‘If I were you,’ he said, ‘I’d try over there.’ He gestured towards the pend on the other side of the street.
‘Fair enough.’
Glenn watched Johnno cross the road, watched as he headed down the lane and disappeared behind a row of communal bins. He’d already retrieved his phone from his pocket. Once Johnno was out of sight, he flipped it open and started punching numbers.
Mike wasn’t at all ready to die, and if he was going to live, so was Laura. It was his fault she was here. She’d only come looking for him because she’d been worried, which meant she cared about him. Least he could do in return was save her life, or (more likely, admittedly) perish in the attempt.
The air in the snooker hall felt electric. Hate had taken a step forward, and Chib Calloway didn’t look like doing anything other than aiding and abetting. Alice had just stopped cursing the pair of them out, having received a slap for her efforts. Westie had bitten his lip, saying nothing, so she’d vented her spleen on him for another half-minute or so. At the far end of the row, Jimmy Allison looked beaten by life and accepting of his fate. It seemed to Mike that he’d lost some dignity and control of his bodily functions to go with the blood on his shirt front.
‘I’ve been in this goddamned country too long,’ Hate was saying. ‘All I want to do is go home – whether I get my client’s money or not.’ He’d turned towards Calloway, a sudden sneer making his face even uglier. ‘I know Edvard will be keen to hear about the fake you were going to try to fool him with.’
‘I’ve told you a dozen times, I didn’t know it was a fake!’ Calloway growled. But then his own face lost some of its tension as he realised what Hate had just said.
‘You haven’t told him?’ he asked with ominous calm.
‘Just get me the money and he need never know.’
‘But I’m already in negotiations,’ Calloway was saying. Mike saw that the gangster was looking towards Westie. Yes… because the Hell’s Angels back in Scandinavia did a lot of international trading, and fine art made for useful collateral. On Calloway’s instructions, Westie was going to make more fakes with which to dupe Hate’s employers… and those same employers didn’t know as yet that they’d been tricked with the Utterson…
Mike was impressed. He could see Calloway calculating all the possibilities and permutations in an instant. And when he made his move, it was lightning fast, too. Hate had turned away from him to face the line of hostages again, trying to decide who would be first to die. He didn’t hear the snooker cue being lifted from the table, didn’t feel the change in air pressure as it was swung at the back of his head. The force of contact snapped the wood in half with a crack, splinters falling into Mike’s lap. Alice screamed, and Laura gave a little yelp. The giant stumbled and almost fell on top of Mike, but he didn’t go down, not quite. Calloway started raining blows from behind, yelling for his henchmen to come and help him. The door opened and one man ran in.
‘Johnno!’ Chib commanded. ‘Whack him hard!’
‘About fucking time,’ Johnno snarled, joining the fray. He got a good kick at the doubled-over Hate, blood spurting from the giant’s nose. But Hate was already fighting back, heaving Calloway halfway across the room with a shoulder charge. Mike realised that Alice was screaming again, but not in horror at the events unfolding right there in front of her – she was shouting for help, struggling against her bonds. Mike saw why: she was staring wide-eyed at the open door, beyond which lay the outside world, so reassuringly unchanged and unthreatening. A pavement, a lamppost, the roadway… Anyone passing would be bound to notice and fetch help. Maybe a passenger in a car, or a cruising cab-driver… It had dawned on Westie, too. He wrestled with his chair until it tipped over. He started wriggling, using any purchase he could find, slithering and jerking his way towards anywhere that wasn’t here.
‘Don’t leave me!’ Alice yelled at him.
‘I’ll get help,’ he gasped, the heel of one shoe squeaking against the floor. As he moved, he left a slight trail in his wake and Mike was reminded – suddenly and absurdly – of a snail beginning some epically slow journey. He turned his head to check on Laura, but her eyes were on the wrestling match in front of her. There were flecks of blood on her cheeks, nose and forehead – Hate’s blood.
As for Jimmy Allison… his shoulders were heaving with a crazed species of laughter at the unfolding spectacle as Johnno launched himself on to Hate’s back, one arm around his throat. Calloway was upright again and preparing to charge. Mike was still impressed by the fluidity of the man’s thinking. An ally had become an enemy in the blink of an eye. He couldn’t be sure, though, whether Hate’s demise would necessarily lead to the group’s salvation, which was why he started working away at his own bonds. Westie was halfway to the door now, and Alice was still crying out for help. Calloway had a question for Johnno.
‘Where the hell’s Glenn?’
‘Thought he was right behind me.’ The reply came from between gritted teeth, as Johnno continued to squeeze the life from Hate. But then the giant powered himself backwards into one of the tables. Mike thought he could hear a sharp cracking sound – not dissimilar to the snapping of the cue – as Johnno’s spine connected with the table’s wooden rim. The arm fell from around Hate’s neck, and as Hate stepped away, Johnno slumped to the floor, face twisted in pain. Calloway meantime had aimed a kick where it hurts most, reminding Mike of school playground tactics. But it seemed to have little effect, and Hate swiped his gloved fist hard across the gangster’s jaw. The follow-up punch felled Calloway, knocking him unconscious to the floor. Hate took only a couple of moments to gather himself. Bubbles of blood appeared at both nostrils and his breathing was ragged. His face was near puce from the attempted strangulation. He staggered towards the door and slammed it shut, then bent down to drag Westie away from all hope of freedom. Westie screamed in agony as he was pulled along the floor by his hair. Hate hauled the chair upright again between Laura and Alice. A clump of Westie’s hair fell from his gloved hand as he removed it. Alice was yelling obscenities at the giant, but he ignored her. Instead, he reeled back towards Calloway and Johnno, assessing any level of threat they might still present. Satisfied, he turned his attention towards Mike and the others.
‘I’m going to kill you all,’ he spat, his voice hoarse. ‘And then I’m going home.’
‘Your employers won’t like it,’ Mike said coolly, ‘if you don’t take them their money. Remember – I’m the guy who can deliver it.’
But Hate was shaking his head. ‘A photograph of the corpses will suffice.’
‘You don’t think the police will show an interest?’
‘I’ll be long gone.’ He looked around him again. ‘Calloway has to die, and there can’t be witnesses.’ Hate pointed towards Mike. ‘I’ll be saving you till last, my friend.’
‘Does that make me the weakest?’
‘You’re all weak! This whole city is weak!’ Hate threw his head back ceilingwards and gave a little groan – not, it seemed to Mike, of pain, but rather of dismay at the blunt stupidity encountered so far on his adventure. ‘Someone like Calloway… he’s an idiot, and yet somehow he gets to be in charge? You’re fools, the lot of you.’
‘You might have a point.’
‘Oh, I do.’ A grin spread across the blood-smeared face as Hate reached behind him, into the collar of his shirt. Slowly he pulled out a slender, gleaming knife and started to survey his kingdom. Calloway, unconscious on the floor, blood trickling from one ear. Johnno in a heap, conscious but wishing otherwise, moaning in agony. And the five trussed figures in their chairs.
‘Best thing you can do,’ Mike stated, ‘is walk away from here before Glenn comes back with the cavalry.’