The First Novels: Pay Off, the Fireman (28 page)

       
‘Yes,’ she answered, her voice dull and flat, but at least she was looking at me when she said it and not through me. I kissed her on the forehead, and as I ducked back to the door I heard her say ‘Take care.’

       
I fired the shotgun’s second barrel through the doorway then slammed the door shut, plunging the room into darkness once more. After pulling the goggles back over my eyes I ran to the opposite end of the fermentation room, the way Laing had gone, through the door and to the top of the stairs at the entrance to the mashing room, footsteps ringing on the metal floor.

       
The clouds were thicker now and they completely covered the moon so I kept the goggles on as I took the stairs two at a time, reloading as I went.

       
I was so busy looking out for Laing that I lost my footing on the wet metal at the bottom and pitched forward, going down on one knee and cursing, but the noise wasn’t a problem because I wanted them both to know I was coming.

       
The courtyard was deserted save for the two cars, no sign of Laing or of Tony or Riker. Maybe they’d had mechanical trouble, or maybe it was just taking longer than they had planned to get through the dense forest. Whatever the reason for them not showing up, I was alone. It was to be one against two but one of them was a professional and well used to killing and I was an amateur, fighting because I was hurt and angry and in a corner. Place your bets, gentlemen. Evens the hired killer from Ireland, thirty-three to one the corporate financier from Edinburgh.

       
‘Where are you, Tony, now that I need you?’ I asked of no-one in particular. But the plan from the start had been to end this myself and it was too late to call time now.

       
At least if I did fail then there was still a chance that Tony and Riker would arrive to clear up the mess and save Sammy and David, the cavalry arriving in the final reel, in time to save the day but too late to rescue the hero.

       
The door at the base of the staircase was locked so I moved back and fired at the wood just below the lock. It splintered and cracked and some of the shot ricocheted off the brass fittings, but the door sagged on its hinges and the second explosion knocked it back completely, throwing it through the doorway and onto the concrete beyond.

       
My ears roared with the echo of the shots as I went back up the steps, quietly, on tiptoe, but moving quickly, free hand on the rail so that this time I wouldn’t trip and give my position away.

       
I waited until I reached the top before reloading, and then stepped inside the mashing room and silently closed the door. I tiptoed between the stainless steel mashing vessels, grey-green in the goggles, and stood in the middle of the room, shallow breathing, completely still, shotgun pointing down.

       
I started counting in my head, slowly ticking off the seconds, more to calm my breathing and racing pulse than to keep track of time.

       
The floor below was clearly visible in the image intensifiers, the metal grille acting as a veil, and after a short while I could forget it was there, moving my head from side to side to keep the whole of the concrete area in vision.

       
A block of weak moonlight fell on the floor in front of the shattered oak door and my heart stopped as something moved, but it was coming from the wrong direction and it was furry with four legs, the brown and white cat come to investigate the noise and see if there were any rats or mice poking around for stray malt pellets.

       
It stood stock still in the moonlit square, tail twitching as it sniffed the peaty air, and then it gently lifted its head upwards and stared straight at me through the grille. Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven, and then there was the rasp of a shoe against concrete and the cat turned and ran in one movement, back into the night.

       
He was down in a crouch, about thirty feet from the fallen door where I would be silhouetted against the moonlight and he’d get a clear shot. He licked his lower lip, and if he’d had a tail he would have twitched it. Ninety-three, ninety-four and he was moving again, still crouched, into the centre of the room below.

       
It must have been a storage area at some time but now it was bare and he was as unprotected as a beetle on a Formica kitchen top. He took the gun in both hands, steadied his feet shoulder-width apart and held the weapon out in front of him like a cop in an American TV movie.

       
He was five feet to my right and I didn’t want to risk firing the shotgun at an angle, but if I moved he was bound to hear me so I stayed where I was and counted, one hundred and ten, one hundred and eleven.

       
Something clattered in the courtyard outside, probably the cat but he thought it was me and he tensed, moved two steps to the left to get a clearer view and then he was right underneath my feet.

       
I pressed the open barrels of the Purdey against the metal grille and fired, the gun kicking in my hands as the shot funnelled through the gaps. The floor rattled and shook and the top of his head disappeared in a shower of crimson, a scarlet rain that blew across the concrete.

       
He stayed upright, the gun still levelled at the doorway, one hundred and twenty-five, one hundred and twenty-six, and then the arms started to rise upward, pointing to the ceiling above his bloodsoaked head which turned up to reveal a pulpy mess where the face had been, strips of flesh hanging down over the chin and the lips, what was left of them, drawn back in a grimace of a smile. His eyes, untouched by the shot, were white circles in the red and they looked into mine as the arms moved higher, one hundred and thirty-three, one hundred and thirty-four, and they went right over his bloody head and he fell back onto the concrete like a sack of malt tumbling from a conveyor belt, a lifeless thud followed by a ringing echo as the gun rolled along the floor.

       
One hundred and fifty-nine, one hundred and sixty, I couldn’t stop counting, my brain fixed on the numbers so that it wouldn’t have to dwell on the man twelve feet below me, eyes wide open and staring as his legs and arms twitched, nervous spasms because there wasn’t enough brain intact for conscious movements.

       
He had stopped moving by the time I reached one hundred and eighty, only three minutes since I’d waited for him to investigate the wrecked door. I went back down the steps and stood over the body, kicking it gently, just in case, but it wasn’t necessary. I didn’t have to hold a mirror against his mouth or check for a pulse because the sightless eyes showed that he was dead.

       
I knelt by the corpse and went through the pockets of the anorak, loose change, a cigarette lighter (so maybe he was a smoker too and maybe he was the one who’d used the lighted cigarettes), a box of cartridges and the keys to the Sierra. There was no wallet, no driving licence, no identification, but that was to be expected. They were professionals, and professionals don’t wear labels.

       
As I took the keys I heard a footfall in the doorway behind me and I swivelled around still in a crouch, ready to fire the shotgun with one hand which would have snapped my wrist like a damp Twiglet if the hammers hadn’t clunked down on two empty chambers.

       
‘What a fucking pity,’ said Laing, and this time he did have a gun in his hand. ‘What a fucking pity,’ he repeated.

       
I stayed down, hunched low but ready to dive to one side, left or right, like a goalkeeper preparing himself for a penalty. One chance, sudden death. Please God let him shoot me in the chest.

       
‘They were going to kill me,’ he said. ‘They’d already killed Alan and that bastard of a mercenary you used to double-cross them, and then they came after me.’ He shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘You almost made it. You were that close.’ He held up his left hand, index finger and thumb an inch apart.

       
‘Do you want to know why they didn’t kill me?’ he asked. I nodded. Keep him talking, pray that Tony and Riker would get here.

       
‘A postcard,’ he said, grinning boyishly. ‘A fucking postcard that I’d sent to Alan, care of his office. All it said was “Having a time here. Wish you were lovely”, but it was posted in Paris and the date showed when I was there. That postcard and that stupid joke saved my life. But it was too late to save Alan. They found it in his office after they killed him.’

       
He was toying with the revolver, slowly scratching the barrel along his cheek. I tensed, ready to leap.

       
‘I like the idea of the bulletproof vest,’ he said. ‘But it won’t work again. The next one goes right through your fucking head.’

       
I relaxed, sagging down onto the concrete floor, cradling the useless shotgun, beaten.

       
‘Sammy told me why you did it, you know. She told me everything before we killed Carol. They let me help, they wanted me to help, to involve me, I suppose. But I’m going to have Sammy to myself. Completely and utterly to myself. Shall I tell you what I’m going to do to her?’ And he did, carefully and precisely, missing out none of the details, while tears of rage, of shame, of frustration, of pure helplessness, welled up in my eyes because there was nothing, absolutely nothing I could do now. I’d lost the edge. I’d lost control. I’d lost.

       
‘You must have really loved your old man to go through all this,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I didn’t exactly shed a tear when my dad shuffled off this mortal coil. Mind you, he didn’t top himself.’

       
‘I’m going to kill you,’ I whispered.

       
‘You’re not, you know,’ he said, and levelled the gun at my head. ‘I’m afraid it’s going to be the other way around. Give my regards to your parents.’

       
Time stopped. You know how it is when they show the film of the assassination of President Kennedy, the black and white grainy frames played in slow motion, his head whipping forward and backward and then forward again, so you can’t tell how many shots there were, or where they came from, whether the only shots came from Oswald in the Dallas book warehouse or if there was someone else to the side or behind the motorcade, firing at the same time. You can’t tell, no matter how many times you see the film, and no matter how often I reran Laing’s death in my head I still couldn’t get it right, I couldn’t work out if his head erupted first or if his chest turned red and wet, whether there were two shots or three, whether he fell forward towards me or just crumpled in a heap. I didn’t even hear the shots. He was dead, that was all that mattered, and I was splattered with his blood.

       
Then I heard Bambi say ‘Easy, son,’ and I saw Riker and Tony in silhouette, guns at the ready.

       
‘Jesus, where have you been?’ I asked, struggling to my feet and breaking the shotgun, ejecting the spent cartridges.

       
Riker stepped over Laing, walked past me and then looked down at the body of the man I’d shot. He surveyed the metal grille above our heads. ‘Nice shot,’ he said approvingly. ‘Very nice.’

       
For some reason his approval made me swell with pride, praise from a pro, so I bit back the remark I was going to make about it being no wonder America had lost the war in Vietnam if that was an example of their time-keeping. I was starting to get cocky, and it was overconfidence that killed the cat as my grandmother used to tell me. Sweet old lady, but she could never get her proverbs straight. If the cat fits, wear it, was another of hers. It was years before I found out what that one meant. My mind was wandering, I suppose shock and panic does that, so I fought to steady my thoughts, concentrate on the job.

       
‘What kept you?’ I asked Tony, and he shrugged. I noticed then that his raincoat was dirty and torn and that his trousers and shoes were covered in mud. His face was criss-crossed with scratches, several still bleeding. It couldn’t have been a picnic clawing their way through thick woods at night.

       
‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘I’m just glad you’re here.’ Riker, too, looked abashed as he joined us in the doorway.

       
‘What’s the position?’ he asked, shouldering his shotgun.

       
‘I’ve killed two of them,’ I said. ‘The other’s upstairs.’ For some reason I added ‘She’s a girl’ but there was no reaction. ‘Sammy’s upstairs with David. Could you get them away, now? Not back to Stonehaven, to Shona’s parents, maybe. Stonehaven’s in a bit of a mess,’ I finished lamely.

       
‘Sure,’ said Tony. ‘What are you going to do?’

       
‘I’ll clear up here and join you later.’

       
‘We’ll help,’ said Riker.

       
‘No, it’s my mess. I’ll clean it up. There’s no point in all of us taking any more risks. I want to see this through to the end. And it won’t be over until the bodies are buried.’ I handed him the keys to the Sierra. ‘Where’s the helicopter?’ I asked.

       
‘In a clearing about three miles away,’ said Riker.

       
‘That’s a point,’ interrupted Tony. ‘What are we going to do about the chopper?’

       
‘Leave it where it is tonight,’ said Riker. ‘There’s no way I’m going through those woods again. I’ll come back to Edinburgh with you and then pick it up tomorrow. Assuming I can find it.’ He smiled. ‘Hey, what would I tell the guys we hired it from? “Sorry guys, I’ve lost your Sikorsky somewhere in the Highlands.” Do you think we’ll lose the deposit?’

       
Tony slapped him on the back and together we walked up the steps to the first floor. When we got to the door of the fermentation room I held up my hand, motioning them to wait.