London Rules полностью

Amid movement and confusion, Coe got to his feet. His body appeared to be making its own decisions, he was interested to learn. Was operating slowly, but efficiently. At least two figures had jumped from the back of the van, and one of the police officers had run through the lychgate into the church grounds and was firing from the shelter of the wall. The other had taken cover behind the abandoned van, and had dropped into firing stance, but wasn’t shooting; was shouting instructions at someone. Himself?

Coe crossed the road and bent by the fallen policeman. Would have checked for a pulse, but there seemed little point, as the officer’s throat was mostly missing. Coe wondered how he felt about this, and decided he didn’t feel anything yet. Except, perhaps, that he would rather not be here. All the same, he discovered he was picking up the fallen rifle.

‘Put that down! Put that weapon down!’

This time the instruction was pretty clearly aimed at himself so he did just that, put the rifle down, when more gunfire cut the instruction in half, Put that wea—

It was no longer clear to him where the gunmen were. He couldn’t see either, always supposing there were two, were only two. He could, though, see the police officer who’d been shouting at him a moment earlier: he was a heap on the road. So the gunmen were out of Coe’s field of vision; must be along the side of the church, on the road that looped round it, where Dander had parked. Their driver was still by the van, which was similarly riddled with bullets. Bonnie and Clyde, thought Coe.

And a news crew was out in the open, filming proceedings.

Something ought to be done about that, he thought, without in any way volunteering for the role. Instead, he picked the rifle up again, and tested its heft, as if he knew what he was doing. Some hundred yards behind him, someone was wailing: only word for it. It was strange to note that the weather was still fine; the sky above still blue. Rifle in his hands, Coe walked towards the van.

This was wrong, he thought. He should be crouching, hiding, taking cover. But whoever was shooting was round the corner. Bullets, thought Coe, didn’t handle angles well. As long as he stayed on the main road, he was safe.

He reached the corner, and paused. Was this psychopathic behaviour? It certainly wasn’t sensible. He wondered where Shirley Dander had got to, and whether she was about to appear, gun blazing, or whether she was dead. He had spent a lot of time, these past years, hoping nothing would happen, or that if it did, he was nowhere near. So what was he doing now? He wasn’t built for this. Last time he’d killed someone – fair play: last time he’d killed someone deliberately – they’d been unarmed and handcuffed to a radiator. It had been low risk. And even then, the recoil had sprained his thumb.

The nearest news crew was filming him now. They didn’t have guns; perhaps he should just shoot them.

Instead, he stepped around the corner.

Across the road, the policeman behind the low church wall stood and loosed two quick bursts of ammunition, which stitched a neat line of holes into a row of parked cars, one of them Roderick Ho’s. And it was behind Ho’s car that a gunman was sheltering: on the pavement, legs outstretched, his back against the driver’s door. He was fitting a new magazine into his weapon, an action he completed even as Coe watched. And then he half rolled onto his knees, levelled the gun on the car’s bonnet and issued a volley in the vague direction of the police officer. The stained-glass windows along the side of the church shattered. Why wasn’t this man looking his way, Coe wondered. Coe had a perfect sighting on him, but it was like the man hadn’t even seen him. Maybe fifty yards away. A tin duck in a gallery. Better safe than sorry, though. The gunman’s weapon was semi-automatic; he could loose off a lot more bullets than Coe in a hurry. If Coe fired and missed now, he’d get more than a sprained thumb for his pains.

So he moved nearer, slowly but steadily, sighting down the barrel as he walked.

The singing had started to falter before glass began to rain.

Shirley saw it as a series of explosions: the church’s side windows disintegrating into coloured hailstones that blew halfway across the vaulted spaces before scattering onto the congregation. It sounded like wind chimes, sounded like ice. And then the harmonies, too, disintegrated and scattered, and the hymn gave way to hysteria. The organ stopped, and screaming began. People ducked and covered, sheltering themselves and their loved ones from the kaleidoscopic downpour, and those at the ends of the pews broke ranks and ran for the door, in front of which Shirley stood.

They can’t go out, she thought. That’s where the guns are.