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Gene Hunt wasn't a quitter, but even he could see that this was futile. He should be out there looking for her, scouring the streets, beating the scum who did this half to death, not sitting in his office going through poxy files. He screwed a sheet of paper into a ball and threw it hard towards the wastepaper bin, swearing under his breath when it fell a foot short. Bloody bastarding hell.

He needed to get out of here, to take a break and clear his head. Grabbing his fags from his desk, he shrugged on his jacket and strode through CID, grateful that for once everyone was too involved in their work to worry where he was going. Viv's desk was empty, and the sounds of shouting filtered out from the cells, interspersed with the odd thud or crash. He walked quickly past, hands in pockets, fingers curled around his cigarettes like a talisman, pushed through the doors and ran straight into Chris.

"Jesus!" He jumped backwards, more startled that he'd care to admit. Chris stumbled backwards and crashed into a railing, nearly tripping over his own feet in his hurry to move out of the way.

"Sorry, Guv! I didn't see you coming."

"Well that much is obvious, thank you, Christopher." He fished his fags out of his pocket and lit up, taking a long drag and then exhaling, watching as the plume of smoke coiled away into the twilight. "What the bleedin' hell are you doing out here? Shouldn't you be in there, helping the others?"

Chris scuffed his shoe against the tarmac. "I dunno, Guv. I feel like I should be out on the streets, looking for her or something. I'm rubbish at all this paperwork stuff!"

"Whether you're mastermind of the year or dimmer than a two bob bit is irrelevant. You need to be inside helping with the investigation, not fannying around out here like a poof!" Gene looked at him from the corner of his eye and noticed with a terrible, galling lurch that the man was crying, shoulders shaking silently. He stubbed out his cigarette with his shoe. "Oh Christ."

"Sorry..." Chris had his back to him, and he wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "It's just...it's all my fault. If I hadn't let her walk off by herself, she'd be here now, wouldn't she? If anything happens to her, Guv, I dunno what I'd do..."

Gene shifted uncomfortably. Heart-to-hearts were most definitely not his style and he was quiet for a minute, completely lost for what to say. Should he tell him the truth, that yes, if he'd stayed with her, the snivelling scumbag wouldn't have been able to grab her? Or should he – God forbid – put a comforting arm around him and tell him it'd be all right? He sniffed. Christ, there was no way he was giving Chris Skelton a cuddle. He wasn't a complete bloody nancy.

"Listen, mate..." he started awkwardly, putting a hand on his shoulder and then quickly removing it. "You couldn't have known what was going to happen, could you? You're not to blame."

"Aren't I?" Chris rounded on him. There was something in his eyes, some desperation, some need for reassurance, but there was anger there too, directed at himself, his actions. "How would you feel if DI Drake went missing on your watch? When you were supposed to be looking after her?"

Gene froze. He knew he should challenge Chris on his assumption that he worried more about Alex than any of the others, but it was true, completely, utterly true, and the sudden thought that it could be her out there, cold and frightened and alone, shot through him like lightening. He took a deep breath. It wasn't her. She was up there in CID, head bent over her notebook, mind whirring at a hundred miles an hour in the way that drove him mad with annoyance and admiration, curls falling across her face and hazel eyes bright with determination. She was frustrating, arrogant, ballsy and very probably insane, yet somehow she had managed to get under his skin, to fill each of his senses so that sometimes all he could see was her.

Christ, he sounded like a right twonk. The day Gene Hunt started waxing lyrical about a bloody woman was the day Fenchurch East went to shit, yet all the same he couldn't help it, couldn't help the way his heart leaped every time she smiled, the way her kisses left him drugged on her, on her smell, on her taste. Last night, when she'd slept in his arms, curled into the cradle of his body as though they'd been made to fit together, he'd been overcome with the pathetic, nancy-boy desire to protect her, to hold her tight and never let her go. Yes, she drove him mad with her big words and her finger-waggling and the way she was so bloody sure she was right, but somewhere along the way he'd fallen under her spell and now the thought that someone else could hurt her, could take her from him, was devastating.

And all of a sudden, he saw Chris in a different light. It was as if he'd been looking at him through sunglasses, through lenses tinted with the mistakes of the past, and now he'd taken them off and it was a revelation. He was no longer the rookie DC with floppy hair and suits his mother bought, the bumbling div who always caught on a second later than everyone else. He still tripped over his own feet, still drove everyone mad with his caution and his clumsiness, but somehow – and Gene wasn't sure when – he'd turned into a copper, a good detective with instincts and knowledge of his own. He'd screwed up, he'd let people down, but he'd learnt from it and he'd carved his own niche in the team, and that was something that Gene Hunt could respect.

So he looked at Chris Skelton, the nervous kid who had quietly, steadily become a man, and he didn't see the red eyes and the snotty nose and the all-consuming guilt. He just saw an equal, someone desperate to save the woman he loved, and he clapped him lightly on the back.

"Come on, Tiny Tears. You've got a girlfriend to find."

Alex didn't think she'd ever seen CID looking so grim. The few smiles she glimpsed on looking around the room were replaced immediately by a look of guilt as the men concerned caught her eye, any conversation was short-lived and subdued, and the very room seemed to have picked up on the general atmosphere and become twice as gloomy as usual. She glanced up as the door swung open and Gene appeared, followed by Chris, who was, she was glad to see, looking marginally more cheerful. The rest of CID fell silent in expectation but, after regarding them all wordlessly for some moments, Gene swept past them all and into his office. As if by some unspoken agreement, Alex, Ray and Chris rose from their seats and joined him, closing the door firmly behind them.

"The poem," Alex began without preamble. "None of the girls we interviewed before mentioned a poem, did they?"

"No. We'd have remembered that." Gene frowned and pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes briefly. "Why not?"

"You're sure it's the same person, Ma'am?"

"Yes, Chris. He as good as admitted it on the phone." She paused, tapping her pen on the sheaf of notes she'd made. "That's another thing that's odd. We never had a phone call before, about any of the other girls."

"The others weren't coppers, were they?" Ray shrugged matter-of-factly. It was a mark of how concerned he really was, Alex thought, despite his fairly convincing act, that she hadn't seen him light a cigarette for a good hour. "Maybe he found out about Shaz and panicked."

"But if he was panicking about that, he wouldn't ring us up to tell us he'd got her, would he?" said Alex with some impatience. "He'd know he'd have to cover his tracks, so he'd just –" She broke off and glanced at Chris. "Well, he wouldn't hang around making phone calls," she finished lamely.

"So...this all comes under your psychology bollocks, does it?" Gene frowned at the copious notes she'd made and pushed them away again immediately, obviously not understanding more than one word in ten. "Well, go on then. What's making him do all this stuff now?"

"I think..." Alex took a deep breath, wondering how best to phrase it. "I think he's unravelling. He's not mentally stable, he's coming apart. The poem, the phone call, they're signs of his mental state deteriorating. He's no longer meticulous about covering up his movements. He's almost enticing us. He's playing games with us."

"So...what does that mean?" asked Chris nervously.

"Well, he may no longer be following the routine he's established," explained Alex, horribly aware that they were all hanging on her every word, relying on her expertise to save the day, when there was so much at stake. "He's becoming...unpredictable. It'll be very difficult to second guess him at this stage."

"So he could do anything?" For a second, Ray's carefully maintained indifference slipped, and he looked genuinely appalled.

Alex knew that now wasn't the time to mince her words. "That's what it looks like."

"What – what do you mean, anything?" Alex winced at the undisguised horror in Chris's voice. "You don't mean...what – what do you mean?"

"We really can't say, Chris," said Alex helplessly. "We're past the stage where we can just assume we know what he's thinking, now. But there's no need to assume the worst, is there? For all we know, she could be absolutely fine."

"That's not what you think, though, is it?" Chris clenched his fists, his words addressed to all of them now. "You think she's dead. Or at least, you think she could be." Alex couldn't meet his gaze, and out of the corner of her eye she could see that Gene and Ray were having the same problem. "You do, don't you?"

At that moment, there was a welcome interruption as Viv appeared, brandishing a sheaf of paper. "This is what uniform have got on the area, Ma'am. They've been to every house between the place she was last seen and her flat, and this is what they've come up with."

"Thanks, Viv." Alex glanced down at the paper, immensely grateful for an excuse not to answer Chris's question. "Right. A few cars spotted in the area around that time...nothing distinctive there. I think we can safely assume you wouldn't do this on your own doorstep; see if those are all registered to people who live around there, would you, Viv?"

"Will do, Ma'am." As the door swung shut behind him, Alex turned back to the others. "Our biggest lead is still the phone call." Sifting through a heap of papers, she unearthed the sheet on which she'd made her notes from the call. "The poetry, we traced that. 'The Spider and the Fly'. He talked about hide and seek, about winning and losing. He sounded..." She paused, trying to put her finger on it. "He sounded like a child."

"I know the age for first offences is falling, Bolls, but even I'm finding that difficult to believe."

Alex shot him a scathing look. "I don't mean it was a child, Guv. I mean he sounded childlike, almost infantile. All his ideas, his language, it was based on nursery rhymes and childhood games. He's preoccupied with childhood."

"And what does that tell us?"

"Not much, yet. But the very nature of the crimes might tell us something...particularly the identity of his victims. They're young, they're female."

"So are about ninety-nine percent of rape victims, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Okay," Alex fought to keep her temper. "But that's usually a symbol of...a desire for power, sometimes stemming from feelings of neglect, of helplessness, of revenge, even. Whoever this person is, I think he's looking for revenge. Link that to his preoccupation with childhood and...his mother, maybe?"

"His mother." Gene frowned. "Well that's all very nice, but we've still got no idea what we're going to do about it. He called us, he wants us to find him. The bastard could have given us a bit more of a clue. I like clues, me." He clapped his hands together. "We'll just have to see what we can – Christopher, where do you think you're going?"

Chris grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and whirled round to face them all, pain and fury fighting for supremacy on his face. "I've had it with this. You're talking about it like it's a challenge, or a...a game, or something. Like you're enjoying it. Well, I'm not! This isn't just some case you have to solve, it's so much more than that! It's Shaz. You're not even using her name. I...I can't, Guv. I just can't."

"Chris –"

But Chris was gone. His accusations rang in the air as the door slammed shut behind him, leaving Alex, Gene and Ray staring after him in stunned silence. After a moment, Ray made to get up, clearly intent on following him.

"No, Ray." Gene ran a hand over his face and sighed heavily. "Give him a minute. Probably best if we do this without him, anyway." Alex was struck by the unexpected compassion on his face, the understanding. While she knew that Gene sympathised with Chris over Shaz's disappearance as far as he could, she'd got the impression that his overriding feelings towards him were of impatience, perhaps even annoyance. She hadn't felt that there was much point talking to him about it – the priority right now was Shaz, and it was her they needed to focus on. But now, just for a moment, she saw a completely different side to the story, and suddenly she knew that Gene understood Chris more than any of them realised. Perhaps more than he wanted them to realise. She couldn't hold back a small smile at this revelation. Maybe there was a soft side in there after all.

"If you're sure, Guv." Ray didn't look convinced, but he sank back into his chair anyway, his brow creased with worry.

Gene turned back to Alex, his face troubled. He seemed to have aged about ten years in as many hours. "You're sure he didn't say anything else, on the phone?"

"Yes, there was nothing..." But even as she spoke, there was something at the back of her mind, something just out of reach, something she couldn't quite grasp...what was it? Something he'd said? No. A sound? Yes, that was it...but what? Something in the background of the call, something she'd barely registered at the time. And then, out of the blue, she had it. "I heard a...a horn. Like a..."

"What?" demanded Gene. "Spit it out, woman."

"It was...it was like..." Alex screwed up her eyes, trying to remember. "Like a foghorn. I'm sure of it."

"That's more like it! Down by the river, then."

"What are we waiting for?" Ray said urgently, grabbing his jacket. "We don't know how much time we've got, Guv."

"Have you ever been down by the Thames, Ray? It's a bloody big river."

"I know it's a big river." Ray scowled.

"So we need to narrow it down. We need the names of all the owners of those warehouses along the river. That's where she is, I'd put money on it. Secluded, out of the way, half falling down...sounds about right." He got to his feet and looked at them both. "Well, come on then. Who's going to find me those names?" There was a brief second in which three pairs of eyes lingered on Shaz's empty desk. Then Gene clapped his hands together. "Ray. Shift."

Ray disappeared through the door, and Gene turned back to Alex. "Run this theory of yours by me again, Bolls."

"Well. Troubled childhood, for one reason or another. He blames his mother. He wants to punish her, to get his revenge on her. But he can't. Perhaps she's dead, perhaps she's just out of reach. Either way, he can't get to her, so he takes it out on other people. Vulnerable, helpless people who it's easy to get to. Perhaps his hatred of his mother has extended into a hatred of women generally. That would explain why there are no obvious links between the victims, anyway."

"Right. So he's a violent, woman-hating nutter. Just what I like to hear."

"A violent, woman-hating nutter who's got Shaz," Alex reminded him. "And if we go by his previous pattern, we had forty-eight hours from the moment she disappeared to find her. We're running out of time."

"Shit." Gene sank his head into his hands. Suddenly, Alex felt chilled to the core. If she had to use one word to describe his stance, she would call it defeat. But surely that was impossible? Gene Hunt didn't do defeat. For a moment, neither of them moved. Then Gene shook his head, a new fire burning in his eyes. "No. This is not going to happen."

"Guv?" Viv hurried into the room, list in hand. "Traced the owners of those cars. They all belong to people who live in the area, except these three, which I've also traced." He dropped the list onto the desk in front of Gene and pointed to three names. "Those are the owners. I thought you'd like to check them out."

"Nice work, Viv," said Gene approvingly.

Alex crossed to stand behind him so that she could read over his shoulder. "So if we cross-reference these with the names Ray comes up with, we should be able to identify anyone who owns both a warehouse by the river and a car that was spotted in the area."

Gene slapped his hand down on the paper. "And then we'll have the bastard."

"We will. And then, Guv, I think we'll be just about in time for a wedding."

Locked down here, in the dark, dank room that smelled of fear, time had ceased to exist. To Shaz, there were no hours, no days, no twilight as the moon slowly swapped places with the sun. Attempts at marking time were futile, so instead she simply tried to stay awake, so that the minutes would pass slower and she could remain vigilant against the monsters lurking in the shadows.

Eventually, she fell asleep, dozing in fractured, troubled snatches, jerking awake every few minutes drenched in a cold sweat, fingers scrabbling at the threadbare blanket as though it tethered her to reality. The sensory deprivation was getting to her. It was like being suspended in a box high above the world, so far away she was no longer even a spectator, just a specimen in a museum case, locked away and forgotten.

When he finally returned, her kidnapper and tormentor, unbolting the door and letting a chink of light filter into the room, she was almost relieved. He was real. This was real. She wasn't alone, and she wasn't going mad.

As he made his way over to her, still whispering under his breath in a way that chilled her to the core, she recoiled into the corner, hugging her knees to her chest and tucking her face into her shoulder. She couldn't bear for him to touch her and yet here he was, moving onto the mattress beside her so that it bowed beneath his weight.

"Barbara." His voice, sing-song and gleeful, made her shudder. "Coo-ee. Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

His hands came out of nowhere. The darkness was so penetrating, so intense, that she could only sense him, and when he touched her arm, fingers cold against her skin, she shrieked. He didn't miss a beat, just stroked his hand along her elbow.

"Don't be frightened. It's only me."

Shaz stayed very still. There were tears in her eyes and she willed them not to fall. She didn't want him to see how very afraid she was, how repulsed, how horrified that this should happen to her. Her heart was racing in her chest, one two, one-two, onetwo, and she inhaled sharply as he moved to place his head in her lap, guiding her to sit cross-legged beside him.

"Will you tell me a story?" He sounded so pitiful, so childlike in that moment that Shaz was overcome with a violent wave of revulsion. How could a man so evil sound so lost? How could he play the innocent when he had kidnapped her off the street? The contradictions chilled her and she choked back a desperate sob. Where were they? Why weren't they coming for her?

"Tell me!" His voice changed. The fingers on her ankle tightened. Nails bit into skin. Fresh tears sprang to her eyes.

"All right!" Hearing her own voice was surreal. She had been living in her mind, attempting vainly to distance herself from this horror, and she felt suddenly as though she had plugged back into reality. "All right," she repeated. He didn't seem to want to hurt her yet – he seemed to want, bizarrely, for her to comfort him, mother him, and she was prepared to do anything that might keep him calm. Slowly, with cold, trembling hands, she started to run her fingers through his hair. It was soft, clean. He purred.

"You're not going to work today, are you?" He sounded contented again, the grip on her ankle slack and gentle.

She swallowed. "No. I'm going to stay here with...with you." He didn't answer, just sighed happily, and she took a deep, shuddering breath, tried to gather her thoughts. A story. Her mind was blank. "How about The Three Little Pigs?" He nodded against her and she sighed softly in relief, fingers still slipping through his hair in a rhythm that was soothing even as it sickened her.

She talked and talked, stretching the tale, embellishing, throwing voices, long after she felt his breathing slow and his body relax against her. She talked because she needed to, because the moment she stopped the horror of her situation would crash down around her, because it was the only thing that kept the nightmares at bay. As she spoke, she tried not to think about Chris, about Ray and DI Drake and the Guv, about the people she'd always trusted would save her. She ignored the clawing desperation, kept it at bay because if she didn't, it would consume her.

Finally, what felt like hours after he'd fallen asleep against her, Shaz fell quiet. She took a few deep breaths. Closed her eyes. Stilled her fingers. And then, like the first drops of autumn rain, a single tear rolled slowly down one cheek, followed by another, followed by another, until she was sobbing silently into the darkness, her kidnapper and tormentor still cradled in her arms.

The Quattro screeched round the corner, mounted the kerb and came to a scraping halt alongside a row of dilapidated warehouses. Alex, Gene, Chris and Ray leaped out of the car and made their way round the back of the buildings, guns at the ready.

"Nice and quietly does it, all right?" said Gene, his voice hushed. "Chris, Ray, go on." He waved them through the door with his gun and shot a look at Alex. "I bloody hope we've got this right."

"So do I, Guv," she replied through gritted teeth. The man they'd identified, one Kevin Hughes, certainly seemed suspicious. And he did, of course, have the misfortune of owning both a riverside warehouse and a car which had been spotted in the area where Shaz had disappeared. Surely there wasn't much margin for error there? She didn't want to imagine what might happen if they'd got it all wrong. They couldn't even tell if they were going to be there in time, even if they were in the right place. What if...? Shaking her head, she cut that thought off abruptly. "Well? What are we waiting for?"

"Let's get on with this." He ducked through the door and Alex followed him, walking lightly so that her heels didn't make too much noise on the stone floor. Hastening round a corner, they found Chris and Ray crouched against a wall, ears pressed to a door.

"Through here, Guv." Ray stood up and brushed the dust from his hands off on his jacket. "Sure of it."

Gene nodded and pulled out his gun. "Get that door down. Now."

Chris nodded grimly and stood back, before ramming the door with his shoulder. It burst open in a cloud of dust and shards of wood. The room beyond was completely dark. Clutching his shoulder and coughing from the dust, Chris staggered through the door and winced.

"Bloody hellfire. You can do that next time, Ray."

"Chris?"

"Shaz!"

Chris disappeared into the darkened room, followed by Gene and Ray. Alex stood back as the boards nailed to the windows were torn off, and light flooded into the room. As soon as she could see what was going on, Alex stepped further into the room and surveyed the scene. Two large windows took up most of the far wall, and in the corner was an old, threadbare mattress, a couple of thin, faded blankets strewn across it. Gene and Ray were standing halfway across the room, Chris a few steps ahead of them. Beneath the window, a man Alex recognised as Kevin Hughes was standing by the wall, holding Shaz in front of him like a shield, a gun pressed to her temple.

Despite her obvious predicament, Alex felt an immeasurable sense of relief at the sight of Shaz. She looked pale and afraid, but otherwise, mercifully, she appeared unharmed. Alex breathed in deeply as the horrific images that had crept unbidden into her mind over the last few hours faded away unrealised. Thank God.

"Shaz." Alex moved to stand beside Chris. "Don't panic, okay?" Shaz nodded, her eyes wide with fear. It wasn't much, but Alex knew that Shaz trusted her to get her out of this situation.

"Mr Hughes." She attempted a smile, shifting her focus to the man holding Shaz. "I'm DI Alex Drake. I know this is difficult for you, but I want you to think about what you're doing. If I were you –"

"You're not me, though, are you?" he sneered. "I told you before. There's nothing you can do. She's so pretty," he crooned, caressing the side of Shaz's face with his gun. "So pretty." His voice rose, tinged with a kind of twisted excitement. "You've got it wrong from the start. All wrong. And it took you...oh, such a long time."

Alex was startled by how unsettled she felt by this man. There was something deeply chilling, almost inhuman, about his stunted, unsteady movements and his lilting, childish voice. Gene was clearly feeling the same way; the disgust was evident in his expression. Chris looked as if he was about to be sick. Ray was staring at the man with undisguised revulsion, his fists clenched at his sides.

Gene cleared his throat and stepped forward to join Alex and Chris, his tone even but his fury evident nonetheless. "If you don't release my officer sharpish, Hughes, I'm going to let DC Skelton here pick exactly which bit of you to aim at first. He may not look it, but he's a crack shot, so I suggest you hand her over."

Chris lifted his gun. "Do it."

Hughes looked from one to the other, his eyes flickering between them. Readjusting his hold on Shaz, he gripped the gun more tightly, the barrel still firmly glued to the side of her head. Alex held her breath.

Ray edged closer, past Alex, Gene and Chris. "Don't panic, Shaz," he said quietly, his eyes fixed on Hughes. "It'll be all right."

"Mr Hughes," said Alex, trying to retain her composure. "I understand why you're doing this. I understand. It was your mother, wasn't it?" She had his attention now. "She was...she was never much of a mother to you, was she?"

"She was a slut," he hissed viciously, the gun, still trained on Shaz, trembling violently. "A filthy, vile despicable whore."

"And this is what you're doing to cope with that?" hazarded Alex, trying to keep her voice even. "These girls, they...they represent your mother? They represent your disappointment, your disillusionment, maybe even your hatred for her? You see them as like her, so they have to die. Is that it?"

"Shut up." He screwed up his eyes, shaking with anger from head to toe. "Just shut up."

"Okay..." Alex held out her hand. "I won't talk about it, if it upsets you. Just...why don't you just give me the gun? Let her go."

"They're all the same." He jerked Shaz violently towards him and grimaced. "Women. Filthy sluts, all of them. Just like her. My mother."

Alex could see him spiralling out of control in front of her very eyes. They needed to calm him down somehow, regain control before something terrible happened. Glancing around the room, she took in the rest of the situation. Ray, arms still outstretched, just a few feet from Hughes, was wearing an expression of grim determination which almost succeeded in masking the fear beneath it. Gene was standing in the middle of the room, his expression unreadable. She could almost see the cogs whirring in his brain. Chris still had his gun trained on Hughes, but his hands were shaking violently. If he fired now, he could hit anything. Anyone.

Keeping her eyes fixed on Hughes, Alex took a step towards Chris and laid a hand on his arm. "Chris, put the gun away," she whispered.

"Put it away, put it away," muttered Hughes distractedly, his strange, childlike voice rising higher and higher. "Put it away, or I'll shoot her."

Chris dropped the gun. "You bastard."

"C'mon, Hughes," said Gene, speaking for the first time in several minutes. "What's the point of all this, eh? She's not your mum. None of the others were either, were they? Your mum's dead. So why don't you stop all this nonsense? Let her go, eh?"

"Why should I?" he hissed. "She deserves it, just like they all did. She deserves to –"

"Look at her," interrupted Alex. "Do you really think she deserves this? She doesn't deserve anything, any more than the others did. If you pull that trigger, you're not going to hurt your mother. You're going to hurt Shaz, and the people who love her." He didn't loosen his hold on Shaz, but Alex could tell that she had his attention. Shaz was watching her with big, wide eyes full of fear. Giving her a tentative smile, Alex took a deep breath and continued. "I don't suppose you know that Shaz is getting married tomorrow, do you?" She smiled again, although right now it was the last thing she wanted to do. "She is, and I know she's going to look beautiful. It's going to be a wonderful wedding. But most importantly of all, she's going to be surrounded by friends and family, people who love her and think the world of her. People like me, like Chris, like all of us. People who are going to suffer so much if you pull that trigger." She paused and saw his gaze flicker from her to Chris and back again. His resolve was definitely weakening. At least, she hoped it was. She was a hair's breadth away from losing so much that she couldn't bear even to contemplate it. "You wouldn't let that happen, would you?" she urged gently. "So why don't you put the gun down?"

For a moment, he remained completely still, the gun pressed fiercely against Shaz's temple. Then something inside him seemed to crack and his hold on her slackened, the gun wavering. Seizing the opportunity, Shaz wrenched herself free and hurled herself away from him. Darting forwards, Ray caught her in his arms and she clung to him, her breath coming in ragged gasps. He pulled her to the other side of the room, exchanging a look of grim relief with Alex.

"Thank you, Mr Hughes," said Alex quietly, her voice shaking with barely concealed relief. "You've done the right thing."

"Chris, get this bastard cuffed and in the car, now," said Gene grimly. "And I don't think there's any need to be too gentle with him, do you?"

"With pleasure, Guv." Scooping up his gun from the floor and stowing it in his pocket, Chris took a step forward, only to stop in his tracks as Hughes raised the gun again, the feverish look back in his eyes.

"Step back," he said loudly, sweeping the gun over each of them in turn. "This isn't what's supposed to happen. You're...you're doing it wrong, all of you. Not like this. It's not right – it's not right – it's not –" His voice was rising uncontrollably, his eyes flickering between them all, the hand holding the gun shaking violently.

"Mr Hughes, it's all right." Alex raised her voice. "I know you're feeling agitated. I just need you to calm down. Can you do that? Put the gun on the –" Even as she spoke, she saw his finger tighten on the trigger.

In the split second that followed, several things happened at once.

Gene lunged for his gun, Ray threw himself across the room at Hughes and Shaz screamed, eyes wide with terror. And then the world seemed to stop spinning as Chris staggered backwards, both hands clasped to his stomach, a look of pure shock on his face as blood seeped from between his fingers.