And alighted on the Adidas sports bag.
He slid his gaze away again as quickly as he could, praying that Barrington hadn’t noticed.
‘Well, see . . . the flat downstairs . . . I got confused with—’
But it was clear that Barrington had caught wind of something awry. His eyes narrowed.
Do it now!
His fingers dived into the backpack. Barrington dived at him. Scott produced the semi-automatic just as Barrington cannoned into his solar plexus. He back-pedalled, slammed into a glass-fronted cabinet. One of its doors smashed, showering him with a cloud of shards. The pain in his ribs intensified a thousandfold. He shoved back, tried to bring his gun up, but Barrington was gripping his arm with one hand while throwing wild punches at him with the other. Desperate to bring an end to his battering, Scott wrapped his free arm around his opponent, and they waltzed around the room in a deadly embrace, toppling chairs and sending the contents of shelves cascading to the floor. Scott brought his knee up into Barrington’s groin, then fired a kick into the man’s midriff to tear him away, but Barrington came straight back at him with a head-butt that smacked into his cheek and sent flashes of light across his vision. Scott let out a roar and wrenched himself out of the clinch, but his gun snagged on Barrington’s parka and dropped to the floor. Before he could reach down for it, Barrington sailed into him again, and then they were both rolling on the carpet, both aware that the weapon would bestow on its possessor instant superiority.
Barrington managed to get on top for a brief moment. He threw two punches into Scott’s face, then launched himself towards the gun. Scott grabbed Barrington’s ankles and dragged him back, an instant before his opponent’s fingers touched the butt of the weapon. He clambered over Barrington’s spine, digging in heavily with his knees, then threw himself forwards. As his outstretched hand slapped against cold metal, he felt a sudden sharp pain in his leg. He twisted his body, saw that Barrington had sunk his teeth into his calf. Using the gun as a club, he swung it into Barrington’s head. Barrington released his grip and tried to spin away, but Scott was already on him, snarling and yelling and swearing, and feeling how good it was, after all the fights he had lost since he was a kid, after the beatings and humiliation he had taken recently, how exhilarating it was to emerge victorious. Bringing the gun to the temple of his snivelling, shrunken opposition, he felt all his pent-up anger and frustration surging down his arm and into his trigger finger, and he emitted a cathartic roar that drowned out all else.
Afterwards, sitting in his car outside the building, he wanted to cry.
He hadn’t dared to believe he could get this far. Never thought he had the strength, the guts, to accomplish what he had. Truth be told, he’d been convinced he’d be dead by now.
He turned to look at what sat in the passenger seat. It was all the proof he needed that he had finally stopped being a loser.
The white Adidas bag. He had taken a peek inside. Had marvelled at the jumble of fat cash bundles. He had no idea how much was in there; it was beyond his imagining.
He was nearly home and dry. One more errand to make.
So hold back those tears, he thought. Just for a short while.
48
‘What time is it?’ Ronan asked.
The barman pointed emphatically at the clock behind him in a way that suggested he was always being asked this unnecessary question. ‘Five to seven.’
‘Really? Where does the time go, eh? Is there a match on at seven?’
‘Not tonight, far as I know.’
Ronan didn’t care if there was a match on or not. His only objective was fixing in the memory of the bartender that he was here in the pub at this time.
Ronan handed his debit card across. ‘Can you a print off a receipt, please?’
Card rather than cash. A time-stamped receipt. Further evidence that he was many miles away from Barrington Daley. Whatever had taken place at the flats, it had probably resulted in a dead body, and since there would be obvious connections between that corpse and the killing of Joey Cobb, Ronan wanted to be able to demonstrate that it had nothing to do with him, Your Honour.
He was conveniently ignoring the fact that establishing this alibi wasn’t his own idea. It was his mother’s, who had surprised him yet again that her knack for criminality was still as sharp as a razor blade.
As he walked back to her with the drinks – a gin and tonic for her and an orange juice for himself as the designated driver – he realised that this was the first time in months that he’d seen her beyond the boundaries of her farmhouse. Come to think of it, it was that long since he’d seen her out of her kitchen.
Not that she’d made much of an effort to mark the occasion. She’d thrown on a clean-looking cardigan, but that was about it. Hadn’t even brushed her teeth.
He realised that she had become the butt of the joke among three girls at a nearby table. They kept glancing her way and giggling. She didn’t seem to have noticed; or, if she had, she didn’t care. It both saddened and angered Ronan, and at any other time he would have said something, but right now he didn’t want to embarrass his mother, and he didn’t want to kick up a fuss that might result in their being thrown out. At least the girls would remember her presence here if asked.
In the farmhouse earlier, he had pondered on her degeneration since his father had died. Before that, she’d been strong, assertive. Sober, too. If she had ever taken a drink back then, it was either on special occasions or else done out of his sight. He certainly couldn’t recall her being so inebriated that she pissed herself where she sat.
And her looks – where had they gone?
Back at the house, his eyes had strayed to the old photographs on the dresser behind his mother. She had never been glamorous, but there had been a charming and fresh-faced quirkiness to her appearance. A hint of dizziness, impulsiveness and hunger for fun.
And now look at her, he thought as he set the drinks down and watched her immediately pick hers up and begin guzzling. Compare and contrast.
‘What time is it?’ she asked.
‘Getting on for seven.’
She nodded. ‘Pick-up’s about now, and we’ve heard nothing. Bastard’s dead. Good riddance.’
And what difference has it made? Ronan thought. Scott Timpson is dead, but Joey’s still dead too. How has this helped anyone?
Ronan’s mobile chirruped. He glanced at the screen.
Well, well, well.
He tried not to smile as he answered the call.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s me. Scott Timpson. I did what you asked.’
It took Ronan a while to find words. His mother was staring at him.
‘You . . . you did it? You got what you went for?’
