He lay on his back, staring up at the night sky. Shivering. Steaming gently. According to Josie’s glow-in-the-dark watch it was half past eleven. Wednesday. Two days without food or water. He was lucky to be alive at all. And that thought set off a fit of the giggles. And then some coughing. And finally some sort of seizure. He was pouring with sweat, juddering away, teeth clamped shut so he wouldn’t bite his tongue in half. Not healthy. Not healthy at all.
Milne rolled over on to his front and levered himself up on to his knees. Trembling all the time. Knowing that without something to drink soon, he was going to die. The world tangoed round his head as he stood upright, the night sky swirling and pulsing. He took a deep breath and lurched towards the darkened row of cottages.
A security light blared into life, catching him halfway down the path, but he staggered on to the front door. Locked. Milne dragged out the keys he’d taken from the bastard who’d killed Josie and tried them in the lock, one by one. None of them worked.
He lurched across the garden and nearly fell over the waist-high fence, clambering into next door. The keys still didn’t fit. But another dose of the tremors grabbed him, shaking him to his knees. Leaving him gasping and wracked with cramp on the top step. The third house was the same, only this time he had to crawl through the garden to get to the front door. The keys were useless.
Give up. Just curl up on the path and die: get it over with.
But there was one more house left — the one on the end. Where McRitchie lived. McRitchie would still be banged up in Craiginches, Milne could break in without having to worry about an irate householder coming after him with a shotgun.
It was pitch-dark round the back of the cottages. Milne felt his way along the wall, stumbling over a pile of something that rattled and clattered, before finding McRitchie’s back door. It was one of the part-glazed kind beloved of housebreakers everywhere. Smiling, Milne tried to smash one of the panes with his elbow. It bounced, sending shooting pains racing round his body, making his whole arm feel like it was on fire. Biting his tongue he sank to his knees and nearly passed out.
Deep breaths. Deeeeeeep breaths... Oh God, he was going to be sick. But there was nothing to be sick with, just a thin string of bile, spiralling bitterly down the front of his soaking, stained clothes. He grabbed a rock from the garden and did the window properly, sending shards of glass shattering into the kitchen. Fumble with the lock and doorknob. And he was in. Oh thank God.
He slumped against the worktop and tried not to pass out. And tried—
It’s his birthday and he’ll cry if he wants to. Nineteen years old and his present is getting the crap beaten out of him by Colin McLeod over a small matter of an unpaid debt. Fifteen pounds. That’s all it takes for Colin McLeod to give him two weeks in hospital. Happy birthday.
The doctors come past and the councillors and the police too, but he doesn’t say anything. Just lies there and tries to move his toes again. They give him methadone and group therapy, but as soon as he gets out he’s back on heroin again. Borrowing money and—
BANG! And his head hit the linoleum floor. Milne lay flat on his back, staring up at McRitchie’s kitchen ceiling, wondering how he got there. He was in hospital and the next thing... He closed his eyes and shivered. He needed a drink.
There was a bottle of whisky on the kitchen table — illuminated by the faint green light from the clock on the microwave. He picked it up with trembling hands and fumbled the lid off, swallowing mouthful after mouthful, not caring that it burnt all the way down. Until it hit his stomach and bounced, spewing out through his mouth and nose, making a slick of alcohol on the kitchen floor.
Water, he needed water, not whisky. Lurch to the sink, turn on the tap and stick his mouth against it. Sucking it down. This time he was bright enough to stop after a couple of mouthfuls, feeling his stomach rebel after two days on “nil by mouth”. Two gulps, then a break, then another couple. Slowly building up until he wasn’t thirsty any more. He was ravenous.
McRitchie’s fridge wasn’t exactly packed with tasty goodies, but Milne didn’t care. He grabbed things at random, stuffing them in his mouth, barely chewing. Eating by the cold-white glow of the fridge light. Cheese, cold mince, raw bacon. For a moment he thought he was going to bring it all up again, but it stayed down. Now all he had to worry about was the—
“Click.” Light blossomed in the kitchen and someone said, “What the FUCK?”
Milne span round, eyes wide, cold beans falling from his open mouth. It was McRitchie, looking very pissed off. The man was easily as tall as Milne, but a hell of a lot broader. Muscled, not junky stick-thin. Someone who didn’t sample his own product.
Milne raised his hands, dropping the tin of beans. It bounced off the linoleum, exploding red sauce and pale beans everywhere, joining the whisky vomit. He tried to explain what he was doing there, but his throat wouldn’t work.
McRitchie yanked a drawer open and dragged out a long-bladed kitchen knife. “Break into my house? You stupid smack-head bastard!” He charged forward. “I’ll fucking—” and stepped right in the slick of spilled beans and whisky. His left leg shot out from underneath him and for a brief second everything went into slow motion: the knife sailing through the air, his head sweeping downward and catching the edge of the kitchen table. The loud “thunk!” as it hit. The knife skittering away across the working surface, clattering into the sink. Another thump as McRitchie hit the floor hard. Eyes shut, mouth open wide. Not moving.
Milne grabbed the knife from the sink and crept forward. Trembling. McRitchie was still breathing. But it didn’t take long to fix that.
The guy’s car was in exactly the same place he and Josie had left it two days ago. It even started first time. Milne sat behind the wheel, shivering and shaking, coughing until the world slipped into shades of black and yellow then disappeared.
He came to with his head resting against the wheel and the car’s horn braying in his ear. Snatched himself back upright, felt everything whooooosh around him. And closed his eyes. Forcing it all back down. Turning the key in the ignition.
It had taken every last ounce of strength to drag McRitchie’s heavy arse round to the septic tank, tumbling him in with Josie and her killer. Then a considerable breather before levering the inspection hatch cover back into place. Good job McRitchie had a HUGE stash of speed hidden in his bedroom or there was no way Milne would have managed it. In fact all of McRitchie’s stash was now stuffed into the glove compartment, Milne’s pockets, and under the driver’s seat. He had enough to last a couple of months, if he was careful and didn’t go mad in the first week.
All he had to do now was get back to the squat and he’d be fine. Sell the car, get some spare cash and live on drugs and delivery pizza until April. Every junkie’s dream.
The A90 was quiet as he pulled on to it, face screwed up in concentration, keeping the car at a steady thirty, trying to stay between the white lines. And doing a pretty good job of it too. Three tablets of speed and he was back on form. No more shakes and shivers. No, he was feeling— Oh shite.
A flash of blue light in the rear-view mirror. SHITE!
Eyes front. Maybe it wasn’t for him? Maybe the police wanted to pull someone else over and they were just... No. It was him. And he was too wasted to make a run for it. He pulled over.
The traffic policeman was a woman. She rapped on the driver’s window and Milne fumbled with the electric button thing until it slid down. She recoiled back, one hand covering her mouth, gagging. “Holy shit!” she said at last, spluttering. “What the hell is that stink?”