Runaway

I

His automatic weapon tracked from side to side as the soldier stepped carefully through the rubble of the bombed-out building. Wisps of smoke drifted across a devastated landscape, and Jack could hear the rattle of distant gunfire and men crying out. An enemy combatant swung suddenly into view from behind a broken-down wall. The soldier reacted before his adversary could release shots in his direction. The sound of gunfire was almost deafening as the string of bullets from the soldier’s gun blew his enemy apart. There were body pieces and blood everywhere.

Another soldier appeared, dropping down from the shattered ceiling. Jack was beginning to recognize the enemy by the colour of the uniform and shape of the helmet. The soldier whose point of view he was sharing fired two, three, four times, and the other man flew backwards to slump, bleeding and dead, against a bullet-scarred wall.

‘Jesus, Rick! This is horrible.’

‘Shhhh.’ Ricky’s concentration was absolute.

He was barefoot in his pyjamas, crouched on the edge of a settee in the darkened living room and hunched over his controller. The fifty-inch TV screen filled Jack and Ricky’s vision, and became the world they were sharing. Jack could almost smell the cordite and the smoke, and the ugly odour of death. There was some kind of count going on. A score accumulating. But Jack couldn’t take it any more. He crossed the room and switched off the TV.

‘Jesus Christ, Grampa! What are you doing?’

Jack pulled the curtains open and sunlight streamed in to almost blind his grandson. ‘I’m surprised the sunlight doesn’t burn you, Rick,’ he said. ‘You should be in your coffin by now.’

Ricky dropped his controller on to the settee beside him. ‘Very funny.’

‘To be honest, I didn’t really expect to find you up at this time.’

It was almost midday.

‘I’m not. I haven’t been to bed.’

‘Have you been playing that bloody game all night?’

Ricky shrugged. ‘So?’

‘You’ve spent the whole night killing people?’

‘No, I stopped to have breakfast with Mum and Dad before they left.’

‘For God’s sake, son, do you not see what you’re doing?’

‘What am I doing, Grampa?’

‘You’re killing for fun.’

‘It’s just a game.’

‘A game where you kill people and count up the score. That’s fun?’

‘It takes skill! I’ve got one of the highest registered scores on the internet. And anyway, it’s not real.’

‘It might as well be. It’s totally desensitizing. Makes you think it’s alright to kill other human beings. So how are you going to tell the difference if you’re ever faced with the real thing?’

‘I’m not daft, Grampa. I’m clever enough to know the difference between a game and reality. And, anyway, what would you know about killing people?’ The contempt in his voice for his grandfather was clear.

‘Nothing, fortunately.’ Jack sighed and sat down in one of the armchairs. ‘Seriously, Rick. You can’t go on like this. Sitting playing computer games in the dark. You said it yourself. You’re not daft. You’ve got an honours degree in maths and computing, for heaven’s sake. You need to get out and get a job.’

Ricky blew contemptuous air through his teeth, and Jack started to get angry.

‘So you’re just going to be a burden on society for the rest of your life?’

He saw Ricky’s hackles rise.

‘I’m not one of those benefits scroungers. I’ve never claimed a penny in my life.’

‘Aye, only because your folks indulge you. Most people on benefits don’t have a choice in the matter. They don’t have honours degrees in anything.’

‘No, they’re just work-shy scroungers and layabouts. Picking up cheques from the government and going and getting their free shopping from the food bank.’

Jack shook his head in disgust. ‘Where’d you hear that? Your father?’

Ricky pressed his lips together and declined to reply, which in itself answered his grandfather’s question.

‘You know nothing, son. Sitting here in my house, with your big TV screen and your computer games, spoiled rotten by pampering parents who fill your head full of nonsense. I’m ashamed of my own daughter. My father, and his before him, must be turning in their graves.’

Ricky’s plump face glowed beetroot red beneath his black curls. ‘And what would you know about anything? Failed at everything you ever did, my dad says. Failed student, failed musician, and forty years behind the counter at a bank. I suppose you must have learned a lot about the world from the other side of a glass screen.’

Sometimes words said in anger carry hurt beyond real intention, and Ricky was just being defensive, Jack knew. But words meant to cause pain very often do so because they express a truth that the conventions of politeness avoid. Jack had spent a lifetime avoiding what he knew only too well. But, still, it was almost painful beyond hurt to have it thrown in his face by his own grandson.

If Ricky had any remorse he wasn’t showing it. He turned surly instead. Perhaps as a way of concealing his regret.

‘And why do you keep calling me Rick? It’s Ricky!’

Jack had always called his grandson Rick. It seemed fonder, somehow.

‘Anyway, what are you doing here? You know my folks are out all day.’

Jack took a few moments to calm himself. ‘I didn’t come to see your parents.’

The hint of a frown gathered faintly around Ricky’s brows. He glanced at his grandfather, but was reluctant now to meet his eye.

Jack said, ‘Maybe you heard about the time I ran away when I was a kid? Me and the rest of the boys in my group.’

Ricky sighed. ‘Once or twice.’ He lifted his games controller from the seat beside him and pretended to be fiddling with it. ‘Probably the only interesting thing you ever did in your life.’

‘Aye, well, I was five years younger than you when I did it. And you still haven’t done anything interesting.’

Time to hurt back. And the jibe didn’t miss its mark. He saw Ricky’s lips pale as he drew them in. But the boy said nothing. Jack let a silence hang between them for a while, like the motes of dust suspended in the sunlight falling through the window.

Finally he said, ‘So, anyway, we’re doing it again.’

Ricky flicked sullen eyes in his direction. ‘Doing what?’

‘Running away to London. Those of us who are left, that is.’

Ricky forgot his sulk and his eyes opened wider. ‘Running away? At your age? Why would you do that?’

Jack shrugged. ‘Unfinished business, son.’ Then he hesitated. ‘Only thing is... we’ve no transport.’

Suddenly Ricky realized why his grandfather was there. He breathed his annoyance. ‘No!’ he said firmly. ‘You’re not borrowing my car.’

And the way he was so possessive about ownership of it made Jack wonder if he realized just how lucky he was to have parents who not only tolerated his lethargy, but who spoiled him by buying him his own wheels. Not a new car, admittedly. A second-hand Nissan Micra. But wheels nonetheless.

‘I don’t want to borrow it.’

Which momentarily took the wind out of the boy’s sails.

‘I want to borrow you to drive it for us.’

Ricky’s eyes opened wider. ‘You’re having a laugh, right?’

‘No, I’m serious. Just for a few days. A week at the most. We’ll pay you for the petrol.’

‘No. Way.’ A long pause. ‘And anyway, my folks would never let me.’

‘You’re twenty-two years old, Ricky.’

‘You don’t know my dad.’

‘Oh, I think I do.’

‘He’d never let me in a million years. Particularly if it was a favour to you.’

Jack pursed his lips, containing his anger.

‘So there’s no point in even asking. He wouldn’t hear of it.’

Which was Ricky’s way of deflecting personal responsibility.

Jack sighed. He hadn’t wanted to do this. ‘I think he would be even less pleased to hear about those websites you visit when they’re both asleep.’

Ricky blushed to the roots of his hair. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Jack shook his head. ‘Look, son, I might be old, but I’m not daft. I was working with computers before you were born. And you don’t spend nearly two years sharing the same house with someone without knowing the kind of websites they frequent. You were careful enough around your folks. But I was just some stupid old man. Invisible. What would I know?’ Jack let that sink in. ‘All those videos of naked women with... well, how can I put it delicately? A little something extra?’

If it was possible, Ricky’s colour deepened. ‘I was just surfing, that’s all!’ he said, but his voice was trembling with embarrassment and uncertainty, and he added lamely, ‘I was curious.’

Jack spread his hands in front of him, and made a face of resignation. ‘I know that, Rick. Young men... well, they have to explore a little before they know what it is that suits them. And I’m not saying that’s what suits you. In fact, I’m not here to judge you at all. All I’m saying is, I’m not sure your dad would be so understanding.’ He waited a beat before turning the knife. ‘Or your mother.’

Ricky closed his eyes. ‘I’m not! I mean... I’m not like that.’

‘Of course you’re not.’

Jack almost felt sorry for him. The boy was clinically obese. He never set foot over the door, except for his Friday afternoon visits to his grampa. When was he ever going to get a girl who wasn’t made of pixels, whether she had something extra or not? He saw the slump of his grandson’s shoulders.

‘When?’

‘Tonight.’

Ricky took a deep breath. ‘We’re not telling my dad. Or my mum. Alright? They’d only stop me from doing it. We’ll just go.’

Jack nodded. ‘We can leave them a note on your pillow, son. And don’t worry about it, they’ll blame me. Everyone always does.’

II

When he got back from the medical supplies store in Shawlands, Jack put a holdall on his bed and began filling it with enough socks and underwear to last him a week. He figured a couple of days to get there, a couple of days to get back, and three days in London to do whatever it was Maurie had to do.

And yet he couldn’t shake off the feeling that somehow he was packing for the last time, and that it didn’t really matter what he put in the holdall, he was never going to need it. All in stark contrast to the thoughtless optimism with which he had packed his bag fifty years ago, almost to the day. Then, the future had stretched ahead into unforeseeable distance, full of optimism and possibility. The notion of running out of socks had never even occurred to him.

When he had finished, he dropped his bag by the front door and wandered back into the living room. The school across the way was closed up for the day, its pupils long since gone home. When he had first moved into the flats the sound of children playing during breaks in their classes had seemed like music. But the siren call of youth had served, in the end, only to reinforce how far behind him his own childhood lay, and how close he was to the rocks of old age on which he would inevitably founder and die.

He picked up the photograph of Jenny and remembered how they had said goodbye that night. And here he was, all these years later, embarking on the same fruitless journey. One that could only, he suspected, end badly. And he recalled the words of his old history teacher. The only thing we learn from history is that we never learn from history.

He stood the photo frame back on the bookcase and gazed out through the trees across the lawns beyond. He remembered, the day he had moved in, thinking, ‘This is the view I’ll take with me to my grave.’ That this was what it had all narrowed down to. Four walls and a landscape. And he had found himself infused, then and now, with an almost overwhelming sense of regret — for many of the things he had done, but most of all for those he had not.

His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Ricky’s Micra in the car park below. The boy swung it through a three-point turn, then glanced up towards Jack’s window as he sat idling on the tarmac. Jack gave him a small wave and wondered what on earth he was leading his grandson into. But as he took his walking stick from the stand in the hall and lifted his holdall, he thought that anything would be better for him than sitting in a darkened room playing computer games.

And as for himself? What the hell? After sixty-seven years it was time to start living.

He hurried down the stairs and out into the car park. Ricky looked pale and nervous behind the window of the driver’s door. Jack glanced back towards the top floor of the flats, and saw Fiona watching him from her window.

But by the time he had thrown his bag into the boot and turned to wave, she was gone. And the empty space she’d left behind her seemed big enough to swallow him.

Just as fifty years before, they sat outside Dave’s house with the engine running, Ricky drumming his fingers nervously on the wheel, exactly as Jeff had done. But five minutes after the appointed time, there was still no sign of Dave.

Finally Jack said, ‘Turn her off, son. I think we’d better go in and look for him.’

The house had undergone several facelifts in the half-century that had passed. The front garden wasn’t much, but the grass was neatly cut, and there were rose bushes in the flower beds. Gone was the rotten old boat on the drive, to be replaced by a Vauxhall Corsa. A new garage built on to the side of the house had a bedroom extension above it.

As they approached the front door, they heard voices raised in anger coming from inside. The door itself was an elaborate construction of wrought iron and glass, a pretentious adornment to the mean little semi that it opened into.

‘Maybe we’d be better waiting in the car,’ Ricky whispered nervously.

Jack cast him a look. ‘Not so brave without a semi-automatic in your hands, eh?’

He knocked on the door, but the sound of his knuckles on the glass was overwhelmed by the shouting on the other side of it. He tried the handle and pushed the door open. As it swung into the hall it interrupted the squalid scene of domestic disharmony that was unravelling there.

Dave’s daughter-in-law stood at the foot of the stairs, shouting at the two men in her life to ‘Stop!’

Dave had been a big man in his day, but Donnie was bigger. He had the lapels of his father’s coat grasped in huge fists. Dave was almost lifted off his feet and banged up against the wall. Donnie’s face was inches from his father’s as he shouted at him, spittle gathering on wet lips. Jack could see a large bruise on Dave’s cheekbone, below the eye. A small canvas rucksack leaned against the wall by the front door.

It was as if someone had pressed a pause button and frozen the action, and then all heads turned towards the door. The silence that accompanied the moment seemed endless.

Until broken by Donnie. ‘What the fuck do you want?’

Jack’s voice sounded oddly calm and, as a result, carried a strangely threatening note. ‘I want you to let your father go, and treat him with a little respect.’

Almost in spite of himself, Donnie released his father’s lapels and turned his anger on Jack. ‘Respect? He’s a drunk and a thief, and gets all the respect he deserves. And anyway, it’s none of your fucking business.’

‘Yes, it is.’

Steel in Jack’s voice now as Ricky moved almost imperceptibly to put his grandfather between Donnie and himself and watch the unfolding scene from over his shoulder.

‘What is it with you people? I stood in this very house more than fifty years ago and watched your grandfather punch and kick his own son. And I stood by and did nothing about it, because I was too young and too scared. All these years on, and nothing’s changed. Except it’s the son beating up the father. That violent gene must have skipped a generation, because Dave’s the gentlest man I ever knew. And he doesn’t deserve this.’

Donnie’s face turned ugly as he pulled a wad of banknotes from his pocket, all scrunched up in his big fist, and waved it at Jack. ‘Aye, well, your gentle fucking pal was stealing from his own family.’

‘Only so I could get oot yer hair once and for all!’ Dave said.

Donnie turned on him again, spittle flying from his mouth. ‘It’s my money!’

‘And this is his house,’ Jack said. ‘And I’ll bet you don’t pay him a penny in rent. So maybe he’s owed it.’

‘Come on,’ Dave said. ‘Let’s just go.’

And he tried to squeeze past Donnie to get his rucksack. But his son grabbed his coat and pushed him up against the wall again.

‘You’re going nowhere, you old drunk!’

The sound of smashing glass stunned them all into silence, broken only by Donnie’s wife’s startled little squeal. Pieces of glass showered across the hall carpet. Jack stood with his walking stick still raised. The brass owl’s head had shattered the glazed door with a single, sharp strike.

‘Let him go!’ His voice rang out in the stillness that followed. Commanding. Imperative.

And Donnie let go of his father, as if the old man were suddenly burning hot in his hands.

‘I did nothing to stop his father. And maybe you think I’m too old to stop you. But you’d be making a mistake if you did.’ He swung his walking stick to smash the brass head of it into the wall, gouging a deep hole in the plaster and sending white dust into the still air of the hall. ‘That’d make a hell of a mess of your skull.’

Donnie’s wife said in a shaky voice, her hands raised as if to calm them, ‘Now there’s no need for this, boys.’

Jack ignored her. ‘Give him the money.’

For several long moments Jack could see that Donnie was weighing up his options. In the end he thrust the money at his father.

And Jack half turned to Ricky. ‘Get his bag.’

Ricky looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights, wide-eyed and startled. But he leaned over quickly to retrieve Dave’s rucksack. Dave joined them in the doorway and the three of them retreated down the path towards the waiting Micra.

They heard Donnie’s voice roaring behind them, ‘Don’t even think about coming back here, you old bastard. You’ll not get over the door.’

Jack swivelled and saw Donnie almost recoil, as if from a blow. ‘Dave’s door,’ he said. ‘Not yours. And maybe you’d better think about getting a place of your own. Because I’m sure Dave won’t want to see you here when he gets back.’

‘Aye, exactly right,’ Dave called from the safety of the gate.

As they got into the car, Ricky glanced at his grandfather and said, ‘I thought you didn’t believe in violence.’

Jack said nothing, but he sat shaking silently in the passenger seat. And feeling alive for the first time in a very long time.

III

They parked on Battlefield Road, opposite the infirmary, on the hill that climbs from the Rest to the Langside roundabout. Beyond the roundabout itself the elegant columns of a Greek Thomson church that was now a restaurant were lit up as evening leached the last daylight from an overcast sky. Yellow lights burned in all the windows of the old infirmary; wards like legs extended from the main building to oriel windows looking south.

‘Who are we meeting here?’ Ricky asked.

‘We’re no’ meeting anyone,’ Dave said. ‘We’ve come tae get him. He’s no’ too well, so we’re gonnae have tae gie him a hand.’

Ricky looked worried. ‘What do you mean, “not too well”?’

Jack said, ‘He’s got terminal cancer, Rick. And they’ve attached him to all sorts of monitors after a heart attack.’

Ricky’s concern turned to horror. ‘And they’re just going to let him walk out?’

Jack and Dave exchanged glances. ‘Not exactly,’ Jack said. ‘Not that they’ve any right to keep him there, mind. But we’re going to have to...’ he searched for the right word, ‘... assist him to leave.’ He paused. ‘Though not exactly “we”.’ Another pause. ‘You.’

‘What?’ Ricky’s horror morphed to alarm.

Jack eased himself out of the car, ignoring Ricky’s protests, and retrieved his holdall from the boot. He placed it on the passenger seat and took out a large, white doctor’s coat. ‘Biggest I could get,’ he said. ‘Triple X. But you should just about be able to button it up.’

‘Me?’

Dave laughed from the back seat. ‘Dr Mullins. It’s got a ring tae it.’

Jack pulled a stethoscope from his bag. ‘This is probably a bit of a cliché, but it’ll make a good prop.’

‘I’m absolutely not doing this,’ Ricky said.

Jack gave him a look. ‘You absolutely are, Rick.’ Then he smiled. ‘But don’t worry. Me and Dave’ll distract the nurses. You’re going to need a wheelchair, though.’

Ricky’s eyes opened wide. ‘Where are we going to get a wheelchair?’

‘The hospital, of course.’

‘You mean, steal one?’

Jack laughed. ‘Of course not. We’re only going to borrow it. Hospitals lend mobility equipment to patients all the time. And there’s a whole bunch of them right outside the ward. Folding variety.’ He pushed the coat and stethoscope at Ricky. ‘Now put these on.’

‘I’m too young to be a doctor.’

‘You look old enough to be a junior. And anyway, who’d know?’

‘What if we get caught?’

But Jack just shook his head. He was feeling reckless. ‘Well, strictly speaking, we’re not relatives, so we’ve got no rights here. But what are they going to do to us, son? Shoot us? I don’t think so.’

The coronary care unit was busier than it had been on their earlier visits. There were more visitors, and Jack was pleased to see that the duty nurse was not one of those he had offended the previous night. He needed her to be susceptible to his charms.

They hesitated at the double doors leading to Maurie’s ward, where there were half a dozen wheelchairs folded and stacked against the wall. Ricky’s face was pink with both exertion and nerves. But he hadn’t turned a single head during their walk through the hospital. He made a very convincing doctor, Jack thought.

‘You wait here,’ he told him. ‘Until you see that we’ve got the nurse distracted. Then just stroll in like you own the place. No one’s going to question you. Maurie’s is the last door on the left. He’ll be all disconnected from his tubes and wires and waiting for you. When you’ve got him out, we’ll be right behind you.’

Ricky looked like he was about to throw up.

Jack and Dave walked casually through the ward. But before they got to Maurie’s room, Dave caught his friend’s arm, and they drew briefly to a halt.

Dave lowered his voice. ‘Just wanted to say... about Donnie and everything...’

Jack saw what looked suspiciously like tears gathering in Dave’s eyes. But grown Scotsmen didn’t show their emotions, and he wasn’t about to let them spill. He just shrugged and swallowed. ‘You know... thanks.’

Jack nodded, but there was nothing more to be said.

They carried on to the door of Maurie’s private room, and there they almost bumped into an oddly unsavoury, thickset man with short-cropped black hair, hurrying out. He didn’t acknowledge them but stuck his hands deep in his pockets, head sunk into his shoulders, as he strode off towards the exit. He left the scent of cheap aftershave wafting in his wake.

Maurie was sitting on the bed beside a holdall bag. He was wearing a coat and hat, both of which seemed several sizes too big for him. Seeing him out of bed like this made Jack realize just how diminished he really was. And for a moment he was struck by the folly of what they were doing.

‘Who was that?’ Dave said, flicking his head towards the door.

But Maurie just shook his. ‘No one. Are we all set?’

Jack looked at the bank of monitors beside the bed. Where the previous night green and red lights had winked and bleeped, and a heart monitor had registered on a green phosphor screen, nothing was illuminated. The equipment looked dead. Wires and sensors lay strewn around it on the floor.

‘Won’t that have set off an alarm or something?’

‘It’s disconnected from the mains.’ Maurie sounded tetchy. ‘Just get me out of here.’

Jack said, ‘My grandson’ll be here to get you in just a minute. We’ll keep the nurse busy.’ He hesitated, taking in Maurie’s chalk-white complexion, and the deep, dark smudges beneath his eyes. ‘Are you okay?’

‘As okay as any dying man can be. Go!’

The duty nurse was talking to a middle-aged couple about the condition of their elderly mother, which suited Jack and Dave’s purposes very well. They stood, waiting to speak to her, masking her view towards the door of Maurie’s room, and Jack gestured to Ricky waiting out in the hall that he should make his move now. As Ricky pushed the wheelchair quickly across the floor of the ward, the nurse turned towards Jack.

‘How can I help you?’

Jack fished a pill box with a clear plastic lid from his coat pocket. It was divided into six compartments, each with its own coloured pills.

He said, ‘I know you’re not a doctor or anything. But since this is a heart ward, I thought I could ask you.’ He gave her his best smile. ‘These are the pills I’m on following my own little episode, and I’m off tomorrow on a wee trip. Only, I’ve lost my list of instructions telling me which to take when, and there’s no time to see my doctor before I go.’

‘Pretty colours, though, aren’t they?’ Dave said.

The nurse gave him an odd look.

‘You wouldnae know just how dangerous they are.’

The nurse frowned. ‘Dangerous?’

‘Aye, my old man was on these things after his heart attack, and they might have kept his ticker goin’, but they destroyed his kidneys.’

‘Polypharmacy,’ Jack said. ‘That’s what you’ve got to be careful of, isn’t that right?’

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to speak to your doctor about your prescription, Mr...’

‘Aye, I thought you’d say that.’ Jack put on his best worried look now. ‘I mean, I think I remember the order I’m supposed to take them in, when and how many. But I wouldn’t swear to it. I thought you might know. There’s just no time to ask the doc, you see.’

He felt Dave dunting him, and glanced over his shoulder to see Ricky wheeling Maurie out of the ward.

‘Anyway, thanks for your help, nurse. You can always come to my funeral.’

Her eyes opened wide, and he grinned.

‘Just kidding.’ And he turned to follow Dave out into the hall.

Ricky had a good twenty yards’ start on them and wasn’t hanging about. They almost had to run to catch him up.

But as they did, Maurie started shouting, ‘Stop! Stop!’ and a panicked Ricky pulled up sharply.

Dave reached them first, then Jack, both of them breathless.

‘What the hell is it?’ Jack gasped.

‘I need to go,’ Maurie said

Jack looked up to see the men’s toilet sign above the door to their right. He cursed under his breath. ‘Can’t it wait?’

‘No, it can’t. Just help me out of the chair. I can do this on my own.’

The three of them helped Maurie to his feet and stood fretting in the corridor by the wheelchair as the toilet door swung shut behind him. Visitors and nurses, and the occasional doctor, drifted by as they waited. And waited.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Dave whispered eventually through clenched teeth. ‘What’s he doing in there?’

Jack sighed. ‘I’ll go and find out.’

He discovered Maurie on his knees in a cubicle, his arms around the bowl of the toilet as if he were embracing it, retching and vomiting between huge gulps of air.

‘For God’s sake, man, what’s wrong with you?’

Maurie gasped, ‘I’ll be alright in a minute.’ And he threw up again. When he’d caught his breath, he said, ‘It’s the chemo.’

‘I thought you were stopping it.’

‘I just have.’ This time he dry-retched. ‘I think that’s all for the moment. Help me up.’

Jack helped him to his feet and fumbled in a pocket to retrieve a hanky to wipe the saliva and sick from his old friend’s lips and chin. ‘It’s not too late to give this up, Maurie. We can still take you back.’

Maurie turned sad brown eyes on him, so large now in his shrunken face, and Jack saw the determination that still burned in them. ‘Not a chance!’

Back out in the hall, Maurie slumped almost semi-conscious into the wheelchair, and they set off again towards the lifts, anxious to be out of there just as quickly as they could. But as the lift doors closed behind them, they heard a nurse’s shrill cry from the far end of the corridor.

‘Mr Cohen! For God’s sake, where’s Mr Cohen?’

It seemed to take the lift an eternity to descend to the ground floor, and the palpable silence in it was thick enough to slice. Not one of them dared to meet the others’ eyes. When, finally, the doors slid open it was only to reveal the acres of lobby that had to be crossed before they could escape into the night, and a uniformed security man standing by the doorway.

Jack tried to swallow as his tongue stuck to the roof of a very dry mouth. ‘Don’t rush it,’ he said under his breath. ‘Just take your time.’

But Ricky was off as if the flag had just been raised on pole position at a Grand Prix. Jack and Dave struggled to keep up with him.

They were halfway across the hall when a wall-mounted phone beside the security guard rang, and he lifted the receiver. He listened for a moment, then his eyes raked the lobby as he spoke, settling on Ricky and the wheelchair before he hung up. Jack saw a tiny trickle of sweat run down Ricky’s neck from behind his ear.

The guard glanced at his watch, then raised a hand to stop them. ‘Excuse me, doctor,’ he said.

For a moment Jack thought Ricky was going to faint, but from somewhere he managed a mumbled, ‘Yes?’

‘You got the time on you? My watch seems to have given up the ghost.’

Ricky’s relief almost robbed him of the ability to stand up, and he very nearly staggered as he let go of one handle of the wheelchair to look at his watch. ‘Quarter to eight,’ he said.

‘Thanks, doc.’ The security man held the door open for them. ‘Better wrap up warm, it’s bloody cold out there.’

By the time they got to the top of the hill they were all wishing they had been able to find a parking space at the bottom of it. It took all three of them to get Maurie up the steep incline, past the Langside Library and the shops below the tenement flats that climbed the rest of the way to the roundabout.

When they reached the car, Ricky said, ‘I can’t let go. There are no brakes on this thing.’

Jack tutted. ‘I thought you were supposed to be the genius, son. Turn it sideways.’

‘Oh. Aye.’ Ricky seemed chastened.

He unlocked the car, and the three of them helped Maurie into the back seat.

Then Ricky said, ‘What are we going to do with the wheelchair? Even folded up we’re not going to get it into the boot.’

And they turned in time to see its front wheels swivel, setting it on a course back down the hill.

Dave cackled. ‘Aye, well, that solves the problem.’

‘Jesus!’ Ricky started after it. But it was gathering pace quickly, and he realized almost immediately that he was neither fit enough nor fast enough to catch it.

The three of them stood by the car, watching as the empty wheelchair went careening down the hill, bouncing jauntily off parked cars and walls as if it were revelling in undreamed-of speed and freedom. Until it smacked into a pillar box on the corner of Sinclair Drive and came skidding to a halt on its side, half wrapped around the pole of a Give Way sign. Just as two uniformed police officers on foot patrol turned the corner.

‘Holy shit!’ Dave said, which was their cue to get into the Micra as quickly as they could. Like schoolboys fleeing the scene of the crime.

Ricky fumbled with the keys and started her up, pulling out into the traffic without indicating or looking. A large van blasted its horn at them.

‘Nothing like an inconspicuous escape,’ Jack muttered, turning a dark look towards his grandson.

But Ricky was oblivious. He accelerated away, across the roundabout and down Langside Avenue towards Shawlands Cross, tiny beads of cold sweat gathering across his forehead.

Without taking his eyes from the road he said quietly, ‘I’ll never forgive you for this, Grampa. Never!’

IV

Ricky took the road through East Kilbride on to the dual carriageway that linked up with the M74. The southbound lanes of the motorway were quiet, and by ten they were long past Crawford and heading into the bleak, rolling wastes of South Lanarkshire. Darkness had crept up on them like a mist, sombre and silent, like the mood in the car itself.

The adrenaline-pumping moments at the infirmary were behind them, and now that they were on the road the cold reality of this madness on which they had embarked sat among them like a fifth presence. White lines caught in the headlights passed beneath them with hypnotic regularity, and the constant whining pitch of the little car’s motor filled their collective consciousness.

Maurie was asleep in the back, his head fallen on to Dave’s shoulder. Dave sat upright, with glassy eyes, his rucksack resting on his knees.

Jack glanced back at him, struck by a sudden thought. ‘What have you got in the rucksack, Dave?’

Dave folded his arms possessively around it. ‘Nothing.’

‘It must have something in it.’

‘Just my toilet bag and some underwear.’

‘Seemed kind of heavy for a toilet bag and underwear.’

Jack had lifted the rucksack off the back seat while they were manoeuvring Maurie into the car. The weight of it had registered then, but he had forgotten until now.

Dave shrugged, silently defensive.

‘Have you got booze in there?’

‘No.’ His denial came too quickly.

Ricky glanced across at his grandfather. ‘What if he has?’

Jack said grimly, ‘Dave has a wee problem.’

‘Pfffff.’ He heard the air escape from Ricky’s lips. ‘That’s all we need.’

Jack turned round in his seat to fix Dave in his gaze. ‘You promised.’

Dave was uncomfortable, but unapologetic. ‘It’s only a few beers.’

Jack grabbed for the bag. ‘Give me it.’

Dave turned it away from him. ‘No.’

‘For God’s sake!’ Ricky said, trying to keep his focus on the road.

Jack lunged back over his seat, reaching for the rucksack, this time seizing it and prising it from Dave’s grasp. He swung it into the front of the car.

‘Aw, Jack, come on! That’s not fair.’

Jack opened the rucksack on his knees and found the six-pack of beer wrapped in a nightshirt. He rolled down the window and checked in the wing mirror before chucking the cans out into the night, one by one. He saw them explode as they hit the road, bursts of phosphorescent foam glowing briefly pink in the rear sidelights of the car.

He heard Dave groaning in the dark.

When all the cans were gone and Jack had closed the window, Dave’s voice came leaden and bitter from behind him. ‘See what I said tae you at the hospital, aboot Donnie and that? I take it all back.’

The thick silence that settled in the aftermath of the moment was invaded by a buzz of electronic music punctuated by the repeating vocal refrain: Turn down for what.

‘What on earth’s that?’ Jack said.

‘My phone.’ Ricky’s voice came back at him out of the dark. ‘It’s a cool ringtone. From a single by DJ Snake and Lil Jon. It’s in my jacket pocket. You could get it out for me.’

Jack delved into Ricky’s pocket and felt the phone vibrating in his hand as he pulled it out.

‘It should say who’s calling.’

Jack looked at the display and felt a mixer start up in his stomach. ‘It’s your dad.’

‘Oh shit. What time is it?’

‘Just after ten. Where did you say you were going tonight?’

‘To the pictures.’

‘So you’d be mid-movie right now. Why would he be calling?’

‘He must have found the note. Don’t answer it.’

‘Don’t worry, I wasn’t about to.’

They sat in tense silence until the phone stopped shouting turn down for what at them. Then the silence deepened as they waited expectantly for the tone which would announce that Ricky’s father had left a message. It came after nearly thirty interminable seconds. Ricky snatched the phone from his grandfather. Flicking his eyes between the road and the screen, he activated the message to play on speaker.

Malcolm’s voice was tight with tension. ‘Ricky, you silly bloody idiot! What do you think you’re doing? How could you let that old fart talk you into doing something this stupid?’

Jack bristled.

They could almost hear Ricky’s father trying to control his breathing. ‘But it’s alright, son. I don’t blame you. There’ll be hell to pay right enough, but it’s your grandfather who’ll be paying it.’

‘See?’ Jack said, glancing at his grandson. ‘Told you I’d get the blame.’

Ricky’s face was whale-blubber white, but his eyes were fixed on the road. ‘And so you should. It’s all your fault.’

His father’s voice crackled over the messaging service. ‘I’m on the road right now. And you know I’ll catch up with you eventually. So pull into the first service station you come to, and call me back.’

‘Don’t you dare!’ Jack said.

Ricky swallowed with difficulty. ‘What are we going to do?’

Jack thought about it. ‘Well, he’s right. The Mondeo’s going to outrun the Micra in time. But we’ve got an hour’s head start. We’ll just keep going. Down the M6 till we can turn off the motorway and go cross-country to Leeds. We can pick up the M1 south from there.’

Dave’s voice came chuckling out of the back. He had forgotten his beer for the moment. ‘Just like we did back then, eh?’

Jack glanced across at Ricky and saw the tension in his grandson’s hands, knuckles almost glowing white in the dark, and he had a sickening sense of déjà vu.