A noise behind him made him turn, and he saw another two young men emerge from a doorway which had been daubed with red paint. He felt the hostility in the eyes that fixed upon him and knew he was in trouble. He glanced over the side of the walkway. Even if he survived the jump he would break both legs.
‘Wot you want wiff Ronnie?’ the acne youth said.
‘We’ve got business,’ MacNeil replied, hoping that Ronnie might be on terms with these boys, and that they would leave him alone if they thought he was a friend of the ex-con.
‘Yeah, right,’ Acne said. ‘You’re the fuckin’ fuzz, aintcha? Fuckin’ rozza.’ MacNeil said nothing. Acne nodded towards MacNeil’s coat pockets. ‘Got ’em onya, ’ave ya?’
‘Got what?’
‘The fuckin’ drugs, coppa. Know what I mean?’
‘I don’t have drugs.’
‘Course you do. They give ’em tcha. All the cops got ’em, din they? Fuckin’ FluKill.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Give us ’em, then.’ He held out his hand.
‘I’ll give you my FluKill if you give me some information. That’s a fair exchange, isn’t it?’ MacNeil tried very hard to keep the tremor out of his voice.
Acne frowned. ‘Wot kinda fuckin’ info you looking for, rozza?’
‘I want to know where Ronnie goes when he’s not at work.
Acne looked at him as if he was insane. ‘You wot?’
‘I want to know where he hangs out.’
‘Sssa Black Ice Club, innit?’ the black youth said.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ Acne told him.
For a moment, MacNeil forgot his plight. ‘In Soho? All the clubs up there were shut down weeks ago.’
‘At’s wot you fink, mate.’ A cold smile narrowed Acne’s eyes. ‘Not that it fuckin’ matters wot you fink, does it?’ He held his hand out again. ‘Cough up.’ And he roared at his own joke. ‘Funny, eh?’
‘Sorry,’ MacNeil said. ‘I’m afraid I lied.’
‘You wot?’ Acne looked perplexed.
‘I haven’t got any FluKill.’ And he swung his left fist full into the boy’s face. He knew he had to take the initiative, catch them off guard, if he was to stand a chance. He felt bone and teeth break beneath his knuckles, and immediately stooped to scoop up the baseball bat as it fell from Acne’s hand. He grasped it with both hands and swung around. The bat, at full extension, caught one of the youths behind him square on the side of the head, and he went down like a sack of coal. The door to MacNeil’s right had been boarded up with plywood. He kicked it as hard as he could, and the sheet of wood splintered into darkness in a cloud of dust. MacNeil plunged through it into the unknown, the voices of his assailants raised in pain and fury at his back.
He was in a length of hallway from which the floorboards had long ago been ripped up. He ran from rafter to rafter and turned into another doorway. From here he could defend his position. They could only come at him one at a time. And the first of them came, screaming down the hall like a demented spirit. A crowbar embedded itself in the plaster beside MacNeil’s head. He hadn’t even seen it coming. He swung his bat and caught the black youth in the mouth, and the kid fell backwards, blood bubbling through split lips. MacNeil braced himself against the door jamb and waited for the next attack. But it didn’t come. The black kid, still whimpering, staggered back out through the gloom to the walkway. He heard the murmur of voices, and then someone cursing loudly. And then silence.
All MacNeil could hear now was the rasp of his own breathing in the dark. As his eyes grew accustomed to it, he looked around the room behind him. The floorboards were gone here, too. There was a torn mattress pushed up into one corner, and the rusted remains of an old bedstead. A window giving on to the walkway was boarded up. MacNeil fumbled for his phone. He could call for help, but it would take time, and he didn’t know how long he could hold these kids off. But there was no time even for a call. A whooshing sound came down the hallway, along with a dazzle of flickering white light. A flaming bundle of rags soaked in petrol. MacNeil could smell the fumes, and thick black smoke immediately forced him back into the room. It was insane. They didn’t care if they burned down the whole block.
He reacted instinctively, in panic as much as anything, and threw himself at the window. The whole board tore itself free of the nails which held it, and he went out through the window frame with it, pulling his knees up to his chest, catching his shoulder and his head as he went. He landed on top of one of his attackers, the board a barrier between them, and he heard the air being forced from the youth’s lungs in a deep, painful retch. MacNeil didn’t wait to see who it was. He scrambled to his feet and ran for the stairwell, legs nearly buckling beneath him. In his panic he had lost the baseball bat. But it didn’t matter. He was on the stairs now. He was on his way down, three, five at a time. Behind him, he could hear them whooping and shrieking, out for blood and revenge. If they got him he was a dead man.
He could see daylight falling in through the open doorway at the foot of the stairs. Half a flight, and then once he was out he could sprint for the car.
He drew a lungful of sweet, fresh air as he swung through the doorway out on to the concourse, and a baseball bat caught him full across the chest, forcing it all back out. His momentum carried him on for several steps before he fell amongst the broken glass and felt it cut into the flesh of his palms and cheek. He rolled over and saw a tall, gangly black youth in drainpipe jeans grinning down at him, his bandana pulled down to his neck. Three others emerged from the stairwell behind him and pulled up short. Acne had discarded his mask, his face thick with blood drying around his nose and mouth. He held a metal bar in his hand now, eyes filled with hatred and fury.
MacNeil lay on the tarmac, pulled up on to one elbow, still trying to catch his breath. He knew there was no way he could reach the car before them. These kids were like wild, wounded animals. They were armed, and they meant to kill him.
Acne confirmed his intent. ‘You’ra fuckin’ dead man, rozza!’ He lifted the iron bar clutched in his hand and took a step towards him. Then his chest burst open in a spray of pink. The youth barely had time to register surprise, before toppling forward on to his face without a sound. His weapon clattered noisily away across the flagstones.
MacNeil looked at him in amazement. He had no idea what had happened. The others stood frozen in disbelief.
‘Wot the fuck...?’ The black kid who had smacked MacNeil in the chest with his baseball bat moved towards his fallen friend, and the right side of his head just vanished. He spun around, toppling on to his back, his one remaining eye staring sightlessly up at the cloud overhead.
‘Jesus fuckin’ Christ, he’s fuckin’ shot!’ MacNeil heard one of the others shout. ‘Someone’s got a fuckin’ gun!’ And then he heard them sprinting off in different directions, like animals scattering at the report of a hunter’s rifle. They were gone in moments, and MacNeil was left lying on his own with two dead kids at his feet. He swung around and got quickly on to his knees, remaining crouched there, eyes flickering along the skyline of the surrounding apartment blocks, trying to spot the marksman, wondering if he would be next. But he saw no one, and there was no third shot. He got to his feet on shaky legs and looked at the two youths lying in slowly gathering pools of their own blood. He winced, as pain seared across his chest, and drew a sharp breath. He put a hand to his chest, and gently pressed. He didn’t think there were any broken ribs, but he knew he was going to be black and blue.