The Other Me

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter 14

It was Tuesday. Explosion day. The day that finally everything was coming to an end.

We got up and started to get ready at six-thirty, though of course I had been awake long before that. I was certain I hadn’t slept a wink all night. And although Rosaline would never admit, I was sure she had had the same problem.

For ages, I had laid awake thinking about what had happened. The sound of the blasting bullets replaying through my head, again and again. But something else had also hooked onto my mind.

The figure in the car. Even though it surely would have been Barratt, some feeling of instinct inside of me wasn’t so sure. There was something about that figure, something feminine about it. Did Barratt have some sort of female accomplice?

When I had quizzed Rosaline about this, she completely disagreed.

“You must be imagining things,” she had told me carefully, aware of the distressing state I was in. “We both know that all of this was caused by Barratt. If he had an accomplice, we would know about it. Besides, I didn’t think the figure looked like a woman at all.”

I didn’t want to point out that she had been in the house; therefore she was too far away to be able to barely see the figure, let alone tell what gender it was. But I dropped the subject, because Rosaline knew more about what was going on after all. I had felt silly then. Of course I had imagined it. The figure must have been Barratt, who else would it have been?

By seven o’clock we were standing outside my house, both of us dressed in dark clothes. Rosaline was wearing her sunglasses and hat again, but for the moment neither of us were exactly worrying about our likeness.

I had been shaking nervously as Rosaline had guided me out the house; terrified that a gun fight would take place as soon as we stepped out. But to my immense relief, there was no black car, no shiny metal gun, no raging, firing bullets.

“It’ll be okay,” Rosaline had told me reassuringly. “It’s broad daylight. No one is going to shoot us now. Plus, there are people everywhere. Barratt’s not stupid enough to kill anyone in front of people.”

She was right. There were surprisingly quite a few people up and about this early in the morning. People going to work, people walking their dogs, there was even the postman and the milkman trundling about. Too many witnesses.

We only waited for about another two minutes outside the house, when Rafi suddenly appeared at our side.

“Are you alright?” Rafi asked, concerned as he glimpsed my terrified face. He too, was wearing dark clothes and he was carrying a rucksack on his back; no doubt filled with more watches and other flashy gadgets.

“I’m – I’m fine,” I stammered, clearing indicating that I was really indeed, not fine.

Rosaline shot me a fruitful look, and then she began explaining to Rafi what had happened outside the newsagent and what had happened the night before. Rafi’s face went very white as he heard this.  

“I never realised he was so much of a cold-blooded killer,” he shuddered in horror. He gently took my hand and squeezed comfortingly, which I thought was very nice of him.

“Guys, we have nothing to worry about. There are three of us remember? And besides, I was watching when he fired the shots. His aim is crap. The shots were near you, but I don’t think any of them would have actually hit you.” Rosaline told us confidently.

We began our walk towards the nearest bus stop. Fortunately, there was an early bus and we reached it just in time. We were all strangely silent the whole journey. I think even Rosaline was trembling out of her wits.