Tyrone manages to twist his head away, into the blade on his right-hand side, and it sears into his neck, drawing a deep wound. Meanwhile, the chisel misses his eye, spearing into his face under his cheekbone, penetrating the flesh an inch deep and sticking fast. As blood oozes from both wounds he screams out in panic, — FRAANKK!!
— That’s ma name, Begbie admits, with a dry chortle. Jim has a nice life, he considers, but sometimes Frank has a hell of a lot more fun.
Tyrone struggles with the agonising pain in his face, trying to fill his lungs with air. — What. . what the fuck dae ye want?
— This, Begbie says coldly. — Ah dinnae want money. Ah dinnae want favours. Ah want this: you on the table, me wi these blades, and he takes one of the Murdo Mathieson Tait pictures, a smaller study, down from the wall. — Tell me aboot this picture.
— What. .?
— Tell ays aboot it.
— Ah no fuckin. . Power starts, only to scream out in horror, — NO, as Begbie’s blade slices through the canvas. He slashes the picture up and tosses the torn remnants under the table.
He then picks another painting off the wall. — Ye might remember mair aboot this yin?
Tyrone focuses, neck straining upwards to see, trying to fight down a new mounting wave of terror. This art collection: it is his true legacy. He looks at the picture, then at Franco. — It’s the early. . the early Murdo Mathieson Tait, he says, the digging chisel in his face giving every word a twist of pain, — he’d just graduated fae Glasgow College ay Art. . then he went away tae Italy. . Tuscany. . Umbria. .
— Fuckin good for him, ay.
— What ah dinnae get, Power pleads, — is why? Ah helped you! At the funeral, wi Morrison!
— He’s fuckin nowt. Ye tried tae set me up against Anton. But ah did what ye wanted, cause it suited me. Now this suits me, Frank Begbie declares. — See, ah nivir really liked you that much.
Rage swirls through Tyrone like a venomous tide, overwhelming the creeping fear and the sickening pain. — Ah fuckin took you on! Gave ye work, when ye were just a brainless clown.
— You hud ma missus here. That was an error, bringing her intae it.
— Ah helped her! Ah never touched her!
— Disnae matter whether ye helped her or no. Begbie holds the picture at arm’s length, screwing up his eyes. Something in his gesture reignites the foreboding in Tyrone. — When ye brought her here, ye brought her intae it. Ah cannae huv that.
— Ah tried tae help her find you! The lassie was in distress! Ah treated her right, Frank, he begs.
To his relief, Begbie lowers the picture, placing it underneath the table. — See the worst thing in life? When ye git accused ay something ye didnae dae. Ye did that wi perr wee Anton. Ye did it tae me.
— Whaaa. . ah nivir, Power blubbers, the blood dripping from his neck and face onto the table below him, pooling dark and sticky on the polished mahogany surface. He now seems diminished by terror: regressing, Begbie realises, to the fat kid who was a victim of bullies, probably, before he became one himself.
— You said that ah cut off somebody’s hand; that cunt Seeker’s. It wis just a fuckin bit ay finger, he stroppily advises. — And you fuckin set us up, oan that job in Newcastle. Ye kent we’d hud a run-in.
Power’s overheated brain feverishly grasps the opportunity to correct Begbie’s misapprehension about this old affair. — Did ah fuck. . that wis Donny Laing organised that. .
— He’s no here, though, and naebody kens what happened tae um, Begbie says, unclipping Power’s hands, grabbing his right one and pushing it palm-down onto the table.
— You’ve goat it wrong, Power roars, fighting for leverage, but before the big man can make a fist, Begbie wrenches out one of the blades by the side of his neck and slams it through the back of his hand, pinning it to the wood.
David Power feels no pain in his hand, only a storm of broken glass blowing through his chest. He tries to react, swinging vaguely at Frank Begbie with his other hand, but his mobility is constrained by the nails fastening him, chest-down to the table.
Begbie has picked up a huge cleaver and brandishes it above Tyrone’s head.
— NAW. . FRANK. . PLEASE. .
He smashes it down into Power’s wrist, severing it; the stump flies upwards, now detached from the hand pinned to the table, and a scarlet rope of blood shivers across the room. Begbie manages to jump back to avoid its trajectory. He moves behind David Power, who then feels his right leg being lifted up and his shoe and his sock being removed.
— Stop. . Power groans in misery, and turns his head from his sundered wrist and hand, electing to shut his eyes rather than contemplate the puddling of his own wet, warm blood, running from the wooden block onto the table, the metal scent of it thick in his nostrils.
— Why would ah fuckin well stoap? Cause it’s wrong tae hurt another human bein? You dinnae believe that. Cause you’ve goat money? Aw the mair reason.
— Frank. . we were mates. . Tyrone lashes pitifully against the bonds. His eyes are rolled back to twitching, vein-threaded whites. — What the fuck are you doing. .? He hears his voice reduced to a hysterical fluting, his eyes now closed, trying to block out everything.
Franco ignores him, pulling out a lighter. Shines the flame against a canvas on the wall above a walnut sideboard. He recalls Tyrone saying it was Murdo Mathieson Tait’s finest work, The Woods Above Garvoch Bay. — Oil paint, and probably made fae quite combustible materials, he speculates. — Aye, ah’ll wager this boy’ll go up, be a fat congealed heap ay shite before long, and he looks at Tyrone maliciously. — Especially as ah’ve soaked the cunt, and the rest ay this room, in petrol.
But the sense that several more of his paintings have been removed from the walls compels Tyrone to open his eyes and look around, confirming his ghastly fear. — Naw! Dae what you like tae me. . he gasps, his chest convulsing and hiccuping in acid reflux, — but no the paintings. . no these works. . they have tae be enjoyed by future generations! You’re an artist, he pleads, — ye surely huv tae get that!
— Naw, Franco’s eyes are coloured stones, — the fun is in the daein ay them. Ye dinnae really care what happens eftir they’re done, you’re already workin on the next yin, ay.
— YOU FUCKIN –
Davie Power never gets to finish the sentence as Frank Begbie replaces the ball gag, and watches his old boss’s bloodstained face redden and bloat further. The stump is still bleeding; oozing thick claret onto the table, gathering and dripping down onto the polished floorboards in a steady trickle. — Breathe easy. . through the nose, he advises. — Mibbe too much ching up the hooter, mate. Anywey, the air’s gaunny git a bit thin in here soon. Mind ay Mousetrap? A bairns’ game? Played it recently, pit ays in mind ay it. Couldnae be too elaborate, time constraints, ay, but no a bad wee effort under the circumstances, Franco explains brightly, moving over and digging out some of the nails that pinned Power’s leg, lifting it up and wedging it under a small stool he puts on the table, as he tightens the string around his foot. — Be still, Franco instructs, coming back round, pointing behind Tyrone. — You cannae see it but there’s a string attached tae your big tae. If you move it. . Tyrone — bilious vomit rising from his gut, hitting the gag and heading back down in a burning trail — follows Franco’s gaze to a series of eye hooks screwed into the wall. The string seems to be going through them all. The other end is tied to a burning candle, which sits in a dish of petrol. It is placed on the sideboard, directly underneath The Woods Above Garvoch Bay. — Dinnae move.