leaving his ears ringing.
Wayne lunged for the shotgun. But he was too slow. As his fingers reached for the butt of the sawn-off, there were two cracks and his head jerked back in a spray of blood. His body slumped to the ground and he lay motionless.
Billy looked round. Dean still had the gun levelled at Wayne’s body. He walked over carefully and slid the shotgun away from Wayne’s hand, then kicked the body. Nothing.
Dean looked up and Billy tried to follow his gaze. The pain and tears and smoke were blurring his vision, but he could make out two figures running away. Jamie and the other guy. Jamie had abandoned the crutches and was running with a crazy lolloping stride, the other guy much further away, beginning to disappear in swirls of smoke.
Dean held both of his guns steady and fired twice with each. Jamie jumped then zigzagged sideways, kept running though, not hit. The smoke enveloped him and he was gone.
‘Fuck,’ Dean said. ‘Can’t be helped.’
He turned both guns on Billy.
‘Seems you’ve got yourself a little leg wound.’
‘Boss.’
It was one of the goons. Dean turned. The guy was pointing down Queen’s Drive, beyond the wall of fire and smoke. Flashing lights. The whoop of sirens. Billy couldn’t make out if it was fire engines or police.
‘We’d better move,’ the goon said.
‘Not before I finish this cunt off.’
Dean turned back.
The world seemed to shrink.
Smoke caught in Billy’s lungs and he coughed, sending blades of pain through his body, from his broken head to his tattered thigh.
Dean lifted both guns and pointed them straight at Billy.
‘This is for everything you’ve done.’
‘No.’ Adele’s voice. Strong and clear.
Dean turned. Adele was standing with the sawn-off shotgun pointing straight at him, Ryan pushed behind her.
Dean smiled. ‘What are you doing, darling?’
‘This is for everything you’ve done,’ she said.
The recoil pushed her backwards as the shotgun went off. In a mirrored movement, Dean was knocked off his feet as the blast ripped through his chest. He staggered backwards for a few steps them slumped to the ground, still gripping a gun in each hand.
Adele dropped the shotgun and turned, pulling Ryan into her body.
The sound of sirens filled the air now. Billy looked round. The two thugs were gone, lumbering down the path. Billy’s leg raged with pain. He leaned back and tried to suck in air, his whole body tense with shock.
He lay between the bodies of Dean and Wayne, both still. Adele stared at Dean’s body as she held Ryan’s hand tight. She looked around. Flashing lights mingled with the flicker of the gorse fire, sirens swooping over the crackle of flames. Smoke seeped through everything.
Adele stared at Billy and he held her gaze.
She looked at Ryan, then down the road.
‘Bye, Billy.’
She lifted Ryan up with a heave and began running in the opposite direction from the flashing lights. Billy watched her go, fast and frantic, until she too was swallowed by the smoke.
He gasped and coughed again. It felt like he was in the middle of a funeral pyre. His eyes were foggy, his brain fried. He felt his mind drift as the smoke began to overwhelm him. He closed his eyes.
After a moment he felt something on his face. Wet and rough. A familiar smell. Jeanie. He opened his eyes. She was wagging her tail but looking anxiously at him, pushing at him with her snout. He pulled her close.
‘Good girl.’
He tried to push himself up, but collapsed. The pain in his leg was excruciating. He pushed his hands against the dirt and tried to drag himself, but he couldn’t. He had nothing left, he was empty.
He slumped to the ground. Jeanie came close and nudged him.
‘Go,’ he said, his voice broken.
She didn’t move.
He gave her a half-hearted shove.
‘Go on. Get out of here. If you stay with me you’ll die.’
She whined then crept forward to sit next to him.
‘Fuck’s sake, girl.’
Billy lay on his back. His lungs filled with smoke. His leg was agony, his head too, his body empty. He looked up. Amid the smoke he spotted a sprinkle of stars in the sky. He closed his eyes, felt the soft fur of Jeanie’s body alongside. He seemed to drift upwards, beyond everything, growing wings to swoop above the city, diving over the police station and Rankeillor Street, the Whitehouse place and The Crags pub. But his wings caught fire and he tumbled to the ground, thumping into the tarmac of Queen’s Drive as Charlie and Zoe looked on.
He heard a voice. Someone calling him. A voice he recognised. From a long time ago. His mum? He listened, straining. He tried so hard to make out who it was, what they were saying. He heard Jeanie’s tail thump next to him. Then he felt something else, a hand on his forehead, drawing out all the pain and suffering. He tried to open his eyes but couldn’t. He struggled to speak, but just coughed up smoke.
That voice again. He tried to focus. Finally he made something out, from a million miles away, yet right next to him.
‘Hold on, Scoop.’
35
The pain felt like an old friend, a part of him he couldn’t live without. He couldn’t remember a time it hadn’t been there.
Click.
The fuzzy glow of morphine, another old compadre, leaching through his body, slipping through the cracks, into his pores, soaking his bones.
He lay for a long time like that, drowning in it.
Then he opened his eyes.
Another hospital ward. Same smells, same light, same washed-out colours.
He couldn’t move.
After a while, a nurse spotted his open eyes and came over. He looked at a glass of water on the bedside table. She lifted it to his lips and he sipped. Cold and shocking. He choked, his brain throbbing in time.
The nurse reassured him, then left.
He closed his eyes and lay still. He didn’t know how long for.
Eventually he was aware of someone nearby. He opened his eyes.
He tried to smile but it hurt too much.
She eased herself on to the bed. ‘Take it easy, Scoop.’
She took his hand. A drip was feeding into it.
He tried to speak but could only croak.
‘It’s OK.’ She patted his hand. ‘You’ve been unconscious for two days, just relax, there’s no hurry.’
Billy tried to push himself up on to his elbows but couldn’t.
‘How?’ he whispered.
Rose smiled. ‘True crime reporter, Scoop, always wanting to know the hows and whys, eh?’
Billy’s body felt like a lead casket at the bottom of the ocean.
