Mercury Falling

by Robert Edric

  ‘The point now,’ the other man said, ‘and especially with all this firearm and arson stuff, is that everything gets pushed up a notch.’

  ‘So you’re going to do nothing whatsoever about my coat, then?’ the watchman said.

  ‘We can add it to our list of reported thefts, if that makes you feel any better. It might take some time. This character seems to have had his fingers in everything going. A list of known associates as long as your arm.’

  Devlin listened intently to everything that was said. He saw what a neat, clear and well-defined picture all these others had drawn of him.

  ‘Believe me, we’ll be doing a lot of people a lot of favours when we catch up with this one.’

  ‘I don’t suppose there’s any reward,’ the watchman said.

  Both constables laughed again at the question.

  ‘Not that we know of. But we’ll keep you informed.’

  Devlin heard the change in all the men’s voices.

  Beside him, the beam of light moved along the skirt of the caravan and then disappeared.

  ‘Ask me, whoever it was, he’s long gone,’ the watchman said.

  Devlin heard the caravan door being closed above him.

  ‘By rights, I should lock that,’ the watchman said.

  ‘Have you got the key?’

  ‘Somewhere. Not on me. I’ll come back.’

  ‘We’d appreciate you letting us know if whoever it is turns up again.’

  ‘And we strongly advise against trying to come the hero and do anything by yourself. Leave it to the professionals.’

  ‘Who’s that, then?’ the watchman said. ‘You pair?’

  ‘I mean it. Where this character’s concerned, things might be about to take a very drastic turn for the worse any day now.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Devlin turned his head to better hear what was said.

  ‘The other man he shot,’ the constable said. ‘Not shot, exactly.’

  What other man?

  ‘Duggan Senior. Our boy Devlin fired at the house, at Mrs Duggan, I suppose. The old man was in the room behind her. He wasn’t actually hit, not as such, but he had a bit of a turn at everything that was happening. Weak ticker, by all accounts. The ambulance boys settled him after they’d looked at Ray Duggan and he seemed fine. But then he had another turn early the next morning. Heart attack, they reckon. His second. If he dies, we’ll probably have a murder charge to add to that list. And when that happens, then the county and the national boys will get involved and the rest of us here will be relegated to swinging sticks through the long grass.’

  ‘Again,’ the other man added sourly.

  Devlin struggled to take in all that was being said.

  ‘The old boy’s in Boston hospital. We’re keeping an eye on things.’

  There had been nothing of this in the newspaper article.

  The voices grew fainter as the men finally started walking away.

  Devlin crawled to the edge of the space and watched them as they went, occasionally pointing their torches into other caravans, but with no real sense of purpose. The pulsing blue light of their car still shone in the distance.

  Waiting until the tiny figures arrived at the camp entrance, Devlin pulled himself out of the low space and squatted on the grass to watch them. Then he took a circuitous route through the caravans until he was again close to them. He raised the unloaded gun and sighted the watchman along its barrel before lowering it back to his feet. He tried to hear what else was being said, but this was impossible. One or other of the men laughed occasionally.

  After a few more minutes, during which the constables went into the small office, the two men emerged, got into their car and drove away.

  The watchman came back out and watched them go. He stood with his arms wrapped across his chest, shivering.

  Devlin wondered if everything that had been said about Duggan’s father was true, or if the constables were exaggerating to make everything sound worse than it was to the watchman. He knew this was unlikely.

  And then he wondered what would happen if he raised the gun again and walked out of the darkness towards where the coatless man stood shivering and shouted to him that he was the man they were all looking for, and told him to drop to his knees and start saying his prayers.

  45

  DUGGAN’S FATHER DIED three days later.

  Devlin saw the headline on the hoarding outside the small shop at the Surfleet Bank close by the Welland. He’d spent the past two nights in the abandoned boathouse where he and the McGuires had hidden Duggan’s haul. It was at least half a mile from the nearest inhabited building, a farm on the Drove road.

  He’d gone to the shop for provisions. He put on an accent and told the girl who served him that he was from Suffolk, working at the nearby brickworks. She paid him hardly any interest, adding up what he’d bought and holding out her hand for his money.

  Back at the boathouse, he read the front-page article and saw that he was mentioned by name three times. The police were still considering their response to the old man’s death. Duggan himself was demanding action; his wife was still too distressed by everything that had happened to make any comment. Everything possible was being done, the article said, to bring the perpetrator of the robbery and shooting to justice.

  There was a photograph of Duggan’s father as a much younger man – apparently he’d won trophies and rosettes at various agricultural shows; hadn’t they all? – alongside a drawing of a man who was supposed to be Devlin. The Assistant Chief Constable was convinced that it was now only a matter of time before he was apprehended and charged. This time the word ‘armed’ was used five times. The Assistant Chief Constable said that anyone knowing of Devlin’s whereabouts should report this immediately to the police. Under no circumstances should anyone attempt to approach or tackle him themselves.

  Devlin saw again how he continued turning from one thing into another in the words. He saw how his last remaining choices and options had disappeared in the article’s changing shades and inferences. Dangerous – armed – no true threat to ordinary members of the public, but dangerous. What were people supposed to think? What was he supposed to think? Perhaps this was how things always worked. Devlin’s sister – they called her ‘Helen’ – said she was appealing to her brother’s better nature and that he should hand himself in so that everything might now be sorted out. The boy she knew wouldn’t harm a fly. She couldn’t believe half of what was being said of him. Only half? Every sentence sent another chill through Devlin. He searched for whatever Morris might have added, but there was nothing.

  Soon, he guessed, others would be looking for him – not like the half-hearted search at the holiday camp – and the last of all those uncertainties would be gone for good.

  Possible geriatric heart failure brought on by the shock of recent events.

  Everywhere he looked there were these victims – his victims, supposedly – and everywhere he looked there were those same fingers pointing directly at him.

  The wound at the side of his mouth had started to heal, but the swelling on his cheek remained painful and continued to ooze. He wiped at this, but it was difficult to keep the sore clean. He wondered if the infection had started to spread – both up towards his eye and deeper into his mouth. His gums close to the wound throbbed occasionally and both his gums and teeth were sore to the touch. He was careful to chew on the other side of his mouth.

  He washed in drums of collected rainwater. He slept on wooden pallets with pieces of old sail for blankets. When he went out he took the gun with him, but was careful to hide it whenever anyone appeared, however distant. He walked for miles in the half-light, never visiting the same place twice. There were times when he wondered if he might freeze to death in the night, or if not to death, exactly, then something close to it. He developed a sore chest and a painful cough. His clothes felt loose on him and he was forced to punch a new hole and then a second in his belt.


  It seemed to Devlin that he was a changed man – not that he was doing this to himself voluntarily, willingly, but as though an irresistible outside force were working on him. He was changed in his own understanding of himself, and now he was changing in his appearance. Perhaps it was a thing that happened sooner or later, for better or worse, in the lives of all men.

  After two more days of this spartan existence, a man came to the boathouse, knocked heavily on its giant door and then waved a shotgun. He shouted that he knew Devlin was in there, that he’d informed the police and that they were already on their way.

  Having heard the man’s approach, Devlin was standing closer to the door than this stranger realized and was watching him through a gap in the planking.

  The man pushed open the door and looked inside.

  ‘I know this boathouse,’ he shouted, as though this added weight to whatever he might be about to attempt. ‘You’re the man in the papers, I’m certain of that much.’

  His voice came back in a broken echo. Birds flew unsettled in the high space of the corrugated roof.

  From where he stood in the shadows, Devlin could see that the man was already starting to have his doubts. He swung the gun he held, but loosely.

  Devlin’s makeshift bed was at the far corner of the space, and, seeing this, the man came forwards into the shed.

  ‘You should just come out now,’ he shouted. ‘Put your hands in the air and show yourself to me. I’m ex-military, so you needn’t think I don’t know how to use this thing.’

  Devlin wanted to laugh at the words, but instead of laughing he started coughing uncontrollably, and, hearing him, the man swung towards him and pushed his gun out in front of him.

  ‘I can see you,’ he shouted. ‘I know you’re there.’ Everything he said continued to betray his uncertainty. He looked hard into the half-light in which Devlin stood. ‘Believe me, I don’t want to hurt you. Just come out and we can get all this sorted. I know you’re ex-forces yourself – Other Ranks. I can help you. You just need to give yourself up. For God’s sake, man …’

  Devlin took a silent step backwards, hiding himself even further from the man. He was finally out of sight behind a stack of empty crates, but was then betrayed again by another bout of coughing.

  ‘You’re not well,’ the man shouted. ‘Another hour and all this could be over. You need a medic to look at you.’

  Devlin’s coughing finally subsided. ‘Put your gun down,’ he shouted to the man, his voice dry and cracked.

  The man was surprised by this. ‘I’ve just told you to do that,’ he said.

  ‘And now I’m telling you.’

  ‘Why should I? What’s stopping me from just going back outside and securing the door and waiting for the police to arrive?’

  ‘If they’re even coming,’ Devlin said, testing.

  ‘My wife went to telephone for them. They’ll have heard by now.’

  He was probably telling the truth, but what neither of them knew was how quickly the police would arrive.

  For an instant, Devlin considered doing what the man was telling him to do. Folding open and throwing down Skelton’s gun and then walking out from where he hid with his hands in the air. It was how people surrendered. It was how things ended. He started coughing again, struggling to control his breathing.

  ‘I’m going,’ the man shouted. ‘Like I said – I can bar the door from outside. There’s no other way out. The slip door’s been padlocked since last August.’

  He started walking backwards to the door.

  And seeing that any small opportunity that might still remain to him was about to be lost, Devlin stepped out of the shadows and revealed himself. He held his own gun at arm’s length, raising the barrel.

  ‘Throw it down,’ the man shouted, suddenly confident.

  ‘It’s loaded,’ Devlin said. ‘I don’t need to be throwing it anywhere.’

  ‘Put it down, then,’ the man said. ‘Where I can see you. Nice and slowly.’ He was warming to his role now.

  Devlin took several more paces towards him, indicating a clear space on the shed floor midway between them.

  ‘That’s right – there,’ the man said.

  Devlin crouched, as though he were about to lay the gun on the ground, but then he started coughing again, holding a fist to his chest.

  ‘That sounds nasty,’ the man said. ‘I’m still watching you. I know your sort.’

  And at those words, Devlin let the barrel of the gun slide through his hands until he was grasping it at its tip and he swung the stock hard into the man’s shins, causing him to half scream and half shout – as much in surprise as in pain – and to drop his own gun. He fell to one knee, and then his other leg gave way beneath him and he sprawled on the ground, feeling around him for where his gun had fallen.

  Devlin quickly regained a proper grip on Skelton’s gun and took a step closer so that he was able to stamp hard on the man’s scrabbling fingers, causing him to cry out again.

  ‘My “sort”?’ Devlin shouted at him. ‘My sort?’

  ‘I only meant—’

  ‘I know what you meant.’

  The man pulled his hand to his mouth and started sucking on it. With his free arm he tried to protect his head. He began pleading with Devlin not to shoot him.

  ‘Why not?’ Devlin said. ‘It’s what my sort do. Go on – beg me.’

  ‘I am,’ the man said. ‘I’m begging you. I’ve got a wife and children. Two daughters. One of them’s expecting her first child at Easter.’

  ‘So what?’ Devlin said. ‘What does any of that have to do with me? Perhaps you should have thought about all that before you decided on this.’

  The man was weeping now. ‘Don’t shoot me,’ he said. ‘Please, don’t shoot. You could just go, leave. I’ll tell them all this was an accident, my fault. I’ll tell them I must have made a mistake about you even being here. They know me, I’m well known, they’ll believe me. I’m talking about senior officers, magistrates.’

  ‘What difference do you think any of that makes?’ Devlin said. ‘Perhaps you should just shut your mouth while you’ve still got the chance.’

  ‘I only meant—’

  ‘You stopped begging me,’ Devlin said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You stopped begging for your life. I’m a violent, vicious man, remember? All the papers say so.’

  ‘I am begging you,’ the man said. He clasped his hands together. ‘Look, I’m begging you. I’m begging you with everything I say. I’ve got some money in my wallet – take it.’

  ‘Because that’s what my sort would do, is it? Rob a man who was already on his knees and begging for his life and then shoot him?’

  The man unclasped his hands and pressed them to the ground. He started sobbing convulsively, and then he wet himself and the dark stain seeped quickly along the length of his trouser leg and pooled beneath him. He considered this for a moment and then resumed crying. Then he covered his head with both his arms and drew up his legs, kicking in the dirt and turning himself in a clumsy circle, as though he might yet somehow run away from everything that now so suddenly confronted him.

  46

  DEVLIN WOKE AND struggled to his senses. A dry film held his eyes closed and it was painful for him to open them. His lips, too, were stuck together and his tongue felt coarse and heavy in his mouth. He struggled to breathe and then to raise his arms. He imagined for a moment that he was being held down. Neither his arms nor legs possessed any strength. And above all else, the pain in the side of his face and mouth was now sharper than ever, pulsing through his whole head every few seconds.

  His first thought was to wonder how he had slept with so much pain. He coughed, trying to clear his throat, but this only added to his agony.

  He became aware of someone beside him in the dimly lit room. But which dimly lit room? There had been so many of them over the past few aimless, unsettled months.

  ‘You need to take it steady,’ a voice said.r />
  Someone drew a blanket from his arms and he was finally able to raise one of them to his face. He pushed himself half upright, resting on his elbow. He held a hand to his cheek and then flinched and cried out at the slightest touch.

  ‘You’ll need to get that seen to.’

  The man leaned closer to him. The voice was familiar. Devlin looked around him.

  He was in the abandoned tin chapel.

  ‘Getting your bearings at last?’ It was Samuel, the old shepherd.

  Devlin tried to speak, but only choked, and this, too, added to his pain.

  Samuel held a hand to the back of his head and tilted an enamel cup to his lips.

  Devlin drank, most of the water running down his chin. He pulled his other arm free and pushed the blanket and sacking which covered him to his waist. He motioned for more water and Samuel went to refill the cup from the drum by the altar.

  This time Devlin was able to hold it himself and spill less of the cold liquid.

  ‘I’m in the chapel,’ he said.

  ‘Where did you think? Ely cathedral?’

  Devlin looked around him, trying to remember how he had come to be there.

  ‘I put the gun over by the altar,’ Samuel said. ‘I took the cartridges out.’

  ‘How long?’ Devlin said.

  ‘How long you been here?’ Samuel shrugged. ‘I found you here yesterday. It’s been snowing hard again. I came to look at the sheep. The door was hanging open. I came in and found you on the floor. You were frozen. I covered you over the best I could. I tried to wake you. You were groaning in your sleep. You should go to hospital.’

  Devlin shook his head and felt suddenly faint, dropping the cup and pressing his hand to the floor in an effort to steady himself. He felt as though he were going to be sick and then started to retch, producing nothing but a bitter watery bile and causing himself more pain.

  ‘You were already sick,’ Samuel said. ‘Over there. You can still smell it, despite the cold. The snow’s been coming in through the broken window.’ He refilled the cup and held it again to Devlin’s lips.