When he saw it was after four o’clock, the thing inside him began scurrying and chewing again. Ronan had told him that the money drop-off would take place between four and five. It could be sitting there right now in Barrington’s flat. A white Adidas bag full of cash, just waiting for Scott to come and get it, thereby solving all his problems.
At five o’clock, Scott visited the toilet for the second time in ten minutes. The rodent in his belly seemed to be using his intestines as a skipping rope.
He drank water from the tap, then washed a couple of handfuls over his face.
He needed Gavin to go home now. Only two hours left until some unknown third party collected the money from Barrington’s flat. That couldn’t be allowed to happen. To be on the safe side, Scott intended to turn up at six. He didn’t want to take the risk of someone else knocking on the door while he was there. One drug dealer at a time was plenty, thank you.
He had preparations to make. But to carry them out, he needed Gavin to go home. Gavin was usually anxious to make a quick getaway on Friday afternoons, but there was no sign of him packing up yet.
Please don’t let this be an exception, Scott thought. Not today of all days.
He left the washroom. Gavin was typing something on the computer.
‘Not off to the pub tonight, Gav?’
‘Yeah, in a minute. I just need to run off an invoice for the VW job, but I can’t get the damn printer to connect.’
‘I’ll sort it out if you like. You get going. I’ll lock up.’
Gavin raised his head and smiled. ‘Don’t go putting an extra couple of hours on your timesheet. I know you owe me, but this is five minutes’ work we’re talking about.’
Scott laughed, and hoped it sounded genuine. ‘I’m sure you’ll get it out of me one way or another.’
Gavin left his chair and started collecting his things. Scott took his place and pretended to look busy. He’d encountered this problem before and knew it was a simple Wi-Fi issue that could be resolved in seconds, but he wasn’t going to let his boss know that.
‘Right,’ Gavin said. ‘See you Monday.’
‘See you, Gav.’
Scott tapped a few random keys, stopping when Gavin exited the garage. He waited until he heard Gavin’s car rev up and zoom away.
He checked the clock again. Quarter past five. Time was being swallowed up.
Quickly restoring the printer connection, he printed the invoice and placed it on the desk. He left the computer running for now. He was going to need it.
He went to the double doors at the front of the garage, swung them closed and bolted them. Then he locked up the door to the reception area.
He went back to the office, past the computer. Halted in front of the steel filing cabinet – the one that Daniel had moved in here without even emptying it. Kneeling down on the floor, he slid open the bottom drawer. It was full of customer records, but he wasn’t interested in those. He reached underneath the drawer, found what he wanted. He stripped the duct tape away and brought out the plastic bag and its contents.
He opened up the bag and took out the single item. Hefted its weight in his hand. Considered its power.
The gun.
Joey Cobb’s gun.
He still wasn’t entirely sure why he’d held onto it. He’d thrown away all the money, the drugs, but he’d kept the one thing he thought he’d never need.
His memory was that it was a just-in-case impulse. At the time, he’d been ninety-nine per cent certain that his crimes would never be discovered. But there was still that other one per cent. He’d known what Joey Cobb was, and therefore what dark forces his sudden disappearance might attract. The gun was insurance, nothing more. He’d hoped that, when everything died down, he could retrieve it and dispose of it.
But all that had changed. This gun might be the only thing that could enable him to get out of this mess.
There was just one problem. He didn’t know how to use it.
He had never in his life handled a real gun, let alone fired one. He believed he could figure out what to do with a revolver, but this wasn’t one of those. It had buttons and catches on the side, and he didn’t know what any of them did. He had watched plenty of action movies and seen how characters often pulled back the top part of the gun before firing, but he didn’t know why they did that. Would he have to do the same with this one, or would that completely mess it up? Was the gun even loaded?
Scott carried the weapon across to the computer, then opened up a private web page so that his search history wouldn’t be recorded. He typed in the text inscribed on both sides of the gun and started reading through the results. He discovered that the gun was manufactured by Smith and Wesson, and that the model was a 9mm M&P Shield, the M&P standing for ‘Military and Police’.
Delving deeper, he watched various YouTube videos and read the user manual carefully. He found out that the gun was a semi-automatic, meaning that each pull of the trigger would fire a bullet, eject the used cartridge, and load the next round into the chamber. It also had a double-action trigger, meaning that the hammer did not have to be cocked initially to enable firing.
With the manual open on the screen in front of him, he investigated the buttons on the pistol. He worked out how to use the safety catch and operate the magazine release. Removing the magazine revealed to him that it held eight rounds. Operating the slide mechanism like they did in the movies ejected another.
He put it all back together again. Nine rounds in total. Such lethal, destructive force in his hand.
He was almost ready.
He took a key down from the board on the wall and left the office. From a recycling bin in the garage he took out a handful of outdated vehicle manuals, then lined them up face-out on a shelf, like a column of soldiers. He went over to a souped-up Audi hatchback fitted with an after-market sports exhaust that kept backfiring. He climbed in, started it up, and lowered the driver’s window.
He cycled his foot on the accelerator, heard the explosions it generated.
He took the gun from his lap, aimed it at the books on the shelf, squeezed the trigger slowly, just like the videos had taught him.
The kick took him by surprise. The roar of the weapon was intense. He watched a book fly into the air, scattering fragments of paper. He sat there for a minute, just staring at the devastation.
When he turned off the car engine, he found himself panting with exhilaration. He understood now why gun owners could become so intoxicated with their prized possessions.
He got out of the car and went to the books. When he finally located the slug, he was amazed at how deep it had burrowed. He dug it out and slipped it into his pocket. Then he found the spent cartridge on the floor and pocketed that too. The books went back into the bin, buried much deeper than before.
Scott stared again at the gun in his hand. He knew what to expect of it now, what it was capable of. Death in an instant.
