The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 7 Part 17

"Not yet," replied Margaret.

The two women sat on the loamy earth of the woods. It was nice for once not to have to worry about dirt tonight was a time for being deliberately dirty. "She's late," said Bee, who had turned thirty the week before.

"She'll be here," said Margaret.

"What if she doesn't come?"

"She'll come."

There was a moment.

"I like your hair like that," said Margaret.

"Thank you," said Bee.

Bee's hair was usually done in a neat black bob, but she had shaved this off earlier in the evening down to a number one. Some have taken this as a sign that she was all along intending martyrdom. She had been anorexic for years, which was also taken as an explanation hatred of the self and of the world. But although she probably did not know it, at the time of her death she was three weeks' pregnant. Despite DNA testing, the father has to this day not been found.

"Do we go ahead anyway, if she doesn't come?" Bee asked.

"I think I hear her now," said Margaret. If she heard something, it wasn't Liz; perhaps a fox or a badger. After this, though, they waited in a listening silence.

Eventually, a quarter of an hour later, Liz crashed out of the undergrowth and fell against them. It took her two minutes to regain her breath during which time both the others wanted to tell her to keep quiet but didn't feel it possible.

"I was followed," was the first thing she said that they understood.

"Calm down," said Margaret, who wasn't the leader they didn't have a leader; hierarchies being part of what they wanted to destroy but who often was first to introduce ideas into their circle: she had suggested tonight; the others had not been slow to agree. "Tell us whenever you're ready."

Liz who dies sat with her head between her legs, gasping less and less. At twenty-nine, she was the youngest of them. (Margaret was thirty-one, Bee as mentioned before thirty.) "I'm sorry I'm late," she said.

"We have plenty of time," said Margaret, but checked her watch anyway.

"Who followed you?" asked Bee.

"A policeman," Liz said, her breath a little more even. "He was dressed in civilian clothes, but I could still tell he was a policeman."

"How?" asked Margaret.

"Because I hated him so much," Liz said, then sn.i.g.g.e.red. "And he walked as if he'd been taught how to march you know what I mean."

"Do you think they know anything?" Bee asked.

"No," said Margaret. "How could they?"

"I'm not so sure," said Liz. "He seemed to want to follow me for no reason."

"You managed to lose him, didn't you?" asked Margaret.

"Of course," said Liz, sitting up straight. "Or else I wouldn't be here."

"How?" asked Bee.

"Well . . ." said Liz, and took a long breath.

It turned out she had gone to the house of a sympathetic female friend, knocked on the door, been invited inside and then, after a brief explanation (seedy man loitering, fear of rape), had climbed over the back fence and into the concreted area behind the cricket pavilion. From here, she had been able to make her way to the woods without breaking cover more than once to cross the main road near the stables.

All three women kept horses there, and this was later the cause of much speculation. Perhaps it was a sign of s.e.xual frustration unhappiness in marriage. The husbands of Margaret and Liz denied this as libel. Singleton Bee was discovered (by the tabloids) to have been gratifyingly promiscuous. In the end, more than seven men came forward to testify to her total lack of frigidity. "She was very intense," one of them said. "Almost too intense. I didn't like it." Nymphomania became the favoured diagnosis.

Margaret coughed quietly. "All set?" she asked.

"Yes," said Liz.

"Ready," said Bee.

They started walking, in single file. All of them were quite fit Bee did yoga, Margaret did Pilates and Liz did a weekly salsa cla.s.s so they made very rapid progress. It took them half an hour to reach their destination: a gamekeeper's cottage in a small clearing, surrounded by a neatly kept garden lawn, rockery, fruit trees. By this time, it was starting to get dark. The lights were on inside the cottage, the now infamous "Bower of Bliss"; the flowery curtains of the sitting room had not been drawn. A Mercedes saloon and a Renault Clio were parked on the drive, which had long-ago been done in crazy paving.

The three women made a quick check of their equipment, particularly their radios. These were small and made of black plastic; across the top of them, the words Action Man were written in bright orange.

"Fine," said Margaret. "We follow the plan."

She and Bee proceeded to the front door. Liz, keeping low, made her way to the kitchen door around the other side. She could hear the sound of the television. It was the theme tune to the "Antiques Roadshow". They were bang on eight o'clock.

From her rucksack, Liz took out two rolls of camouflage-patterned tape and a chunky pair of childsafe scissors.

Bee radioed to check Liz was in position.

"All present and correct," said Liz, a phrase of her father's.

Margaret pushed the front doorbell with the middle finger of her left hand; in her right was a toy gun belonging to one of her sons. It was very realistic, as long as one didn't get too good a look which was why she had chosen to use it.

A man answered the door fifty-eight, fat, dressed in a green tweedy suit but with leather slippers on. This was Colin Richard son, the Mayor of the village, publican of the Queen's Head, left-arm orthodox spin.

"Margaret," he said. "What can I do for you?"

She pointed the toy gun close up to his forehead, where it would be out of focus.

"Do exactly what we say," she replied.

"Is that real?" Colin asked.

"Yes," she said. "And if you don't get inside, I will demonstrate how real."

Colin turned and walked back into the house.

"Hold your hands up where I can see them," said Margaret. "I know you keep a shotgun."

"Not any more, alas," said Colin. "I had to hand it in sop to the council lefties."

"I think you're lying," said Margaret, as they pa.s.sed out of the hall and into the TV-loud living room.

"Numfon," said Colin. "Be calm. There's nothing to worry about."

A Thai woman in her mid-thirties was sitting on the left of the sofa, holding a gla.s.s of Australian Riesling in her hand. The gla.s.s was made of cut crystal. Her fingernails were long and had paste jewels on them.

"Sit down," said Margaret. "Not next to her."

"h.e.l.lo, Numfon," said Bee.

"Bee," said Numfon.

"Please come with me, quickly, and fetch Roger," said Bee.

The two of them went off through an adjoining door. The name ROGER was spelt out on it with a rhino, an ostrich, a giraffe, an emu and another rhino.

"What's this about?" asked Colin. "It's clearly not the usual parish council business. Is it planning permission?"

"It's about everything," said Margaret. "You'll find out soon enough. Now, please be quiet."

She radioed Liz.

"Building secured. You may enter."

Liz tried the back door. It was unlocked. A moment later, she had joined Margaret in the living room.

"You, too?" asked Colin.

"Oh, yes," said Liz.

On the television, they were valuing a wig that was said to have belonged to Samuel Johnson.

Numfon reentered the room, carrying Roger, a five-year-old boy, half-Caucasian, half-Asian. He was still groggy.

"Sit down," said Margaret. "If you can keep him quiet, we won't need to gag him."

"Margaret," said Colin, "the nearest house is half a mile a way half a mile of thick woodland. You could shoot the lot of us, and no one would hear."

"Yes," said Margaret. "We could. I just don't want to have any whining b.l.o.o.d.y kids around. I get enough of that at home."

"So, what can I do for you?" asked Colin.

"You can call the police," said Margaret. "Tell them you've been taken hostage. Tell them we're serious. And that, when they get here, we can discuss terms."

"Anything you say, Margaret."

Margaret slapped Colin's face, with her non-gun hand.

"Don't be such a smarmy c.u.n.t, Colin. You can die painlessly or very painfully indeed."

"Yes," he said, his hair disarranged.

"Dial 999," said Margaret. "Tell them to get here as soon as they can. Tell them we'd like a helicopter."

"What, to escape with?"

"No, just to fly around overhead, so we feel important."

Colin picked up the receiver and dialled.

It took him five minutes to get through to the right person.

"Yes, they're very serious indeed, it seems," Colin said. "No, I don't know what they want."

"Tell them we'll only speak to an officer specially trained in hostage situations."

"Did you hear that?" Colin asked the policeman. Then, to Margaret, "He heard. He said, that might take some time to arrange."

"Tell him we will shoot your wife in one hour," said Margaret.

Colin soberly repeated the words.

"Now give me the phone," she said.

Colin obeyed.

Margaret took the receiver from him. "You can be quick when you want to be," she said into it, then hung up.

"Back in there," Margaret said, and shoved Colin into the living room. She was really enjoying this more than she had expected.

On the sofa, Numfon was cowering and Roger was crying.

"Gag them," she said. "The police are on their way."

Colin slumped into the armchair and sent a brave smile towards Numfon. "Don't worry, darling," he said. "We'll be alright."

"No, you won't," said Bee. "You'll never be alright."

"You deserve this," said Margaret.

Liz handed over one of the rolls of tape to Bee, who started on Numfon. "Lift your hair out of the way," Bee said.

"What does that matter?" Liz asked.

"Don't hurt my mummy," wailed Roger, just before Liz sealed his mouth. Snot immediately began to run down the slick surface of the tape. Roger's eyes were no longer those of a five-year-old.

Bee taped up Numfon's hands and feet. Liz left Roger's hands free, so that he could put them round his mother.

Then Margaret taped Colin's feet together, and his hands behind his back. His mouth, she left alone.

"Tea, anyone?" asked Liz.