Dead Blind

by Rebecca Bradley

  15

  The minute it was out of his mouth, Billy knew he had said the wrong thing. The fact that there was now a gun pointed at his head confirmed it. He found it difficult to focus on anything but the cold of the metal on his temple. Of all the things to think about, it was how cold it felt against his skin that was at the forefront of his mind. Because it wasn’t just pointed at his head, it was jammed up against his skull. Pushing his head sideways with the strength behind it.

  The pressure of the muzzle on his skin came directly from the tension in the arm of the man who’d introduced himself as Vova Rusnac.

  He had tried to avenge his brother’s death. He’d tried to be the big man, when who was he kidding, he should have stuck to what he was good at – though how could he say he was any good at acting? His acting skills obviously left a lot to be desired. He couldn’t act his way through this meet. Rusnac had picked up on the scam.

  No, he hadn’t played his part well enough. And where did that leave him?

  The cops were here. Did that mean they’d get him out of this? Billy knew it had been a struggle for them to get here. He couldn’t see them. Had they even made it in time? Rusnac was clever, he knew how to avoid, how to take precautions. He didn’t trust easily.

  ‘Look, man,’ Billy said.

  Rusnac’s head moved around, swept the area.

  ‘POLICE. PUT YOUR WEAPON DOWN, YOU ARE SURROUNDED.’

  The cops had made it. He could make it out of here. He just had to keep his cool. Keep his head.

  ‘Look, man,’ he repeated.

  The gun moved from his head down to his side, where it embedded itself deep in the layers he wore, the hoody, the sweater and the T-shirt. Through it all he could feel the gun. He was sure he could even feel the coldness he had felt when it was up against his temple. The freezing cold of metal that had the power to kill.

  Billy shivered.

  ‘What did you do?’ Rusnac snarled. Hard edges cutting words up short.

  How could he deny it? With what he’d said, and now the police shout. What could he say? He had to keep his cool. They’d get him out of this.

  ‘The feds, they jammed me up yesterday and then let me out. They must’ve followed me, put a tail on me, man.’

  Rusnac was wired. Everything about him tense, his movements jagged.

  Billy’s insides curled, his bladder cold, weakened. But it held. He ducked his head into his neck. Tried to make himself smaller.

  Rusnac’s grip on his arm tightened. He started to move. Away from where they were standing. Billy held firm. Planted his weight down towards his feet.

  ‘Move,’ hissed his captor. ‘Or I’ll drag you limping with a bullet in your foot.’

  Billy’s bladder twinged and leaked. Not enough for anyone to notice. He needed to hold it together. They’d get him out of this.

  He moved with Rusnac. Away from help. He hoped someone could see them from where they were hiding. Rusnac had a firm grip on his arm with one hand while the other still forced the gun into his side. They moved as one. Billy’s breath came fast.

  ‘I didn’t do this to you, man. I wouldn’t do that, I wanted in. I wanted to be a part of this. I still can. Once we’re away.’

  ‘You think I’ll let a snitch into my organisation?’ The gun pressed in further than Billy thought possible.

  ‘It’s not what you think –’

  ‘It’s not? So, tell me, young Billy, how did you say you knew our earlier customer Jamie?’

  He’d blown it. He’d let his emotions lead him. He needed the cops.

  16

  Ray stayed crouched for the moment, out of the line of fire. Noise filled his head as panic lit up the radios. He kept his eyes trained on the male and Billy. The male was nervous. He looked around him, wanted a way out. The guys that came with him started to move; they ran towards him, then back away, orders were barked and shouting ensued. Ray didn’t understand what was said as most of it was foreign.

  The gun was stuck firmly in Billy’s ribs. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was there. He’d kept his eyes trained on it and had watched as it transferred from Billy’s head to his side. Plus, he could tell by Billy’s wild-eyed demeanour that he was under threat.

  Ray relayed events to the team outside the doors. Told them to stay back. There was no way he would allow one of them to become a target. SCO19 support should be on their way. Although who knew how long it would take them to get out here.

  The male took his hand away from Billy’s arm and grabbed his jacket collar. He tugged at it hard and suddenly they were on the move.

  Like jackrabbits they went hard right and out of sight behind one of the pallets.

  Ray couldn’t lose Billy. This had turned to shit, but he wouldn’t lose the boy. Not on his watch. He stood. His bones protested but he ran forward. ‘The male is on the move with Collier; all units stay back. I repeat, he is armed, stay back. Make any arrests of the other males that have scattered, if possible.’

  The noise was like a base party in his head as officers made visual contact with fleeing nominals. As he moved behind a stack of pallets he saw the other exit at the side of the building. The steel door was open.

  ‘One IC2 male and the boy have exited the building. Anyone have eyes on them?’ he shouted into the radio.

  No one did.

  Ray paused at the door. Rested his back on the hinges. Felt the rounded metal dig into his back. He took a deep breath and looked around the frame. The male, dark bomber jacket, was still moving, the gun still jammed into Billy.

  Ray ran out after them.

  ‘Police. Stop,’ he shouted. Billy turned and looked at Ray but he couldn’t decipher what passed over his face.

  Billy ran for the man who held the gun to his side. He ran hard and fast and Ray could feel his bones hurt as he pushed himself to keep up. His leg, still strengthening, struggled. Pain shot up to his brain but he would not let Billy out of his sight.

  They ran the length of the warehouse, out into the open air, where the smell of the Thames pricked Ray’s nostrils. The male pulled Billy across the flattened, hardened dirt towards a side road. Ray wanted to stop, his body complaining. But he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t give up on the boy.

  As the burn kicked into his brain they hit the tarmacked lane that led to a business at the edge of the Thames and the male pulled Billy to a stop. He stood and looked Ray in the face, paused, and then smiled.

  A solitary bird flew overhead and squawked down at them as it passed.

  Ray leaned forward, palms on his knees, gently panting, neck bent upwards, eyes forward on Billy and the male.

  The male smiled.

  A smile that said it all.

  Ray’s heart slammed heavy in his chest. He could feel it reverberate loud in his ears. Felt it bang against his ribcage. His legs shook. He straightened himself. This man had a smile on his face. He could still recognise a smile, and a smile like this didn’t signify fear. This man was not scared right now.

  Ray’s brain scrambled for sense but he focused with all his energy on the face of the man. This was about to go wrong. He needed to focus. This was the hardest thing he would ever have to do.

  In the couple of seconds that followed, a moment in which the male paused for what seemed like effect, Ray pushed his mind with all he had.

  Eyes.

  Nose.

  Mouth – a sneer.

  Short brown hair.

  Six feet tall.

  ‘It’s too bad, copper. Billy would have been a good soldier in the organisation. He’s shown his worth and now you’ve gone and killed him.’

  ‘Don’t!’ Ray shouted.

  He pulled the trigger.

  A single loud crack smashed its way through the still air.

  A look flitted across Billy’s face.

  He slumped to the floor.

  The male moved. Towards the car that Ray now saw parked on the road behind the male. A silver BMW.

  Ray dropped to his knees
, sliding in the already slick asphalt, tiny fragments of the road dragging at his trousers, snagging and tearing, stinging his knees. Pressing into the deep red life fluid that seeped out of Billy and now stamped itself into Ray.

  He didn’t have time to glove up; he couldn’t remember if he had any on him anyway. He pushed a hand into the hole that gushed and used his other hand to make the shout for assistance. All the while he watched Billy as his eyes flickered, his mouth moved without sound, like a goldfish out of water, and then the man who had shot him, climbing into the car and driving away.

  The man he wouldn’t recognise ever again.

  17

  For Rusnac it had been a split-second decision to shoot the kid. His mind had skittered about like marbles in a box. The cop had followed him and what with dragging the boy along he hadn’t been able to lose him. The boy had been a dead weight tied to him, had slowed him down. It was this realisation that crystallised his mind, sharp and bright, that brought the moment into focus.

  He’d have much rather exacted a slow and painful revenge on the boy for bringing the cops down on them like this. To show him his displeasure at the events that were unfolding. But there hadn’t been time.

  Shoot him in his side: that would give him time to escape because, unlike a bullet to the head, the boy would fall bleeding. He’d have a moment to feel the pain. A moment to realise he’d crossed the wrong person. To know he’d been punished and that payback was hell. And in all that, as long as he didn’t fall down dead, like from a bullet in the head, then the cop would be forced to stop and offer first aid. To attempt to save his life. And he could make a run for it.

  That split second had slowed so that every single action, thought and reaction was etched in his memory. His finger on the trigger. The tension in his muscle as he pulled back. The gun’s recoil. The loud snap in the air. The shock on the face of the kid.

  And the cop.

  Rusnac remembered the weight in his other hand as the kid crumpled to the floor and he realised he had to let go of him.

  The shock still registering.

  He had but seconds to make his move.

  The cop cried out.

  And Rusnac felt a bizarre pleasure as he realised that his plan could work. He watched him. The cop. As the kid lay on the floor. Blood seeping from under him.

  Then time started again and he ran. He ran for his life. Because he’d have no life if he was caught and locked up in a prison. He’d escaped Moldova. It wasn’t an escape if he’d left one shithole for another.

  He ran down the road to the car he’d parked there as a precaution, not thinking he’d need it. How wrong he’d been. He scrabbled at the handle and hauled himself inside, turned the engine over and moved away, foot on the gas, and kept moving until he was far enough away to stop.

  He had never wanted to use the gun. He only had it because the Russians had given it to him. He never expected to use it, to have to use it.

  When he pulled up he got out of the car and held his hands out in front of him. They shook as he looked down at them.

  It wasn’t the kill. He wasn’t afraid of the violence. It was how close he’d come to being locked up and fed on slop, reminded of home. This country was rich beyond anything he’d ever known, and he lapped the cream from the unsuspecting idiots who didn’t know how good they had it. If they were stupid enough to not realise how much they had here, then he had no problem taking from them. But there was no way in hell he would be taken to jail and treated like he’d been back home. No way.

  Now he needed to regroup. Sort out any issues and get the organisation back on track. Before the Russians found out there was a problem.

  18

  Grey clouds had scudded over and now offered a leaden blanket as Ray tried to stem the flow of blood from Billy’s side.

  Billy, his breathing ragged and laboured, tried to speak. He wheezed and coughed as he tried to get words out.

  ‘… was him… heads it. Organises …’ He coughed again and blood trickled out of the side of his mouth.

  ‘Stop,’ said Ray as he tried to control the emotions that raged inside him, tried to hold it together in front of this person who was essentially just a boy. He pressed harder, keeping his palm flat as he tried to staunch the blood that kept seeping out, finding a way, no matter how much pressure Ray applied.

  ‘Where’s that ambulance!’ he shouted into his radio. He’d already informed them of the BMW, though he’d only caught a partial VRM as it left the scene. His eyes were more caught on Billy than on the fleeing male.

  ‘Two minutes out,’ came the response. He pressed down again.

  Heavy footfalls vibrated through the packed dirt as they ran toward them. Will, short and wide, and a female dropped down beside him.

  ‘Aw fook, guv,’ said Paula, the accent Scottish.

  Ray kept the pressure on the wound, though it was obvious his hand wasn’t enough.

  ‘Ambulance is a minute out now,’ said Will.

  ‘Hang in there, kid,’ said Paula. Voice low. She removed her jacket. Folded it up, gently lifted Billy’s head, dropped the jacket on the ground and placed his head onto it.

  ‘Will, jacket!’ Ray snapped.

  Will pulled off his jacket, balled it up and handed it to Ray, who shoved it over the bleeding wound and pushed down again.

  Billy winced.

  ‘You did good,’ Ray told him.

  ‘I’m …’ Billy’s chest rattled and wheezed some more. ‘…sorry.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  Billy’s eyes closed.

  ‘You’ve got to hang in there. You have to finish what you started. Come on. Hold on. They’ll be here in a minute.’

  Blood pooled around them as they crouched and knelt with him. Ray could feel it as it seeped up his shirtsleeves. Through his trouser-legs. Could taste the copper tang. Smell it. Feel it bite at the back of his throat. He felt contaminated in death, because that was what this was. Billy’s death.

  Sirens punctured the still air.

  The green uniforms of the ambulance crew pushed them away from Billy and started to work.

  Ray, Will and Paula stood to the side, arms down by their sides, but curled away from their bodies. Bloodied hands and arms kept at a distance.

  They watched the paramedics work.

  Watched the blood.

  No words.

  Just blood.

  Billy.

  The green ambulance crew.

  The announcement of a life extinct.

  19

  It was like a scene from a movie.

  Billy lay where he fell. On his back. One leg bent under the other, arms splayed as though he’d windmilled them in an attempt to stop his fall. A darkness spread out and formed a huge right wing and a smaller left one. The dust and grit from the ground kicked up into it, spattering it, clogging patches.

  Dark-coloured footprints moved around and away from him.

  Men and women in white Tyvek suits worked their way to him on square silver step-boxes. Moving with focus.

  One pair of footprints belonged to Ray, who had walked to a spot away from everyone. He looked over the barren, brown-dirt landscape towards where he knew the Thames ebbed and flowed, its own animal, its own life, and breathed in. Tried to clear his lungs, which felt as though they were filled with dirt from the ground, oil from the air, and blood, thick and cloying, from Billy. He was soiled, inside and out.

  There were so many people here. He had no idea if there were people he already knew or who he’d been introduced to earlier. He was fried. After watching the life drain out of Billy, and the sudden influx of people, his brain felt overloaded. For instance, everyone in a white suit looked exactly the same. There was nothing to differentiate them. All identifiers were covered up.

  ‘Ray!’

  Shit. It was the voice of Detective Superintendent Prabhat Jain.

  Ray turned and watched Jain stride towards him. Strong and purposeful. Blue strobes rotated behind him, cr
iss-crossing each other from different vehicles. Signalling the drama that unfolded here. He wished they wouldn’t do this. Draw attention. There wasn’t any need. There was no traffic to stop.

  ‘Guv.’ He acknowledged his boss with deference to his rank.

  ‘What the hell happened?’ Jain asked as he joined him.

  ‘You sent an unarmed, untrained child into a dangerous situation is what happened.’

  ‘Ray,’ he warned. ‘We agreed.’ He looked past Ray at the boy on the ground and the swarm of white-suited ants around him. ‘He was already in. Had been for two years before we knew about it. We couldn’t protect him then, we hadn’t been able to stop him then. There were no signs that anything was amiss or that there was an armed element to this. It must have happened here, today.’ He returned his look to Ray, who sighed.

  ‘It was a complete farce. We were underprepared. They’re good. Organised. Meticulous. Their prep for arranging a meet was good. We were on the back foot from the start. And then he was spooked and he pulled a gun. There was nothing we could do, we weren’t prepared for it.’

  ‘This is bad PR, Ray.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Prabhat.’

  ‘Okay. I know.’ He raised his hands, palms forward. ‘I know. But this incident still has to be reported somehow.’ He lowered his hands. ‘I have to work with the media and communication unit and work out what we’ll say.’ He pushed his hands in his pockets and nodded towards Ray’s own. ‘You need to get back to the nick, get your clothes into evidence bags, get cleaned up and then help me figure this out.’

  Ray looked down at himself. He was unrecognisable from how he’d set out that morning, and his skin was itchy where the blood was drying, tight and cracked.

  ‘Well, he knows it was a police operation now, so there’s no point being coy about it, but we do have to be careful how much info we give the press and, by extension, him, about how much we know.’ Ray laughed as he said this, it was hard, brittle. ‘Or don’t know. Let me get sorted and we’ll get everyone together.’