‘For the love of God, Dennis! Shoot the bastard!’
Reflexively I pulled the trigger. Again, nothing happened. I knew then that the weapon was useless. It was never going to unjam in the next five seconds.
‘Come on!’ yelled Raymond, his face red with frustration.
Barry half turned to his boss, still keeping one eye on the gun. ‘Mr Keen … Raymond … what are you doing? I won’t say nothing—’
‘Finish it!’
‘The gun’s fucking jammed, Raymond!’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’
In a surprisingly deft movement, he reached over, grabbed a medium-sized statuette of a golfer taking a swing from the side of his desk, and whacked Barry over the head with it. It broke immediately, the golfer’s head and torso flying across the room. Barry yelped in pain, but that was about it. He was hardly incapacitated.
This seemed to galvanize Barry into action. Seeing that he was dealing with people who’d have difficulty killing a rumour, he jumped to his feet in an attempt to escape, whereupon I slammed the tea tray into his face, knocking him back down again. He lashed out with his legs, but I jumped aside and tried to hit him with the butt of the gun. It caught him on the arm as he raised it to protect himself, and with his other hand he punched me in the kidneys. This time it was my turn to yelp in pain. I staggered backwards, creating an opening between him and the door. He was off the seat like a greyhound out of a trap and heading towards salvation.
I suddenly had a vision of spending the rest of my days behind bars, stuck in segregation along with the paedophiles and informants, and it was that which stopped me from letting Barry Finn go. Raymond was yelling something, but I couldn’t hear it. I jumped on Barry as he reached the door and tried to pull him backwards, dropping the gun in the process.
But Barry had a lot of incentive to get out of there and he wasn’t going to give up easily. Despite my best efforts, which included trying to gouge his eyes, he managed to open the door and stagger unsteadily down the hall with me on his back. He managed about four paces before Raymond came running round the front of him, his face a panting mask of adrenalin and rage.
‘All right, Barry boy, let’s go quietly now.’
But Barry wasn’t going to go quietly, not if he could avoid it. He desperately tried to dodge round Raymond with all the agility of a pantomime horse.
Raymond stood his ground, and punched him hard in the stomach.
Barry gasped as the wind was taken out of him. He fell to his knees and held that position for maybe a second, before toppling over onto his side. I jumped off his back, thinking that Raymond must have one hell of a punch on him. Which was when I saw the bloodied knife in his right hand.
‘Pick him up, hold him,’ he demanded excitedly.
Barry was crawling along the floor on his stomach, blood oozing out from under his body. Raymond kicked him viciously in the side, which I thought was a bit unnecessary, but he had the look of the sadist about him that day. I’ve seen it plenty of times before. Sometimes they just get carried away.
‘Go on, pick him up, Dennis. Now.’
Barry coughed and tried to say something, but it just came out like a splutter. I felt sick. This was different from a shooting. It was so much more messy and, in a bizarre way, so much more personal.
I stood behind him and pulled him up by the arms. His body made a horrible squelching sound as it disengaged from the pool of blood forming below him, and I had to fight to stop myself from puking.
Raymond’s face split open in a wild, maniacal grin and his eyes widened dramatically, as if they were trying to drink in as much of the scene as possible. Again Barry tried to get words out, but it was too late. The hand containing the knife darted out and there was a splitting sound as the blade peeled through soft flesh. Barry gasped. Raymond stabbed again. And again, his face beaming savagely, lost in the joy of murder, his right arm pumping like a demented piston. Barry tried to struggle but his movements were weak and drawn, and every thrust of the knife took just that little bit more out of him. The blood dripped heavily onto the floor and I struggled to hold him upright, slipping slightly in the mess below.
‘Please,’ I heard him whisper through clenched teeth, or maybe it was just air escaping, I don’t know.
Either way it was over, and finally his resistance went altogether and he slumped in my arms. Raymond had stabbed him at least a dozen times.
Raymond stood back, panting with exertion, and admired his handiwork. His crisp white shirt was spattered with gobs of blood. ‘All right, he’s gone. You can put him down now.’
I laid him gently on the floor and stepped away. There was blood everywhere, although thankfully the dark hardwood flooring served to disguise the worst of it.
Raymond, still holding the knife, wiped sweat from his brow. ‘It’s a shame he had to go like that. I always quite liked old Barry. What the fuck happened with your gun?’
‘It jammed,’ I said. ‘It happens sometimes.’
‘This is a fucking mess, Dennis. By rights you ought to clean it up as it was your gun that caused it.’
‘What are
