‘Yeah. At the end of our conversation. You said it was time to move on after five deaths. Alexa, Sam, Oliver, Claire and Parker. Only, Parker isn’t dead, is he? That makes only four. But Toby would make it five, wouldn’t he?’
Cody looks across at Toby again, who is now physically shaking with the knowledge of how close he has come to death.
‘Not bad, Cody. A bit of luck involved but not bad reasoning.’
‘I’m not taking too much credit. I wasn’t absolutely certain, but it was enough to make me come here and tell Toby to keep his eyes peeled and not answer the door to psychopaths. You’ve done the rest for me.’
‘Hmm. And so what happens now, Cody?’
‘Now I place you under arrest. So, if you’d like to put your hands against the wall there…’
Franklin glances at the wall. ‘No, Cody. I don’t think I’m going to do that.’
‘Up to you. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. My backup will be arriving any second, so make your mind up.’
Franklin raises his chin in defiance. ‘Nice try. I don’t think you’ve called for any backup.’
‘And why would you say that?’
‘Because in the brief time you had available between me ringing the doorbell and coming up the stairs, you had a choice. Option number one was to put in a quick call to your police friends and get them to rush over here. You would then jump me as soon as I came through the door and wait for them to arrive.’
‘And option two?’
‘You wanted more evidence against me. Something concrete. Everything you have so far is circumstantial unless Parker can testify against me, and to be honest, that’s not entirely assured, is it? You needed to hear me admit to what I did. Isn’t that right, Cody?’
Cody pulls his mobile phone from his pocket and waggles it at Franklin. ‘It’s all nicely recorded on here. Thank you for that.’
‘You’re welcome. But the problem you’ve got is that you chose to spend those few precious moments convincing Toby to take part in this, and then briefing him on what to say and do. So now you’ve got no friends to help you.’
‘Well, we can soon fix that.’
Cody reaches into his other pocket and pulls out his police radio. He had turned it off while recording the conversation between Franklin and Toby because even at its lowest volume the chatter and bleeps from the radio can still be heard.
He isn’t prepared for what Franklin does next.
One minute, Franklin is standing there, as calm as you like, and the next he’s launching himself like a missile, hurtling across the room straight at Cody.
Cody tries to dodge out of the way, but Franklin tracks him, coming low, ramming his shoulder into Cody’s solar plexus. The air explodes out of Cody’s lungs as his back slams into the architrave, and his radio and phone go spinning from his hands.
Cody brings his knee up into Franklin’s face and then pushes him away. He is surprised when Franklin moves further back than the push warranted, but then he sees why.
Franklin was giving himself space to reach his hand to his waistband and pull out a knife. A big bastard of a knife with a serrated edge.
Cody stares at the knife, and then into Franklin’s eyes. ‘You’re making a big mistake.’
‘Really? Well, let’s see which one of us walks out that door when we’re done.’
There’s a flash of movement. Cody’s heart lurches. He cries out.
‘NO!’
But it comes too late to stop what’s happening. He sees Toby pick up a saucepan and leap at Franklin, swinging the pan wildly. Franklin simply bats it away with his free hand, and then his other hand – the one holding the knife – punches out, straight into Toby’s abdomen.
There is a horrific moment of silence as everyone freezes in position, all eyes on the knife now embedded in Toby.
And then it’s as if someone presses the play button again. Cody dashes forwards, only to halt in his tracks as Franklin withdraws the knife and points it in his direction instead. Cody can only watch helplessly as Toby staggers backwards clutching his stomach. Blood seeps out between Toby’s fingers, and he looks with fearful, pleading eyes towards Cody before his legs give way and he slides down the kitchen units to the floor.
Cody focuses on Franklin. They face each other in a slight crouch, moving in a slow circle, looking for an opening. Every time Franklin takes a step forwards, Cody steps back, fully aware of the need to keep out of reach of that deadly blade. It’s like a dance of two scorpions.
Taking one step too many, Cody’s leg hits a pile of comics, and he loses his balance. Franklin seizes the moment to rush at him. Cody kicks into the pile, sending a cloud of paper into the air. It’s enough to distract Franklin while Cody dives to his right and grabs a wooden chair. He tips the comics it holds onto the floor and raises the chair in front of him, its legs towards Franklin.
The dance resumes. Each man pokes and prods the space between them.
And then Cody makes a sudden dash towards Franklin, hoping to pin him against the wall. But Franklin is quick. He sweeps his free arm, knocking the chair to one side, and then he steps in and swings the knife in a wide arc. Cody barely has time to react. He throws himself to his right just as the tip of the blade catches him on the bicep, ripping through his jacket. He feels the sting of steel as he falls to the floor, and he knows he cannot stay down there because it will mean his death, and so he rolls and jumps to his feet again, knowing that Franklin is coming after him. He staggers and crashes into a sideboard, and then he reaches out his arm and sweeps another pile of comic books directly at Franklin’s face. As Franklin ducks, Cody races to the other side of the room, his eyes scanning desperately for anything he can use as a weapon.
And then he sees it. Thor’s hammer, fixed to the wall. He grabs it and yanks it away from its fixings, tensing his muscles to cope with the weight of the hard wood and steel.
Or the plastic.
The hammer is made of plastic.
But his opponent doesn’t know that, he thinks, and so he swings it in front of him, trying to act like it carries substance enough to do some serious damage.
Perhaps his acting isn’t quite Academy Award level, because Franklin seems to suspect that something is amiss, and he keeps on coming, and all that Cody can do is keep on retreating. He finds himself close to the tiny kitchen area, currently occupied by a sprawled Toby and a significant volume of blood. And it occurs to Cody that a kitchen is often a good place to find knives and other sharp implements, and wouldn’t that even up the contest? But before he can give it much more consideration, Franklin makes a decision, and he starts advancing steadily towards Cody, and Cody throws his hammer at him just like Thor might do, hoping that even this pale imitation might possess a fraction of the magical properties of the original. But the hammer bounces harmlessly off Franklin’s shoulder, doesn’t even slow his momentum, and Cody dives into the kitchen, leaping over Toby and his bodily fluids…
And then he realises his mistake.
Because Toby’s kitchen is not like most kitchens. Toby’s kitchen is a mess. There are plenty of dirty plates, cups and pans on display, together with several teetering piles of comics, but Cody doesn’t want to read or wash dishes right now, and what doesn’t seem to be on show is any knives – not even of the cutlery type – and Cody is aware that if he starts rooting through drawers he will be finished, and so all he can do is turn and ready himself for the onslaught. He bunches his fists and he grits his teeth and he shifts his balance to start kicking out, because that and a determination to survive are all he has left.
