Eoin Miller 02 - Old Gold (25 page)

“You’re fucking dead,” he said.

He lunged toward me, his fist connecting with my stomach. I stepped back and caught my breath.

“You’ve ruined everything,” he said. “Over a woman, a stupid fucking woman.”

The coldness in me took over, but it didn’t make me sink away from the world; this time it made me more alive. I hit him. I hit him again. The old man in the street. Laura. Mary. My job. Every emotion and every conversation I’d not been able to process suddenly wanted to jump out of me, into my fist, and do some serious damage. I swung the bottle of whiskey at him with my other hand. He fell against the side of the bridge, and I kept hitting him. On and on, the coldness in me burning far more than any heat had ever done.

I felt Veronica’s hand on my shoulder.

Far off I could hear the singing of the match day crowd getting closer. Soon the area would be swarming with fans and police.

Veronica took her hand off my shoulder.

“Take off,” she said. “Gaurav and I need to talk a little business.”

I looked down at Gav, his face swelling and his eyes wide with genuine fear, “You don’t get to call me Gypo,” I said. “Nobody fucking does.”

I walked away, keeping my eyes fixed ahead of me. At the main entrance I passed a white transit van with another steroid freak leaning against the door. The door was open and waiting. I caught a glimpse of ropes inside.

I grasped the bottle with both hands to stop them from shaking and somehow made it safely to the front door of my house.

The silence in my house didn’t last long.

As I leaned against my front door, waiting for my breathing to return to normal, the sounds of the football fans passed by behind me. Songs and chants, jokes and banter. It sounded like the Wolves had won the game. I didn’t feel much like a winner.

The notebook was in my inside pocket. I pulled it out and stared at it for a moment. So much trouble for a few bits of paper.

Mary.

Bauser.

Janas.

My wife was mixed up somehow with Veronica Gaines. That would have been troubling enough even if I hadn’t just sold myself out to Gaines too. I’d handed her Gav Mann, her biggest rival. I didn’t want to think about what forced conversation they’d be having in the back of that truck or how it was going to affect the business. I’d sold out myself and my town, all to get out from under a rock.

Maybe I should have gone and joined the celebrations outside.

I decided to forget about it all. I threw the book on the floor along with my mobile phone and my keys. But
something made me change my mind. I bent down to pick the book back up, and I noticed the stack of letters from Dr. Guthrie. I reached out and touched the top one and almost picked it up, but then pushed the thought away. I pocketed the notebook and turned back toward the kitchen with my bottle of whiskey. I felt movement behind me, but too late.

A fist slammed into the side of my head. My brain rocked against my skull. A punch caught me again, in the jaw. I fell, landing on top of the whiskey bottle. It hadn’t broken on Gav Mann’s head, but this time it did smash, turning into alcohol-coated shrapnel that sliced into me as I hit the floor. I squinted up, getting a look at my attacker.

Bobby.

He knelt in and punched me again in the face, then on the side of the head. He followed with rapid blows, angry blows. His face twisted into a snarl.

I ducked out of the way of his next punch and pulled myself to my feet. My side and stomach burned, and I saw the blood from the cuts I’d gotten from the bottle, thin trails of blood lacing across my clothes.

Bobby turned and stepped in for another attack, his fists swinging at me wildly.

“Not your stupid little helper,” he said.

He directed his punches at my wounds, and each time he connected I felt another burn, the alcohol cutting through me. Each punch felt like it was driving glass deeper into me. The pain was different. It was colder. And as he pulled his hand back for a second’s pause, I saw he was holding a blade covered in my blood. He was stabbing me.

I tried to hold myself up against the cupboard, my hand slick with my own blood, and he snarled at me again.

“Fucking sick of you talking down at me.”

He drove the knife deep into my side, and I screamed.

Or I think I did. He twisted the blade before pulling it out, and he held me for a moment, whispering in my ear. Blood rushing in my ears, I couldn’t make out what he said. It could have been a confession of his sins, or mine, or it could have been a knock-knock joke. He held me close as my body slipped into shock. He smiled and spat in my face before he let me fall.

The part of me that was conscious knew there was no reasoning with him. He dropped on top of me and stabbed me again. I didn’t feel it. I was past feeling it.

Just stay here
, I decided.
It’s not so bad
.

I felt as if I would never need to move again.

My father’s voice was in my head, insistent.

“If there’s trouble, be far away from it. If you can’t be far away from it, run like hell.”

Get up
.

I felt hands on my shoulders.

My father again. Pushing me. Making me move. Keeping me alive. I kicked Bobby hard in the knee, and he buckled awkwardly.

I rolled onto my front and pulled myself almost to my feet. I stumbled toward the hallway and almost made it before collapsing.

Bobby jumped on me again. This time I was facedown, and I felt a sharp, cold spike somewhere in my lower back. He must have stabbed me again. I was about to die. It came to me clearly, and it scared the hell out of me.

I remembered Bauser’s dead body, his hoodie sodden with canal water, his body sliced open. Bobby’s blade doing the work. The blade that was carving through me.

I remembered something else. I remembered Bobby standing behind me in my bedroom as I recovered my savings. I remembered putting the screwdriver in my coat pocket.

I felt inside my coat then, and my hand closed around the screwdriver.

Still there.

Bobby pressed down on top of me. I twisted round beneath him and brought my arm up, the screwdriver in my hand connecting with his face. I drove the sharp end underneath his chin, aiming for his neck. He tried to scream but only gurgled, falling back from my sight, from the tunnel vision that was closing around me. Somewhere my father was still shouting at me, demanding that I move.

Get up
.

I tried to climb to my feet again, but couldn’t.

Keep moving
.

I crawled into the hallway. I dragged myself to where I’d dropped my phone. I dialed in the one number I could remember. Hearing my wife answer, I begged for help.

The static came in for me again, lifting me away from the world.

At some point, I felt the world hit me.

It was like coming up for air in a swimming pool. The sound rushed to meet me from a distant rumble to clear voices. Terry Becker was sitting on the plastic chair next to my bed. It was a private room in the hospital, one of those rooms that smells vaguely of old people and is painted like a badly built Lego house. A clock was ticking somewhere, but I couldn’t see one on the walls, so maybe I was imagining it. It’s just one of the things you expect to hear in a quiet hospital. Maybe it’s something to do with mortality. Snatches of other memories came back to me, of doctors shouting things, of people asking me questions, half-mumbled responses. I couldn’t form them into anything solid.

“I’d ask how you feel,” Becker said. “But I guess that would be stupid.”

“Why change the habit of a lifetime?” I said with a weak smile.

It hurt. I made a note to keep my razor-sharp wit in check for my own safety.

“The doctors had to take something out. I think they told you?”

“Well, I do remember something that looked like a roadmap inside a human body, and the guy pointing to the map seemed to think I should be paying attention.”

“They did something to your intestines that I don’t understand, except that they had to take a few things out. They say you’ll need to lay off alcohol and spicy food. And you’re going to be medicated up the wazoo. More drugs than Keith Richards.”

“I love doctors.” I smiled again and winced. “How long was I out of it?”

“All told, you’ve been pretty spacey for two weeks.”

“Weeks? Christ.”

“You scared us, mate. We thought you were going to die. For quite a while there, it looked like you would. Your mum’s been having a nervous breakdown. This is the first time she’s been away from your side in the two weeks.”

I was quiet for a long time.

“Two weeks without a drink. My liver must think I’m dead.”

He laughed a bit too hard.

“You need to take my statement?” I said eventually.

He shook his head but didn’t answer. He stretched out his legs, his knees cracking, and scratched the back of his neck.

“Nah. Not yet. You’ve only just come round, and you’re on too much medication. Wouldn’t stand up in court. But we’ll take it soon enough.”

He was itching to say more. He looked like a five-year-old boy trying to keep a secret, his fingers twitching on his knees.

“What have you been told?” I gave him the in.

“Laura’s filled me in on enough. We’ve made a hell of a case. Robson’s DNA was all over a body we discovered in a flat off Junction Road. The knife he attacked you with can be
matched to the one that killed Bauser. Then of course there’s the fact that he hacked you a new asshole. Sorry.”

I smiled. “It’s OK. That was a good line. How did you find Janas’s body?”

He hadn’t told me the dead body was Thomasz Janas, but we both knew it was. I’d dropped that in deliberately, fishing to see how much he really knew and daring him to ask the questions that were eating at him. He stared at me for a moment.

“We got an anonymous tip about that one. But anyway, that’s not the best of it. We also found Gaurav Mann, beaten to death in the same flat. There’s enough evidence at the scene to prove Robson did him too. Not to mention a stash of drugs.”

There had been no stash of drugs in that flat when I’d searched it. It was most likely the same stash of drugs that had vanished from Janas’s possession the day he was arrested. I knew it, and Becker had to know it too. But he was too smart a man to say anything about it. And Gav, beaten to death. I felt a pang of guilt, but the medication killed it soon enough.

“It’s all very neat and tidy from the sound of things.”

Becker nodded.

“Looks like Laura’s going to get the DCI desk permanently, and I may be stepping up to DI. Even that idiot Joe Murray, you remember him? Well, he’s getting his reward for keeping his gob shut. He’s a sergeant now.”

I thought for a second before nodding. It all seemed like a lifetime ago.

“And am I under arrest?”

“Arrest? Of course not. You’re a minor celebrity. Laura’s gotten a lot of credit thrown at you. She says you worked with us to bring the case together.”

“And Bobby’s not claiming any different?”

Becker shrugged and refused to meet my eyes.

“Well, he’s not in a position to say much of anything right now, because some guy shredded his tongue with a screwdriver.” I winced, and he nodded. “But he’s not arguing his case. Laura’s worked on him and thinks she’s about to break him into making a written statement.”

“Where’s my stuff?” I said.

Becker opened the cupboard next to my bed, showing me my clothes on a hanger and my possessions in a bag. I raised myself unsteadily to sit on the edge of the bed and went through the bag.

“Where’s the notebook?”

Becker looked at me, and I could read in his eyes that he was being honest.

“That’s all there was, Eoin. That’s everything you had when you were admitted.”

Becker stood. The plastic chair made a scraping noise as he pushed out of it. He brushed his trousers down for imaginary dust. I remembered something as he turned to leave. “What about your pensioner case?”

“She was too scared to identify the attacker. Some get sorted, some don’t.” He shrugged. “I’ll let you get more rest. I can phone your mum and tell her you’re back with us again. Oh, one more thing. There’s this woman been asking to see you, but we’re only allowing close family and police in.”