I took a deep breath, wiped the sweat from my palms on my thinning hair and drew my gun.

I was out of shape, but I still remembered a few things from my police days. With the help of some adrenaline, I kicked open the wooden double doors and walked into the room, pistol raised. It might have been called a reading room, but it looked like a small library, with tall wooden bookshelves, marble pillars and brown leather chairs.

A man in a grey suit sat, flicking gently through a book in the light of a desk lamp. I aimed at him and advanced. I was breathing heavily but my hands were steady. God, I was getting too old for this.

He looked up.

“Ah,” he said. “Detective.”

He seemed momentarily surprised, but then said, quite calmly, “But of course, I knew all along you’d come for me here.”

Five men in black turtlenecks materialised from behind pillars, lifting guns in my direction.

I swore, flipping over a table, my gun going off in my hands as old instincts kicked in.

Perhaps only 20 seconds passed. Throughout the firefight, the man in the grey suit sat very still, and miraculously, when the bullets stopped flying and the hired thugs lay dead on the floor, he remained uninjured.

I had a gunshot in my left shoulder and a graze on my cheek, but I’d live.

I staggered over to the man in the grey suit, still with the open book in his lap.

“But of course,” he said, raising his palms up. “You can’t shoot me. Yet.”

I pulled down on the trigger but my traitor finger disobeyed me. My head started pounding in frustration. I needed a drink.

“Why not?” I snapped. I was close enough now, only a few meters, close enough to not miss, even if he pulled one of his little tricks.

“Because,” he said, licking his lips, eyes darting to the side slightly. “You need to know how my power works.”

Stolen novel; please report.

I cursed aloud. He was stalling for time. Looking for a way to turn the situation in his favour.

“So how does it work?” I could feel a vein in my forehead pulsing. I tried to loosen my tie with my injured arm but kept the gun on him. If he hesitated, or didn’t tell me, I think I could probably pull the trigger.

“I can’t change just anything I want,” he said, smoothly. “I can only prod the narrative, I need some kind of Chekhov’s gun to work with. And sometimes, pushing too hard only makes the narrative push back.”

“Like this.” He gestured at the dead men on the floor. “I mean, how else does an aging private eye dispatch 5 guns for hire.”

He stopped as if realising something.

“You had bacon and eggs for breakfast this morning,” he said, softly, almost hypnotically. “Blueberry pie with cream afterwards.”

I laughed at the absurdity of his allegation before I realised that he was right. For a moment I thought I’d skipped breakfast, but now I realised I was wrong.

“And cream in your coffee,” he continued, almost hypnotically. “And some bourbon from your hipflask.”

And of course, now that he’d said it, that was what I’d had for breakfast.

“And now, in a moment of supreme irony,” he said, smiling slightly. “Just as you are about to bring the murderer to justice...”

I could feel the blood roaring in my ears, it was becoming hard to breathe.

“No!” I said through gritted teeth. I tried to pull on the trigger, but my hand and arm were contorting and I felt a terrible pain and pressure in my chest.

“…your alcoholism and poor life choices finally catch up with you,” he intoned. “With all of the stress of the day, your heart just couldn’t take the strain.”

I was on the floor now, with no memory of how I’d gotten there. He had pulled the gun out of my hand and was standing over me. He was smiling.

My vision was going black around the edges. The heart attack would take me soon.

“It’s such a shame,” I whispered. “To die on your final case.”

His face went white.

“No!” he shouted. “Don’t say it!”

“I was going to retire tomorrow,” I said.

And with that, like Gandalf and the Rohirrim arriving at Helm’s Deep, an army of police came bursting through the door, shouting and holding pistols and torches, the lights blindingly bright.

The Man in the Grey Suit lifted his hands, still holding my pistol, and the cops did what they’d been trained to do, and opened fire. His grey suit blossomed with half a dozen red flowers, and he went down screaming.

I knew that any second now, my old partner or my protégé or someone else would come and cradle my head as I died. And that was ok. Worse ways to go than that.

Because the Man in the Grey Suit wouldn’t hurt anyone else.

Sometimes the narrative pushes back.