Hit and Run (11 page)

He was sweating by the time the pub came into view. Wet patches under his arms, a strip of moisture up his back, a fusty heat radiating from him. He smelled of pills and stress. When did he last have a shower?

He looked down. Jeanie was panting heavily. This stupid fucking sunshine, when would it end? It was unnatural, killing them all with cancerous shards. To his left Salisbury Crags throbbed with energy, the gorse blazing away.

The tables in the beer garden were busy. He stopped and scanned them, but no Adele. He went in, Jeanie trotting behind.

The pub was almost empty. Just two old-timers at the bar in overcoats, of all things, and Adele tucked away in a corner by the dartboard. Her bug-eyed sunglasses were pushed up on to her head, that beautiful red hair spilling out of the sides. She was frowning and fidgeting with a slice of lime in a tall gin and tonic.

She spotted him and stopped fiddling, tried to put on a calm face. She sucked the lime juice off her fingers and made an involuntary grimace.

‘You came,’ she said.

Billy was standing over her.

‘I came.’

‘I didn’t know if you would.’

‘Yes you did.’

‘Did I?’

Billy nodded at a second gin on the table, condensation glistening on the glass.

She smiled.

‘I got that on the off-chance. I figured if you didn’t show, I’d manage to take care of it myself.’

She nodded at a stool.

‘Just a sec.’ He handed over Jeanie’s lead and went to the bar. He got them to fill a soup bowl with water for the dog. While he was waiting he glanced back. Adele had her face buried in Jeanie’s fur, nuzzling her and stroking behind her ears. Jeanie’s tail flicked against the leg of the table. It was intimate, like a lovers’ embrace. He turned back to the bar and spotted a bottle of that beetroot schnapps high on a gantry. His stomach flipped and he had to hold the bar for support.

Back at the table, he clunked the bowl on the floor and Jeanie began lapping at it, water spilling over the sides and darkening the wood.

He sat down. ‘So.’

‘So.’

‘You wanted to see me?’

Adele looked suddenly vulnerable. ‘I bet that made quite a story for your paper.’

Billy shrugged.

‘You did write it up, didn’t you?’

Billy nodded. Adele looked at him, her eyes glassy. She was stoned again. Always stoned.

‘Rebus’s throat was slit.’ She gripped her glass, her fingers tense and pale. ‘From ear to ear. What kind of sick fuck does something like that?’

‘The Mackies.’

Adele nodded. ‘That’s what Dean said. Are you sure?’

Billy shrugged. ‘A girl picked the dog up from the Dog and Cat Home yesterday. The description fits a girl Rose and I saw with Wayne Mackie at the hospital.’

Adele lowered her eyes. ‘Dean is going to kill them all.’

Billy looked at her legs. She was still wearing her memorial outfit from this morning. Short black skirt riding up her thighs, legs crossed, killer heels.

‘You have to get away from him,’ he said.

‘I can’t.’

‘He’s dangerous.’

She looked up. ‘You think I don’t know that?’

‘Just leave.’

She laughed, sarcastic and hollow. ‘Just like that, yeah? He’d kill me. And where the hell would I take Ryan anyway?’

The question hung in the air. Billy didn’t have an answer.

‘Ryan is distraught.’

‘Shouldn’t you be with him?’ He had no idea why he said it.

Adele’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who the fuck are you, the parent police? He’s at home, actually, and Magda is there. I had to get out. OK?’

‘Sorry.’

Silence at the table. Just the gentle snuffling of Jeanie. Billy stared at Adele’s legs, her smooth calves, her manicured toenails perfect blood red. He felt his face and hands tingle, seemed to see sparkles in front of his eyes, tiny explosions of light. He scrunched his eyes shut then opened them again, but that only made it worse. He could smell burnt coffee, an overpowering aroma. He looked round the pub. The barman was standing flicking through the paper. The coffee machine was untouched.

‘The police aren’t sure that the Mackies killed Frank,’ Adele said. ‘They say their alibi seems pretty tight. They were in a club till well past Frank’s time of death. Hundreds of people were in there with them.’

‘Maybe they got someone else to do it. Or maybe it was just an accident.’

‘An accident?’ Incredulity in her voice. She sighed, a tremor in her breath. She gulped at her gin. ‘I can’t handle all this.’

Billy tried to reach for her hand, but she looked nervously round the empty bar and pulled away.

‘Everything will be OK,’ he said. It sounded weak, worse than saying nothing.

She took a deep breath and looked at him. ‘I have some coke. Fancy a line?’

Billy felt his heart crashing against his ribs. He nodded.

Adele picked up her handbag and stood up, smoothing her skirt down. She swayed a little, like a breeze might knock her down.

‘Meet me in the disabled toilets in two minutes. Don’t be obvious.’

Billy watched her go, his eyes on the curve of her skirt. He looked round. The pub was still almost empty. The barman was the same young guy who’d been working here the last time he was in, and he was watching Adele head round the corner towards the toilets, his eyes on her body.

Billy glugged at his gin till it was just sweating ice and lime snug in the bottom of the glass. He stroked Jeanie, patted her and ruffled the scruff of her neck. He gently and calmly looped her lead around the table leg, whispering in her ear the whole time.

‘I’m just going to the toilet, OK?’

She had plenty of length to mooch around. He’d be back in two minutes. He got up, cringing as his chair scraped the floor. Jeanie flumped on her haunches and scratched at her ear. She watched him walk away.

He tried to look nonchalant, his arms and legs moving awkwardly as he pushed himself onwards. He caught that burning smell again but didn’t look round. His pulse was juddering as he pushed open the toilet door.

Adele was bent over the cistern, holding her hair back with one hand, smoothly snorting a thick line with the other. She used a stainless-steel straw, not a rolled-up note. She blocked a nostril and sniffed the sticky hit up as high as she could. She gave Billy a vacant stare, then her eyes widened. She switched hands with the straw, held her hair back with the other hand, and took a second hit from the coke, pulling at her nose and shaking her head afterwards.

There was another thick line of coke already chopped out. Adele handed the straw to Billy.

‘Don’t say anything, just do it.’

He bent and took the hit, stopping halfway to change nostrils. He felt the surge in his brain immediately. His head was a balloon full of water, ready to burst. The lump on his temple pulsing away into the cosmos. He felt his muscles and sinews stretch and tighten, his blood hammering through his arteries.

He straightened up, making guttural snorting sounds, and looked at her. She checked herself in the mirror, running a finger softly around her eye socket and over her cheek, where the shadow of a bruise remained. She leaned in over the sink, her face only a few inches from the glass. Her skirt was stretched tight across her arse. Her top had ridden up, revealing a sliver of tattooed skin at the small of her back. She produced a lip balm, smudged some on a finger and ran it across her mouth. Billy couldn’t take his eyes off her.

She was smiling into the mirror. ‘Like what you see?’

‘You know I do.’

‘What are you going to do about it?’

She smacked her lips together. It was obvious and corny, but he was sold. He edged across the room until he was standing behind her. He saw himself in the mirror, his head above hers. He looked like a wax model, inert and lifeless. She moved her arse against him and his cock throbbed at the contact. She ground against him some more. She looked desperate for something. Maybe a way out of this whole mess. But the two of them were just getting deeper into it. She lowered her hands and braced herself against the taps, pushing against him. She was looking at herself in the mirror, not him. They were both staring at her.

‘Fuck me,’ she whispered.

He lifted her skirt up and rubbed her panties. He moved the underwear aside and slipped a finger inside her, then two. She let out a tiny breath, like she was in pain.

‘Sorry.’

She shook her head. ‘No.’

He didn’t know what she meant.

He unbuckled his belt and pulled his trousers and shorts down. His cock sprang up against her bare buttocks. He removed his fingers as she guided him inside her, pushing against him so that he went in deep.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered.

‘Don’t speak.’

He heard the sound of Frank’s body rolling over the top of the Micra. He felt his head smack against the windscreen, pain shooting through his body. He moved in and out of her as she put her hands on the mirror and lowered her head. He wanted to explode inside her, fuck the pain and guilt and bullshit away.

She lifted a hand from the mirror, raised her head and slapped herself in the face. It was a clumsy action, but hard, and her head rocked with the impact. He froze. She looked at him in the mirror.

‘Don’t stop.’

‘But . . .’

‘And don’t fucking speak.’

She ground against him faster and he began again, in and out, feeling himself close to coming. She slapped herself again, harder this time, then again and again. Her hair was tangled in a mess over her face, but he could see her skin was red, her eyes wet, marks of tears on her cheeks. She kept hitting herself as he thrust against her, forcing her pelvis into the edge of the sink.

He saw something out of the corner of his eye, a red flash, darkening to purple. He turned his head, but the glimmers moved too. He suddenly felt sick, his nostrils full of the stench of burning. A searing pain pummelled across his forehead and down his side, making one side of his body convulse in shock. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, his face contorted and melting, then he lost all control of his body, felt himself falling backwards towards the cold floor, his mind disintegrating into blackness and silence.

He stood at the top of the Radical Road, gazing out over a city shimmering in starlight, watching himself drive up Queen’s Drive down below. The Micra was huge, three times a normal car size, with tracks instead of wheels and a strange glow radiating from inside. He could clearly see himself at the wheel, Zoe alongside, Charlie smacking the back of his seat, all three of them laughing.

An army of people marched down the road, not flinching as the Micra ploughed through them like a tank, crushing them or knocking them high up into the air. The people marched on into the slaughter. The figure of him at the wheel was laughing as he smashed into body after body.

Up on the cliff, he shook his head. He launched himself from the edge and flew upwards before swooping down towards the copse of trees where the Micra-tank was still creating carnage. As he got closer he saw that the people weren’t random strangers, they were arranged in repeating groups – him, Adele and Ryan pulling a collie on a lead. They were smiling as they were torn apart by the vehicle, sharing a serene, angelic look which made him lose concentration and tumble out of the sky, down towards the mass of destruction below, arms swiping at the air, wind shrieking in his ears, lungs unable to breathe, heart dead, a cold stone in his chest. He hit the ground and it felt like an embrace.

Then came the pain. It didn’t sweep in or sneak up, but landed like a jackhammer in his head, crushing all thought. His body stiffened with the intensity of it, every nerve ending alive with the stimulation, sending screaming messages to his brain. His brain. Pulsing and throbbing and aching, it felt as if it was desperate to escape his skull, blinding flashes across his forehead and temples, thrusting round to the base of his neck and back again, no escape.

He smelled burning. Maybe his brain frying in the pain. He heard voices. Talking about him, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. He heard a click then a few moments later received an overwhelming wash of relief, a familiar dampening down, a monumental suppression of the agony, like a glacier pushing down on the land beneath it. Morphine. Sweet fucking beautiful morphine.

More voices, drifting away as he receded into the glorious relief of a dreamless sleep.

Eventually he bobbed back up. He sensed that time had passed. The pain was still there, but like an echo of before, a repressed memory.

Voices again. Two men. He recognised one of them.

He took a slow, careful breath, as if using his lungs for the first time. He opened his eyes.

Charlie and an older man at the end of his bed. He was in hospital. White doctor coats and antiseptic. Their lips were moving but the sound was out of sync, like a badly tracked movie clip. He closed his eyes, felt the intense weight of his eyelids, then opened them again.

The older man looked at him, said something to Charlie, then walked away. Charlie turned to him and smiled. It was a genuine smile, but it also hid something.

‘Hey, Bro.’

Billy tried to speak, but no sound came out. Charlie poured a cup of water and raised it to Billy’s mouth.

‘Here, small sips.’

Billy wet his lips and tongue, felt the cool liquid slip down his throat. He pushed away the cup.

‘What happened?’

‘Take it easy, all in good time. You in much pain?’

Billy felt the ghost of his earlier distress. He wasn’t in pain, but he nodded anyway.

Charlie pushed a button connected to a drip in Billy’s arm, and more morphine flooded his body, a thick, fuzzy glow of detachment.

Charlie sat on the bed, gearing himself up for something.

‘What is it?’ Billy said.

‘I won’t lie to you, Bro, it was fucking scary, but you should be OK.’

Charlie looked down for a second then back up.

‘According to the MRI scan you had a cerebral aneurysm.’

‘What?’

‘It’s basically when some of the blood vessels in your brain burst.’

‘How?’

‘Causes vary, it can be because of high blood pressure or atherosclerosis . . .’

‘Wait . . .’

‘That’s high cholesterol in the blood.’

Billy’s head pulsed away. He felt his throat constrict.

Charlie looked nervous. ‘Aneurysms can also be caused by head trauma.’

Billy stared at him for a long time. ‘The accident?’

Charlie looked around him. ‘Keep it down. Yeah, maybe the accident. Could be that some of the cerebral artery walls were weakened in the knock you got. Just waiting to blow whenever you got the blood pumping.’

He looked closely at Billy.

‘Speaking of which, do you remember where you were when you passed out?’

Billy closed his eyes. A mess of blurry visions swam in his mind. His face melting in a mirror. A line of white powder on ceramic, snorted up through a steel straw. Adele slapping herself until she was crying, her skin raw, hair tangled over her face.

‘Yeah.’

Charlie edged closer. ‘What the hell were you thinking?’

Billy shook his head.

‘Fucking the widow in a pub toilet?’

‘How . . .’

‘She did good, the widow. Got help straight away. Your pants were still at your ankles when the paramedics showed up. I’ve managed to keep that from Zoe. What the fuck is going on, Billy?’

Billy struggled to breathe.

‘I know about the coke. Blood tests came back. I’ve managed to keep that quiet as well. I’m pulling in shitloads of favours to cover for you, I hope you realise that. You know the coke probably set off the aneurysm, that and the sex. Holy shit.’

Billy’s lungs were full of wet concrete. Swathes of morphine still coursed through his veins, soaking into his bones, but he could already feel the smothering effects wearing off, the spectre of pain lurking in the back of his mind, ready to pounce.

‘Jeanie?’ he said.

‘What?’

‘I had Jeanie with me. In the pub. She was tied to a table.’

‘While you were in the bogs snorting and screwing? Nice.’

‘Where is she?’

Charlie shook his head and sighed. ‘I’ll find out. She’s probably still at the pub. Either that, or your friendly widow took her home. She turned down the offer to ride in the ambulance with you, by the way. Probably for the best, in the circumstances, don’t you think? What are you going to tell Zoe? She’ll be in to visit soon.’

Billy pushed the heel of a hand into his eye socket, just to feel something.

‘I don’t know.’

‘She needs looking after, you know. You’re not the only one suffering in this whole mess. She doesn’t need you cheating on her with the widow of the man . . .’ He trailed off. ‘This is so fucked up.’

Billy lifted a hand to the bump on his temple, and was surprised to touch bandages. Several layers of thick, rough cotton, by the feel of it, wrapped round the top half of his head. He ran a hand over his crown and down towards the back of his neck. Charlie reached out quickly and pulled his hand away.

‘Careful.’

Billy felt a shiver go through him. ‘What?’

‘You’re lucky to be alive.’

‘What happened?’

‘You had to undergo surgery, it was a life-threatening situation. I signed the release forms.’

‘What kind of surgery?’

‘The brain surgery kind.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘A cerebral aneurysm causes intracranial pressure. That’s pressure in the brain, in the cerebral arteries, in the cerebrospinal fluid. Your brain swelled up. Basically, your skull was like a pressure cooker. That pressure had to be released.’

‘How?’

‘There are different ways, but you weren’t responding. It was a last resort. They had to take drastic action.’

‘Like?’

‘That guy I was talking to before, he’s a brain surgeon. He performed an emergency decompressive craniotomy.’

‘Fucking hell, Charlie, in English.’

‘It’s a procedure where part of the skull is removed. It gives the swelling brain room to expand without getting damaged.’

Billy stared. ‘You mean I’ve got a fucking hole in my head.’

Charlie nodded.

‘Jesus Christ.’

‘It’s not as bad as it sounds. I mean, it’s far from ideal . . .’

‘You think?’

‘Obviously there’s a risk of infection – meningitis, brain abscess . . .’

‘Whoah.’

Charlie put a hand on Billy’s leg. ‘Those are worst-case scenarios. Most likely they’ll be able to perform a cranioplasty once they’re happy that the swelling has gone down enough. They’ll put a plastic plate across the opening, it’s standard.’

‘I have a hole in my head.’

‘I know.’ Charlie tried to sound reassuring. ‘But chill your boots. The last thing you need is to get worked up about it.’

‘That’s easy for you to say.’

He felt an overwhelming nausea sweep through him, his tongue sweating, his gut roiling. Charlie spotted the look on his face, lifted a container out from beneath the bed and put it under his chin.

‘That’ll be the anaesthetic, takes a while to wear off.’

Billy felt vomit and bile thrust up his throat and out, splattering into the container, thick mucus dribbling down his chin. He retched two more times then took the glass of water from his brother and sipped, swilling then spitting.

‘Done?’ Charlie said.

Billy nodded weakly. He felt light-headed and dizzy, eased himself back into his pillows.

Charlie got up, holding the container. ‘I’ll get rid of this. You need some rest anyway. Try to get some sleep, I’ll be back in a bit.’

Billy watched him turn and walk down the corridor of the ward. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the throbbing sensation in his brain.