Heathen/Nemesis

Thirty-Five

The pain was excruciating.

Howard James had felt pain before, but nothing to compare to the agony he felt from his shattered leg.

‘Get me to a fucking hospital,’ he said, frantically shaking the arm of the man who sat next to him.

Robert Crossley looked down at his companion huddled in the passenger seat of the Orion, his broken leg stretched out before him. The splintered bone was clearly visible poking through the rent in his trousers. Blood had congealed thickly on the end of the smashed fibula. There was dark matter oozing slowly from the centre of the bone which, Crossley concluded with revulsion, was marrow. The stench inside the car was almost overpowering.

‘How much longer do we have to sit here, waiting? I need help,’ wailed James, his cheeks tear-stained, his skin milk-white.

Crossley wiped perspiration from his face and looked at his watch.

3.27 a.m.

It was almost thirty minutes since he’d made the phone call, stopping off quickly at a pay-phone before swinging the car off the main road and into Paddington Recreation Ground. The vehicle and its two occupants now stood silently in a children’s playground. The wind, blowing across the open ground, turned the roundabout and Crossley looked up nervously every time he heard it creak. Swings also moved gently back and forth in the breeze, as if rocked by some unseen hand. Beside him, James continued to moan loudly as the pain seemed to intensify.

‘I can’t take this much longer,’ he hissed through gritted teeth. ‘Please.’

Crossley nodded and looked round again, as if seeking inspiration from the children’s slides and climbing-frames.

He heard the soft purring of a car engine and saw the Montego rolling slowly towards them, its driver flashing his lights once as he approached.

‘Who is it?’ gasped James.

Crossley didn’t answer. He pushed open the driver’s side door and clambered out, unsure whether to approach the Montego or wait. He decided to wait, watching as the driver switched off the engine and slid from behind the wheel. He walked with brisk steps.

A strong breeze ruffled Crossley’s hair and made him shiver. Inside the car James was huddled in the seat like a whimpering child.

‘What went wrong?’ Peter Farrell snapped, looking at Crossley then down at the injured James.

‘She had a fucking gun,’ Crossley told him. ‘I wasn’t going to argue with a gun.’

‘So you found nothing?’ Farrell persisted.

Crossley shook his head.

‘Did you check his office. Upstairs?’

‘We didn’t get that far,’ Crossley said. Then, turning towards his injured companion, ‘We’ve got to get him to a hospital, he’s hurt bad.’

‘The police will have put out checks on every hospital for miles. How bad is it?’ Farrell demanded.

‘Look for yourself,’ Crossley told him and pulled open the passenger door.

Farrell saw the smashed bone sticking through skin and material.

‘You were careless,’ he said irritably.

‘We were unlucky,’ Crossley protested.

‘Same thing.’

‘And what the fuck would you have done if she’d pulled a gun on you?’

‘Pulled one on her,’ Farrell rasped, taking a step closer so that his face was inches from Crossley’s. ‘You could have jeopardized everything. We won’t be able to get near the house for a while; they’ll be expecting it. You fucking idiots.’ He turned his back on them for a moment, hands planted on his hips.

‘So what do we do about James?’ Crossley asked. ‘He needs help, for Christ’s sake.’

Farrell turned slowly. His hand went to the inside of his jacket.

Crossley’s mouth dropped open as he saw the taller man pull a gun into view.

The silencer jammed into the muzzle of the .45 made the weapon look enormous.

Farrell fired two shots into James’s head.

The first hit him on the bridge of the nose, almost severing the appendage and taking out an eye as it exited. The second blasted away most of the back of his head, spraying it across the driver’s seat and the side windows.

The body toppled sideways, the eyes still staring wide in shocked surprise, the mouth still open.

‘Get rid of the body and the car,’ Farrell said flatly. ‘Call me when you’ve done it.’ He turned and headed back to the Montego, pausing as he opened the door. ‘Crossley, you fuck up this time and I’ll kill you, too.’ He climbed into the car, started the engine and drove off, his lights still out, disappearing into the darkness.

Crossley looked down at the corpse, the breeze bringing the stench of blood and excrement to his nostrils. He shivered and he knew it wasn’t just the wind.

The roundabout creaked again. The swings moved gently back and forth.