s a long way from there to holding a police officer at knife-point! You know what she’s doing right now?’ pointing up the stairs to where Steel was still talking to herself. ‘She’s calling for an armed response unit. They’ve got guns.’
Tina let go of Rickards groin and fumbled her way round his belt till she got to the handcuffs in their leather holster and pulled them out, keeping the knife against his throat. ‘Wrists together, behind your back.’ The constable did as he was told. There was a metallic click, then another. Her hand worked its way back to the front and tugged at the belt buckle.
Rickards said, ‘Please don’t!’ but she shushed him, and undid it anyway, then unbuttoned the top of his trousers.
‘Come on, Tina, they’re on their way here now. It’s not too late to let John go before this gets out of hand.’
She put her lips against the constable’s ears as she slid his zip down and his trousers fell round his ankles. ‘They don’t understand, do they?’ She worked a hand into the waistband of his underpants and tugged them down as far as she could reach. Rickards’ erection sprang free and she smiled. ‘But we do.’
‘Please-’ Tears sparked at the side of his eyes.
‘Shhh,’ she grabbed him and started stroking, ‘you need to be silent unless I say so.’
‘But- Aaargh!’
She dug her nails into his penis. Then went back to stroking it.
‘Oh, Jesus.’ Logan really didn’t need to see that.
A loud bang from upstairs, a pause, and then Steel limped down the stairs. ‘Now what the hell is everyone …’ she drifted to a halt as she saw a shivering Rickards with his trousers round his ankles, his pants round his thighs, and his dick in Tina’s hand. The one not holding the knife. ‘There’s a sight you don’t see every day.’
No one laughed.
‘Firearms team’s on its way, five, ten minutes tops.’ Steel said, digging a brand-new packet of cigarettes out of her pocket and tearing the cellophane off with her teeth, adding, ‘You don’t mind?’ as she winkled a fag out and stuck it in her mouth.
‘I’d rather you didn’t smoke in my house!’
‘Aye?’ The inspector shrugged and pulled out a cheap, petrol-station lighter, her hand trembling as she lit up and sooked in the first lungful of smoke. ‘Well, I’d rather you didn’t wank off my constables with a bread knife. So we’re even.’
They stared at each other as the silence stretched, then Tina said, ‘I … I was so sorry when I found out Jason was dead. He was… special. I’d never been a top before …’ She shivered. ‘I felt him scream and wriggle and bleed all up my arm. It was so warm …’
Rickards whimpered again and she speeded up her stroke. Then slowed right down. Keeping him hanging while the blood from his throat soaked dark-red into his T-shirt, making the black material glisten. ‘I didn’t realize till afterwards how special it was.’ She smiled. ‘The power of life over death.’
58
The phone rang in the living room and everyone jumped. Steel took the latest cigarette from her mouth, and lit the next one in the chain before dropping the dog end onto the carpet with its friends. ‘That’ll be them now.’ So much for five or ten minutes, it’d taken the response team nearly twenty to get here.
Tina nodded. ‘What will they do? The firearms people?’
‘Well,’ Steel blew a long column of smoke at the ceiling, ‘first they’ll try to negotiate. Then they’ll try negotiating some more. And if that fails, they’ll go in for a bit of the old negotiation.’
‘They won’t shoot me?’
‘Only if they have to. It makes a shite heap of paperwork.’
Tina bit her bottom lip, still working away at Rickards’ erection, keeping him on the brink without ever letting him fall over. ‘What if I kill him?’
‘You really, really don’t want to do that. Seriously, it’s a crap idea.’
Ring, ring. Ring, ring …
‘You might want to get that.’
‘You,’ she took her hand off Rickard’s cock long enough to point at Logan, ‘answer it. Tell them I’m not coming out.’
‘You’ve got to some time, Tina. You can’t stay in here forever.’
‘Answer the fucking phone!’ She twisted the knife and Rickards yelped, the slow dribble of blood from his neck turning into a steady trickle.
‘OK! OK, I’m going!’ Logan hurried through into the lounge and grabbed the phone out of its cradle — it was one of those little cordless ones so he carried it back to the kitchen, listening as the negotiator launched into his opening speech about how he was just here to help and nobody needed to get hurt. ‘Yeah, hang on a second, Jim,’ said Logan, stopping the man before he got too far into the whole empathising thing, ‘she’s right here.’ He held the phone out to Tina. She’d have to put the knife down, or stop playing with Rickards. Either would be a result in Logan’s book.
‘I look stupid?’ She asked. ‘You talk to him.’
‘OK. What you want me to say?’
‘I don’t fucking know, do I?’
‘Well … how about we start with what you want? Your demands? What do you want to get out of …’ Logan paused, watching as a single red dot of light blossomed on Tina’s knife arm, then jittered up to the middle of her forehead. Another one joined it, then a third, like tiny neon ladybirds.
‘What?’
‘I …’ He turned to look at the inspector who sighed, took a deep drag on her cigarette, then blew a cloud of smoke into the air between them. Red laser-sight lines glowed like sparkling threads.
‘Time to put the knife down.’
Tina put her lips to Rickards ear, whispered something, opened her mouth wide and sank her teeth into the cartilage, tearing her head back and forth till a chunk came free in a spurt of blood. The constable screamed. Someone yelled on the other end of the phone in Logan’s hand. Tina spat out the mouthful of Rickards’ ear, pounding away on his erection. Steel yelled, ‘NO!’ and lunged forwards. Something sizzled past Logan and a small black dot appeared above Tina’s left eye. Perfectly round. Dark.
And then the back of her head exploded.
BLOOD
59
Opening night and DI Insch’s band of merry troubadours were doing their best to murder Gilbert and Sullivan in front of a crowd of friends and relatives. Logan sat on his own in the darkness of the Arts Centre, surrounded by strangers. Brooding. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the thing he’d found in Jackie’s bedside cabinet, twisting it back and forth between his fingers for the umpteenth time that evening. Even in the muted light it glittered. He’d been hunting for the spare set of flat keys — the ones Jackie always borrowed because she kept
