The door opened. They all stared. Dougie appeared. His hands were placed on top of his head; behind him, prodding him forward with a gun, was a big, muscular guy with very dark hair.
A unified reaction. What the hell was going on?
For Ray, this was like something from a nightmare. Him of all people. God alone knew what McDonald was doing here, but here he was, larger than life, and with a gun in Dougie’s back. He’d killed Jordan, he’d killed Chris, he wouldn’t hesitate to add another couple of Millar employees to the tally. Ray had no more fight in him. He knew when he was beaten. His shoulders slumped and he bent forward, put the knife on the ground and kicked it across the floor into a corner as a sign of surrender.
All he could do was hope for mercy and that maybe McDonald wouldn’t want to execute them in front of witnesses.
Wemyss put his head round the door and looked at Hanlon slightly sheepishly.
‘Wemyss!’ she called out in delight. The dog was alive. He barked and ran over to her. She crouched down and put her arms around him; he wagged his tail furiously.
‘Over there, with your friend,’ said McDonald to Dougie. He walked over to Ray as instructed.
The man looked at Hanlon and Luke. ‘I’m Jamie McDonald,’ he said.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ Hanlon said, ‘and who are these two arseholes?’ pointing to Ray and Dougie.
‘That’s Ray,’ said McDonald. ‘I don’t know his name though,’ he said, pointing at Dougie. ‘You gonna tell us, then, Big Man?’
‘Dougal,’ said Dougie sulkily. ‘Can I put my hands down now?’
‘Aye.’
Dougie did so.
‘Now, you two,’ said McDonald, waving the gun at them, ‘can fuck off. You can do something useful.’ Ray and Dougie looked at each other in astonished surprise. ‘Go back to Glasgow and when you find Millar, tell him he’s a cunt. Off you go…’ he said.
Ray and Dougie left hurriedly without a backward glance, before McDonald could change his mind. McDonald followed and watched as they exited the apartment and the door closed behind them.
Hanlon glanced over at Luke. Relief was written all over his face. She noticed that he was trembling.
‘I don’t know about anyone else,’ Luke said, shakily, ‘but I need a drink.’
Ray and Dougie walked in silence to the street below. Ray was both grateful to be alive and equally terrified of what Millar was going to do to them. However, there was no way on earth they were going to return and try and rectify the situation.
‘How’s my chin looking?’ he asked as they stood outside in the street in the cold rain of the night, illuminated by the security light.
Dougie stared. ‘There’s blood all down your throat. Hang on a minute…’
They reached their car and there was a bottle of water in the foot-well of the back seat. Ray tilted his head upwards while Dougie wet his scarf and gently cleaned the blood off.
‘That looks fine now, apart from the shirt… at least it’s stopped bleeding.’
Ray zipped his black Moschino jacket up.
‘That’s better, you look presentable. What the fuck are we going to do, Ray?’
Ray leaned forward and kissed him. He didn’t want Dougie to know he was equally confused. ‘First of all, Dougie, we’re going to have a drink at that pub over there.’
They walked over to the bar. The place was empty except for them. While Dougie was at the bar, Ray thought, God, what just happened?
He felt exhausted and sick. Shock, he guessed. Then, to his surprise, an overwhelming sense of relief. At least I haven’t had to kill two people, he thought. It was an epiphany of sorts. He remembered looking at the two faces, the woman staring at him with hatred, the boy – he guessed he was some kind of artist, that much was obvious; he couldn’t have been more than about twenty – with worry.
He was so beautiful and so young. If McDonald hadn’t appeared he would have been forced to put a bullet in their heads. There would have been no choice. Those had been his orders. God knows, he hadn’t wanted to, but he had been thinking of Millar. It was either those two or him and Dougie. He would have made it quick. Hopefully it would all have been over before they could work out what was happening.
He’d have shot the woman first, she was the dangerous one.
He exhaled. I’m no killer, he thought. Whatever else I am, I’m not that. What a nightmare.
Fucking Millar.
What are we going to do?
Dougie returned from the bar. They sat in a corner with their drinks and Dougie quietly repeated his question from earlier.
‘What are we going to do?’
They both knew the trouble they were in. Millar would kill them. They’d been warned not to fail, they’d had the cost of failure explained to them, and, boy, had they failed! And it was a spectacular failure. They hadn’t killed Hanlon and they’d been humiliated by McDonald, of all people, someone else they had previously failed to kill. McDonald hadn’t even bothered to kill them. Ray guessed it was because he didn’t want to do it in front of witnesses. He thought things would probably have turned out a lot differently if he’d surprised them in a deserted park. They’d be face-down dead now, like Falkirk Chris.
But here they were, alive. Millar would take it as a personal insult. Ray knew how his mind worked – he might even think that they were in league with McDonald.
He saw Dougie looking at him hopefully. Dougie’s thought processes transparently clear. Ray was a bright guy. He would know what to do.
He drank his pint of lager in two long swallows. Ray wasn’t far behind him and sent him back to get another couple of pints.
When Dougie returned from the bar with the drinks, Ray had formulated a plan. Of sorts.
‘Well… do you think it’s likely that McDonald or that kid or Hanlon are going to get in touch with Millar?’ asked Ray.
‘No, of course not,’ Dougie said.
‘OK, this is what we’re going to do,’ Ray said decisively, numbering the points he was making on his fingers, ‘We’re going back to the flat, we’re going to pack a bag, we’re going to go and stay somewhere out of Edinburgh… somewhere hard to find. We’re going to have a nice meal, and we’re going to tell Millar that the job is done, that Hanlon’s dead, and then we’re going to hide somewhere and we’re going to hope that McDonald kills Millar.’
‘Is that likely?’ Dougie said, dubiously. As plans went, it sounded sketchy to say the least.
‘Dougie, I haven’t got a clue,’ Ray said, sighing, ‘but McDonald’s doing bloody well so far. Jordan, dead, Chris, dead, us… well, he could have killed us, and, the way I see it, he hasn’t got much choice. Millar wants him dead. It’s kill or be killed. But whether or not he succeeds in killing him, one thing is beyond any reasonable doubt.’ He took a drink of lager. ‘Millar will kill us. We’ve really fucked it up, of that there’s no doubt.’
‘No,’ said Dougie with a wry smile, ‘no doubt at all.’