‘I’m getting bored with this,’ Hate complained into the silence. ‘Time to do some killing.’
‘Gissing’s the one you want,’ Mike stressed, eyes boring into Calloway’s. ‘When you’re finished with me, promise you’ll not forget that.’
‘I’ll remember,’ the gangster allowed. ‘But as of this moment, I’m inclined to agree with Mr Hate here – there’s been far too much talking.’
‘About time,’ Hate stated, punching his fist into the palm of his other hand. Mike turned his head towards Laura. He was almost close enough to kiss her goodbye.
‘Sorry I got you into this.’
‘You should be.’ There was plenty of iron left in her voice. ‘So the least you can do now is save the day.’
His eyes stayed locked on hers, and eventually he gave a slow nod, pain pounding through his brain. The nodding appeared confident and the eye contact was good. His senses seemed heightened, just as in the immediate aftermath of the heist itself, and he was with the woman he loved. This is living, he thought. Shame about the rest of it… Save the day, Laura had demanded. Who was he to argue?
In fact, the only thing he lacked was a plan.
Any sort of plan.
35
Johnno and Glenn stood guard on the pavement outside the snooker hall. Johnno was smoking, looking twitchy.
‘What’s up?’ Glenn asked,
‘Why are we stuck out here?’
‘Might work better for us – we can’t be called as witnesses.’
‘You think Chib’s going to top every single one of them?’ Johnno’s eyes had widened, but only a little.
‘Seems likely.’
‘And what the hell’s Hate doing here? I still owe him for what he did to my arm.’
‘Some wars you just have to walk away from, Johnno.’
Johnno stared at him. ‘Walk away?’
Glenn shrugged. ‘Whatever the mess in there ends up being, guess whose job it’ll be to mop things up after?’
‘Ours,’ Johnno agreed, flicking the remains of his cigarette on to the roadway. ‘What’s it all about, anyway? Have you figured it out yet?’
‘I’ve got an inkling – but like I say, best not to know.’
Johnno cupped the front of his trousers. ‘I’m bursting. Reckon I can…?’ He nodded towards the door of the snooker hall. There was a toilet in there, but he’d have to walk past everyone to reach it. Glenn shook his head slowly.
‘If I were you,’ he said, ‘I’d try over there.’ He gestured towards the pend on the other side of the street.
‘Fair enough.’
Glenn watched Johnno cross the road, watched as he headed down the lane and disappeared behind a row of communal bins. He’d already retrieved his phone from his pocket. Once Johnno was out of sight, he flipped it open and started punching numbers.
Mike wasn’t at all ready to die, and if he was going to live, so was Laura. It was his fault she was here. She’d only come looking for him because she’d been worried, which meant she cared about him. Least he could do in return was save her life, or (more likely, admittedly) perish in the attempt.
The air in the snooker hall felt electric. Hate had taken a step forward, and Chib Calloway didn’t look like doing anything other than aiding and abetting. Alice had just stopped cursing the pair of them out, having received a slap for her efforts. Westie had bitten his lip, saying nothing, so she’d vented her spleen on him for another half-minute or so. At the far end of the row, Jimmy Allison looked beaten by life and accepting of his fate. It seemed to Mike that he’d lost some dignity and control of his bodily functions to go with the blood on his shirt front.
‘I’ve been in this goddamned country too long,’ Hate was saying. ‘All I want to do is go home – whether I get my client’s money or not.’ He’d turned towards Calloway, a sudden sneer making his face even uglier. ‘I know Edvard will be keen to hear about the fake you were going to try to fool him with.’
‘I’ve told you a dozen times, I didn’t know it was a fake!’ Calloway growled. But then his own face lost some of its tension as he realised what Hate had just said.
‘You haven’t told him?’ he asked with ominous calm.
‘Just get me the money and he need never know.’
‘But I’m already in negotiations,’ Calloway was saying. Mike saw that the gangster was looking towards Westie. Yes… because the Hell’s Angels back in Scandinavia did a lot of international trading, and fine art made for useful collateral. On Calloway’s instructions, Westie was going to make more fakes with which to dupe Hate’s employers… and those same employers didn’t know as yet that they’d been tricked with the Utterson…
Mike was impressed. He could see Calloway calculating all the possibilities and permutations in an instant. And when he made his move, it was lightning fast, too. Hate had turned away from him to face the line of hostages again, trying to decide who would be first to die. He didn’t hear the snooker cue being lifted from the table, didn’t feel the change in air pressure as it was swung at the back of his head. The force of contact snapped the wood in half with a crack, splinters falling into Mike’s lap. Alice screamed, and Laura gave a little yelp. The giant stumbled and almost fell on top of Mike, but he didn’t go down, not quite. Calloway started raining blows from behind, yelling for his henchmen to come and help him. The door opened and one man ran in.
‘Johnno!’ Chib commanded. ‘Whack him hard!’
‘About fucking time,’ Johnno snarled, joining the fray. He got a good kick at the doubled-over Hate, blood spurting from the giant’s nose. But Hate was already fighting back, heaving Calloway halfway across the room with a shoulder charge. Mike realised that Alice was screaming again, but not in horror at the events unfolding right there in front of her – she was shouting for help, struggling against her bonds. Mike saw why: she was staring wide-eyed at the open door, beyond which lay the outside world, so reassuringly unchanged and unthreatening. A pavement, a lamppost, the roadway… Anyone passing would be bound to notice and fetch help. Maybe a passenger in a car, or a cruising cab-driver… It had dawned on Westie, too. He wrestled with his chair until it tipped over. He started wriggling, using any purchase he could find, slithering and jerking his way towards anywhere that wasn’t here.
‘Don’t leave me!’ Alice yelled at him.
‘I’ll get help,’ he gasped, the heel of one shoe squeaking against the floor. As he moved, he left a slight trail in his wake and Mike was reminded – suddenly and absurdly – of a snail beginning some epically slow journey. He turned his head to check on Laura, but her eyes were on the wrestling match in front of her. There were flecks of blood on her cheeks, nose and forehead – Hate’s blood.