Killing Mum_Kindle (8 page)

"Okay," she said. "You want me to leave now?"

"Yep.
  And stay in your car."

This time of night it'd be only a ten-minute drive from here to the patch of wasteland they were headed for. Carlos could have driven for hours like this, the whole city to themselves. He rolled his shoulder, his neck stiff, aware that the prickling inside his head wasn't normal.

***

Carlos cruised along to the stretch of wasteland down by the waterfront. The redevelopment round here was a pain.
Hadn't been quite the same since the gasworks were demolished.
But it was the best place for the job in hand. This was where
joyriders
came to burn their rides. He veered off the road, onto scrub and hard dirt, the headlights picking out a straggle of stunted bushes.

He selected his path, turned off the headlights. A few feet on the bumpy terrain and Jordan
was
jolted awake. Carlos listened to him moan, mutter something about bed.

"We're here," Carlos said, and the kid snapped to it when he realised where they were and that his job wasn't finished yet.

He stretched, shivered, and Carlos eased the van to a stop.

Now?
Jordan said.

"Wait till Mum gets here."

Carlos climbed out of the van, the darkness smacking him in the face.

Jordan followed him. He yawned once.
What do you think she'll say?

Carlos couldn't see Jordan, just heard the voice coming from the other side of the van. Carlos stared at the lonely lights flickering in the distance, wondered what their game was, why they flickered. 

Well?
When Jordan spoke again, he was just a couple of feet to Carlos's left.

Carlos's hand crept behind his back, fingered the
Glock
. He could see Jordan now, just, pale face above a shadowy outline. Carlos said, "Why do you care what she'll say?"

Maybe I don't. Just wondering what you'll tell her.

"I don't know," Carlos said. "What should I tell her? Why did you shoot Maggie?"

Can I have one of your cigs?

"Thought you didn't like smoke."

Not in the van.
Different outside.

Carlos offered him the packet.

Jordan slid a cigarette out, leaned in for a light.

Carlos lit it, watched Jordan's face glow.

That night
, Jordan said, straightening up.
My dad was dying. There was a sword and ... the fire...

"I know," Carlos said. "Richie's dad took a match to the place, right?"

That's what everybody thinks. Not true, though. It was my dad who set the place alight.
He paused.
Then he was run through with his own sword. And set on fire by the blaze he started himself.

"Tough way to go."

That's not how he went.

"No?"

I couldn't let him burn.
He sucked on his cigarette, the end glowing.
I shot him.

Carlos didn't know what to say.

He was in pain.
Stabbed through the middle.
On fire.
I shot him. I stopped the pain.

"Sounds like that was —"

You know how I feel?

"I don't —"

No, you don't.
Jordan's glowing cigarette butt arced to the ground, the cigarette not even half-smoked.

"What are you trying to say, Jordan? I'm sorry for what you had to do. But what does it have to do with Maggie?"

Maybe that's your mother.
Jordan pointed towards the headlights approaching along the road that led to the waste ground.

"Why Maggie?"
Carlos said.

You really have to ask? It needed to be done. And you didn't have the balls to do it yourself.

"She said it wasn't her who'd taken out the contract on my mother."

Maybe, but what about our other dead friend?
Bob was there to carry out a contract on
you
.

"You don't know that."

It's how it looked to me.

"Maggie thought I'd killed my mother."

And that makes it okay?

The car pulled to a stop. "Better check that's Mum," Carlos said. He took out his phone, his thumb stabbing at the phone to light the display.

***

"I can't make out a thing," Carlos's mother said. "Is Maggie there?"

"She left us to it." His mother would find out sooner or later, but Carlos needed to work out what he was going to tell her first. Later was infinitely preferable to sooner. "Not too happy with the stunt we pulled on her."

"Didn't think she would be.
How did she get home?"

"I don't know.
Probably flagged down a taxi."

"You just let her wander off?"

"Didn't have much choice."

"You spoken to her since?"

"Been too busy."

"I hope she got home okay. Want me to call her?"

"Don't worry about Maggie." Carlos paused. "It wasn't her."

"You mean...?"

"Yeah."

"I didn't think so."

She was always so fucking right.

"Well," Carlos said. "Better get on with this, I suppose. Be with you soon." He hung up, said, "Come on," to Jordan and together they went round to the back of the van. Carlos opened the back doors, removed a can of petrol and set it on the ground. He took a plain white t-shirt, a can of spray paint, a couple of pencil torches and a box of cooking matches out of the hold-all.

He handed the spray paint and a torch to Jordan. "Write something," he said.

What's the point?

"Make the police think
it's
joyriders
."

But once it's burnt,
nobody'll
be able to read it.

"They will," Carlos said. He remembered what Maggie had told him.
Heard her say, "The heat burns the paint into the bodywork or something.
Whatever you write, the
cops'll
be able to read it once the fire's out. So Bob says."

Fuck, that's weird.

"Fire's weird."

Jordan didn't move.

Carlos turned on his torch, shone the beam at him. "
You going
to get on with it?"

What should I write?

"Use your imagination."

Jordan moved away.

Carlos stuck his torch in his mouth, soaked the t-shirt in petrol.

When he'd finished, he walked over to watch Jordan's handiwork. Jordan had written FIREMEN on the side of the van and was standing staring at it.

He noticed the beam of Carlos's torch, stepped back.
I'm stuck.

"Suck," Carlos said, around the torch.

No, stuck.

Carlos took the torch out of his mouth. "Suck," he said. "Add 'suck'."

Okay.
Jordan shook the can, sprayed out the word.
'Firemen suck.'
Sounds a bit lame.

"Cock," Carlos said. "Add 'cock'."

Nice.

When Jordan had finished, Carlos said, "Beautiful. Now scribble something else on the other side."

Like what?

"I don't fucking know."

Jordan paused for a moment,
then
disappeared.

"You mind opening that door while you're there?" Carlos said. He opened the driver's side door himself. Apparently that helped get the oxygen flowing.
Thanks,
Bob.
Nearly ready.
Just had to wait for Jordan to finish his final touch of graffiti.
Carlos picked up the petrol can, walked round to the passenger side to join him, and stood back, listening to the
cshh
cshhhp
of the paint leaving the canister.

Done,
Jordan said, finally,
torchbeam
directed at his graffiti. He'd written: BOB WAS HERE, placing the
joyrider
here committing arson rather than out in the country getting shot. Course, his body was in the van, clearly shot.
As was Maggie's.
But the more there was to confuse the police, the better.

"Inspired," Carlos said. "Chuck the spray can inside."

Jordan tossed the can.

"And your gun."

You think?

"Can't keep it.
It's a murder weapon."

Yours too.

Carlos wrenched the gun out of his waistband, lobbed it into the van.

Jordan nodded, threw his in too.

"Out of the way," Carlos said.

He drenched petrol over the seats. Damn stuff stank. Not what you wanted to smell when you'd been up half the night and you'd just started smoking again and you'd had a bellyful of bloodshed. He went round to the back, jumped inside,
splashed
more petrol around the interior.
Splashed it over Bob.
Hesitated as the torchlight spilled from his mouth and onto Maggie.
It didn't look like her. Not in the least. He poured petrol on it.

The can was feeling much lighter when he heard a voice say, "Oh, my God." The voice came from the darkness outside the van. But it was unmistakably his mother's.
Mierda
.
He put down the can. Only then did he twist his head, caught his mother in the narrow beam, hands pressed over her mouth. What the fuck was she doing out of her car?

"Is that a body?" she asked.

It's Maggie.
Jordan was suddenly right beside her.
And a friend of hers.