Felicity Young - Take Out

‘Poor baby,’ Stevie said.

Lilly chuckled.

‘I wouldn’t be thinking that was so funny if I was you, Senior Sergeant Stephanie Hooper.’

Stevie stared unwavering at the woman before her. ‘How long have you known who I was?’

‘From the moment you reserved that DVD: name, address the works. After a quick word with that tall, blabbermouth cop, I figured out what was behind all them questions of yours; you weren’t the painter you were pretending to be, you were some bitch of a cop.’

‘And you killed Skye?’

‘He did.’ With the shotgun, Granger pointed in the direction her son had gone. ‘Nice girl; often picked up takeaway from us. He heard her phoning you outside the deli, knew she must have found something out from the old dear. Well whaddaya know—we thought she only spoke gobbledegook.’

Mrs Hardegan stiffened in her chair.

‘And he had a go at me in Freo, too.’ Stevie deliberately omitted Fowler’s name, even though she had a feeling he would be next on their list. ‘Was it The Crow who gave my daughter the magazine?’

‘Just one of his little jokes, always had a great sense of humour.’

Using the side of the chair Stevie hauled herself to her feet. Granger didn’t try to stop her, although she did keep the shotgun barrel pointing steadily at her chest. Stevie staggered as another wave of dizziness swept through her, forcing her to reach for the arm of the chair. When she looked down, she noticed the front of her shirt saturated with blood.

The Crow entered the room through the back door with a sloshing can of fuel.

Something cold rolled down Stevie’s spine. ‘You’ve been using Pavel’s car—where’ve you kept it hidden?’ she said, desperately bidding for time.

‘Just at the deli garage, love; changed the plates, only use it at night.’ Granger paused and looked to her son as he circled Mrs Hardegan’s chair with the fuel, the same way he’d done with the brandy. ‘You’d have liked to have used that car more often—wouldn’t you, son? We can have it painted when this business is over with, then you can use it whenever you like.’ To Stevie she explained, ‘The Crow loves the finer things in life. Lucky our delis pay so well.’

A horrible rasping sound escaped through the sneer of her son’s mouth. Eva seemed to understand what he was saying, though Stevie hadn’t a clue.

‘You bought that deli so you could keep an eye on the Pavels?’ Stevie asked.

‘One of many small businesses.’

‘A handy way of laundering money. And I guess you staff them with ignorant teenagers like Leila who wouldn’t think to ask too many questions.’

‘But more than anything, The Crow likes the sound of cooking meat.’ Granger was clearly keener to terrorise them with tales about her son than to explain her business practices. ‘Nothing like the sizzle and pop of the eyeballs as they explode like overcooked eggs—isn’t that right, son?’

The Crow smiled, revealing a row of perfect, bone-white teeth. He finished pouring the circle of petrol, grabbed Mrs Hardegan’s telephone and yanked out the cord. He looked toward his mother. This time it was he giving the silent instructions. These two didn’t seem to need words. With an eerie sense of wonder Stevie marvelled at the bond between them.

‘Grab the cop’s stuff first,’ Granger said. ‘We may as well take it with us and get rid of it—it’ll make identifying her body that bit harder.’

The Crow pulled Stevie’s wallet from her jeans pocket and put it in her bag from the coffee table along with the pieces of her crushed phone. He placed the bag by the door to collect on their way out.

Mamasan gave Stevie two sharp prods to the stomach. Stevie doubled up, making the pain appear worse than it was and collapsed across the sewing table. As she lay there, her heart thumping wildly against her ribs, she thought, I only have one chance. Reach under the tapestry into the open sewing basket and grab the sewing scissors. Leap at the skanky bitch before she gives the shotgun back to her son. No mercy, rip right into her.

The scissors felt cold in her hot, blood-sticky fingers. Still bent over the table she made a play at gathering her breath, poking the small pair of scissors up the open cuff of her shirt, blades pointing towards her wrist. She pushed her palms against the table and readied herself for the spring.

And slipped on a pool of her own blood. Chin-first she hit the table hard.

She groaned, more from frustration than pain. Another vicious prod of the gun barrel made her pull back and she found herself crammed next to Lilly on the armchair.

The Crow wrapped the telephone cord around them. The old-style cord, a knotted rope of wires, only just reached and he had to use all his strength to pull it tight. Stevie felt the old lady next to her straining against the cord, wheezing as she struggled for breath.

The Crow reached into his pocket. It wasn’t a lighter he pulled out this time; it was a small metal tube.

‘This is one cremation we won’t stick around for, son,’ Granger said. To Stevie she added, ‘We need to reach the other cop before he hears about your death and goes to ground. If we play this right, he’ll cark it at about the same time as you.’

Stevie stared hard at the small tube The Crow held up in his hand. It looked like the homemade timer bomb Aubin said had been used to destroy her house.

‘An incendiary device,’ Granger read her mind. ‘By the time this acid mixture eats through the cork and reaches the fuel, we’ll be long gone.’

Stevie craned her neck around the side of the chair. She remembered Paul Aubin saying ‘cocky to the point of stupidity’. But these people weren’t stupid. They were confident. They thought they were in control.

The Crow placed the tube upside down at the circle of fuel behind them, where they hadn’t a chance of knocking it away with their feet.

With a rush of panic, Stevie twisted at her bonds. The scissors dug into the flesh of her good arm. There was slight room for movement but pain from her damaged shoulder prevented her from twisting far enough to reach them. Lilly seemed to be aware of what she was trying to do and attempted to reach them herself. Like Stevie she managed to move a few centimetres but had to give up, her arms pinned too tight.

Stevie wondered at what rate the acid was eating through the cork. They might have five minutes; they might have half an hour. The Crow and Granger didn’t seem to be in too much of a hurry despite their plan to visit Fowler next.

‘It’ll be all too easy for the cops to tell this wasn’t an accident,’ Stevie said, craning her head back towards Granger, now rooting through the drawers of Lilly’s oak dresser.

‘Couldn’t care less, love, it won’t be traced back to us. And besides, if things do start to get a little er, hot, we’ll just move on like we always do.’ To her son, rifling the drawers next to her, she said, ‘Turn the drawers out, make it look like robbery.’

Stevie discovered she could see what was going on behind them in the reflection of the TV without having to strain her neck. Granger pulled open the cutlery drawer and dumped the contents on the floor. She picked up a knife. ‘Silver plate,’ she said to her son. ‘Shame to waste it but I can’t risk it being traced.’

‘Cheap picnic set,’ Lilly said under her breath.

Stevie turned to look over the top of the armchair. A thin spiral of smoke rose from the metal tube behind them.

Granger saw it too. ‘C’mon son, we’d best get going.’

About to sweep the contents of the sideboard to the floor, The Crow came across the picture of Lilly’s husband in the silver photo frame. He held it up for his mother to see. Granger brought the frame to her mouth and tested it with her teeth. ‘Solid, but leave it, son, we can’t bother with this kinda junk.’