He stares at me, face frozen in a mask. Begging for absolution.
I can’t give it.
‘That’s what killed her, Simon.’
‘Noooo,’ he cries. ‘Please. No.’ I feel the spray of his saliva on my cheek. ‘But she was walking. Talking,’ he says with desperation.
I recall the forensics report. ‘She took a blow to the middle meningeal artery. Via the temple. It causes a build-up of blood in the cranium. An epidural hematoma, I think it’s called, or something like that.’ I take refuge behind the Latin, like any good doctor might.
‘Oh my god,’ he whispers.
‘People who have this are often lucid for a period. Which is why she was still able to curse at you. Then they grow confused, and if they don’t get immediate surgical help…’ There’s no need to finish the sentence. He can fill in the blank.
And he does, judging by the howl of protest and the look of horror etched onto his face.
58
When I walk into Maggie’s house, she takes one look at my face, takes my hand and pulls me into her bedroom.
There, she slowly takes off all my clothes.
‘Wait … but…’ I try to speak. She silences me with a kiss, and there’s a surge of pleasure from that beautiful, light pressure that carries all the way down to my groin. She pulls away. Her look coy.
‘What were you saying?’ she asks.
I close my eyes and push out my lips, and trying to speak in that ridiculous position I say, ‘Who was speaking? Not me.’ It can wait until morning. Then we’re out of here.
She laughs and trails the lightest of touches from my neck to each nipple to my belly button, and from there she curls a finger under the head of my dick and starts to stroke. I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything quite so exquisite.
I groan. And groan again.
‘If you don’t stop that, this is going to be all over in seconds.’
She giggles and steps away.
‘No,’ I say and make a face. ‘Don’t stop.’
‘My turn,’ she says and pouts. I take the hint and take her clothes off. I blow on each of her nipples, and copying her movements on me, run a finger down her body and feel the welcome wetness between her thighs.
‘What,’ I grin, ‘you no want foreplay?’
She chuckles. Grips my shaft. Says, ‘I think you know where you need to put this, Mr McBain?’
‘Indeed I do,’ I say and push her back onto the bed.
The first time we make love, it is indeed over in seconds. I try to apologise, but it is difficult to sound sincere when every cell in my body is sparking with pleasure.
‘Oh look,’ I say and point at my still erect penis. ‘Mini me hasn’t had enough yet.’
‘Mini me,’ Maggie chides. ‘You’re an idiot, McBain. But stop admiring it and please your woman.’
A small voice nags from the corner of my mind. I need to tell her about Leonard, and I need to get her to leave town until he’s safely behind bars. Or pushing up thistles.
But the promise of pleasure is too great, and I have to do as my woman asks, no?
* * *
When I wake up, there’s a glimmer of the hint of light that signals dawn. I stretch and yawn and recall the pleasure we’d shared the night before. I can’t remember our love-making sessions ever having such a charge. Can’t remember a night when I’d slept so well.
My cock is hard again. I look over at Maggie, see that she’s still sleeping and decide it will keep. I’m on leave. She’s off work. We have all morning to repeat last night’s performance.
I stretch again, and then with a smile forming on my lips I turn over onto my side, away from Maggie. There, I curl into the foetal position and relax, waiting for sleep to claim me.
But something surges in the reptilian part of my brain. I sit up. Peer into the gloom of the room. There’s something not quite right, and I can’t put my finger on it.
Then I hear a voice from the far side of the room. At the bedroom door.
A deep, male voice.
‘Morning, Raymond.’
59
‘Leonard, what the fuck?’ I sit up so fast my head spins.
‘It seems almost a shame to spoil this little perfect scene of domesticity,’ he crows. ‘But spoil it I must.’
‘Over my dead body,’ I growl and lean protectively over Maggie.
‘That will be my greatest pleasure, Ray,’ he says. My eyes are getting used to the low light and I make him out, standing in the doorway. He’s holding a knife. My first thought is that I have to find one of my own. In the kitchen. But I can’t leave Maggie on her own.
Then it dawns on me that she hasn’t stirred. Surely the noise of two men talking would wake her up.
‘Maggie,’ I say and push on her shoulder. ‘Maggie,’ I repeat. ‘You need to get up.’
I hear the sound of a chuckle coming from Leonard.
I pull the cover off Maggie’s shoulder, and as I do so, the image of Leonard in the corner fixes in my mind. The knife. It wasn’t shining. It was dull as if covered in something thick and wet. I pull at Maggie’s shoulder. She falls over onto her back, and I can see a small wound on her neck, just under her chin and a thick, heavy pouring of blood that has stained her breasts and her side of the bed.
‘Brings a new meaning to the question, who gets to sleep on the wet patch, dontcha think?’ Leonard chuckles.
Something bestial takes over, and unmindful of my nakedness or the stained steel in his hand, I clear the bed and I’m on him in seconds.
The speed and certainty of my movement takes him by surprise. He falls out of the room into the hall with me on top of him. My hand is on his wrist, and I twist so the blade is poised over his heart. He locks his elbows. Resists. I’m astride him. Leaning over. My buttocks on his hips.
Making hate.
I grunt. My full weight pressing down. Pushing. My grip now on the handle. There’s nothing I want more in this second than the strength to win this battle. For him to weaken and the knife to find its target. To slip through skin and sinew and slide between ribs before piercing his twisted heart.
But he’s strong. Deceptively so for such a lean man.
The effort is bright in his face. Tendons are strung tight like ropes down either side of his neck. His eyes are large, bulging. There’s a dictionary of emotion there, and I read them as if flicking through pages.
Hate, anger, pity, fear, joy. He’s actually enjoying this.
He snorts, spittle flies from his mouth to my cheek. I want to brush it off like it’s Ebola. I can feel it infect me. It all but burns. For a moment I want to lean my face onto my shoulder and wipe it off. But I can’t take any pressure off.
‘Fucking useless, McBain,’ he laughs. ‘Can’t do it. Can you?’
I squeeze out more effort. Lean into him just a little more. He tightens his jaw as he fights against me.
I can’t talk. Won’t talk. I just want him to die, and I want to be the one to make it happen.
‘What’s keeping you, McBain? Kill me already. It’s not like you haven’t killed anyone before.’ There’s a mad sparkle in his eyes as he speaks. Saliva froths at the corner of his mouth.
He bucks his hips, trying to throw my weight off, but I’ve got a good three stone on him and it doesn’t have the desired effect.
I lean forward some more, forgetting that I need to keep equal pressure on the shoulder and hip pressed against him. A shift. He bucks again. I tilt to the side. The knife falls, but he is no longer directly under me and the blade dents nothing but carpet.
‘Whoa!’ he shouts in my ear. Warm air on my cheek. He laughs. ‘That was close.’ I manage to get purchase with my left knee and right myself. Resume the position. Poised for murder.
‘Die you fucker, just die.’ I squeeze the words out from between
clenched teeth. My talking is enough to weaken my pressure on him, and he pushes up. The blade is further away from its target.
‘C’mon, McBain. Fucking do it!’ he roars. ‘End me.’ As he speaks he pushes with his left hand, forcing me a little off balance. I don’t know where he gets his strength. It occurs to me that if he was on top he could win this battle. Good reason for me to keep the pressure on.
His hips thrust up again. I tilt to the side. He senses me weaken and smashes a knee up. It connects with my right buttock. There’s little pain, but the power is surprising. Pushes me even more to the side.
The two of us still have both hands on the knife, but it is now some way from its target. He takes advantage. Heaves forward. Smashes his forehead against my temple.
My vision blurs, I shake my head to clear it. Think of the injury sustained by Aileen Banks. If that’s how I go, fine. But I need to kill this fucker first.
Another bloom of pain. Flashes of light in my sight. I lose my hard-won balance again, topple over. With a sharp movement he knees me in the balls. The pain is massive. I want to be sick. I grit my teeth, fight it.
He lets go of the knife, bounces to his feet and steps away from me.
I stand, grip the knife in my right hand. But I’m bent over, willing away the twisting, surging waves of pain that rush from my balls to my gut.
He’s out of breath too, chest heaving, but he’s smiling as he inhales large gulps of air. I’m in charge of the weapon, but I can’t shake the feeling that he’s the one in control. A memory of him leering before me, sliding another blade across my wrists. A memory that has infected my dreams for these last few months. A year? Fear weakens me. I feel my legs wobble. A slick of sweat on my forehead. With my free hand I brush it away. I have to end this soon, before I run out of energy. Before he finishes what he’s tried to do before.
He looks like he could carry on for days.
‘Look at you,’ he laughs. ‘All naked and everything. Should I take my clothes off too?’
I don’t speak. Stretch forward, slash at him. But I’m tired and slow and regretting that I’ve let my fitness slip. He dodges my thrust with laughing ease.
‘Whoop!’ he yells. Skips from one foot to the other like a prize-fighter just entering the ring.
I run my eyes over him, assessing any damage. He has a small cut over his right eye that I can’t remember inflicting, and his shirt is ripped in a line from his right nipple down towards his belt. There are a few spots of blood, but there can’t be much of a wound if his energy levels are anything to go by.
Assessing my own hurts takes me a couple of seconds. Pain sparks in the right side of my face, and my balls are only aching now. I take a deep breath. Shake my head, like a dog shakes water from its coat. Trying to get rid of the fear. Aiming for clarity.
Until I remember what this man before me has done, and hate brings a brightness all of its own. Murder is in my sight, and I won’t be denied.
‘Before I slice you, tell me. Why did you have to do it? She was nothing to you, Leonard. Her whole life in front of her.’
He gives an elaborate shrug. Makes a face. ‘It was something to do?’
‘Fuck you, you arsehole.’ I run forward and stab at him. Again he dodges and dances out of range and laughs.
I rage.
‘You laughed at my brother all those years ago. Called him the names suggested to you by Mother Superior,’ he says. His words reach memory, and I see the tight, cold face of a nun leaning into the small, harried face of a boy being punished for wetting the bed. John Leonard. Who died just days later. ‘And you were every bit as culpable as that vicious woman of God.’
‘I was a kid for fuck’s sake. Just a kid.’
‘And she taught you well.’ He pauses and looks at me. Looks through me. ‘I won’t know peace, McBain, until you are dead. Until one of us is dead.’
‘You first, ya nutjob.’
He dances forward and roars in my face. I am so surprised I take a step back. Stumble. But he is so caught up in his own fury he can’t take advantage. He has a glass ornament in his hand, throws it at me. I duck, it hits the wall and splinters into a hundred shards.
He runs into the lounge. I follow. Relieved to be further away from the sight of Maggie’s dead body. He moves to the coffee table under the window. Lifts it up and throws it across the room. Next he aims a kick at the TV. Knocks it off its table.
‘Hey!’ is my absurd response.
He ignores me. Can’t hear me, so deep is he in his rage. I run at him before he can destroy any more of Maggie’s stuff. Forget I am holding a knife and catch him in a bear-hug. Squeeze for all I am worth.
His face in front of mine. All teeth, spit and snarl. I struggle to keep a grip on him as he fights my hold. In a bizarre dance we move around the room until we fall over the edge of the sofa onto the floor. He lands first. Me on top. I lose my grip, and he is on his feet and out of range.
Fuck.
I get to my feet and realise I no longer have the knife. I scan the room. Leonard does likewise. His eyes brighten when he sees it. I follow his gaze. We both dive. He gets there first. Wraps his fingers round it and holds it high like a prize.
‘Again, you lose, McBain. You had me. Coulda killed me. Nae bottle for a big guy.’
I look around the room for something else I can use as a weapon. A fake fur throw and a couple of cushions weren’t going to cut it. Or him.
He sits on the arm of the sofa. Exhales. Shoulders sagging as if exhaustion has taken a hold of him. His eyes are dark. His expression a slump of self-loathing. I couldn’t follow this guy’s mood with radar.
He looks at the knife in his hand like he has no idea how it got there. He moves the wide blade up to the side of his head and slaps his temple with it. Then runs his thumb along the sharp edge.
He looks at me, and I can see the small boy I knew all those years ago. There is little sign of the man he has become. I fight the recognition while reading the pain. Someone needs to put him down like he’s a rabid dog.
When he was just a boy, his twin brother had died before his eyes. A victim of ill treatment from people who should have known better. A chest infection was ignored. The boy sat for hours in a cold bath as punishment for wetting the bed. Repeated infections and punishments led to pneumonia. And the adults we had to trust to look after us ignored this young boy’s suffering.
The Twins, as we called them, lived at each other’s side. In a world where the grown-ups served their own vision of how the world should be, the boys had no one else. And when his brother died, the surviving Leonard’s maturation was arrested forever. To this day he still harbours the spite and malice that only an unloved child could have.
He stands up as if a decision has been made. Walks towards me. All fight has gone. Leaking from his eyes like anguished tears.
I don’t move, caught in his spell.
He stops in front of me and holds the knife to his throat.
‘Give me your hand,’ he says.
‘Fuck off, Leonard.’
He reaches down, grabs my right wrist, and with a strength that again surprises me, brings it up to the handle. I grip it, despite myself.
‘It needs to be you, McBain. Don’t you see? The church hates a suicide.’
After all he has gone through, he’s still wary of the teachings of the Catholic Church?
‘What?’ I say, struggling to make sense of the sudden shift and his apparent lack of fight. Wondering how he is going to try and turn this to his advantage.
‘You just need to push,’ he says, his eyes bright with longing. ‘And it will all be over.’
I pause. Can’t quite believe that the moment is here.
Leonard’s eyes go large. He makes a loud noise. Like an alarm. ‘Bzzz! Wrong answer.’
He grabs my wrist with one hand, twists the k
nife from it with the other. And strikes.
60
Kenny’s had a long night on the front seat of his Range Rover. Sure, it’s a comfy seat, but all fucking night? McBain owes him, and he better appreciate it.
He looks out of the windscreen at Ale’s flat on the second floor. It’s a classic Glasgow tenement. Large sandstone blocks. Big windows. The same across the street, and people peering into each other’s lives.
Her curtains open. Her face appears at the window. She moves away. Then back. Stares down at him. She mouths a question that Kenny can read from where he is sitting.
What the fuck?
Seconds later, her front door opens. She appears and waves him in. Mouths the next question.
Coffee?
He gets out of the car. Stretches. Craves a lie down on a soft bed. But Ale has said the magic word. Follows her in through the door and up to her flat.
She walks into the kitchen. He follows, admiring the swell of her backside in her tight, black jogging pants.
Ale reaches the worktop. Reaches over to the kettle. Flicks the switch. Turns and says, ‘You better not have been staring at my arse.’
‘It would’ve been rude not to.’ Kenny grins.
She throws him a finger. ‘One lump of cyanide or two?’
‘Sounds like a Ray McBain line, that,’ Kenny answers.
Ale grins. ‘Yeah, I’ve been working with that eejit for far too long.’
‘Just milk, thanks,’ Kenny says.
Ale does the necessary, and moments later they’re both holding warm ceramic as if it’s a lifeline. She takes a sip. ‘Right. What the hell are you doing outside my house at this time of the morning? Is Ray OK?’
‘I’ve been there all night, Ale. Is that you just noticing?’
She makes a face. ‘All night? Why the hell would you do something like that?’
Kenny tells her about his conversation with Ray the day before.
‘Right.’ She takes a sip. ‘Thanks, I think. But if that psycho comes anywhere near me, it’s him that will be needing assistance.’ She smiles. ‘I may be a lady, Kenny O’Neill, but I’m no pushover.’
Bad Samaritan Page 28
