Chapter 4.08
Pish . . .
Now the light was on, the thing that Roberta tripped over was clearly visible: a nice big holdall. The sort of bag you could put clothes for a week in, or smuggle a firearm past someone’s sweet, but unsuspecting, wife.
Lund said Davey had parking tickets and a shotgun licence.
Should’ve paid more attention to little details like that.
Roberta forced a smile. Voice all chummy. ‘Davey. Let’s not be—’
‘Turns out, I have nothing to lose anymore. I’m broke. The bank’s gonna take our home. And now Jenny’s . . .’ For a moment, it looked as if his whole face was about to burst. But he bit his lip and forced it down. ‘The good news is: I’m going to join her!’
Which explained the gun.
Bit of a shitty thing to do in someone else’s house, though. Spray your brains all over the walls and ceiling. Leaving them to clean up the sticky, gritty mess.
‘Come on, Davey, that’s not—’
‘The better news is: you’re coming with me.’
She stood up straight, chest out, teeth bared. Fists tightening on mug and tumbler. ‘I swear to God, if you’ve hurt any of my family . . .’
‘What?’ He flinched back into the chair. ‘No! I would never do something like that. If anything, I’m doing them a favour – getting rid of you, before you screw their lives up the way you screwed up mine.’
Genghis stopped his sniffing and scampered over to stand guard in front of Roberta. Hackles up. Even managed to muster a growl twice his size.
Good boy.
‘I screwed . . .?’ Roberta glowered at Davey. ‘I’m no’ the one who invested all my cash on the American market! I’m no’ the one who couldn’t find his arse with a search team and Dog Unit, never mind missing people!’
The shotgun raised, until she was looking straight down the barrels. His jaw tightened. ‘Be very careful.’
‘Why, what you gonna do: shoot me?’ A snort. ‘You were a crap detective sergeant and you’re an even crapper private eye!’
Which was Genghis’s cue to snarl and bark-bark-bark. Not exactly intimidating, but at this point Roberta would take any help she could get.
Davey clambered out of his seat, looming over the wee lad. ‘Shut up you stupid—’
And Genghis launched himself at Davey’s ankles, teeth snapping. A hairy wee piranha with the heart of a Dobermann.
‘AAAAAAARGH! GET OFF! GET OFF!’ Davey twirled in a tight circle, but Genghis kept at it. Till Davey swung a foot back, then booted it straight into Genghis’s ribs, sending the poor lad tumbling.
Yelping and yipping and whining in pain.
‘BASTARD!’ Roberta launched herself at him, but the shotgun swung around and roared.
In the confined space of the spare room, it was like taking a hammer to her eardrums.
She battered into Davey – shoving him backwards, swinging that mug of Ovaltine.
It smashed against his cheek in a firework-burst of broken porcelain and freshly boiled malty-milk drink. Because a scalding-hot beverage could be a formidable weapon in the right hands.
Davey stumbled backwards, screaming, shoulders clattering into the bedroom window – bouncing off the double glazing.
As he ricocheted, the gun’s barrels swung up and over, bashing down against his right shoulder.
She made a grab for the thing, fingers latching onto the wooden stock, but Davey yanked it away.
Must’ve tightened his grip on the trigger, because the shotgun thundered again – only this time the windowpane took the full brunt.
Glass exploded out into the night, sparkling and glittering like sharp cubes of snow, filling the air with the bitter-sharp stench of a thousand fireworks.
‘GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!’ Roberta swung her whisky tumbler like an axe, catching him bang in the face. The cut crystal shattered, spraying neat spirit into his eyes. Leaving razor-sharp edges that carved their way through Davey’s cheek, across his nose, and out through the opposite eyebrow.
His scream went up an octave. Scalded on one side, slashed on the other, with forty percent alcohol searing in the wounds.
Eyes screwed shut, Davey reared backwards, trying to escape the pain. Only now there was no double glazing left to bounce off, so he went straight through the tattered window – wailing as he Hans Grubered his way to the ground, eighteen feet below.
Must’ve landed with quite a thud.
Difficult to tell after two short-range shotgun blasts. Everything was one high-pitched screech, ringing in Roberta’s ears.
She leaned out through the shattered bedroom window and stuck two fingers up at the crumpled body moaning and twitching in the rose bushes.
One of his legs looked a very funny shape.
Ha, ha, ha, ha . . .
Pretty sure knees weren’t meant to bend that way. And arms were only supposed to have one elbow.
She made loudhailers with her hands, because his ears were probably ringing with tinnitus, like hers, and it would be a shame if he missed this: ‘HASTA LA VISTA, DAVEY!’
Then Roberta staggered back a couple of steps, turning as the door banged open.
And there was Susan – an antique golf club clutched in both hands like Thor’s hammer, ready to wreak vengeance.
‘WHERE’S GENGHIS?’ Roberta half-fell against the newly-vacated chair. Eyes raking the spare room. ‘GENGHIS?’
Susan’s eyes went wide. ‘Robbie? Oh God, Robbie, what happened? You’re bleeding!’
Was she?
‘GENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN-GHIS!’ Then her wobbly legs gave out and down she went, bouncing off the spare bed, and thunking onto her knees.
From down here, it was easy to see the smear of scarlet that disappeared under the bed. ‘Oh, my brave wee man . . .’ Roberta lifted the valance.
Genghis lay on his side, in among the dust bunnies, still and silent – his hind legs a mess of torn fur and blood.
Roberta scooped him up in her arms and howled.