‘Come on,’ Bridges said. ‘That big “fuck you” to Barndale, eh? Like a celebration kind of thing. We’re going to get out of it, let’s get out of it!’ He took the belt from around his forearm, leaned across and began tying it around Allen’s. ‘Half each, yeah?’
Allen stared at the syringe. Looked like a lot more than half left in there, but what the hell. He had always wanted to, had come close a few times, and he certainly wasn’t going to chicken out in front of a prick like Bridges.
He nodded.
‘Take you to the moon, pal,’ Bridges whispered. ‘Won’t even be able to remember Barndale… ’
Allen sucked in a fast breath as the needle went in and watched as Bridges drew back the plunger. The skinny scarlet thread that twisted and bloomed in the barrel.
‘Sweet, isn’t it?’ Bridges looked at him and smiled. ‘That’s how you know you’ve hit a vein, not just going to skin-pop, which hurts like fuck and doesn’t give you the same hit.’
‘Like a lava lamp,’ Allen said.
‘In she goes… ’
Allen instantly felt like someone had driven a bus across his chest. He struggled to breathe and wanted desperately to be sick, but before he had the chance to do either he heard a loud bang. He was still wondering what the hell it was as the blackness fell across him.
Bridges winced as Allen’s head crashed against the floor, then watched, fascinated, as the eyelids fluttered and the eyeballs rolled around like hard-boiled eggs. He waited until Allen’s chest had stopped heaving, then pulled himself up. He fetched a cloth and a bottle of spray-cleaner from the kitchen, then moved around the flat, carefully wiping down any surfaces he might have touched.
The heavy metal was still thumping from the speakers and he turned the volume back up, moving his head and hand in time to it as he sprayed and polished.
‘I’ll clean your place up good and proper, you fucking old woman.’
He wiped down the stereo and the CD case. He went into the kitchen, rooted in the bin and wiped down each of the empty beer cans. He wiped down the syringe that was still dangling from Allen’s arm then, last of all, he applied a delicate squirt to his tobacco tin. He would miss that, it had seen him through some hard times, but if everything was going to look kosher he would need to leave it behind and he knew these things had to be done properly.
The song was almost finished by the time he’d put the cleaning things back where he had found them, so he waited. He wheeled his arm around on the final chord, jumped in the air on the last deafening crash of drums and almost lost his balance. He steadied himself against a chair, giggling. It was very decent gear indeed and he was pretty far gone himself. He looked down at Allen’s body.
Way too good for pussies like that, anyway.
The dog was looking up at him from the sofa, tail going like a bastard and tongue lolling out. He thought he might get a puppy himself, thought about taking this one while he had the chance, then decided that would be a stupid move, all things considered.
He spent a few minutes rubbing the dog’s belly and tickling it behind the ears, then left.
He is lying in bed watching the news when he gets the call.
It’s one of his greatest pleasures, stretching out between clean sheets with a decent malt close at hand, greater even than the pleasure he gets from some of the bodies he shares his bed with now and again. That, however, is never more than a temporary arrangement, an hour or so to get what he needs, after which there is no company he craves but his own. He would certainly never dream of letting any of them stay the night. He has never so much as entertained such an idea. It’s not just that he could not bear to wake up next to one of them, he could not even contemplate going to sleep with anyone that close. An arm draped across him, or a foot against his own, someone else’s hot breath on the back of his neck.
Just the thought of it makes him shudder.
It’s not that he isn’t… tender. He prides himself on being a considerate lover, but he just prefers his own company when the sex is over and he always sends them home in a taxi with a little something extra in their pockets to spend on whatever drug lights their candle. They come looking for him, some of them, because they know they’ll be given a good time, in and out of the bedroom.
He is pleased that he has earned that sort of reputation.
He is watching the rolling news on Sky, which is nothing short of a godsend when something like this happens. Of course, it gets tedious after a while, with the same news – or lack of it – being tarted up a dozen different ways within the same programme, but it is oddly hypnotic nonetheless.
It will help him sleep, if nothing else.
There is one reporter standing just a few feet from the police cordon at one end of the street, a uniformed officer grim-faced behind him, while another – a young black woman, who is clearly the junior of the two – delivers her reports from outside the railway station, which is still closed of course. She occasionally talks to a disgruntled and barely literate commuter, but otherwise her screeching monologues have none of the drama commanded by her colleague. He has a face you can take seriously. He has coppers in shot as well as the occasional emergency vehicle, which always ramps up the excitement, such as it is.
He lies there and chuckles to himself.
There are, after all, only so many ways of saying that nothing whatsoever is happening.
He sips his malt and asks himself again what on earth the man inside the wretched little shop could possibly be doing this for. Yes, a few questions asked, but to what end? Is the man going to get his son back?
He takes another drink. Not going to happen.
Now the black woman is wittering on about ‘tension in the community’ and, as the phone rings, he decides that she could only have got the job because of some positive discrimination quota, and would be better off presenting children’s programmes…
‘Just watching the latest at Fags ’n’ Mags,’ he says.
‘What?’
‘The newsagent’s. These Indian places usually have some stupid name like that. Same as when they call a barber’s Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow! Bloody ridiculous.’
‘What’s happening?’
‘Silly bastard’s still waving his gun about at some poor policewoman. Nothing to get excited about.’
‘Yes, well, on a related matter-’
‘Oh stop talking like a ponce, will you?’ He sits up in bed, mildly irritated. He mutes the sound on the television. ‘I get enough of that at work every day.’
The man at the other end of the phone sniffs and says, ‘Fine. I just called to let you know that things have been sorted out. I thought you might like to know.’
‘Our Scottish friend earned his wages then?’
‘Well, I’ve only got his word for it, but he knows better than to try it on.’
‘And he was careful?’
‘Made a point of telling me just how careful he was.’
‘Good. As long as he’s careful enough to keep his own head down now he’s done what was asked of him.’
‘He’s got enough money to disappear, so there shouldn’t be a problem.’
‘I want this to be the end of it.’
‘Don’t you think I do?’
‘Where are you?’
The other man’s voice drops. ‘I’m at home. Downstairs.’
‘Get yourself off to bed, man, for God’s sake. Have a quiet wank, or better still give your wife a good seeing- to. Sounds like you need to relax.’
‘Shall we talk tomorrow?’
‘Well, I’ll be seeing you at the party, I presume?’
‘You think that’s a good idea?’
‘Like you said, things have been sorted out. We should enjoy ourselves a little.’ On the TV, the male reporter hands back to the studio. Behind the two suntanned anchors is a large picture of a smiling Javed Akhtar. ‘With any
