by Neil Cross
He said: ‘I wasn’t laughing at you.’
‘Don’t open your mouth,’ said Henry. ‘The flies will escape.’
It seemed to Holloway that Henry was about to pull the trigger. He tensed. He clenched his teeth and buttocks and squeezed his fists. He tried to force himself to face the gun. But something inside him was stronger than his will, and he looked away.
There was a noise in his head.
‘I’m going to give you a chance,’ said Henry.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Dryden. He looked at Henry, then shook his head once, very slowly. He said: ‘Please don’t do anything stupid.’
Henry seemed to enjoy the mystified glances. He smiled. This time there was humour in it.
‘It’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness,’ he said. He looked at Fiona and Holloway. ‘You and you,’ he said. ‘Move.’
They left Dryden alone in the chair.
Henry jammed the gun into the waistband of his jeans. The weapon dug visibly into his belly. Still nobody moved. With a grimace of exertion, Henry bent at the knees and, keeping his back straight, hoisted the eight-gallon container to his chest. He supported its weight with one hand and unscrewed the lid with the other. He slipped the lid into his pocket. He took a step forward and, posed like a chubby swordsman, he rained petrol on Rex Dryden.
Dryden bellowed. Blinded, he threw himself at Henry. Henry side-stepped. Dryden’s shin hit the table’s edge. He flailed, then toppled to his knees. The table went with him. Glasses fell but didn’t smash. They rolled around beneath Dryden as he crawled this way and that, apparently at random. He shouted that the petrol was burning his eyes.
Henry took advantage of Dryden’s helplessness. He poured more petrol over his broad, hog’s back.
Eventually, Dryden recovered some constraint. Still on his knees, he took a cotton handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his raw, cherry eyes. But by now Henry had drawn the pistol and retreated a few steps. Henry told Dryden to sit. Dryden stared at him for a long second. Then, with the stoic deliberation of a long-dominant silverback, he moved to the thronelike velvet chair.
Henry smiled at him.
‘Who’s laughing now?’ he said.
Henry set the jerry can on the floor alongside him. Keeping his eye and the pistol on Dryden he bent at the knee, reached down and screwed the lid back on. Then he straightened. With his free hand, he dug into the hip pocket of his jeans. Between index finger and thumb, he removed a battered, glossy white matchbook.
On the inside flap, Holloway knew, he would see today’s date inscribed in his own handwriting.
Holloway glanced at Lenny. He saw that Lenny too had recognized the matchbook.
Holloway rolled his eyes expressively. Lenny shrugged, as unsurprised as he was defeated.
Holloway looked behind him. The group of customers in the corner had drawn into a knot. They were still and watchful as birds on a wire.
Holloway looked away. He saw that he’d been spattered with petrol. He could feel it: cold, greasy, soaking into the weave of his jacket and trousers.
He noticed Fiona Wright examining her petrol-wet clothes. He caught her eye and tilted his jaw minutely upwards, a confected symbol of defiance. She answered with a tiny widening of the eyes.
Henry’s gun remained directed at Dryden’s head.
‘Henry,’ said Dryden. ‘Please.’
His hands lay useless and heavy in his lap. He shuddered with the cold of evaporation.
Henry ignored him. He looked to Holloway and the others. He nodded his head, once, business-like.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Form a line.’
They hesitated. Exchanged glances. Henry hastened them with a wave of the pistol. With maladroit, crablike movements, they sidestepped and collided until they were roughly aligned: Holloway at one end, closest to Dryden. Then Lenny, Shepherd and Fiona.
Fiona’s shoulder nudged Shepherd’s elbow.
Gently, he reached out and lay his hand on her upper arm.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Everything will be all right.’
She said: ‘I wish I could believe you.’
Nevertheless, she was comforted by the quiet compassion in his voice. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, to hide like a toddler behind his legs.
‘Believe me,’ he said. ‘I have a feeling.’
‘You two,’ said Henry. He waved the gun at them. ‘Shut up. And move apart.’
Shepherd and Fiona shuffled a half-step away from each other. When Henry looked away, she reached out and brushed her fingertips along the back of his hand. He glanced at her. Nodded. A smile cracked his beard.
‘Henry,’ said Dryden. ‘Please.’
Henry looked at him.
While he was distracted, Shepherd and Fiona edged closer together.
‘Stop saying please, please,’ said Henry. ‘It won’t get you anywhere. Here. Have these.’
With a flick of the wrist, he tossed the book of matches to Dryden.
On reflex, Dryden reached out and snatched them from the air.
Henry grinned.
‘Very good,’ he said. He adjusted his jacket, straightening it round the waist. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘What I’m going to do is this. Starting with this four, I’m going to shoot everyone in the room.’
While Holloway, Lenny, Shepherd and Fiona remained contemptuously still, a squall passed over the hostages in the far corner. From Henry’s vantage point, their horror was expressed in a series of jerks and spasms. He thought of battery hens. Or alarmed birds about to take flight.
He was forced to raise his voice over the clucking and squawking.
‘Unless—’ he said. He sounded like a committee chairman. ‘Unless—’
Soon enough he had calmed them. Then he could speak quietly again. He coughed into his fist. Took another moment to gather himself.
‘Unless you set yourself alight,’ he said to Rex Dryden.
This time, there came no squawking and no clucking. The silence in the room cramped like a muscle. Henry could feel the weight of many eyes on his shoulders. It was a good weight, assuring to the heart as the heft of something well-engineered was satisfying to the hand.
He felt their strength enter him.
Dryden looked up. He was the cracked remnant of a man.
He said: ‘What?’
He put three fingers to his lower lip, as if testing for blood.
Henry smiled with grim pity.
‘I’m going to shoot everyone in the room,’ he said. ‘Unless you set yourself alight.’
Holloway needed human contact. He reached out and took Lenny’s hand in his. Lenny squeezed back. Holloway swallowed. Lenny was a grey haze in the corner of his vision.
Dryden’s eyes shone wet.
He said: ‘Henry. You can’t do this.’
Henry experienced a flash of anger. It passed through him. He looked with great tenderness upon Dryden’s bowed head.
‘But Rex,’ he said. ‘I’m doing it.’
He glanced pointedly at the matches in Dryden’s hand. Then he looked at his wristwatch.
He said: ‘You have twenty seconds to decide. Let’s see if you have it in you to be a saviour.’
Dryden said: ‘You of all people know I’m not that.’
The voice belonged to a scared old man.
‘Well,’ said Henry. ‘I’m giving you a chance to be. Twenty seconds. From now.’
‘Jesus Christ, Henry.’
‘Eighteen seconds.’
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘I don’t want you to say anything. Fourteen seconds.’
Dryden held out his hands.
‘Do you want me to beg?’
‘You can try—’
‘Then I’m begging. Pleas
e, Henry.’
‘—but it’ll do you no good. Ten seconds.’
‘Please.’
‘Nine seconds.’
‘I’ll do anything you want.’
‘You know what I want.’
‘Except that. I can’t do that. God, Henry. Please don’t hurt those people.’
‘It’s in your power to save them. You have six seconds.’
‘I can’t. You know I can’t do it. Nobody could do it.’
‘I did it for you. Four seconds.’
Dryden balled his fists. He pounded at the petrol-soaked, velvet arms of the chair.
He bellowed: ‘Henry, what do you want?’
‘To let you know what it’s like,’ said Henry. ‘You have two seconds. One.’
Henry lowered his wristwatch. He shook his head and looked sorrowfully down upon the crown of Rex Dryden’s head.
He turned slightly and faced the four people lined up on his right. They were silent, drained of colour. Only their eyes moved, avoiding his: they were unable to meet Henry’s level gaze. Hunched and timorous, they reminded him of a front page newspaper photograph, the prelude to an atrocity in newsprint. He wished he’d brought his camera.
Henry raised the pistol. He took a step forward. He was not a tall man. He reached up and rammed the pistol into Jack Shepherd’s beard. He dug the muzzle into the hinge where jaw met skull.
Shepherd swallowed.
‘Please don’t,’ he said.
Henry seemed to hesitate. Then he pulled the trigger once, and blew Shepherd’s mouth off.
Shepherd whirled, loose-limbed, and slammed into the ground.
Lenny screamed. Then he stopped. He pressed two fists into his mouth and bit down on them.
In the periphery of his vision, Holloway could see the spasmodic twitching of Shepherd’s hands and feet. He thought of a runner, warming up on a cold morning.
He was alerted by a fear-suppressed sobbing to Fiona inching towards them, closing the gap where Shepherd had stood. She reached up and took Lenny’s hand in hers; forced his fist away from his mouth. Holloway saw how violently Lenny trembled. He too reached out and took Lenny’s hand. The three of them stood there, connected, blinking, staring ahead while Shepherd’s heels drummed on the varnished wooden floor behind them.
Among the knot of patrons in the far corner, someone shrieked. It broke their stasis. Shouts of distress and spasmodic tics flitted among them, possessive as St Vitus Dance. Somebody had pissed himself. Henry saw his waving arms and the darker patch on the inside leg of his charcoal-grey suit. His lip curled and he looked away from them.
He saw that Holloway, Lenny and Fiona had kept their backs turned. Shepherd’s corpse lay between the two groups, marking a line that could not be crossed.
Henry screamed at the patrons to shut up. He yelled himself hoarse. He waved the gun around. At some length, the customers fell quiet again. Their new, fragile hush was broken by intermittent, houndlike whimpering.
Dryden’s fingers gripped the arms of the chair. Vaporous trails of petrol made him shimmer like a ghost. He sobbed through gritted teeth. His bright little eyes were twisted shut.
‘Can you see God now?’ Henry asked him. ‘Or is it not God that you’re seeing?’
Once again, Henry bent at the knees to lift the petrol canister. The pistol had cooled enough for him to jam it once again into the waistband of his jeans. Then he stepped forward and again drenched Dryden. Emptier now, the canister was lighter and more manageable.
Petrol rained on Dryden’s lowered head and ran in twisting rivulets from the boney ridge of his brow.
Holloway stood closest to Dryden. He felt a cold mist on his cheek. He freed his hand from Lenny’s grip and touched his face. Henry’s glance flicked in his direction. Holloway became still. Henry looked away, and Holloway lowered the hand again. His fingertips were greasy with petrol. He wiped them clean on his lapel.
Then he slipped his hand into Lenny’s jacket pocket.
Lenny understood. He glanced sideways and he shifted his position, to make it easier. But he could not meet Holloway’s eye.
Henry set the canister on the floor. His hand was wet and slick, shining with spilled petrol. He wiped it on his thigh. Then he repositioned the pistol in his grip.
He said. ‘You have fifteen seconds.’
Dryden screamed. He thumped at the arms of his chair.
He said: ‘I won’t do this.’
Henry shrugged.
‘We did it for you,’ he said. ‘We took our lives for you.’
‘Your lives weren’t taken,’ Dryden yelled.
‘Yes they were,’ Henry said. ‘For your sake. Ten seconds. Do you know what that felt like?’
Dryden shouted: ‘Jesus Holy fucking Christ.’
From Lenny’s pocket, Holloway removed one of several books of Caliburn Hotel matches.
He put his hands behind his back, opened the flap and tore out a match. Because his hands were unsteady and the match wasn’t easy to strike, he calmed himself by concentrating on the movement of Henry’s lips.
‘Seven,’ said Henry.
With a sulphurous hiss, the match flared. Holloway cupped his hand. The flame burned him. His vision shimmered. He blinked. Set his teeth.
‘Six,’ said Henry.
Cupping the delicate flame in his blistering fingers, Holloway moved his hands to the front of his body.
‘Five,’ said Henry. ‘Four.’
Perhaps alerted by movement in the corner of his eye, Dryden looked up.
He saw what was happening. He looked at Holloway. Holloway looked back. Dryden thought of a fox.
Then Holloway tossed the flickering match into his lap.
There was a noise like a door slamming. The hot blast caused Holloway to step back, shielding his face with his forearm. The thin skein of moisture was blasted from his eyes. He smelled petrol and singeing hair.
Dryden was screeching, trying to stand. The immediate, ferocious heat had fused his skin with the synthetic covering of the armchair. Bent at the waist, he flailed and screeched, a burning hunchback.
The sudden heat tripped the fire alarm. The hotel was filled with a shrill, two-note shrieking.
Finally, one of the customers broke free: the Australian barman made a run for the fire door. The others wavered, then, milling, chaotic, they stampeded in his wake.
Disorientated, Henry whirled about. His loss of control was sudden and total.
Holloway removed the lock-knife from his pocket.
Henry levelled the pistol at the panicking customers; at Lenny, at Fiona.
The automated sprinkler was activated.
Holloway stood for a moment in the spray of an artificial deluge. He brushed water from his eyes. Then he stepped forward and stabbed Henry in the neck.
‘Jesus,’ said Henry. He stumbled forward. Caught himself on a chair.
He turned to face Holloway. He looked baffled. He touched the knife.
Holloway put his face close to Henry’s. For another bewildered moment, Henry thought they were going to kiss.
But they didn’t kiss. Holloway bit Henry’s nose off.
Henry screamed. It was lost in the two-note shrieking that surrounded them. He dropped the gun.
Holloway opened his mouth. Henry fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands. There issued a thick, slow welling between his fingers.
Holloway spat something into the fire. Wearing smeared clown’s lips, he stooped to tug and worry the knife from Henry’s neck.
One hand still cupping his face, Henry tried to crawl away.
Holloway stabbed him low in the back. Twice in the shoulder.
Henry collapsed and lay with his face resting on his forearm.
Holloway looked around and saw the room was on fire. Perhaps da
maged or spent, the sprinkler system had deactivated.
He looked for a way out. Dryden had almost reached the door. His unextinguished body had set light to it, and with it the heavy wood and velvet sofa that Lenny and Shepherd had lodged in the frame.
Something in the sofa ignited. The blaze seemed to leap at him. Holloway put up his hands to shield his eyes and stumbled backwards several steps, into a low table.
Lenny rushed to catch him.
Holloway looked at himself. His right arm was burned. He looked down further and saw that his leg was burned too.
‘What are you doing here?’ he said to Lenny.
Lenny tugged at his sleeve.
‘Leaving,’ he said.
Holloway looked round the room. Everyone had gone.
Lenny grabbed Holloway’s unburned left hand.
He said: ‘Come on.’
But he seemed fearful, hesitant, as if Holloway was a rabid dog that might now turn on him.
Holloway nodded towards Henry, still breathing.
He said: ‘No.’
‘Let the fire do it.’
Holloway felt the strength go out of him.
‘There might not be time.’
He had no idea how long they’d been here. But it seemed clear that the emergency services would be on their way. Somewhere in the forgotten world outside this burning room, the hotel was being evacuated. Bewildered guests milled over the pavements, asking each other what was going on. Perhaps by now, guests who’d escaped the bar would be joining them. Perhaps the police were already assessing the situation according to the limited, contradictory, hysterical information available to them. Fire engines would be screaming in their direction. Ambulances.
Holloway shrugged Lenny off and hurried through islands of flame; drifting plumes of steam and black, oily smog. He grabbed the petrol canister. It was hot to the touch; left fume-filled and unattended for a few minutes more, it would probably detonate like a bomb. That would probably do the job he wanted. If there was time.
Lenny called his name.
Holloway’s eyes stung. He stopped, and retched into his fist. Something was wrong with his lungs. He turned to face Lenny. The flames roared and flickered behind him. Smoke boiled and rolled above his head. The fire alarm howled.
He looked down at Henry Lincoln.