Doug Johnstone - Hit and run

Far off to the left, Billy noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Smoke. Impossible to tell the source from here, it was a few miles away, but a steady column of black was billowing up into the lilac spread of sky. Billy thought he heard the distant wail of sirens.

Charlie still hadn’t spoken. Billy felt the weight of his injuries pressing down on him, crushing him. His eyelids drooped and he raised an unsteady hand to the bump on his head. It didn’t seem to have gone down at all since the accident. When was that? He’d lost all sense of time. Maybe he would have the lump on his head for ever, a permanent reminder.

‘We need to get you to hospital,’ Charlie said.

Billy had his head in both hands now. ‘You didn’t answer my question.’

‘What question?’

‘I asked if you had anything else to tell me.’

Billy raised his head. Charlie’s hand was still on his shoulder.

‘No,’ Charlie said. ‘Nothing.’

Billy put his hand on Charlie’s wrist and gripped tight. He still couldn’t make out his brother’s face properly. Over his shoulder in the distance the smoke was still coughing upwards, and Billy thought he saw a flicker of flame licking the rooftops down there. Just a sliver.

‘Do you think I should try to make it up with Zoe?’

‘I think you should get back to hospital right now, or it won’t matter a fuck what you do.’

‘That’s not an answer.’

Billy’s grip tightened on his brother’s wrist. He felt sick as he glanced behind Charlie and down the steep slope to Queen’s Drive.

‘I don’t know what the hell you should do.’

‘I’m asking your advice. As my big brother.’

‘I think you should worry about it once you’re better.’

‘And when will that be? It feels like I’ll never be better.’

Charlie placed his other hand on top of Billy’s.

‘Look, Bro, you’ve suffered post-traumatic stress and serious injuries. You need to lie down and do nothing for as long as it takes to press the reset button on your life.’

Billy let out a laugh. ‘Press the reset button? Switch me off and back on again, yeah? See if I manage to reboot?’

‘If you like.’

Billy felt himself squeezing his brother’s wrist. Charlie’s other hand was covering his, and Billy felt his hesitation.

‘You have no idea what it’s been like for me.’

‘Of course…’

‘My brother and my girlfriend betraying me.’

‘What?’

A thudding silence.

‘You both persuaded me to leave Frank in the road when I was going to report it.’

A loosening of the tension in Charlie’s grip. He let out a breath.

‘I’m not going over all that again.’

He lowered his hands.

Billy felt the electrical circuit broken, their link to each other severed.

Charlie turned side on, looking to the south of the city.

‘Looks like something’s burning, out near The Inch.’

Billy looked at his brother’s outline, thick against the sickly shimmer of street lights beyond. He had never been able to fight his brother. Never been able to win, at least. Bigger, stronger, smarter. The closest thing to a dad he’d ever had.

He gazed at the drop directly beneath them, his blood thumping in his skull. He felt something wet against his hand. Jeanie’s tongue. Jeanie nuzzled in for comfort and he grabbed her emaciated body and held on to her. He squeezed her until she writhed out of his grasp and mooched away to a nearby bush.

Something clicked in Billy’s head.

‘Did you say The Inch?’

Charlie turned. ‘Yeah, around there anyway.’

Billy got up and stood next to his brother. The smoke was obvious now, spreading up into the night, thinning out and diffusing into the ether. The tips of flames occasionally licked above the roofline.

Billy gazed at it for a second, then pulled his phone from his pocket. He made a call and waited. Four rings, then a pick up.

‘Rose?’

‘Billy? Jesus, it’s the middle of the night.’

‘I’m up on the Radical Road…’

‘What are you doing there? You’ve just had brain surgery.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I have a question for you.’

‘You’re supposed to be resting.’

‘I know. Just one question. Where do the Mackies live?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Just tell me.’

He heard a yawn, a sigh. ‘Walter Scott Avenue.’

‘Is that in The Inch?’

‘Yeah. Why?’

Billy thought of Dean and his goons. Burning clothes, petrol canister, laughing and joking.

He stared at the smoke, fingers spreading out above the city.

Charlie was looking at him with a confused frown.

‘I think our story just escalated again,’ Billy said.

Two dozen neighbours stood watching as firefighters clumped about in their heavy gear looking busy. There were three engines blocking the street, each with a couple of men directing a hose at different parts of the sixties pebble-dashed house that was already half demolished by the flames pouring through window frames and doorways. The flashing lights from the engines mingled with the bonfire to create an unearthly glow, like a party in purgatory.

Some of the neighbours were in pyjamas and nightgowns, others in clothes they’d thrown on. There were lots of kids, smaller ones clinging to parents, older ones in groups laughing and mucking about. This was clearly the most exciting thing to happen to Walter Scott Avenue in a while.

Billy parked the Micra and climbed out. He got suspicious stares from nearby. Not one of the locals. A nightshift news hack and a photographer that Billy recognised were standing close to the engines, one soliciting quotes from anyone he could find, the other snapping away for tomorrow’s paper. They probably wouldn’t realise the significance of who the owners of the house were, but they’d get told when they got back to the office.

Billy kept away from them. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He was meant to be in hospital. But this was his story, he was all over it, everything about it had seeped into his bloodstream and infected his brain.

He shook his head and cricked his neck. Shafts of pain everywhere. He swallowed two painkillers and two uppers then leaned against the car for a moment. Jeanie was in the front passenger seat, shuffling around in the tight space, tail flicking, eyes bright with the reflection of the fire.

Rose had thanked him for the information and told him in no uncertain terms to get back to hospital. Charlie had told him the same thing. He’d agreed with both of them and walked slowly back down the Radical Road, Jeanie close to him, Charlie alongside, the three of them in heavy silence.

Outside the flat, Billy said he didn’t want to go inside in case he saw Zoe. He didn’t want to face up to that. Charlie said he understood, and ducked inside to pick up the car key to drive Billy to hospital. As soon as Charlie was in the door, Billy scurried to the Micra, bustled Jeanie in, started the engine and pulled out. His hands trembled on the wheel as he imagined slamming into a parked car, or simply not stopping at the end of the street, ploughing across South Clerk Street into the kebab shop over the road.

He turned left and headed south. He followed the plumes of black smoke, down Minto Street and past Cameron Toll, until he was at The Inch. Didn’t take long, but his phone rang four times. Charlie. Fuck him. Brothers looking out for each other. Like fuck.

Now, standing in front of the Mackies’ torched home, he wasn’t sure why he’d come. Maybe just out of guilt. It was his fault this had happened. It was all his fault. But so what? These weren’t exactly nice people, they were violent psychos and criminals. It was good that their house burnt down, one less vipers’ nest in the city.