Still Midnight

7

Pat could hear nothing but his own shallow breath as he stepped back along the path to the field. His skin was anxious-clammy, his face veiled in a thin layer of greasy sweat. They had battered guys, hurt women sometimes, but always for a reason, never just so they could get a shot of a gun. The shit-smelling wind chilled his skin, the electric blue moonlight lit the shards of frost crunching under his every step. At the end of the path he turned into the field and chanced a glance back at the Lexus.

Eddy had his back to him, his head dropped forward, looking at his gun. Pat broke into a trot, stumbling gracelessly over the lumpy ground, running from him.

It was age that had brought them to this. Age and coke.

Seven good years sharing doors all over the city. They were liberal with their hands, known for it, good at the job, until Eddy’s missus left. Then came the fights and restraining orders and the drinking. He was drinking that night, now that Pat thought about it.

It must have been cut with something, the coke. The boy was thin, too young for that bar really, granny grabbing, but his pupils were pins and he was twitching when he stumbled out and into Eddy, his mouth staggering to keep up with the words drenching his chin – fucking old fuck fat fucking old.

Afterwards, Eddy said he was off balance, the boy was lucky, the night was wrong. He was probably right; on another night, at a different angle the boy’s first punch wouldn’t have got him down. The boy never went for Pat, just Eddy, the one who had nothing left to be but hard. He kicked Eddy’s face in.

Pat rallied when Eddy’s wife left, when they lost jobs over arguments with managers, but the bruises of that fight never left Eddy. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. A bird, he said he needed a bird, so Pat set him up but she wasn’t right and he gave her a slap and her brother came over and it got messy. New job, so Pat got them an indoor, but Eddy said the money was shit and they weren’t allowed to drink. Now he needed money, if only Eddy had money. One big job. Pat was losing faith, wouldn’t use his contacts, so Eddy’d done it himself, set it up and got the guns, the van, the address. And now what was wrong was an old toast-smelling man who didn’t have a hole in his head.

Walking along the sea of frozen mud Pat realised that soon he would be what was wrong with Eddy.

Up ahead, in among the trees, Pat saw an orange eye widen in welcome. Malki was smoking a fag, casual, standing next to the two large white plastic drums of petrol. Pat bolted over to him, slapping the cigarette from his mouth, scattering flecks of red all over the ground and stamping on them.

Malki had been enjoying that cigarette. He looked down at it sadly. ‘Aw, man!’ he droned, ‘I havenae opened the petrol, calm the fuck down.’

Pat grabbed him by the hoodie zip, held him up on his tiptoes, and spat in his face. ‘You calm fucking down, Malki. You fucking calm down.’

Flecks of Pat’s spit freckled Malki’s forehead. It was so obvious neither of them said it: Malki was medically, chemically, technically perfectly calm. Despite the freezing cold of the night, despite smoking a fag next to two giant cans of petrol while being threatened by a man twice his weight, even then Malki’s physiology couldn’t summon up enough adrenalin to redden his cheeks.

A bead of sweat trickled down Pat’s forehead and Malki watched as the urgent trail disappeared into his eyebrow and dripped from his slightly overhanging brow.

‘Not being funny, Pat, man, but have yous twos been doing steroids or something?’

Pat let his wee cousin drop back onto his feet. ‘Malki-’

‘Yees are awful fucking jumpy.’

‘Just shut it, Malki.’

Indignant at the insult, Maki straightened the front of his hoodie and unseen, the tiny ball of foil tumbled gracefully out, bouncing on the grass, falling between the blades. Malki muttered, ‘… need tae be fucking rude, man.’

Sulking, they took a petrol can each and unscrewed the caps, Malki in charge now because he had been burning out stolen cars since he was twelve and knew what he was about. It was surprisingly easy to get it wrong.

While Pat soaked the seats, Malki opened up the tank and threaded in a line of tubing, sucking the petrol out. They didn’t want an explosion or a fire ball drawing anyone’s attention; just a good, thorough job. The longer it took the police to find the van, the longer they had to muddy their trail.

By the time Pat had finished, the fumes were prickling at the skin inside his nose, making him dizzy. His mind was on the Lexus, listening, the hairs on his neck on standby, alert for the muffled ‘pop’ of the gun.

He found Malki round the back, blowing into the petrol tank through the tube.

‘Disperse the fumes, man,’ explained Malki between puffs. He smiled as he blew, eyes wide, excited.

Pat watched. Malki came from a family of arseholes but he himself was a good wee guy. He smiled again, puffing his cheeks out like a trumpeter. How did that happen, Pat wondered, a good guy from that family, a moral guy, with standards.

‘Eddy’s lost it a bit,’ he said quietly.

Malki puffed and raised his eyebrows.

Pat kicked at the ground, looking away because he felt disloyal. ‘His wife…’ he said, backtracking, excusing.

Malki took the tube from his mouth. ‘Three nice wee kids.’ He pulled the tube out carefully. ‘She’s well out of it. Did the right thing fucking off to Manchester.’

Pat couldn’t look at him because Malki was right.

He pulled the tube out and laid it flat on the ground, pointing away from the van and into the dark woods. He motioned to Pat to drop the cans underneath the van and stepped back, guiding Pat away, checking the ground they were stepping away from for oily smears of petrol.

Malki was taking no chances. He made Pat stand a good distance away along the tyre tracks because he’d been in the van and would be all fumed up. Malki went back himself, crouching at the end of the tube, his lighter sparking twice before the flame caught. He held it to the end of the tube and got up quickly, backing off to Pat’s side.

A warm glow shot along the tubing, spilling a sudden sheet of light into the grass. The flames took, licking up at the surrounding air, racing into the petrol tank until a ‘thwump’ and a spluttered belch of fire came from the petrol tank, spilling onto the grass, lighting every drip and smear of petrol. The inside of the van was on fire, the back windows bright. The fire spread to the front seats and a wave of warm and smoke hit their faces. Pat blanched at the heat but Malki didn’t even blink. His mouth had fallen open a little, his small teeth white against the dark.

‘’Mon,’ said Pat, anxious to get back. He hurried out of the trees, following his path to the Lexus. Eddy’s head was no longer visible over the scraggy hedge around the field. Pat sped up, keeping his eyes on the place Eddy had been standing, imagining him crouched over the old man’s body, rolling him into the ditch. Malki trotted after him, almost bumping into him at the mouth of the field when Pat stopped in his tracks.

Eddy was gone.

Pat ran towards the car, looking over the roof, in the ditch by the car, but Eddy was gone.

‘Where the fuck…?’

Malki was behind him, staring hard at him, worried. With a limp hand he pointed at the car, at the driver’s seat. Eddy was sitting in it.

‘Oh,’ said Pat.

‘… the fucking motor,’ mumbled Malki, shaking his head.

Pat looked at Malki. The harsh moonlight cut lines deep into his face, he looked forty and he was only twenty-three. And yet he was looking pityingly at Pat.

‘Fucking junkie twat,’ said Pat.

Malki turned square to him and raised a warning finger. ‘Patrick, my friend, I have to say: you’re being a bit ignorant there.’

‘Get in the fucking motor.’

‘No need for rudeness, my friend. We’ve all got our troubles.’

Pat rolled his eyes. ‘Malki-’

Malki raised both hands. ‘Polite. That’s all I’m saying… Us and the animals, man.’ He opened the back door and slipped his skinny hips in next to the pillowcase, shutting the door before Pat had the chance to tell him off again.

Heavily, his head throbbing slightly from the fumes, Pat made his way around to the other rear door and got in. The pillowcase was slight as well as small: Pat’s hips didn’t even touch him. It was like sitting next to a child.

Eddy started the engine and his eyes met Pat’s in the rear-view mirror. Pat blinked and looked away.

When they hit the motorway, Pat looked back to where the van was burning. A calm smoke plume drifted up into the clear night, it could pass for insignificant, unless a local was passing and knew there was no house over the shoulder of the hill.

They drove on in silence as before but now Malki was content, having had the release of setting fire to something, on his way to a midnight assignation with his beloved scag. And Eddy was happy at the wheel of the Lexus, imagining a future where he owned such a car and could look at himself in the mirror.

But the pillowcase was rigid with fright and Pat looked out at the dark fields and wished himself someone else, somewhere else. He should have refused to get out of the van.