He took his time about answering her, letting his eyes travel lazily over her face and body while he thought about it. Then he said, 'Okay. Slowly. And keep your hands where I can see them.'

Fizz slid down the wall. It felt infinitely better to be able 253. to wrap her arms around her shins and rest her head on her knees. After a minute, she had regained enough bottle to see if she could get the centurion talking. She hadn't a clue what good it might do but it certainly wasn't doing any good waiting here quietly till Jerry Kincaid arrived to top them all -and she was hideously convinced that something of that nature was on the agenda. The time limit was anybody's guess, but she reckoned they must have at least half an hour, otherwise the centurion wouldn't have complained so much. Taking a couple of deep breaths, she lifted her head.

Thank you,' she whispered, as an opening gambit. She hadn't intended to whisper but that's how it came out. 'I feel better now.'

He looked at her without either sympathy or annoyance and returned to rubbing his temples, which he had been doing since he dropped the phone, alternating the ma.s.sage with pinching the bridge of his nose between his eyes, and delicately fingering his closed lids -unfortunately one at a time.

Not that Fizz would have jumped him, even if he'd shut both eyes at once, but she wouldn't put it past Buchanan to do something so insanely suicidal. She knew him well enough to be able to see at a glance that he was trying to think of some way out and he was such a frigging hero that he was perfectly capable of throwing himself on the gun in the hope that Fizz and Poppy might somehow profit by his death. And that Fizz was determined to avoid.

She looked at the centurion and cleared her throat.

'You must have known about the cat, then.' She said it very quietly, as if that would make a blind bit of difference.

'Shut it!' He swung the gun round at her, making Buchanan twitch, and then added, with sullen reluctance, 'What cat?'

Fizz knew then that she'd hooked him and, if she could just play him for a while, she could at least divert some of his attention from Buchanan. She nodded her head at Poppy. 254. 'Her cat.'

The centurion examined the sobbing Poppy for a minute, squinting his eyes as though he wasn't focusing too well. 'What about her cat?'

'That's how we found out where she had moved to. I thought you must have done the same. Or did you follow us?'

'Shut it!' he said again, evidently feeling that she was taking a mile. The words were delivered in a bark but it made him wince and when he spoke again he had turned down the volume. 'This isn't a f.u.c.king debating society. I asked you about the f.u.c.king cat. Don't make me ask you again.'

Fizz tried to look willing while still spinning out the story as much as she dared. 'We were told the cat was dead -and it looks like it probably is -but we heard that somebody was looking for it so we bought a cat and took it to the police station and said we'd found it at Chirnside.

They took it in and I suppose they notified the guy from the Witness Protection Scheme. Anyway, we just waited outside till someone came out carrying the cat basket and then we followed him here. That's why I wondered if you'd followed us.'

He leered and moved the gun significantly. 'I have my own methods.' His scrunched up eyes swung round on Poppy. 'If your grovelling little b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a husband had kept his mouth shut, just once in his f.u.c.king life, you'd've been sitting pretty. Once a secret's out, it's out.' His smile was not a thing of beauty. He glanced again at his gun.

'But don't worry, kiddies. It's not going to go any further. I just sorted that out.'

If he was trying to frighten them he was doing a grand job, at least on Fizz and, quite manifestly, on Poppy.

Buchanan had regained some colour and his eyes were moving carefully around the room as if he were looking for a weapon or some other aid to escape. Fizz was pretty sure he wouldn't find anything, because she'd been 255. pursuing that line of thought herself, but she wished he'd stop thinking of a physical approach and start using his intellect.

The centurion was in an una.s.sailable position and while he held that awesome firearm n.o.body was going anywhere.

The WAS bloke was not going to return, the cavalry was not going to arrive, and a conveniently distracting shelf of pans in the kitchen was probably not going to collapse with a crash, diverting his attention while they all jumped on him. Their only hope was to keep on trying to distract him, watch out for a weakness, and pray for a lucky break.

The only weakness in his defence, as far as Fizz could see, was his migraine. It was, by now, quite apparent that he was in serious pain and might even, she thought, be showing signs of nausea. He had put aside the bottle of whisky, his expression betraying just a pa.s.sing hint of distaste, and there were beads of sweat gathering on his brow. If only he would throw up maybe there would be a split second when they could try for the gun.

Struggling to think of some way of keeping him talking, she murmured, 'You mean, you shot a policeman?'

He didn't like her talking but he did like frightening her and, after a brief struggle with his higher consciousness, he decided to spoil himself. 'You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, sweetheart. Couldn't very well leave him to tell his boss who he'd been blabbing to, could I?

Not that he wanted to blab. No, no. Had to be persuaded a little, didn't he? Took a little time but he was happy enough to get it off his chest in the end.'

'What did you do to him?' Fizz asked. She positively did not want to know but she could see he was dying to tell her and if he was concentrating on enjoying himself he'd be that much more vulnerable.

'Are you sure you want to know, sweetheart?'

'Actually,' said Buchanan in a reasonable voice, 'I don't think it would be a good idea.'

The gun swept round to point at his chest. 256. 'Who asked your opinion, Valentino?'

'n.o.body,' said Buchanan mildly. 'But I don't really think you want to listen to a bout of hysterics and it's already taking me all my time to keep this lady from going completely off the rails. If you'll take my advice--'

'Shut it! Keep your f.u.c.king advice to yourself, you'll be needing it more than me.'

'Could Poppy at least have a gla.s.s of water?' Buchanan persisted, so hopelessly that Fizz knew he was deliberately taking over from her as interlocutor.

'No she f.u.c.king couldn't.' He made the mistake of shouting his reply and regretted it visibly. 'f.u.c.k,' he said, and pointed the gun at Poppy. 'You, b.i.t.c.h. Get me some painkillers.'

Poppy burst into tears again and wailed that she didn't have any, she didn't use them, she had an ulcer, she'd just moved in, and a bunch of other extraneous information that only made the centurion all the madder. He told her to 'shut it' twice in a dampened tone but finally had to shout it, which was just about the last straw.

'Just shut it, the lot of you.' He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and his big jaw hanging like a ham.

He looked haggard but the gun was still pointed unwaveringly at Buchanan's chest.

Fizz felt the sweat break out of her the instant the brainwave hit her. She knew for a certainty that she would be up to her eyebrows in the s.h.i.t if she tried and failed, and that scared the breath from her body. If she had not been totally certain that they were all about to die she wouldn't have had the audacity -the desperation -to

grasp at what was only a single, very fragile straw.

She lifted an arm to wipe the sweat out of her eyes with her sleeve and the movement caught the centurion's eye.

Wordlessly, she pointed at the plastic coat lying at his feet where it had fallen as she dived for cover.

He frowned down at it and then back at her face.

'What?' 257. 'Aspirins,' Fizz croaked. She knew immediately that she'd said the wrong thing. If she'd said 'painkillers' she might have got away with it but now, if he noticed that they weren't aspirins, he'd realise what she was up to and there would be repercussions. Painful, if not fatal repercussions.

Her brain had already predicted every possible eventuality -including Buchanan getting himself shot trying to save her -in the few seconds it took for the centurion to slide the coat towards him with his foot. Luckily it was the right way up for him to see the aspirin bottle through the transparent plastic. Keeping the gun level he stooped down and closed his hand round it.

Fizz couldn't watch. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest so that he wouldn't see her shivering. She heard the rattle of the tablets as they were tipped out of their container.

She heard an unexpected gurgle of liquid, and then recognised it as coming from the whisky bottle. Her teeth started to chatter.

When she finally got her eyes open everything looked the same as when she had shut them except that Buchanan was now looking at her as if he was momentarily expecting her to pitch forward on her face. The fear of him doing something silly, at this stage in the game, forced her, while the centurion was pinching his nose, to give her head a tiny shake and look pointedly at the bottle of pills. It was lying on its side on the arm of the centurion's chair and he hadn't bothered to replace the cap, which implied he was intending to have more if he needed them.

Fizz wondered how many he had taken. She was pretty sure the nurse had said two would knock Mr Menzies out for twelve hours, but even if the centurion had taken just one there was a chance it would slow his reflexes a bit.

Whatever happened, they were going to have to make their move against him soon since his boss was bound to arrive in the next few minutes.

After waiting a minute or two, she tried wiping her brow 258. with her sleeve again and, this time, he didn't swing round to look at her. She couldn't see his eyes properly because he held them slitted anyway and, in profile, she wasn't sure how alert they were. But then, little by microscopic little, he started to sag sideways against the arm of the chair and, a moment later, the gun slid from his flaccid fingers.

In a blur of movement, Buchanan had it in his hand and was standing over the centurion. He put a hand on the man's shoulder and gave him a small shove and they all watched, unbelievingly, as the big guy slouched back in his little nest and let his jaw thud to his chest.

Buchanan came over to Fizz and picked her up by the elbows and wiped the sweat -it must have been sweat from her eyes with his thumb.

'What were they?' he asked.

'The sleeping pills the nurse took away from Mr Menzies.

She left them in her coat pocket. I felt the bottle there but I didn't register what it was till he asked for painkillers. How many did he take?'

'At least four.' He looked at her carefully and then urged her forward with an arm round her shoulders. 'OK. Get the h.e.l.l out of here. Here are the car keys. You and Poppy can wait there while I immobilise this guy and phone the police.'

'I'll help you,' Fizz said, not totally in favour of the splitting-up scenario, but he just shook his head and got Poppy on her feet.