The Rule

by David Jackson

  And then the engine was revved even harder, and a huge beast of a vehicle came hurtling out of its lair towards him. Scott fired two shots towards it, but it felt like throwing pebbles at a rhinoceros. He turned and began racing down the hill, but his damaged ankle quickly gave way on the wet ground, and he tumbled head over heels, each bounce sending rockets of pain through his body. He got to his feet again, picked up his pace. To his left, the edge of the field was separated from the path beyond by a barbed wire fence backed up by hedgerow so dense it seemed impassable. Ahead, though, he could see the stile. If only he could get to it . . .

  He had no chance. The ancient Land Rover, sure-footed with its four-wheel drive, closed the gap too quickly. He imagined he could almost feel the heat of its engine as it rumbled up behind him.

  A split-second before it slammed into his spine, Scott threw himself to the left. He felt a whoosh of air as the Land Rover missed him by millimetres, and then he hit the ground again. He looked up to see the vehicle brake and then twist slowly in the mud, gradually turning to face him again like it was gliding on ice.

  They stared at each other for several seconds, man versus machine, each waiting for the other to make a move. Scott saw that his route to the stile was now barred. He’d have to find another way to escape.

  He stood up again and started running towards the field’s perimeter. Behind him, the Land Rover growled. Its wheels span in the mud, affording him precious seconds to open up a lead. Every muscle and joint in his body was on fire, but he refused to give up. He’d come too far for that.

  In the dim light, his eyes searched frantically for an escape. He was willing to take his chances with the barbed wire, but the hedgerow might as well have been a brick wall.

  He glanced behind him. Saw the Land Rover lurch forward as it found traction. It thundered towards him.

  And then he saw it. A narrow gap in the hedgerow – just wide enough for him to squeeze through. All he had to do was get over the wire fence. Just one last effort.

  But then the monster was on him once more. Knowing he wouldn’t make it to the fence, Scott jinked to the side again, just before the vehicle crushed him.

  This time he left it too late. The Land Rover’s wing mirror smacked into his shoulder blade. He heard the bang and the shattering of glass, and his eyes filled with visual static as he went spinning into the barbed wire fence. He felt the stab of its razor-sharp needles, heard it tear his coat to shreds as he rebounded onto the sodden grass.

  He lay still, unable to move. His body had given up. He had pushed it beyond its limits.

  It took all his effort just to raise his head. The Land Rover had stopped just yards away. He saw the driver’s door open. Someone climbed out. The reflected light from the vehicle’s headlamps was enough to show him some detail.

  It was a woman. Dressed in an oversized waxed jacket and green wellington boots, she cut an imposing figure. Her hair was unkempt – wild, even. There was an expression of fury and contempt on her face that could only belong to someone with death on their mind.

  Not what you want to see on a person clutching a twin-barrelled shotgun.

  As she plodded towards him, Scott fanned his arms across the ground in search of his own weapon. There was no sign of it. He was defenceless.

  ‘You killed my boys,’ she said.

  He said nothing, because he had no good response. It was time to die. He was not an especially religious man, but he prayed that this would be enough for her. That she wouldn’t go after his wife and son.

  She stood just in front of him. Exhausted, he lowered his chin back into the cold mud. He could see only her wellington boots.

  ‘You killed my boys,’ she said again.

  He closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable.

  The shots rang out across the countryside. Animals flinched and ran. Birds scattered.

  No human batted an eyelid. To those who heard, it was just another unremarkable sound in the distance.

  50

  Another death. Another waste of life.

  Scott raised his eyes. Saw her wellington boots again. The soles of them this time.

  He pushed himself up from the ground. Sat there covered in mud and cow shit as he stared at the latest victim of the choices he’d made.

  She lay with her arms splayed out, her eyes and mouth wide open, her hair like a halo of worms risen from the ground.

  He would have to live with this. He knew he would keep telling himself that she would have killed him if she’d had the chance. But he also knew that, like her son Ronan, her card was marked anyway.

  A noise to his right made him turn.

  ‘Left it a bit late, didn’t you?’ he asked.

  ‘I was enjoying the drama. This was better than my Xbox.’

  Scott tried to see if the other man was smiling, but it was impossible to tell.

  He had put the hood of his parka up again.

  ‘I’m giving you a choice,’ he’d said in Barrington’s flat after he’d put the pistol to his head. ‘Option one is I blow your brains out and take your money.’

  ‘I’ll take option two.’

  ‘You haven’t heard it yet.’

  ‘I don’t care, man. That’s what I’m taking.’

  Scott climbed off him, but kept the gun pointing at his face.

  ‘Option two is you help me out with something.’

  Barrington sat up and rubbed his swollen cheek. ‘Help you? With what?’

  ‘You know a man named Ronan Cobb?’

  ‘Yeah, I know him. What about him?’

  ‘I plan to kill him.’

  Barrington stopped rubbing and started laughing. ‘You serious? You want to kill Ronan Cobb?’

  ‘I’ve never been more serious in my life.’

  ‘Why? What’s he done to you?’

  ‘He threatened me. Even worse, he threatened my family.’

  ‘First of all, that’s no big surprise. It’s what the Cobbs do. You can’t make a leper change its fucking spots, man.’

  ‘Leopard.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s leopards that have spots, not lepers. Although they possibly have spots too.’

  ‘Okay, whatever. My point is that his go-to solution to any problem is violence, and if that doesn’t work he’ll use more violence. And my second point is that you don’t just walk up to someone like Ronan Cobb with the intention of killing him. The man is streetwise. He can smell danger from a mile away. Probably better than any fucking spotty leopard. No disrespect, man, but you against him don’t sound like no fair match.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I need your help.’

  ‘What, to hold your hand while we both get killed?’

  Scott didn’t answer.

  ‘Why’d he threaten you anyway?’

  ‘You hear about his brother Joey?’

  ‘About him getting sliced and diced? Everyone’s heard.’

  ‘Ronan blames me for that.’

  Barrington laughed even louder now. ‘Sorry, man, but I’m having a hard time picturing that one. Joey Cobb was even more of a psycho than Ronan.’

  Again, Scott didn’t answer.

  ‘Wait. You’re serious? About Joey?’

  ‘I did what I had to do.’

  He decided not to tell Barrington that he wasn’t personally responsible for Joey’s death. He needed Barrington to remain afraid of him.

  ‘Then I can’t help you,’ Barrington said. ‘You’re a dead man walking.’

  ‘Yeah, I think that’s what’s going through Ronan’s head too. That’s why I need to hit him before he hits me.’

  ‘Then hit him. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the opportunity to keep on living, but why do you need me?’

  ‘Insurance. I’ve got a meeting with him soon. If it goes the way I hope it will, you won’t have to lift a finger. But, like you, I think there’s a good chance Ronan will guess what’s coming and shoot me first. If that happens, I want you to kill him before he
can go after my family.’

  Barrington shook his head in disbelief. ‘You’re asking a lot, man. Especially being a stranger who’s just attacked me in my own crib. What are you even doing here? I thought you came to rip off my money.’

  ‘Haven’t you figured it out yet?’

  ‘Figured what out? I’ve been too busy watching that gun of yours to be working shit out.’

  ‘Ronan sent me.’

  Confusion settled on Barrington’s features. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re Ronan’s target, not mine. He sent me to kill you and steal the money.’

  Barrington’s mood darkened. ‘Fuck. Knew I couldn’t trust that family. Only reason I worked with his brother was because he came up with the goods. Always thought one of them would stab me in the back one day.’

  ‘Well that day has arrived. And it’s worse than you think.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘I knew that a white Adidas bag full of money was being dropped here this afternoon. I know it’s supposed to get picked up again at seven. How do I know? Because Ronan told me. How did he know? Because he’s got help on the inside. Maybe it’s whoever gave you the bag. Maybe it’s the guy coming here later to collect it. Point is, you can’t trust anyone now, Barrington. For whatever reason, people have decided you’re dispensable.’

  While Barrington mused, Scott checked his watch. Twenty to seven. Time was running out.

  ‘I need a decision, Barrington. You going to help me or not?’

  ‘Wasting someone isn’t a thing I like to make snap decisions about. That’s what gets people in jail. Or worse.’ He paused. ‘What if I don’t help you? You really gonna shoot me like you said?’

  ‘Actually, I don’t need to. I could just take your money and walk out of here, leaving you to explain it to the pick-up guy. How long do you think they’ll let you live after that?’

  ‘They’ll come after me anyway. If they don’t find me and the money here at seven, I’m still dead. Ronan will be the least of my problems.’

  ‘That’s why I’m offering you the money too.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You can have it. All of it. All you have to do is cover my back for the next hour, and then you can take all the money. You could get a long way from here with money like that.’

  Barrington looked at the bag like a dog eyeing a juicy bone.

  ‘How do I know I can trust you?’

  ‘You don’t have to. Say no, and I’ll walk away now with the bag, meet with Ronan, and take my chances. But you’ll be on your own, with no money and a handful of enemies at your door. Your choice, but make it now, because I’m about to leave.’

  Scott stood up, hoping to push Barrington into a decision.

  ‘All right,’ Barrington said. ‘I’ll do it. But there’s something you need to know.’

  Scott glanced at his watch again. 6.45. This was getting too tight.

  ‘What?’ he snapped.

  ‘Ronan Cobb isn’t your real problem.’

  ‘I think I know my problems better than you do.’

  ‘Uh-uh. Ronan is muscle, that’s all. He does what he’s told.’

  Scott didn’t like the sound of this.

  ‘Told by who?’

  ‘His mother.’

  ‘His mother?’

  ‘That’s right, man. Myra Cobb. She pulls all the strings in that family. Only reason you’re not dead already is that Myra will have decided she can squeeze something out of you first. And this scheme to rip me off tonight? That’s not Ronan. He doesn’t have the brains to come up with something like this, or the connections to make it happen. This is all Myra.’

  Thoughts and fears swam through Scott’s head. Could this be right? He remembered his first encounter with Ronan at the flat, and how he had gone to the far side of the room to have a quiet telephone conversation before he came back to them with an ultimatum that seemed out of the blue. Had he been talking to his mother? Could all this really have been her doing?

  He cursed himself. That call had bothered him since the beginning. Ronan had always talked in the singular, claiming that it was his money and that he was demanding its return. But the phone call left open the possibility that someone else was pulling the strings, or at least knew what was going on. Scott should have explored that further, should have factored it into his thinking, instead of burying his head in the sand and hoping it would go away.

  ‘So what are you saying?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m saying that if you’re going to kill Ronan, you’ll have to waste his mother too. If you don’t, she will come after you and she will hurt your family so badly they’ll be begging to die.’

  Shit, he thought. Not now. After all I’ve been through, don’t tear my plans to shreds now.

  Mentally, he felt fully prepared to kill Ronan. The man had pushed him to the edge of a cliff, leaving him with only one way out. He knew that the deal Ronan had offered him was worthless. He couldn’t be trusted. It was kill or be killed.

  But the man’s mother?

  He had no idea how to find her. And even if he could obtain that information, he didn’t think he had it within him to turn up at her house and murder her in cold blood. In recent days he had cast aside much of his morality out of sheer necessity, but he hadn’t yet shucked off all that made him human.

  And yet . . .

  Ronan would have told her everything. She would know his address, and if all that Barrington said about her was true, she would undoubtedly seek revenge.

  Tick-tock.

  He had to decide.

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  This from Barrington.

  Scott turned to him. ‘What?’

  ‘The mother. I’ll do it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t get your hopes up. It’s not a favour. It’s self-preservation. Myra’s already got me in her sights. If I help to kill the only son she’s got left and then run away with her money, it won’t matter where I go. Myra’s not the force she used to be, but she can still pull in some favours. After she’s finished playing with you and your family, she will hunt me down. Besides, even if she can’t cut it no more, she’ll be the only one alive who knows the truth about yours truly ending up with a lot of money that ain’t mine. Believe it or not, there are people who would kill me to get it back.’

  The concern that refused to leave Scott’s face must have been obvious.

  ‘No other choice, man. Not if you want to protect your family. And personally, I want to be able to relax when I get to that beach villa.’

  ‘You know where she lives?’

  ‘Yeah. She’s got this farmhouse out in the sticks.’

  Scott had no more time to debate the matter. He nodded at Barrington. It was something he’d have to come to terms with later.

  ‘You got a gun?’

  Not so long ago, this would have felt like the weirdest of questions, but Scott had come to learn that, to the Cobbs and Daleys of this world, strapping on a firearm was as mundane as pulling on underwear.

  ‘Funnily enough, if you’d turned up here a few minutes later, I would have had it on me. I like to be prepared in case a pick-up goes wrong.’

  ‘Where is it now?’

  ‘You’re sitting on it.’

  Scott stood up from the sofa and lifted the seat cushion. A black pistol stared back at him. He took it and said, ‘You’ve got two minutes to grab some things. Once we leave, it probably won’t be a good idea for you to come back here.’

  Barrington pushed himself up from the floor. ‘Crazy thing is, I’d have signed up straight away if you’d told me all this in the first place. There was no need to get all violent and shit.’

  Barrington had followed Scott in his own car, then parked up a good distance behind him to avoid being seen. Scott had left Barrington’s gun in his glove compartment for him to collect once he’d started up the path. It had crossed his mind once or twice that Barrington might close the gap, shoot him in the back, and then try t
o run off with the money before Ronan could get down there, but his fears had proved unfounded.

  And now here they were, staring down at their second corpse of the evening.

  ‘Saved me a trip to her house anyway,’ Barrington said.

  ‘Guess so,’ Scott answered. He hadn’t been at all sure about killing this woman, but she’d made things easier in the same way that Ronan had. It was actually a relief to know that she was out of the picture.

  ‘What now?’ he asked. He was handing control over to Barrington. He was done with scheming.

  ‘We dump the bodies and the car. Might buy me a few days to get as far as I can.’

  ‘What about the people who were expecting to get that money tonight? You really think they won’t come after you?’

  ‘Nice of you to worry. Although I don’t recall you raising that particular concern for my welfare when you were trying to recruit me.’

  Scott shrugged. ‘I was making a sales pitch.’

  Barrington smiled. ‘Maybe they will, but I doubt it. I think they’ll blame the Cobbs, especially once they find out they’ve disappeared. If they do enough digging, they’ll learn that Myra was asking a lot of questions about that money. And anyone going into my place will find all my stuff still there and signs of a fight. They’ll probably think I’m dead or hiding from the Cobbs. They won’t believe I’ve got the balls to wipe out the whole Cobb clan and steal their money.’

  They stared silently at Myra Cobb for a few more seconds, then went into action. They loaded both bodies onto the Land Rover and drove it over the hill. On the other side was a bridge across a stream. The Cobbs must have driven in that way. Some distance to the right, the hill dropped sharply down to a patch of tall brambles and weeds bordering the stream. Most people would have no inclination to lower themselves down there or wade to it through the fast-flowing water. Barrington and Scott rolled the bodies unceremoniously down into the hollow and watched them get swallowed up.

  Barrington decided that the best place to leave the Land Rover was hidden in plain sight outside Myra’s farmhouse, only a few minutes’ drive away. Scott followed him in his own car, then transported Barrington back to his Corsa on the lane.