town, but her voice trailed off before she finished. She walked off down the streets he knew so well, keeping a couple of paces ahead of him.
The first sign was the broken glass. lt was all over the place, scattered across both the road and the pavements. Much of it was the coarse granules of shattered car windows. They stepped over long smears of darkbrown stains on the pavements. Most of the windows they passed were broken. There were belongings scattered everywhere: shopping bags, children's toys, packages of food, satchels of school books, a pair of shoes. He saw several vehicles that had been abandoned in the middle of the road, their windows shot away and the panels of their doors pockmarked with bullet holes. He was astounded by the number of bullets that appeared to have been fired. How much ammunition could one man carry? How many weapons had he used?
The policewoman strode ahead of him, glancing back from time to time to make sure he had not fallen behind. By the time the White Dragon was in sight, he was no longer looking around at what they passed. He stared only at the back of her legs, clad in dark stockings, trying not to see, trying not to think.
At last they arrived at the White Dragon. lt was at the epicentre of the violence that had spilled across the streets. Here at last Nick was forced not only to witness the results of the rampage, but to begin, ineptly, unwillingly, uncomprehendingly, the long process of facing up to what had happened to his parents that afternoon, the day they apparently decided against driving into Eastbourne to do a little late shopping.
CHAPTER 5
Dave Hartland, flattened uncomfortably on the bare and dusty floorboards below the window frame, inched forward on his stomach until his head was by the sill. His view of the street below was restricted and his heart was beating so fiercely that he could barely hold still.
He glimpsed a number of policemen taking shelter behind a row of parked cars.
A bullet shattered the window pane and embedded itself in the ceiling. Glass and plaster showered down on the boards around him. In a reflex he rolled over, covering his head and neck as best he could.
Using his elbows for propulsion he wriggled backwards, scraping his limbs on the rough boards. Somewhere out there a helicopter was searching for him, and it was surely only a matter of time before it ventured within range. Once he had been picked up by the helicopter's heatlmager he would be effectively done for. He could hear the pulsating of the motor as an insistent rhythm beneath every movement, almost subaudible, a throbbing pressure.
In the corridor outside he was able to stand. He looked to right and left, then raised his boot and kicked down the door opposite. He burst into the room, covering every corner of it with a sweep of the rifle muzzle. When he was satisfied it was clear, he crouched and moved across to the window. He looked down into a wide, straight road. A row of tall terraced houses stood on the opposite side.
Until this moment he could have been anywhere; now he
knew that he could be anywhere except Bulverton. He had lived in Bulverton all his life.
Nowhere in the town looked like this. Cars were parked on both sides of the street, and behind these he could make out, as before, several armed policemen crouching for shelter.
One was only barely concealed; Dave Hartland raised his riffle and shot him.
In instant response, all the other police emerged from their positions, raised their rifles and fired back at him. Dozens of bullets smashed through the glass, thudded into the brickwork, or whined into the room behind him. Dave easily dodged them all.
He backed out of the room and ran to the window at the Ear end of the corridor. He could see the helicopter hovering, outlined against the snowcapped mountains in the distance.
An amplified voice suddenly burst around him.
'We know you're in there, Grove!' shouted the voice. 'Throw down your weapon or weapons, and come out with your hands up! Let the hostage go first! Lie on the ground facedown!
Disarm your weapon or weapons! You can't escape! We know you're in there, Grove! Throw down your
The name Grove momentarily disoriented him. Until then Hartland had been suspecting he was in the wrong scenario. Now, briefly, he wondered again what was going on.
No time for thought! He hurried to the staircase, went down the steps two at a time and ran into the large room at the back of the house. This led through shattered french windows into a small yard protected by high walls. He dashed Out, crossed the yard safely, and made it through a high wooden gate into an alley that ran along the back of the garden. He ran crouching along the alley until he reached a
second gate. He vaulted over this and immediately took up 1 1
1
rifle
1
1
a defensive position with the i c, scanning from side to side.
He was in another wide road, this time a broad divided highway leading up to the suspension bridge that crossed the river by the downtown business section. Cars were streaming past in both directions, their drivers and passengers unidentified shapes behind the skyreflecting windows. There were dozens of pedestrians, some walking or standing alone, others together in groups or couples. No one had a face with discernible features. Tall skyscrapers, glinting with gold, silver and blue mirrorglass, stretched up endlessly into the sky in dizzying perspectives.
Dave Hartland clicked on a new magazine, and opened fire.
Soon he was surrounded by bodies and wrecked cars, so he set off at a run towards the suspension bridge. He came more quickly than he expected to the row of toll booths. As he approached, numerous armed police emerged from their shelter behind the booths and began firing at him.
Dave threw himself to the ground while the police bullets cracked into the concrete road surface around him. He took aim and began picking off the cops one by one.
