Two-Way Split (10 page)

"Black. Soutar has a black gun. Now that's a lot scarier than a pink one, don't you think?"

12:57 pm

Robin's stomach lurched as Carol drove too fast over a speed bump. When Eddie handed him the gun earlier he'd asked if it was loaded. Eddie had nodded and the temptation to pull the trigger and watch Eddie's head leave his neck was enormous. But he'd resisted. Had a bit of fun pointing the gun at Eddie before handing it back like a good boy.

"Oops," Carol said.

"You want to get us arrested?" Eddie said.

"Up yours, Soutar."

As for Carol. Robin squeezed the leather sheath of the hunting knife in his pocket as he glanced out the window.
Lean forward. Grab her jaw. Tilt her head back. Slit her throat. All over in seconds.
Behind a fence, a bunch of kids played football on a gravel pitch. Outside a church advertising a coffee morning, a kilted piper braved the cold. Robin caught a snatch of the pipe's muted drone, the chanter's not-quite-in-tune skirl, rapid grace notes ornamenting the melody.

Carol slowed to a virtual standstill as the car approached another speed bump. "Is this better?" Eddie shook his head. "Well?"

"You want to swap? Want me to drive?" Eddie's eyes bulged and for a moment Robin thought his wife's lover was going to hit her. Maybe Eddie did too. Maybe that's why he folded his arms. "You want to go inside with Robin? I can wait outside, you know. I can sit in the car with the engine running without
too
much difficulty."

They sounded like a married couple. Robin unzipped the sports bag and tapped Eddie on the shoulder, the sound of bagpipes distant now.

Eddie ignored him and carried on, "You want the gun, Carol? Huh? Think you've got the balls?" He stuffed his hand in his jacket.

"Eddie, take this," Robin said. Eddie was getting excited and not for the first time. Last time he ended up on the verge of losing control, forcing Robin to take over and clean up his mess. Sometimes he reminded Robin of his brother.
Remember Mrs Stanger?

"Easy." Carol took a right onto Easter Road. "Nothing to it," she said. "Point. Squeeze. Bang."

Remember spying on her?

"You think that's all there is to shooting someone?" Eddie angled his head to see what Robin was offering him. "Point, squeeze, bang? Like you're following a bloody recipe or something?" His hand came out of his pocket empty.

Robin said, "Or a dance step."

Eddie snatched the balaclava from Robin. "Of course, you'd know all about pistols. Skoosh, skoosh."

Ignore that.
Where was he? Yeah, Mrs Stanger. Spying. Before he went to music school, he used to play this game with Don. Their old neighbour went to bed early. Husband dead, both sons left home, she lived alone in a boxy two-storey house at the end of the road. At nine thirty they would creep up her garden path, sidle round the house, peek through the gap in the curtains of the downstairs bedroom and scarper when she got into bed. They never saw her naked, although they did once catch her in her underwear. One night, sheltered in the high-fenced back garden, Don noticed Mrs Stanger's back door was ajar.
So what did we do?
Once inside, they sneaked through the old lady's kitchen and into her brightly lit hallway. The sitting room walls muffled the sound of a television. There was a staircase on the left with a walk-in cupboard underneath. Don opened the door, revealing a vacuum cleaner, a mop in a bucket, a sewing machine, jars arranged on a long shelf, and a line of kid's books – each with an orange bookmark sticking out the top – on a smaller shelf underneath.

The stairs creaked. Don dived inside the cupboard, closing the door behind him. Robin heard the sound of a key turning in the lock. By locking himself in the cupboard, Don had shut Robin out. Robin stayed still as Mrs Stanger's footsteps moved slowly down the stairs towards him. She was old, hard of hearing. Did he have time? Yes, if he didn't stop to think about it. He ran back through the hall, through the dark kitchen, out the back door, round the path along the side of the house, up the path to the front door and rattled the letterbox. His only thought, to protect his brother. When Mrs Stanger came to the door he addressed her in an exaggeratedly loud voice. Several times she told him she wasn't deaf, but he kept shouting, wanting to make sure Don heard him, that he knew it was safe to come out. He thought Don would never get the message, but after a while the cupboard door behind Mrs Stanger opened and his brother tiptoed along the hall. By the time Don had disappeared into the kitchen Robin had listed all the chores he could think of and Mrs Stanger, mean old cow that she was, wasn't prepared to let him do any of them. "You should be in your bed. What's your game, huh?" She almost spat her teeth out. "Wash the car? At quarter to ten at night? Go home or I'll have words with your father."

"Either you pull the trigger," Carol was saying, her narrow shoulders lifting. Robin caught her eyes in the rear-view mirror. "Or you don't," she said, still looking at him as she spoke to Eddie. Her shoulders dropped. "What's the problem?"

"I don't have a problem."

"I didn't say you did."

Robin cleared his throat. His mouth was dry. "We're nearly there."

"I can see that."

"You want me to do it, then?" Carol said. "Give me the gun."

"I'm not going in there with you, Carol," Robin said. "Forget it."

"She's bluffing," Eddie said. "That right, Carol?"

Carol turned left, slowed, indicated again. She stopped no more than ten feet from the post office entrance and slumped over the wheel. Over the engine's purr she said, "Get out before I strangle the pair of you." Eddie opened his mouth to say something and Carol said, "Out." Still draped over the wheel she repeated, "Out. Out. Get out."

"Aren't you going to wish us luck?" Eddie flung the door open and climbed out. Robin joined him on the pavement. "Ready?"

Eddie slammed the door shut. "One second." He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. The boom of the Castle's One O'Clock Gun launched a startled crow skywards. Squawking, it floated back down and perched on a window ledge two floors above the post office doorway. Eddie said, "Time."

"After you," Robin said, tucking his thumbs inside his balaclava.

1:00 pm

Robin counted them quickly. Six men and eight women, lined up against the off-white walls of the post office. Sixteen hostages including the cashiers, which ought to be plenty. One of the male patrons was built like a concrete slab. He'd have to be watched. Still, that wasn't for Robin to worry about. Crowd control was Eddie's job. Eddie had the gun and, as he liked to point out at every opportunity, it wasn't a plastic toy.

That particular jibe was a reference to the fact that five years ago Robin had held up a petrol station with a water pistol. He didn't remember much about the hold-up. It all happened so quickly. But he remembered crying a lot and at one point having to squirt the attendant to try to get him to move. Didn't work, though. The idiot had just stood there with his jaw hanging open. The judge seemed to find it all mildly amusing, although he never said so.

After his release a year later from the psychiatric hospital's secure unit, Robin had had no place to stay. Carol persuaded Eddie, who'd just lost his job, to take him in and when she got out six weeks later, she joined them. For a while, it was a workable arrangement. Courtesy of their housing benefit cheques they helped pay Eddie's mortgage until he got back on his feet.

But there's more to life than just paying the rent.

Shortly after Carol's release Robin stole a cash register drawer from a Princes Street bookshop. He yanked it out from under the counter and fled with it under his arm, trailing dozens of wires. Carol was waiting in a car parked round the corner on Castle Street. It had been her idea, her dare. She dropped her cigarette out the window as Robin flung open the back door. He threw the drawer inside and climbed in after it. "Drive," he shouted.

When they got home they found Eddie waiting for them. He helped prise the drawer open. It contained forty-six pounds and seventeen pence.

That's when Eddie made his proposal.

"There are two types of thieves," he maintained (and he should know, Robin remembered thinking. A year in the police force must have taught him something about criminals). "Those who get rich and those who get caught." He paused for dramatic effect. "Planners get rich," he continued. "Opportunists and risk-takers, like you pair of useless arseholes, get caught. And they won't send you to a loony bin this time. If you don't start using your heads you'll be in jail before you know it. Look at this." He picked up a handful of coins and dropped them back in the cash drawer. His head moved from side to side. "Look at it."

"You're right," Carol said. "Did you have something in mind?"

He opened his mouth, revealing his crooked front teeth. "Do you know the two ingredients present in most successful robberies?" They didn't.

"Hostage-taking," Eddie told them. "That's number two. You have any problems with that?"

Robin looked at Carol. She shook her head and looked at Eddie. She said, "What's number one?"

Leaning over, he stared into Carol's eyes. In a quiet voice he said, "Violence."

And he was right. The first post office robbery had been a long time in the planning, but it was worth it. Nine months later, Robin hoped the second would run as smoothly.

Stooping to fish in his bag, he located the wedge and slid it under the door. Next he found the card, flipped it over and pressed the Blu-tacked edges against the small, solitary windowpane. From the outside the sign read: "Closed for lunch due to ill health. Back at 1.30." He stuck his hand in his pocket, fumbled for his knife and popped the button on the sheath.

When he turned to face the starkly lit post office interior, Eddie, balaclava stretched over his face, was striding towards the head of the queue, hand dipping into his pocket. The woman at the front, staring at her feet, didn't notice the man wearing the dull yellow balaclava. She didn't notice when he pulled his hand out of his pocket and pointed a doctored Brocock Orion 6 pistol at her. Behind her, some of the other customers were beginning to back away. Somebody said, "Jesus." Somebody moaned.

Robin hated this part. He picked up his bag and moved away from the door.

The woman was in her early thirties, smallish, a muddy river of long brown hair streaming over the sides of her face and down her light blue padded coat. A long scarf was wrapped several times around her neck and she was wearing jeans and sturdy white boots. Eyes downcast, she was deep in thought. Trouble with her boyfriend, trouble with her kids, health problems, money problems – whatever her worries, they were about to be put in perspective. Her ungloved right hand clutched a paperback book-sized parcel and her gloved left hand held her other glove, which she was slapping lightly against her hip. Her gaze was still fixed on the floor when Eddie stepped in front of her and pointed the gun at her leg.

Originally an air cartridge pistol, his weapon had been adapted. Special steel sleeves had been fitted inside the chamber, thereby enabling the gun to fire live rounds. Eddie had paid two hundred pounds for it.

He shot her in the left thigh with a .22 calibre bullet.

She collapsed as if her bones had liquefied.

The other customers moved like a single mute organism. In stunned silence they retreated to the far wall. Eddie faced the two cashiers, who had remained frozen from the moment they heard the gunshot. "You know who we are?" he said. He waited a moment, then said, "Evelyn Fitzpatrick." He was referring to the woman who'd made them famous, the seventy-year-old he'd shot three times in each knee. The local press had loved it. Would she live, would she die? For the next few days they printed four editions instead of the usual three. Sales soared. Until she pulled through. "Be cool," Eddie said. "Don't go pressing any alarms or I'll empty my gun into this lovely lady here."