by Joe McNally
‘I thought Stoke said there was a watercock?’
‘He said he thought there was. Try the kitchen.’
‘The galley, you mean.’
‘Bollocks.’
The boat rolled as he walked along.
‘Don’t see anything.’
‘Have to be the acid then, won’t it?’
The steps moved to the middle of the boat.
‘How we gonna work it?’
‘I told you, when he’s out for the count we uncork the bottle and tip it over. It’ll burn a big enough hole within a couple of hours to let the water in.’
‘The cops won’t wear the acid once they’ve dragged this thing up. What would Malloy be doing with acid?’
‘Could be anything, how would they know? It’s not as if Malloy’s gonna be here to answer questions. Obvious accident, innit? Four hundred milligrams of alcohol in his blood, pissed out of his brain, what else can they call it?’
‘I dunno.’
Glass clinked on glass.
‘Careful!’
‘No sweat.’
‘What do we do if Malloy ain’t home?’
‘We wait. Stoke said do it before he gets home. That gives us three days.’
‘He could have been out of the way ages ago when we had him over that radiator.’
‘That was just a fright job. That was all we got paid for. One of my better performances too, I’d say.’
‘Yeah, really effective, Bill, the guy’s caused nothing but trouble since.’
‘Can I help it if Malloy ain’t got the brains to keep his nose out of other people’s business? I’ll still bet he won’t forget the night I nearly roasted it off his face.’
Bill, you never spoke a truer word.
The pain in my leg didn’t matter anymore. Heading home, I drove at speeds of up to a hundred, headlights picking out the bends just in time. I felt excited. Scared, but excited.
The relief Charmain had shown when I returned to the car had disappeared. The tension was back, and the fear.
I told her what I wanted her to do when we reached the cottage, repeating it over and over to make sure she understood. ‘I’ll park deep in the trees but facing the road they’ll have to come down to reach the cottage, either by car or on foot. If they walk, you should be able to see them by the light of the moon, but they’ll probably drive. Especially when they see the cottage is in darkness.
‘Driving or walking, you’ll have to be alert. If you miss them and my plans don’t work out, they’ll kill me. If they kill me, your protection has gone. I’m all you’ve got now. Do you understand that?’
She nodded.
’Say yes,’ I said.
‘Yes. Yes, I understand.’
I stared at her. ‘If they kill me, you’re next.’
Her eyes were wide. I said, ‘If they pass you on foot, give me thirty minutes. If you don’t see the lights come on in the cottage by then, go to the village and ring DS Cranley at this number. Tell him the men who killed Alan Harle have got Eddie Malloy and tell him where we are. Okay?’
She nodded.
‘If they pass you in a car, cut the time to twenty minutes maximum. Got it?’
‘Yes, but what if they see me in the car as they pass?’
‘They won’t. If they do, then slip out into the woods and try to get to the village.’
She began shivering.
Five hundred yards from the cottage, an old cart path led off into the wood. In winter, you couldn’t drive along it, but on this summer night it was manageable.
I drove well down, turned off into a clearing and parked facing the road. We got out and dragged broken branches and ferns across the windscreen and side body. ‘You’ll have to roll down the windows in case the moon glints on the glass.’
‘Okay.’
I looked toward the road. A moving car would be easily visible through the thin pines. I just hoped the same didn’t apply to this stationary one in the woods.
I opened the passenger door for Charmain. She got in and sat clenching her left fist inside her right hand. I thought she was going to cry and I hunkered down and took her hands in mine. The moonlight filtering through the trees showed the goose bumps on her arms spiked with tiny hairs. Cold or fear, I couldn’t help with either.
‘We’ll make it,’ I said.
She nodded, holding back the tears.
64
In a cupboard in the kitchen were some wire-cutters and a pair of heavily padded industrial gloves. I worked without light. In fifteen minutes, I was ready for them.
Ready and waiting.
Waiting in the alcove in the living room twelve feet from the cold fireplace, six feet from the back of the worn sofa. Waiting. Tense in the darkness. Cold. Leg aching.
On the mantelpiece the clock ticked, steady and reliable…the only sound, the only beat. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Two men. How long? Two men. How long?
Twenty minutes passed…half an hour. How was Charmain holding out? Maybe they’d seen her on the way past. What if they’d caught her? What would she tell them? What would they do to her?
I heard a noise. On the roof. Someone was on the roof.
My heart rate doubled.
Another noise above – scrabbling, scratching, like fingernails clawing their way up the tiles. I stopped breathing…I heard wingbeats, passing the window, then silence. Thirty seconds…a minute. No more noise.
I realized what had happened; a bird had dropped his catch then swooped low, talons open, to snatch it as it slid down the tiles. Breathe again…Beat easy, heart.
The lungs breathed but the heart kept pumping fast. It must have known something because it was then that I heard them.
Footsteps. In the loose gravel by the road, coming closer, so close I waited to see them pass the window. They didn’t. Noises to my right, through the kitchen. They were round the back. Prowling.
I hoped they wouldn’t try the back door. If they came in that way my chances were down by fifty percent; they had twice as much floor-space to cross. Twice the chance of seeing me in the narrow alcove.
I waited.
How long had it been since they passed Charmain? The longer they took coming in the less time I’d have before she headed for the village.
No more noise at the back. They must be circling the building making sure no one was at home. I was at home. So was the clock. Two men. They’re here. Two men. They’re here.
I heard no more footsteps, just the thin sound as the lock-pick slid into the mechanism. The click as the lock turned. The creak as the door opened and two spiders walked into the web of the fly.
65
They were three steps from where I stood. Everything depended on them taking those steps in my direction. They didn’t. They did something even better. They sat on the sofa.
‘Let’s make ourselves comfortable till our little friend comes home.’
Their little friend was a yard away thinking how much their heads above the sofa resembled coconuts on a shelf. I didn’t even have to step forward. In each hand, I held a double loop of barbed wire, two feet in diameter.
The padded gloves protected my skin as I reached and slipped one loop over each head. They cried out. One full twist tightened the barbs.
‘If you even swallow I’ll rip your throat open.’
I stepped in close behind them.
‘Start working your way in very slow movements to the end of the sofa.’
When they reached the end, I moved to the side so I could control them more easily when they stood up.
‘You’re going to stand up very slowly and you’re not going to do anything silly. It’ll take me a tenth of a second to twist this little necklace one more time, so best behaviour unless you want to become a blood donor via your jugular. Stand up.’
They stood. ‘Which one is Bill?’
‘Me.’ said the one on my left.
‘If you raise your left hand to that wall, Bill, you’ll find a light switch. Press it.
’
He did. The light came on and I pictured Charmain sighing in relief.
I twisted the wire, forcing him to turn his head to look at me, and I smiled as our eyes met. ‘Hello, Bill. Remember me?’
He nodded very carefully.
‘I thought you might. What’s your friend’s name?’
‘Trevor.’
‘Hello, Trevor.’ I smiled. He wasn’t reassured. ‘I believe you were at the open-air barbecue too, the night my face was on the menu?’
Swiveling his eyes, he looked at his partner. ‘I’m not hearing you, Trev,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he croaked.
‘Well gentlemen, never let it be said that I don’t return hospitality. As soon as I’ve made you comfortable I’m going to put the kettle on.’
I bound them together, back to back with thirty feet of barbed wire, double twisted the ends and crimped them with pliers. Then I went to the kitchen and filled the kettle, lit the gas, and put it on to boil.
I made them stand in the alcove while I leant on the mantelpiece. ‘Why did you kill Alan Harle?’
They didn’t answer.
‘I don’t know how much of your physics lessons you remember, but you’ve got as long as it takes to boil two pints of water on a full gas flame. If you’re not talking by then, well, I’ve always supported the eye-for-eye theory…Though I think boiling water is even more painful than steam.’
They flinched.
‘I’ll remind you of the question. Why did you kill Alan Harle?’
Silence.
‘Fine. I can wait.’
I started whistling, lightly, watching them as they wondered if I’d do what I’d threatened. Whistling on in a deliberate monotone, I kept it up until the kettle whistled low, then steadily higher.
‘Catching, isn’t it?’ I said, smiling.
They didn’t seem to find it funny.
I carried the kettle through. Bill saw the towel wrapped round the handle. I smiled at him. ‘Don’t want to burn myself, it’s very hot.’
His eyes widened.
I stood very close to him. The streams of blood stained his white collar like tiny red rivers on a hillside, and the wire was so tight on his chest he wasn’t taking full breaths. I stared hard and cold and unblinking into his eyes. He knew I held the kettle somewhere below but he couldn’t bend his head to look down.
‘Why did you kill Alan Harle?’
He looked unsure but he obviously thought I wouldn’t do it because he decided not to answer. It was a gamble. He lost.
I splashed about a cupful on his thigh and he screamed. Trevor’s body stiffened at the sound.
‘My aim was out a bit. I’ll get it this time.’
I swung my arm.
‘No! No, I’ll tell you!’
‘Start telling.’
‘It was a job. Just a job, a contract.’
‘Who paid?’
He hesitated. I swung again.
‘Stoke! Howard Stoke!’
‘Why did Stoke want him dead?’
‘We don’t ask for reasons.’
‘Why?’ I shouted in his face.
‘He was screwing around with Stoke’s wife.’
‘Bullshit!’
‘Honest!’
‘How did you kill him?’
‘Injected him with something Stoke gave us.’
‘After chaining the poor bastard up in a filthy stable for weeks!’
‘That was the way Stoke wanted it.’
‘And the customer’s always right, huh?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Harle was already injecting heroin, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where did he get it?’
‘We don’t know.’
‘Was he dealing in it?’
‘We don’t know.’
‘Was he dealing in it?’
‘We didn’t ask him any questions!’
‘Don’t get smart, Bill, you’re on the wrong side of the wire to get smart.’
He avoided my stare. I spent another five minutes pumping them but I learnt little. They didn’t know much because they hadn’t wanted to know. Their only interest had been money.
‘Is it just Stoke you’ve been involved with or have you done jobs for anyone else?’
‘We take it where we can find it.’
‘Took.’ I told him. Then I remembered the others who’d been attacked. ‘Was it Stoke who gave you the contracts on Bergmark and Kristar Rask, and Danny Gordon?’
No answer.
I lifted the kettle to eye-level. ‘Tell me!’
Bill looked at me. His voice was strained, ‘They were just jobs, nothing personal.’
‘Nothing personal! You crippled Bergmark, as good as killed Rask and murdered Danny Gordon and you say it was nothing personal! You fucking bastards!’ I swung the kettle and splashed another half pint of water on Bill’s thighs, then did the same to Trevor. They screamed.
My control was going and I put the kettle down in the hearth, because I was sorely tempted to pour the rest over their heads and they were already writhing. The barbs punctured their skin and blood ran from their throats and wrists.
I went to the phone. ‘I’m just about to ring the cops but I hope you fuckers bleed to death before they get here.’
I called the station and they said Detective Sergeant Cranley was at home. They wouldn’t give me his number, so I told the duty sergeant where I was and what had happened and warned him if he didn’t send a squad car within an hour they’d be picking up two corpses.
I left them groaning and gasping and went to get Charmain.
She’d gone. So had the car.
66
I stared through the silhouettes of the trees against the big moon wondering how long ago she’d left. Wondering if she’d waited to see the light going on, to see me safe. Wondering if her nerve had simply failed or if she’d just been desperate for another fix.
Whatever, she'd be heading for the boat where the heroin was, and the whiskey and the acid. I was beginning to regret freeing her from the ankle chain.
I hurried back to the cottage where Bill told me, in a strangled voice, which pocket his car keys were in. The barbed wire spiked him twice before I got them out. I switched the lights off, making it even more risky for them to move around. I couldn’t see their faces but as I closed the door, I heard them curse.
67
In the boat cabin, the syringe was on the table. Charmain lay sprawled on the narrow bunk, her right hand over her head idly fingering the curtain, a half full glass of whiskey in her left.
One knee pointed at the low ceiling. The other leg lay flat. Both were bare. The hem of her nightgown was round her waist exposing white underwear.
She smiled at me. ‘Home is the sailor, home from the sea and the hunter home from the hill,’ she said.
High as a kite.
I sat opposite her, wincing as the hard edge of the bunk caught the leg wound. ‘And the junkie?’ I asked. ‘Where’s she home from?’
Still smiling she raised the glass and drank. ‘Who cares? Who cares where the junkie’s home from? Who cares? Home from the woods, the junkie’s home from the woods.’
‘Is this why you left?’ I asked, picking up the empty syringe.
‘Left what? Left where? I’ve left a lot of places, Mister Malloy, a lot of places.’
Her face was pink from the warmth of the cabin. The three small gas fires along the length of the boat glowed.
‘Left the woods,’ I said. ‘Where you were supposed to be watching out for me.’
‘I watched out. You were okay,’ the smile was dropping, ‘you didn’t need me anymore after the light went on, you were the big hero then, weren’t you? The big hero.’
Letting go the curtain, she began rubbing her thigh. She drank again then closed her eyes and laid her head against the paneled wall. She looked almost serene.
Six feet to the side was a step down to the kitchen area, where an
old fridge and cooker and a sink unit with a dented draining board sat on a floor of cracked and curl-edged vinyl tiles. Limping over, I got myself a glass from the shelf above the sink. Charmain opened her eyes again as she heard the whiskey being poured.
‘Help yourself to a drink,’ she said, not looking at me, ‘plenty for everyone.’
I sat down again, more carefully this time, and hauled my bad leg up straight on the cushions. Raising her glass, she said, ‘Cheers! Here’s to the hero.’
She took a big slug. ‘And here’s to the heroin.’ I said.
Lowering her glass, she half sneered, half smiled at me, wrinkling her nose, ‘Very witty, Mister Malloy, very witty. You must be the smartest person out of everyone I know.’ She held her glass up in mock salute.
‘Smart and brave and virtuous,’ the glass came down, the smile dropped away and she stared up at the ceiling and said, just loudly enough, ‘Arsehole.’
I let it pass. She was feeling guilty about leaving me at the cottage. The fact that she also felt obliged to me for ‘rescuing’ her from Stoke made her feel worse.
If you ever want someone to resent you for life, do them a big favour.
She wouldn’t let it be. Turning on me again she said, ‘What is it with you, Malloy? What do you get out of all this?’
I shrugged. ‘My licence back, I hope.’ That silenced her for a minute. She must have been expecting me to spout some high moral reasons she could ridicule and taunt me with.
I drank, flushing the golden liquid round my mouth, burning my gums, and waited for the next assault.
But her frown told me the drug-clouded whiskey-soaked brain was struggling to come up with anything logical.
‘What do you know anyway?’ She said, staring at the wall.
Closing her eyes, she rested her head against the panel, her hair rasping on the rough varnish.
‘Charmain, I need your help.’
Her head snapped up, eyes blazing. ‘Don’t fucking patronize me!’
I shrugged. ‘I didn’t intend to.’
She made a face and mimicked me. ‘I didn’t intend to. I didn’t intend to…You bastard!’
