‘Are you trying to shoot me?’ Axel cried. ‘Eh?’
He put his arm around Reilly’s neck and squeezed as hard as he could. Axel was strong. Reilly could hardly breathe. All he could do was kick his legs, but that did not help him get air into his lungs.
‘I’m always one step ahead!’ Axel screamed. ‘Don’t you understand?’
The grip around his neck tightened. Reilly tried to force out a reply; he could only manage some unintelligible grunts, and while he lay there, growing weaker because of oxygen deprivation, it dawned on him that he wanted to give up, that it no longer mattered to him either way. Jon couldn’t cope with being alive and neither can I, Reilly thought. He was starting to black out. His head felt very hot.
‘I understand people and I see through them,’ Axel snarled. Reilly felt his breath in his ear. The smell of Axel, his raw strength.
‘You can’t even put up a proper fight,’ Axel said. ‘You don’t deserve to live.’
Reilly wanted to beg for mercy. He wanted to explain and to put forward a proposal, but he couldn’t get a word out. Finally Axel let go of him. Reilly filled his lungs with air, but he was too terrified to move. Something in his throat had been badly hurt and he did not know if he still had a voice.
Axel got up and stared at Reilly lying on the floor.
‘So what the hell were you doing?’
‘I was unsettled,’ Reilly said. ‘I heard something.’ He tried to work out what he was feeling. He realised he did not feel much of anything. Now I know why people kill, he thought. They’re scared.
‘Would you have shot me?’ Axel asked. ‘You would have, wouldn’t you?’
He picked up the revolver. He opened the chamber and looked inside.
‘Six bullets. Bloody hell.’
Reilly dragged himself to standing. He massaged his neck for a while, then staggered to a chair and collapsed. After some time he began to recover; he got up and fetched the kitten. He put it inside the travel kennel. He gathered his belongings and packed them in his bag, along with his toiletries, his spare sweater and the Koran. Finally he put on his long coat.
Reilly did everything at a very slow pace.
Axel watched him calmly. ‘And where do you think you’re going?’ he asked.
‘Home,’ Reilly replied. ‘I’m going home to my flat.’
‘Walking, are you? You intend to plod along the road with that cage in your hand? Do you know what time it is?’
Reilly opened the front door and went outside on to the grass bank.
‘You look like a ghost in that coat,’ Axel shouted after him. ‘No one’s going to give you a lift.’
Reilly left. His coat-tails flapped, the travel kennel swung in his hand. After an hour trudging along the narrow track through the woods, he reached the main road, and later that morning a lorry driver transporting timber gave him a lift.
CHAPTER 34
He fed the kitten.
He watched it eat.
I’ve dithered my whole life, he thought, but now I’m going to be a man of action.
When the kitten had finished its food, it curled up in a corner and went to sleep. Reilly looked around the flat. He had made a decision and he was determined. His eyes fell on the Viking ship bottle his mother had given him. It sat on a shelf above the window. Carefully he took it down, held it up to the light and admired the colour of the liquid. The day has come when I need a stiff cognac, he said to himself.
He took a clean glass from a cupboard and poured himself a drink. This will do the job, he thought. Next he needed a notepad and a pen, which he found in the kitchen. He pottered around for a while. He had several things to take care of. He still felt a strong determination calmly propelling him on.
The kitten was sleeping. Reilly opened the kitchen window to get some fresh air. He looked down on the black tarmac. It was wet after a brief shower, but the sun shone now. Reilly sat down to write his confession. He forced himself to think back, to try to comprehend how the party at Skj?ret had led him to this point. Again he looked out of the window. He spotted a seagull soaring on a current of air. The sight of the white bird moved him. He got the idea that someone had sent it as a sign. The bird was proof of a purpose, which had finally made itself known elegantly.
He looked at the kitten.
John Coffey had a mouse, he thought, it had lived in his cell and he had called it Mr Jingles. Perry Smith had a squirrel. And I have a kitten. What will become of you? Perhaps you’ll be put down and then ground into pet food. Perhaps a Rottweiler will eat you for breakfast, literally. For a long time such thoughts tormented him. Then he started to write. The pen moved swiftly, the words came easily. He forgot time and place because he was back in the flat with Irene. Philip Reilly wrote. The sun rose in the sky, sending a beam through the window. It warmed his neck. He lived on a quiet street and today was a Saturday, but every now and then a car would drive past. At times he could hear people’s voices. And then there was the sound of a car door slamming. The car seemed to have stopped outside his block, but no one was likely to visit him at this time in the morning. He wasn’t expecting anyone so he carried on writing. When the doorbell rang, he sat chewing his pen for a while. The interruption weakened his resolve. But someone did see us, he thought. I have been expecting this moment.
He went to open the door. Axel burst in.
‘God’s peace, Reilly. That’s how you Muslims greet each other, isn’t it?’
Axel was holding the revolver. He went inside and sat down at the kitchen table where he instantly noticed the Viking ship filled with cognac.
‘Good God, what have you got here? I didn’t know you had such a naff side to you,’ he said. ‘Cognac in a ship?’
He twisted and turned the ship, and after studying it thoroughly, he put it down again.
‘Do you remember when we were kids?’ he asked. ‘Do you remember what we did on rainy days?’
Reilly was unable to answer. Axel had disrupted his momentum and he lost his train of thought.
‘We would go outside and squash snails,’ Axel said. ‘When it rained they would crawl out of the ditch and on to the tarmac. Once we saw more than a hundred just on the way to the corner shop.’
Reilly knew what was coming next.
‘And we would step on them,’ Axel said. ‘A trail of slime followed us all the way to the sweetshop.’
‘Why are you going on about the snails now?’ Reilly asked.
‘Because you distinguished yourself even then,’ Axel said. ‘You were so calculating. If you put your foot on the snail’s head, a kind of green slime would come out. But if you placed your foot on its tail, some disgusting yellow substance that looked like butter would squirt out. It was a choice you made every time you lifted your foot. Green or yellow.’
‘They were just snails,’ Reilly protested.
Axel noticed the notepad on the table.
‘What are you writing?’ he asked. ‘I hope you’re not snitching?’
He grabbed the notepad.
‘It’s just some nonsense I’m writing for myself,’ Reilly mumbled.
Axel read a few lines and then slammed his fist on the table.
‘Could we help it?’ he barked. ‘Did we intend to hurt Kim?’
‘No,’ Reilly stuttered.
Axel lost his composure. Reilly had never seen him so irate. His anger has been latent the whole time, he thought, and now it’s come to the surface.
‘Do you know what evil is?’ Axel yelled. ‘What is evil, Reilly? Do you want me to show you?’
Reilly had no time to react. Axel strode to the corner and grabbed the kitten. He held it in his hands, in his fists of steel. The kitten started to squeal. A high-pitched, heart-breaking wail that broke Reilly’s heart. Axel moved to the open kitchen window. He held the kitten by the neck, leaned out and looked down at the tarmac.