Broken Homes

She spoke English with the deliberately regionless accent of a BBC Radio 4 presenter.
    Being held at gunpoint is a police nightmare and you always tell yourself that should push come to shove and some vile scrote is about to actually shoot you, you’d at least make a play. Go for the gun, duck, attack the bastard with your bare hands. I mean after all, at that instant, what would you have to lose? But shove had arrived and I found I couldn’t make myself move, not even a little bit. It was shameful. I had found the upper limit of my courage.
    Fortunately for me, there is no known lower limit to human stupidity.
    ‘They’re police,’ said Barry, just as Varvara Sidorovna had crossed back into view and was heading for the barn doors. ‘I don’t think this is a good idea.’
    Varvara Sidorovna turned and her face was a picture. I’m having a bad day, it said. And now there’s you – thinking!
    ‘Listen, Varvara,’ said Lesley. ‘You really want to talk to your boss before you do anything hasty.’
    I was still trying to make myself move and practically trembling with frustration. It’s not like I’ve had trouble doing stupid things before, I thought. Why am I finding it so hard now?
    ‘Varvara, call your boss,’ said Lesley, her voice tight.
    ‘How do we know you won’t get rid of us once we’ve done your dirty work?’ asked Barry.
    ‘I still need you to carry the gear when we get back to London,’ said Varvara Sidorovna.
    ‘Yeah,’ said Max. ‘But—’
    ‘Don’t make me come back there and do it myself,’ she said.
    ‘Okay,’ said Max. ‘But I don’t think—’
    Varvara Sidorovna threw up a hand to silence Max and cocked her head to one side – listening. Then I heard it too. A car engine drawing closer, tyres crunching in the gravelly verge of the farmyard. The engine cut out and there was a creak as a handbrake was applied.
    I felt Lesley tense beside me – no modern handbrake sounded like that.
    There was the sound of a car door opening and then slamming shut.
    Varvara Sidorovna gestured sharply to get Max and Barry’s attention, pointed two fingers at her eyes, and then at me and Lesley. Then she took a couple of cat-quiet steps to the side of the barn doors and I saw her breathe slowly in and exhale smoothly. Her face became calm, still – expectant.
    There was a long silence, I could hear Max and Barry breathing through their mouths and shifting from foot to foot and the tik tik tik of something small and clawed making its way down the line of cages – a mouse? Then suddenly there was a brutal crack like a giant stamping on a plate and daylight spewed through a sudden hole in the front wall of the barn – just above the double doors. Dust exploded into the air to hang in a roiling cloud – gleaming in the sunlight. Then the front of the barn literally unzipped – bricks fountaining up and away in two diverging streams and the doors abruptly ripped off their hinges and went spinning off through the air like something from a catastrophic decompression.
    Suddenly I could see the farmyard outside, brightly lit by afternoon sunlight, bricks falling out of the clear blue sky like rain, dust puffing up as they landed, thudding, on the track.
    And, having made sure everyone was paying attention to the front, Nightingale walked in through the back door.
    The first we knew of it was when Max and Barry came flying headfirst into the dog-fighting ring, landing right beside us. I had a brief glimpse of their shotguns scything through the air at head height – aiming right for where Varvara Sidorovna would have been standing if she hadn’t jumped and rolled to the left.
    Max turned to look at me and there was a horrible tearing sensation in my shoulder as I swung my fist down to slam into his face. The pain actually made me scream, but it was totally worth it. He slammed back onto the filthy carpet and stayed ducked down there, as it suddenly got extremely dangerous above waist height. Across Max’s quivering bulk I saw that Lesley had Barry in a headlock – his face red, his mouth open and gasping.
    I’d expected ice again. But Varvara Sidorovna threw a brace of fireballs across the barn, which exploded amongst the ranked dog cages. There was a rattling thud as fragments smacked into the wooden side of the ring.
    Lesley shouted my name and jerked her head at the gaping hole in the front of the barn. I only realised later that Nightingale had done that deliberately to make it