The bright lights of Dubai shine through a panoramic window. Rob Kenna has three guns laid out on his bed in order of size.
He picks up the first one, a small handgun, and poses with it.
“Amy Wheeler, I presume?”
Blam! Blam! He blows across the barrel. Next he picks up a compact machine pistol.
“You defeated the rest, Amy Wheeler, but you just met the best.”
He sprays imaginary bullets around the room, then throws it back down on the bed. He picks up the final weapon, a sawn-off shotgun.
“Welcome to Dubai, Amy. It’ll blow you away.”
Kablammo!
Rob throws the gun back onto the bed. He’s almost looking forward to it.
“You need a job done properly, sometimes you gotta do it yourself.”
78
“Max wouldn’t,” says Felicity. “He couldn’t possibly. He was the sweetest boy. I went to his final show at drama school, and he couldn’t act, but he had something.”
“Height?” suggests Jeff Nolan.
There is a knock at the door. Everyone looks at each other, then at Steve. One by one, Amy, Jeff, and Henk stand, pull guns, and point them toward the hallway of the house. Amy then pulls a second gun from her thigh, and throws it to Steve.
“Blimey,” says Tony.
Steve walks out into the hallway. Two heads are silhouetted behind the glass in his front door. Steve turns back to the living room. Amy is in a crouch, gun in hand. Henk is secreted behind an IKEA multimedia unit, gun up to his eye, and Jeff is standing, bold as brass in the middle of the room, gun arm extended. Rosie is draped on the sofa, enjoying the show. Jeff nods to Steve.
Steve slips his gun into his waistband, and calls out, “Yes?”
“Hampshire Police, sir,” comes a voice from the other side of the door. “We’re looking for an Amy Wheeler. We believe she’s in your property.”
Amy once told Steve that the first time she enters any building she looks for every possible escape route. Steve used to do it himself, but, as he’s got older, the first thing he looks for is where the loo might be.
“Sir?” says the same voice.
“She’s not here, I’m afraid,” says Steve. The “mountain of evidence” that Loubet had mentioned. Has he given up trying to kill her and is now planning to get her locked up instead? “Gone back to London.”
“If we could just double-check, sir,” says the voice. “Put our minds at rest?”
That should have given her enough time, Steve thinks. He opens the door a crack, and is gratified to see it really is two Hampshire Police officers.
“Come in,” says Steve. “Come in.”
As Steve leads the officers into the living room, Henk and Jeff are playing chess, each with a cup of tea, Tony and Rosie are watching Married at First Sight: Australia on the TV, and Felicity is walking around the room with a plate of biscuits. Amy is nowhere to be seen. You had to hand it to the lot of them—that was quick.
Steve wonders where all the guns are, and feels his own poking into his lower back.
“We have a warrant for Mrs. Wheeler’s arrest,” says the older detective. “If you know where she is, you’d do well to tell us.”
Everyone looks at each other.
“What’s she done now?” says Rosie.
“Murder, madam,” says the older detective, “I’m afraid.”
“That’s our Amy,” says Rosie.
“She left for London,” says Jeff. “Hours ago.”
“And you are, sir?”
“Me?” says Jeff. “None of your business.”
“We might choose to make it our business,” says the younger detective without bravado or fear.
Jeff looks at her. “I don’t suppose you’d like a job?”
“I was just thinking the same,” says Henk. “She carries herself very well.”
“If she gets in touch,” says the older detective, giving Steve his card, “you give me a call?”
“Of course,” says Steve. “You’re investigating a murder.”
“So you’re Steve Wheeler?” the detective says. “Heard a lot about you.”
