The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter (Glasgow Trilogy) (10 page)

‘Lewis, this is Stewart, he’s coming back to the house for drinks. It’s time to go. Get up.’

She looks up at Stewart and shakes her head. He sympathizes. This pretty girl is living with a drunkard. No wonder she needs to cut loose and enjoy herself. He probably treats her like dirt.
Drunks are so selfish. The old man mumbles something. He’s obviously trying to sound forceful, but he manages a sentence that contains only vowels and some spit.

‘For God’s sake,’ Zara says loudly. ‘Help me with him, will you?’ she asks Stewart pleadingly. Helping is the decent thing to do.

He’s nearly able to support himself, he just needs to be pointed in the right direction and occasionally rebalanced. Stewart walks on one side of him, Zara on the other. She seems angry;
it seems to Stewart that the promised entertainment probably isn’t going to happen now. She hasn’t said so, so he stays with her. Besides, how would it look if he left her with this
drunk and didn’t even make sure that she got home okay? You have to have some standards. A taxi is pulling up alongside them. Zara helps Winter get into the back. She leads Stewart round the
other side and they get in. Stewart finds himself between the two of them. He’s looking at this Lewis. He’s not as old as he had seemed in the club, but he’s too old for Zara.
Perhaps they’re not a couple. Perhaps they just live together. Best not to pry. The lives of others.

‘He okay?’ the driver’s asking, looking back at Winter. He’s worried that he might throw up.

‘He’s fine,’ Zara’s telling him forcefully, and she gives him the street name.

As they’re driving through the city centre, Stewart is watching Winter. The older man is struggling to stay awake. He seems determined to stay awake, but also determined not to look at any
of them. His half-open eyes are staring out the window, his head bobbing slowly up and down. What a dreadful thing to have to live with. Then Stewart’s feeling her hand on his thigh, just
moving up and down, nothing more yet. He turns and looks at her. She too is staring out the window, not apparently focusing on anything. She seems serene. She seems unaware of where her hand is.
Then it moves up, and it’s on his crotch. There’s a light grip, and a massaging. She’s still staring out the window. The promised entertainment remains a solid promise.

The taxi pulls to a stop in a pleasant suburban street. Being stuck in the middle, Stewart has no idea where they are. His mind has been occupied by other things. The taxi driver looks back over
his shoulder and tells Zara what they owe him. She pulls a twenty from her bag and flings it at him, opening the door as she does. She seems in a bad mood. Yet she seems eager not to let Stewart
go. Some women are odd like that. She’s probably under a great strain with her drunken partner. It’s bound to make her a little irrational.

Zara comes round to the other side of the car and opens the door. Winter almost falls out. She grabs him roughly. Stewart has got out her side of the car and has come round to help. Together
they get Winter on his feet out of the car. As soon as they close the rear door, the taxi pulls away.

It’s slow progress up the garden path. Winter seems less steady on his feet than before. The cold night air isn’t sobering him at all. If anything, it’s making him more sleepy.
They reach the front door.

‘The key, Lewis,’ she’s barking at him. ‘Where’s the house key?’

He’s mumbling something in response. They’re not obviously words, just groans. She’s reaching into his pockets, stuffing a hand in and rummaging. He’s making a noise now,
trying to resist. She finds what she’s looking for, and mumbles a string of swear words as she unlocks the front door. She shoves him inside, Stewart doing his best to hold onto the man
before he falls over. Now that they’re through the front door, she doesn’t seem to care at all.

The front door shuts. Stewart’s still holding Winter. Zara puts the key on a little table in the hall. She turns and looks at them.

‘You don’t need to keep holding him; you can just dump him on the floor if you want.’ It’s said with scorn. She obviously hates the man. He must treat her terribly.

‘I don’t want to do that,’ Stewart is saying. ‘Is there a bed or something?’

She sighs deeply. She must go through this a lot. ‘Yeah, upstairs. Come on.’

The journey up the stairs is long and arduous. Winter seems unwilling to go. He’s trying to push Stewart away. He wants to go back downstairs. He can’t resist. They get him up. Well,
Stewart gets him up. Zara does nothing but lead the way. Poor girl.

Someone puts a light on. The bedroom. They’re in the bedroom. Winter seems to react. He knows. He stops. He manages to summon the strength to push Stewart away. He’s trying to shout,
but he isn’t as loud as he obviously thinks he is. He slurs some words in an incoherent dribble. Had they listened closely, Stewart and Zara would have heard the word
‘humiliation’. They would also have heard the words ‘last time’. They didn’t, because the words are so badly broken by the time they make it into the open. They fall
from Winter’s mouth and disappear from the world. It sounds like nothing more than a drunken ramble. It’s embarrassing to hear a grown man speak that way.

Then Winter does something quite unexpected. Despite being apparently unable, he takes a swing at Stewart. It’s limp, pathetic. It misses by a couple of feet. It comes with a guttural
growl that suggests vomit is close behind. Winter falls forward. Stewart reaches out and grabs him by the coat, struggling to keep him on his feet. He looks at Zara. He sees her look at Winter,
look down and pull a face of disgust. Stewart looks down at Winter. He appears to have wet himself.

‘Put him on the bed,’ Zara is saying, ‘just put him on the bed and leave him.’

Stewart is lying Winter down on his back, trying to be careful with him. ‘Will he be okay?’ he’s asking now, as he joins Zara in the doorway.

‘That’s his problem,’ she’s saying as she switches off the light.

They’re downstairs now, in the living room. Stewart is unsure about what happens next. He’s standing in the doorway. Zara’s gone into the living room and across to a drinks
cabinet. She’s pouring out a glass of whiskey for herself, not asking Stewart if he wants one. She downs it in two gulps and then closes the cabinet.

‘God, I really need this now,’ she says to him, and pulls her top over her head. As she’s unclipping her bra, she’s nodding for him to come into the room. Stewart starts
to undress, his enthusiasm rebuilding. She’s quickly removed her short skirt and underpants and is moving across the room to help him.

Calum and George are sitting in the car. Sitting in silence. They know what they have to do. It’s a matter of patience now. Calum is thinking it through, time and again,
repeating the possible scenes in his mind. He’s thinking of all the things he might have done differently. All the extra precautions he might have taken. He knows of others who go to such
great lengths. He knows of one gunman who always wears shoes that are the wrong size for him on a job. If the police identify the footprint, they’re not going to identify it as his. That
seems like a good idea. Cops are always looking for shoe prints these days. One of their little tricks. Calum doesn’t use it, though. Seems a touch excessive. Now he wonders.

George is impatient to start. He wants to say something. He wants to crack jokes to relieve the tension, but he knows that isn’t Calum’s way. They have different ways of dealing with
the tension. That’s okay. Calum’s just sitting there, staring at the house, thinking things through. Fine. He’s the one who has to do the dirty side of the job. George is sitting
there, wishing they could talk. Wishing that the tension wasn’t as high as it is. He doesn’t like it that way. He wants something more relaxed. He wants a bit of a laugh. Probably
because he’s not intending to kill someone. He can afford to relax. He’s there to keep all potential witnesses away from the act itself. His role allows some relaxation.

It’s ten past one. A taxi turns into the street and pulls up beside Winter’s house. It stops. There’s a little delay. A rear door opens. Two bare legs emerge. Then Zara, in her
short skirt and little top. George inhales slightly. Approval. She walks round to the other side of the car. They’re both hoping that only Winter will emerge with her. She opens the door.
They can see a figure, but he’s not getting out. Then another person gets out the same door she did. Damn! Double damn – it’s a young man. He doesn’t look too drunk. He
looks healthy.

‘Know him?’ George asks. It’s a small city. You see people around.

‘No,’ Calum answers. They’re both glad they don’t recognize him. They don’t want him to be someone in the business.

The young man goes round to help Zara. She’s obviously in charge. She looks disgusted with something. The young man helps Winter out of the car. He looks dead on his feet. He’s been
drinking more than is advisable. A drunk target. A target so drunk he can’t possibly fight back. That good bit of fortune compensates for the young man being there. The taxi pulls away from
them, leaving the young man to help Winter up the garden path. It’s slow going. They reach the door. They can just see Zara reaching into Winter’s pocket. They’re almost out of
sight in the doorway. She opens the door. They go inside. The door closes.

They wait. Silence. A light goes on – the downstairs hall. They wait. Another light. The stairs. Wait. The bedroom light. Then it goes off. It’s been five minutes since they went
into the house. Wait. The living-room light. Another three minutes. You never know what you’re walking into. You never know the right time. It’s not judgement, it’s a blind guess.
Calum pulls his balaclava over his head. George follows. Calum pulls on a pair of thin surgical gloves. George follows. Calum opens the door of the car and gets out. He’ll leave the car
unlocked, keys in the ignition. Small risk, possibly a major time-saver. You never know when you might need to save those precious few seconds. George gets out of the car now. They’re
standing on the road. Each with a gun in hand, tucked against their side. Calum turns and nods.

They walk across the road and up to the door of the house. There’s no sign of life in any other house on the street. Often people are watching. Often people are peering out from behind a
curtain in the dark. The world is nosy. People notice things. A little old lady with insomnia and nothing better to do. No matter. The job has begun. No turning back. Calum knocks on the door. A
steady knock. Loud enough to be heard inside. Not so loud that a neighbour will hear it. Not if they’re asleep, anyway. The living-room light is still on. Nobody comes to the door. They
can’t afford to wait.

There’s a danger with knocking. People hear the knock and correctly guess who’s there. They run. You can’t give them that much time. No more knocking. Calum nods to George.
They both take a step back from the door. George raises a boot and firmly kicks the door, just around the lock. It shakes violently. He kicks again. The crack of splinters. The door bursts open,
bounces against the wall. They go in quickly. Nobody in the hall. They can see along the corridor to the dark kitchen. A light. The living room. Calum pushes the door open, the gun raised. You
never know what you’re walking into.

George snorts, then stifles the laugh. Calum stands still, gun raised, checking the room around them. The young man is on his feet, naked, his hands over his crotch, trying to hide something
that doesn’t want to be hidden. Zara is getting up from the couch. Naked too, sweating. There’s a gleam in her eyes, but a grim frown. She understands. She knows what’s going to
happen. Maybe she thinks it’ll be worse than it will. Maybe she thinks they’ll hit her too. The young man opens his mouth, wants to say something. Words can’t make it from his
brain to his mouth. Fear has put up a barrier between the two. A terror has gripped him. He’s close to tears. Zara simply stands and watches, making no attempt to reach for her clothes. Calum
glances at George, and sees his shoulders rocking up and down a little in silent laughter. You never know what you’re walking into.

Then the young man does something stupid. Naked as the day he was born, he’s trying to run for the door. That’s a stupid move, but it’s easily dealt with. George spends his
entire working life dealing with people who try to run for the door. Admittedly the vast majority are clothed, but that only makes this easier. He has in fact dealt with naked people before. You
charge in somewhere in the middle of the night to give them the fright of their lives. They stumble out of bed. Easy to deal with. As the young man takes his second stride, he’s alongside
George. He doesn’t see the hand flash out. He doesn’t see the gun gripped in the hand. He feels it when it smashes into the side of his head, between the ear and the forehead. Suddenly
the world isn’t underneath him any more. He’s sprawling sideways. He collides with the side of a chair and tumbles over it. Then he stays on the floor, whimpering.

George raises the gun. He has the safety catch on, but nobody else knows that. Zara crosses her arms and looks at the two men in black. She sighs a little. She’s trying to look superior.
Not an easy thing to do in her position. Calum looks her in the eye. Holds her eye. He knows that she’s not going to put up resistance. She now just wants to get out of this night alive. The
things that mattered to her three minutes ago mean nothing now. Now it’s survival. Play nice for the men with the guns. Whatever they want. Anything is better than the bang of the gun. They
mean business. She knows it because they’re so calm. They’ve done this before. One of them is relaxed enough to laugh. Not hysterical laughter. Genuinely amused. The other is staring at
her. Looking her in the eye. Judging her.

Calum looks at the man lying on the floor. He’s breathing heavily, but he’s not moving. Frozen with fear. Desperate to survive. There won’t be any trouble from him, either.
Calum can just see his legs and part of his back. He’s hunched over. Wishing it would all go away. He came here tonight on a promise from a beautiful woman. Now this. Calum feels sorry for
him, but a crack on the head is as far as it will go for him, provided he stays where he is. Just use some common sense, boy. He glances at George. He isn’t laughing any more. He’s
looking at the man on the floor, making sure that he can cover both him and Cope. Professional.