The wind tugged at the trees, whipping their branches in every direction, sending leaves and litter whirling into the air. Clouds bulked in the sky, and ahead of him Nick saw a flash of forked lightning.
He turned into Grayston Road and accelerated.
As he approached the corner of Sandton Drive, he saw pedestrians on the pavement ahead, running towards the intersection, some grasping cellphones. Great. He steeled himself for the worst. If an accident drew that much attention, it meant he could expect to find a grisly scene.
At the crossroads, traffic was at a standstill. Vehicles were bunched together, fighting for space in a higgledy-piggledy group that looked like a bumper car ride gone mad. Drivers were leaning on their hooters. It was the worst, snarled mess he had ever witnessed.
Siren blaring, flashing his high beams, Nick shoehorned his way through the immovable crowd.
Then he saw what was causing all the chaos.
Clouds of cash swirled in the air. Twenties, fifties, hundreds. The strong wind was blowing them about like confetti. A pink fifty-rand note fluttered towards him, brushing against his windscreen for a moment before it eddied down towards the tarmac.
By the roadside, a raggedly dressed man leaped high, snagging a handful of hundreds like a boy catching butterflies. He folded the cash into his pocket, looking as pleased with himself as if he had won the lottery.
A taxi rocked to a stop and the passengers burst out of the door, jostling for position, shouting excitedly to each other as they chased the fluttering notes along the pavement.
Ahead of him, a cluster of police cars had surrounded the wreckage of a car. An old blue car, from what he could make out. God, it couldn’t be … Surely Paul hadn’t …?
Nick jolted to a halt and stared at the vehicle in horror.
Masondo hurried past him. He didn’t acknowledge Nick. He was talking urgently on his cellphone, summoning reinforcements.
Nick noticed a gun, lying as if discarded, near a bent section of plastic that had probably formed part of a bumper. What the hell was it doing in the road?
As he watched, another officer rushed over and scooped the firearm up and into a plastic evidence bag.
Nick thought he’d been called out to an accident scene, but he’d arrived at what was now a crime scene. He guessed the weapon – a vital piece of evidence, no doubt – belonged to Paul.
How much cash had Paul crammed into the Toyota?
Nick didn’t know. Black dustbin bags lay near the wreckage, ripped open from the impact, their contents spilling onto the road. More bags were stashed in the protective circle of police cars. The cops were trying to gather the loose notes together, but Masondo was fighting a losing battle against the wind, and the crowd was growing larger by the second. People were abandoning their vehicles, jumping out and leaving their doors open, grabbing fistfuls of money.
Nick parked next to the police cars and climbed out. His shoes crunched over broken glass.
God, the fool must have grabbed all the cash from the strongroom before he’d locked everyone inside. Then he’d crashed, just down the road from Stronghold Security. He must have lost control of the vehicle, which had rolled at a speed that had taken it right across the intersection and into a concrete pillar.
Where had he been for the past half-hour, then? Had he been in hiding? Or was he on his way back to Stronghold to wreak some bizarre revenge?
Nick had often wondered how Paul would die. The way his brother lived, the odds had always been for a violent death. A car crash, a bullet wound. He’d occasionally wondered what he’d do if he was called out to a scene and found him there. Invariably, his fantasies had involved walking away and leaving the bastard to the lonely, painful death he deserved.
Paul was a violent criminal, a gangster who deserved nothing better than that fate. He had wrecked Tayla’s life. He’d betrayed Nick, he’d intended to murder three other innocents by locking them in the strongroom.
Even so, Nick found he couldn’t turn his back.
He had never refused a patient treatment, not once, no matter what the circumstances. Now he realised that walking away was something he would never – could never – do.
Hefting his kit bag onto his shoulder, he raced over to the wreckage, the wind tugging at his hair. He dropped to his knees, pulled on his gloves and leaned into the crumpled space to assess the damage, just as if his brother was any another accident victim.
Paul was still conscious. He was jammed at an angle across the seats, hanging from his seatbelt. His skin was sheet-white and beads of sweat were rolling down his face. He was panting, grunting, his eyes half-closed. When he heard Nick’s voice, he opened his eyes and stared at him.
Nick stared back at him numbly.
Paul’s left leg was trapped under the crushed engine block, just like Natasha’s legs had been. From the angle of his body and his obvious agony, Nick guessed Paul must have been struggling to free himself, attempting to tug his mangled foot out of the wreckage so he could escape.
His jeans were ripped in several places, the denim stained dark with blood. One arm hung limp by his side, a jagged piece of bone protruding from the lacerated skin.
Nick didn’t need to ask if his brother was in pain. He could see it was off the scale. Following the rules of his medical training, he asked anyway.
‘Piss off,’ Paul replied through gritted teeth.
What else had he expected? Nick hooked him up to an IV and set to work. He rummaged in his kit bag for pressure bandages. He’d apply them to the bleeding and then attempt to free his foot. Hopefully, in a few minutes he’d have help, if the ambulance and fire engine could fight their way through the swelling ranks of traffic.
Paul’s injuries were serious, but they didn’t look life threatening. If he could get him out soon enough, he thought his brother would have a decent chance of survival.
He’d never worked a scene where so many bystanders ignored the patient completely. All this lot could do was focus on the money.
Behind him he heard the wail of a siren and the crackle of a police loud-hailer. Backup had arrived.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
Paul swiped at Nick with his other arm as he examined the broken limb. The effort made him hiss with pain. Tears welled in his eyes.
‘Saving your life. Not that you deserve it.’
‘No. Leave me alone.’ Paul’s tone was unmistakably an order.
Nick stared at his brother. ‘What?’
‘Leave … me … alone.’ Paul spoke with an effort. ‘If you want … to do me a favour, let me die. It’s the end of the road. It’ll be prison for me forever. I won’t … go back there.’
His brother’s deep blue eyes pierced his, shadowed and desperate. Nick saw tiny brown flecks in the irises, and an old scar under his eyebrow he’d never noticed before. When had he last been so close to Paul? He couldn’t remember. Perhaps never. Now, gazing at him, his anger dissolved and all he could feel was pity. What would it have taken for him to turn out the same way as Paul?
Not much, he suspected. Not much at all.
‘You’re not badly hurt enough to die,’ he said, fighting to keep his voice steady.
‘Then help me do it.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Listen. You can. I’ve screwed up too bad … little brother. All my life. Jesus, man, I can’t take this pain. Help me, please.’
Nick didn’t think he was talking about his physical agony. He found himself having to blink warm liquid out of his own eyes. Sweat, tears, he didn’t know. The first heavy drops of rain spattered onto the buckled roof of the car and the humidity was stifling.
‘Damn it, Paul.’ Nick wiped his face on his sleeve.
Paul groaned again.
Nick drew five milligrams of morphine from the brown ampoule and injected it into the IV port. Normally he’d use a more conservative dose. He’d ask his patients whether they had an allergy to the drug, explain the side effects to them, and document the dosage and response carefully for the hospital. Right now, all of this seemed redundant.
As the morphine started to work, Paul relaxed and his breathing slowed to near-normal. ‘I tried to come back for her,’ he said suddenly. Then, ‘I failed.’ His face crumpled.
Nick swallowed hard. ‘She’s OK,’ he replied. ‘I got her out.’
His brother stared at him for an endless moment.
‘Thank you,’ he whispered. His eyes closed. He didn’t speak again.
Nick’s hands were shaking. His gloves were slippery with blood and rain. Inside them, his skin felt liquid with sweat. What should he do? He’d been prepared to give his brother emergency help in spite of the atrocities he’d committed, but Paul didn’t want emergency help. He wanted to die.
Bloody hell. Why did he have to be the one crouched here on the hard tarmac and broken glass, fat raindrops splattering down on him, making this impossible decision? What Paul had asked him to do went against all his ethics and training. No matter the circumstances, saving his brother’s life would be the right thing to do.
Letting him live would also be a fitting punishment for his crimes. He would be put under police guard in a government hospital ward. He’d undergo operations, amputation for sure. Then trial, sentencing, a return to prison. Life imprisonment as a crippled convict. A fair definition of purgatory.
All for what, Nick wondered.
Killing his brother in anger would have been easy compared to this. But now, he would be showing him mercy, committing a final act of kindness. Forgiveness, charity, call it whatever the hell you wanted to. Could he go through with it?
He wondered whether, if the roles were reversed, Paul would have intervened on his behalf. He didn’t think so. More likely, his brother would have simply turned his back and left him to take his chances.
Nick took the pocket knife from his kit bag and clicked open the blade.
He peered at the lacerations on Paul’s legs. Blood oozed from the wounds. In an accident like this, a more serious injury could easily have occurred.
Before he could think any further about his actions, Nick plunged the knife through the soft denim and into his brother’s thigh, seeking out the femoral artery. The blade sliced through it and, in an instant, a thick river of blood welled from the wound.
With the blood loss Paul had already suffered from his crushed foot, Nick knew it would be enough.
He doubted there’d be any investigation into his death. Only a hasty examination by an overworked pathologist, who would know his patient had been a robber on the run who’d left a trail of devastation behind him.
Hailstones clattered briefly on the car’s mangled body and then the rain began pounding down. The icy deluge dispersed the crowds, drowned out their excited voices and plastered the remaining banknotes to the ground. The policemen stood in a tight circle around the stolen cash, holding waterproof jackets and umbrellas over their heads.
Nick turned his face up to the rain. Its cold, stinging touch felt like absolution.