Once Upon a Time in the North by Once Upon a Time in the North (epub)

Author:Once Upon a Time in the North (epub)
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781407096889
Publisher: Penguin Random House Children's UK
Published: 2020-05-16T00:00:00+00:00

He looked at the staircase he was standing on. The steps were open ironwork, about ten feet wide, and they led up towards a landing at the back wall of the warehouse. His best chance was to take it at a run, hope to avoid any bullets, and shoot fast as soon as he could.

‘Lee,’ whispered Hester, ‘pick me up.’

He bent to lift her. She wanted to listen, and the higher she was the better. She sat tensely in his arms, flicking her ears, and then whispered:

‘There’s two of ’em. One left, one right.’

‘Just two?’ he whispered back.

‘There’s something in the way – maybe barrels. Use that smokeleaf tin.’

He put her down and fished in his waistcoat pocket for the tin he kept his cigarillos in. He tipped the last three out and slipped the tin back, keeping the lid. He’d polished the inside to a bright gloss until it was almost as good as a mirror.

The floor above was a foot or so over his head: heavy pine boards, with an iron flange at the edge and a guardrail around the opening for the stairs.

Moving cautiously up to the next step and keeping his head low, Lee lifted the tin lid up very slowly close to the nearest stanchion of the rail, and tilted it so he saw along the floor and towards the right-hand corner, where the shot had come from. He could see no one, but that was because a row of heavy barrels stood in the way: two rows, in fact, one stacked on top of the other, separated by the pallets the barrels were standing on.

Lee knew well how small a movement would catch a watching eye, and taking infinite pains to move slowly, he turned the lid round to face the other corner. That side was empty, apart from some piece of machinery under a tarpaulin, and Lee could see the gunman clearly, standing behind it and looking over the top, with his rifle pointed just above where Lee was standing. It was not McConville.

The stone columns holding up the roof – sixteen of them, each about two feet in diameter – were equally spaced along the length of the room in two rows, one near the back wall and one near the front, and Lee calculated that if he could reach the column closest to the stairs on the gunman’s side, he might be able to shelter behind it while dealing with him; but that still left McConville free to shoot him in the back. This was really a hopeless situation, and he shouldn’t have got himself into it.

In fact, it was like pretty well every other situation he’d ever been in. And I’m still here, he thought, and Hester twitched her ears. He slipped the smokeleaf lid back into his pocket.

Then from down below there came the loud scraping clang of the big steel door being hauled out of the way, and under cover of the noise, Lee took a good grip

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