One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night

by Christopher Brookmyre

  ‘How do you know?’ Vale asked.

  ‘Connor sent extra guards to somethin’ he referred to as “the comms pen” as soon as he discovered Jackson had swapped jerseys. I’m assumin’ that’s communications.’

  ‘Yes,’ confirmed Vale. ‘All the transmitting hardware is in a pen on top of the Majestic.’

  ‘He must have been afraid Jackson would try to restore the link, so that means the link is restorable.’

  ‘How many guards?’ asked the Neanderthal.

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Well, we’ve got seven people, three Uzis an’ a shotgun,’ Murdoch reasoned, such base arithmetic of brutality the only equation his faculties could process.

  ‘It’s not as simple as that,’ cautioned Vale. ‘The pen’s on the roof, with only one stairway and one door leading to it. If you approached quietly enough, the element of surprise might buy you half a second as you come through the door, but you’d have to take out both guards in that time. And even that is only if both guards are on the roof. If one’s at the foot of the stairs and one’s at the top – which is how I would deploy – you might get the first, but the second one would have time, warning, cover and a clear shot. It could be suicide.’

  ‘Are there any alternatives?’ Simone asked.

  Vale said nothing.

  The Neanderthal shrugged. ‘Well, the way I see it, if I’m gaunny die anyway, there’s nothin’ to lose. Somebody gimme a gun.’

  ‘No,’ Catherine protested, physically intervening to prevent Murdoch reaching for Simone’s weapon. ‘There must be something else we can do.’

  In that moment, Gavin realised that this was no longer the laundry depot, no longer the Laguna, no longer even the Floating Island Paradise Resort: this was Room 101. This was his personal hell.

  Like it wasn’t enough that the vision he had strived so long and so hard to realise was about to be obliterated, and like it wasn’t enough that he’d probably be sitting front-row when it happened, he had also, in the meantime, to suffer an intolerable humiliation, which, to turn the knife one more sadistically ironic degree, was entirely of his own making. He had gathered the ex-pupils of St Michael’s together in order to exorcise the ghosts of his schooldays, but had instead seen all of those ghosts once more rendered flesh.

  Once more, he was the anonymous supporting player while others – the same bloody others – took centre-stage. There was Davie Murdoch, then the notorious hard-man, now also the selfless and courageous hero, the guy everyone wants on their side. Catherine, then the unattainable beauty, was once again miles distant. She’d been offhand all through the party, and now she was acting like Gavin didn’t exist. All her admiration was reserved for Murdoch, the pair of them opening their hearts to one another as Gavin lay silently in a skip full of dirty bedsheets, feeling like he was a kid eavesdropping on his big sister and her boyfriend while they talked grown-up talk.

  His wife had shown up with Matt Black, both of them blood-spattered and carrying weapons. They’d been in the thick of it, sharing God-knows-what experiences together, from foreplay to gunplay, while Gavin’s role had been restricted to trying not to wet himself.

  Across at the Carlton, this white knight Jackson would inevitably have chosen deputies to bear the spare arms they accrued, and Gavin didn’t have to be there to picture the scene. First choice would be Charlie O’Neill, muscular and composed, ever the natural fucking leader. And no doubt Ally McQuade would be the one keeping everyone’s spirits up with jokes and smart-arse remarks.

  If somehow they all got through this thing, those were the ones whose roles would be remembered. School all over again: the same faces, the same characters, the same names. Davie Murdoch, Catherine O’Rourke, Matt Black, Charlie O’Neill, Ally McQuade. If Gavin was remembered at all, it would be as the idiot who put them all in that spot in the first place; or, if Catherine squealed, the wimp who turned into a quivering jelly in that bedroom before Davie Murdoch took charge and rescued them all.

  His dream was going to die, his wife was going to leave him, his lover had betrayed him and he was once more an anonymous nonentity. There was therefore only one way he could redeem himself, one way he could turn things around. It would take balls of granite and a resoluteness far beyond anything he had known before, but in such moments is destiny forged.

  It was time to grow up. Time to prove to himself what kind of man Gavin Hutchison could be.

  ‘There is an alternative,’ he announced. Immediately, he had the floor, all eyes intently upon him, all mouths silent.

  ‘However gullible they’ve been, these men still couldn’t have come here tonight expecting to walk away with cash. If they thought we were all financiers, they must have been planning to perform their extortion electronically. The reason the communication links are restorable must be so that money transfers can be arranged.’

  Gavin paused, looking at their faces to see whether the import was sinking in. It was.

  ‘I can get them to restore the phone lines if I give myself up and start talking dosh. While I chat to the money-men, you can call the police.’

  ‘Then what happens to you?’ Murdoch asked.

  ‘I’ll string things out with the bank – God knows I’ve had to often enough before. At this time of night, it’ll take a while to raise the right people anyway. By that time the cavalry should be on the horizon. Then I’ll tell the hijackers about the bomb, so that they know there’s no time for a stand-off.’

  ‘They might use you as leverage to ask for their own helicopter,’ Vale warned. ‘And, if so, they’d take you with them as insurance. That’s if they don’t just shoot you on the spot.’

  ‘Well, that’s the chance I’m going to have to take. To quote Mr Murdoch here, if I’m going to die anyway, there’s nothing to lose.’

  Gavin walked through the door, the slap from Murdoch still tingling between his shoulderblades.

  ‘You’re a fuckin’ hero, man,’ he had said.

  Vale had offered him a gun, suggesting he could conceal it somewhere about himself, but Gavin refused, reasoning that if they patted him down, it wouldn’t bode well for negotiations if he looked like some Trojan Horse.

  There’d been words of good luck and gratitude from everyone, even Simone, though she hadn’t stretched to a kiss. He’d wondered whether she … but no. Don’t be stupid.

  Gavin walked along the corridor and out through another door to the stairs. Doorways, portals, rebirths. He had been plunged helplessly into that laundry depot from a dark passage above; scared, fragile, vulnerable, a hostage to the actions of others. A child. But when he emerged from it, he was a man.

  There was an alternative. An alternative to dying and an alternative to losing everything. An alternative to tonight’s humiliation and an alternative to ever again facing those people who’d never respected or appreciated him: including the mistress who’d jilted him and the wife who’d spent years disappointing him, then had the fucking temerity to walk out on him.

  What chance would these clowns have, anyway? Vale had his head screwed on right, but he was only one man. Look at the rest: Murdoch, Black and some looney in wet pyjama trousers. If they managed to raise help, how were they planning to overcome the bad guys while they evacuated fifty-odd people? They’d the same odds as Murdoch’s suggested suicide mission on the Majestic roof.

  No. So far tonight there had been only one man who really knew what he was doing, and his name was Dawson.

  Now there were two.

  23:42 fipr cometh the man

  If there hadn’t been grown men around, Connor would have sat on the floor and buried his head in his hands. He wished he was home in his bed. This whole night had turned into the biggest waste of time in his entire life and he could now simply no longer be arsed. Death was starting to look like an attractive alternative to anyone he knew ever finding out about his role – starring role, male lead, even – in this mortifyingly embarrassing snafu, but as death wouldn’t actually prevent that, and he did
n’t fancy the idea of posthumous mockery much either, there was no option but to get on and get out. Maybe he could cheer himself up later by hunting down Dawson and feeding him his own entrails.

  Jardine was standing beside him, waiting for a response. Waiting for an order. Waiting for some kind of fucking direction because, like the rest of these amateurish, infantile, useless cunts Connor had saddled himself with, he couldn’t have managed an independent thought any more than he could have sucked his own dick.

  As he predicted, Jackson and his new friends hadn’t been difficult to find. You wouldn’t lead that many people to hide and hope somewhere in the labyrinths of the sub-levels, which left either Hotel B or Hotel C. Dobson and Pettifer had failed to turn up any huddled masses en route to the comms pen on the roof of the Majestic, finding only another dead amateur, so that had left what the unlit neon sign advertised as the Carlton.

  He’d sent a couple more expendable arseholes below stairs anyway, to have a hunt for this Hutchison character and whoever had seen off Booth. One of them, Ritchie, radioed back with a report of gunfire on sub-level two, then went off in search of the source.He hadn’t reported in since, so it was depressingly reasonable to assume he’d located it the hard way. Neilsen was still wandering around down there too, but Connor resisted asking him to investigate Ritchie’s disappearance and decided to leave him to his own devices: if the bastard could get killed on his own, without directions, it would be the first piece of initiative shown by any of them all night.

  Quinn and McIntosh had led the sortie into the dark halls of the Carlton, being about the most dependable personnel he had left. Neither was a professional, but at least they were low-handicappers. Quinn had trained with one of those paranoid American militia groups, and McIntosh had been in the shit alongside Connor in Sonzola, acquitting himself respectably in as much as he came out alive.

  When they’d found what they were looking for, they’d remained in position and sent Jardine back downstairs with the story, so as to keep Jackson out of the loop. The news was, of course, bad. Jackson’s little army were playing a very well-organised game of king-of-the-castle on the top floor. They had erected barricades on all the main approaches, and they had a nice downward angle of fire on anybody who came a-knocking. Quinn and McIntosh had shown the good sense not to try.

  This was the final, inevitable confirmation of what had become more and more apparent as the evening wore on: the most he could expect to walk away with tonight was his life and his liberty. Nobody was going to make a poxy penny.

  He indulged himself a sigh as Jardine waited beside him on the terrace.

  ‘What do you want to do, sir?’ Jardine asked. Again.

  Connor had a look around the place, up at the three looming hotel buildings, down at the swimming pools, jacuzzis and fountains. He pictured the tourists gathering here for fortnights at a time, and was minutely consoled by the thought that thousands of others would have a far worse time on this shithole than even he’d suffered tonight.

  ‘Get Harris and Forrester up here with their rocket launcher,’ he ordered tiredly. ‘Bring all the spare ordnance they’ve got. There’s nothing to celebrate, but we will need the fireworks.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Jardine turned around to go, then stopped immediately where he stood, raising his machine gun.

  ‘Sir,’ he hissed, drawing Connor’s attention to what he was looking at. A figure was walking towards them among the swimming pools, his hands raised in surrender. Connor drew his pistol nonetheless, and ordered the man to stop where he was. He did, instantly, keeping his hands in the air.

  ‘Are you Mr Connor?’ he called out. ‘Because if so, I can assure you that shooting me would be the most expensive – and possibly final – mistake of your life. My name is Gavin Hutchison. I have an offer that may interest you.’

  After everything he had been through today, Connor reckoned the veracity of the phrase ‘better late than never’ was about to undergo an extremely exacting test.

  ‘Mr Hutchison. Pleased to meet you at last. Do come closer,’ he instructed, keeping his pistol trained on the man’s head. ‘But I should stress that I’m more in the business of taking than of being offered, and my patience is not at its most robust after the way this evening has unfolded thus far. So whatever you’ve got to say, I’d better be smiling underneath this ski-mask by the time you’ve finished talking.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can guarantee that, given what I have to tell you about a certain Mr Dawson, but as I said before, I think you will be interested.’

  Connor felt his eyes bulge at the mention of the name. ‘What about him?’ he said flatly, straining to keep the emotion from his voice.

  ‘Well, as time is very much at a premium, I’ll break it down as simply as I can, and please bear in mind that the less you interrupt, the quicker I can explain matters. Firstly, there are no venture capitalists, bankers or money-men on this facility tonight. This man Dawson sold you a line to get you here as involuntary but necessary extras in a very high-stakes insurance fraud. Before he left this evening, he shot whoever was guarding the jetty, then sank all of your dinghies, but that was only after he planted a bomb downstairs that will soon blow this place to buggery.’

  Connor was about to tell him he was talking bollocks, but the rising bile in his stomach indicated otherwise. Hutchison was ready for the doubt anyway.

  ‘I don’t expect you to take my word for this, so I’d advise you to send someone down to confirm it while I talk to you up here. It’s on sub-level two, in a doorway somewhere in the shopping mall.’

  Connor stared into Hutchison’s eyes. He could read nothing, and feared this was because the other man was telling the truth. He signalled to Jardine. ‘Grab Whitely. The two of you get down there and check it out. Use the radio, but just say “yes” or “not so far” when you report. Don’t refer to what we’re talking about. Go.’ He looked back at Hutchison, pointing the gun between his eyes. ‘If this is an ambush, you lose your head.’

  ‘It’s not, Mr Connor. It’s a bomb. And it goes off in less than an hour. Dawson is working for an American businessman, a Mr Jack Mills, my supposed partner in this floating-resort project. Mr Mills needs to liquidise his assets to stave off corporate predators, and the quickest way to do that is to demolish this place and claim the insurance. Evidently, it was decided that an extortion attempt gone wrong would be a convincing enough scenario for the underwriters to cough up. Unfortunately, for it to look realistic, a large number of innocent civilians plus a corresponding group of wicked, nasty hijackers would need to die in the explosion. And among the former would be Mr Mills’ business partner, not only providing added plausibility, but also ensuring one fewer claimant to split the insurance cheque with.’

  Connor put his finger around the trigger-guard rather than the trigger itself. He’d been gripping the stock of his gun so hard, there was a very real danger he’d accidentally shoot the fellow in his growing rage.

  Dawson.

  Despite his anger, Connor now understood what was the true difference between them, understood even why Dawson would always be one rung up the ladder, one step ahead. And it wasn’t that he didn’t care about anybody, it wasn’t that he was more ruthless, it wasn’t that he was better connected, though all these things were true. It was very simply that Dawson got it done. Whatever it was, and whatever it took, he got it done.

  Connor had put up with years of withering insults, but tonight he’d been paid the ultimate one, and the worst of it was that it wasn’t even personal: Dawson hadn’t lured him into this death-trap because of any animosity, he’d done it simply because he needed a sucker and Connor fitted the bill. He’d needed someone who would buy into the whole thing, who would play the part with every enthusiasm, so who better than the daft loser who’s always trying his hardest to impress you?

  Connor and his new outfit hadn’t been hired because they were the only help available – they’d been hired because Dawson needed
someone he could rely upon to fuck things up. That was why, despite his open disgust, he’d still stuck around after witnessing the incompetent chaos at the farm. Inside, he must have been secretly delighted.

  ‘So what are you after, Mr Hutchison?’ Connor asked. ‘Do you want me to get you and your friends off this thing out of sheer gratitude for showing us we’ve been had?’

  Hutchison laughed drily.

  ‘I don’t imagine you’re a man for whom gratitude is sufficient motivation. That’s why I’m prepared to offer you appropriate remuneration. Unfortunately, I can’t do that without my share of this insurance payout, so I’m afraid – much as I’m sure it would pain you – you’d have to leave my friends behind, along with the disloyal Mr Jackson and the bodies of your fallen comrades. What do you say, Mr Connor? Are you smiling behind that ski-mask yet?’

  Connor’s radio broke the short silence.

  ‘Sir? Sir, this is Jardine. That’s a yes, sir. That’s a very big fuckin’ yes.’

  Connor pointed to the walkie-talkie.

  ‘What he said.’

  23:49 laguna laundry depot

  song for the dumped

  Watching Gavin talk down the barrel of Connor’s gun, Simone couldn’t have been more intent upon the laptop’s screen if it had been showing Jeremy Clarkson being publicly executed – or, better still, dying in a car crash. A few minutes later, she was picturing Gavin in the passenger seat.

  She had felt her suspicions rise as he was leaving the laundry depot, too eagerly garnering accolades for his sacrifice en route, but she suppressed those feelings as unworthy: this had already been a night when a lot of people found out who they – and each other – truly were, what unknown strengths lay hidden inside them, so perhaps Gavin was no exception. Along with the others, she had hardly dared breathe as she watched him appear in the silent video-feed frame, courageously going face-to-balaclava with an armed hijacker. In that moment, she found herself caring for him again, the way she had once upon a time.