Slammer (30 page)

Things built up. He got worse. Reached a point where he got a gun from Mad Will. Later, Watt told Mafia that Mad Will had been reluctant to give it to him, but Watt had convinced him he just wanted the gun for protection. He'd pissed off quite a few people along the way. Which was true enough: it wasn't all paranoia.

But the gun was the turning point for his wife. She said she didn't recognise him any more. He wasn't the man she'd married. She coped with their failing marriage by drinking. More than once she'd threatened to leave him, but one night she packed a suitcase for herself and their daughter, said she'd had enough, finally, and they were going to her mother's, and that's when Watt flipped.

That evening Mafia had been out with him all night, knew he'd taken a shitpile of something earlier, in the gents, gone home with him to make sure he was okay. Mafia'd been drinking himself, so he crawled onto Watt's couch, sank into it and fell asleep.

Watt went upstairs to bed.

When he flicks on the light, she stirs. He looks over to the suitcase, open on the floor, neatly packed.

She rolls over, alert. Probably only pretending to be asleep. Isn't that late, clubs only just come out.

'Are we going on holiday?' he says. 'I can't just now. Got a lot on.'

'You have nothing on,' she says. 'Spending what little money you earn taking drugs with Caesar and Horse and that blind brother of yours.'

Straight in with the criticisms. 'He's not blind. And he doesn't take drugs.'

'Good for him Maybe you could learn something from him.'

'Keep your voice down.'

'You think he'll hear us all the way across town?'

'He's downstairs. On the settee.'

'Something else to look forward to in the morning. I should just get up and go now.'

'Go where? What's going on?' He has no idea. He's given up trying to figure her out. He's the one with the
problem
but it doesn't take a genius to see that her behaviour is irrational at the best of times. If you love somebody, it doesn't matter what they're like, though, does it?

'I didn't want to leave a note.'

'I don't follow.'

She grabs a fistful of hair at the nape of her neck and tightens her fingers round it. Her voice is flat. 'We're leaving.'

'I can't, I told you.'

She tugs her hair, and as she does so, her head rises. 'No, we're leaving
you
.'

Then he understands. At least, he understands what she's saying. But he doesn't understand why. 'You can't. I can't cope on my own.'

'Typical,' she says. She lets go of her hair, thumps her fist down on the bedclothes.

'What?'

'Your selfishness. You can't cope, so I have to cope for you.'

'No, just help me. I'll sort myself out. I promise.'

'I'm not the person to help you. I can't do it.' She lowers her gaze. 'It's not safe any more.'

'What do you mean, it's not safe? I'm here. I'm keeping us safe.'

'You? You're a mess.'

That isn't true. He'd never been as together as he is right now. He's invulnerable. He pulls out the gun. 'I've got this,' he says. 'Help keep the three of us safe.'

'I told you to get rid of that,' she yells.

'Shhh,' he says. Then, louder, as the shrill sound continues: 'Be quiet! Shut up, for Christ's sake.'

She's quiet only while she fills her lungs. Then she screams, 'Get rid of it.'

'There's no need for this shit,' he shouts back at her. 'Pack it in.'

No joy.

She screams, crazy faced, mouth wide open, cheeks jiggling.

His ears suck her screams out of the air. Each scream breaks into pieces. Tiny needles of sound dart into his eardrums and lodge there, quivering.

He yells, 'You'll wake up—'

'Don't argue, Daddy, ple—!'

He turns, sees the bullet rip through his daughter's chest. Then the explosion.

She stands for a second, tumbler of milk in her hands, then sinks to the floor.

The screaming stops.

It's over, just like that.

'Jesus,' Glass said. 'I almost feel like I was there.'

Watt gazes down at the gun in his hand. Can't make the connection between it and his daughter. What appears to have happened can't have happened. He can't have pulled the trigger. And even if he has, the safety should be on. It should be. His ears ring from the sound of the shot, from the sound of his wife's screaming, making the needles in his eardrums vibrate.

Maybe if he doesn't move, this will all go away. Maybe if he stays still, never moves again. Never blinks, never takes a breath. Maybe.

Yes, if time stops. He can make it stop. He will make it stop.

'What the fuck have you done?' his wife yells at him.

He shakes his head. He doesn't know. He isn't sure. He can't put it into words.

But she can.

'You killed her,' she says. 'You killed my baby.'

'No.'

'You murdering bastard. You killed our daughter. YOU KILLED HER.'

'I can't have,' he says. 'No. It's a mistake.'

'She's dead.'

'How?'

'You bought a fucking gun,' she says, crouched over her daughter, picking her up, cradling her.

He looks at the gun again. It's huge.

'You're going to pay for this.' Her eyes are mad. 'I'll make sure of it.'

Tears pump out of her eyes, roll down her face. 'I fucking hate you. I've never hated anyone like I hate you right now.' She strokes her daughter's face. 'If you don't get out of my sight, I can't be responsible for what I'll do to you.' She kisses her daughter's shiny smooth brow. 'My baby,' she says.

'She can't be gone,' Watt says.

His wife lowers their child to the ground, jumps to her feet. 'Get out of here, you piece of shit,' she says. 'Get the fuck out. Or God help me …'

'I want to hold her.'

'Get out!' she screeches. 'I'll fucking kill you.' She charges at him, fists flying. She hits him on the chin. Snatches at the gun.

He jerks his hand out of the way.

Her expression freezes, and she wilts, a small red hole in her forehead.

What seems like seconds later, Watt hears the explosion and the needles in his ears sing so loudly he feels he's drowning in the sound.

'I'm struggling to believe that,' Glass said, after a while. 'One accidental shot, maybe. But two's a stretch.'

'Well, that's my best guess,' Mafia said. 'I've no way of knowing if it's true.'

'What do you mean?'

'By the time I got upstairs, Watt was huddled in a corner. Couldn't get a word out of him.'

'So he told you this later?'

'Not exactly. We didn't have a lot of time for talking.'

'Then how do you know it happened like that?'

'It's the way I pieced it together.'

'Jesus. You're just guessing?'

Mafia paused. 'The minute I stepped through the bedroom door, there was only one scenario that made any sense.'

'You're just guessing,' Glass repeated, not a question this time.

'The fact Watt couldn't tell me what happened makes no difference. It went down like I said.'

Glass didn't argue. Mafia'd carried this with him for a long time and if that's how he coped with what happened, there wasn't much Glass could say that'd make a difference. But it didn't sound right to Glass. 'So what did you do?'

 
Couldn't get any sense out of Watt, and Mafia knew it looked bad. It looked worse than bad. And Watt couldn't go to prison, no way he could do the time. His head was in enough of a mess already. They'd probably send him to Carstairs or somewhere, lock him up with the psychos. Since Watt was his little brother, Mafia decided to do what he could to protect him.

The only way to keep Watt out of jail was to frame someone else. Even then, the police might spot the cover up. Unless the scapegoat confessed.

Mafia eased the gun out of his brother's fingers. He aimed at the wall and pulled the trigger a couple of times. That got his prints on the gun, and gunpowder residue on his skin and clothes. He dabbed the cuff of his shirt gently in the blood oozing from his sister-in-law's head. He couldn't make out much more than a general red smear, but it would have to do. He couldn't bring himself to do the same to his niece.

He'd done enough, though. He was confident no one would doubt he was the one who'd pulled the trigger.

He dragged Watt out of the house, managed to stumble to the car, told him to drive. Watt wouldn't, just sat there staring, not saying a word. Mafia dragged him back out and told him to go, just walk away, go find Caesar. He hated himself for throwing his brother into Caesar's arms, but he couldn't think of anyone else who'd lie for him.

Watt wasn't speaking, but Mafia had to hope he was listening. On no account, he said, was Watt to tell Caesar the truth about what had happened. Caesar didn't need to know. Tell Caesar that Mafia was to blame. Mafia'd paid his sister-in-law a bad-intentioned bedroom visit. Things got out of hand. Provoked an accident.

Still no response from Watt. Mafia couldn't even see his brother's eyes to tell if there was anything going on in there. He had to trust that Watt was hearing him. That he understood. That he had absorbed the lie.

Watt needed Caesar to give him an alibi. Did Watt understand?

But Mafia was pretty sure by now that he was just talking to himself, clearing matters in his head. Watt wasn't taking in a word.

Mafia went back in the house, felt his way over to the phone and called the police. Then he called Caesar. Told him the story he'd just made up for Watt.

Caesar said, 'You do this to Watt and then you call me? What kind of a cunt are you?'

'Watt's here too. He needs an alibi.'

'For what you've done to his wife and child?'

'He's in a bad way. Won't talk. Wandering around outside. I need you to look after him while I'm in prison.'

'You won't get that far,' Caesar told him and hung up.