I lunged too — left arm up to block it, right swinging hard.
It was like being punched in the bicep. And then the impact of Caroline’s urn, smashing into his head, shuddered up my arm.
‘Ungh...’ Smith reared away from me, a silhouette against the angry storm. ‘Don’t...’
Another push, swinging the urn like a baseball bat.
Thunk.
The crunching thump of old cardboard boxes collapsing under someone’s weight.
Bouncing the urn off Smith’s head must’ve loosened the lid, because it popped off, and a vortex of gritty grey swirled its way through the torchlight, en route to the gaping hole at the end of the basement.
‘CAROLINE!’ Banging and crashing through the junk.
I snatched up the phone and swung the torch around.
There was Smith, on his hands and knees, scraping dirt and ashes from the concrete floor. ‘No!’
Where are you, you rotten...?
There — lying on its back, against the leg of a mouldy old teddy bear. Matt, black, and deadly. The phone went back in my bandaged hand and I snatched the gun up again.
Let’s see how Evil Uncle Abanazar did with a couple of bullets in him.
The basement shook and that ragged slab of grey got bigger. Chunks of the upper floor raining down at the far end, tumbling away into the hungry waves.
‘What have you done?’ He was still on his knees, scooping up handfuls of dust.
I tossed the urn to him. It hit the concrete and bounced with a hollow ringing poonk.
‘WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?’ Reaching for it.
Three limping steps and I was close enough to jam the .22’s barrel into the back of his right knee. ‘It’s after midnight, Smith. Time to turn back into a pumpkin.’ And pulled the trigger.
It was as if someone had slammed a claw-hammer down on a sheet of metal, the sound echoing off the roof before being swallowed by the howling wind.
Must’ve come as a shock, because Smith didn’t start screaming till I stuck the barrel into the back of his left knee.
Another hammer blow.
The room rumbled. The ice cracked. Another chunk of basement vanished.
Definitely time to go.
Gordon Smith stared back at me in the thin beam of the phone’s torch, eyes wide, mouth wide — full of teeth and agony. Both hands wrapped around his knees, blood pulsing out between his pale fingers. Tears streaming down his face. He was saying something, but whatever it was, the storm was louder.
Back to Shifty.
‘God’s sake, man, you weigh a bloody ton...’ But I got my shoulder under him, hauling and shoving and struggling his fat bloody arse up the wooden steps, heaving him onto the living room floor. Rolling him clear of the trapdoor, so I could slam it shut. Wind whistling through the gaps — pulled down by the air roaring out through the basement.
Probably gilding the lily, but in case a double kneecapping wasn’t enough to keep Gordon Smith where I’d left him, I put my shoulder to Helen’s multigym and pushed.
Teeth gritted, putting my back into it...
The entire thing crashed into the floorboards with a wood-splintering crunch, completely covering the trapdoor with about a ton of metal.
Yeah, Smith was going nowhere.
I grabbed a handful of Shifty’s collar and dragged him backwards out of the room, legs aching from the effort, along the hall and out the front—
Bloody thing was locked.
Another booming rumble and the sound of rending beams and cracking mortar drowned out the wind.
Was there time to get him all the way down the hall and out through the kitchen?
He had the keys on him.
Great — why don’t I stand here like a bloody moron, going through Shifty’s pockets WHILE THE BASTARDING HOUSE FALLS DOWN!
‘AAAAAAARGH!’ I turned him around and hauled his lardy backside down the hall, sweat prickling in the cold air, breath huffing out great plumes of steam. ‘If we get out of this alive, you’re going on a massive diet.’
His body slid better on the kitchen linoleum.
Out the kitchen door, and into the thundering rain and screeching storm.
My trainers dug into the wet grass, slipping and skidding through mud, pulling with both hands now. Fire and broken bottles slashing through the severed joint where my finger used to be, scarring their way up my arm. Every single step setting off a fresh explosion of flame in my bullet-hole foot.
We’d almost made it to the garden wall when Helen’s house gave one final groan of pain, then thundered in on itself as the storm ate it whole.
49
The doctor stepped back to admire her handiwork. ‘Not bad. You’ll have a scar, but it could’ve been worse.’
I turned my elbow out ninety degrees. A neat line of small black stitches ran along a dark puckered ridge of skin halfway up my bicep — stained dark orange with antiseptic. That ‘punch’ had been the cutthroat razor. Good job Gordon Smith hadn’t kept it sharp or the thing would’ve chopped its way right down to the bone. ‘Thanks.’
A blush darkened her cheeks. ‘Twice in one day. We must stop meeting like this.’ Dr Fotheringham put the forceps and needle holder back on the tray. ‘If anyone asks, I gave you amoxicillin.’ Pocketing a couple of small boxes. ‘Obviously I’m not going to really give you more antibiotics, because, well, you know.’
‘Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.’
Outside the curtained cubicle, the sounds of Castle Hill Infirmary A-and-E thrummed and bustled all around us. Moaning, crying, someone singing a sectarian song while someone else screamed at them to shut their orange-bastard mouth.
Fotheringham wrapped the wound in gauze, then cotton wool, then crisp white bandages. Pulling them tight and tying them off. She didn’t look me in the eye once. ‘Well, that’s us all done. You’ll need to get those stitches out in about a fortnight: better safe than sorry.’
The sound of someone being copiously sick echoed through from the next-door cubicle, but Fotheringham didn’t even flinch. ‘Can I ask,’ she pointed at my arm, ‘was this the same “serial killer”?’
I pulled my bloodstained shirt back on and hopped off the trolley. ‘Not any more.’
Fotheringham wrestled me into a bulky black padded sling, adjusting the straps and Velcro till the entire arm was immobile. Then helped me drape my ‘borrowed’ leather jacket over my shoulders. ‘It’ll take a while to heal, so make sure you rest it.’
‘Want to take a little advice from someone who’s been where you are? Once people like Joseph and Francis get their hooks in you, it’s not so easy to wriggle free. Stop the gambling, get help, or you’ll be gutted and filleted by the time they’re done.’
She gave me a small sad smile. ‘Oh, how I wish it was that easy...’
They’d moved Kenneth Dewar out of the High Dependency ward into a private room on the sixth floor, with a uniformed PC sitting guard outside, reading a Hamish Macbeth noveclass="underline" Death of a Crime Writer. She looked up as I hobbled over on a borrowed NHS walking stick. ‘Guv.’
So, one of the old guard, before my demotion.
I nodded at the observation window. ‘He say anything yet?’
‘Came round about two hours ago. Since then it’s been mostly sobbing and sleeping. Think they’ve got him on some pretty strong meds.’ She put a marker in her book. ‘Mother... I mean, DI Malcolmson’s been looking for you. Says you’re not answering your phone.’
Maybe because I hadn’t actually worked out what, or how much, to tell her yet.
‘Any chance...?’ I pointed at the door.