Bombproof (29 page)

‘I’m the big swinging dick.’

Ruiz’s mobile has stopped shaking. It beeps instead. Kate Tierney has sent him a text message.

‘What does “fubar” mean?’ he asks Baxter.

‘Fucked up beyond all recognition.’

59

Tony Murphy lifts his face to the sky, feeling the light drizzle cling to his eyelashes. Lately his life seems to be unravelling but tonight he gets it back on track. They say boredom is the brother of misery but after the past few weeks he’d settle for a boring life rather than a dangerous one.

He checks his watch - it’s half eleven - and presses speed dial on his mobile.

‘You heard anything, Bones?’

‘Nothing.’

‘No radio chatter?’

‘None.’

‘Any mention of Putney Bridge?’

‘Is that where it’s going down?’

‘At midnight,’ says Murphy.

‘What about the kid?’

‘He’ll be joining his ancestors.’

Murphy ends the call and tucks the phone into his pocket.

Ray Jnr is sitting in a car with Nadia. Shadows like rivulets of rain are running down his face. He needs another line to get the adrenalin flowing.

‘You ought to stop snorting that stuff,’ say Murphy.

‘And you ought to go jogging.’

The windows are fogged with humidity. One of them is cracked a little to let out Sinbad’s cigarette smoke.

‘Let’s do it,’ says Murphy.

‘Give it a minute,’ replies Ray Jnr, ‘it hasn’t stopped raining.’

He looks nervous, skittish, like a child waiting for a party to begin. Nadia is beside him, sitting on her hands. Her heart-shaped face is pale, devoid of make-up. Her light cotton dress and sweater cling to her like a second skin. The past week has been a nightmarish blur of drugs, paranoia and revulsion. Now she’s going home, according to Murphy. Sami is coming to get her.

She takes a cigarette from a packet on her lap; needs both hands to light it. Blinks smoke from her elongated eyes. Oily coils of her hair hang down across her cheeks as inner demons work their magic on her. Desire. Obsession. Addiction.

A bolt of lightning leaps across the western sky. The rain has eased.

‘It’s time,’ says Murphy.

60

Sami has been waiting on the bridge for fifteen minutes, smelling the brine and feeling the cold dampness blowing off the water. A solitary boat is visible, tethered to a pylon near the boat ramp.

The traffic has thinned out. It’s mainly cabs and minicabs and people coming home late. Light seems to evaporate from the surface of the asphalt as each vehicle passes.

Ray Garza and his men must be somewhere nearby, although he can’t see any of them.

The number 22 bus from Piccadilly Circus to Putney Common pulls onto the north side of the bridge and pauses at a bus shelter. A passenger gets off. The double-decker pulls away. The figure disappears down stone steps on the east side of the bridge.

The bus has almost rumbled past Sami before he notices two people alone on the brightly lit upper deck. One of them is Nadia. She’s sitting near the front, staring straight ahead. A man is directly behind her, head down, face hidden.

A massive flood of relief washes through Sami. Nadia’s alive. She’s only yards away. He yells and starts running, trying to get her attention but the bus is pulling further away, turning right into Lower Richmond Road.

There’s a bus stop around the corner. There’s nobody waiting. The driver carries on.

Sami cuts across the road, dodges a car and tears along the footpath past mansion blocks, a row of shops, terraces, a petrol station … It must be a trick; a trap. Murphy’s doing. Sami’s mind is telling him this but his legs are still moving; sprinting after the bus as it veers away from the river.

He’s a hundred yards behind and can’t see if Nadia is still on board. The Beretta is coming loose from his belt. He reaches back to stop it falling.

Brake lights flare. The bus is stopping. Somebody steps off. It’s not Nadia. Still sixty yards away Sami screams at the bus to stop but the driver can’t hear him. The doors are closing. Gears engage.

The disembarked passenger throws himself against a wall, holding his briefcase like a shield.

‘Where does that bus go?’ yells Sami, spinning to confront him.

‘Putney Common.’

‘How far is that?’

‘About two stops.’

The double-decker is disappearing again. Sami sprints after it, trying to keep the bus in sight. The shops and restaurants are closed and shuttered but he can still smell the hot oil and the rubbish bins out back. Bill posters have plastered the streetlights and the windows of empty shops.

The bus is three hundred yards ahead, indicating left. It’s turning. Sami is growing tired. His shoes weren’t meant for running. The row of terraces ends suddenly but the road continues across the common, swallowed by darkness. It’s as though a section of the city has collapsed into a black hole leaving only the streetlights behind.

Sami turns the corner. The double-decker has stopped. He can see the driver climbing out from behind the wheel. The bus doors are open. Sami swings inside, ignoring his protests. He runs through the lower deck; climbs the stairs; searches in vain. Nadia’s not there.

‘Did you see a girl? Where did she get off?’

The driver is a big guy, gut over his belt.

‘She’s gone.’

‘Where did she go?’

He points across the road towards the common. ‘They headed that way.’

Sami scans the darkness, the street, the muddy paths, the deeper shadows. Then he spies something moving a hundred yards away barely visible against the dark walls of a building rising high above the treetops silhouetted against the faint glow of the sky.

‘What’s that place?’ he asks.

‘The old Putney Hospital.’

‘Why is it dark?’

‘They closed it down years ago,’ says the driver. ‘They can’t decide what to do with it.’

He mentions something about making movies there, but Sami is already crossing the road. Slipping the Beretta from his belt, he unclips the safety. Holds it in both hands. He’s not thinking any more. Logic, reason, common sense were abandoned back on the bridge when he chose to ignore his own instructions and let Tony Murphy dictate events.

A metal boom gate is padlocked in place across the entrance to the car park and weeds sprout from broken asphalt in the ambulance bays. Odd things are scattered through the weeds. Junk mostly, broken furniture, old appliances, a plastic jerry can collecting rainwater.

The red brick hospital is four storeys high and could fill a city block, but appears out of place on the edge of the common, surrounded by heath and parkland. The doors are sealed with sheets of metal and wood, bolted in place, and guarded by steel mesh fences. The lower windows are also covered, but the upper windows have been left unprotected and many have been punctured with rocks. Knotted and filthy curtains billow from inside.

Security lights are attached to the outer walls, illuminating yellow warning signs:

DANGER
Private Property
KEEP OUT
This site contains serious hazards.
All valuables have been removed.

Sami pauses and for a moment catches a glint of something revealed, a shadow in front of him, which disappears in a patter of raindrops. He listens. Nothing. Glancing up at a window on the second floor, he notices a torch beam flash across the broken glass and disappear.

A metal gate lies open ten yards to his right. A sign on the wall says
Accident & Emergency: All Enquiries to Reception
.

Sami forces open an iron sheet, which is curling at one corner. Nails rip from the rotting frame. He pulls a trailing vine from his ankles and steps inside, smelling the mould and faeces.

His eyes adjust to the dark. He wants to stand still. He wants to move.

Pushing open a second door he emerges into a wide corridor. Low wattage security lights are evenly spaced along the walls, providing just enough light to see as far as a central staircase. Ceiling panels lie broken or missing with wires hanging through them and pools of water have dried and left stains on the grey linoleum floor.

There are doors along either side of the corridor and lighter squares of paintwork where paintings once hung on the walls. Discarded metal trolleys lie abandoned and covered in dust.

Sami scans the scene; listens to the drip of brown water into a sink.

A sign opposite the nursing station gives directions to the various wards. Occupational Therapy and the Rehabilitation Units are on the second floor.

Sami reaches the stairs, which are in darkness. He has to feel his way upwards, one step at a time. On the first floor is another corridor with doors down either side. The X-ray department is ahead; a strip of light leaks from beneath the door. A sign says,
Danger: Radiation
.

He pushes it open, every muscle tense. Nadia is sitting on a metal chair with her hands beneath her thighs, her red eyes like wounds. The robot-like arms of X-ray equipment seem to be imprisoning her as part of some fearful experiment.

Her eyes meet his; pleading, fearful.

Sami does everything wrong. He steps towards her. Something moves to his left. He gets the Beretta halfway to horizontal before an object smashes hard across his arm sending the gun skittering across the floor.

In his mind’s eye, he twists and swings his left fist, fighting for his life, but he doesn’t have the opportunity. A second blow strikes him high across the chest and ribs break with a crack. His knees collapse. Nadia sobs.

Lying face down, Sami turns his cheek and sees someone standing next to Nadia. Wrapping her hair in his fist. Jerking her head. Telling her to be quiet. It’s a face he recognises, but not the person he expects.

It’s the kid from the cell next door on Sami’s last night in prison. The one who couldn’t stop talking; the one who blathered and big-noted himself saying his old man was going to post bail for him and how he’d be eating dinner at the Ivy by the next night.

He’s looping a belt around Nadia’s forearm. Pulling it tight. He taps the end of the needle and pinches skin on her forearm, looking for a vein.

‘Don’t do it,’ groans Sami, through clenched teeth. ‘You remember me.’

Ray Jnr pauses. Recognition comes with a twisted smile as though they’re sharing a joke.

‘Well, fuck me!’ He raises a revolver and scratches an itch on his cheek. ‘What are you doing here?’

Sami glances at Nadia whose face tells a story of confusion.

‘I’m here to get my sister.’

Ray Jnr jerks Nadia’s head back; looks at her face and then back at Sami. He can’t see the family resemblance.

‘Are you sure you got the right girl?’

Sami nods, sucking in a breath.

Nadia looks at the needle almost lovingly. Her cheeks are hollow and her eyes look huge. Sweating and trembling through withdrawal, she wants another hit.

‘Well, this is a turn up for the books,’ says Ray Jnr, pulling up a chair and straddling it backwards. ‘Why are you trying to blackmail my father?’

‘I’m not. He sent me here.’

Ray gives one of those prissy little laughs like there’s nobody in the world who’s going to believe a story like that.

‘It’s true. He’s outside somewhere.’

‘You’re trying to get money out of him.’

Sami shakes his head and drags his body up. Every breath lights a fire in his chest. He closes his eyes and tries to do a re-cut on what’s happened. Imagines a different outcome where he’s not in pain, not in trouble, not going to die. Opening them again, he seeks out Nadia.

‘How are you, Princess? I’ve been looking for you everywhere. ’

Her mouth opens. She can’t find any words. Instead she falls to her knees and wraps her arms around him. Sami can feel the furnace heat of her cheeks, the dampness of her hands. Her pupils are like pinpricks.

‘I missed you,’ she whispers.

‘I’m here now.’

Ray Jnr is spinning the pistol around his finger. ‘Why did you steal the shooter?’

‘Murphy told me to do it. He had Nadia.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘He needed the gun back.’

Ray Jnr blinks slowly. His thin lips seemed rouged against the paleness of his face. He begins to speak in soft insinuating tones.

‘You remember that night in prison? You let me talk. I didn’t want to close my eyes. I wasn’t scared.’

‘I know.’

‘You think I was scared?’

‘No.’

‘I’ve never done this before, but I’m ready, you know.’

‘Ready for what?’

‘I’ve made some mistakes but this is going to fix them. I’m going to clean up my act. I’m not going to prison. Not without the gun or the drugs.’

‘We won’t say anything,’ says Sami.

Ray straightens his arm, aiming the pistol at Sami’s head. ‘Don’t fucking interrupt me. Let me give you a news flash, mate, your sister is a junkie, you’re a loser and I’m the shit who has to kill you both.’

‘You don’t have to kill us.’

‘What else do you expect me to do?’

‘Let us go. I had a deal with Murphy - the gun for my sister.’

Ray Jnr laughs. Still aiming the pistol at Sami, he collects the Beretta from the floor and tucks it into his belt. Then he folds an old blanket around his own pistol, holding both ends together with his left hand to muffle the sound. Ray Jnr places the pistol to Sami’s head. Nadia’s mouth opens to scream. Ray Jnr hesitates, lowers the pistol. Raises it again. Walks to the window. Turns.

Sami doesn’t hear what he’s saying. He’s too busy looking down the barrel of the gun. It’s huge. Gaping.

Sami closes his eyes. The hammer falls. An explosion detonates within his head.

‘Don’t do it. Please,’ he hears himself say, but maybe the words don’t come out.

61

Bones McGee has been lying prone in bushes on the eastern side of the hospital for twenty minutes, not far from where Sami Macbeth disappeared inside.

He couldn’t get a clean shot on the bridge and followed Macbeth for more than a mile after the kid took off. Now he’s cornered in the hospital and has to come out sooner or later.

The breeze dislodges droplets from the branches, pattering on Bones’ oilskin jacket. The ground is wet, but the trees and undergrowth offer him plenty of cover. He has a different rifle tonight, his favourite - the L96 - the British Army’s sniper rifle of choice.