Billy sat on the edge of the bed and wept, his shoulders heaving as the sobs racked his body. If only… he sighed, remembering the words of his mum. If only you were more like your sister, she'd scolded him on a daily basis. Instead of running with that bad crowd. Poor old Mum had succumbed to the cancer that had ravaged her body, long since, dying in that hospital where he had rarely visited, knowing he was unwelcome, the black sheep of the family.
He hadn't been able to face that, either, had he? It had always been the same: he'd run away from anything hard. Had she always seen him as a bad lad? Probably, he thought, tears of remorse trickling down his face. Dogging off from as young as ten, trying dope before he'd even reached the end of primary, selling it by the time he was in high school. And while Marianne sat and passed all of her exams Billy Brogan had been receiving a different sort of education altogether. How to hustle, how to drive a good deal, how to ingratiate himself into an established group of businessmen.
Until that time when someone had been stabbed in a fight amongst a rowdy lot of football casuals, out of their heads on a mixture of booze and drugs. That had been the end of it for da, hadn't it? There was no welcome home for his boy after that.
Billy Brogan had been lifted with the rest of them, thrown into the cells for a night he didn't ever want to repeat. The threat of a longer spell in prison had driven him into the army and into the company of men who seemed to understand how he felt about life. Many of them were from far more impoverished backgrounds than he was, Billy remembered, shivering as he sat with the sheet wrapped around him. Guys who thrived on three decent meals a day, loved the camaraderie and even took to the harsh discipline as though they had been waiting for someone to give some form or structure to their lives. Even in the scary situations when lives were on the line (and sometimes blown away, though you never dwelt on that) Private Billy Brogan had seen lads who'd once been young hoods like himself turn into brave and honourable men. If only he'd stayed in the army…
Meeting Stevens had been the turning point for him, though.
The older man's biting cynicism had made him laugh. Had made them all laugh, some uneasily, as he recounted stories about picking off his human targets out on patrol. At first Billy had thought the man's tales a load of bullshit, but gradually he'd realised that Stevens was not just a trained sniper, but that being good at killing was something of which the man was inordinately proud.
'Found my vocation, haven't 1, Billy boy?' Brogan remembered him saying after one particularly bloodthirsty patrol when several young Iraqis had fallen under Stevens' fire.
'When this is all over, I'll be coining it, won't I?'
And when Billy had asked him 'How?' Stevens had told him.
'Once a killer, always a killer, Billy boy. And there's plenty will pay for me to do jobs they can't or won't do themselves, know what I mean?'
If only he hadn't kept in touch with the hit man. If only he had ignored Marianne's pleas for help. If only bloody Ken had let her go… There were so many if onlys in his life, Brogan thought wearily, wiping his eyes with a corner of the sheet. Now it looked as though he'd have to face all the bad choices he had made.
'Hello?'
The door opening made Billy look up, startled out of his thoughts.
A woman dressed in white, with a veil billowing over her shoulder, had entered the room and was advancing to him.
Billy pulled the sheet more closely around his body, suddenly shy.
'Who ur you, hen?' he muttered, his Glasgow accent sounding suddenly strange to his own ears.
'It's all right,' the woman said and Billy felt a sudden relief at her English accent. 'I'm your nurse. I'm here to help you.' She smiled, seeing Billy's uncertainty. 'Glad you've woken up at last.
You've been sleeping for quite a long time, you know. We were worried that you might have had a more severe head injury,' she nodded, glancing at his bandaged skull. 'Now just sit back against the pillows while I change that dressing.'
Brogan pushed the breakfast tray to the foot of the bed with a sigh. Funny how a decent bit of food and the prospect of some fresh clothes could make you feel less desperate. He'd been picked up off that back alley and taken to the hospital, one British citizen robbed and beaten; no identity since all of his personal things had been stolen. All but his mobile phone and that hadn't helped them much since it appeared that he hadn't stored any numbers. Brogan had breathed a sigh of relief when the nurse had told him that, her pretty face creasing in a frown. He needed to keep certain things to himself, especially now. Things like Marianne. What was happening to his sister?
Connie, his nurse, had promised that a car would be made available to take him to the British Consul. Did he feel up to it, though? Thinking of Stevens' threatened deadline, Billy had assured her he was feeling brand new, thank you, barely concealing the panic he really felt. Now all he had to do was dress in these borrowed garments and head off to where someone could help him sort out this mess.
The sunlight filtering through the blinds reminded Brogan of the glare of the African sun beating down outside on these foreign streets. Only they were the streets of Algiers, not Morocco. Stupid, stupid, he berated himself. Only a moron would make a mistake like that, he'd told himself more than once. Palma, Mallorca was a very long way from Las Palmas in the Canary Islands and the nearby Moroccan coast. And he deserved to be punished for such stupidity now.
Brogan took a deep breath. He was done with running away from his responsibilities. Now he had to get back home as soon as he could. No matter what the final consequences.
CHAPTER 38
Marianne woke with a start. Somehow she had slept through the night with no dreams to disturb her for once. Was it because she was so exhausted, physically and emotionally, or had she simply found that reality was far more terrifying than all the images that had swirled uncontrollably around her brain?
Max (she couldn't stop thinking of him as Max) was not in the hotel room. The bed they had shared was neatly made, but not by one of the hotel staff. He had made sure of that, letting the Do Not Disturb notice dangle from the door knob outside. Hearing their sexual frolics night after night must have made the staff think they were newlyweds or something, Marianne realised. Had it all been a ploy, then? Had Max bedded her to make the hotel think they were on their honeymoon? He'd certainly beguiled her into imagining that all of these endearments and caresses had been real. She bit the inside of her lip, trying not to cry, but the gaffer tape caught at her skin, tightening its grip.
The hit man had secured her to the only wooden chair in the room, one she'd sat on in front of the mirror to brush her hair, put on her make-up. He had set it deliberately away from a wall so that Marianne could not thump her elbows or wrists against the adjoining rooms. Nor could she tilt it over, making it crash to the floor, he'd seen to that, too, roping the back of it firmly to the brass bed ends.
She swallowed hard, feeling the dryness in her throat. How long had it been since she had drunk anything? Hours and hours, she told herself, glancing at the television's digital clock. Despite that, she badly needed to pee.
Marianne closed her eyes and began to pray. Please, please let Billy come home. Would Billy come back, bringing the money that Max asked him for? Or would he leave her there, running away from something difficult as he usually did?
That's not fair, a little voice reminded her. He helped you to get rid of Ken, didn't he?