He felt hollowed out, an empty wooden statue, rotten on the inside.
‘I’m going to crash the party. Up on the Radical Road. Try to get Ryan back. I have to do something. If I don’t see you again, Rose, thanks for everything you’ve done for me. I can’t explain what I’ve done, except to say that I never meant anyone any harm. But that’s a useless thing to say. I’m sure you’ll have fun piecing all this together. I wish I could help you with the story, but I suspect that one way or the other I won’t be around.’
He looked up and down the street. Complete silence.
‘One last thing. If I don’t… can you look after my dog? She’s been pretty good to me. Thanks, Rose, and take care.’
He ended the call and checked the time. Twenty to four. He switched the phone off and turned to Jeanie, who pricked up her ears.
‘Come on, girl.’
34
He stood teetering on the edge.
His head reeled, as if his brain had shaken free of its moorings. The gorse below seemed to sway like rolling ocean swells, but there was no wind. The bandages over his ears made everything muffled. The far-off lights of the city were gauzy and diffuse, like a fogbound dream. But the sky was clear, impossibly distant stars blinking through the spread of sky, black then violet then sapphire on the horizon where the sun was preparing to rise.
The city looked like Toytown. The cliff he stood on was just a pimple on the landscape. Everything in too much perspective.
He looked around. He was surprised neither gang was here yet. Made sense to arrive early, get the jump on the opposition.
He was still struggling to get his breath back after walking up the slope. He felt like his body was floating above the ground, drifting through life. The painkillers, no doubt, all that fucking morphine. He shook his head, felt his brain rattle. Was that his imagination? The patch on the back of his skull was still damp. He suddenly wondered what the surgeon had done with the bit of skull he’d removed.
Jeanie was doing her usual sniffing routine around the edge of the gorse, tracing the movements of dogs from earlier in the day, or other invisible scents. He’d toyed with the idea of leaving her behind, she had no business here, but where could he have put her? He couldn’t go back to Rankeillor Street and he had nowhere else. He hoped Rose got his message. He smiled as he pictured her face when she heard it.
He looked down to the start of the Radical Road. Nothing. He waited to see car headlights on Queen’s Drive, but there were none.
He heard voices. Harsh accents. The Mackies. The voices were coming from behind him. He turned and crouched, almost falling over the edge of the cliff, grabbing a handful of grass and dirt as he steadied himself.
Just appearing over the rise were three figures, slouched in the semi-darkness. Of course, the Radical Road went all the way round Salisbury Crags. He’d forgotten all about the other end because he’d never had reason to come that way. There was a way up from Holyrood Park, the Mackies must’ve used that.
Billy clicked his fingers and Jeanie came to him. He held her collar and scurried across the path, the Mackies still a good distance away. He pressed himself against the base of the cliff, in a shadowed crevice, and knelt down. He calmed Jeanie and stroked her back and sides, quietly shushing her. He made sure he held her collar with as much strength and conviction as he could muster.
The Mackies slowed as they approached the highest point in the road. The path spread out into a wider plateau at that point, an obvious place for the meeting.
Billy risked sticking his face out for a glimpse. The brother he’d met, Wayne, was nonchalantly swinging a sawn-off shotgun, talking in a constant murmur. Another man dressed in a shell suit was resting on crutches, leg bandaged, occasionally talking back to Wayne, a lit joint hanging from his mouth. Jamie. A third man, much bulkier and thicker, stood a little apart, holding on to the shoulders of a small boy. Ryan.
Billy imagined stepping out from the darkness, striding over and grabbing hold of the boy, dragging him away from all this. He pictured getting a shotgun blast in the chest for his trouble.
He tried to see Ryan’s face. He remembered first meeting him in the summerhouse, the green haar of grass smoke and the evening sun giving the boy a halo as he came in looking for his mum. Who is the strange man with Mummy? Good fucking question, little guy.
He couldn’t see Ryan’s face now. The boy wasn’t struggling, didn’t seem upset. A five-year-old taken from his bed by strangers in the night. The big guy’s hands gripped Ryan’s shoulders in a stance that seemed uncomfortable for both. Neither of them moved. Jamie continued to drag on his joint, cradling it in the cup of his hand. Wayne shuffled his feet and waved the shotgun with agitated movements, providing a low running commentary that Billy couldn’t make out.
In the distance to the left, Billy saw lights. The clunk and thunk of car doors. Voices, getting louder.
Here we go.
He pulled Jeanie closer and edged back into the crevice.
He saw four figures trudging up the slope.
Wayne stopped fidgeting to watch, and held the gun against his leg.
The four figures approached. They were silhouetted against the purple sky, easily distinguishable. Adele, Dean and the two lumps of meat. So there were three psychotic hardmen against three psychotic hardmen, Adele, Ryan, Billy and Jeanie stuck in the middle. Fantastic.
They slowed and stopped talking as they spotted the Mackies. Dean at the front pulled out a handgun and pointed it at Wayne. In a synchronised movement, Wayne pointed the shotgun at Dean.
Adele broke rank and ran towards Ryan.
‘Hey,’ Wayne shouted, stepping in her way with the shotgun raised.
She stopped, hands to her face, sobbing. Dean spoke quietly and one of his thugs gently pulled her back.
They were talking, Dean and Wayne. Billy couldn’t make it out, he was too far away. Guns were waved, heads cocked, fingers pointed. Behind them, everyone was standing waiting. Ryan was now struggling against the grip of the big guy, Adele shaking as Dean’s goon held her back. Jamie casually flicked his roach over the edge of the cliff and pulled out another joint.
It seemed like Billy was watching it with the sound and contrast turned down. The drugs made his vision foggy, the bandages echoing back the sound of his own pulse in his ears. He screwed his eyes shut and opened them again, but it all seemed blurry, floaters drifting and jerking across his eyeline.
He strained to make out what Dean and Wayne were saying, but could only hear burble and static, like a radio stuck between stations.
He let go of Jeanie and felt around the back of his head. He scraped his broken nails against the bandages, and eventually found a starting point. He picked at the loose end until it came away, gummy against his fingers, but peeling off all the same. He pulled and felt little resistance as the bandages unravelled. He looped his hands round his head, feeling the release of pressure with every sweep, his skull relaxing, his brain breathing. Four, five circuits of his head and he had most of the white gauze off, the warm air of the night fresh against his scalp.
Then the bandages were off. He bunched them into a ball and dropped them on the ground. He ran his fingers through his hair. There was a large shaved patch at the back. He felt around the edge of the area, his heart hammering in his throat, his pulse so loud he thought they all must be able to hear it, everyone across the city must be deafened by it.
He felt air at the back of his skull.
His fingers moved lightly across from the hair to the shaven scalp, then suddenly there was nothing solid beneath his touch, just skin against skin, no support, like pushing at the hollow of his cheek. The skin was still there. He’d presumed it would be gone, just a big gaping hole in his head, open to the elements. But there was still a skin flap. As he fingered it, he realised it was loose. Had they sewed him back up or not? Either way, it was loose now. That was the source of the leak. Blood leaking through the edges where the skin didn’t quite meet up.
He felt suddenly alive. As if he’d just broken the surface after months under the sea. His ears were full of
