The Killing Hour (29 page)

‘In stabbing people? Or making sure they’re dead?’

‘You think this is a joke?’ he shouts, and I pray that somebody driving by might hear him and come and help. Just like I did the other night. ‘You want to know what dead looks like?’ He sprays more lighter fluid into my nose. ‘Huh?’

My head starts to pound, and seconds later vomit erupts from my mouth, spraying over my nose and eyes, onto my forehead and into my hair. My nose becomes full of it and the taste consumes my mouth, ridding it, at least, from the taste of lighter fluid. I choke as lumps of digested pasta and coffee flow from me, but pieces get lodged in my mouth and throat and stick beneath my tongue. I wipe my hands at my face and, digging my fingers into my mouth, I grab what I can and scoop it out. Cyris pulls himself away and stumbles onto his butt to avoid the mess. He sits there, one hand across his wounded stomach, the other wiping at his face.

I swing in a bigger arc and my limbs come close to breaking. Even though I’m upside down, my hanging jacket isn’t, and vomit starts to pool into the creases and drip into pockets. I can see it pooling in the inside pocket, on top of the Swiss Army knife I bought from Floyd.

I pull the jacket closer and reach into the pocket. The knife is slippery from the vomit, but I manage to dig my thumbnail into the small groove of the blade. I think of the game-show host. He tells me if I’m good enough I can still get hold of one of the few remaining prizes up for grabs. He asks me if I’m man enough to do any grabbing.

I extend the blade. I tighten my stomach muscles and reach for the sky. The blade touches the rope and a second later I hit the ground. I gag for air as I try to roll away. My jacket rights itself so I’m wearing it again. Cyris is on his feet coming towards me. I pull my knees to my chest and slice through the noose, separating my ankles. I jump to my feet and land on unsteady legs. I point the knife ahead of me but it’s only a pocket knife and offers little in the way of defending myself. I wish I had the K-bar. The sight of the knife slows him down. He realises he has nothing in his hands except pieces of my vomit. He’s about to change that, though, because he reaches behind his back and I know he’s looking for my Glock. I run at him. The gun appears at the same moment we collide. It goes off, but the bullet fires into the darkness.

My momentum carries us into a tree, just like it did with Detective Inspector Bill Landry moments before he died. Cyris thuds into it, I thud into Cyris and the gun ends up on the ground. He pushes me backwards and catches me with an upper cut. The fresh stars I see make the ones above look pale. He squeezes at my wrist to get the knife. What little strength I have left isn’t enough to stop him wrenching it away. He swings it at me, slicing through the side of my left forearm, exposing the flesh to the warm air.

I take a step back in time to avoid him getting me in the chest, but he gets me in the shoulder instead. The blade is six or seven centimetres long but it feels like I’ve been stabbed with a sword. He turns the blade in the wound. It flares with fresh pain but also makes me feel more alive. I must live. I must save Jo. With the thought of Jo comes more strength.

It’s difficult to swing a fist because my hands are cuffed together but I manage to club him under the jaw. He rocks backwards, leaving the blade in my shoulder. I reach to it and pull. My screams are muffled because my throat is raw, and as the blade drags out the Real World shimmers and darkens, then darkens some more but doesn’t disappear. He punches me in the wound and the knife falls from my hands. My only comfort is that this could all be over if I just close my eyes.

But that’s not the way it’s going to be. Fuck that. Right now, I’m all out of failing.

Or maybe not, because he touches the lighter against my lighter-fluid-soaked jacket.

53

The forest pulses in and out of focus. It’s like looking at the world from inside a water balloon while somebody is pushing and prodding against the sides. Her head aches from the blow she took from Cyris as he dragged her to the car: the epicentre of the pain is the back of her skull. The rope holding her to the tree is also holding her on her feet. When she looks down her brain feels like it’s lying against the back of her eyeballs. But hopefully the rope won’t be around her for too much longer because Charlie has escaped. Thank God.

She holds her breath and wriggles back and forth again, trying to loosen the rope, not prepared to leave her fate up to Charlie and his fighting abilities. The tree tears at her but she doesn’t care. Her vision clears for a few seconds and she watches the two men fight, and then her vision blurs and she tilts her head down as pain washes through her. For a moment she doesn’t know where she is. The waves are arriving every few seconds, washing over her, making her feel ill.

On Monday Charlie told her how he felt walking through these very trees, and now she imagines how it must have been for Kathy. A strong wave hits her, more pain, and her thoughts become muddled beneath the surface. The pain holds her tightly, and when it finally lets go for another handful of seconds, she looks back to see the scene is the same. The outcome of the fight will determine whether she lives or dies. She struggles harder, and when that doesn’t work she tries once more to slip beneath the rope, but it’s too tight and cuts into her breasts as soon as she bends her legs. She moves her feet, trying to rotate further around the tree looking for a hollow that will take the tension away, but she can’t even do that. Her head tilts down. The throbbing is deep inside. The nausea returns. She grits her teeth and waits for it to pass. When it does, the two men are so close to each other it looks like they’re dancing. Charlie’s face is covered in vomit.

Another wave of nausea, and she’s forced to look down as the ground beneath her sways. Through her tears the twigs down there look as though they’re moving, all twisting about and blending into one. When she looks back up, when the pain is gone and she can see again, the scene is no longer the same.

This time Charlie is on fire.

54

The fire is on me and there isn’t a thing I can do about it. There has to be something I can say to stop all of this, to take all of this back, to make it as if it never happened, but it seems … seems that isn’t going to happen.

The flames chew my jacket, rising hungrily upwards, and I reach out to wave them further away from me. Jo is forgotten now, and Cyris, and Kathy and Luciana. The fire has taken me to another world, and this world looks a hell of a lot like hell. I know hell is other people, but it’s not – it’s just two people, Cyris and me. I flap my arms and pat at the flames, burning my fingers. The handcuffs keep digging into my wrists.

I drop to the ground and start rolling. I tear at the jacket, the pain in my stabbed shoulder and forearm doing nothing to slow me down. I manage to pull it upwards, sliding it and the fire over my head. It singes my hair and I force my eyes shut as the tears inside them seem to boil. Then the jacket’s off my head and on my arms where I’m able to push it only as far as the handcuffs. I start kicking at it, stomping it into the ground, the flames finding the lighter fluid on my jeans. I push my feet at the jacket. The fire has weakened it enough to tear apart. It leaves me with gloves that have huge tassels on the end. Tassels of fire. I kick at them, smudging them into the dirt. The technique works and the flames disappear. Red embers flicker from the material.

Cyris is laughing at me as if I’m the funniest thing in the world. Perhaps I am. But it’s hard to concentrate when you’re laughing, hard to stay focused. So I turn and run. I run hard and fast into the darkness where I quickly get lost. I can hear Cyris crashing through the trees after me. A moment later I’m flying through the air. I’m not sure whether I’ve tripped or been pushed, but my hands and jacket dig into the ground. I look over my shoulder. Cyris is holding my knife.

‘I prefer it like this,’ he grumbles, but I don’t think he does. I think he preferred back when he hadn’t been stabbed in the stomach or set on fire.

He starts dragging me back the way we came, probably so he can kill me in front of Jo. I dig my fingers into the dirt, looking for something I can use to fight him with. Leaves, twigs, moss, grass — nothing helpful. No branches, no rocks, just a whole lot of nature and …

My fingers wrap around a cold solid item, something L-shaped, something heavy and metal with a socket at one end. At the edge of the clearing Cyris lets go and leans down over me.

‘I’m going to enjoy this, partner.’

‘I doubt it.’ I swing the tyre iron, using my elbows and shoulders and wrists, getting as much momentum as I can. Cyris sees the movement and pulls back, which changes the target from the top of his head to his jaw. The socket hits him in the front of the mouth. In an instant both his burnt lips split wide open and blood splashes onto me. Teeth are shattered within his grin and splinters of them are pushed into his gums. His head rocks back violently. The knife hits the ground as his hands fly to his mouth, his fingers probing and assessing and trying to repair the damage. He seems to be trying to push everything back into place in the same way Landry tried to repair his shattered knee. He looks down at me and tries to say something but can’t. He spits a couple of teeth at me. A few more dangle from his broken lips on lines of bloody drool. His eyes are full of tears. He staggers back and collapses, his legs splayed out in front of him.

I crawl over to him. I turn the tyre iron around so the tip that pries off the hubcap is facing him. I stab it towards his chest, only he reaches up and wraps his hand around it. He tries talking, but I can’t understand a word he’s saying. He tries getting up. I fight to keep him down. With one huge effort he pushes me back and I fall away and hit my head against a tree. Cyris rolls over and starts coughing. Then he gets to his feet and this time it’s his turn to race off into the darkness. My instinct to follow lasts only a second before I change direction and head back towards Jo.

I grab the torch and can see only Jo. The night breaks up into clumps of light as the beam penetrates it, creating a thousand shadows behind every tree. I strain my eyes and I search but I can’t find him. I turn to Jo. She’s struggling against the ropes. I pull down her gag. My wounded shoulder is throbbing. My hands stinging. Yet I’m alive.

‘It’s me,’ I say, pointing the torch at myself. ‘Hang on while I cut the ropes.’

I have no knife and no time to find one. I clutch a hand around the rope and pull but it’s too thick. I turn around and see the black satchel on the ground. I pick it up and move back to Jo.

‘God, hurry up, Charlie.’ There’s panic in her voice.

‘Just tell me if you see him.’

‘I can’t see a damn thing.’

‘Well, just look, okay?’

‘What do you think I’m doing?’

Complaining. I hunt through the satchel and find a small hacksaw. I know why he has it – it looks ideal for cutting off body parts. I find it’s ideal for cutting ropes too. They fall to the ground like a pile of intestines. Jo comes forward and hugs me. I let her hold on for a couple of seconds before pushing her away.

‘Don’t suppose you have a set of handcuff keys on you?’

She shakes her head.

I hand her the saw. ‘Try cutting the chain.’

She starts but spends only a few seconds on it before we both see it’s no use.

‘At least cut the jacket.’

She slices the sleeves and cuts my jacket away. It feels a hell of a lot better.

‘Take the hammer,’ I say. ‘I’ll take the stake and the torch.’

‘What about the gun?’

I scan the torch over the ground but can’t find it. It’s just the typical sort of messed-up bullshit that …

‘Got it,’ Jo says, bending down for the Glock. ‘Where do you think he is?’

We both hear a grunt. At the same moment something swings through the night towards my face. The kick knocks me into Jo, who is still standing. We tip over and I land on top of her. The torch lights up Cyris. My tyre iron is in his right hand. In his left he holds the knife. A bloody and shattered grin stretches over his face. He throws the tyre iron at me. It falls end over end and hits me in the side of my head. My legs become jelly and my organs turn to water. I raise my hands to my head but they flop down and land loosely on my chest.

I wonder why I’m lying on the floor of a forest. I wonder who it is I’m lying next to. Above me is a man dressed in black, and I try to ask this stranger for help. I hope he knows what’s happened. This man leans over me, and he looks awfully –
like Death
– serious. His face is broken and burnt and bloody, and I suspect the same thing that happened to him has happened – is happening – to me. I try to reach up but I can’t see my arms anywhere. Could be they’re buried beneath something heavy, perhaps even beneath the darkness. The stranger reaches down towards me. He’s smiling through his broken face, letting me know that whatever’s going on, things are going to be okay now.

55

His ears are ringing. Shooting stabbing pains travel from each of his broken teeth into his brain. He wants to kill somebody – everybody. He wants to feel death on his hands and doesn’t mind if it’s his own because it will make the pain of failure finally go away. His face is swelling and his mouth is deformed and the skin is burnt and all he has to live for now is revenge.

In his destroyed mouth revenge tastes like bile. He kicks Charlie, good old fucking Charlie, and he wants to kill him right now but he wants him to suffer too, and the best way to do that is to kill his girlfriend. He’ll do that now, do it now and get it out of the way, even though he wants to savour it, but it’s best, it’s best, he knows, to do it now, to make it a finality. His only problem is he’s seeing three of everything, sometimes four.

He wants to open Charlie up from sternum to eyeball with the knife, and he’ll do it too, he’ll do it soon, but he’ll open up the bitch first. She’s lying on the ground where he left her the moment he slammed his fist into the side of her face after Charlie hit the ground. He can already see how she’ll look with her limbs severed and her face all torn open. The thought does nothing to excite him, nothing at all. The entire process of killing her will be mechanical, but at least it’ll be over. Rather than messing around, rather than extending the moment and risking more failure, he picks up the knife and plunges it into her.