clutched his sub-machine gun and kept a wary eye on Eva.
'What are they saying?'
That Gudrun won't come down,' said Chinanda. They want for us to go up.'
'No way. It's a trap. The police are up there. We know that.'
Chinanda took his hand from the phone. 'No one goes up and Gudrun comes down. Five minutes we give you or...'
'I'll go up,' Eva called out. 'The police aren't up there. My husband is. I'll bring them both down.'
The terrorists stared at her. 'Your husband?' they asked in unison. The quads joined in. 'You mean Daddy's in the attic? Oh, Mummy do bring him down. He's going to be ever so cross with Mrs de Frackas. She drank ever such a lot of Daddy's peepee.'
'You can say that again,' moaned the old lady, but Eva ignored the extraordinary statement. She was looking fixedly at the terrorists and willing them to let her go up to the flat.
'I promise you I'll...'
'You're lying. You want to go up there to report to the police.'
'I want to go up there to save my children,' said Eva, 'and if you don't believe me tell Inspector Flint that Henry has got to come down now.'
The terrorists moved away down the kitchen and conferred.
'If we can free Gudrun and get rid of this woman and her filthy children it's good,' said Baggish. 'We have the man and the old woman.'
Chinanda disagreed. 'We keep the children. That way the woman does nothing wrong.'
He went back to the phone and repeated Eva's message. 'Five minutes we give you only. The man Wilt comes down...'
'Naked,' said Eva, determined to see that Henry shared her discomfort
'He comes down naked,' Chinanda repeated, 'and with his hands tied...'
'He can't tie his own hands,' said Flint practically.
Gudrun can tie them for him,' answered Chinanda. Those are our conditions.'
He put the phone down and sat looking wearily at Eva. The English were strange people. With women like this, why had they ever given up their Empire? He was roused from his reverie. Mrs de Frackas was getting woozily to her feet.
'Sit down,' he shouted at her but the old lady ignored him. She wobbled across to the sink.
'Why don't I shoot her?' said Baggish. 'That way they'll know we mean what we say.'
Mrs de Frackas squinted at him with bloodshot eyes. 'Young man,' she said, 'with a head like mine you'd be doing me a favour. Just don't miss.' And to emphasize the point she turned her back on him and stuck her bun under the cold tap.
Chapter 21
In the Communications Centre there was confusion too. Flint was happily relaying the message to Wilt and enjoying his protest that it was bad enough risking death by gunshot but he didn't see why he had to go naked and risk double pneumonia into the bargain and anyway how the hell he was going to tie his own hands together he hadn't the faintest idea, when he was stopped by the new head of the Anti-Terrorist Squad.
'Hold everything,' the Superintendent told Flint. 'The Idiot Brigade have just come up with a psycho-political profile of Wilt and it looks bad.'
'It's going to look a damned sight worse if the bastard doesn't get down out of that flat in the next three minutes,' said Flint, 'and anyway what the hell is a psycho-political profile?'
'Never mind that now. Just go into a holding pattern with the terrorists on the ground
