Shannon parked the jeep in the trees not far from the railway line. The sun was nearly down, the air cool and still.
‘You’re staying here, Shan,’ Shuggie said for the third time. ‘I’m not putting you in danger, hen. There’s the kids to think about.’ Shannon’s face creased for a moment. He planted a quick kiss on her forehead and said, ‘Do not get out of this car, no matter what happens, no matter what you hear or see, okay?’
The reality of what was about to happen was becoming all too stark to Grace. Her heart was hammering in her chest. Her mouth was dry, her limbs shaky.
Remy had gone very quiet.
Grace and the two men got out of the jeep and spoke in whispers even though they were some distance still from the library building. Shannon lowered her window so she could join in.
‘As soon as we get Abigail, we’re going to send her out to you,’ Grace said. ‘When she’s in the car safely and you know the police are on the way, call me. We need to get Remy out as fast as possible.’
‘Shuggie, you stay outside for now,’ Remy told him. ‘We don’t want to spook them.’ He handed him a gun. ‘They expect me and Grace, but we might need an element of surprise.’
Remy checked the other gun and tucked it in his waistband.
Shuggie nodded, and halfway between the jeep and the library he ducked behind a thick clump of trees.
‘You ready for this?’ Remy asked Grace.
She nodded.
The back door of the library grated against the concrete, heralding their arrival.
Grace and Remy walked into the main body of the library. The three men looked up casually. Bizzy leaned against the reception desk, chewing gum. Sarge sat on a chair, his feet up against a wall as he flicked through a half-torn book. Only Mal looked anxious as he paced by the main door on the far side of the room.
A couple of army lamps lit the gloom in places, silhouetting George’s slumped body.
Grace couldn’t tear her eyes away from her friend until a groan caught her attention.
She turned to see Abigail sitting on a chair in a dark corner, her hands behind her back, her face streaked with tears. Grace mouthed, ‘It’s going to be okay.’ She wished she felt confident about that.
Abigail whimpered in response.
Sarge dropped his book, stood up and moved towards Remy as though he was going to shake his hand. Grace felt herself tense. She couldn’t tell if he was armed.
‘We’ve been looking for you, Remy,’ said Sarge calmly. ‘Absent without leave.’ He grinned. ‘Check them over, Biz.’
Biz stood upright and ambled over to them. Grace glanced at Remy. His face had turned very pale. He took a step back and pulled out his gun. Bizzy mirrored him and the two stood facing each other, motionless.
Mal looked away and continued pacing up and down by the door, running his hand over the top of his head in a repetitive motion.
‘Mal!’ Sarge barked and immediately Mal stood still.
‘Give Bizzy the gun, Remy,’ Sarge said in a bored tone.
When Remy didn’t respond, Sarge took out his own gun and sauntered over to Abigail. She yelped when the barrel made contact with her forehead.
‘Give him the fucking gun!’ Sarge repeated.
Remy’s shoulders dropped, he turned the gun round and passed it to Bizzy, who tucked it into the back of his belt.
What was he doing? Was that it – they were just going to give up? Shuggie was outside. It wasn’t over yet.
‘You could’ve just let me go, Sarge,’ Remy said boldly, as Bizzy patted him down. ‘I wasn’t going to tell anyone, not before you started attacking my friends.’ He looked over at Abigail.
‘You know me, Remy. I’m not risking my troop’s safety.’ He put his gun down on the desk and leaned against the wood.
Bizzy began patting Grace down, running his hands over her body, checking in unnecessary places. Her skin began to burn as revulsion rose in her.
‘As for you’ – Sarge pointed at Grace – ‘you’re part of the system that I’m destroying. The lie that is Janus Justice. And that husband of yours… someone had to shut him up.’
Grace pushed Bizzy away from her in anger. He laughed and moved so close she could smell his minty breath. He continued his invasive search, took her phone from her back pocket and threw it on the desk. It lit up briefly and she felt reassured that when Shannon rang she’d be able to see. It wouldn’t be long now… if they could just get Abigail out.
She’d seen Remy do this before, get the opposition to show their hand, act vulnerable and then go in for the kill. But somehow she couldn’t see how his plan was going to work this time.
That’s when it occurred to her. Maybe Remy didn’t have a plan.
Maybe he didn’t expect to get out of there alive.
‘You should’ve killed me in the clinic when you had a chance,’ Remy said.
‘There’s plenty of time for that now,’ Sarge replied.
‘Let her go first,’ Grace said. There was no way she was going to let them take Remy without a fight, whatever stupid ideas he might have. But they had to get Abigail out.
Grace glanced in George’s direction again. These people didn’t care who lived and who died. ‘You said you’d let her go if I brought Remy.’
Sarge nodded.
Bizzy made his way lazily over to Abigail and released her. She stood up and ran over to Grace, who immediately put her arm around Abigail’s shoulders and moved her towards the door.
‘No,’ said Sarge.
Grace turned back slowly.
Mal came a little closer now, curious as to what was going to happen next.
‘I said she could go,’ Sarge said. ‘Not you.’
He’d underestimated her if he thought Grace was just going to walk out and leave Remy behind. She knew he wouldn’t be able to see past the middle-class, do-gooder doctor, not imagining for one moment the street-child scrapper at the heart of who she was. She still had some fight left in her. She was going to get Abigail out of there and then she was going to get Remy too. She’d lost too much in her life.
No more.
‘My friend, she’s waiting in the car just along there,’ she whispered to Abigail. ‘You walk out of here and keep going straight, you’ll get to her. Run. Do you hear me?’
Abigail nodded.
Was Sarge really going to let her go? After she’d seen their faces, seen what they’d done to George? Grace felt a creeping fear.
‘When you get to her, she’ll call the police and then everything’s going to be okay,’ she said, her voice the faintest whisper.
If only Grace herself could believe that.
Abigail gave the slightest flicker of a smile and left.
Grace turned back to Diros, not sure if anyone else was going to get out of there alive.
‘You’ve got me now,’ Remy said. ‘Let her go.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Sarge said. ‘She knows too much.’
Mal started to get twitchy. He could feel the pressure in his head, things moving to their final conclusion. This would all be over and done within the space of half an hour. They’d probably go and have a few AltCons in a shitty bar somewhere and he’d have to pretend that he was okay with what had gone down at the library.
Christ, he couldn’t wait to get away.
He knew he wouldn’t sleep. Sleep would wait until he was on the coach in the morning. He hadn’t bothered packing much, so the other two wouldn’t suspect he was going anywhere. He had learned to exist with so little when he was on the street, to make everything count, to be grateful for whatever he could get. He was going to have a better life from now on. He just had to get through tonight.
‘Well, get it over with,’ Remy said.
What the hell was Remy thinking?
The loud crack of gunfire rang through the trees outside. Two shots. Grace and Remy looked at each other, but the other three didn’t flinch.
Was it the police already? Grace looked to her phone but the screen was dark. Maybe this was Shuggie, coming in to rescue them?
Abigail walked back into the library. What the hell was she doing, coming back? She should be in the jeep with Shannon by now!
Grace searched her for any sign of injury, but she appeared unharmed.
‘Abigail, I told you to run!’
But Abigail ignored her. Instead, she waved a gun at Sarge. ‘I sorted it,’ she said simply. Grace looked to the desk. Sarge’s gun was gone. Abigail must have picked it up on her way past.
Sarge nodded in her direction. ‘Good job.’
‘What the hell is going on?’ Grace asked.
Abigail approached her. ‘You seem to know so much about psychopaths,’ she said, her golden-orange eyes locked on Grace, unblinking. ‘It’s such a shame you didn’t recognise one out in the wild. I’ve killed your friend in the car. So the police won’t be coming after all.’
Shannon!
‘Why?’ was all Grace could manage to say.
‘You said it yourself, in the clinic,’ Abigail said. ‘Psychopathy has its upside. We’re not always killers.’ She paused. ‘Well, I am now, but you know what I mean.’ Was that a smile? ‘We can often function normally in society, under the radar. But we also like to get what we want.’
‘I know you,’ said Remy, staring at her.
Bizzy refocused his gun on him.
‘You were at the clinic in Manchester,’ Remy said.
‘I’m flattered you remember.’ She cocked her head to one side.
‘The scans…’ Grace shook her head. ‘It was you. But why?’
‘This…’ – she indicated Sarge and Bizzy – ‘this isn’t my scene at all. But I do like to make money.’
‘You work for them?’ Grace asked, astonished. How could she have got this so wrong?
‘How do you think they get all the information about the crimes? Those court reels are very interesting, so much… detail. And there’s no way the boys could get their hands on the police documents, even though little Mal there does a sterling job on the evidence.’
Mal looked up on hearing his name.
‘I mean it’s no easy job, making those videos,’ Abigail continued, ‘but as you said yourself, psychopaths are more curious than anything else, and if I can make a bit of money on the side…’
Grace looked to Sarge, who nodded. ‘Worth every Penny.’
The pressure was increasing in Mal’s head. He couldn’t stand that ginger-haired bitch. Patronising, greedy snake that she was. He was tired of Bizzy taking the piss and putting him down. He was tired of Sarge’s constant demands. He just wanted it all to go away.
‘Hold on, hold on…’ he muttered to himself. ‘Just a few more hours…’
He imagined Layla standing in the library, peeping from behind one of the bookshelves, smiling at him. If only they could have gone to Scotland together. Got married in Gretna! She would have loved that, probably would have worn flowers in her hair. He felt his eyes begin to prickle.
He snapped out of it when he heard Sarge say, ‘Give Mal the gun, Biz.’
Bizzy slowly held it out, like a child reluctantly sharing a toy.
‘Take it and point it at her, you fucking moron!’ Sarge barked at Mal.
Mal had had enough of Sarge’s shit. He did as he was told, took the gun and pointed it at Grace, but scowled at Sarge behind his back. He looked over to the bookshelves again, imagining Layla there, holding a posy of flowers.
Remy coughed, getting Grace’s attention. He looked down and as she followed his eyeline he was holding out three fingers and then made a trigger-pulling gesture with his thumb and two fingers.
Three guns.
Abigail held Sarge’s gun. Mal held one, and Remy’s was down the back of Bizzy’s belt.
‘I’m tired of this. Mal, kill her,’ Sarge said flatly.
Remy moved towards Bizzy, but Sarge took him down with two vicious punches to the back. He hit the floor and curled up, groaning.
‘Mal?’ said Sarge. ‘What are you waiting for?’
Mal felt everything go quiet around him, as though he was standing in the eye of a storm. The coach, Scotland, a new life… it was so very close. But Sarge was forcing his hand. He had to do something, and do it now.
But when he looked at Grace, he felt sorry for her, sad that her life would end in this way, in a derelict, forgotten building. Sad that, in her innocence, she had come here to rescue Abigail – of all people! – Abigail, who didn’t give a damn whether anyone lived or died, or hurt children, or burned innocent women in their beds.
‘Bizzy, if he doesn’t do it, kill him and then kill her,’ Sarge said.
‘With pleasure, Sarge.’ Bizzy grinned.
Sarge stared at Mal. ‘What’s it going to be then, eh?’
Mal focused on Grace. She turned her attention from Remy lying on the floor, to meet his gaze. ‘I’ve spent years analysing people,’ she told him gently, ‘and I don’t think you want to shoot me.’
In the half-light of the library, Mal saw not Grace’s face, but Layla’s. She stood before him, vulnerable, fragile. Behind her, a pack of men, animals, ready to brutalise and destroy her, to take all the goodness, the joy.
Mal’s gun swerved from Grace to Bizzy.
‘Eh, big fella! You gonna be the hero?’ Bizzy teased him. He grabbed Grace around the neck and swung her in front of him. ‘Careful, you might hit your girlfriend.’
‘Just shoot her, Mal,’ Sarge growled, giving Remy a vicious kick as he struggled to get up. Remy went straight back down again, his body tensed in agony.
Bizzy’s hands moved up and down Grace’s body as he taunted Mal. ‘You’ve fallen for her, haven’t you, you pathetic little bastard!’
Mal shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, trying to get Bizzy’s words – ones that he heard in his father’s voice – out of his head.
‘Just shut the fuck up, Bizzy!’ screamed Mal. ‘Just shut the fuck up!’
‘You haven’t got it in you. I’ve said it all along,’ teased Bizzy. ‘Once a chickenshit, always a chickenshit.’ He started laughing, a horrible, grating, wide-mouthed laugh.
Abigail stood watching, gun in hand, unblinking.
‘Lads!’ Sarge said, irritated. ‘Stop fucking about! Do it, Mal.’
Mal fired.
The bullet clipped Bizzy on the shoulder and he cried out.
He let go of Grace, but she remained rooted to the spot, caught between Mal’s and Abigail’s guns.
‘What the fuck, Mal?’ Bizzy said, looking down at his shoulder, the material of his jacket torn by the bullet, a spray of blood on his cheek. ‘You shot me!’
‘I told you to shoot the bitch!’ yelled Sarge.
Bizzy pulled Remy’s gun out from the back of his belt.
‘You fucking shot me, Mal!’ he said in disbelief.
Mal faced Abigail now. ‘It’s your fault that woman was burned in the bed with Begbroke,’ he said. ‘She was innocent. She shouldn’t have died. She’d still be alive if you hadn’t met Begbroke in that bar and brought him back to the house. You knew what you were doing. You ruined everything.’
He absent-mindedly put his hand up to his pocket to check the zip was still closed tight. He turned to Grace, gun still pointed in Abigail’s direction. ‘I can’t make up for the things I’ve done wrong… but I want to. Maybe if I save you, that means I’ve done something good… something right.’
Grace nodded slowly.
‘Even if that means I have to do something bad,’ he said sadly.
Grace held her breath as Mal seemed distracted momentarily by something she couldn’t see in a dark corner of the library, his shoulders dropped, his lips moved, but she couldn’t hear his words.
Then, suddenly, he refocused, took a strong stance, trained the gun on Abigail and shot her three times. The sound was deafening. Everything in the library seemed to freeze, even Abigail stood motionless for a moment, her face a picture of shock and outrage before she fell to the floor, her head bouncing as it made contact, her gun skittering over the floor towards Sarge and Remy.
As they dived for the gun, Grace turned to Mal. He stood still, gun pointing towards where Abigail had been standing. He was staring into space.
There was a scuffle as Remy and Sarge fought for the gun.
Bizzy turned his gun from Mal towards Remy but was struggling to get a clear shot as Remy and Sarge rolled around the floor.
Grace saw Abigail writhing. She was hit in the legs and stomach. She was still alive, but bleeding. Grace knew the second he had a clear shot Bizzy would kill Remy. She looked around for something to hit him with. Behind him, George’s body caught her eye. His words came back to her. These can be pretty useful in tricky situations. Bizzy had been so busy trying feel her up when he’d done the body search that he hadn’t checked her jacket pocket. She reached in and pulled out a sedative spray. With his focus on the two men, Bizzy didn’t see it coming.
She jumped onto his back and although he fought it, she managed to apply the spray. Moments later, he slumped to the floor. His fingers were curled loosely around the grip of the gun, his eyes glazed. Grace stood on his wrist, grinding her heels on the bone, stooped down and took the gun from him. She stood up and kicked him hard in the groin, all her anger focused on the one spot. He groaned and rolled over before appearing to pass out.
Grace turned back to the fighting men. Sarge held the gun in the air with one hand and with the other delivered a savage blow to Remy’s face. Remy reeled backwards.
Sarge stretched out his arm, pointed the gun in Mal’s direction and fired twice.
Mal fell to the ground.
Remy had righted himself and was coming back for Sarge, who immediately turned his gun on him.
Grace fired at Sarge until the chamber was empty. Some of the bullets missed, hitting bookshelves and breaking windows, but some made contact. His leg, his shoulder, his jaw—
He crumpled on the floor, his face a mess, blood soaking his clothes.
Remy took the gun from his limp hand and held it up, breathless, to show Grace that they were out of danger. She leaned over, hands on her knees, and tried to catch her breath. From the corner of her eye, she saw Mal on the ground, a spray of blood as he coughed.
She moved across to where he lay amidst scattered book pages now soaking up his blood. Kneeling down next to him, she took hold of his hand, which rested on his chest above two dark, pulsing stains.
His eyelids flickered.
‘You saved me,’ she said softly. His hand felt cold and for a brief moment she was reminded of her mother.
‘Layla?’ Mal said, blood bubbling on his lips. ‘Layla?’ he repeated. ‘Scotland,’ he managed to say, his other hand resting on his zipped-up pocket.
‘It’s Grace,’ she said. ‘You saved me. Thank you.’ She didn’t feel the tears, but she saw them as they fell onto his chest and mingled with his blood. He gripped her hand tighter, fear in his eyes now.
From a distance, Grace could hear sirens, the high-pitched urgency of police cars and the plaintive wail of ambulances.
‘They’re coming,’ she told him. ‘Hold on.’ But she could tell they wouldn’t arrive in time. His breaths, shallow and staccato, stopped suddenly and he was motionless.
Grace placed Mal’s other hand on his chest and closed his eyes. She stood up, took one last look and turned away.
‘Remy, they’re coming. You’ve got to go, before they get here.’
They quickly made their way out of the building and ran to the jeep. They saw Shuggie first, leaning over Shannon who was slouched in the front of the car. The windscreen had two bullet holes in it.
‘All clear, Shuggie,’ Remy said.
‘Thank God you’re okay,’ he cried, but it was clear Shannon was in a bad way.
‘Some one came out… I heard the shots… but I was way over there—’ His voice was tremulous, there was blood all over his hands, all over Shannon’s chest. ‘I didn’t get to her in time—’
‘Help’s coming,’ Grace reassured him.
‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t help you,’ Shuggie said, his eyes locked on Shannon. ‘I had to stem the flow of blood.’
‘It’s okay, we got them… it’s okay,’ Grace told him as Remy looked gravely on.
Shannon looked very pale, her eyes closed.
The sirens became louder as Shuggie whispered comfort and encouragement to Shannon. Grace turned to Remy. ‘You’ve got to go. I’ll take it from here.’ He grabbed her very briefly in an awkward hug, before turning and running.
She hurried to the gap in the fence. She bent over to climb through the gap, pausing to look back. Remy stood by the railway line, looking in her direction, nodded once, and was gone in the darkness.
Grace emerged on the other side, where blue and red lights blinded her, waved her arms wildly above her head and shouted, ‘We’re here! We’re here!’