Two-Way Split

by Guthrie, Allan

  "The money's not here." Robin had to think quickly. "It's somewhere safe. I've got to fetch it. It'll take a couple of hours."

  "I'll come with you," Eddie said.

  "You can't. There's a dead body in your flat, Eddie. You have to stay out of sight. Did you kill her?"

  "What's going on in your head?" Eddie sighed. "About three o'clock?"

  "Three thirty. And phone me first to check that I'm back."

  "Robin, you sure the money's stashed somewhere safe?"

  "Every penny." Robin put the phone down.

  2:00 pm

  Pearce dragged the heel of his boot across the gravel. The pistol was digging into his back again. He looked across at Robin Greaves's flat. If he waited until dark he could climb the scaffolding. It looked easy enough. Just above head height, a metal ladder was tied horizontally across three standards. Once he managed to pull himself up to the platform, he could free the ladder and use it to get to the second floor. He didn't need a ladder, really. He could probably climb up the lugs. The problem wasn't getting up there. The problem was what to do when he got there. You see, he'd have to shoot Greaves through his sitting room window, and he wasn't sure what effect glass had on the trajectory of a bullet. He could smash the window first, but that would warn Greaves and Pearce doubted he could hit a moving target. To be realistic, the only way he could be sure of killing Greaves was to have the Tokarov's muzzle pressed against the scumbag's forehead when he pulled the trigger.

  Scaling the scaffolding wasn't an option. He needed to find a way to get inside the building.

  Robin Greaves wasn't at home. Or if he was, he wasn't answering his door. Ideally, Pearce would pick the lock and wait in the empty flat for Greaves to return. Then he'd grab him and unload a couple of shots into the murdering bastard's skull. Unfortunately, Pearce had no idea how to pick a lock. It was the sort of topic that had often come up in jail, but Pearce had never paid much attention. No, the best he could do was break down the door. He knew how to do that all right. But if Greaves returned home to find his front door kicked in, he'd take one look and run.

  Pearce considered whacking him in the street. That would work. Wait until he saw Greaves strolling along the road, then head towards him. When he was close enough, reach behind his back, yank the gun out of his belt, and bang, bang, one dead fucker. A great plan, were it not for its single fatal flaw. In the post office, Greaves had worn a balaclava, so Pearce didn't know what the little shit looked like. Pearce knew his general size and shape, knew what he sounded like, but he could pass him in the street and not know it. So much for that idea.

  Perched on a low wall on the opposite side of the street, Pearce had detected no movement from inside Greaves's flat. He was pretty sure Greaves had gone out. Pearce had buzzed his entry phone several times. No response. He'd dialled directory inquiries and got Greaves's phone number and tried that too. Several times. Again, no response.

  Pearce fingered the pistol through his t-shirt. The gun was awkward and clumsy and uncomfortable. He nudged the barrel over to the right. When he moved forward, it slipped back again. If only he could wait inside, hide somewhere and ambush Greaves as he unlocked his front door. That was the answer. And if nobody could see him, he could take the damned gun out of his belt.

  It was going to happen. Sorry, Ailsa.

  She had given it her best shot. They left Joe-Bob in his dungeon hideout and snaked their way back to the bar. Roy, the barman, had left the big oak door unlocked and it had been a fairly simple matter to retrace their steps. Within five minutes they were back in the bar area, where thick smoke singed the air.

  Ailsa spoke over the hubbub. "I'll have that drink now."

  Pearce gave her a long, hard look. "You trying to delay me?"

  She leaned close and said in his ear, "This might be our only opportunity to have a drink together."

  He grinned at her. "What do you want?"

  When the barmaid bounced over, still dressed like a schoolgirl, still chewing gum, and still saying, "Can I get you?", Pearce ordered a pint of Guinness and a coffee. He followed Ailsa to a table in front of the fireplace.

  Ailsa said, "You're not fooling yourself that you're doing this for your mother, are you?"

  He peeled the lid off his individual UHT milk portion and poured it into his coffee. "Revenge is something Mum understood."

  "She applauded what you did to your sister's dealer?"

  "I didn't say she approved. I said she understood."

  "And your mother's approval is of no consequence, I suppose?"

  He picked up the teaspoon. "Bit late for that." He stirred the coffee.

  "You don't think she's up there watching you make yet another huge mistake?"

  He laid the spoon on the saucer. "Not a chance."

  "Actually," Ailsa said, "I don't either. I just want to—"

  "Save yourself the trouble. I know you think I'm a fool." She opened her mouth to interrupt him, but he held up a hand to silence her. "I'm sorry you think that. But maybe you're right. Maybe what I'm about to do is a mistake. And maybe I'll regret it for the rest of my life." He paused. "But I know this." He took a sip of coffee. "Most people don't have to make a choice. They have it easy. For them, the idea of killing someone is nothing more than a concept, a fantasy. They never have to make a real choice." When he raised his cup again, his hand shook slightly. He sipped the coffee. Lowered the cup. It rattled in the saucer. "I'm a convicted murderer. I have a choice to make. I know I'm capable of killing someone. That's not a concept or a fantasy. It's stark staring reality."

  "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

  "Just because I can, doesn't mean I shouldn't."

  She glared at him. "If you do, you'll ruin your life."

  "If I don't, how can I live with myself?"

  "I don't understand."

  "Revenge," he said, "is an important part of my grieving process."

  Ailsa drank some of her beer. She wiped foam off her mouth with the back of her hand. "You found out who this guy is, yeah?" When he frowned, she added, "Your mother's killer?"

  "I know his name and where he lives."

  She nodded. "Why not tell the police?" She tapped the table with her fingertips. "If he's the killer, they're bound to be able to collect enough evidence to put him away. He'll be locked up for a long time." She held a finger in the air as if testing the wind. "There's your revenge."

  He shook his head. "That's justice. Not revenge."

  For a further fifteen minutes, she tried to persuade him. When he left her in the bar, his parting words were, "You did your duty. There was never anything more you could have done." She squeezed his hand so hard it hurt.

  The sooner it was over, the better.

  Pearce looked up at Robin Greaves's sitting room window. He dabbed his eyes with his thumb knuckles and they came away wet. The wind was playing havoc with his tear ducts. He jumped down off the wall and headed towards Leith Walk in search of a florist.

  2:27 pm

  Once again in front of Greaves's building, a bunch of tulips now tucked under his arm, Pearce scanned the list of names by the door buzzers. Surnames only. The occupants had taken care not to reveal their gender. He rang the top four buzzers. No reply. Good. His finger moved to the bottom and he began working his way up.

  The third one got a response. A female. Elderly. "Hello?"

  He said, "Delivery."

  A pause. "I'm not expecting anything."

  He read the name next to the buzzer. "Ms Henderson?"

  "Yes."

  "Flowers. They're for you."

  "Why would anybody…" She stopped short. "Oh, well. Come in."

  There were four flats on the ground floor. Ms Henderson lived in the first one on the right. He knocked on her door and she opened it a crack. When he held up the flowers, she slid the chain off.

  "You sure they're for me?"

  Trying his best to look annoyed, he dug in his back pocket and pulled out the Eye Witne
ss business card. He held it to the side, covering the back with his fingers so Mrs Henderson couldn't see the message Gray had written on it. "Henderson, right?" Wisps of white hair trailed over the old lady's scalp and her eyes were wiggling from side to side behind Irn Bru-bottle glasses as her mouth made perpetual little biting movements. He hated to lie to the old dear. "Henderson's the name I've got here."

  "I'm Mrs Henderson right enough. But who would be buying me flowers, son?"

  He put the card back in his pocket. "There's a note." He handed over the flowers.

  Mrs Henderson reached out with an arm like a stick wrapped in brown paper. She looked for the note and when she found it, she frowned at him. "Can you read it for me?" she asked. "The writing's too small."

  Pearce turned the label towards him and read: "From a secret admirer." He winked at her. "Still turning heads, eh?"

  "Watch your lip, son. I've been pig-ugly all my life and I know it. This a joke, is it?"

  He lifted his shoulders. "Somebody paid for those flowers, Mrs Henderson, and asked us to deliver them to you. If you don't want them, I can take them away. But I don't think it's a joke."

  "I'll take them." The flowers disappeared through the gap in the door. "Now bugger off." She slammed the door shut.

  He stared at the door for a minute. For a while there he'd thought Mrs Henderson was about to ruin his plans. Well, she hadn't. He was inside, which was exactly where he wanted to be. What, now? First, he retraced his steps. When he reached the front door, he opened it and then closed it with enough force to convince anyone who might be listening that he had left the building. He waited for a while, then retreated, as quietly as his heavy boots would allow, towards the stairs.

  His right foot was on the third step when his mobile rang. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead and down his back, but already his fingers were scrabbling for the phone. He just had time to recognise Ailsa's number in the display panel before the phone rang a second time. He turned it off and stood motionless for a while. From this angle he could only see the bottom half of Mrs Henderson's door. He kept staring at it, expecting it to open. But time passed and the door stayed shut. After a short while he carried on up the stairs.

  The first floor was quiet.

  On the second floor landing he felt free to tread a little less carefully. From the flat next to Robin Greaves's the sound of a television blared. Gunfire. Lots of it. Pearce went up another flight, which is where he was going to wait. When he tried the top buzzers earlier, nobody had replied, which implied that residents on this floor were all out. If Greaves returned home first, Pearce would be able to slip downstairs and do what he had to do. If, on the other hand, a top floor resident came home before Greaves, Pearce would pretend he'd been visiting, leave the building and figure another way of dealing with his mum's killer.

  But he didn't think Greaves would stay out for long. In Pearce's experience, a man who's just murdered someone needs to be in a familiar setting while he adjusts to the magnitude of what he's done. And nowhere is more familiar than home.

  Pearce sat down in the corner. He leaned forward, removed the gun from his belt and half-cocked it as Joe-Bob had shown him. He waited, feeling remarkably calm.

  3:10 pm

  Robin glanced at his passenger as the car sped down Leith Walk.

  Initially, Robin had been confused, but now he thought he'd worked it out.

  To begin with, he believed he had killed Carol. Retrospectively, it was clear that he was mistaken. When he saw her stomach move just before he left her flat, he thought he'd imagined it. But it was real. What he saw was Carol taking a breath. He hadn't killed her. She was unconscious, that was all. Then, when Eddie came back, instead of calling an ambulance, the bastard had strangled her.

  There was no room for doubt. Don saw him do it. Over a cup of coffee, he'd described what happened. He kept wincing and putting his hand to his head, apologising for having a splitting headache, for which Eddie was responsible. Robin wondered if maybe Don was just trying to hide those nasty scars. Anyway, as a result of Don having witnessed Eddie throttling Carol, Eddie was now trying to kill the poor sod. Shot at him in broad daylight!

  Don was scared. Changing gear, Robin looked at him again. He looked unusual. Not just the scars. It was something else. Like his body shimmered. He gave the impression that if you looked away, he'd disappear. The poor guy was out of his depth. Probably wished he could disappear. This wasn't the sort of situation a normal person could handle. He was struggling, you could tell. Paranoid, poor bastard. Not entirely surprising, after what had happened. And Robin owed him. Sure. A brotherly tenderness soaked through Robin as he listen to Don explain that he was a rep for a pharmaceutical company these days. He'd gone to check on Carol's reaction to Sulpiride. Looking for paradoxical side effects, apparently. Robin told him he'd never experienced anything like that. Sulpiride worked well for him. Did what any anti-psychotic was supposed to. Repressed the hallucinations. So effectively, in fact, that just under five months ago, the hallucinations had disappeared completely. Robin told Don that he'd stopped taking his medication. He still picked up his Sulpiride prescriptions, of course, to keep the doctors happy. But when he got home, he chucked the pills down the toilet.

  Don was a good listener. When he spoke it was to say that the only person he could trust now was Robin. He wasn't prepared to talk to the police. They'd believe Eddie's story.

  Eddie had gone off his head. He'd killed Carol, for Christ's sake, and set Don up to make it look like he'd done it.

  Why the hell had he killed her? Maybe he'd seen an opportunity to get all the money for himself. Maybe he was planning on killing Robin next. Eddie was always a crazy bastard. Misogynistic. Brutal. He was chucked out of the police force for breaking a seventeen-year-old's collarbone. The poor girl had been pregnant and Eddie's assault on her caused her to lose the baby. His story is that she was resisting arrest. Eddie, the sick bastard, referred to the incident as a miscarriage of justice. The gear stick squirmed in Robin's hand. He squeezed it into submission. Once it was pulsing gently between his aching fingers, he let go of it and wiped the slime on his trousers.

  The car rolled into a parking space and he killed the engine.

  "Do we wait here or go inside?" Don asked.

  Robin said, "Inside."

  "What about the police?"

  "I don't see any."

  "They'll come. Even without Carol's I.D., they'll discover her name and connect her to you."

  "We have different surnames. It'll take them a while."

  "Suppose we go inside. Then what?"

  Robin looked at his watch. "When Eddie arrives at three thirty, you'll be hiding. I'll invite him in as if nothing unusual has happened. After a while, you jump out and confront him."

  "He has a gun. What if he shoots me?"

  "I'll get it off him first."

  Don said, "What then?"

  "I'll kill him."

  "No."

  "Why not? Look, we can drive him at gunpoint to some secluded spot and get rid of him. We both benefit."

  "I can't."

  "Why not?"

  "It just isn't right, Robin."

  "You're an honest man, Don. I admire that." He tried to keep a straight face. "You want to beat a confession out of him?"

  "He won't confess."

  "I hope not." Robin saw Don's Adam's apple slide up and down. "He killed my wife and set you up." Robin smacked the steering wheel with his palm. "We're in this together."

  "Till the end." Don touched his head and grimaced. "Like real brothers."

  Robin opened the car door. The wind instantly chilled him. He stepped outside and slammed the door shut. Seconds later Don closed the passenger side door. Robin led the way to his flat, apologising for the unsightly scaffolding. He looked up. Already the light was fading. He walked over to his doorway and talked about Edinburgh's problem with falling masonry while he jiggled his key in the lock. Don clapped his gloved hands.

&nb
sp; Robin pushed the door open. The stair lights hadn't come on yet. Robin and Don slid through almost total darkness towards the stairs, where trickles of silvery light ran down the steps. On the first floor landing pools of dusk gathered in the corner. Up another flight, the light was brighter, a shade darker than the light of a full moon.

  Robin stuck his key in the lock.

  Footsteps rushed towards him and something heavy slammed into his back. His face smacked into the door. His nose hurt. His lower lip started to bleed. He nearly dropped the key. "Eddie?"

  He heard Don say, "Who are you?" Not Eddie, then. They'd already met. Don said, "Okay, okay, okay."

  Something cold pressed against the back of his neck. A voice whispered in his ear, "Open the door." The voice sounded familiar. He couldn't place it, though.

  He expected Don to run, but he hadn't moved. Maybe he'd frozen. Poor old Don, getting into even more trouble. Whoever this joker was, he wasn't playing for fun.

  Robin turned the key and the door swung open.

  "Turn on the light," the voice whispered.

  When Robin flicked the switch, bright light flooded the hallway and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust after the darkness in the stairwell. If there had been a chance of exploiting his assailant's surprise, Robin blew it when he turned to look at him. Recognition was instant. Hilda Pearce's son was hard to forget. Over-developed arms, cropped hair, boots, jeans. He'd changed the t-shirt. This one wasn't covered in blood.

  He had a gun and it was pointed at Robin.

  Pearce closed the door with his foot. "Be a good boy and sit down."

  Don said, "Who the fuck are you?"

  "You know who I am."

  Robin said, "I don't know who you think I am but you've got the wrong person."

  "You're Robin Greaves. This is his flat. You have his keys. I might not have been able to see your face behind that balaclava, but I remember your voice."

  Robin's thoughts were flying around his head like a flock of swallows. He reached out and grabbed one by the wing. It almost got away. "I'm his brother. That's why we sound alike. Tell him, Don."