by Jay Stringer
OTHER TITLES BY JAY STRINGER
EOIN MILLER MYSTERY SERIES
Old Gold
Runaway Town
Lost City
Faithless Street
The Goldfish Heist and Other Stories
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2015 Jay Stringer
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477830109
ISBN-10: 1477830103
Cover design by Lisa Horton
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014958625
Contents
PART ONE
‘Dead people are . . .
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
PART TWO
‘Never trust a . . .
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
PART THREE
‘What scares me . . .
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
PART FOUR
‘It doesn’t matter . . .
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
PART FIVE
‘Who died and . . .
Forty-Five
Forty-Six
Forty-Seven
Forty-Eight
Forty-Nine
Fifty
Fifty-One
Fifty-Two
Fifty-Three
Fifty-Four
Acknowledgements
About the Author
PART ONE
‘Dead people are rude like that.’
—Lambert
One
Mackie
I’m baw deep in Jenny Towler when they come looking for me. I don’t hear it at first because Jenny’s doing all that fake shouting she thinks turns me on, and there’s guys in the other rooms getting the same doing. But then I hear people running up the stairs, and the back of my neck goes—does that tingling thing that always saves my arse—and I’m up and moving.
They barge in through the door, a bald man covered in tattoos and some skinny blond guy carrying a gun. You know you’ve pissed someone off when they send a gun.
Baldy tries first. He calls my name and steps forward, reaching for me. That’s easy enough—he’s unarmed and my blood is up. I grab his outstretched arm and haul him towards me, then hit him in the neck with my other hand, almost punching through him. I feel something pop, and he hits the floor with a gurgling sound. Fuck yeah. That’s good.
I hear the roar in my ears, the one my doctor warns me about.
Bouncy.
Bouncy.
Then I think about the blond. I turn around as he raises the gun. This isn’t one of those visits they want me to walk away from. I’ve got a few seconds before he pulls the trigger. It would take me a few seconds to get across to him; the maths don’t look good. His hands rock as he squeezes the trigger a couple times, and things go into slo-mo. Jenny T screams, and the blond turns and shoots her first. Her brain sprays across me and onto the wall behind us. Jenny always gets in trouble when she’s with me. This gives me time to move, but before I can do it, the bald guy grabs my leg. He’s climbed to his knees, still gurgling, one hand covering his throat while the other has my ankle.
I kick him in the face, once, twice.
On the second he lets go and tries to block me with his hand. Fuck that—he’s annoyed me now. I follow all the way through with a third kick, and his nose pops inwards. A fourth is even harder, and his eye socket wobbles a little more than it’s supposed to. He stops moving, and his eyes go all glassy. I turn back to the blond with the gun, but he’s already sidestepped Jenny T and he shoots me, for real, in the fucking leg.
I’ve never been shot before.
I don’t think I like it.
My leg goes cold. I would have expected heat, but like I say, I’m new to this. I think I’m going to throw up. I hold it in for a second, looking tough, but then I bend over and heave, and Baldy gets a full coating of my lunch. Blondie steps in closer, maybe to laugh at the wounded naked man throwing up his guts like a little boy. But that’s his last mistake. I lunge at him, yelling, lift him off his feet and throw him against the wall.
I grab the gun by the barrel and swing the butt into his face. It connects hard. He falls down and I turn the gun around, feeling the weight and the power of it.
‘I liked Jenny’—I put the gun into his mouth—‘I really fucking liked her.’
I squeeze the trigger and take the top of his head off. He looks like a tin of baked beans, waiting to spill. Normally I hate guns, but this is fun.
I try to steady myself, but my leg is still numb and the world is getting far away. A blackout’s coming, and I can’t let that happen. I press the warm tip of the gun into my own wound, and the pain shoots through the coldness, giving me the kick I need to stand up. I stumble out the door and down the stairs. I think people are there watching me; I see them a million miles away at the edge of my vision, guys who’ve been fucking in the other rooms.
To them this place is probably just a bit of fun, bang for your buck and all that.
But I went to school with Jenny T, and now I’m pissed off.
Gotta find out who wants me dead and why.
But first I’ve got this whole being shot thing to deal with. I push out through the front door and turn right. My Uncle Rab lives a mile away. Can I walk that far on this leg? One way to find out. Things keep getting blurry, and the world comes back to me in flashes. I’m lying in a doorway, trying to stand up again. Then I’m being licked in the face by a cat as I rest on the grass outside Ibrox Library. Then I’m banging on the doorway to Rab’s building before I remember he keeps spare keys under a slab in the front yard, for the nights he gets pished and loses his own set.
I let meself in and turn his shower on. Reckon I should clean up.
The dog’s asleep in the kitchen. Great guardian. Little black and tan boxer, built for fighting, but Rab’s gone soft and spoiled him rotten, so now he runs around just like barrels don’t. I fuss the wee man’s head, then stumble into the bath
room. There’s blood on my hands, and it smears all over the shower dials as I turn up the warm water.
Then I’m done.
Two
I wake up with something like a hangover. Then I remember that I’m not hung over, I’m dead.
Except I’m not.
I should be. I mean, I feel like I am. I’ve got a headache and I can barely move, and warm water is hitting me in the face. I try and climb out of the bath, but I don’t have the energy. Red water is swilling down the drain. That’s odd—why is the water red?
Oh yeah. Blood.
Oh yeah. I got shot.
I’m not a doctor. I did get a doctorate off the Internet, but it was a comedy one that came with a cuddly toy and a year’s worth of coupons for the slots at Las Vegas. I check out my thigh. There’s a hole in the front that looks like a large burst zit—nothing to worry about. Round at the back, though, is a hole big enough to stick my thumb into. I try it, just for a laugh.
I don’t laugh.
I throw up.
Note to self: Don’t do that again.
Okay, I’m not dead, so the bullet must have missed anything that would kill me. But my skin is kinda white, and I’m moving really slow. That can’t be good. I know a girl who can fix me up, but I gotta get going. I drag myself up the side of the bath, then lower myself down to the bathroom floor. I look for my clothes but can’t find them. I guess I forgot to get dressed again when Blondie was shooting me. Did I walk all the way here in the nip?
Jaysus.
Not again.
People round here have learnt to live with me, I guess. Or to run away.
I crawl out into the hallway and pull Rab’s phone down off the table, then dial a number and explain my situation, polite like, with a minimum of swearing. My doctor agrees to come round and get me. I can’t climb up to the door buzzer, but I can make it to the front window, so I drop the keys down into the yard so she’ll be able to let herself in like I did.
Then I think, fuck it, this bit of floor looks nice.
Three
A scream wakes me up. Well, more of a yelp.
Then I realise it was mine.
I’m lying on my belly, and my doctor, Beth, is sitting on the floor beside me, cross-legged with my wounded thigh in her lap. She’s got nice blond hair that falls across her face as she works, and her cheeks flush a little when she’s worried. Beth worries a lot when she’s with me. She’s stitching the wound closed with a needle and thread.
And it hurts like buggery.
There’s a cord wrapped around my thigh, tight.
‘What’s that?’
‘Don’t ask.’
‘How’s my leg look?’
‘Don’t ask.’
I sniff the air. ‘Why does the place smell of bleach?’
She pauses longer this time, her eyes flicking to mine for a second before concentrating on my leg again. She brushes some of that nice blond hair out of her eyes. ‘Don’t ask.’
Great, she’s in a mood.
Beth and me go back a few years. When I was locked up, she was the doc who came and tried to fix my brain. Talked to me about what I’d done and how I felt about it. Asked what I remembered. Uncle Rab never visited, but Beth would come and spend time with me. We got to talking about everything. Then she convinced the judge I should be allowed out on my own. I’m meant to have appointments with her every week, but sometimes I forget, and she never reports me.
I think she likes me.
I try and turn over, but she holds me in place, so I talk into the carpet. ‘It’s going to be okay, aye?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘How no? You’re a doctor.’
‘Mackie, I’m your psychiatrist. All I know about bullet wounds is what I’ve seen in films.’
‘They don’t teach that stuff at head doctor school?’
‘Of course not. Look’—she pats my bare ass and slides out from under me, showing that she’s finished—‘we should get you to a hospital.’
‘No way.’
‘Mack—’
‘No way. Uh-uh. They have to report shite like this, and then I’ll be back inside. And they’ll see all the favours you been doing for me, and that one time you got me those—yeah, you know—and you’ll lose your licence, aye?’
‘You’re blackmailing me?’
‘No, I’m looking out for you. I like what we got together, this weird little thing, and I wouldn’t want them to lock you up or nothing.’
I see her jaw move against her cheek, like she’s biting down on something; then she puts her hands up in the air. ‘Whatever. What happened, anyway?’
I roll over onto my back and haul myself up into a sitting position with my wounded leg stretched out in front of me like a dead weight. I pull at the cord cutting off the blood supply, but she puts her hand on mine and stops me. She brushes that hair away from her face again and then nods. ‘Come on, what happened?’
‘They shot me.’ I try for the joke, but she doesn’t laugh. I drop my voice and look at the floor for a minute. ‘They killed Jenny, Beth. They killed Jenny T.’
She sits back down on her haunches and looks cut up. ‘No, Mack. Nobody shot Jenny. We’ve talked about this.’
‘Then who the hell was I shagging last night?’
She looks like she’s going to carry on speaking, give me one of her speeches about the way I deal with loss or grief or some other shite, but she stops. She picks a small knife up off the floor next to us and works the blade under the cord around my thigh, avoiding cutting the skin that has swelled up around it.
‘Ever had pins and needles?’
She smiles at me with that twinkle in her eye, then cuts the cord.
Fucking.
Hell.
I thought getting shot was painful. That was quick and merciful compared to what comes next. Fire races down my thigh, running up and down my leg. It eats away at both the entrance and exit wounds, and I can’t help but let out a silly little yelp. The pain runs around my foot and eats at my toes, and my head starts to feel like it’s wobbling.
Beth starts rubbing at my leg, at all the bits that are hurting, and talking about the blood supply and nerve endings. Then I remember that I’m naked and try to cover myself up before things get real embarrassing.
‘Nothing I’ve not seen before,’ she laughs, then stands up and fetches a vial of pills from her bag in the doorway. ‘You didn’t take your pills yesterday, did you?’
These English birds, they have some silly ideas.
‘I hate them.’
‘I know, but you need them.’
She hands a couple of pills to me, and I slip them into my mouth, beneath my tongue, then make a show of swallowing. She opens my mouth and waggles her finger for me to raise my tongue, then waggles it again for me to swallow the pills for real this time. I do. I sit and wait for things to get boring again.
Gotta fight it.
Gotta fight the pills.
Need to know who tried to kill me.
Need to know who killed Jenny T.
Beth then looks down at me kinda funny, something in her eyes. ‘Did you do it, Mackie?’
‘Do what?’
‘You know what.’ She bends down and whispers, ‘The dog.’
Four
Beth helps me to my feet and leads me out into the hallway.
What I hadn’t noticed when I’d come in last night was that someone had ransacked the place. Mail is scattered across the floor. Rab’s wallet is lying in the corner with its contents all out around it. The furniture is tipped on its side in the living room, and the bottoms have been slashed out as if someone was looking for a hiding place. Rab’s keys are here, so he was too. And he wouldn’t have left without them. He’s not an idiot like me. Someone came here and took him. Why would someone be
after both of us? The only things we have in common are blood and our amazing singing voices.
Then Beth leads me into the kitchen and what’s left of my wee heart breaks.
The fuckers killed Rab’s dog.
Beth has cleaned up the mess, which is why I could smell bleach, but has left the wee man lying on top of a bin bag. He looks peaceful. His head is a mess, and it looks a lot like the wound in my leg. I guess he was a good guardian after all, tried to stick up for his old man and the bastards shut him up.
I ruffle the hair on his head again.
Now I’m fucked off.
Shoot me? Aye. I’m an annoying shite—I get that.
Shoot Jenny T to get to me? Well, she chose to be with me, I guess; she took her chances.
Grab my Uncle Rab? Well, Rab’s pissed off a lot of people.
But shoot a dog?
I’m going to fuck them up big.
Then I remember something. ‘Wait.’ I turn to Beth. ‘You think I’d do this?’
She looks nervous, like she knows she’s wrong to doubt me.
‘Well, you know, Mack, after that conversation we had yesterday, after some of the things you said, I don’t know. I thought maybe—’
‘What conversation?’
‘You don’t remember?’
Is she having me on? I stare at her, and she blinks back at me a few times. No. She’s being serious. I don’t remember talking to her yesterday, but then I don’t remember much of anything other than being shot. I’m good at forgetting things, have been ever since they sent me down to the jail. And if I’ve been drinking—well, that makes it easier. Most of yesterday is a big black hole.
‘What did I say?’
‘I’ll tell you later,’ she says. ‘First, let’s get this mess sorted.’
We find me some clothes out of Rab’s closet, a shitty cheap-looking trackie that he probably uses when he pretends to go running. Then we turn to housework. Don’t want any signs of this mess if the cops come round; they would get in the way of what I need to do. Beth helps me put the furniture back where it should be, and when it’s the right way up, you can’t see the ripping. We clean the hallway and the bathroom, and then bundle up the wee man with a few of his toys. I help myself to Rab’s wallet and a knife from the kitchen.