In the Evil Day

43

…LONDON…

She had been gone for a while, perhaps half an hour, when the phone in the kitchen rang.

Niemand was watching television, the news, a dark-haired woman and a man with glasses taking turns reading it. The woman was finishing an item about illegal Kurdish immigrants found in Dagenham.

He let it ring. Her answering machine came on. Her calm voice saying, ‘Thank you for calling Jess Thomas Architectural Models…’

On television, the man was talking about calls for new crowd-control measures at football grounds, a teenager had died in Belgium, crushed.

Niemand pressed the mute button on the remote.

‘…and leave a message,’ said Jess’s voice on the machine.

The tone.

‘Get out now,’ said Jess, quick urgent. ‘Just go. I don’t know how long you’ve got.’

He was up, took his valuables holster, his jacket, stuffed them into the bag, went for the fire-escape door. He was there when he remembered and he went back and tore the page off the pad, her cellphone number.

The steel door’s bar resisted, not opened for a long time, rusted, painted over, many times, he couldn’t get it to move. He dropped the bag, put both hands to the lever, pushed down.

It wouldn’t move. Did not give at all. Solid.

Take your time said the inner voice. The voice of his first instructor, in time his own voice. The careless, languid voice: Take your time, chicken brain.

Jolt it free.

Hit it.

With what?

He looked around and he looked across the kitchen, across the big space of the sitting room and workroom to the far wall.

Three shadows.

He saw three shadows flit along the bottom of the big industrial window. Gone in an instant, just bits of grey behind the wire-impregnated security glass.

Tops of heads.

Three heads, quickly, stooping but not stooping low enough, the lights from outside throwing shadows upwards.

Niemand hit the lever with his clenched hands, brought them down, used them like a flesh hammer, the pain was instant. In his hands, his back, his shoulder.

The big lever jerked free, upwards. He grabbed the bag, swung the steel door inwards, went out into the cold, drizzling night. Closed the door. He looked for a way to bolt it from the outside. No bolt. Stupid. It was a fire escape.

They would know where he had gone.

Of course they would know. Where else could he go?

Third floor. He looked down. An alley, bins, wet cobblestones, a streetlight at one end, a long way away. Straight lines of drizzle, a nimbus around each light. Where would they wait? At each end. That was what he would do. Someone at each end. Wait for him to come down, choose a direction.

He couldn’t see the alley’s end to the right. Dead end?

Suicide to go down.

What the hell. He went up. Treading lightly, wet metal stairs, keeping against the wall, looking down at the alley. The night was loud, sirens, music from somewhere nearby, two sources of music, vehicle noises.

The roof was flat. He could make out a tank and a square structure, probably the lift housing, three chimney-like things, ventilation intakes, vents, something like that.

Light from the alley below. Niemand went to the parapet, looked down with one eye.

Headlights at each end of the alley.

They didn’t care. They knew they had him.

Six metres below him, a black figure was on the fire-escape landing, Jess’s landing, a weapon upright in one hand-machine-pistol. He could see the fat silencer tube.

A gun. He should have bought a gun. You never needed one until you didn’t have one.

He walked over the wet roof to the tank. It was on four legs. He ran a hand over it. Wet. Old. Rusty. He tapped the bottom, tapped the top. Full of something.

The legs were bolted to the concrete. A long time ago. One was bent under its burden. He kicked it and it gave without hesitation, the tank tilted.

He went around, stood clear, kicked another front leg. It didn’t move. Just hurt his toes. He looked around, eyes adjusted now, he saw a piece of pipe: thick, not long, it lay in a pool of rainwater. Left when the building was converted, a shoddy conversion, the pipe sawn off from some old plumbing.

The burst of gunfire hit the tank, above him, well above his head.

He heard only the percussion, an ear-jangling thwang, saw sparks like fireworks in his brain.

He fell. And as he fell he reached for the length of pipe, got it- wet, slimy, hard to hold. Heavy. He lay, looking back, pain from his shoulder.

A penis-head above from the stairs. All black, head in a black balaclava, tight like a stocking mask, the man’s eye sockets and eyelids blackened.

In the middle of London. Full fucking nightfighting shit.

‘Don’t move,’ said the man, voice clear. ‘You won’t get hurt. We don’t want to hurt you.’

This was better. They wanted him alive this time. For a while. Until they’d watched the film, made sure it wasn’t Chevy Chase again, the holiday in Europe one.

Niemand rose to his knees. He held up his left hand in surrender, weakly, and he kept the pipe behind him. By its weight, it was cast-iron.

The man rose, he was on the roof, the weapon pointed at 193 Niemand.

‘Hands in the air, please,’ he said.

‘Don’t point that fucking thing at me,’ said Niemand.

The man bent his forearm, held the machine-pistol upright, pointed it at the heavens. He was confident. He knew that Niemand had nowhere to go, back-ups on the stairs.

Niemand threw the pipe.

Stood and threw in one movement.

He threw it with his arm below shoulder level, threw it as he would a grenade, he didn’t want the weight to snap his elbow, he expected pain. And it came, from his chest, his neck, it seemed to come from his whole upper body.

The man saw what was happening, brought the barrel down.

But he didn’t want to fire.

The pipe changed its angle, side-on it hit him in the head. He went down, axed, the weapon in his hands slid away, across the wet concrete.

Niemand found the machine-pistol, picked up the cast-iron pipe, went over and struck the other front tank leg. At the third blow, it gave.

The tank fell gracefully, hit the roof with a dull sound, and released a thick liquid. Lots of liquid, and it flowed, flowed past the still man in black, the roof tilted towards the fire escape, and the liquid ran and spilled over the edge.

Niemand sniffed the fluid, found the matches in his holster.

The first match didn’t strike.

The second one did, flared. He touched the fluid, the flame died.

A sound from the stairs, scratch on metal.

The back-up boys.

The third match wouldn’t strike.

He would have to go now.

Go where?

He scraped another match. It flared, held, burnt bright.

He applied it to the liquid.

Nothing. He blew gently.

‘HANDS IN THE AIR!’

Fire under his hand, jumping at him, burning the hairs in his nose.

Heating oil.

He saw the dark head at the fire escape, the weapon, saw the fire whipping down the stream, a blue-red flame reached the fire escape, went over the edge.

Liquid fire. A waterfall of fire.

One long agonised scream. Then screams, screaming.

The other back-ups on the stairs.

Niemand walked to the other side of the roof, he wasn’t in a hurry now, looked down at the lane below. There was a car in it, blocking it, doors open, inside light on.

A big pipe ran down the side of the building, beginning three metres below. All the plumbing shared a pipe. He did not wait, put the machine-pistol in the bag, slung the bag around his neck so that it hung on his back.

He went over the side, face to the building, didn’t hang, dropped blind to the pipe’s first joint, hit it with his right knee, kept falling, caught the tight-angle bend with both hands, took his full weight with his hands and shoulders. The pain almost caused him to let go, it blotted out his sight for an instant. Then he went down the pipe without his feet seeking purchase, just hands holding, a controlled fall, hands slowing him, like going down a rope.

He hit the concrete hard, legs not ready for it, knees not bent, sat on his backside, jarred the bones. He got up, ran around the right side of the car, looked.

Keys in it.

Bag off, into the car, reach to close passenger door, a manual thank Christ, turned the key.

A tortured sound. The motor was already on, running, they’d left it running, so quiet he hadn’t heard it.

Reverse where it should be?

Shit no, forward. He hit the brakes, tried again.

Backwards down the lane, twenty metres, engine screaming. Into the street. Braked, looked, nothing coming, a tight left turn.

First gear. Missed it, got into second, pushed the pedal flat, it didn’t bother the engine, the motor could handle second-gear take-offs. An old man in a raincoat looking at him. Down the rainslicked street, right at the first corner. Going anywhere, going away.

Slow down, chicken brain, said the inner voice. Take your time. Being picked up by the cops now would be silly. Stolen car.

Alive.

Jesus, alive.

Third-time lucky.

You didn’t get more than three.