25
Jade Millar awoke to the sound of a newspaper being rustled by her bed. There was another sound, voices – Niall’s and Darry’s – that seemed to be increasing in volume. She sat up, tried to focus her gaze on the pair of them but they remained a blur. Just two bodies separated by an expanse of white paper. She rubbed her eyeballs, yawned and forced her cold feet into the trainers that sat next to the bed.
‘What’s going on?’ she said.
‘Oh, you’re finally awake?’ said Niall. ‘This is what’s going on!’ He grabbed the newspaper from Darry and ran to her side of the room. ‘Look, look at this.’
At first, Jade didn’t want to look. She wanted to stand in the shower, get some breakfast, coffee maybe. If this was the way the day was starting then it was not a good start at all. Just what was Niall doing with a newspaper? She’d never seen him with a newspaper, never known him to read one, they were so last century.
‘What am I looking at?’ She took the paper, squinted. The words and pictures on the page became even more of a blur, then started to move in and out of focus.
‘There!’ Darry dived behind her on the bed and stuck a finger towards the page. ‘Read it. Sound familiar?’
There was a picture of a group of men sitting at a desk behind nameplates and a water carafe, they looked a serious lot. As she read the caption beneath the picture she registered that they were police and something inside her chimed with recent events. A constricting panic gripped her chest.
‘Oh my God.’
‘Exactly,’ said Darry. ‘It’s Jim Tulloch they’re there for, you know the rest so you don’t need to read on, except for the last paragraph.’ Her brother rocked the bed where they sat as he got up, moved to the hallway and reached for his jacket.
Jade’s stomach was starting to turn over as she read the final comments on the newspaper story, a late addition which had clearly been appended after the reporter had filed the copy. ‘Mum. They’ve found Mum.’
Niall put an arm around her. ‘She’s in the hospital.’
‘What, why? What’s wrong with her?’
Darry was at the door again, fastening his jacket. ‘That’s what I’m going to find out.’
‘But you can’t,’ said Jade, gripping her stomach now. ‘What about me?’
‘You’ve got Niall there, and he’s got a baseball bat that nearly stoved my head in to look after you.’
Niall gripped Jade’s shoulders tighter. ‘We’ll be fine, Darry. Go and see how your mum is.’
Darry walked towards his sister, removed his hands from his pockets and placed them on either side of her face. There were tears on her cheeks, he rubbed them away with his thumbs. ‘Jade, I know it’s not been easy, but it’s over now, mostly. You just need to keep it together for a little while longer and then we’ll be fine, just like we were before.’
She looked up. ‘Before he came?’
Darry nodded. ‘Just like before.’
‘It won’t be like when Dad was still here, though.’ She tightened her hold on her stomach.
‘No, Jade, Dad’s gone but so’s Tulloch. There’s just you, me and Mum now.’
‘And …’ She turned to her boyfriend and flung a hand to her mouth but it wasn’t enough to stem the rapid vomiting.’
‘Jade,’ said Niall. ‘You OK?’
Darry stepped away, cleared a space for his sister to run to the bathroom. ‘Let her through.’
Niall retreated to the wall, then followed after Jade. Darry held him back. ‘It’s all right, she’s fine.’
‘She’s just been sick.’
‘Don’t worry about that. Just look after her while I’m away, Niall. Stay inside and stay away from the windows, keep the curtains drawn too. And if anyone comes to the door ignore it.’
The young lad didn’t look too sure, his gaze still locked on the bathroom door. ‘OK.’
‘And here, take these for you and Jade.’ He handed over a little plastic bag full of SIM cards. ‘I have all the numbers saved into my phone, they can’t trace us if we keep changing them.’
‘But what about you?’
‘I have a bunch of them too, we have to keep changing them, after every call. Do you understand?’
He nodded. ‘I’ll make sure Jade knows, too … Shouldn’t you get going?’
Darry made a final glance around the room, as if making sure he hadn’t left anything, then ran back to the bed and raised the mattress. He patted the divan with his free hand and retrieved a small package, wrapped in a ripped Tesco carrier. ‘I won’t leave this here with Jade the way she is.’
‘What is it?’ said Niall.
Darry opened the bag, removed a filthy oil cloth. Inside was a worn, black pistol.
‘Christ, where did you get that?’
‘I could tell you,’ he raised the Luger to Niall’s head, ‘but I’d have to kill you.’
Niall pushed the handgun away. ‘Bugger off. That’s not funny. Is it loaded?’
‘Don’t concern yourself with that.’ He tucked the pistol inside his coat and walked through the door.
It didn’t seem right to be hiding away in Fin’s flat, it made her feel like she was the one in trouble, but what had she done really? Jade didn’t want to feel the way she did, like a criminal. Tulloch had made her feel bad enough, for long enough. He was the one that should feel bad but he couldn’t feel anything now. That didn’t seem right either. Tulloch was gone but they were all still suffering because of him; why should he be the one to get away from all of this?
Things would be different when Tulloch was out of their lives, surely. She should feel different, but she didn’t, not really. If anything, she felt worse, she hated him more. The problem had increased, spread to more people. Darry and Niall were all wrapped up in it now, and so was her mum. She couldn’t think about her mum without sobbing. It wasn’t right, her mum didn’t deserve any of this.
As she cried, Jade saw her mum in hospital, wired up to machines with nurses rushing around her. What had happened? Would she ever see her again? It was her fault, wasn’t it? Jade accepted the blame, it was all her doing in the end. She was trapped, the flat was like a prison cell and she wanted her mum. If she was going to die she wasn’t going to die in a hospital bed, with Darry watching over her. The images intensified, grew in her mind. She saw herself getting the news from Darry. ‘Mum’s dead … She asked for you, at the end …’
‘No!’
‘Jade, what’s up?’ Niall called from inside the bathroom.
She ran from the bedroom into the hall, yanked the main door open and ran onto the stairwell.
At the sound of the door smashing into the wall Niall ran into the hall holding a white towel round his waist, ‘Jade … Jade … come back.’ He ran to the window at the front of the hallway and tugged back the blind. ‘Jade … Jade …’ She was bolting down the street, the white soles of her trainers flashing on every step as she made off.
Niall stood at the window, staring down the street until Jade was out of view. As she disappeared he planted his wet brow on the windowpane and closed his eyes. He had only closed his eyes for a few seconds when he reopened them and found himself returning another intense gaze.
‘Who the bloody hell are you?’ he mouthed, trying hard not to permit lip-reading. The man was stout, in his fifties and wearing a black leather jacket that stopped just beyond his waist. Niall looked the man up and down, black trousers and shoes too, and a black shirt. ‘It’s a country and western get-up, surely.’
Niall laughed as the man walked towards the building, but his amusement subsided the closer the man got. He never once let his stare drop, even as he was falling from view. When he was gone, Niall yanked his hand from the blinds and turned back to the now empty flat. He saw his wet footprints on the lino, following all the way down the hall to where he stood at the window. The main door was still open, swaying on its hinges; the sound of heavy footsteps echoed up the stairwell.