Doug Johnstone - Hit and run

He turned into Blacket Place. Dark, quiet. No one on the street. He parked across the road from the house. Switched the engine off and listened to the ticking of the metal as it lost heat.

Jeanie had her nose in his lap. He stroked her a few times, felt the ribs.

‘Stay here, girl.’

He opened the door and she shot out, scrambling across him in a fluster and darting across the road. She was squatting for a piss by the time he locked the car door. He clicked his fingers and she came, then he turned into the Whitehouses’ drive.

The same room light was still on, the curtains closed. As he approached he realised that the front door was wide open. He stopped. No activity, no sign of life. Just an open door.

He walked up the steps to the doorway and stopped. Peered inside. Nothing. He stood for a moment listening to the pulse in his brain. Jeanie sniffed at some plants by the door.

Then he heard something. A scrape and a muffled thump. A voice, a female voice. Not talking, not crying out, but something else, an insistent kind of moan. The sound drew him inside as if mesmerised. He stood in the hallway and moved his head to work out where the noise was coming from. Damn these stupid bandages over his ears. He heard the clack of Jeanie’s claws on the floor, then it stop as she reached the rug. He listened again for the noise. There, to his left. It was coming from the room. The door was closed and light seeped out from underneath, splaying short fingers into the hallway.

He walked towards the door. The noise got louder. Definitely a woman moaning. In distress. He swallowed hard and put his hand on the doorknob. Turned it slowly and pushed. Stepped warily into the room.

Adele.

She was lying on the floor, on her side, tied to a chair with some kind of electrical cable. She was facing the other way, so she hadn’t seen him. He looked round the room. No one else. Everything seemed normal except for a table lamp lying on the rug next to a glass of spilt red wine.

Billy scurried over and touched her on the shoulder. She squealed, flinching away from his touch. She whipped her head round and her eyes widened. She had something stuffed in her mouth, gaffer-taped in place.

‘It’s OK,’ Billy said. ‘I’ll untie you. Hold on.’

She increased her efforts to speak, but Billy couldn’t make out anything.

‘Wait,’ he said.

He ripped the tape off her face and pulled at the material till it came out of her mouth. Socks. She gasped and wheezed, sucking in air and working her jaw. She had a wild look.

‘They took Ryan. They came in here and beat me up and took him.’

The Mackies. Billy didn’t need to ask.

‘We have to get him back,’ she said.

Billy fumbled with the knot at the back of the chair, the thick rubberised cable claggy in his sweaty palms. It seemed to take for ever, his hands trembling and slipping. Eventually he loosened the knot.

Adele whipped her hands out and began working on the knot around her ankles. She pulled it free then rolled away from the chair and clambered to her feet. She swept her hair back from her face. Billy saw bruising around her eyes and cheeks, a trickle of blood from her nose.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Never mind me, I have to get Ryan.’ Her voice was fragile, close to breaking. Billy wanted to reassure her, but no words came.

‘I don’t know what to do.’ She talked fast, as if to herself. ‘They said no police or they’d kill him. This is all about Dean. They said he set fire to their home.’

Billy nodded. ‘I’ve just come from there, it’s gutted.’

‘This is crazy. Why are me and Ryan even mixed up in this?’

‘I said you should’ve left.’ He regretted it as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

She stared at him. ‘Is that supposed to help?’

‘Sorry, fuck. I don’t know what I’m saying. I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘This is all for Dean’s benefit. He was supposed to come home and find me.’

‘Where is he?’

‘How should I know? Him and those two pricks went out, probably to one of his stupid brothels.’

‘What else did the Mackies say? What do they want?’

Adele was shaking her head, her whole body shivering. Billy wanted to wrap her in his arms, feel the warmth of her against him, smell her hair.

‘They just said this had to end. They’ll be in touch. Billy, what if they hurt him?’

She started crying, thick, heavy sobs. She gasped for air between, hands to her face, covering the bruises.

Billy put a tentative hand on her arm. ‘It’s OK.’

She shook him off. ‘Don’t say that, it’s not OK. I don’t know what to do.’

Billy stared at her, the light in the room too harsh, everything too sharp. Jeanie poked her head in the doorway then went away again. Billy tried to get his brain to work, tried to cajole the amphetamines into firing his neurons.

‘I’m going to sort this,’ he said quietly.

She stared at him like his head had flipped open.

‘How the hell are you going to do that?’

Billy lifted out his phone. ‘I have Wayne Mackie’s number.’

‘So? Are you going to ask politely to have Ryan back?’

Billy shook his head and looked at his phone. It was half two in the morning.

‘When did the Mackies leave?’

Adele was exasperated. ‘I don’t know, maybe quarter of an hour ago.’

‘I have a plan.’

‘You’re out of your mind. It’s got nothing to do with you, this whole thing.’

‘It’s got everything to do with me.’

‘How do you figure that?’

Billy stopped for a moment. Considered. ‘It just does. Do you trust me?’

‘I hardly know you.’

He moved towards her, put his hands on her shoulders. She let him. He looked at her beautiful eyes, red from crying. Her beaten face, already swollen and discoloured. She didn’t deserve any of this. No one deserved this. Except him. He tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

‘This looks fucking cosy.’

Billy felt Adele’s muscles flinch at the voice. She jumped back from him and turned to the doorway. Billy turned too, already knowing what he was going to see.

Dean and his two morons were standing in the room, faces flush with booze. Dean took in the upturned chair and electrical cabling like a snake on the floor.

‘What the fuck is going on?’ He spoke to Adele, pointing at Billy. ‘And what the fuck is this cunt doing here?’

Adele ran over to him, stopping before touching him, wary.

Dean and the goons were eyeballing Billy.

‘The Mackies have taken Ryan,’ Adele said.

It took a second to filter through, Dean switching from aggressive to outraged.

He stared at Adele as if she was talking a foreign language.

‘Wayne, Jamie and a third guy. They tied me up and beat me, then took Ryan out his bed and left.’

Dean looked at the chair again, the cable, Adele’s discoloured face.

‘When was this?’

‘Quarter of an hour ago,’ Billy said.

Dean turned on him. ‘What the fucking fuck has it got to do with you?’

Billy felt suddenly weak and his knees began to buckle. He stumbled but caught himself before he fell.

‘I came to check on Adele. I found her in here tied to the chair.’

‘You must have a fucking death wish, coming round here,’ Dean said. ‘You look halfway dead already.’

Billy felt lightning searing through his head, making him close his eyes and scrunch his face up. Just keep going, Billy boy. He opened his eyes and thought for a moment he saw a red flash in the corner. He snorted air into his lungs, searching for a burning smell, but nothing. He felt like sleeping for a hundred years, just closing his eyes for ever. But he had to keep going, had to see this through. Just a little while longer and he could rest.