MELISSA HEARD MITCHELL’S shout and listened for some indication that the house’s occupants had too – it didn’t take long. Within moments of Mitchell’s second shout, she heard thunderous footsteps approach the back door. She tensed, one hand on her extendible baton, while she waited for the door she was standing at the side of to open; it did so with a bang and Melissa pushed away from the wall.
Tom Bottle and Simon Deacon got themselves jammed, momentarily, in the doorway, as they both tried to exit the house at the same time. When they freed themselves, they burst into the garden, straight into the leg that Melissa stuck out to trip them up; they went down in a tangled heap of arms and legs that made them look like some weird, many-limbed creature.
“Morning, boys,” Melissa said cheerful
