My gaze shifted, and I saw her father reflected in the rear view mirror. His face was set in a grim expression. His eyes locked onto mine.
We drove along winding country roads. On either side, trees lined up like soldiers. Their upper branches bent forwards to create a canopy that blotted out the night sky.
Martin Barrow said, “Maybe now isn’t the time to discuss this.” His voice rumbled, made me shiver.
Elaine said, “You’re right, Dad, it isn’t the time.” Her tone sharp. Sharper than when she talked to me? I doubted it.
Stupid little arguments.
The kind you look back on, realise how unimportant they were. Or worse, how you were the one in the wrong.
I looked out of the passenger window, watched her reflection. Her head was held high, and her gaze had become fixed on the road ahead. Like me, she didn’t want to have the conversation again. What could we say that hadn’t already been said?
Except her dad didn’t know about the conversation we’d had on Elaine’s birthday three nights earlier. The conversation that had ended badly, neither of us able to properly apologise until the sun came up the next morning.
This evening, we’d been to see a friend of the family. Her family, of course. The friend now a mother, with a tiny baby girl.
We’d talked about it before: children, family, stability.
Sometimes shouting more than actually talking.
I said, every time, that we should wait. Think things over.
Like I said, you look back, you realise you were in the wrong.
The arguments covered up the fact that the conversations scared me. That I had doubts and insecurities I couldn’t admit to her. I would realise that in time.
From the back seat, Elaine’s father said, “You’ve no right to speak to her like that.”
I said, “I just mean that we’re not ready. If something were to happen, I…”
Elaine turned her head. Taking her eyes off the road, her mind focused not on the car but on me and my selfish fucking stupidity.
“How long do you want to wait? Another five years? Ten? Longer?”
That was all it took. A momentary distraction. A few seconds of anger.
One argument over nothing and then —
Katrina Egg’s dead eyes staring at me, accusingly.
Andy turning away from me in the hospital.
Bill bleeding out on the floor of the office.
— a sudden, intense glare sliced through my vision. The bastard driving full beam. I saw Elaine’s pupils contract as the headlights from the other car illuminated her face with its white light.
The grey Peugeot was out of control. Over on our side of the road. Elaine twisted the wheel so we moved to the other lane.
My hand reached out to touch Elaine.
An apology?
I don’t know if I could say for sure.
I heard what sounded like thunder, felt the world lurch.
I closed my eyes. Felt gravity try to tear my body through the floor of the car.
A million fists pounded me.
A high pitched noise assaulted my ears as metal crunched and creased.
And then silence.
Stillness.
At some point I had crawled from the car, but I couldn’t remember how it happened. Found myself on my hands and knees in the grass that swayed back and forth in the night-time breeze. I stared back at the road, through the remains of the broken dyke. Elaine’s car had rolled down the incline and now it was behind me. Turned over on its roof, the wheels still spinning. The horn screamed, shattering the still of the country night.
I looked for any sign of the other car.
Saw nothing.
As though it had never been there.
I tried to get to my feet, found my left leg supported no weight and collapsed beneath me. There was no pain.
I pulled myself along the ground towards the overturned car, gripping handfuls of earth and grass and feeling the dead weight of my legs try to hold me back.
I couldn’t see Elaine. Her father lay halfway out of the car, the back door opened as though he had made an attempt to exit the vehicle before finally giving up and passing out.
But where was Elaine?
I knew the answer. But tried not to think about it as I crawled to find her body among the screaming mass of twisted metal that lay overturned among the untamed grass.
Chapter 36
I steadied myself against the kitchen worktop. Looked at the shattered mug on the floor. Felt sick.
Finally, I cleared up the mess, poured myself tap water. My hands trembling as I held a glass beneath the tap.
I drank the water slowly.
Remembered Rachel asking me why I never went to Elaine’s grave. The lie I had told myself was that by performing my vigil at the scene of the accident that brought me somehow closer to her.
But here was the truth: I was afraid to go to her grave because that would make her death absolute. So concrete that it could never be taken back. It would remind me of my own responsibility. Something that was brought home to me when I saw the look in her father’s eyes as he watched his youngest daughter’s casket lowered gently into the earth.
I sat in the living room. In the dark.
I looked at my watch, illuminated by the moonlight sneaking through the window. Eleven o’clock. An hour before I had to meet Robertson at the top of the Balgay hill, across the other side of the iron bridge that would take us to the Western Necropolis.
I threw on a pair of dark jeans, a black polo neck and a long, winter coat that sat heavy on my shoulders.
In the kitchen, I pulled on my leather gloves and picked up the gun. Checked the safety. Slipped it into my coat pocket where it bumped gently against my thigh.
In the car, I drove to the steady, portentous rhythms of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds singing of a town called Tupelo.
I parked on Scott Street. Outside, the night air was sharp.
Ahead of me, at the end of the street, was the Balgay hill. Thick trees and bushes concealed another world there. One hidden from the urbanity that surrounded the hill.
I walked slowly into Balgay park, followed the roughly marked path up the side of the hill. The sound of my heartbeat echoed through the night. The city traffic faded, becoming background noise until finally it didn’t exist at all. At the peak of the hill, the Hird Bridge crossed to where the Western Necropolis sat shrouded under tall trees.
I still hadn’t managed to shake the pins and needles.
Maybe I should have unpacked the crutches.
The Hird Bridge passed over an old path that led from Dunkeld Place past the Necropolis and into Balgay park. A local legend claimed that a phantom coach ran under the bridge on nights when the moon was full. See the coach and you’d die shortly afterwards.
A legend. But late at night even a legend can seem real. Shadows have a nasty way of making ghosts seem plausible.
I strained hard to hear the noises of the night. At the first hint of hooves, my eyes would be closed.
Although I tried not to look down between the gaps in the iron bridge, I found my eyes drawn there. It took a tremendous amount of willpower to force my gaze up. The full moon peeked out from behind thick, dark clouds. Normally impassive, the ancient symbol of madness seemed somehow apprehensive.
A twig snapped somewhere behind me. I turned and saw Robertson. Carrying a smart, grey briefcase. It seemed anachronistic in his grasp. Too businesslike, as though he’d mugged a still-stuck-in-the-eighties yuppie. His clothes didn’t help. A thick, padded farmer’s jacket and his bunnet balanced precariously on his head.
“I need this to be over,” he said, wiping his free hand across his face to remove sweat. His breathing was loud and jittery. Made me think of Burns in the hospital, hyperventilating.
The weather had been close for much of the day. Threatening thunder. Now, in the distance, a low and distant rumble signalled a storm sloping towards the city.
I
looked at my watch. Two minutes to midnight. We walked across the bridge in silence. The stone beneath my feet sang out when my boots slammed down.
I heard a rhythmic patter that made me think of the phantom coach. After a moment, I realised the noise was nothing more than the rush of blood through my veins and the rapid rhythm of my own heart.
Robertson had stopped, too, several steps behind me. He started again, his breathing, ragged and out of control and his feet landing heavily with each step. I couldn’t help but think of him breaking through the aged metal and plummeting to the path below.
Across the other side we walked through the arch that led into the Necropolis. I checked my watch. One minute to midnight.
We waited in the shadow of a family tomb that stood to the left of the arch; proud and lonely, separated from the rest of the Necropolis. Whether by accident or design, I was unsure.
I looked for some sign of the family, saw no telltale inscription on the visible surface of the structure. Perhaps their names were hidden by the dark.
My heart thumped hard, enough that it resonated across my ribs. I thought about turning back, walking away. I had come here for my own selfish ends, to lay to rest ghosts which only existed in my own mind. So much for the professional detachment I claimed to hold so dear.
Looking at my companion, I realised I still didn’t understand why he was here, or what he hoped to gain by all of this. As he stood there beside the tomb of some unnamed family, I found he was hidden in shadows, literally and metaphorically.
“Well, fuck me, Richard,” said a rumbling voice from beyond the tomb. Torchlight illuminated us as Ayer and Liman walked out from the shadows. “Looks like they didn’t chicken out after all.”
Chapter 37
Ayer carried a torch in one hand. The other was empty.
Liman carried a shotgun. The same one he’d had in my office? Displayed it prominently so we’d get the message: he wasn’t here to be messed about.
Or maybe he was trying for another message.
Robertson said, “That’s my bloody grouse gun.”
“We couldn’t go to your gaff and come away empty-handed,” said Liman.
“Wouldn’t be right,” agreed Ayer.
I watched Robertson for a reaction.
He gave them nothing.
They’d burned his house down, fucked up his life. They had destroyed every hope Robertson had that his brother turned out right.
And he stood there, as they threatened him with his own gun, with his head bowed, deflated.
But then, could I really understand him?
Had I simply been projecting my own motives onto him?
Expecting him to be angry because I was.
Because I blamed these bastards for everything that had happened to me and to those around me.
If I closed my eyes, I could see Bill’s bed in the hospital.
Blood stains on a polished wood floor.
Katrina Egg’s sightless eyes.
The back of her head blown open: brains and blood and broken bone.
These Cockney pricks were responsible for all of that and more. And I now had a chance to pay back the pain that they had caused.
Burns had seen through me in the hospital. I wanted a fight, right enough.
Liman said to Robertson, “That the money?”
Robertson stepped forward, offered the case to Ayer.
The gentle rush of traffic on Riverside drifted lazily up to this remote place; we were not quite so isolated as we might have believed.
Ayer took the case from Robertson, yanking it roughly from the other man’s grasp. Robertson stumbled back, his hands held up in supplication, as though afraid Ayer would attack him.
Liman adjusted the shotgun’s position. A reminder. A warning. I made a show of noticing the gesture, keeping my own hands in plain sight to reassure the bald psychopath that I wasn’t about to try anything stupid. He was close enough that the gun could do real damage. If someone could pick off a grouse at thirty yards, what could be done to me at two or three?
The wind picked up. My coat ruffled. The weight of the handgun bumped against my hip.
Just shoot the bastards.
All other sounds muted behind my own heartbeat.
Robertson took a step forward. “It’s all there.” Almost cocky. A far cry from the man I had seen on the other side of the bridge.
Schizophrenic. Unpredictable. Robertson was beginning to worry me more than the Cockney hard men who I knew would shoot me in the head without a moment’s hesitation.
Ayer smiled. Turned his back to us. Placed the briefcase on top of a nearby headstone.
Liman made sure Robertson remembered the shotgun, holding it aloft and waving it in the farmer’s eyeline. Robertson noticed, but his attention was focused on the other man.
Ayer said, “The combination?”
Robertson recited three numbers, stumbling over them. Sounding jittery. He stuck his hands deep in his pockets. Looked like he was bracing himself against the cold of the evening.
Ayer clicked the locks. Robertson took another step forward, his hands still in his pockets.
“Just stay fuckin’ still,” said Liman. Not even bothering to raise the shotgun this time. His point already made. If we were too stupid not to have noticed, then that was our own fault. We were just two savages from a foreign country. Why should he care whether or not we were stupid enough to get out heads blown off?
Rain fell, spotting gently from the sky.
Thunder rumbled.
I watched Robertson closely. His expression, his stance and his attitude appeared strange and unnatural. I told myself it was nerves. The adrenaline coursing through his system.
Robertson took another step, right up close to Liman. The farmer wasn’t exactly a tall man, but he towered over the bald Cockney.
Liman said, “I told you to stay fuckin’ still.”
Robertson’s hand came out his pocket. Something flashed silver.
I tried to move, but my feet were stuck to the spot. Rooted like the headstones in the Necropolis.
Robertson made to stab Liman in the chest. Threw his weight at him, and his feet slipped on the muddy ground. He fell, off balance, and his arms flailed.
Liman was caught by surprise. He tried to swing the shotgun round and blow the farmer’s brains out.
The twin explosions reverberated through the night.
And missed. The shot too wild to be accurate.
Robertson came in the inside of Liman’s gun arm, his arms flailing as he struggled to regain his balance on the wet ground. The knife slashed out, missing its intended target and slashing the bald Cockney hard man across the cheek instead of slipping deep into his chest.
Ayer, startled by the shotgun’s explosion, had spun round, knocked the half-opened case from the headstone.
The notes billowed out, caught in the gentle breeze and scattered in the air. They looked like dead leaves fallen from the canopy of trees above.
Robertson screamed.
Not with fear.
With anger.
The storm that had been threatening exploded around us, the rain falling hard and heavy.
A sound like horses’ hooves clattered somewhere in the distance.
Chapter 38
Liman’s face was sliced across his cheek, the open wound bleeding hard. The shotgun had fallen from his grasp. It lay maybe half a foot away from him.
Ayer looked surprised, hesitating for a moment when he saw what had happened.
Robertson tried to rush him. But the farmer was too slow, and Ayer was a man used to violence. The Cockney bastard grabbed Robertson’s wrist and twisted. Robertson squealed. Tried to keep a grip on the knife.
I forced myself to lurch forward, made it as far as Liman. The bastard had one hand up at his face and was reaching out blindly with the other.
Trying to find the shotgun.
I kicked Liman hard. Caught him somewhere around the kidneys. He collapsed to
his knees, his body jerking like in an epileptic fit.
I could only hope.
Ayer twisted Robertson’s wrist hard. Robertson finally dropped the knife. The interruption of the shotgun blast had clearly shocked him back into a more sober state of mind.
The Cockney gave the fat farmer a second to realise what was happening before kneeing him in the stomach. Robertson slipped face first into the mud.
Liman was moaning. Rolled into the foetal position, hands gripping his face as though to stop the flow of blood where Robertson’s blade had sliced deep.
I pulled Burns’s gift out from my coat. Wearing the gloves, my fingers felt fat and clumsy. My balance wobbled and I felt my leg begin to seize up. Another thing to blame on the cold, perhaps. Or the exertion. It didn’t matter. Any weakness could get me killed.
I found my feet again, putting as much weight as I could on my good leg, hoping it would be enough to keep me upright.
I held the handgun straight out in front of me. Locked my index finger through the trigger guard. Fought to keep my arms steady.
My muscles twitched uncontrollably.
The rain battered. Soaked my clothes, got in my eyes. I blinked hard to stop my vision from blurring. Bad enough the only light came from the moon and the torch that Ayer had brought with him.
Ayer looked at me with an expression that could have been surprise. “Fuckin’ cunts!” he rumbled, before reaching inside his jacket and pulling out a gun. Likely, the same gun that had killed Kat. That had blasted a hole in Bill’s stomach. That had killed so many people whose names and faces I would never know.
My trigger finger twitched.
But I didn’t fire.
I couldn’t.
Robertson had recovered his senses. He rolled away from Ayer, clambering clumsily to his feet. He was caked in mud, plastered with the rain-soaked cash that had been scattered from the briefcase. Before, he had seemed like a wild animal; a man with nothing to lose. Now, all of that anger had gone. His eyes were those of a man who had just woken from a nightmare.
Ayer turned his gun on Robertson. I was no longer a threat. I hadn’t pulled the trigger a minute ago. Why would I have the balls to do it now?
The Good Son Page 14
