Reilly did everything at a very slow pace.
Axel watched him calmly. ‘And where do you think you’re going?’ he asked.
‘Home,’ Reilly replied. ‘I’m going home to my flat.’
‘Walking, are you? You intend to plod along the road with that cage in your hand? Do you know what time it is?’
Reilly opened the front door and went outside on to the grass bank.
‘You look like a ghost in that coat,’ Axel shouted after him. ‘No one’s going to give you a lift.’
Reilly left. His coat-tails flapped, the travel kennel swung in his hand. After an hour trudging along the narrow track through the woods, he reached the main road, and later that morning a lorry driver transporting timber gave him a lift.
CHAPTER 34
He fed the kitten.
He watched it eat.
I’ve dithered my whole life, he thought, but now I’m going to be a man of action.
When the kitten had finished its food, it curled up in a corner and went to sleep. Reilly looked around the flat. He had made a decision and he was determined. His eyes fell on the Viking ship bottle his mother had given him. It sat on a shelf above the window. Carefully he took it down, held it up to the light and admired the colour of the liquid. The day has come when I need a stiff cognac, he said to himself.
He took a clean glass from a cupboard and poured himself a drink. This will do the job, he thought. Next he needed a notepad and a pen, which he found in the kitchen. He pottered around for a while. He had several things to take care of. He still felt a strong determination calmly propelling him on.
The kitten was sleeping. Reilly opened the kitchen window to get some fresh air. He looked down on the black tarmac. It was wet after a brief shower, but the sun shone now. Reilly sat down to write his confession. He forced himself to think back, to try to comprehend how the party at Skjæret had led him to this point. Again he looked out of the window. He spotted a seagull soaring on a current of air. The sight of the white bird moved him. He got the idea that someone had sent it as a sign. The bird was proof of a purpose, which had finally made itself known elegantly.
He looked at the kitten.
John Coffey had a mouse, he thought, it had lived in his cell and he had called it Mr Jingles. Perry Smith had a squirrel. And I have a kitten. What will become of you? Perhaps you’ll be put down and then ground into pet food. Perhaps a Rottweiler will eat you for breakfast, literally. For a long time such thoughts tormented him. Then he started to write. The pen moved swiftly, the words came easily. He forgot time and place because he was back in the flat with Irene. Philip Reilly wrote. The sun rose in the sky, sending a beam through the window. It warmed his neck. He lived on a quiet street and today was a Saturday, but every now and then a car would drive past. At times he could hear people’s voices. And then there was the sound of a car door slamming. The car seemed to have stopped outside his block, but no one was likely to visit him at this time in the morning. He wasn’t expecting anyone so he carried on writing. When the doorbell rang, he sat chewing his pen for a while. The interruption weakened his resolve. But someone did see us, he thought. I have been expecting this moment.
He went to open the door. Axel burst in.
‘God’s peace, Reilly. That’s how you Muslims greet each other, isn’t it?’
Axel was holding the revolver. He went inside and sat down at the kitchen table where he instantly noticed the Viking ship filled with cognac.
‘Good God, what have you got here? I didn’t know you had such a naff side to you,’ he said. ‘Cognac in a ship?’
He twisted and turned the ship, and after studying it thoroughly, he put it down again.
‘Do you remember when we were kids?’ he asked. ‘Do you remember what we did on rainy days?’
Reilly was unable to answer. Axel had disrupted his momentum and he lost his train of thought.
‘We would go outside and squash snails,’ Axel said. ‘When it rained they would crawl out of the ditch and on to the tarmac. Once we saw more than a hundred just on the way to the corner shop.’
Reilly knew what was coming next.
‘And we would step on them,’ Axel said. ‘A trail of slime followed us all the way to the sweetshop.’
‘Why are you going on about the snails now?’ Reilly asked.
‘Because you distinguished yourself even then,’ Axel said. ‘You were so calculating. If you put your foot on the snail’s head, a kind of green slime would come out. But if you placed your foot on its tail, some disgusting yellow substance that looked like butter would squirt out. It was a choice you made every time you lifted your foot. Green or yellow.’
‘They were just snails,’ Reilly protested.
Axel noticed the notepad on the table.
‘What are you writing?’ he asked. ‘I hope you’re not snitching?’
He grabbed the notepad.
‘It’s just some nonsense I’m writing for myself,’ Reilly mumbled.
Axel read a few lines and then slammed his fist on the table.
‘Could we help it?’ he barked. ‘Did we intend to hurt Kim?’
‘No,’ Reilly stuttered.
Axel lost his composure. Reilly had never seen him so irate. His anger has been latent the whole time, he thought, and now it’s come to the surface.
‘Do you know what evil is?’ Axel yelled. ‘What is evil, Reilly? Do you want me to show you?’
Reilly had no time to react. Axel strode to the corner and grabbed the kitten. He held it in his hands, in his fists of steel. The kitten started to squeal. A high-pitched, heart-breaking wail that broke Reilly’s heart. Axel moved to the open kitchen window. He held the kitten by the neck, leaned out and looked down at the tarmac.
‘This is evil,’ he said.
And he hurled the kitten out of the window.
It flew through the air like a small grey and white ball.
Reilly staggered to his bed and collapsed. The sight of the kitten being thrown from the window was more than he could take. He struggled to breathe. He clenched his fists so hard that his nails dug into his palms. The kitten falling out of the window, he thought, like a tiny flying squirrel with splayed legs. The kitten hitting the tarmac head first. He wanted to beat Axel to a pulp. He tensed every muscle as he sat there on the edge of the bed, gathering the necessary strength.
Axel was sitting down at the kitchen table again. He raised the glass of cognac and held it up to the light. What happened next was such a shock that Reilly forgot all about attacking Axel. He simply stared at him, barely able to believe his own eyes. It would appear that the kitten killer needed some Dutch courage. He lifted the glass to his lips and drained it in one gulp.
Reilly had watched closely and he was not mistaken. The glass was empty and the cognac was now inside Axel, where its considerable effect would soon manifest itself.
‘What did you put in the cognac?’ Axel frowned. ‘Seltzer? Did you add seltzer to the cognac?’
Reilly shook his head. He gripped the edge of the bed and fixed his gaze firmly on Axel’s face, which was no longer white with anger, but red with astonishment.
‘You shouldn’t have touched the cognac,’ Reilly said.
Axel lifted the Viking ship and read the label. Then he sniffed the glass. ‘It tasted salty,’ he said.
‘We have a problem now,’ Reilly said.
Axel licked his lips.
‘That cognac was meant for me,’ Reilly said. ‘It was laced with drugs.’
He held his breath. He was uncertain about what would happen next. It was a large dosage, and he had hoped that it might take him all the way to heaven, or hell – if that was where he belonged, he wasn’t sure – but he wanted to confess and then he wanted to be gone. Axel disappeared into the bathroom. He turned on the taps. Nothing happened for a while, then Reilly heard dry retching. Then the sound of someone falling over followed by violent thrashing and some rasping noises, which suggested that the overdose was inducing respiratory failure. He thought he heard the towel rack being knocked over, too, and more noise ensued. Reilly sat on his bed, waiting. He felt broken as though they were both taking a beating. It went on for a long time. There seemed to be so much life trying to leave Axel’s large body. When it finally grew quiet, he went downstairs to collect the dead kitten.