Hit and Run (14 page)

‘I’m not going back to hospital.’

Charlie tilted his head and raised his eyebrows. ‘Yes you are.’

‘No.’

‘I promised Zoe I’d make you go back.’

‘Ah, Zoe.’ Billy leaned against the bar. ‘How is she?’

‘I know she found out about you and the widow from Dean. She’s upset, how do you think she is? But she still cares about you.’

Billy looked at Jeanie, now settled in a comfortable heap at his feet.

‘Look, I’ll go back to hospital, but I want to take Jeanie for a walk first.’

Charlie frowned. ‘Don’t be stupid, I can do that once you’re back at ERI.’

‘No, I want to do it. Come with me.’

Charlie was about to argue but Billy was up and walking towards the door. He clicked his fingers. Jeanie got up and followed him. Charlie shook his head and made after them both.

Billy panted with every upward step, sweat slicking his forehead, the bandages on his head itchy and tight.

‘This is crazy,’ Charlie said.

He’d moaned and complained all the way from the pub. Past the Commie Pool, down the road, across the roundabout away from Queen’s Drive and up the hill.

‘You have to get back to hospital, Bro, I’m not fucking joking when I say this could kill you.’

‘I know, you’re only concerned for my health.’

Charlie stopped behind him. ‘Don’t say it like that. I am.’

Billy didn’t stop or look back. ‘I know you are.’

Jeanie was up ahead sniffing around the gorse at the edge of the path, nose to the ground, following a hidden scent.

‘I know what you’re doing,’ Charlie shouted after Billy. ‘It’s ridiculous. We all went through it, not just you.’

Billy stopped with a sigh and looked back down the path.

‘Have you ever been up the Radical Road before?’ He nodded up the slope.

‘You know I haven’t.’

‘Well, come on.’ Billy turned. ‘It’s a nice view.’

Charlie stood for a moment then followed his brother up the hill.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ he said under his breath.

He caught up in a few strides, Billy still doing a slow shuffle forwards, trying to catch his breath.

‘Please come with me to hospital.’

‘Stop asking me,’ Billy said, determination in his voice. ‘I will once we’ve done this.’

‘Done what, exactly?’

Billy didn’t answer.

They trudged on in silence. It was still light enough to see where they were going, even at one o’clock in the morning. Crazy Scottish summertime. The heat of the day still simmered over the land, refusing to leave completely. It was never like this. The weather couldn’t last, it would break soon. There wasn’t a breath of wind, the closeness bringing earthy smells to Billy’s nose, clogging his mind. He was on the alert for that burning smell, the one that seemed to indicate a seizure or whatever it was on the way. That and the flashes in the corner of his eye. He felt tremors ripple through his body as he thought about it, anticipation of the big one, another wave of blood into his synapses that would end it all.

The path flattened as they reached the top and Billy stopped for more rest. The solemn cliffs to their right were dark, solid witnesses to all his stupidity. The slope down to their left was as dramatic as ever, tangles of gorse blossom seeming to hum in the thick air. The sky was a viscous violet, occasional stars punching through the blanket, faint glimmers from a time before human struggle.

‘It’s beautiful up here,’ Billy said. He eased himself on to a large rock, feeling the uneven stone against his buttocks. ‘So peaceful.’

Charlie stared at Billy as he tried to get comfortable on the rock.

‘You’re really suffering, aren’t you, Bro?’

Billy rubbed at his bandages and smiled, but kept looking out at the city.

‘You noticed?’

There was only the faint shush of traffic up and down the streets running south out of the city centre. Occasionally a car or taxi would sputter up Queen’s Drive, moving down a gear as they ploughed up the slope, past the small clump of trees where it happened, shifting back up a gear and away as they levelled off and headed for the roundabout.

Billy found his attention drawn by them. He couldn’t take his eyes off the headlights, the spreading lances of clarity that struck out from the front of each car, cutting through the half-light, paving the way for a tonne and a half of metal and plastic to power along, hoping nothing would get in the way.

He was aware of Charlie watching him as he gazed at the road, but couldn’t drag his eyes away. He was unable to control himself. He had been unable to control himself ever since it happened.

‘We fucked up,’ Charlie said.

Billy was engrossed in watching another taxi chugging up the hill far below.

‘I said we fucked up.’

Billy held his breath until the taxi had passed the copse of trees.

‘Yes, we did.’

He raised his eyes to stare across the city again. The castle looked fake, like a toy fort.

‘I’m sorry,’ Charlie said. ‘Is that what you want to hear?’

The arteries of traffic and people that criss-crossed the city glimmered yellow, carrying life and hopes and fears in every direction. Billy wondered what it would be like, to be down there with them. To be part of something again.

Charlie moved round until he was standing in front of Billy. Jeanie was snuffling somewhere over near the cliffs behind, he could hear her.

‘Look at me,’ Charlie said.

Billy slowly turned to look at Charlie’s face. It was hidden in shadow, dark crevices around the eyes.

‘I’m sorry.’

Billy stared at his brother’s face for a long time.

‘So am I.’

He looked down. Charlie was only a couple of feet away from the edge. A hundred feet of scree and gorse behind him.

‘I don’t know what I was thinking,’ Billy said. ‘With Adele.’

‘You weren’t yourself.’

‘Zoe must hate me.’

‘She doesn’t hate you.’

A hard shove to the chest now would be murder. Charlie would never survive the fall.

‘Have you talked about me?’

‘Of course. We’ve been worried sick.’

‘I guess she was upset after she found out about Adele.’

‘Bro, you have no idea. She was in a total state.’

Billy couldn’t see his brother’s eyes properly, just dark pools of shade.

‘But you calmed her down?’

‘What are brothers for?’

Billy felt a smile spread on his lips. ‘Good question. What are brothers for?’

‘Looking out for each other, that’s what.’

Billy could tell from the way Charlie’s facial muscles tightened that he was smiling too. Two brothers, having a heart to heart, smiling away.

‘Especially me and you,’ Charlie said. ‘Since Mum and everything.’

Billy narrowed his eyes, trying to look at Charlie’s face, but the thin light made it impossible to make anything out.

‘If I can’t trust you, I can’t trust anyone,’ he said.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Billy looked down at Queen’s Drive, a small car plugging its way up the slope towards the trees. Someone heading home after a great night out, home to bed, to sleep and wake tomorrow refreshed.

Billy remembered Charlie with his arm round Zoe, both of them naked in bed. The contented looks on their faces, not a care in the world.

He turned to his brother.

‘Tell me honestly, Charlie. Did you feel a pulse on Frank Whitehouse?’

Charlie put a hand on Billy’s shoulder. Billy’s arm and chest muscles twitched.

‘I swear to God I didn’t.’

‘Swear on Mum’s grave.’

‘I swear on Mum’s grave I thought he was dead.’

‘Anything else you want to tell me?’ It was as if someone else had said the words, but they came out of Billy’s mouth.

‘Like what?’

‘Like anything.’

No talking, just the rumble of the city at Charlie’s back.

Far off to the left, Billy noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Smoke. Impossible to tell the source from here, it was a few miles away, but a steady column of black was billowing up into the lilac spread of sky. Billy thought he heard the distant wail of sirens.

Charlie still hadn’t spoken. Billy felt the weight of his injuries pressing down on him, crushing him. His eyelids drooped and he raised an unsteady hand to the bump on his head. It didn’t seem to have gone down at all since the accident. When was that? He’d lost all sense of time. Maybe he would have the lump on his head for ever, a permanent reminder.

‘We need to get you to hospital,’ Charlie said.

Billy had his head in both hands now. ‘You didn’t answer my question.’

‘What question?’

‘I asked if you had anything else to tell me.’

Billy raised his head. Charlie’s hand was still on his shoulder.

‘No,’ Charlie said. ‘Nothing.’

Billy put his hand on Charlie’s wrist and gripped tight. He still couldn’t make out his brother’s face properly. Over his shoulder in the distance the smoke was still coughing upwards, and Billy thought he saw a flicker of flame licking the rooftops down there. Just a sliver.

‘Do you think I should try to make it up with Zoe?’

‘I think you should get back to hospital right now, or it won’t matter a fuck what you do.’

‘That’s not an answer.’

Billy’s grip tightened on his brother’s wrist. He felt sick as he glanced behind Charlie and down the steep slope to Queen’s Drive.

‘I don’t know what the hell you should do.’

‘I’m asking your advice. As my big brother.’

‘I think you should worry about it once you’re better.’

‘And when will that be? It feels like I’ll never be better.’

Charlie placed his other hand on top of Billy’s.

‘Look, Bro, you’ve suffered post-traumatic stress and serious injuries. You need to lie down and do nothing for as long as it takes to press the reset button on your life.’

Billy let out a laugh. ‘Press the reset button? Switch me off and back on again, yeah? See if I manage to reboot?’

‘If you like.’

Billy felt himself squeezing his brother’s wrist. Charlie’s other hand was covering his, and Billy felt his hesitation.

‘You have no idea what it’s been like for me.’

‘Of course . . .’

‘My brother and my girlfriend betraying me.’

‘What?’

A thudding silence.

‘You both persuaded me to leave Frank in the road when I was going to report it.’

A loosening of the tension in Charlie’s grip. He let out a breath.

‘I’m not going over all that again.’

He lowered his hands.

Billy felt the electrical circuit broken, their link to each other severed.

Charlie turned side on, looking to the south of the city.

‘Looks like something’s burning, out near The Inch.’

Billy looked at his brother’s outline, thick against the sickly shimmer of street lights beyond. He had never been able to fight his brother. Never been able to win, at least. Bigger, stronger, smarter. The closest thing to a dad he’d ever had.

He gazed at the drop directly beneath them, his blood thumping in his skull. He felt something wet against his hand. Jeanie’s tongue. Jeanie nuzzled in for comfort and he grabbed her emaciated body and held on to her. He squeezed her until she writhed out of his grasp and mooched away to a nearby bush.

Something clicked in Billy’s head.

‘Did you say The Inch?’

Charlie turned. ‘Yeah, around there anyway.’

Billy got up and stood next to his brother. The smoke was obvious now, spreading up into the night, thinning out and diffusing into the ether. The tips of flames occasionally licked above the roofline.

Billy gazed at it for a second, then pulled his phone from his pocket. He made a call and waited. Four rings, then a pick up.

‘Rose?’

‘Billy? Jesus, it’s the middle of the night.’

‘I’m up on the Radical Road . . .’

‘What are you doing there? You’ve just had brain surgery.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I have a question for you.’

‘You’re supposed to be resting.’

‘I know. Just one question. Where do the Mackies live?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Just tell me.’

He heard a yawn, a sigh. ‘Walter Scott Avenue.’

‘Is that in The Inch?’

‘Yeah. Why?’

Billy thought of Dean and his goons. Burning clothes, petrol canister, laughing and joking.

He stared at the smoke, fingers spreading out above the city.

Charlie was looking at him with a confused frown.

‘I think our story just escalated again,’ Billy said.

Two dozen neighbours stood watching as firefighters clumped about in their heavy gear looking busy. There were three engines blocking the street, each with a couple of men directing a hose at different parts of the sixties pebble-dashed house that was already half demolished by the flames pouring through window frames and doorways. The flashing lights from the engines mingled with the bonfire to create an unearthly glow, like a party in purgatory.

Some of the neighbours were in pyjamas and nightgowns, others in clothes they’d thrown on. There were lots of kids, smaller ones clinging to parents, older ones in groups laughing and mucking about. This was clearly the most exciting thing to happen to Walter Scott Avenue in a while.

Billy parked the Micra and climbed out. He got suspicious stares from nearby. Not one of the locals. A nightshift news hack and a photographer that Billy recognised were standing close to the engines, one soliciting quotes from anyone he could find, the other snapping away for tomorrow’s paper. They probably wouldn’t realise the significance of who the owners of the house were, but they’d get told when they got back to the office.

Billy kept away from them. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He was meant to be in hospital. But this was his story, he was all over it, everything about it had seeped into his bloodstream and infected his brain.

He shook his head and cricked his neck. Shafts of pain everywhere. He swallowed two painkillers and two uppers then leaned against the car for a moment. Jeanie was in the front passenger seat, shuffling around in the tight space, tail flicking, eyes bright with the reflection of the fire.

Rose had thanked him for the information and told him in no uncertain terms to get back to hospital. Charlie had told him the same thing. He’d agreed with both of them and walked slowly back down the Radical Road, Jeanie close to him, Charlie alongside, the three of them in heavy silence.

Outside the flat, Billy said he didn’t want to go inside in case he saw Zoe. He didn’t want to face up to that. Charlie said he understood, and ducked inside to pick up the car key to drive Billy to hospital. As soon as Charlie was in the door, Billy scurried to the Micra, bustled Jeanie in, started the engine and pulled out. His hands trembled on the wheel as he imagined slamming into a parked car, or simply not stopping at the end of the street, ploughing across South Clerk Street into the kebab shop over the road.

He turned left and headed south. He followed the plumes of black smoke, down Minto Street and past Cameron Toll, until he was at The Inch. Didn’t take long, but his phone rang four times. Charlie. Fuck him. Brothers looking out for each other. Like fuck.

Now, standing in front of the Mackies’ torched home, he wasn’t sure why he’d come. Maybe just out of guilt. It was his fault this had happened. It was all his fault. But so what? These weren’t exactly nice people, they were violent psychos and criminals. It was good that their house burnt down, one less vipers’ nest in the city.

He scanned the crowd, looking for Wayne or Jamie Mackie. Come to think of it, he’d never actually seen Jamie in the flesh, only his mugshot in several of the
Standard
 ’s recent stories. But he had shotgun wounds to his leg and arm, so he should be easy to spot.

There were plenty of the Mackies’ type hanging around, zigzags in their hair, lurid gold chains, expensive chunky white trainers, muscles on show, air of arrogant cockiness.

He spotted the girl. The one who’d been hanging around with Wayne at the hospital. She was standing nearest to the blaze with a couple of other girls, none of them much older than eighteen, if that. She was twirling a strand of hair around her finger with one hand, taking pictures with her phone.

He walked over, his feet unsteady as he pushed himself away from the car. Behind him, Jeanie nudged at the glass of the passenger window, keen to follow.

‘Where are Wayne and Jamie?’ he said.

She turned. He saw a tongue piercing glinting in the flames. The heat from the building was intense here, and he felt like clawing at the itch under his bandages, scraping away the scalp underneath.

‘Who the fuck wants to know?’

She looked at him side on with big brown eyes, like she was posing for a Facebook profile. Used to being looked at. She was pretty but it was hidden, layers of make-up, sharp fringe, baggy top and micro skirt, big hoop earrings.

‘I’m a friend of theirs.’

‘Like fuck you are.’ She laughed. Her two pals turned and began scoping him.

‘OK, I’m not. But I met Wayne at hospital. After Jamie got shot. You were there.’

She examined him closely through her hair.

‘Looks like you should be in hospital yersel.’

She glanced at the top of his head. His hand came up and smoothed over the bandages, from forehead to crown to nape of the neck, over the hole that seemed so natural now.

‘Yeah, you could say that.’

The girl tilted her head. ‘I remember you from hospital. You were there with some old tart.’

‘Yeah.’

‘You a reporter, like?’

‘Kind of.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I am a reporter.’ Billy pointed at his head. ‘But I’m supposed to be on sick leave.’

‘So what the fuck are you doing here?’

‘Just interested.’ He turned to where the firefighters were struggling to subdue flames lashing the house. ‘That is the Mackie place, yeah?’

The girl didn’t say anything.

‘I take it the lads weren’t inside?’

The girl rolled her eyes and shook her head. Her pals’ attention drifted away, they were now making lewd comments and speculating about the firemen’s cocks.

‘Any idea where they are?’

She shot him a dagger look. ‘Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.’

‘Of course not.’

Billy glanced at the house. The blaze was tearing at the roof now. The place was being gutted, it would have to be knocked down. Everything ruined.

He turned back to the girl, who was still half facing him, as if not quite rejecting or ignoring him. He took that as a cue.

‘I reckon you might have the number for one of the boys in that phone of yours.’

‘I might. What of it?’

‘Fancy giving it to me?’

‘You trying to chat me up?’

‘The phone number.’

‘I don’t think so.’

She smiled as she gave him a withering stare. He smiled back.

‘What about for money?’

He almost laughed at the reaction. She was suddenly more alert, like a deer startled in the woods. She tried to cover it, too late.

‘What kind of money?’

Billy pulled out his wallet and opened it. Just a few tenners. He counted them out, showing her.

‘Fifty.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘It’s all I have.’

She turned to look at the blaze. She lifted her phone and took a picture of the flames. Without turning, she spoke.

‘Go on, then.’

She was holding her other hand out, down at her side, where her friends couldn’t see.

‘Number first.’

She looked sideways at him. She was pushing buttons on her phone.

‘Look at this picture.’ She spoke loudly, for the benefit of her mates.

She handed him the phone. On the screen it said ‘Wayne’ then a mobile number. He memorised it, then passed the phone back to her.

He slipped the money into her open hand. She deftly tucked it inside her bra, her back turned to her mates.

Billy got his own phone out and punched the number into the address book before he forgot it.

He looked up. The girl had moved away. She was swapping derisive snorts with the others, all of them throwing looks his way.

‘What’s your name?’ he called out.

‘Fuck you.’

‘It was you who picked up that collie from the Dog and Cat Home, wasn’t it?’

She gave him a blank stare.

‘I dunno what you’re talking about.’

‘You know what the Mackies did to that dog, don’t you?’

There seemed to be a flicker of something in her eyes.

‘Look, just fuck off, will you?’

He gazed one last time at the burning house, then turned and walked back to the car.