‘I don’t think so.’

‘Look, I’m not going to disrespect you and say I won’t hurt you if you do what I say or any of that other bullshit,’ he said. ‘You know how this is going to go down. If you want, I can blow your brains out right here, right now. I’d prefer not to do that, because it’ll complicate things, and, like I said, I’ve already got a full plate today. You decide.’

Darby slowly lifted her hands off the top of her head. As she placed them behind her back, her gaze dropped to the thick, gold-capped pen sitting in Lancaster’s breast pocket.

Lancaster saw where she was looking. ‘You like that? It’s a Waterman Edson fountain pen.’

Darby placed the back of one hand flat against the other; then she kept squeezing her hands into fists. If Kelly tied her while her muscles were pumped full of blood, she could relax her hands afterwards and, hopefully, gain the space necessary to free them. During her SWAT training, she’d been taught various methods to free herself from plastic ties. All she needed was the time in which to do it.

‘David’s wife bought it for him for their tenth anniversary or some shit – she spent almost a grand on this stupid thing, can you believe it? I know that because David was always bragging about it. I picked it up from his bedroom nightstand, made sure the greedy bastard saw me stick it in my pocket.’

‘I know. Laurie Richards told us.’

Kelly tightened the plastic bindings against Darby’s wrists. Lancaster’s gaze had narrowed in thought.

‘Told you what?’

Darby didn’t answer. Smiled back at him.

‘You know what? I changed my mind,’ Lancaster said, and cocked the pistol’s trigger.

68

Some people believe your whole life flashes before your eyes during your final moment. Darby had the opposite experience. She didn’t remember her father taking her to her first Red Sox game, how he always smelled of cigars and aftershave; the way his big, callused hand swallowed hers. She didn’t think about the man she loved, or maybe was afraid to love, or how she wished she had spent more time away from the office, instead of devoting almost all her energy to finding people who, when you got right down to it, weren’t part of the human race – people who should be ground into chum and tossed off the side of a boat. Her final moment would be spent looking at blue-striped wallpaper and a couch covered in plastic; at a black-and-white cat that had popped its head around the corner and then disappeared.

Then the front door swung open to Barry Whitehead. He stepped inside, and his face turned almost as white as the snow stuck to his boots.

‘Jesus, Teddy, you didn’t say anything about killing a fed.’

‘She look dead to you? I need her cuffed, after what the bitch did to my face. Williams is in the kitchen. Put him in the trunk and come back here.’

Whitehead didn’t move. His face was bloodless, and he looked like he had swallowed barbed wire. He had stepped into a new script and he didn’t want a part in it.

Darby said to Whitehead: ‘He’s going to kill you, dumbass. Lancaster’s not the type to leave loose ends.’

Lancaster pistol-whipped her against the right side of her face; the gun split open her ear and pain exploded in black and red clouds behind her eyes. Her hands immediately went up to protect her face, but her wrists were tied behind her back. She staggered and her knees gave out. She dropped to the floor, near the couch, falling face first into the plastic-covered cushions.

Kelly screamed. Whitehead’s hand had reached the butt of his weapon when Lancaster fired.

The round went through Whitehead’s shoulder and the wall behind him exploded in a mist of red. The patrolman’s eyes were wide, his mouth a round, wet O; he stared in helpless confusion as he tumbled against a small sideboard, knocking over the Hummel figurines that had been sitting on its top. They smashed against the floor as Kelly screamed again, her hands pressed against her cheeks, staring in horror at what was unfolding.

Darby had moved to her side. There was some give in the restraints. She was getting to her feet and trying to slide out her wrist when Lancaster turned his weapon on Kelly and fired. The round went through her forehead, and she collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

But Lancaster thought Darby wasn’t a problem. Her hands were tied behind her back, and he had to deal with a more immediate problem: Whitehead, who had managed to remove his side-arm. The patrolman lay sideways on the floor, his shoulder gushing blood from a severed artery. He clicked off the safety just as Lancaster fired a round into his stomach.

Lancaster was about to charge forward, most likely to plant a final round into the patrolman’s skull. Darby saw her opportunity: she swung her leg and felt it connect with his shin. He tripped, and his forward momentum knocked him off balance. He pinwheeled, and by the time he had tumbled against the floor she was already on her feet and moving.

Lancaster had landed face first on the carpet. But he wasn’t injured, and he could attack. He threw himself on to his side, pointed the Glock at the couch and fired. Darby, who had already placed herself behind him, kicked Lancaster in the back of his head. She heard a crunching sound and his arm faltered. She raised her foot and brought the heel crashing down on his temple and he went limp.

She was about to kick him again when a voice said, If you kill him, you’ll never know what happened to Nicky Hubbard.

Darby kicked his gun across the floor. Her head was pounding, her stomach roiling; she gulped in air, trying to clear her head, trying to keep the sour mash of breakfast from coming up. The room smelled of cordite and blood, and she could hear Williams moaning in the kitchen. She sat on the floor, leaning back against the carpet and working her cuffed hands over her rump and the back of her legs.

Her wrists were still bound, but her hands were in front of her now. Kneeling, she found Lancaster’s handcuffs, then she pulled his hands behind his back and cuffed him. She got to her feet, dizzy and nauseous, and entered the kitchen.

Ray Williams’s head bobbed up, and he made a sick, wheezing sound.

‘Give me a minute and I’ll have you outta there,’ she panted, and removed a knife from the butcher’s block next to the stove.

Darby sat at the breakfast nook where Sally Kelly had served tea to her yesterday and propped her arms on the table. Because of the way her hands were bound, it took her a moment to angle the blade correctly so she could saw through the plastic without slitting a wrist in the process.

It was slow going. Her hands were not steady, shaky from the adrenalin, and the pounding in her head made it difficult to concentrate.

Finally, her hands were free. Darby made quick work of Williams’s bindings. He slumped back against the chair as his fingers scratched at the duct tape plastered across his mouth. She helped him to peel it off.

‘My ribs,’ Williams wheezed. ‘I think he broke them.’

He needed to stand to reduce the pressure and strain. Darby threw his heavy arm around her shoulder, and when she helped him to his feet he locked her in a chokehold.

To perform a standing rear-chokehold correctly, you need to wrap one arm around the victim’s throat. You place your other hand squarely on the back of the head and, gripping the hair, push the head forward while cutting off the airway. All it takes is five pounds of pressure; it takes more force to crack an egg. Almost always, the victim is immediately subdued.

But Darby McCormick is no ordinary victim. She’s a cop and, like me, she has not only been trained in the art of the chokehold, she knows how to break out of one. She knows to sink her chin against the crook of my elbow and hold on to my arm while she crouches forward. She knows she needs to wrap one of her legs around the back of my calf to trap my leg, then turn a sharp 180 degrees to break out of the hold – and she needs to do it fast, because the blood flow to her brain has already been cut by 13 per cent.