Lucy was as startled as the rest of them but was still handcuffed to the chair and could only watch as Torgau lurched out into the hall. Ivana, meanwhile, advanced with the poker raised over her head. Lucy tried to duck away, the chair falling sideways. But when the poker came down, which it did several times, it was on the chair’s backrest, smashing and burning it. This proved to be a lengthy process, Torgau returning while it was still going on, unzipping his travel-bag and taking something out of it; to Lucy’s bewilderment it was a cardboard cylinder, about three feet long, with an old image of a bulldog wearing a Union Jack waistcoat imprinted on it. Possibly it contained a weapon of some sort, because he immediately took it back out into the hall.

Ivana, meanwhile, threw the poker into the hearth, wrestled what remained of the chair’s woodwork apart, and dragged the hostage to her feet. The next thing Lucy knew, she was being hustled out into the hall, the muzzle of the Browning pressed into her neck.

Torgau had braced the front door with some furniture and was now shouting upstairs. ‘How many?’

‘Four, so far,’ Alyssa’s voice shouted back.

‘How are they dressed?’

‘Body-armour and balaclavas.’

‘Shit!’ Ivana swore. ‘SWAT.’

But her father shook his head. His expression was uncertain, confused. ‘Police would have spoken to us first, tried to resolve it peacefully.’

‘Shotguns!’ Alyssa shouted.

‘Does it matter?’ Ivana asked, bewildered.

Alyssa came hurtling downstairs, still clutching the battle-rifle. ‘I didn’t see any back-up or support vehicles!’

‘Give me that HK!’ her father replied.

She threw the rifle to him. He caught it, passed the cardboard cylinder to Ivana, and swung around to face the front door.

‘Do that slag, Vana!’ Alyssa shouted. ‘Do her now!’

‘No!’ her father roared, glaring at them both, red-faced. ‘What do you not understand about bargaining chips?’

‘But if they’re coming in anyway!’ Alyssa protested.

‘You goddamn idiot bitch!’ Froth flew from his mouth. ‘These are not cops!’

Chapter 39

‘Get out of here, the pair of you!’ Torgau roared. ‘Use the route. And take her with you!’

The front door shuddered at a massive impact. Torgau shouldered the rifle and fired three deafening rounds, a trio of fist-sized holes exploding through the woodwork at chest height.

His girls might be under orders not to kill Lucy, but they weren’t gentle with her. A stinging blow to the side of the face, delivered with the butt of the Browning, knocked her senseless, and she found herself stumbling across the hall between them, a hand hooked under either armpit. Meanwhile, a gunshot sounded somewhere to the rear of the house. Followed by another, and another. Lucy had heard something about shotguns. Presumably they were now being used to blow the hinges off the house’s back door.