I lowered my head; the heater was going full blast. I felt my heart thumping, the blood pumping in my veins. My thoughts mashed: a million grim and grimmer scenarios played out on the screen of my mind. Oh God… Michael, and now Alice. I gulped down my hurt, cuffed away the emotion. Was time to man up — put brass-knuckles on my feelings. Someone had to pay.
Vilem kicked out again as I returned to him. His legs flailed wildly, he was panicked; he’d no idea. He shouted from behind the tape that covered his mouth. The sounds came muffled — I sensed the desperation in his voice, but whatever it was he said, it didn’t matter. This fucker was going to learn about loss.
I picked up the screwdriver and went for him.
His legs shot up, swept the air in grand arcs, I knocked them down. He jerked his shoulders violently, tugging to release his hands. He was too well tied. His eyes widened; I could see the fear spreading in him. It fed some need in me, I knew what it was: revenge. I smacked his head with the butt of the screwdriver. He blared out in pain. For a moment Vilem seemed to gather more strength, flared nostrils at me. I hit him again and then a dark finger of blood ran from his hairline to the bridge of his nose. I watched his chest rise and fall, his chin sink into his neck and then his eyes rolled up in his head and he fell to the side.
I stepped back.
Blood splattered snow as I struck him across the face with my boot again and again. The red on white was stark. The warm blood seeping and sinking into the cold of the snow until the two became one amorphous pink mass. I watched Vilem as he tried to focus his eyes but he was stunned, his lids falling and closing involuntarily. He made a lame effort to raise a leg, to knock the screwdriver out of my hand, but he had no coordination, the tank was empty; he was beat.
I thought of Michael. I thought how he had faced the same terror as his killer did now. My brother, who lay on that mortuary slab, a small hole beneath his heart. Grey, drained of life. He wasn’t coming back to us. My breathing stilled as I loomed over Vilem.
‘Did you think I would let you get away with it?’ I yelled. I heard the words but they didn’t sound like mine. The voice was mine, yeah, but I’d long since ceased to be the man I thought I was; this was new territory, beyond any previous misdemeanours. I knew what I was about to do, I knew the consequences, but I didn’t care. Nothing mattered now — I’d lost everything, there was nothing left; what did it matter if I lost myself too? ‘Did you think I would let you kill my brother and live yourself?’ I roared.
Vilem groaned, moved his head to the side, smeared more blood on the snow. I lifted my boot and stamped on his face, crushed in my heel. His nose split. Blood came in a flood; he gasped for breath, choked it back. I watched him struggle for air as I drank in his pain.
‘My brother was a good man, but what kind of cunt are you?’
He convulsed before me, rocked to and fro as the blood went down his throat. I watched him suffer, wanted to feel his anguish. I was revelling in his misery; was I sick? Fucking A.
‘And now Alice too… my niece.’
I grabbed his collars, heaved him to me as I pressed the screwdriver against his jugular. He rasped, spat blood. I wanted to be close enough to hear his death rattle; I wanted to see the lights go out for good. ‘You’re going to fucking die just like them.’
I gripped the handle; my palm was sweating, I held it tighter — so tight my fingers ached. I hesitated. My heart was racing, I felt the blood ping in my temples — what was this, conscience? Never. A fucking eye for an eye; I drew back my arm.
‘No!’ A yell came from the front of the truck. ‘No… Leave him!’
I turned. ‘Alice…’
I watched her stood shivering in the snow. Her thin arms were held out to me. Her delicate shoulders trembled. She looked so frail, so weak, and white enough to meld into the landscape. ‘He hasn’t done anything, Gus.’
I didn’t understand. I was gone, off some place where words seemed meaningless — action was all I knew now. I turned back to Vilem, put the point of the screwdriver to his throat again.
I heard Alice stumble through the snow. She yelled, ‘It wasn’t him!’
I looked back; I didn’t want her to see this. I wanted to run to her. I wanted to pick her up in my arms and carry her away from this, but I had come too far to stop now. How did I tell her? How could I explain what I had to do? I couldn’t, she was just a kid. She didn’t understand a fucking thing about this world of hurt and misery — she was just a kid, wasn’t that the way it should be?
‘Alice, stay out of this!’ I yelled.
She came stumbling through the drifts towards me, grabbed at my arm, shrieked: ‘No, Gus, don’t — he didn’t do anything… It wasn’t him.’
I felt the nerves in my fingers twitch as I held tightly to the hilt of the screwdriver. I looked down at Vilem: he was still choking on his own blood. The air seemed to have been squeezed from my lungs; I couldn’t breathe. Hot bursts exploded behind my eyes; I couldn’t think. All I could do was stare at Alice, shaking before me. ‘What are you fucking saying?’ I hollered.
She held tighter to me, grabbed with all her strength. ‘Dad came home and he saw us, he went crazy, he was shouting and hitting Vilem…’
Words. All words. I felt like my head was being pushed under water every time she spoke. I wanted to listen, wanted to come up for air, but I couldn’t.
‘What?… What?’
She spluttered, tears rolling from her eyes. Her mouth twitched and twisted as her speech came fast: ‘He had a gun… Dad had a gun and I ran… I ran to the Meadows.’
I felt my grip on Vilem slip; he fell. I went to Alice. ‘You ran?’
‘They came after me, and there was a fight… Another fight, and the gun fell…’
I watched the snow landing on her as she spoke. Her whole body was shaking now. She looked like a weak sapling thrown about in a gale. So fragile, so utterly at the mercy of a cruel world; what had happened to her? What had happened to our little Alice? I walked closer to her. I saw my brother in her eyes. I spoke: ‘The gun… Who took the gun?’
She was coughing and wheezing; tears came faster, her voice was barely a whisper, the words already broken and cracked before she could get them out. ‘I did… I picked up the gun.’
I saw the whole image race before me. It felt like my heart was ablaze, like my chest had been cut open and a petrol-bomb chucked inside. I knew no pain like it — it engulfed me. I saw everything clearly now: the struggle, the confusion, the trigger being pulled, the muzzle flash.
‘You… shot him.’
She nodded.
Alice’s hands fell to her side, then she dropped to her knees. Her head lolled for a few seconds and then she fell over onto her shoulder and curled up before me. ‘I did it,’ she said, her voice strangled by emotion. I hardly took in the words, then she closed arms round herself and shook. ‘I killed him.’
I must have let a minute pass before I spoke. ‘Why?… Why, Alice?’
She raised her voice, sobbing, heart-hurts to a tear. ‘I–I thought he was going to kill Vilem. I didn’t mean to, I–I just wanted it to stop… I didn’t mean to… I didn’t…’
The screwdriver slipped from my hand, landed softly in the snow. As I looked ahead, into the night, I felt as though I had been dropped into another world. Nothing seemed real. The falling snow. The dark sky. A niece I no longer recognised, offering another bale of grief to add to my heavily burdened back. How? Why? Did any of these questions matter now? My world had ended. I wanted no more part in this life of men. I felt my knees give; my calves twitched in anticipation of a fall… and then, sirens wailed. I looked out to the road and saw the blue lights flashing. Police cars roared over the flattened gate into the field.
I looked at Alice curled on the ground and something sparked in me. ‘Get up!’ I ran over to her, yanked her to her feet. She felt so light — there was no weight in her — as I bundled her into the truck.
She cried, ‘What’s going to happen?’
‘Nothing… Nothing’s going to happen.’
I tried to turn the ignition but the truck wouldn’t start.
Alice screamed, ‘They’re coming, they’re coming for me!’
The engine suddenly purred to life and I floored it. The wheels spun wildly as the truck jumped into gear. ‘They’re not fucking having you.’ I made it to the edge of the field. The police cars flashed in front of the truck but I swerved round them. ‘Get out the fucking way!’ I yelled. I lined up the gate, but a Range Rover skidded in, blocked the way. I braked heavily and the truck fired into the side of the dyke.
Uniforms swarmed on us. Where did they come from? Who tipped them off? They were mob-handed for sure. Not messing about. I got out, balled fists. I still had a barrel of adrenaline racing through me, was ready to go. As I swung out, I felt a good crack connect, went again. ‘Fucking leave her… Leave her.’
I took down another flatfoot but got grabbed this time, held back, as they piled onto me. Four, five burly filth. My arms were pinned behind me as I was forced face-first into the cold snow. I saw Alice hauled from the truck; my thoughts stilled. I knew it was over but managed a lame ‘No… don’t take her.’
Plod reversed the Range Rover and took Alice to a police car. Her eyes darted left to right in quick time. I followed her every anguished movement, desperate for her to be left alone, left in peace. She’d been through enough. But then I could watch no more. It was all too painful. I knew how this ended now, and it crushed me. As I turned away another car arrived, a burgundy Lexus. The doors slowly opened and Fitz emerged. Mac hobbled behind him.
‘Let him go, for fucksake,’ said Fitz.
My heart still pumped wildly as the uniforms released me. I’d been held so tightly my arms were numb, but I was ready to go again. I jumped up, spat out a mouthful of snow. I looked at Mac. ‘You told them where I was?’
Fitz spoke for him: ‘I pulled him in, Gus… Didn’t give him a choice.’
Mac shrugged; his brows creased, his eyes were pleading with me. ‘They know it was her,’ he sighed out slowly. His hand came up to his mouth as he spoke — it looked as if he didn’t want to utter the words. ‘They took her dabs off the gun.’
Fitz rolled on the balls of his feet, put up his collar. He frowned as he spoke — he sounded harsher than Mac — ‘Radek spilled his guts: he was blackmailing Davie with the gun.’
My despair blackened. I felt my mouth widen. I tried for speech but it was beyond me. I didn’t feel human any more.
Fitz spoke again: ‘Davie was holding out to protect Alice, thought he was doing best by her.’
The feeling started to return to my hands, but the numbness seemed to have moved to my mind. I wanted to batter fists on my head, try to get some thoughts flowing. ‘Davie Prentice…’
Mac came round to my side, sighed. He placed a hand on my back. ‘Gus, they hauled in the Undertaker… fat Davie too.’
I felt as though I’d been hollowed out with a pickaxe; I didn’t want to hear any more. I lost balance and leaned on the side of the truck. I saw the uniforms untying Vilem, said, ‘What’ll you do with Alice?’ Soon as I said it the question seemed stupid; I knew the answer already.
Fitz frowned, tried to steady me with a hand on my arm. I jerked it away. ‘Gus, let me get you home.’
I turned to the road. Alice sat in the back of a police car now. Her hands had been cuffed behind her back. She looked so young it struck my heart. I felt my throat tighten as she stared at me, pleading for help. She widened her eyes and for a second we shared a locked glance of utter terror. As the police car took her away I stared into the blackness of the empty street and remembered holding an infant in a hospital ward many years ago.
‘Gus… Gus… Let me take you home to Debs,’ said Fitz.
I put eyes on him. ‘She won’t be there.’
I took my coat from the truck, started to walk towards the black road. I felt the quarter-bottle of Grouse in my pocket, took it out and unscrewed the cap. The first burn of it reached like a flame down my throat. The next hit went straight to my gut and made room for more. I turned up the bottle’s neck and drained the lot in one smooth belt.
An old song sung in my head; I had a taste for more.
Fitz yelled as I went, ‘Come on, Gus, you’re in the middle of nowhere.’
I walked on, said, ‘Don’t I know it.’