What Came Before He Shot Her

firmly into Joel’s hand and curved his fingers around it. It felt to Joel like one of Dix’s twenty-kilo weights. He desperately wanted to let it fall to the ground.

            Joel said, “What—?” and then heard the brisk slam of a car door somewhere beyond them, out in the street. He heard a woman say,

            “What on earth was I thinking, wearing these ghastly shoes? And for shopping of all things. Why didn’t you stop me, Deborah? At the very least, a decent friend would have saved me from my worst inclinations. Could you possibly park the car for me?”

            Another woman laughed. “Shall I take it to the garage? You do look done in.”

            “You’ve read my mind. Thank you. But first let’s unload . . .” Her voice grew fainter for a moment and then, “Heavens, do you have any idea how to open the boot? I pushed one of these gizmo things, but . . . Is  it open, Deborah? Unlocked? Lord, I’m hopeless when it comes to Tommy’s car. Ah yes. It appears we have success.”

            Joel risked a look. He saw two white women perhaps three houses along the street, lifting what looked like four dozen fancy carrier bags from the boot of a fine silver car. They carried them several at a time up the front steps of one of the houses and then returned for more. When they’d emptied the boot, one of the women—a redhead wearing an olive coat and a matching beret—opened the driver’s door. Before she climbed inside, she said, “I’ll take it to the garage, then. You go and take off your shoes.”

            “Cup of tea?”

            “Lovely. I’ll be right back.”

            “Mind Tommy’s car, though. You know how he is.”

            “Don’t I just.”

            She started the engine—it was very nearly soundless—and she drove the car slowly past the tunnel where Joel and Cal were waiting. Unfamiliar with the vehicle, she was completely focused on the street before her, her hands high on the steering wheel in the manner of someone intent upon getting from point A to point B without damage. She didn’t look once in the direction of Joel and Cal. A short distance down the street, she turned left into a mews and disappeared from view.

            Cal said, “Now, mon,” and he jerked Joel’s arm. He made for the pavement and for the other woman, who was still standing on the steps of the house. She was surrounded by her shopping, and she was rooting around in a leather shoulder bag for the keys to her front door. A curtain of her smooth jaw-length dark hair hid one half of her face, and as Joel and Cal approached her, she whisked this hair back behind her ear to reveal her earrings. They were gold hoops, delicately engraved. She wore a large diamond on her wedding finger.

            She looked up, hearing something and perhaps that something was the approach of strangers, although she obviously didn’t know it was strangers and danger because she said, “I can not find my blasted keys. I am, as always, utterly hopeless of remedy. We’ll have to use Tommy’s if you—” She saw Joel and Cal, and she started. She followed this with a light, self-conscious laugh. She said, “Lord. I am sorry. You gave me a fright.” And then with a smile, “Hullo. May I help you? Are you lost?

            Do you need—”

            “Now,” Cal said.

            Joel froze. He couldn’t. Do anything. Say anything. Move. Talk. Whisper. Shout. She was so pretty. She had dark warm eyes. She had a kind face. She had a tender smile. She had smooth skin and soft-looking lips. She looked from Cal to him to Cal to him, and she didn’t even see what he was holding. So she didn’t know what was about to happen. So he couldn’t. Not here, not now, and not ever, no matter what happened to him or his family as a consequence.

Cal muttered, “Fuck. Fuck,” and then, “Bloody fuckin do it, mon.”

            That was when the woman saw the gun. She looked from it to Joel. She looked from Joel to Cal. She blanched as the gun exchanged hands when Cal grabbed it. She said, “Oh my God,” and she began to turn for the door.

            That was when Cal fired.

            Fired, Joel thought. Shot the gun. Not a word about handing over her bag. Not a word about money, her earrings, her diamond. Just the single sound of a single shot, which cannoned between the tall houses on either side of the street as the lady crumpled among her shopping, saying, “Oh,” and then fell silent.

            Joel himself gave a strangled cry, but that was all because Cal grabbed him and they both took off running. They didn’t set off in the direction they’d come from because without speaking, discussing, or making a plan, they both knew that the red-headed woman had taken the car that way and would doubtless emerge from the mews on foot at any second and see them. So they ran towards the point where the street curved into another street, and they took this turn. But Cal said, “Shit!

            Fuck! Shit!” because coming towards them at a distance was an old lady walking a doddering corgi.

            Cal dashed into an opening on their left. It turned out to be a mews. He followed it as it made a dogleg to the right, where a line of houses stood. But this formed a cul-de-sac at the end. They were trapped, blind men caught in the maze.

            Joel said in panic, “What’re we—?” but that was all he got out. For Cal shoved him back the way they’d just come.

            Just before the dogleg in the mews, a high brick wall marked the boundary of the garden of a house in another street. Even at full speed and spurred by the terror of being seen or being caught, they couldn’t have hoped to leap over this. But a Range Rover—so common in this part of town—parked next to the wall blessedly gave Cal and Joel what they needed. Cal leaped onto the bonnet and from there he scrambled to the top of the wall. Joel followed as Cal dropped to the other side.

They found themselves in a pleasantly overgrown garden, and they made for the far side. They crashed through a low hedge and knocked over an empty copper birdbath. They came face-to-face with another brick wall.

            This one wasn’t as tall as the first, and Cal was able to leap to the top of it easily. Joel had more trouble. He flung himself at it once, then twice. He said, “Cal! Cal!” and the artist reached down, grabbed him by his anorak, and hoisted him over.

            A second garden that was much like the first. A house to the left with windows that were covered. A brick path leading to a wall across a patch of lawn. A table and chairs beneath a gazebo. A tricycle lying on its side.

            Cal leaped for the far wall. He gripped the top. He lost it. He leaped another time. Joel grabbed his legs and shoved him upward. Cal reached back and pulled Joel along. Joel’s feet scrabbled against the wall and could gain no purchase. A ripping sound came from his anorak and he cried once in panic. He began to slide back. Cal grabbed him again, anywhere he could. Arm, shoulders, head. He knocked off Joel’s knitted cap and it fell, back into the garden from which they’d come.

Joel cried, “Cal!”

            Cal heaved him over. “Don’t matter,” he grunted. They left the cap behind.

            They said nothing more because they did not need to. All they needed was to escape. There was no time for Joel to question what had happened. He thought only, Gun went off, just went off, and he tried not to think of anything else. Not the woman’s face, not her single

            “Oh,” not the sight and the sound and certainly not the knowledge. Her expression had gone from startled, to kind, to friendly, to terrifi ed, all in the space of less than fifteen seconds, all in the time it took her to see, to realise, and to try to escape.

            And then there was the gun. The bullet from the gun. The smell and the sound. The flash from the pistol and the falling body. She’d hit her head on the wrought-iron rail that ran along the chessboard top step as she’d crumpled among her carrier bags. She was rich, very rich. She had to be rich. She had a posh car in a posh neighbourhood that was filled with posh houses and they’d shot her, shot her, shot a rich white lady—posh to her bones—next to her own front door.

Another garden loomed before them, this one like a miniature orchard. They charged across it, towards the