And in fact, if they had reached Psycho Alley, real name Song Thrush Walk, it was possible both of them could have survived. As it was, only one did.
‘I am really starving,’ Rory said, lifting his plastic bag up to his nose, inhaling the wonderful aroma of his supper, that combination of hot chips, vinegar, curry sauce and fish. ‘I could eat it now — that new lot at the chippy are really good,’ he said, referring to the new owners of the business.
‘You’ll enjoy it better in front of the telly,’ Mark said.
Rory gave Mark a curious glance. ‘Not with my lot of grabbing gits. Be nowt left. I’ll have it in my room, unless our kid’s there
… or, I could always come to your house, couldn’t I? Your mum won’t be in, will she?’
Mark hesitated. To have Rory around and inside the house was perhaps taking things a step too far. Mark wanted to keep his home life — what there was of it — separate from his so-called friendship with this lad, at least for the moment. Rory had a terrible reputation on an estate renowned for bad reputations, was often known to steal from his mates and then intimidate them with threats of violence if they complained. It wasn’t that Mark had a lot to protect, but what he had he wanted to keep.
‘Mm,’ he began doubtfully, wondering how to phrase the rejection tactfully — but before he could say anything, a figure loomed up in front of him and Rory.
‘Hi guys,’ the man said. He was in dark clothing, against a dark background.
The lads stopped.
A feeling of deja vu — and complete and utter dread — coursed through Mark’s body, like razor wire being drawn through his veins. History repeating itself.
The man stood in front of them, the entrance to the alley maybe ten metres behind him.
In that instant Mark knew exactly what this was about.
‘Scuse me,’ Rory said, not getting it. He split away from Mark, sidestepping the figure with the intention of simply walking past. But the man moved into Rory’s path.
‘Don’t think so,’ he said.
Rory peered at the man’s face and then, even in the dark, just the slightest glint of light from the lamp posts way back at the fish and chip shop, a hundred metres behind them, he recognized him.
‘Shit,’ he uttered, ducked low and tried to run to the man’s left. Not quick enough. The man pivoted. There was something black and bulbous in his hand. There was a dull double-‘thwuck’, accompanied by a silver-white flash as the man managed to touch the muzzle of the gun on to Rory’s temple and fire. It was as if the teenager had been hit by the right hook of a heavyweight boxing champion. He staggered sideways, then his legs crumpled underneath him.
The man contorted away from Rory, Mark being his next target. He was moving quickly, but there was something unhurried, calm and efficient in the way he swivelled.
By contrast, Mark moved by instinct and fear, which gave him the slightest of edges as he swung the plastic carrier bag containing his newly bought feast into the man’s face. The bag — possibly the cheapest and flimsiest plastic bag ever made — burst on impact, showering the attacker with an inferno of pie, chips and peas. He screamed and reared away, tearing at the hot food with his hands.
Mark ran for the alley, knowing he had only seconds at most.
‘Goddam little bastard,’ the man bellowed.
Mark reached the first right of the dog-leg in the alley. The brick wall above his head exploded with silent missiles: the man was shooting at him. Mark ducked low, threw himself around the corner, not even allowing himself a micro-peek over the shoulder. That would have slowed him down. Even so, he was aware that the killer had recovered and was giving chase, could hear footsteps pounding.
The young lad ran towards the next corner, a left, just metres ahead. He skidded around it, feet sliding in the gravel, careening into the wall, then pushing himself upright and running hard, arms pumping. He was fast and lithe — a good sprinter — and he hoped that his recent cigarette habit wouldn’t slow him down too much.
Still the footsteps were behind him. The man was fast and determined.
The alley opened up on to one of the roads on the estate. Mark did not pause to check for traffic, running across the road, bounding over a low hedge into a garden, then down the side of a house into the back garden, noisily kicking over some tins stacked next to a wheelie bin. They clattered loudly. Mark cursed, then abruptly changed direction by ninety degrees and ran parallel along the back of the house, across a paved area, then leapt across a broken fence into the next garden along, landing awkwardly but using his momentum to keep going.
A dog barked hysterically nearby. Someone shouted an obscenity.
Mark kept going, changed direction again and clambered over a back fence, dropping into another garden, ran through it and came out on another road, this time a cul-de-sac.
He stopped, wheezed for breath, in the middle of the road, his eyes wild.
An engine revved. A car swerved into the street, lights blazing.
Mark knew his cars and instantly recognized it as the Volvo that had struck the old man.
Terrified, trapped by the onrushing car, Mark remained transfixed by the headlights — then his survival gene kicked in. He spun, ran, the car only feet behind him, catching him, bearing down, trying to mow him over.
The cul-de-sac opened into a turning circle.
Once more Mark changed direction, cutting across the headlight beam, his shadow long and distorted. He swooped behind a parked car, then cut down a tight public footpath running along the side of a house, hearing the car swerve and stop behind him.
He kept going, never looking back. Pushing himself on, forcing more out of his being than ever before, using his intimate knowledge of the estate he’d lived on all his life to duck and weave, to lay false direction in case he was still being followed. Down alleyways that strangers would have mistaken for dead ends, but which Mark knew he could cut through. Along streets, through gardens, on to the fields surrounding the estate, until he reached the back of his house.
But he didn’t just barge in. He secreted himself right at the back of the garden, sitting on a damp patch of weed. Here he caught his breath and with the patience of a deer knowing it was being hunted, waited still in the grass, unmoving, watching until he was positive it was safe to go home.
Five minutes passed. Nothing moved, other than the usual. This was one of the quiet avenues on the outer edge of the estate.
Then a car drove slowly past. Mark craned to see. Not the Volvo, one he recognized as belonging to a guy from the next avenue.
Another three minutes. Then another car, cruising. This time it was the Volvo.
His whole being tightened up.
It went by, two shapes inside it.
Then it was gone. He gave it five more minutes before crawling to the back door, kneeling up to the lock and inserting his key, letting himself in. He switched no lights on. Moved through the house on his hands and knees, along the hallway, checking the front door was bolted from the inside, then slithered upstairs to his bedroom and locked the door behind him. He edged to the window where he drew the curtains slowly and then, the light still off, he flopped on to his bed, exhausted.
Then he began to shake.
FOUR
The old man had been stripped and tagged. His arrival had been entered on to the database at the public mortuary and the computer-generated reference number — there was no name at present — scribbled on to the big-toe tag and in big figures on to his left shin in black felt tip.
Henry, having assisted the mortuary attendant with this procedure, was now wearing a surgical gown, latex gloves and a facemask pushed up on to the crown of his head. He walked slowly around the body, now laid out on a stainless steel mortuary slab. Henry’s hands were clasped behind his back as he inspected the body, as though he was walking the beat at regulation pace.
The old man was in a terrible mess, something even more apparent now that he lay there naked and pitiful.
