The Storm

by Neil Broadfoot

  Stevie spotted the needle at the foot of the bed, almost at his feet. One more step and a lunge and it would be his. But then what? Forget what Frankie had said and threatened. Could he do this?

  Would he?

  “I, ah, I was just checking where I gave you the shot earlier, Paul. Must have hit a nerve. Sorry. Listen, you lie back down, I’ll go and get a joint, take the edge off a bit?”

  Paul looked at his arm again, rubbing it furiously, pouted like a kid who had just been given a telling off. When he spoke, his voice was small, uncertain. The little-boy-lost, standing naked in a drug dealer’s flat, no idea of the world of shit he was in.

  “Well, I…”

  “Ah, come on,” Stevie said, smiling so widely he thought his cheeks would tear. “Lie down, I’ll get the good stuff. And for fuck’s sake, cover yersel’ up. Last thing I want to be seeing is your scabby cock.”

  Paul looked down, smiled sheepishly. Took a step forward and froze dead in his tracks. Glanced up frantically at Stevie, eyes filling with terror and understanding.

  Oh fuck, he’s seen it, he’s seen it, he’s…

  “You were trying to stick me?” he whispered, what little colour there was in his cheeks draining as tears welled in his eyes. His chest was heaving so rapidly Stevie thought for a moment that a rib would punch through the skin.

  “Look, Paul, I…”

  “No!” he roared, the voice surprisingly deep for such a wimpy frame. “Fuck you, Stevie. I’m out of here. And wait until I tell Frankie about this!”

  Frankie’s words: Do it wrong then I’ll know. And I’ll be very upset.

  Everything seemed to happen at once. Stevie lurched down, scooped the needle up and lunged forward. Paul screamed, that same, horrible screech echoing off the walls as he leapt back, trying to get away from Stevie. He lashed out with a naked foot, catching Stevie on the temple as he straightened up and driving him to the floor. He landed with a grunt, the air knocked out of him.

  “Fucking little cunt!” he roared.

  Paul dove forward, aiming for the door. Stevie kicked out wildly, catching his leg and sending him clattering to the floor. He screamed again, scrambling pale and naked to try and get to his feet, half swearing, half crying.

  Stevie fell on him, felt the frantic energy as Paul bucked and writhed beneath him, trying to force him off. They flipped over, Paul on top, Stevie trapped underneath like a flailing beetle trying to right itself.

  “Let me go, let me fucking GO!” Paul screamed as he bucked wildly on top of him. Stevie got an arm around Paul’s throat, tried to squeeze down. Paul lashed out hysterically, reaching back blindly and grabbing Stevie’s hair. Stevie howled, swung his free hand wildly, aiming a punch at Paul’s face…

  The scream was deafening. Paul stiffened as though electrocuted, then spasmed ferociously, breaking Stevie’s grip and rolling off him. He staggered to his feet, bouncing off furniture and walls as he bent over double and clawed at his face.

  “Ah, fucking BASTARD! My eyemyeyemyeye! AHHH!”

  He whipped round, and Stevie felt vomit flood into his mouth as he saw what had happened.

  The syringe hung from Paul’s eye, dancing up and down like an obscene conductor’s baton as he weaved around the room hysterically. Fat, gelatinous tears glistened on his cheek and, for a moment, Stevie couldn’t process what he was seeing. And then he understood. They weren’t tears. They were the contents of his punctured eyeball, weeping down his face.

  “Fucking bastard!” Paul screamed, weaving like he was punch-drunk. He lunged towards Stevie, hands like talons. “I’ll fucking kill you. Kill you!”

  Stevie staggered back against the onslaught. Fuelled by agony and hysteria, Paul was strong, frenzied, his hands clawing up Stevie’s chest to his neck. He sunk his nails in and tore at Stevie’s flesh, hot blood oozing from the wounds. Stevie roared, the world turning dull as fury and pain and adrenalin flooded through him.

  He lashed out as hard as he could, catching Paul in the chin. He staggered back and Stevie drove forward, doubling him over with a kick so hard it lifted Paul off the ground. He collapsed in a heap, gasping for breath, blood and pus streaming from his ruptured eye. “Fucking cunt,” he gargled through the blood in his mouth.

  “Shut up, ye wee shite,” Stevie growled, aiming a foot for Paul’s chest, determined to stamp through it like a rotten bird’s nest and crush the little shit’s heart into the floor.

  Paul rolled to his side, grabbed Stevie’s foot and clung on with a manic strength. Overbalancing, Stevie lurched forward and toppled to the floor, pain exploding in his head as he collided with the corner of the bed.

  He tried to get up, tried to move, to get to Paul and choke the little cunt to death, but the cotton wool crammed into his head was stopping the signals getting to his body. He flailed around, dimly aware of Paul lurching to his feet. He staggered to the bedroom door, almost collapsed against the frame.

  Stevie shook his head. Trying to move, to think. He tried to raise a hand to wipe the blood from his eyes, couldn’t. Everything was getting blurry and dark, the world filling with a harsh, insistent buzzing.

  He blinked harder, forced his eyes to focus. Saw Paul collapsed in the doorway, his chest covered in blood, the syringe very still in the socket of his eye.

  He felt a lazy smile twist across his lips as the world faded. Got the li’l fucker, he thought dreamily as the dark rushed in to get him. Frankie will be happy… Frankie will be…

  The thought followed him into unconsciousness. The silence in the flat was heavy and oppressive, charged with the frantic energy of what had just happened, disturbed only by the gnawing door buzzer as the bell was pressed again and again by the woman on the other side of the door.

  43

  Doug paced around his room, making a final check to satisfy the paranoid nagging that he’d missed something as he packed, unable to get Esther out his mind. There was something about the too-quick way she had replied when he asked where Harvey was, about the maelstrom of confusion and fear in her eyes when he mentioned visiting the doctor, that he couldn’t shake. But what could they be hiding from him and, more importantly, why? Harvey had invited him up here to get away from the fallout from Greig’s murder. Why do that if he had something to hide?

  He sat on the bed with a sigh. Was he just jumping at shadows? Harvey and Esther had been nothing but kind to him, and here he was, doubting them. Hardly surprising given the last couple of days, and the questions that were piling up like driftwood, but still…

  He grabbed his phone and checked for messages from Chris or Hal, let out a frustrated sigh when he saw there was no signal for the phone. He flicked into his email app, hooked up to the hotel’s WiFi and hit Refresh. A couple of junk emails dropped into his box, along with the holding line from Rebecca after the press conference yesterday. Doug skimmed it quickly, shaking his head. It was the type of statement he hated, all words and nothing to say. They might as well have said, We’re working on it, now leave us alone – it would have been more accurate.

  He thought back to Susie’s call, and her suspicion that he had leaked the possibility of a link between the two killings. It shouldn’t have surprised him, after all, no matter what happened, they were always the reporter and the cop, always warily circling each other whenever they found themselves working on the same story. Why wasn’t it like that with Rebecca, he wondered. Okay, there was the same mutual scepticism, but there was none of the nervous paranoia that seemed to rear its head whenever he and Susie were discussing a case.

  Why?

  He pushed the thought aside, focused on the job in hand. He had told Susie he would look into where the rumour of the link had come from, who had ambushed the press conference. But to do that, he needed details. Who had thrown the question first, were the other reporters expecting it or hadn’t they known it was coming? Did they have more detail or only
a general theory?

  For that, he needed to speak to someone who had been there. He could speak to some of the reporters, but he knew their recollections would be coloured by ego. It was the way of high-profile pressers, they became like competitions. The jostling to have your question heard, the race to get that elusive soundbite that everyone would pick up and use, the clamour to be the reporter that asked the question that put the interviewee on the back foot. It could be uncivilised, rowdy, boorish. And Doug loved that part of the job a little more than he should.

  No, if he wanted to know how it had happened, he needed to speak to the circus master. He needed to speak to Rebecca. At least, that was what he was telling himself.

  He stood up and grabbed his bag, eager to be outside and back in signal range. He was almost at the door when there was a knock on it, and he swung it open to find Harvey standing there.

  “Harvey! Sorry, I missed you at breakfast, but Esther made sure I was suitably stuffed. You get what you needed in Broadford?”

  “Wha’? Hum. Yes, yes. Thanks, Douglas,” he said, his tone distracted, almost forced. He glanced down at the bag in Doug’s hand, jutted his chin to it. “So, you were serious about heading back, then?”

  “Yeah. I know what you said, Harvey, but I need to get back and see this through. It’s my job. And I’ve got a hot tip on a possible suspect. Guy called Gavin Pearson. Was done for murder back in the 1990s. Ring a bell with you?”

  Harvey shifted his weight, leaned more heavily on his cane. Ran his hand across his beard, the sound a whisper in the silence. Shook his head. “No, no. Nothing comes to mind.” He forced a small, uncertain smile. “Sorry, Douglas. But sounds like you’re right, Edinburgh might be the best place for you, not wasting your time up here with an old man who can’t tell you anything.”

  Doug took a moment, looked at Harvey properly for the first time. His eyes glittered with an almost febrile energy from sockets that were puffy and dark due to a lack of sleep. His beard looked crusted with something dark and congealing, and Doug saw a fleck of red in one of his “Tipp-Ex stains”, wondered if Harvey had switched from whisky to red wine last night. He watched as Harvey rocked gently from foot to foot as he tensed and released his grip on his cane as though it was a bone he was worrying on.

  Bad night with Esther? Or something else?

  “That’s some change of mind, Harvey,” Doug said, trying to keep his tone light. “Last night you were almost threatening me with violence if I even thought about leaving.”

  Harvey flashed a smile as empty as his eyes. “Sorry, Douglas. I was just worried about you, is all. Didn’t want you getting caught up in anything after what happened to Greig. But I know what it’s like to want the story – and the only place you’re going to get it is back home.”

  “Thanks, Harvey. And I’m sorry if I’ve wasted your time, but I really have to get back.”

  Harvey waved Doug’s words away. “Don’t worry about it, Douglas, I understand. Edinburgh’s the best place for you, son, certainly better there than here. Come on, I’ll walk you to your car. Esther’s gone for a rest, says goodbye, so you’ll just have to settle for me.”

  They walked in silence, Doug casting sideways glances at Harvey as they moved. When they got to the front door, Doug leaned forward to grab for the handle, only for Harvey to grab his arm.

  “Harv…What?”

  Harvey seemed to be trying to look everywhere at once. Hectic colour peppered his cheeks, a thin sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead. His mouth moved silently, as though he were practising and dismissing what he was trying to say. Doug felt a cold stab of panic in his guts. Whatever it was, Harvey was terrified.

  He placed a hand over Harvey’s, gave a reassuring squeeze. “Harvey, whatever it is, it’s okay. Just tell me. Maybe I can help. Is it Esther? Is it worse than you’re telling me?”

  Harvey nodded, swiping away an angry tear from his face. When he spoke, his voice was a whisper. “Douglas, I… I’m so sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing. I really did. I didn’t know. Couldn’t. The last thing I wanted was to lie to you, let you down. I thought you coming here was for the best, but now… now…”

  He got lost in his thoughts. Doug looked at him, Esther’s words in his mind. The look of confusion when he mentioned going back to the doctor. The plastered on make-up. The pallid skin.

  Harvey says he’ll cope.

  Understanding slithered into Doug’s mind; cold, uncaring, clinical. He understood, cursed himself for not seeing it sooner. All the hints had been there. He’d just been so wrapped up in his own trauma he hadn’t seen it. Or hadn’t wanted to.

  “She’s already been for the scan, hasn’t she, Harvey?” he said.

  Harvey nodded again, anger fighting with sorrow in his eyes. “Last week,” he whispered.

  “How bad?”

  “Bad enough. The cancer’s spread to her liver and pancreas. They’re giving her chemo now, though it’s only holding the tumours back, not killing them.”

  Doug took a hitching breath as a huge weight seemed to press down on his chest. He felt his own tears threatening as he thought of the woman Esther had been. His own Mrs Robinson. He shook himself, bit back the sorrow. There was one question. He didn’t want to ask it, but he had to, he owed them that much.

  “How long?”

  “Six months, tops,” Harvey said, his voice cold and remote.

  “Oh, Jesus, Harvey. I’m so, so sorry. Look, forget going back, I’ll stay. Help out. See if I can.”

  “You will not!” Harvey hissed, an almost feral panic in his voice. “You have to get away from here, Douglas. Back to Edinburgh. Now. Do you understand me?”

  “But Harvey, why? If you need…”

  “Esther would never forgive me,” he said, shrugging off Doug’s hand and starting to bustle past him through the door. “We said we’d keep it from you while you were here, what with everything you’ve been through. We thought that was for the best. But now, you need to go. Please, Douglas, please.”

  Doug looked at him for a long moment. It made sense to him now. Typical Harvey and Esther. They protected him from the truth so they could look after him, offer him a retreat after the Greig killing. But Harvey hadn’t been able to hold it in, and now that he knew, the last thing he would want was for Doug to be around, the three of them exchanging glances and not talking about the one subject that mattered.

  He took another shuddering breath, felt the tears threaten again. He wanted to stay. To look after his friend. But he knew all he could do for him was go.

  “Okay, show me off the premises, will you?”

  Harvey gave him an impenetrable look, then they walked out to the front of the hotel. Doug’s car was still tucked up by the side of the hotel. He blipped the key fob and the boot sprung upon, tossed his bag in and slammed the boot. Turned back to Harvey, saw that same, panic-stricken glance, watched as his head darted around the trees and driveway, as though looking for someone.

  Doug took a step forward, held out his hand. Harvey took it, his grip clammy.

  “Douglas, I… I…”

  “It’s okay,” Doug said. “I get it, Harvey. And I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. If there’s anything I can do, just call me, okay? And I’ll be back soon.”

  Harvey leaned forward, grabbed him in a hug that caught Doug off guard. His body was like a piece of iron wrapped in dough, every muscle tensed, as though waiting for a blow to fall. In a way, Doug guessed it already had.

  “I’m sorry, Douglas,” he whispered. “Sorry I lied to you, sorry I dragged you into this. Truly, I am.”

  “You didn’t drag me into anything,” Doug said. “I wanted to come. Would have been here sooner if I’d known how bad things were. And I’ll be back. Promise.”

  Harvey nodded, glancing around again as he released Doug. “Good, good,” he muttered. “You better get going,
Douglas, it’s going to be a long drive back.”

  Doug walked to the car and dropped into the driver’s seat, buzzed it forward as he settled in. Odd, he didn’t remember racking the seat back. He turned the car over, enjoying the slightly high-pitched rumble from the rotary engine. It wasn’t a Merc or a Ferrari, but it was his. He slammed the door and slid the window down, poked his head out.

  “Thanks again, Harvey, and I mean it, you need anything, just call, okay? And I’ll be back before…”

  Harvey seemed to swallow something painful, the chords on his neck standing out suddenly as he gave a swift grimace. He waved his cane in a goodbye. “Drive safely, Douglas,” he said. “And take care back home.”

  Doug gave a wave, buzzed the window back up and reversed out of the space. Drove slowly down the drive and clattered over the cattle grid, watching Harvey in the rear-view mirror all the way.

  “Danny DeVito’s grumpy Scottish uncle”, they had called him. All Doug saw now was a broken old man facing a painful future of nursing his wife to her grave in the dream home that had become a prison.

  He focused ahead, blinking away the tears and heat behind his eyes. Cleared the gates, slid into second and hammered his foot to the floor. The back end kicked out and he fought the wheel for control angrily. Slid round the corner and racked up the gears, the howl of the engine echoing in his chest.

  • • •

  I watch him drive off, hope and terror churning in my chest as I watch the car fishtail wildly as he accelerates away. Whatever Robertson told him, it wasn’t easy for him to hear.

  Pity.

  I wonder for a minute if Roberston cracked and told him, warned him perhaps, then swiftly dismiss the idea. He got the message last night, no doubt. He wouldn’t dare defy me. Cowards never do.

  I track the sights back up the drive, see Robertson standing there, lost, alone. His head is dropped to his chest, his breathing ragged. While I can’t see his face, I think he’s crying.

  I hope he is.