The Rule of Fear

by Luke Delaney

  ‘Where’s the fucking copper?’ Callum was straight into her. King saw Kelly’s mouth open, but no words came out. Instinctively he reached for the CS gas on his utility belt but felt only air.

  ‘Fuck,’ he cursed almost inaudibly as he remembered abandoning his belt and all its equipment downstairs. He looked to the heavens for solutions, but there weren’t any. He was defenceless against men armed with guns.

  Callum half lifted Kelly from the floor by her hair and started to drag her deeper into the maisonette. ‘You got about three seconds to tell me where he is before I cut your fucking face off.’

  ‘He’s not here,’ Kelly screamed through her fear and pain.

  ‘Really?’ Tyler asked as he lifted King’s body armour and belt from the floor. ‘Then what the fuck is this?’

  ‘He left it here,’ she pleaded. ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘Lying fucking whore,’ Callum snarled and punched her with a short jab on the nose that produced an instant and heavy nose bleed. ‘Check upstairs,’ he told Tyler. ‘I’ll finish with the whore.’

  King didn’t hesitate. He moved quickly and quietly into Kelly’s bedroom and headed to the open window. He climbed agilely out onto the window ledge and used the drainpipe to climb to the flat rooftop of the long low building that was Millander Walk – heading off along the dwellings below until he felt he had at least some distance between himself and the Campbells – searching his own pockets and almost weeping with relief when he realized he’d kept his mobile phone in his trousers.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he rejoiced. ‘Thank God.’ He fumbled with the phone trying to find the number he needed, before the image of Kelly, terrified and bleeding, swept all other thoughts away. ‘Fuck. Fuck, Kelly. Fuck.’ Tears filled his eyes and his throat closed with fear for her and loathing for himself for having deserted her, while his belly tightened and his chest pounded with an overwhelming desire for revenge against her captors. ‘They’re dead men,’ he promised her as if she could hear. ‘I swear they’re fucking dead men.’ He wiped the tears from his eyes and composed himself as he searched for and found the number he needed. It was a long time before it was answered, every second feeling like hours, and somehow he was sure he could sense the reluctance of the person he was calling to answer, but eventually they did.

  ‘Hello,’ Brown answered, sounding weary and disinterested.

  ‘Where the fuck are you?’ King snarled into the phone – speaking through gritted teeth to prevent himself from shouting and betraying his whereabouts. ‘I told you to come to Millander Walk.’

  ‘Aye,’ Brown replied. ‘Sorry about that. We got side-tracked.’

  ‘Fucking side-tracked?’ King asked – incredulous at what he was being told. ‘I’m on the estate,’ the urgency of his situation moved him on. ‘I’m in trouble. I got two of the Campbells down here after me and they’re armed – with guns. They’ve already turned over the place where I was staying. I escaped through the window – onto the roof. It won’t take them long to work out where I am.’

  ‘Call for urgent assistance,’ Brown told him, although there was no concern or urgency in his own voice.

  ‘I can’t,’ King answered. ‘My PR’s still in the house. All my gear’s back in the house. I’ve got fucking nothing.’

  ‘Then use your phone,’ Brown tormented him.

  ‘Listen,’ King tried to get through to him, ‘I can’t … can’t get other people involved. Too many … too many questions. Get hold of Danny, but not Knight, I don’t trust him, and get the fuck down here now. Use a car. Lights. Sirens. Be visible and noisy. I need you to scare these fuckers off.’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ Brown told him coldly.

  ‘What?’ King demanded, his voice faltering slightly – beginning to understand Brown’s true intentions.

  ‘I said I can’t do that,’ he repeated.

  ‘You back-stabbing bastard,’ King accused him – his voice growing louder as he spoke. ‘You won’t get away with this. I’ll come for you. I swear I’ll fucking come for you.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Jack,’ Brown told him without sounding like he meant it, ‘but it’s just the way it has to be. You went too far, Jack. You just went too far.’

  King heard the connection go dead and with it any chance of help. He was alone now. Completely alone.

  ‘Fuck,’ he cursed the world and everyone in it but Kelly – Kelly who he’d abandoned to the hands of violent thugs. ‘Bastards,’ he swore again before stuffing the phone in his pocket and looking out across the sprawling estate that stretched before him. The kingdom he’d taken control of with violence and threats that now seemed to turn on him in every way.

  His loneliness and desperation made him as sober as he’d been in weeks – his bravado and ambitions swept away by a tidal wave of harsh reality. He felt like he was awakening from a dream – as if it hadn’t really been him who had beaten Butler and Swinton or moved in on the Campbells’ small empire. But he knew there could be no reasoning with them now. He couldn’t blame his alter-ego for all his crimes and intrusions and hope to be spared. It was he who was going to have to pay – the real Jack King.

  All he thought of now was escape. If he could escape and never return to this God-cursed place perhaps the Campbells would forget about him and leave him alone. Desperately he looked for a way to flee, all too aware it was only a matter of time before they realized where he must be. If they caught him on the flat roof he’d have nowhere to run to and nothing to hide behind. They’d shoot him down like a rat in a barrel.

  He ran across the rooftops until he reached the end of Millander Walk and peered over the edge. It was only two stories high, but it looked higher from the top – his only way down another fragile-looking drainpipe. He had no choice and swung his body over the edge, gripping the pipe and trusting it could take his weight without even testing it. It creaked and moved a little as he shinned his way down to the walkway and sprinted into a stairwell that led to the rear of the block. He checked the coast was clear before moving into the open, but as soon as he did so he heard the angry cries of the Campbell brothers shouting warnings to each other that he was out in the open and trying to escape.

  Without looking back he ran as fast as he ever had, through the rat-runs of the estate he’d grown to know so well – always listening with terror for the sound of a handgun exploding into action, fully aware that by the time he heard the sound the bullet would have either ripped through his fleeing body or whistled past him – leaving behind it a faint sonic boom as it distorted and warped the air around it. But no such dreadful sounds came – just the howling of the chasing brothers.

  As his legs and chest began to burn with the effort of the sprint, he realized his best and possibly only chance of survival was to hide. He knew the estate so well and surely there were still people who would be prepared to offer him temporary sanctuary. The Campbells couldn’t search every flat, every garage or shed on the estate. If he could lie low for a couple of hours surely they would tire of the hunt and crawl back from whence they came. He could even wait until darkness and slip away unseen by anyone.

  Without even thinking about where he’d been running he came across a stairwell he knew well – one that could lead him to the place where he could wait until the circling hunters retreated to search for him another day. With the last strength in his legs he climbed the stairs two at a time until he reached the landing that led to his goal. He half ran, half stumbled along the walkway until he reached the door he’d pounded upon dozens of times before – cursing the fact he’d never kept a key that would unlock the metal grid over the door and windows. Even if the Campbells somehow found him here their guns and threats would be useless. All he’d have to do would be to keep his head down in one of the back rooms and they wouldn’t be able to touch him. If they fired shots surely someone on the estate would panic and call the police – the noise and commotion of approaching sirens and engines would no doubt be enough to scare his pursuers away.
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br />   Suddenly an idea leapt into his head and he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. All he had to do was make an anonymous call to the police himself and covertly summon the cavalry. One phone call to save himself. He pulled his mobile from his pocket and went to press 999 when he suddenly stopped – his mind clearing enough for him to remember why he hadn’t already made the call: his mobile was legitimate and registered in his name. It would only be a matter of time before the call was traced back to him, giving rise to ever more awkward questions.

  ‘Shit,’ he whispered and banged on the door even harder – the memory that O’Neil’s phone was untraceable spurring him on. Once safely inside he’d make the call on O’Neil’s phone and that would take care of the Campbells. The closer he felt to salvation the faster his heart beat – the fear of despair giving way to the excitement of victory, but still the door wouldn’t open. He leaned forward to thud the side of his fist on the wood once more just as the door finally opened slowly – the hollow face of O’Neil peering out at him from the shadows like a ghost.

  ‘Open the fucking grid,’ King demanded without any explanation, but O’Neil just stood, looking straight through him as if he wasn’t there. ‘Open the fucking door,’ he repeated, his hands desperately gripping the bars of the grid and shaking them in a hopeless attempt to make them yield. ‘What the fuck’s wrong with you?’ King screamed. ‘Open the fucking door – now.’

  ‘Why?’ O’Neil blinked, as if he was coming round from unconsciousness.

  ‘Because I fucking told you to,’ King told him. ‘Now do it.’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ O’Neil said, sounding like a robot.

  ‘What – are you fucking stoned?’ King asked desperately. ‘The Campbells are all over me. Open the fucking door.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ O’Neil told him without any emotion as he began to close the door.

  ‘No,’ King screamed, reaching through the bars. ‘Dougie,’ he pleaded. ‘Don’t do this to me. We can help each other. I can get you drugs. Money.’ But still the door slowly closed. King tried to lean his weight into it, but the metal bars took the strain. Desperately he pushed at the door with his arms, but O’Neil was easily able to force the door shut just as King wrapped the fingers of both hands around the edge of the door in a pitiful attempt to keep it open – the fragile bones breaking and splintering as O’Neil first slammed it almost closed and then kicked it to force the prising fingers away. King pulled his hands free and screamed like a wounded forest animal – the sound of his pain and anguish reverberating around the estate – the king of the jungle’s last cry of defiance.

  ‘You’re a dead man, O’Neil,’ he shouted at the closed door as he staggered backwards cradling his broken fingers in his other hand – the pain taking his breath away as he looked for a new place to run.

  He fell against the wall trying to clear his head and think – looking back and forth for any sign of impending danger. He was just about to launch himself into an exhausted stuttering run when a red brick close to his head seemed to explode into a cloud of dust – filling his mouth with powder and almost blinding him. A second later he heard the deafening crack of the gunshot that had caused the brick to shatter. Instinctively he threw himself behind the low wall – giving himself a moment to recover his bearings and work out that the shot had come from the stairwell of the tenement block opposite – no more than sixty feet away. At least one of the Campbells had his position pinned.

  ‘He’s over here,’ he heard the gruff voice, thick with an East London accent, call out. ‘First floor – behind the wall.’

  ‘Fuck,’ he damned them and began to run, crouched over to deny them a target as he made his way to the stairwell – adrenalin and fear making him forget his pain as he jumped down the stairs, never knowing if he was about to run into one of his hunters – the instinct to flee overpowering any strategy or plan of escape. He just had to run.

  After running and running – constantly turning left and right, climbing stairwells and descending others, always fleeing from the calls of his hunters that seemed to surround him – somehow he found himself back in Millander Walk. Kelly, he told himself. Just get to Kelly. But as he staggered exhausted towards her he found himself passing Susie Ubana’s front door. He fell backwards onto the wall behind him where he and Ubana had once stood looking out over the estate together. He looked at the woman on the other side of the metal grid who stood smoking a cigarette and staring back at him with tear-filled eyes. He nodded to her as if he understood what she was silently trying to say before continuing his journey back to Kelly, only to be stopped in his tracks as Tyler appeared from the stairwell, a slight smile of satisfaction on his lips as he slowly, confidently, started to move towards him – the handgun held casually at his side. King spun quickly and sprinted two steps before the sight of Callum appearing from the other stairwell froze him where he stood. He was trapped. Nowhere left to run or hide.

  As the Campbell brothers closed in on him from both sides he turned to Ubana – his only hope. ‘Please,’ he whispered to her as tears of hopelessness slipped from his eyes and ran down his face mixing with his sweat. She gently shook her head and looked at the floor as his last chance of escape closed in front of him. He spun towards Callum who was no more than fifteen feet away now, moving slowly towards him, the light flickering across his gun and making it look like a living creature – a black scorpion or writhing snake. A hot wind as warm as the devil’s breath blew along the walkway and seemed to sweep everything away with it, leaving him in a void where only the Campbells now existed. He considered jumping over the wall, but it was a long fall to the car park below – one that would surely break his ankles if not his legs – leaving him to the mercy of the two vultures. Instead he tried the only thing left for him to try. He stood as straight as he could, ignoring the pain of his broken fingers and looked hard into Callum’s eyes.

  ‘Don’t go too far, Campbell,’ King warned him. ‘I’m the law round here. You don’t shoot coppers.’

  ‘You’re not Old Bill any more,’ Callum sneered, raising his gun and pointing it straight at him.

  ‘Fuck you,’ King shouted in defiance as Callum squeezed the trigger smoothly and professionally, sending a 9mm Parabellum bullet hurtling towards him at four hundred metres per second. It smashed into the right side of his chest knocking him backwards almost six feet, although he managed to stay standing – the last effects of the cocaine mixing with his own adrenalin, enabling him to do what should have been near impossible. The bullet had ricocheted off a rib before ripping a hole through his lung, causing it to immediately collapse as the projectile continued on its journey through his body and leaving an exit wound in his back the size of a cricket ball. Frothy pink blood bubbled from both wounds as King looked down at the ever-increasing spread of crimson across his white shirt and suddenly he wasn’t there any more – he was back outside the house with the young girl lying in his arms. He forced one last breath into his surviving lung and looked up at Callum, who no longer meant anything to him, as if he didn’t exist any more. He saw the flash from the end of the gun as if it was happening in slow motion – the sound of the explosion a warped, muffled boom.

  The second bullet crashed into the left side of his chest, shattering a rib and narrowly missing his heart, although hundreds of shards of bone embedded themselves into it, sending it into fibrillation if not full cardiac arrest. It tore another huge hole through his surviving lung before bouncing off a rib and exiting out of his side. He staggered backwards and fell to the ground – his head impacting hard. He lay motionless, staring at the blue sky above. The same powder-blue sky he’d seen on that day. And as he listened to his own deep wheezing as he tried to breathe through shattered lungs, he felt no pain any more – only peace. Until the sun was blocked out by the shadowy figures of two men he could barely see, although he could hear their voices coming from a far-off place.

  ‘Finish him,’ Tyler told his brother. ‘Put one
in the fucker’s head.’

  ‘No,’ Callum said, but not through mercy or pity. ‘Can’t afford for it to look like an execution. Plans have already been made. Let him drown in his own blood.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ King heard the voice say, although he no longer understood what was happening in the real world, only that the shadows had gone and the blue sky had returned. He felt his heart and breathing slowing to almost nothing as he sensed another presence at his side and momentarily returned to the real and present world. He turned his head slowly to the side and saw small feet in training shoes. A child’s feet. The boy knelt down next to him – his innocence making him unafraid.

  ‘Do you remember me?’ he asked quietly.

  King used almost the last of his strength to manage a slight nod. It was Billy Easton – the boy from the basement who he’d taken cannabis from so many days ago – his first step to what he’d now become.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come here,’ Billy told him, not unkindly. ‘Nothing good ever happens here.’ King nodded that he understood – the movement making him cough – blood spluttering from his mouth. ‘Can I get you anything?’ the boy asked as a last act of kindness.

  ‘Stay with me,’ King said, his voice barely a whisper now. Billy took hold of his hand and sat next to him – ignoring the spreading pool of blood forming under King’s body as he watched his eyes at first flicker and then softly close.