5

He’s out of the grave, filling it in. Not as quickly as he’d like. Always so cautious, always trying to do the perfect job. Patting the soil down with the spade every chance he gets. All the time worrying that someone could be on the way. You have to work fast, and Calum’s working as fast as he reasonably can. Stopping to look at his watch. Twenty minutes to nine. Pausing. He doesn’t know if that’s good or bad. The job’s taking longer than he’d like, but he guessed that would be the case. He’ll be back in the city in less than an hour, he hopes. Going about the cleaning-up process with people still out on the streets–that can’t be good.

Throwing in another spade full of mud. Reaching down and patting it. He’s started by filling in around Kenny and Hardy, making sure they’re kept firmly in place. Now he’s filling up the rest of the empty space in the too-wide, too-shallow grave. And now, with the sweat starting to trickle down his back in an annoying manner, he’s dropping the mud on top of the bodies. He’s immune to the effects now. Once upon a time he might have been moved by the thought of burying a man he knows. Didn’t know Kenny well, but saw him around the club a lot, always said hello. Kenny was a grass. He created this ending for himself when he started talking to the police. There’s no sympathy. You do the job, and you keep your focus.

Calum’s not used to this intensity of work. He’s done burials, of course, but usually with a second pair of hands. He does the killing, and they’re happy to do the spadework. Most people will do anything to avoid being the one who pulls the trigger. The lackey of choice to accompany him on this job turned out to be Kenny, for reasons that were never explained to the driver himself. Jamieson called Calum into his office. Went through the job proposal in all its unfortunate glory. Killing the moneyman was no big deal. Usually Calum would have asked for George Daly, a Jamieson employee, to come along with him on the job. He’s forgiven George for ruining his relationship with Emma. It wouldn’t have been George’s idea to interfere. Would have been Jamieson’s. Or, more likely, Young’s. Protecting their investment in their number-one gunman. Get rid of the girl who’s become a part of his life. A good gunman needs to be isolated. He doesn’t hate George for scaring her away. He just hates the life he has to live.

Stop thinking about it. For God’s sake, keep your focus. There’s so much to do. Tonight will be busy; the next few days will be busy. Concentrate on getting the soil into the awkward little gaps between the bodies and the wall of the grave. Use every available inch of space. Filling in fast, arms starting to burn. The sweat’s running off him now. Forcing him to accept that the donkeywork that’s so often done by others isn’t as easy as it looks. This is going to take longer than anticipated. How the hell does George fill these things in so fast? He’s been working at this for more than ten minutes and Calum’s only just covered the bodies. Another five minutes to fill it up completely. It looks okay, though. Not much of a mound, if any at all. Certainly nothing that’ll be out of place in this bumpy area.

Now the turf at the top. What a bloody mess Kenny made of it. Jesus, look at it! His last job, and Kenny fucked it up. In a typical burial you have four or five strips of turf, usually three or four feet long. Done well, you can be left with only a couple of strips, carefully rolled up and then rolled back out again when you’re re-laying them. Depends on the turf. Kenny, in his infinite wonder, has managed to hack it into at least twenty pieces. No time to stop and count. Calum could almost believe that Kenny had done it on purpose. Pick out the pieces; push them in hard against the undisturbed turf at the edge. Work your way across from one side to the other. Pushing them in as tight as possible, sometimes tucking a piece under the edge of its neighbour. Make sure every piece is returned, and that the final picture is as close to its original state as possible. Calum’s stepping back and looking at his work. Not good. Thank you very much, the late Kenny McBride. It’s an obvious patchwork. It will knit together in time. Maybe quite quickly. The hope is that nobody stumbles across it before it does. It’s not perfect, and that’s going to nag at Calum.

Too much work to do to stand and worry. It’s done. He’s throwing his own and Kenny’s shovels into the tarpaulin that was used to collect the dug-up mud. Rolling it up, shovels inside. Lifting it carefully and checking the ground underneath. Well, they got that bit right at least. There’s no telltale thin film of mud on the ground beside the grave. Without the tarpaulin they would never have got every speck back into the grave. It would be all too obvious that someone had been digging here. Calum’s now carrying the tarpaulin sheet back to the car. Opening the boot and throwing the tarp in. Ready to leave. Always a good feeling to leave the scene of a burial. Tonight’s different, for all sorts of reasons. Tonight Calum’s stopping beside the driver’s door and looking across to the trees. The headlights illuminating the scene. Taking it all in.

Pulling slowly away. Don’t go screeching and skidding and creating tyre marks. Driving slowly and carefully along the narrow lane, back to the road. Wouldn’t it be just his luck to drive the bloody thing into a ditch and get stuck there? What a story that would be to tell his fellow inmates when he’s serving life. Got caught on the way out. Didn’t see the edge of the road. Oh, how they’d laugh. Looking at the clock on the dashboard. One minute past nine. Still no idea if that’s good or bad. He knows it’s bad that he’s working at this hour. Knows that a job shouldn’t be carried out when the world around you is still awake and alert. No choice. Needed to pick Hardy up at an hour that would convince him to get into the car. You turn up at his house at two in the morning and he might refuse. They would have had to put together a fake warrant. First rule: keep everything as simple as possible.

Driving back into the city. Taking a different route, but still trying to keep away from the main roads. His first target is the only one he scouted yesterday. It was all at such short notice. Not for the job itself, but for Calum’s own plans. If he can just get this right, it could change everything. The first job is getting rid of the tarp, shovels and Hardy’s identifiable belongings. Then the car. He scouted a location for ditching the tarp. Supposed to go back to a garden shed that Jamieson uses–a random house in a random street that happens to be owned by a Jamieson man. A trusted man. The man would wait a couple of days and safely ditch whatever little surprises he happens to find in his shed. He’s not warned in advance, so he’ll be expecting nothing. That’s a good thing; Calum can’t have someone wondering if the job’s been done. Can’t have anyone asking questions. Not yet. Not for a while. So he’s parking up on a building site he found yesterday afternoon. Harder than it used to be to find a good building site. Nobody around. Opening the boot, placing the wallet and car keys with the shovels inside the rolled-up tarp. Taking out the tarp. Another look round, and he’s hurling it into a half-filled skip. More building-material detritus will be thrown on top of it, and it will all be carted away.

Now the car. This is easier. This is the old routine. Driving east to his brother’s garage. His older brother William has a majority share in a garage from which Calum borrows cars for jobs. People bring a car in to be fixed; William lets Calum borrow it for a few hours. Rarely more than that. William asks no questions. He knows enough to realize that knowing more would be dangerous. Calum’s own car is parked on the street outside the garage. There’s a parking space three cars down from it. Calum’s driving slowly, taking a careful look up and down the street. Nobody in view. Calum once asked his brother if there were CCTV cameras on the street. William laughed. There aren’t many businesses on this street any more. Nobody is going to pay for that. Nobody wants it. William’s is not the only business with little things to hide.

Stepping out of the car and onto the street. The keys are in the visor, he’s closing the door. He doesn’t want to be seen with the car. The car might become the key to any police investigation. They might work out that it was used in the disappearance of two men. They might appeal for anyone who saw it this night. Dropping into his own car. Familiarity. Wonderful, comforting familiarity. Pulling down the visor, the keys dropping into his lap. You take nothing with you on a job, not even your car keys. Starting up and pulling away. Driving back to his flat and parking two streets away. A flat that’s never felt like home. That never will. If he could, he would never go back. Doesn’t have that luxury. One last visit.

He’s touching the front of his coat, feeling the shape of the gun. Should have got rid of it. On any other night, any other job, he would. But this isn’t any other job. This, he intends, will be his last.