The Evil And The Pure (41 page)

Gawl on edge as Clint fumbled with the lock. Visions of the dealer losing his nerve and fleeing. Swearing to himself that he’d kill Clint on the spot if he did. But then the door opened, Clint slipped out of sight and Gawl relaxed — as much as he could. Waited a quarter of an hour, crouched in shadows, then slid across the street and into the house where he’d hid the first time he’d come here.

Focused on the lab as the minutes slowly ticked by.
Replaying the scenario over and over, treating it as a memory of something that had already happened, robbing the future of much of its threat by placing it into a safe imagined past. Checked his gun, a piece of shit but it worked and it couldn’t be traced. A long time since he’d shot anyone. Guns never his thing, too impersonal. He preferred to get up close when he fought. Dirtier, messier, riskier, but he didn’t mind that.

The last few minutes the worst,
sure the Tynes wouldn’t come, that Clint would chicken out, that Phials had cracked and ratted them out, that it was a trap. Dying for a drink, wishing he’d brought a bottle along, just a quick shot to steady his nerves. Now that fear was gnawing at him, he was amazed Clint had made it so far. If Gawl was this afraid, what sort of petrifying panic was the cowardly Clint enduring? New respect for the dealer, though not much.

Checking his watch
, glancing at the lab. Checking his watch, glancing at the lab. Checking his watch, glancing at…

There! Kevin and Tulip,
glum as mourners at a wake. Gawl chuckled softly in the darkness. He knew why they were so miserable. He’d thought that he’d have to bully them into coming. Pleasantly surprised when Kevin responded positively to Clint’s invitation.

As Kevin slid back the outer door of the lab, Gawl pull
ed on a balaclava and stood in the shadows, waiting, heart racing, watching as Kevin entered the outer rim of the lab
and didn’t close the door!
Gawl hurried into the street and raced, delighted with this slice of good fortune. He’d planned on having to slide open the outer door, which would tip off the guards inside, give them time to free their weapons. Everything was playing into his hands but he warned himself not to get cocky, pride before a fall and all that shite.

Pausing at the open door, panting hard, trying to hear over the pounding of his heart. A heavy click. Streams of light. Gawl held his breath
and crept forward. Spotted Tulip just ahead of him in the gloom, blocking the entrance. Hesitated, unable to see past her. Tulip either heard or sensed him. Turned, frowning, peering into the darkness. Gawl almost ran. Then someone said, “You next.”

And he exploded in a sudden burst of
action.
Darted forward. Propelled Tulip at a guard. They fell to the floor. Gawl’s eyes like a camera lens, taking it all in, Kevin to his left, the guard on the floor trapped beneath Tulip, another guard a bit further ahead, nobody else.

The guard on his feet
reached for his gun. Gawl flashed on grisly images, the guard shooting him, head exploding. He grabbed Kevin without thinking and fired around his shrieking human shield, blinking every time his finger squeezed on the trigger, retorts ringing sharply in his ears.

Kevin
screamed and pissed himself — Gawl felt the spreading warmth on his thighs. The guard on his feet fired back. Gawl missed, the guard missed. Gawl kept firing, the guard kept firing. Gawl screaming wildly as he fired, the guard thin-lipped and professional.

Gawl cli
cked on empty. The guard paused, smiled, aimed. Gawl ducked behind Kevin, cursing, trying to reload. Kevin whined like a dog and pushed himself away. Gawl grabbed for Kevin, missed. Kevin hit the floor. The guard’s grin spread. Adjusted his aim to shoot Gawl clean through the forehead.

Clint and Phials came spinning round a corner.
The guard caught sight of them, assumed they were here to back him up. “I have him,” he shouted. Clint and Phials raised their pistols at the same time. The guard’s eyes widened. He swivelled. They fired. Bullets tore him apart, face shattering, heart and stomach punctured, sent flying backwards.

The guar
d on the floor pushed Tulip off and freed his gun. Fired at Kevin and Phials. Gawl still trying to reload. With another curse he reversed his grip and used the gun as a club. Dropped on the guard and pinned his gun hand with a knee. The guard roared at him. Gawl smashed the butt of his gun into the guard’s face. Again. Breaking through nose, bone, eyes, the centre of the guard’s face now a bloody, shredded hole. Blood pumping, soaking Gawl and Tulip. She lay sprawled next to the guard, staring into the nightmare remains of his face, too shocked and stoned to scream.

Clint and Phials
raced across the room. “Come on,” Clint yelled at Gawl, trying to drag him off the dead guard, Gawl still pounding away with his gun.

“Wait,
” Phials shouted, darting into one of the small rooms.

“Are you fucking crazy
?” Clint shrieked. Phials ignored him. Clint stood, panting, looking around. Kevin, white-faced, the front of his trousers stained with urine, gawping at Gawl. Tulip, eyes fixed on the dead guard, lips parting and closing softly like a fish’s. Gawl, soaked with blood, grinning, driving the butt of his gun through a pool of blood/flesh/bone, into the guard’s brain.

Clint pointed his gun at the guard and shot him three times through the chest. Gawl
whipped away from the guard and snarled at Clint, raising his gun to attack Clint as he’d attacked the guard, momentarily lost to the madness.

Clint saw murder in Gawl’s eyes. Calmly levelled his gun at him
, braver than he’d ever dreamt he might be. “Don’t.” Gawl hesitated. The shroud of hysteria lifted. His eyes cleared. Clint lowered his arm. “We have to get out of here.”

Gawl nodded. “Where’s Phials?”

“In one of the –”

Three guards appeared on the landing overhead and
opened fire. Clint threw himself against the wall and returned their shots. Gawl finished reloading his gun, stepped up beside Clint and took aim. Phials reappeared carrying a large silver tin, saw what was happening, started shooting at the trio on the landing.

One of the guards took a
bullet to the stomach and fell over the banister like a cowboy taking a fall in a movie. The others ducked low. Gawl grabbed Kevin, shoved him out into the street, picked up Tulip – still staring slackly at the guard’s ruined face – and shouted to Clint and Phials, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” Ran with Tulip, Clint and Phials backing out after him, keeping the guards at bay.

Gawl carri
ed Tulip to the car, kicking Kevin ahead of him. Clint started after them. Stopped. Slid the outer door shut. Locked it. Grinned at Phials. “That’ll slow them.”

“Fucking A!” Phials laughed, delirious with freedom.
He ran after Gawl, Clint following, feeling like a warrior.

Gawl pulled off his blood-soaked balaclava and tossed it away as he ran. Got to the car, dumped Tulip on the hood while he opened the doors.
She finally screamed as she stared up at the dark night sky. Gawl flinched, then slapped her. No effect, so he slapped her again. This time the scream cut off abruptly, her eyes rolled and she slumped across the hood unconscious.

Kevin stared at Gawl slapping his sister and did nothing. He didn’t understand what was happening. As Gawl bundled Tulip into the back seat, part of Kevin’s brain
roared at him to run, but he couldn’t. He could only stand, staring, until Gawl thrust him into the car after Tulip.

Clint and Phials arrived, panting. Clint dove for the front passenger door. Phials stood by the car, wrestling with the top of the tin he’d risked
his life for. “Get the fuck in,” Gawl yelled as he sat behind the wheel and started the engine.

“Wait a minute,
” Phials yelled back. The top of the tin came off. He emptied half the contents over the ground, scattering a white, crystalline powder left and right, smearing it around with his feet.

“I’ll fuckin
g kill him if he doesn’t get in,” Gawl screamed at Clint.

“Tony! For fuck’s sake! What are –”

Phials replaced the lid, threw the tin into the back seat, slid into the car, slammed the door shut, grinned at Clint. “The hounds.”

Clint
realised what Phials had done. He laughed. “Sweet!” He slapped Gawl’s left arm. “Drive on, Jeeves.”

Gawl jammed his foot down and concentrat
ed on the road, Clint and Phials hooting jubilantly, Kevin shivering, Tulip unconscious, chaos behind them, the future dead ahead.

Big Sandy
was worried. He’d returned to the King’s Head to search for Gawl McCaskey that evening. Though nobody seemed to be friends with McCaskey, many of the customers knew him by sight and a few told Big Sandy that they’d seen him with Clint Smith recently. That troubled him — what was McCaskey doing with the dealer? He finally got McCaskey’s address from a woman called Alex who had nothing but bad things to say about him.

Big Sandy
broke down the door when he got there and checked the apartment — a pigsty, filthy, freezing, stinking. McCaskey lived like an animal. Finding nothing of interest, Big Sandy sat on a creaking chair in the tiny living room, in darkness, waiting for McCaskey to return, trying to work out why the Scot’s connection with Clint Smith made him feel so uneasy.

T
hen the call from the Bush came, telling Big Sandy to get his arse over to the lab ASA-fucking-P. The Bush even angrier than he’d been when Shula was raped.

The lab crawling with the Bush’s men when
Big Sandy arrived. Three corpses to the left of the door, covered by blankets. The floor and wall near the door were red with blood. Further in, Fast Eddie, slumped on a chair, eyes unfocused, guarded by Eyes Burton. Big Sandy stopped beside Eyes. “What happened?”

“A gang broke
out Phials.”

“They got away?”

“Clean as fuck.”

“The corpses?”

“Ours.”

“Fast Eddie?”

Eyes hesitated. “Phials knocked him out with the shit he uses on the hounds. We don’t think he was part of the gang but the Bush told me to keep an eye on him, just to be safe.”

Big S
andy walked on, guided by a technician, to the control centre, where the Bush was studying footage of the break-out, eyes clouded, teeth bared, cheeks quivering. Big Sandy stepped up beside him and stared at the screen. Clint Smith, Tony Phials and a man in a balaclava, firing at an overhead target. Kevin and Tulip Tyne close by, wild-eyed, stunned, terrified. On an adjacent screen, three guards, firing from the landing. One took a bullet and toppled forward.

Big S
andy watched the scene play out. The man in the balaclava shoved Kevin through the door, grabbed Tulip, rushed out with her. Phials and Clint backed out after him. The guards raced to the door, found it locked from the outside, spilled back into the lab, more joining them from upstairs, milling about like sheep, checking the dead, yelling questions, unable to believe what had happened.

“S
ee what that little prick of a cousin has done to me?” the Bush whispered. “I take him in, give him a home, a job, a future. And you see what he’s done?”

“The guy in the balaclava’s Gawl McCaskey,” Big Sandy said
, bitter that he hadn’t made the connection between the pair of them twenty-four hours earlier.

The Bush’s head turned slowly. “Who?”

“Gawl McCaskey. He was sniffing around for work a while back.”

The Bush nodded slowly, remembering. “How do you know?”

“He’s been hanging out with Clint and he’s involved with the Tynes. I was at his place, waiting for him, when you called.”

“You knew this was going to happen?” the Bush barked.

“No. I was there to stop him bothering the Tynes.”

“
Bothering
them?” The Bush snorted. “He was in league with them.”

“No,” Big Sandy
said. “Play it again. Kevin and Tulip were as shocked as the guards. They weren’t part of this. Clint and McCaskey used them.”

“I’ll
kill them anyway.”

Big Sandy said nothing,
not the right time to plead Tulip’s case.

The Bush turned to one
of the technicians. “Rewind and start over.”

This time Big Sandy saw the scene play out from the beginning, Clint and Phials heading for the cellar with Fast Eddie, footage of Phials sedating a
hound, moving off-camera, Phials and Clint returning by themselves, the guards answering the door, Kevin and Tulip entering, McCaskey bursting in, the gunfight, Clint and Phials joining the action, Phials ducking into his work station for a tin, the three men shooting their way out. Big Sandy focused on Clint, nervous going down the cellar but remarkably cool when he reappeared, calming McCaskey, firing clean, in command. Big Sandy surprised by the dealer’s newly discovered backbone.

“I’ve sent men to the Tyne
s’ flat,” the Bush said as Clint and Phials backed out of the lab on screen. “And Clint’s. They won’t go home, they’re not that stupid, but they may have left some clues as to where they’re headed.”

“They might return to McCaskey’s,” Gawl muttered. “If he thinks we won’t be able to tie him to the break-out, he might plan to hole-up there.”

“Send somebody over.” The Bush sat back, face darker than Big Sandy had ever seen it. “This means Phials has the formula. They wouldn’t risk so much unless he could guarantee payment.” He ran his hands through his jet black hair, then thoughtfully fingered the gold St Christopher medal hanging from his neck. “I need Phials alive. That formula means more to me than revenge.”

Big Sandy nodded. “You think Clint and McCaskey are in this alone?”

“I don’t care,” the Bush grunted. “What the fuck does it matter?”

“If they’re front men, you can get on the grapevine, find out who was backing them, maybe cut a deal for Phials’ return. If they operated alone, they’ll be harder to trace.”

The Bush thought about that. Sighed miserably. “I’m not thinking clearly. I still can’t believe Clint did this. Where the hell did he grow the balls?” He stared at Big Sandy as if he expected an answer, then looked away sourly. “I’ll find out if they’re connected. What else should we do?”

“Send descriptions to every hotel and boarding house
that we can, post photos on the streets of the major towns and cities, offer a reward, have men at all the airports and ferries.”

“What else?”

“They left on foot,” Big Sandy said.

“So?”

“The hounds.” The Bush’s face lit up. Big Sandy spoke quickly before his boss got carried away. “They probably had a car waiting, but if the hounds can lead us to where they were parked, we can knock on doors, ask if anyone saw them, maybe get a make on the car.”

“Yes.” Rubbing his hands together. “Take the
hounds to their homes too. They only had a few days to arrange this. They may not have had the resources to set up a safe haven outside London. They might be lying low somewhere local, waiting for the storm to die down. If they are, the hounds can track them. Take them and as many men as you need. You’re in charge of the search. Do whatever you have to. Just remember, I want Phials alive.”

“What about Clint?”

The Bush smiled at the screen as he hit the rewind button again. “Alive if possible, so I can kill him myself, but dead’s fine too.”

Big Sandy nodded
and hurried to Phials’ bedroom to grab some of his clothes – he picked the robe the chemist had been wearing earlier – then down to the cellar, taking three men from the crowd in the lab. All four hounds were alert and wild, howling at the men as they approached. Big Sandy didn’t bother with the syringes, no time. Grabbed a harness and muzzle, walked to one of the cages, opened the door, stepped inside, waited for the hound to leap then punched it to the floor. The hound hit the ground with a stunned grunt. Big Sandy was on it like lightning. Slipped the muzzle on, bundled the hound out of the cage, turned him over to one of the incredulous guards. Grabbed another harness and muzzle, went to fetch hound number two.

When
the pair of hounds were ready, the four men led them up through the lab, two per dog. Big Sandy’s hound howled when it caught the scent of blood. Big Sandy hauled the dog away from the crimson pools, didn’t want it locking on to the scent of the dead men. The guards followed with the other hound. On the pavement, Big Sandy grabbed the back of his hound’s neck, then stuffed the balled-up robe into its face. The hound tried to back away, then fixed on the scent of Phials and growled eagerly. Big Sandy tossed the robe to the others, then gave his hound its head. The hound sniffed around, caught the scent of Phials, took off after him, Big Sandy striding fast behind.

The
hound led Big Sandy to the mouth of the cul-de-sac, turned right, heading towards the Walworth Road. The other hound caught up, the guards struggling to control it. A few metres further on, the dogs came to a swath of white powder. They sniffed, inhaled grains, then stiffened, eyes widening. They started to choke and whine, then both went frantic, limbs spastic, collapsing, twitching, tearing free of their handlers. Within seconds they were coughing up blood and choking. Seconds later, dead.

The men stared at the dead
hounds, then at the white substance. Big Sandy cursed silently then glanced around. This part of the street was bordered on one side by a furniture warehouse, on the other by offices, both buildings deserted this late. He picked up the nearest corpse and slung it over a shoulder. “Get the other one,” he snapped, passing the guards, heading back to the lab, not looking forward to breaking the news to the Bush. It was going to be a long, horrible bitch of a night. Beginning to wish he’d stayed in Margate.

Clint sipped tea and gazed around the study at the others, Gawl, Kevin, Tulip, Phials and Fr Sebastian, all glum except Phials, who hadn’t stopped grinning since Tuesday, forty hours of smiles and chuckles, even when he was sleeping. Kevin and Tulip clung to one another, wide-eyed, silent, scared. Gawl sat by the window, squinting through the material of the heavy curtains, cradling his gun in his lap. He hadn’t washed since the break-out, still traces of blood on his face and hands. Phials was by the bookcase, reading a novel he’d picked out earlier. Fr Sebastian near the door, wringing his hands, blinking rapidly, in shock.

The priest
went into meltdown when they turned up at his door on Tuesday, bloody, Kevin and Tulip in a daze, Phials punching the air with glee, Clint and Gawl packing guns. Hadn’t even thought of turning them away, just ushered them in, speechless, bewildered. They’d sat up all night, too stoked to sleep, Gawl and Clint boasting about their exploits, Phials cackling dementedly, Kevin and Tulip shivering, hugging, crying, Fr Sebastian listening numbly to Gawl and Clint.

Towards dawn, Gawl and Clint ran out of words and just sat, smiling, re-living the night inside their heads, neither able to fully believe it, wo
ndering if this was part of a crazy dream. After half an hour of silence, Fr Sebastian said, “You can’t stay here.” Everybody looked at him as if he was mad, even the Tynes. “You killed people,” he cried. “I can’t grant refuge to killers. You have to leave. You can stay until morning, then you –”

Gawl pointed his gun at the priest, shutting him up. “Clint,
” he growled. “Explain it. I don’t have the fucking patience.”

“We’ve nowhere else to go,” Clint said quietly. “This is the one place they’ll never look. We’re safe here. So are you.”

“No,” Fr Sebastian moaned. “This is a house of God. You can’t –”

“If we leave, and we’re caught, they
’ll trace us back to you,” Clint said. Fr Sebastian stopped moaning. “You’re in this now. What works for us works for you. We have to stay. It’s best for all of us.”

The priest said nothing for
a long time after that. Mulled the situation over. He made breakfast for his guests, showed them where they’d be sleeping, watched as Gawl locked Kevin and Tulip into their bedroom, directed Phials to the bathroom – he wanted to shower – then returned with Gawl and Clint to the study. When the three were seated, he asked Clint how long they intended to stay. Gawl answered before Clint could. “Weeks, maybe longer, depending on how things pan out.”

“How am I supposed to hide you?” Fr Sebastian complained. “I hav
e a constant stream of visitors, parishioners, cleaning ladies, fellow clergymen.”

“Not any more ye don’t,” Gawl grunted. “Tell ’em t’ fuck off.”

“I can’t just –”

“Ye can,” Gawl insisted.

Fr Sebastian’s jaw firmed. “Don’t push me too far, McCaskey.”

“Why?” Gawl jeered. “What’ll ye do?”

“You said a lot tonight when you were boasting. Told me about Tony Phials, that he’s worth a lot of money, that you stole him from Dave Bushinsky. I know who the Bush is. I’m sure he’d reward me generously if I told him you were here.”

“We’d tell him about your thing for little girls if you did,” Clint snapped.

Fr Sebastian smiled witheringly. “I have a hold over you and you have a hold over me. But my hold is greater. You
might
tell the Bush about me, and he
might
act on that information. But if I
do
tell him about you, he most definitely
will
come after you and –”

“I’ll kill Tulip Tyne,” Gawl interrupted. Fr Sebastian stared at him. “If they
come gunning for us, I’ll kill her first.”

“You can’t frighten me with vacant threats,” Fr Sebastian wheezed.