Not what you want to see on a person clutching a twin-barrelled shotgun.
As she plodded towards him, Scott fanned his arms across the ground in search of his own weapon. There was no sign of it. He was defenceless.
‘You killed my boys,’ she said.
He said nothing, because he had no good response. It was time to die. He was not an especially religious man, but he prayed that this would be enough for her. That she wouldn’t go after his wife and son.
She stood just in front of him. Exhausted, he lowered his chin back into the cold mud. He could see only her wellington boots.
‘You killed my boys,’ she said again.
He closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable.
The shots rang out across the countryside. Animals flinched and ran. Birds scattered.
No human batted an eyelid. To those who heard, it was just another unremarkable sound in the distance.
50
Another death. Another waste of life.
Scott raised his eyes. Saw her wellington boots again. The soles of them this time.
He pushed himself up from the ground. Sat there covered in mud and cow shit as he stared at the latest victim of the choices he’d made.
She lay with her arms splayed out, her eyes and mouth wide open, her hair like a halo of worms risen from the ground.
He would have to live with this. He knew he would keep telling himself that she would have killed him if she’d had the chance. But he also knew that, like her son Ronan, her card was marked anyway.
A noise to his right made him turn.
‘Left it a bit late, didn’t you?’ he asked.
‘I was enjoying the drama. This was better than my Xbox.’
Scott tried to see if the other man was smiling, but it was impossible to tell.
He had put the hood of his parka up again.
‘I’m giving you a choice,’ he’d said in Barrington’s flat after he’d put the pistol to his head. ‘Option one is I blow your brains out and take your money.’
‘I’ll take option two.’
‘You haven’t heard it yet.’
‘I don’t care, man. That’s what I’m taking.’
Scott climbed off him, but kept the gun pointing at his face.
‘Option two is you help me out with something.’
Barrington sat up and rubbed his swollen cheek. ‘Help you? With what?’
‘You know a man named Ronan Cobb?’
‘Yeah, I know him. What about him?’
‘I plan to kill him.’
Barrington stopped rubbing and started laughing. ‘You serious? You want to kill Ronan Cobb?’
‘I’ve never been more serious in my life.’
‘Why? What’s he done to you?’
‘He threatened me. Even worse, he threatened my family.’
‘First of all, that’s no big surprise. It’s what the Cobbs do. You can’t make a leper change its fucking spots, man.’
‘Leopard.’
‘What?’
‘It’s leopards that have spots, not lepers. Although they possibly have spots too.’
‘Okay, whatever. My point is that his go-to solution to any problem is violence, and if that doesn’t work he’ll use more violence. And my second point is that you don’t just walk up to someone like Ronan Cobb with the intention of killing him. The man is streetwise. He can smell danger from a mile away. Probably better than any fucking spotty leopard. No disrespect, man, but you against him don’t sound like no fair match.’
‘I know. That’s why I need your help.’
