The Scribbler Iain Maitland (good books to read txt) 📖

was rotting in places. She could see through gaps in the roof.

This wouldn’t last long, she was sure. Once the police arrived en masse. She just had to make it out the other side.

She knew she had to huddle down, stay out of view. Get her back against the only sound wall in the barn. Make herself as small as possible. Hope that the two brothers would leave themselves open, vulnerable. Would walk around not realising that the police would soon be there, hidden and waiting. Marksmen at noon, three o’clock, six o’clock and nine o’clock.

Carrie was not sure exactly what the police procedures would be. She knew they could not just storm in unless there was a real and imminent threat to life. Nor shoot the brothers through an open window, even if they provided an easy target. Could do that only if someone were about to die. A madman holding a hostage in front of him, while waving a gun around. No other choice then.

They would have to engage first. With the brothers. Try to reason with them. Assess the risks. She wondered if they’d assume both she and Gayther were alive. Were being held hostage. That would slow things down. But she thought maybe the mother may have said she was dead. Only Gayther then. Roger Gayther, who was already dead. But the police would not know that. God knows what they would do, she thought.

She knew she had to do it.

Look at his dead body lying there towards the front corner of the barn.

Decide what to do.

She wanted them to move his body, lay it out somewhere quiet and peaceful, respectful, in another barn. Feared though that, if she asked, the smart brother might just dump it unceremoniously outside of this barn, to show the police what they were capable of.

Carrie thought that, if the police saw Gayther’s body and had been told by the mother that Carrie was already dead, they might just storm the barn after no more than one or two peremptory warnings. And that she might die in the crossfire.

So, she sat there and waited for what was going to happen. Knew it would all end here. That the brothers were not going to run. They had nowhere to go. Would not give themselves up. To spend the rest of their lives in prison. Would not move anywhere else, somewhere more secure and easier to defend. That they clung to the madness that they could trade Carrie for their mother. The insanity of it.

She knew all of this. And that, at some stage, the police would attack.

All she didn’t know was which of them was going to live. And who would die.

She thought, one way or the other, they all would.

* * *

The smart brother was busy, checking his gun, the supplies of ammunition, going up and down the staircase, deciding where he was going to sit and wait for the police.

He chose upstairs, near the front of the barn. Turning to the slow brother as he went, “Watch her.” Tense and anxious; “twanging,” thought Carrie. So unpredictable.

Now out of sight, Carrie could imagine him lying down at the front, working a hole in the rotting wall, looking out, taking aim. Ready. Waiting. Trigger happy. Like he was with Gayther.

She looked across at Gayther’s body again. Felt a sudden overwhelming sense of sorrow. Knew, in her heart, it was better if his body were inside than out. The longer the police thought he was alive, the more they’d hold off, and the better her chances of escape. She felt the shard of glass still in her hand. Jagged and rough.

The slow brother sat down carefully beside Carrie.

She looked to the side, waiting for him to speak.

He smiled shyly at her, reached into his pocket.

She looked down at what he took out. A small, threadbare teddy bear folded over and tucked into his pocket. One eye, no more than a roughly sewn-on button. Its limbs thin and flaccid. It looks more like a bald rat, thought Carrie, although she did not say so.

“That’s nice,” she said instead. “What is it?”

He sighed almost happily, and she thought he seemed somehow proud.

“This is Charlie,” he answered.

“Who’s Charlie?” she said.

“Charlie is my pal.” He held the bear in one hand and ran one fat finger from his other hand over the bear’s eye, where the other eye should have been, and down and across the nose and mouth, long since faded lines of black.

“He’s an old boy,” she said, as conversationally as she could. “A good old Suffolk boy.”

He nodded. She thought he was going to say something, but he didn’t. He just stroked the bear’s head as if it soothed him.

“Is he yours?” she asked. “From when you were young?”

He jiggled suddenly on his bottom, like a small child, turning towards her. She could see the excitement in his face. “Yes,” he said simply, looking at her. Little boy lost, she thought.

She nodded. “That’s nice,” she said, “that you’ve kept him so long. Looked after him.” She paused. “I hope you look after me as well.” She tried to sound jolly.

The slow brother glanced at her. Then upwards, as if checking on his brother. To see if he was watching. Or listening.

He looked back at her. She thought he nodded, only ever so slightly, but it was definitely a nod of agreement.

And then he spoke. “This is for you,” he said, putting the bear carefully beside her legs. “For your best boy. So I can come to the party.” He nodded again, more firmly this time, as if to say, ‘there, a present, now I can be there’.

She smiled at him.

“I’d love to hold Charlie,” she dropped her voice.

“Untie me and I can give Charlie a cuddle,” she paused, judging the moment. “And you too, Dennis, if you’d like me to.”

He looked bewildered, confused. She realised she had misjudged it. Offering a cuddle to a man who, most likely, was not used to affection. A