Doug Johnstone - Hit and run

He scanned the crowd, looking for Wayne or Jamie Mackie. Come to think of it, he’d never actually seen Jamie in the flesh, only his mugshot in several of the Standard?’s recent stories. But he had shotgun wounds to his leg and arm, so he should be easy to spot.

There were plenty of the Mackies’ type hanging around, zigzags in their hair, lurid gold chains, expensive chunky white trainers, muscles on show, air of arrogant cockiness.

He spotted the girl. The one who’d been hanging around with Wayne at the hospital. She was standing nearest to the blaze with a couple of other girls, none of them much older than eighteen, if that. She was twirling a strand of hair around her finger with one hand, taking pictures with her phone.

He walked over, his feet unsteady as he pushed himself away from the car. Behind him, Jeanie nudged at the glass of the passenger window, keen to follow.

‘Where are Wayne and Jamie?’ he said.

She turned. He saw a tongue piercing glinting in the flames. The heat from the building was intense here, and he felt like clawing at the itch under his bandages, scraping away the scalp underneath.

‘Who the fuck wants to know?’

She looked at him side on with big brown eyes, like she was posing for a Facebook profile. Used to being looked at. She was pretty but it was hidden, layers of make-up, sharp fringe, baggy top and micro skirt, big hoop earrings.

‘I’m a friend of theirs.’

‘Like fuck you are.’ She laughed. Her two pals turned and began scoping him.

‘OK, I’m not. But I met Wayne at hospital. After Jamie got shot. You were there.’

She examined him closely through her hair.

‘Looks like you should be in hospital yersel.’

She glanced at the top of his head. His hand came up and smoothed over the bandages, from forehead to crown to nape of the neck, over the hole that seemed so natural now.

‘Yeah, you could say that.’

The girl tilted her head. ‘I remember you from hospital. You were there with some old tart.’

‘Yeah.’

‘You a reporter, like?’

‘Kind of.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I am a reporter.’ Billy pointed at his head. ‘But I’m supposed to be on sick leave.’

‘So what the fuck are you doing here?’

‘Just interested.’ He turned to where the firefighters were struggling to subdue flames lashing the house. ‘That is the Mackie place, yeah?’

The girl didn’t say anything.

‘I take it the lads weren’t inside?’

The girl rolled her eyes and shook her head. Her pals’ attention drifted away, they were now making lewd comments and speculating about the firemen’s cocks.

‘Any idea where they are?’

She shot him a dagger look. ‘Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.’

‘Of course not.’

Billy glanced at the house. The blaze was tearing at the roof now. The place was being gutted, it would have to be knocked down. Everything ruined.

He turned back to the girl, who was still half facing him, as if not quite rejecting or ignoring him. He took that as a cue.

‘I reckon you might have the number for one of the boys in that phone of yours.’

‘I might. What of it?’

‘Fancy giving it to me?’

‘You trying to chat me up?’

‘The phone number.’

‘I don’t think so.’

She smiled as she gave him a withering stare. He smiled back.

‘What about for money?’

He almost laughed at the reaction. She was suddenly more alert, like a deer startled in the woods. She tried to cover it, too late.

‘What kind of money?’

Billy pulled out his wallet and opened it. Just a few tenners. He counted them out, showing her.

‘Fifty.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘It’s all I have.’

She turned to look at the blaze. She lifted her phone and took a picture of the flames. Without turning, she spoke.

‘Go on, then.’

She was holding her other hand out, down at her side, where her friends couldn’t see.

‘Number first.’

She looked sideways at him. She was pushing buttons on her phone.

‘Look at this picture.’ She spoke loudly, for the benefit of her mates.

She handed him the phone. On the screen it said ‘Wayne’ then a mobile number. He memorised it, then passed the phone back to her.

He slipped the money into her open hand. She deftly tucked it inside her bra, her back turned to her mates.

Billy got his own phone out and punched the number into the address book before he forgot it.

He looked up. The girl had moved away. She was swapping derisive snorts with the others, all of them throwing looks his way.

‘What’s your name?’ he called out.

‘Fuck you.’

‘It was you who picked up that collie from the Dog and Cat Home, wasn’t it?’

She gave him a blank stare.

‘I dunno what you’re talking about.’

‘You know what the Mackies did to that dog, don’t you?’

There seemed to be a flicker of something in her eyes.

‘Look, just fuck off, will you?’

He gazed one last time at the burning house, then turned and walked back to the car.

With his mind blank and Jeanie licking his hand, he flicked to the number. Pressed ‘call’. Stared at the steering wheel listening to the ring. The sound was muffled through the bandages over his ear. Sounded like he was deep underwater, trying to make contact with the surface.

Five rings then an abusive answer-machine message. He hung up. He stared out the window. The firemen were beginning to get the blaze under control, but the house was a wreck of sodden, burnt wood and plaster, charred masonry, wisps of burning debris fluttering up into the sky, plumes of black smoke winking out the stars.

What would he do if someone destroyed his home and everything in it? What would the Mackies do?

He noticed the crack in the windscreen. The one Rose had pointed out all those days ago. It was bigger now, or was he imagining it? No, definitely bigger, not just a small crystal star, it had grown into a sword shape with one long blade pointing down towards the bonnet, indicating the place of impact. If he didn’t do something, the whole windscreen would split eventually.

He called Adele. That same submarine buzz in his ear, as if his brain was swimming in syrup. Five rings then her recorded voice. He hung up.

The crack in the windscreen seemed to be growing in front of his eyes, dancing in the flickering light from the blaze. He reached out and touched it, imagined pushing his fists through the glass to the outside world. There was a sting of electricity in his fingers at the feel of cold glass. He examined his hands. The palms were a mess of scars and scabs.

He turned the key and the engine coughed into life. Mum’s reliable old banger, still going after all this time. At this rate it would go on for ever, outlive him. But he had to get that crack fixed. When all this was over, he would do it then. Look after Mum’s old car.

His hands were shaking as he touched the steering wheel and the handbrake. The engine’s stuttering life mingled with his own. He pictured Frank Whitehouse lying in the road, crimson in the tail lights. The car revved and jolted as he threw it into gear and turned round, heading back towards town.

The traffic lights seemed to sparkle and shift as he drove, the headlights of each approaching car dazzling and hurting his eyes, like staring at the sun. He concentrated on his hands touching the wheel. He hunkered down and blinked out at the night.

It wasn’t far to drive. Weird to think these two families lived so close to each other, yet in such different neighbourhoods. One mixing with solicitors and councillors, the other with scum, one at the top of the pile, the other trying to get there. Separated by less than a couple of miles in the Southside of a city that had perfected the us-and-them society. One dead man, one shooting, one slaughtered dog, one torched home. And more to come.