Scott stepped backwards, but the man followed, jabbing Scott in the chest.
‘What kind of fucking game are you two trying to play?’
‘No game,’ Scott protested. ‘We just want to go home, okay? Leave now, and we won’t say a thing.’
‘I know you won’t, because you’ll be dead in a fucking ditch if you do. Do you understand?’
Scott nodded furiously.
‘And what about the fucking retard over there?’
Even for Scott, who had heard every insult invented, the word sent shockwaves through his body. It pressed a button within him that electrified his limbs. He lashed out, pushing the man away.
‘Don’t call him that!’ he yelled. ‘He’s my son!’
But the man was already shaking his head and clenching his jaw and bunching his fists and advancing towards Scott. There was a glint in his eye that told Scott he was about to show no mercy and he was going to enjoy it, and Scott tried to ready himself for a fight that he knew he wasn’t going to win, and he wondered what it would be like to have broken teeth and bones, and he could feel his legs turning to jelly and his chest panting for air, and he hoped that he could at least put on a decent show in front of his son before ending up in hospital . . .
And then the man was gone.
He was whisked off his feet as if by a whirlwind, and that whirlwind was Daniel, who now had a meaty hand clamped around the man’s neck and was pushing him further and further up the drab grey wall and saying through his tears, ‘Leave my dad alone, leave my dad alone, leave my dad alone . . .’ And as the man’s dangling legs twisted and kicked out for purchase, Scott grabbed his son’s arms and yelled at him to stop, stop it now, Daniel, put him down . . .
When the message finally penetrated, Daniel obeyed his father and released his grip, and the man fell in a heap on the floor. Scott went to the man as Daniel retreated, whimpering, to a window in the corner of the gloomy corridor, but it was obvious even to Scott’s untrained eyes that nothing could be done, that even such a small fragment of time was impossible to reverse.
The man was dead.
5
Scott had never seen a corpse before. For some reason he had expected them to look like they were sleeping, and was shocked at how wrong he’d got it. He wasn’t sure he could explain it to anyone in words, except to say that there was an absence, an emptiness to the body that could never be detected in someone still clinging on to life. What lay before him was just a shell, its previous aggression now completely wiped away.
‘Is he dead?’ Daniel asked. ‘Is he like Perry?’
Scott didn’t answer. He was trying to think.
I should call the police, he thought. Police and also ambulance, just in case he isn’t really dead, even though I know he is. That’s what you do in situations like this. When you get in a fight and someone drops dead at your feet, you can’t run away from it. You have to face up to it and call in the experts, let them sort it out.
And yet . . .
Other thoughts were intruding, complicating the situation, muddling his brain. Thoughts that began with ‘But what if . . .’
Adrenaline was flooding his system. There was a time pressure here. At any moment, someone else might appear and then it would be too late, the decision would be taken out of his hands.
‘Dad, is he—’
‘Come here.’
‘W-What?’
‘Come here, Daniel. We need to move him. Pick him up for me.’
Daniel shrank further into his corner. ‘I don’t want to pick him up.’
‘Daniel, please. We need to—we need to get help for him.’
It was a lie. The man was beyond help. He was no longer Scott’s number-one concern.
The lie did the trick. Chewing one of his fingers, Daniel shuffled over. He stared down at the body.
Scott clapped his hands to emphasise the urgency. ‘Now, Daniel. Pick him up.’
Daniel bent down, scooped up the corpse like it was a large pillow. The dead man’s head drooped and his tongue lolled out of his open mouth. Daniel looked down at it with distaste and fear.
‘He is like Perry. Perry’s tongue did that too.’
‘This way, Daniel. Move.’
Scott picked up the man’s backpack, then opened the fire doors and ushered his son through. As they passed each apartment, Scott willed its inhabitants not to appear.
They reached 1204. Scott dug out his keys and unlocked the door. ‘Go in, Daniel. Hurry!’
As Daniel headed inside, Scott took one last look along the corridor. There was no sign of anyone. No obvious indicators that a killing had just taken place.
He closed the door. Daniel was still in the hallway, clearly wondering what on earth he was supposed to do with the corpse he was carrying.
‘Bring him in,’ Scott told him. ‘Put him on the sofa. That’s it.’
Scott put the man’s backpack down on the floor, then took off his own and tossed it across the room. He wiped sweat from his brow and tried to breathe again. Tried to gather his thoughts.
‘Scott?’
