by Mat Ridley
“Well, Mr Stein, it looks like the party is drawing to a close. My associates and I need to be on our way, but not before we’ve taken care of business here, and not before I make sure your last few minutes on this miserable Earth are the most painful you can possibly imagine. Luckily for me, I can kill two birds with one stone.” Consciousness ebbed again for a second, but Sam prodded my wounded shoulder with the toe of his boot. “Don’t you pass out on me, Sunshine. You’ll miss all the fun.” He raised his voice. “How’s it going back there, you two? Chop chop!”
Charlie returned from the shadows, whirling his petrol can round at arm’s length in a big red windmill and humming a bad rendition of Johnny Cash’s ‘Ring of Fire’. “All done here, Sam. Dave’s just finishing off with the boxes at the back. There’s a hole in the roof, and some of them are a bit wet.”
“Dave! Make sure you save some petrol for this fucker!”
“Sorry, boss,” Dave apologised, appearing from amongst the boxes. “I just finished it all off.” He caught the look on Sam’s face. “You said to be sure.”
Sam paused for a moment, then reached into his jacket pocket. “It’s alright, Dave, never mind. Maybe putting a torch to Mr Stein directly would be showing him too much mercy anyway. Too quick.” He pulled something out of his pocket, and although I knew what it would be, it didn’t prevent a jolt of terrible electricity from running through my body when I saw it. A lighter. He flicked the flame on and off a couple of times, contemplating it like a farmer might examine a seed he is about to plant.
“Take Chris out to the van, you two, and don’t forget to take that shooter with you, either,” Sam said, indicating the gun on the floor. “Those things aren’t easy to come by. And show some fucking respect!”
The warning came as Chris’s body almost slipped out of Dave’s hands, but then, based on how slick they were with blood, I wasn’t surprised he was struggling. Sam’s command was all the warning that Dave and Charlie needed though, and despite their obvious uneasiness at the by-now-very-noticeable sound of approaching sirens, they redoubled their efforts to treat the body of their fallen comrade carefully. Having finally got him aloft, they waddled their way over to the door, leaving Sam and me alone in the warehouse. He squatted down next to me, pulling my head around by my hair to face him. The pain I should have felt didn’t even register over the other damage reports flooding in from the rest of my body.
“Are you still there, Dan? Good, good. I have to be off now, Dan. But I just wanted you to know that what I said before—about this being business, not personal—you’ve changed all that. Now I need to go and pay your wife a visit, Dan,” he said calmly, as if we were the oldest friends in the world, talking about our plans for the weekend. He conjured my photo of Jo out of his jacket pocket and tapped it meaningfully against the lighter. “An eye for an eye, you fucker.”
Sam spat on me, stood up, and made his way unhurriedly towards the door. In my mind, I staggered to my feet, lunged at his back, wrestled him to the ground and pinned him there until the police arrived. Surely they should only be a couple of minutes away by now? But my body refused to obey me, despite the cold desperation I felt. The best it could do was to roll off of George, dropping me onto the ground next to him so that I could look into his dead eyes. They gazed at me pityingly.
The sound of Sam opening the door gave me the power to break the spell of George’s sightless stare and focus my eyes in that direction instead. As if sensing my hatred searing into his back, Sam turned around, standing half in and half out of the doorway. He smiled indulgently at me, a father about to bestow some special treat on his child, and raised the lighter. With a metallic snap, the tiny orange seed reappeared in his hand. He stooped down and the seed bloomed, its germination drowning out the sound of my own hoarse yell. I caught one last glimpse of Sam standing in the doorway and then he was gone, slamming the door shut behind him with a clap of metallic thunder.
Chapter 3
I must have blacked out after all, but it can’t have been for long, because when I came around the sirens didn’t seem much louder than before. Nevertheless, it had been long enough for the petrol to have caught fire right and proper. I opened my eyes to an inferno, the familiar surroundings of my workplace all wreathed in flame. Even as I watched, I could see the fire casually working its way over to the aisles that led to the back of the warehouse, much as I myself had done once upon a time. My vision blurred, but it was more than just the irritation of the heat and petrol fumes that made the tears flow; there was frustration there, too, and grief for George. There would be time enough to deal with these things later—or so I hoped—but at that particular moment, I had more pressing concerns. The threat of the fire burnt away my light-headedness and dulled my various pains, and I struggled to my knees, blinking away the tears.
Quite apart from the immediate danger that surrounded me, I had another very good reason for wanting to escape the warehouse as soon as possible: every second I spent trapped there was another second closer Sam got to exacting his terrible vengeance on Jo. But how to get out? My mind filled with possibilities, but in all of them, it was obvious that the first order of business was to free myself from the scarf that bound my wrists. I gave it an experimental tug, but the bolt of pain that shot through my wounded shoulder suggested that if I struggled too much, I might pass out again, fire or no fire. I looked frantically around for something I could perhaps use to cut myself free, but there was nothing to hand. I knew that there were scissors in the shed, but based on the size of the flames licking around it, that was exactly where they were going to remain. I think I was trying to ignore the obvious tool for as long as possible, but as the seconds ticked away, it became harder and harder to ignore, the crackling of the flames like fingers snapping for my attention; hey, mate, over here, use me. The sweat began to pour off of me, and not just because of the steadily increasing temperature. I gritted my teeth, and, one step at a time, made my way towards a pile of burning boxes. With a deep breath, I turned around and slowly backed into the fire—and then leapt forwards again as the flames licked at my hands. The last traces of my grogginess evaporated at their touch.
“Damn it!”
I braced myself for another attempt. By now, the pile of boxes I was trying to use to burn off the scarf was well and truly ablaze, but I didn’t have time to run around looking for an alternative. As my eyes searched for options, they met with George’s. Rather than focussing on my fear, I concentrated on them instead, thinking of the warmth of his friendship rather than the blistering heat behind me or the scorching rage that I felt towards Sam. I began to slowly back up towards the fire again. Every instinct screamed at me to rush forward, away from the blaze—but this time, the rational part of my mind won out. I knew that if I gave in, I’d only have to try again, and it wasn’t going to get any easier. With every repeated attempt, time would be slipping further away, along with my chances of saving Jo.
I stuck my hands out behind me as far as possible, trying to minimise my contact with the flames. I could feel the hair singeing on the back of my neck and the raw heat stinging my arms, even through the thick protective skin of Dave’s rain-dampened jacket. My hands felt as if they were being dipped in magma, but I refused to bail out. Blood, sweat and tears mingled freely across my face as I twisted my wrists back and forth, working at the scarf.
“Come on, you bastard,” I growled. “Break!”
A sudden flare of agony in my hands was too much to bear, and I stumbled forwards instinctively, fearful that something in one of the boxes behind me had ignited and that I was about to be engulfed by a fireball. I half-dived, half-fell to the ground, rolling onto my uninjured shoulder, yelling with pain and thrashing about, trying to escape from the hungry fire that I had no doubt was consuming the back of my jacket. And then, abruptly, my hands were free. I scrambled to my feet and ripped the jacket off, beating at my body like I was possessed by demons, terrified that I was on fire.
Slowly, sani
ty returned, and I realised that I was safe; at least, relatively speaking. I hadn’t actually caught alight—both the jacket and what remained of the scarf were only smouldering on the floor, not yet burning—but I had definitely exceeded the limits of my bravery, even with George’s help, and panic had taken over. I took a moment to steady myself and check myself over. My hands were red and raw, but seemed relatively okay considering what could have happened to them. I raised them to my shoulder and side, testing the gunshot wounds, at last able to check them, but thankfully neither of Sam’s bullets seemed to have hit anything vital.
I turned my attention back to the warehouse and how I was going to get out of it. By then, the fire was burning fiercely all around me, wherever I looked, and it was hard to even get my bearings through all the smoke. I dropped to my knees, hoping to get a clearer view and some clearer air. From what I could see, the flames in front of the main doors were burning hotly enough to block any easy exit via that route, and the only designated fire escape door in the building had become more fire than escape. The only clear path remaining seemed to be towards the back of the warehouse. I briefly considered trying to get out via the hole in the roof, but I was in no condition to be climbing around; besides, I had no idea of how severe the fire was back there. As if to answer that question, there was suddenly a huge crash nearby as some of the shelves collapsed. That settled that.
I spun around, desperate for inspiration; and when my eyes caught sight of Dave’s jacket, lying on the floor and looking decidedly the worse for wear, I finally got some. As ideas went, it wasn’t particularly brilliant, but I was fast running out of time to come up with anything better. I grabbed the jacket and started towards the warehouse door, remaining low to try to minimise the amount of smoke I was inhaling. After a few steps, I paused, and then scurried back to pick up the scorched remains of George’s scarf, too; it seemed the least I could do to preserve his memory—assuming that the scarf and I even made it through this crazy night. Coughing harshly, I headed towards the door again, coming to a stop just in front of the leaping flames. Taking as deep a breath as the smoke and the heat allowed, I held the jacket up in front of me, shielding my eyes from the terrifying sight of the fire for a moment, and then stepped forward, dropping the jacket onto the flames in front of the door. The inferno billowed up on either side of the small island I had created, like the wings of a phoenix, and I quickly stepped forward onto the jacket, desperately reaching out towards the door handle, my hand wrapped in George’s scarf to protect it from the heat. I flung the door open and at last staggered out into the night, the rain pouring down on me a blessed relief after the coarse air of the furnace inside the warehouse.
But there was no time to rest and reflect on my good fortune at escaping with my life; somewhere out there, Sam and his boys were on their way to my house—and to my family. The incessant sound of the sirens seemed to surround me, wailing in sympathy with my plight, but even through their din, one thought was clear: I had to have vanished before the police arrived. They couldn’t have been any more than a minute away by then (just in the nick of time, a part of me bitterly observed), and although one option would have been to wait for them to turn up and enlist their aid, the time it would take to explain everything to them was time that Jo didn’t have. It was down to me to save her, and in order to stand any chance of doing so, I needed to disappear.
I returned to my car, running across the car park as quickly as my body would allow. At least my legs hadn’t been injured at any point, although in the context of everything else that had gone wrong that evening, I found it difficult to feel any great sense of relief or gratitude.
I gunned the engine into life and roared out of the car park just as the first of the police cars rounded the corner. For a moment, I rejoiced that I had been able to make a clean getaway, but then suddenly the thought occurred that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea if the police caught sight of me after all; that way, they could follow me across town and arrive back at the house at the same time I did. I had achieved my goal of evading capture and having to explain myself; now it was time to start thinking ahead to the next stage.
I slowed down and started hammering on the car’s horn. That got their attention, and I sped off with two of the police cars in hot pursuit. But the sound of the sirens behind me did little to set my mind at ease. Sam and his friends had an enormous head start on me. If luck was on my side (and the law of averages meant that I was well overdue a bit of luck), the maze of streets between the warehouse and Highfield Road would slow them down, even if they were using a GPS. But I wasn’t about to kid myself that that would hold them up for long. I knew I had to floor it.
Chapter 4
As the streets sped past in a blur, I kept looking down at the speedometer, willing the needle to move farther to the right, willing the car to move faster, willing the world to go back to the way it had been when I’d set off for work that evening. Outside the car, rain was hammering down on London, God pissing on my life as per usual. With every glance downwards, I noticed my hands shaking. My nerves were shot to hell—not surprising given what I’d just been through—and although my body screamed for a release from its adrenaline noose, my mind refused.
The sirens following me quickly receded into the distance, the drivers unable to stay on my tail as I zigzagged homewards through the streets. I punched the steering wheel in frustration. Would nothing go my way? In the absence of anything else practical to do, I reached for the phone again and tried to call Jo a couple of times, but all I got was the inappropriately cheerful sound of her voice inviting me to leave a message after the tone. The possibilities that spun through my mind made me sick. If things were going the way I feared they might be, checking the answerphone was going to be pretty low down on her list of priorities; at the same time, it was possible she might simply have been in the shower, in no danger at all for the moment. I kept the message brief each time, just telling her to get out of the house as soon as possible and then give me a call back once she got somewhere safe. Although I thought I did a pretty good job of keeping the tremors in my hands from extending into my voice, the words tasted sour in my mouth, small, inadequate.
Rather than try to call her a third time, I decided it might be a better idea to try to get hold of the police instead—especially when I remembered how long it had taken them to arrive at the warehouse, and the fact that when I made it back home I was going to be facing three healthy criminals on my own. Three healthy, armed criminals. It didn’t take very long to bring the dispatcher up to speed, and having been promised a response unit would be sent to our house, I then hung up the phone. I tried to call Jo one more time, but just as the phone at her end started to ring, my battery went dead. Great.
So there I was, shooting across town like a meteor, feeling strangely ineffective once I had run out of anything to do other than drive. I could have prayed, of course, but as you’ve probably already gathered, I didn’t believe in the power of prayer anymore, and hadn’t for a long time. Even if I could have found it in me to throw myself on God’s mercy, the prayers would have been hollow, echoing with the desperate fervour that only an atheist standing before the firing squad can muster.
I took the time instead to berate myself for my failures. If only I had taken care of things back at the warehouse more efficiently, I would be driving this route at a more leisurely pace, smiling to myself as I came home at the end of my shift, looking forward to sharing the tale of the night’s unpleasantries over a cosy breakfast with Jo. Normal life, or near enough. But I hadn’t taken care of things, and that life seemed a million miles away from me now. I had gotten soft since I had left the Army seven years earlier, all the training that could have turned the tide in my favour little more than a fading scrapbook of memories. I wished I had done more over the years to stop it from going fuzzy around the edges, but there had been no need for it, no drive. All the cushions of civilian life protected Jo and me from harm.
I shook
my head to clear it. I was almost home by then, and needed to focus. Across town, I could hear various sirens calling out into the night, but it was impossible to tell if they were converging on our house or responding to the crisis at the warehouse. None of them sounded close by, I noted dismally as I turned into the neighbourhood where we lived. Knowing my luck, they were probably dealing with some other problem altogether.
I had been driving for almost twenty minutes by then, and as I manoeuvred the car around the final few corners, I tried to plan my strategy through the waves of fatigue that washed over me. A lot would obviously depend on whether or not Sam was already there ahead of me. I hoped that he wouldn’t have been in as great a hurry as I was; after all, as far as he knew, I was a pile of ash back at the warehouse, and he had no idea that I had alerted the police to his plans for the second time. But I had no way of knowing if my wild flight across town had been quick enough to head him off at the pass. If it had, I would grab Jo and take off into the night; fuck you, Sam. If he was already there, all I could really do would be to charge in and hope for the best.
I held my breath as I slewed round the last bend and into Highfield Road. At first glance, everything appeared normal—including the empty space in front of our house where I usually parked. Hardly daring to hope, I hurtled down the last forty metres or so, coming to a messy, skidding halt in the middle of the street. I hurled my door open and fell out of the car into the road, tripping over the bottom of the door well, but there was no time to stop for pain. I scrambled to my feet and loped towards the house, yelling like a madman. Each of my panicked cries ballooned up into the cold night air in a crystalline cloud that swiftly dispersed amongst the raindrops.
