Lockdown

Chapter Ten

Pinkie watched through wooden slats as MacNeil sat behind the wheel of his car. He could see his mouth moving as he spoke into his phone, and he could imagine what the cop was saying. Maybe, Pinkie thought, he could even read his lips.

He rested the barrel of his rifle again on the window ledge, and nestled his chin against its wooden butt so that he could look through the sight. He focused the cross-hairs on MacNeil’s mouth, but his face was partially obscured by reflection. Pinkie’s finger caressed the trigger. How easy it would be just to squeeze, ever so gently, and watch that face dissolve in front of his eyes, like those stupid boys across the street.

But Mr Smith had told him that if anything happened to the investigating officer it would only draw unwanted attention. And, anyway, it hadn’t been right, the way they had ganged up against him. Six against one. It wasn’t fair. And Pinkie always backed the underdog. He liked to see a man triumph against the odds. He had watched events unfolding on the walkway, unable to get off a shot. MacNeil had done well to escape down the stairs, and once the yobbos were out in the open, well, they’d been easy meat. He had particularly enjoyed their consternation. And then their fear. And MacNeil? His expression had been a joy to behold. It was fun to give a man back his life. Almost as much fun as it was to take it. But what had made it all the sweeter was MacNeil’s confusion. His utter lack of comprehension. He had no idea how, or why, he was still alive. And never would.

Pinkie withdrew his rifle and began the slow, meticulous process of disassembling it, lovingly wiping down each piece with an oiled cloth, to slot it back into its allotted place in its felt-lined case. They said that sometimes a silencer would reduce accuracy over distance. But Pinkie had never found that. He never took a shot if he thought there was a risk of missing. And he had never missed.

If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.

He appreciated those simple things his mother had taught him. She’d had wisdom beyond her years. Her only mistake had been in the company she kept. The succession of men who came to the house had not always treated her well. He could remember hearing her cry out the night it happened. A lack of judgement on her part. But Pinkie had always liked to imagine it was only because she’d been so trusting. She had always seen only the best in people. Especially her boy, her precious son.

He looked around the front room of this tenth-floor apartment, fading daylight falling in shadowed strips across the littered floor. Evidence of down-and-outs, or junkies, in the discarded cans and cigarette ends, the bundle of filthy clothes abandoned in the far corner, the mattress on the floor. Perhaps these shadow people would return when it was dark. Pinkie did not relish the thought of being here when they did. Who knew what contamination they might bring with them. And Pinkie was nothing if not fastidious. He disliked human contact of any kind. Just being in this place left him feeling unclean. He would shower and change as soon as circumstances allowed.

Meantime he was trapped here, for as long as MacNeil remained at the scene. He snapped shut the polished case that held the pieces of his profession and settled down to wait.

It was nearly twenty minutes before the uniforms arrived, and an ambulance, and an unmarked van which deposited two men and a woman in strangely luminescent white protective suits. Pinkie watched as MacNeil spoke to them, and the group assembled around the bodies of the two youths beneath the block opposite, before turning to follow MacNeil’s pointing finger. For a moment, Pinkie felt exposed, as if they could see him, and he drew back from the boards at the window. A reflex action. But of course they saw nothing.

The street lights had come on, and dusk was falling fast. Lights appeared in the few remaining inhabited flats on the estate, frightened residents peering out in the gathering gloom before drawing curtains and turning on TV sets to blot out the real world.

When Pinkie looked again, MacNeil had begun walking back to his car. Time, he thought, to move. He gathered his things and hurried down the deserted staircase. By the time he emerged into the area at the back of the block, once designated a parking area for residents, MacNeil’s car was turning the corner at the end of the street. A smear of brake lights in the cold twilight.

Pinkie put his case in the boot and started up Mr Smith’s BMW. It purred smoothly, leather seats softly creased. He eased it over traffic bumps into the lane that led out to the street behind the estate. He turned left, and left again, and breathed a sigh of satisfaction as he saw the lights of MacNeil’s car ahead of him. With luck the cop would lead him straight to Kazinski, and the useless lives of those two boys would have found some meaning in death.