I had to get out. OK?’
‘Sorry.’
Silence at the table. Just the gentle snuffling of Jeanie. Billy stared at Adele’s legs, her smooth calves, her manicured toenails perfect blood red. He felt his face and hands tingle, seemed to see sparkles in front of his eyes, tiny explosions of light. He scrunched his eyes shut then opened them again, but that only made it worse. He could smell burnt coffee, an overpowering aroma. He looked round the pub. The barman was standing flicking through the paper. The coffee machine was untouched.
‘The police aren’t sure that the Mackies killed Frank,’ Adele said. ‘They say their alibi seems pretty tight. They were in a club till well past Frank’s time of death. Hundreds of people were in there with them.’
‘Maybe they got someone else to do it. Or maybe it was just an accident.’
‘An accident?’ Incredulity in her voice. She sighed, a tremor in her breath. She gulped at her gin. ‘I can’t handle all this.’
Billy tried to reach for her hand, but she looked nervously round the empty bar and pulled away.
‘Everything will be OK,’ he said. It sounded weak, worse than saying nothing.
She took a deep breath and looked at him. ‘I have some coke. Fancy a line?’
Billy felt his heart crashing against his ribs. He nodded.
Adele picked up her handbag and stood up, smoothing her skirt down. She swayed a little, like a breeze might knock her down.
‘Meet me in the disabled toilets in two minutes. Don’t be obvious.’
Billy watched her go, his eyes on the curve of her skirt. He looked round. The pub was still almost empty. The barman was the same young guy who’d been working here the last time he was in, and he was watching Adele head round the corner towards the toilets, his eyes on her body.
Billy glugged at his gin till it was just sweating ice and lime snug in the bottom of the glass. He stroked Jeanie, patted her and ruffled the scruff of her neck. He gently and calmly looped her lead around the table leg, whispering in her ear the whole time.
‘I’m just going to the toilet, OK?’
She had plenty of length to mooch around. He’d be back in two minutes. He got up, cringing as his chair scraped the floor. Jeanie flumped on her haunches and scratched at her ear. She watched him walk away.
He tried to look nonchalant, his arms and legs moving awkwardly as he pushed himself onwards. He caught that burning smell again but didn’t look round. His pulse was juddering as he pushed open the toilet door.
Adele was bent over the cistern, holding her hair back with one hand, smoothly snorting a thick line with the other. She used a stainless-steel straw, not a rolled-up note. She blocked a nostril and sniffed the sticky hit up as high as she could. She gave Billy a vacant stare, then her eyes widened. She switched hands with the straw, held her hair back with the other hand, and took a second hit from the coke, pulling at her nose and shaking her head afterwards.
There was another thick line of coke already chopped out. Adele handed the straw to Billy.
‘Don’t say anything, just do it.’
He bent and took the hit, stopping halfway to change nostrils. He felt the surge in his brain immediately. His head was a balloon full of water, ready to burst. The lump on his temple pulsing away into the cosmos. He felt his muscles and sinews stretch and tighten, his blood hammering through his arteries.
He straightened up, making guttural snorting sounds, and looked at her. She checked herself in the mirror, running a finger softly around her eye socket and over her cheek, where the shadow of a bruise remained. She leaned in over the sink, her face only a few inches from the glass. Her skirt was stretched tight across her arse. Her top had ridden up, revealing a sliver of tattooed skin at the small of her back. She produced a lip balm, smudged some on a finger and ran it across her mouth. Billy couldn’t take his eyes off her.
She was smiling into the mirror. ‘Like what you see?’
‘You know I do.’
‘What are you going to do about it?’
She smacked her lips together. It was obvious and corny, but he was sold. He edged across the room until he was standing behind her. He saw himself in the mirror, his head above hers. He looked like a wax model, inert and lifeless. She moved her arse against him and his cock throbbed at the contact. She ground against him some more. She looked desperate for something. Maybe a way out of this whole mess. But the two of them were just getting deeper into it. She lowered her hands and braced herself against the taps, pushing against him. She was looking at herself in the mirror, not him. They were both staring at her.
‘Fuck me,’ she whispered.
He lifted her skirt up and rubbed her panties. He moved the underwear aside and slipped a finger inside her, then two. She let out a tiny breath, like she was in pain.
‘Sorry.’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
He didn’t know what she meant.
He unbuckled his belt and pulled his trousers and shorts down. His cock sprang up against her bare buttocks. He removed his fingers as she guided him inside her, pushing against him so that he went in deep.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered.
‘Don’t speak.’
He heard the sound of Frank’s body rolling over the top of the Micra. He felt his head smack against the windscreen, pain shooting through his body. He moved in and out of her as she put her hands on the mirror and lowered her head. He wanted to explode inside her, fuck the pain and guilt and bullshit away.
She lifted a hand from the mirror, raised her head and slapped herself in the face. It was a clumsy action, but hard, and her head rocked with the impact. He froze. She looked at him in the mirror.
‘Don’t stop.’
‘But…’
‘And don’t fucking speak.’
She ground against him faster and he began again, in and out, feeling himself close to coming. She slapped herself again, harder this time, then again and again. Her hair was tangled in a mess over her face, but he could see her skin was red, her eyes wet, marks of tears on her cheeks. She kept hitting herself as he thrust against her, forcing her pelvis into the edge of the sink.
He saw something out of the corner of his eye, a red flash, darkening to purple. He turned his head, but the glimmers moved too. He suddenly felt sick, his nostrils full of the stench of burning. A searing pain pummelled across his forehead and down his side, making one side of his body convulse in shock. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, his face contorted and melting, then he lost all control of his body, felt himself falling backwards towards the cold floor, his mind disintegrating into blackness and silence.
24
He stood at the top of the Radical Road, gazing out over a city shimmering in starlight, watching himself drive up Queen’s Drive down below. The Micra was huge, three times a normal car size, with tracks instead of wheels and a strange glow radiating from inside. He could clearly see himself at the wheel, Zoe alongside, Charlie smacking the back of his seat, all three of them laughing.
An army of people marched down the road, not flinching as the Micra ploughed through them like a tank, crushing them or knocking them high up into the air. The people marched on into the slaughter. The figure of him at the wheel was laughing as he smashed into body after body.
Up on the cliff, he shook his head. He launched himself from the edge and flew upwards before swooping down towards the copse of trees where the Micra-tank was still creating carnage. As he got closer he saw that the people weren’t random strangers, they were arranged in repeating groups — him, Adele and Ryan pulling a collie on a lead. They were smiling as they were torn apart by the vehicle, sharing a serene, angelic look which made him lose concentration and tumble out of the sky, down towards the mass of destruction below, arms swiping at the air, wind shrieking in his ears, lungs unable to breathe, heart dead, a cold stone in his chest. He hit the ground and it
