Peter Robinson - Gallows View

Robin was on his feet, quite close to her. She could hear him breathing quickly. She backed away and found herself between the projector and the screen. The projection of the nude model distorted as it wrapped around her figure like an avant-garde dress design, and she froze again as a transformed Robin moved closer.

Mick gobbled up another mouthful of pills and went over to the window again. It was dark outside and the tall sodium lights glowed an eerie red the way they always did before they turned jaundice yellow.

Still no sign. Mick started pacing the room again, one batch of amphetamines wearing off and the new ones beginning to take effect. Sweat prickled on his forehead and skull, itching between the spikes of hair. His heart was pounding like a barrage of artillery, but he didn't feel good. He was worried. Where the hell was Trevor? The bastard was supposed to arrive two hours ago.

As the lights yellowed like old paper, Mick got more edgy and jittery. The room felt claustrophobic, too small to contain him. His muscles were straining at his clothes and his brain felt like it was pushing at the inner edges of his skull. Something was going on. They were onto him. He looked out of the window again, careful not to be seen this time.

There was a man in a homburg walking his Jack Russell. He'd been walking that dog for hours up and down the street by the edge of The Green, under the lights, and Mick was sure he kept glancing covertly toward the house. A little further into The Green, where the lights of the posher houses at the other side seemed to twinkle between the leaves and branches that danced in the breeze, a young couple stood under a tree. The girl was leaning against the tree and the boy was talking to her, one arm outstretched, supporting his weight on the trunk above her head. Sure, they looked like lovers, Mick thought. That was the idea. But he wasn't fooled. He could see the way she kept looking sideways at him when she should have been paying closer attention to her man. He was probably speaking into a walkie-talkie or a microphone hidden in his lapel. They were communicating with the dog-walker. And they weren't the only ones. Deeper in the trees, what he had thought to be shadows and thick tree trunks turned into people, and if he listened closely enough he could hear them whispering to each other.

He put his hands over his ears and retreated into the room. He put a loud rock record on the stereo to shut out the noise of the whisperers, but it didn't work; they were in his head already, and even the music seemed part of a sinister plot. It was meant to put him off-guard, that was it. He snatched at the needle, scratching the record, and returned to the window. Vigilance, that was what was called for.

Nothing had changed. The man with the dog was walking back down the street. He stopped by a tree, holding the leash loosely and looking up at the sky as the dog cocked its leg. The couple on The Green was pretending to kiss now.

Perhaps there was time to get away, Mick thought, licking his lips and wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. He had to get himself ready. They probably didn't even know he was there yet. To escape, though, meant leaving the window for a few minutes, something he couldn't bear to do. But he had to. He couldn't let them catch him unprepared.

He dashed upstairs to Lenny's room first and pulled out the heavy gun from under the mattress; then he went into his own messy room and took all his cash out of its hiding place, a hollowed-out book called The Practical Way To Keep Fit. He had almost a hundred pounds. It should be enough.

Rushing back downstairs, he grabbed his parka from the hook in the hall, shoved the gun and money into its deep pockets and went back to watch from the window. Now he was ready. Now he could take on anybody. The familiar effect of the pills was returning. He felt the weight of the big gun in his pocket and waves of adrenaline surged through his veins, flooding him with a sense of power and well-being. But he had to do something; he had so much energy it was boiling over.

The man with the dog had gone and the young couple had moved to another tree. They thought they could fool him, but he wasn't that stupid. The Green was full of young couples now. They leaned against every tree, pretending to be kissing and feeling each other up. Mick felt a jolt of energy in his loins as he watched the erotic tableau of shadows.

When the police car finally came, he was ready. He saw its headlights approaching slowly, dispersing the watchers on The Green as its beams sought the right house, and he left softly by the back door. He had a plan. There was only one sensible thing he could do, and that was get out of Eastvale, disappear, go down to join Lenny in London for a while. To get out of Eastvale, he had to cross The Green, then the river, and walk up around the castle to the bus station at the back of the market square. It was no good running east; in that direction there was nothing but fields and the long flat vale; he would be an easy target out in the open there. Cautiously, he edged down the back alley to the end of the block, where a narrow snicket separated two terraces. As he crept out into the street again, he was about four houses north of the police. Now all he had to do was disappear quietly into the trees and he was home free.

He crossed the street without attracting any attention and stood on the verge of The Green. The police were still knocking at his door and trying to peer in through the windows, the fools. A few more paces and he would be among the' shadows, the shadows that belonged to him again. Suddenly, a voice called out behind him and for a moment he stopped dead in his tracks, feeling the adrenaline prickle inside him.

"Hey, you!" the voice called again. "Stop where you are! Police!"

For a second he thought it was all over, that they had him, but then he remembered he had an edge-the gun and the power he felt crackling inside him. The new plan came as a brainstorm, and he laughed out loud at the beauty of it as he ran across The Green with the police close behind, still shouting. He would never make it to the bus station, he knew that now, and even if he did they would be waiting for him, talking to each other on the airwaves. So he had to improvise, try something different.

The light was on. That was a good sign. Without hesitating, he leaped up the steps three at a time and ran his shoulder into the front door. It didn't give at once. The police were clearing the trees now, only about seventy-five yards away. Mick took a few paces back and crashed into the door again. This time it splintered open. The woman, alarmed by his first attempt, was peering, frightened, through a door in the hallway. Mick rushed in, grabbed her by her hair and dragged her to the front window. The police were halfway across the street by now. Taking out his gun, Mick smashed the window and held Jenny up by the hair.

"Stop!" he screamed at them. "Don't move another inch! I've got a gun and I've got the woman, and if you don't do what I say I'll fucking shoot the bitch."

Even Robin's voice was different. It had lost its timber of shy cheerfulness and become forced and clipped.

Sandra edged backwards until she could feel the screen against her back. She was almost perfectly lined up with the projected model, whose image was wrapped around her body, the girl's face superimposed on her own.

"Robin," she said as calmly and quietly as she could manage, "you don't really want to do this, do you? Don't let things go too far."

"I have to," Robin said tersely. "It's already gone beyond."

"Beyond what?"

"Beyond where I thought I could go."

"You can still stop it."

"No."

"Yes, you can," Sandra insisted gently.