Lockdown

Chapter Twenty

The flat in Parfrey Street was opposite Charing Cross Hospital. Pinkie knew it had a reputation for amputations and sex changes — although not necessarily in that order. Before the pandemic, residents used to joke that they couldn’t tell if someone coming out of the hospital was a man or a woman. The perfect place, Pinkie thought, for the couple he intended to visit.

Tom and Harry’s flat at 13A was just above a florist’s shop, which was also a café. Next door to the café was a twenty-four-hour general store that sold alcohol in blue plastic bags at all hours. Pre-pandemic there had been a regular traffic of pyjama’d patients, back and forth across the street. They went empty-handed, and returned with blue plastic bags.

Now most of the wards were filled with the dead and dying. The hospital’s regular trade had taken a back seat, and the twenty-four-hour shop was closed twenty-four-seven. As was the florist cum café, and the Pizza Express from which Tom and Harry used to feed themselves on the nights they couldn’t be bothered cooking.

Pinkie cruised up a side street, away from the lights of the hospital and the comings and goings of the ambulances. You hardly ever heard them coming these days. A lack of traffic had made their sirens redundant. He found somewhere to park, and walked back to the door at number one. He drew a crowbar from inside his coat and levered it open. The wood cracked and splintered as the lock burst. The time for subtlety was over. He climbed the stairs quickly to 13A on the top floor and glanced at the nameplate. Tom Bennet. Harry Schwartz. He slipped the wedge-end of his crowbar between the door and the jamb and forced it open. More splintered wood. The noise of it reverberated around the landing, and the hall of the flat beyond. He pushed the door open, then quickly closed it behind him and stood listening in the dark. He heard the rustle of bed sheets, a groan, a sleepy voice. ‘Jesus, Tom, is that you? What the hell are you doing?’

Pinkie turned and opened the bedroom door. He could see the prone figure of Harry wrapped in his duvet, half-raised on one elbow.

‘I thought you were on all night.’

‘I came home early,’ Pinkie said. ‘Because I wanted to put something in your mouth.’

Harry immediately reached for the bedside lamp. He turned it on, startled, and looked at Pinkie standing in the doorway. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

Pinkie looked at Harry appraisingly. He could see what Tom saw in him. He was definitely the alfa male. Tall, well-built, a good head of thick, brown hair. He reminded Pinkie a little of George Clooney. Yes, he definitely had a touch of the film star about him. It was no wonder he was in such demand. Pinkie smiled and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘A friend of Tom’s,’ he said. ‘He told me you might be pleased to see me.’ He glanced down at the duvet. ‘I don’t see any evidence of it yet.’

Harry sat upright and moved away from him. Pinkie didn’t feel as though he was presenting that much of a threat. Why did Harry seem so scared? Time to introduce him to real fear. He drew his gun from beneath his jacket and levelled it at Harry’s head. Harry’s eyes opened wide.

‘Jesus! Please don’t.’

‘Don’t what? I’m not going to hurt you.’ Pinkie moved the silencer to within an inch of Harry’s mouth, and flicked it once. ‘Come on. Open up. I told you I wanted to put something in your mouth.’

‘Oh, my God,’ Harry muttered, and with the parting of his lips, Pinkie pushed the silencer into his mouth and felt it clatter against his teeth. Harry froze, hardly daring to move or breathe.

‘There,’ Pinkie said soothingly. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ He enjoyed their fear. Sometimes there wasn’t time to dwell on it. Sometimes you just had to pull the trigger and be done. He remembered how it felt when the knife went down through the shoulder blades of his mother’s attacker. It had glanced off bone, a sickening, jarring sensation that shot up his arm, before driving on into the heart. The man was dead, even before Pinkie rolled him off her. There had been no chance to register his fear and pain, that moment of realisation that death was upon him. So he liked to savour moments like this. But not for too long. Time was running out. ‘I want you to do something for me, Harry. It will require me to remove the gun from your mouth. So I want you to be a good boy. Do you understand me?’

Harry nodded quickly.