Isaiah turned back to the moon. ‘What do you know?’
‘So who is Camael? And you ain’t telling me your real names are Gabriel and Isaiah — sounds like a bloody nativity play!’
‘Shut the fuck up, Billy!’ snarled Isaiah, thumping the wheel with the flat of his hand. ‘You’re starting to drive me nuts!’ He pulled the keys out of the ignition. ‘Come with me; we’re going to check the place out.’
‘I’ve told you already, it’s number 349. You don’t need me up there.’
‘You haven’t got a choice,’ he said, popping the boot of the car.
Billy got out of the car, followed Isaiah round the back. The man reached in and took out a large leather bag, like a sports holdall, and another plastic carrier bag filled with something bulky and heavy, which he passed to Billy. ‘What’s this?’
‘Just make yourself useful and carry it for me.’
‘And what’s in the leather bag?’
‘You don’t need to know. Show me the way now, quickly whilst there’s no one around.’
They hurried across a square that had once played host to carefully manicured grass and a few trees, but it was mainly bare earth and ragged stumps now. Billy led Isaiah to the block of flats, to the dark, tunnel-like entrance to the lift and stairs. The smell of urine hadn’t got any better, thought Billy. Without waiting Isaiah bound lithely up the concrete stairs, which Billy found quite impressive for such a heavy-set man, and not least because he found it difficult to keep up with him.
‘You don’t need me here,’ Billy moaned breathlessly. ‘And we could have taken the lift…’
‘Keep the fucking noise down!’ Isaiah hissed. ‘You want your money then do as you’re told.’
The gasping young man nodded and spat on the ground.
They reached the third-floor walkway. Lights were burning in a few of the flat windows, but mostly they were in total darkness. They padded softly down the walkway, stopping outside the door to flat number 349. Beth’s place. Isaiah nodded at it and Billy nodded back in confirmation. The man put a finger to his lips, reaching into his coat pocket for gloves, which he put on as he studied the window frame, running a gloved finger around it. Billy noticed the place was in darkness.
‘Maybe she’s out,’ he whispered, hoping this would make Isaiah turn round and leave. Some hope.
‘All the better,’ he said. He put the bag down on the ground, gave a quick look all around and then reached inside his coat pocket again. He took something metallic out that blinked briefly in the moonlight, and he set about the door lock. In seconds he was able to turn the handle slowly and ease open the door. He made a sign for Billy to stay by the door and in no uncertain terms made it clear that he was not to scarper.
The man crept silently inside, waiting a second or two before signalling for Billy to enter. They were in a small living room. Isaiah bound swiftly over to what Billy presumed was the bedroom and gently pushed open the door. ‘She’s not in,’ he said in a hushed voice difficult to catch.
‘Maybe she’s got another night job, like the one at the supermarket,’ said Billy. ‘Can we go now? You can come back when she’s in.’
He grasped Billy by his shirtfront and yanked his face close to his own. ‘I don’t want to hear another word from you, not one!’ he growled. ‘Now sit over there and make like a mouse in a trap!’
Billy didn’t like the image it conjured up, but he did as he was told, going over to a threadbare sofa and wondering what possessed Beth to live in a flea-bitten, grotty dump like this; and what on earth she was involved with when it included guys like these. He looked around; the room was a dive, little better than a doss house.
He watched as Isaiah reached up to the light in the centre of the ceiling and took out the bulb. Then he went over to his bag and unzipped it. He gingerly withdrew a long red velvet bundle edged with gold, and carried it across the room as carefully as if he carried a delicate baby. He placed it on the floor and mumbled something incoherent over it. Billy stared in both amazement and with an escalating fear. He looked over to the door. It was but a few short yards away. He could make a dash for it. He’d had enough of these weird games. He wanted out. Forget the bloody cash. Forget his plans. This was all going a step too far.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ said Isaiah without even looking up from the bundle.
‘I shouldn’t be here. This is all wrong,’ he said.
Isaiah peeled back the red folds of the bag, like skin on a great, fleshy wound, wide enough to take out what looked to be a two-foot long silver hammer. He’d seen something similar before; a mace, the type of things knights used in movies. It seemed to glow with a white fire as it flashed in the narrow panel of moonlight thrown in through the window. Isaiah inspected it keenly, his hands running up and down its surface. Finally he went to stand with his back against the wall, near the door, the mace resting on his right shoulder.
‘I need to go back now,’ Billy whimpered.
‘Go through into the kitchen. Close the door. Don’t make a sound.’
‘Why can’t I go back?’
‘Do as you’re told, Billy, and you’ll not get hurt.’
Billy wasn’t convinced, but he groaned and did as he was ordered. He didn’t close the door entirely. He left a tiny crack to peer through, though in truth there wasn’t a great deal to see besides the patch of moonlight sitting on the floor. He looked about him. The state of the kitchen was every bit as grotty as the living room, a smell of stale food hanging in the damp air. He was drawn to the window near the kitchen sink as a means of possible escape, but one quick look outside convinced him otherwise. Even if he managed to open it and climb out without Isaiah hearing him the fall would kill him, or at the very least break most of the bones in his body.
That’s when he heard the sound of a key being put in the door, the sound sickening because he had desperately not wanted to hear that tonight. He shot over to the partially opened kitchen door, stared hard through the gap. He made out a shadow flitting beyond the frosted glass of the door, a slim woman’s shadow. He couldn’t make out Isaiah but he knew he was there, absorbed into the darkened room, almost a part of the wall he leaned against.
Billy’s faint heart began to run the Derby and his mouth was sponged dry. The urge to scream out a warning was overwhelming, and yet he choked it back as if choking down bile.
The door opened and the woman stepped into the room, a hand reaching out for the light switch. Billy heard it click a couple of times, and he sensed the woman’s hesitation in the dark, the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. He saw the moonlight catch the side of her face as she moved cautiously into the room. Billy could not help himself; he called out.
‘Beth!’ he shouted, his voice ripping through the silence like an explosion.
The woman made a dart for the door, but Isaiah’s arm lunged out like a striking serpent from the darkness and he clasped her round her slender neck. She was dragged back into the room, his hand a blur as he now moved it to cover her mouth and stifle her scream. They played out their struggle in the patch of cold moonlight, as if they were actors on a macabre stage, the rasping sound of cloth against cloth as harsh and distressing as their combined heavy breathing. Billy saw Isaiah’s arm rise, the mace flashing silver for a split second; saw the weapon whipping in a cruel arc to smash against the woman’s head. Her body collapsed into a shadowy heap on the carpet, a drawn-out bubbling groan fading into silence like a dribble of water disappearing down a plughole.
Billy stumbled into the room. ‘Oh my god, you’ve killed her!’ he said.
She was face down. Isaiah was already kneeling over her, feeling the pulse in her neck. An oil-like pool of blood was seeping across the carpet. ‘Not quite. Not yet,’ he said. He said it like he was checking a microwave dinner.
That was it; Billy couldn’t take any more. He sprang over the outstretched legs of the woman and grabbed the door. Isaiah shot to his feet, his hand grasping at clothing, but he stumbled over the body, cursing as Billy ran out of the door beyond his reach. Billy turned to run back along the walkway and came up against Camael and Gabriel who were headed towards him.