Crouching awkwardly, he left the desk and went to check through the window with the mirror.
There was movement. An engine was being revved. The cars in the barricade suddenly shuddered. As he watched, one of them slewed around and fell. He had a glimpse of a yellow mechanical arm and then the mirror exploded into fragments.
The belated report of the rifle came as the bullet chunked into the wall on the far side of the room. Kale counted to ten, ignoring the cuts from the glass, then fired one barrel blindly through the window. He dodged back before anyone could draw a line on him, moved to a different position and snapped off the second barrel.
He dropped to the floor, reaching for the shells. Five left.
Three more for the bastards. A sound came from behind him.
He slapped the breech closed with only one shell in it and spun round, bringing the gun to bear. The photographer was in the doorway.
It had taken all the strength Ben had to crawl up the steps.
He saw Kale aiming the shotgun at him for a second time but couldn’t move. He’d no idea how long it had taken him to drag himself up there, how long he’d lain unconscious. He was slick with his own blood. He cradled what was left of his left hand in the crook of his right arm. Every now and again, without warning, the pain from it would whirr closer until he almost blacked out. It was the one he’d stretched out towards Kale. The shotgun blast had taken most of it away before smashing into him.
Through the ragged hole in his coat, the armoured vest that he’d picked up from the street outside was visible, its outer fabric shredded above his heart.
It had been damaged before he put it on, looked as though it had been struck by something when the barricade collapsed on the police. Ben had hidden it beneath his own coat so that if Kale did shoot him he wouldn’t see it and blow his head off instead. It had stopped the blast from killing him, but his ribs felt as if they’d been crushed. Each breath seemed to tear something inside his chest. His vision was blurred, either from loss of blood or from cracking his head in the fall. He clung to the doorframe to keep from falling again now, and saw Jacob huddled behind an upturned desk.
Thank God.
Jacob’s eyes were tightly closed. His face had the pinched, set expression he wore when he was upset or frightened. Ben knew the boy didn’t realise he was there. He tried to say something to him but his voice wouldn’t come. He looked back at Kale, noticing without really comprehending that the furniture and various objects had been arranged to form a loose square in front of the window. Standing outside it, Kale stared at him down the length of the shotgun barrel.
He lowered it and came towards him.
Ben saw the stock of the shotgun swinging into his face but couldn’t avoid it A light burst in his head, and a new pain spun into the others. He felt himself hit the floor, but only distantly.
He opened his eyes and saw Kale’s boots. He rolled over and looked up. Kale was a giant, towering above him. The shotgun butt was raised in slow motion. Ben watched, incuriously, for it to begin its descent.
“No, Daddy, no, Daddy, no, Daddy!”
The cry gradually penetrated the fog in his head. Kale was no longer looking down at him. Ben moved his head until he could see Jacob. The boy had his eyes open now, but they were darting about, looking at everything but Ben and Kale as he frantically rocked himself.
“Nonono!”
“It’s all right,” Kale said, but the boy only rocked harder, chanting his denial.
There was a huge grating of metal from the yard. Kale glanced uncertainly towards the window. A grey daylight was coming from it now.
Ben began to drag himself towards Jacob. His hand shrieked, and so did he.
Kale looked from him to the window and back again.
Another huge clamour came from outside. Ben pushed himself along the floor with his feet. His hand left a giant slug-trail of blood. He saw Kale’s face contort. The man pressed the heel of his fist against his forehead as if he were trying to crush it. He took a step forward.
“Get away from him!”
Ben shoved himself the rest of the way and pulled Jacob to him with his good arm. Jacob moaned and rocked, eyes shut again.
Kale gripped the shotgun.
“I said get away!”
Ben stared up at Kale as he held their son. He wanted to speak but the effort to reach Jacob had taken the last of his strength. There was a rushing in his ears. His vision was breaking up. He struggled to keep his head upright as Kale raised the shotgun and levelled it at them.
The room lit up as the sun crested the scrapyard’s wall. Kale winced at the sudden brightness. He looked out across the frosted tops of the cars as the light bounced and splintered from their uneven surface.
Ben saw him frown. Then his face cleared.
Still staring outside, he lowered the gun. Through the rushing in his ears, Ben heard him murmur, “There... it’s there...”
Like a man in a dream, Kale slowly turned back to them. He no longer seemed aware of Ben as he gazed down at Jacob.
A screech of metal from outside made him glance at the window again. Going to the makeshift cordon of furniture, he moved aside a broken chair with the same deliberation he’d applied to rearranging his pieces of wreckage. He stood by the breach he’d made for a moment, letting the sunlight fall on his face. Then, fixing his eyes on his son, he put the shotgun stock to his shoulder and stepped backwards through the gap.
The crash came immediately.
Ben cringed, clutching Jacob to him, but there was no pain, no impact. After a moment he cautiously looked up.
Kale had been hurled sideways by the marksman’s bullet.
It had taken him through the chest. He lay twisted on the floor, one arm thrown above him, the other straight out in a parody of the exercises he performed in his garden. His eyes seemed to be staring at a point above Ben’s head, at something behind and beyond him, and Ben felt an urge to turn and look. But his eyes were drawn to the blood soaking through Kale’s sweat-shirt. He lay in a puddle of it. Streaks and splashes fanned out from him in dark whorls, hieroglyphs of an unknown language which changed and grew as their substance spread across the floor.
Jacob was keening. Ben pressed the boy’s face into his shoulder to spare him the sight of his father’s corpse. The rushing in his ears became very loud. He put his head back against the wall and saw an oblique strip of sunlight running over the ceiling. Motes of dust danced in it, spinning frenzied patterns. He tried to focus on them, and was still struggling to decipher their semaphored message as his vision faded away.
Epilogue
The wasp bumped against the window. The sun streamed in through the whole length of the west-facing wall, filling the studio with light. The next window along was open.
Zoe went over and tried to cuff the wasp towards it with her hand. “Go on, piss off.” Its buzzing rose in pitch until it found the gap and flew out. “Stupid things.”
“You should just squash them,” the girl said, unscrewing the cap from a bottle of mineral water. “I always do.”
Zoe looked embarrassed. “If it had been a fly I would have.”
Ben didn’t say anything. He’d seen her usher out flies as well, but she did her best to keep her humanitarian tendencies strictly in the closet. He saw her glance at him as he struggled with the camera lens, but she made no offer to help. After a few false starts they’d established that he would manage by himself, no matter how long it took. Sometimes the shoots ran a little late, but so far no one had complained. The quality of his work wasn’t affected.
Besides, he was becoming more adept. The prosthetic hand had been difficult at first, but he was growing used to it. It was his left, which he only used to hold and support anyway.