Doug Johnstone - Hit and run

He didn’t look too bad, considering. He splashed some more water on his face, dried himself with paper towels then left.

On the mess of his desk was a Post-it note: ‘Go home and get some sleep, you look like you need it. I’ll chase police and forensics, see you tomorrow. Good work today, Rose.’

He grabbed his bag. Instead of heading for the exit he crossed the first-floor mezzanine, through open-plan desks, towards the front of the building. There was an unofficial apartheid in operation, the Sunday paper journalists spread out across the front of the building in the flagship position, the Evening Standard and the daily paper down the two flanks. Mixing wasn’t encouraged.

He spotted Zoe at her desk, pointing at a computer screen. Two plucked and tanned thirty-somethings hovered behind her ergonomic chair and nodded. Zoe had her hair up in a bun, a pencil through it.

The two Sex in the City types frowned as he reached her desk. She looked up, surprised. He’d never come to her desk before.

‘Can we talk?’ He looked at her colleagues. ‘In private.’

Her eyes widened. ‘I’m kind of in the middle of something here.’

He looked at her screen, saw a two-page layout of tasselled handbags. He remembered as students they used to laugh together at the vacuous nature of lifestyle journalism. Not any more.

He walked away, heart stuttering against his ribs.

He could feel the thud of a hip-hop beat as he stood digging for his keys. He opened the door and got a blast of Wu-Tang Clan. He followed the noise downstairs and found Charlie at the kitchen table with a sandwich in one hand, fingering the touchpad of a laptop with the other. A San Miguel bottle sat sweating on the table.

Billy grabbed a remote and turned the docked iPod off. Charlie looked up and swallowed a mouthful of sandwich.

‘Hey, Bro.’ He pointed at the laptop. ‘Just checking to see if there’s anything about our little incident last night.’

‘Little incident? Is that what you think it was, a little incident?’

Charlie took a swig of beer. ‘OK, calm down. I’m only saying. Doesn’t look like there’s anything come out about it yet, anyway.’

‘There won’t be. We’re first with the story, no one else has it yet.’

‘How did you manage that?’

‘Rose is sleeping with the detective inspector in charge of the case.’

Charlie laughed. ‘Naughty girl.’

He took another bite of sandwich. Billy watched him chew then turned away. His stomach felt tight.

Charlie pointed at the laptop again. ‘Been googling your man Whitehouse, quite the little one-man crime industry. Well, two-man, seems he did everything with his brother Dean.’

‘I met him at their house. Little shit.’

‘Brotherly love, eh?’

‘He threatened to kill whoever was responsible for Frank’s death.’

Charlie looked at Billy and slugged his beer. ‘Look, we’re going to be OK.’

Billy stared at his brother. ‘How the hell can you say that?’

‘Because it’s true. We just have to stay calm.’

‘In case you hadn’t noticed, me and my boss are investigating this story.’

‘And?’

‘What if Rose finds something out?’

‘How is she going to do that?’

‘I don’t know, we haven’t had the forensic report yet. That could incriminate us.’

Charlie smiled. ‘It’s not going to say he was killed by a red Nissan Micra at 2.30 a.m. at that exact spot on Queen’s Drive, is it?’

‘I have no idea what it’s going to say. Anyway, he wasn’t killed there, was he?’

Charlie didn’t speak.

‘Did you hear me?’ Billy’s voice rose and he swallowed hard.

‘I heard you.’

‘You said he was dead last night. On the road.’

‘I thought he was.’ Charlie’s voice had gone quiet and his eyes were on the laptop screen.

‘Really?’

‘Of course.’

‘Maybe you just didn’t want me to report it, so you said he was dead. That way, he was already gone, we couldn’t have saved him anyway.’

‘That’s not how it was.’

‘Look at me.’ Billy’s head was pounding, his neck muscles strained. He felt dizzy.

Charlie’s gaze didn’t budge from the screen.

‘Look me in the eye,’ Billy said, ‘and tell me you thought he was dead.’

Charlie looked up and stared straight at Billy. ‘I thought he was dead.’

‘Promise me.’

‘I promise.’

Billy shook his head.

‘Look,’ Charlie said. ‘I was fucking loaded. We all were. And we were in shock. I made a mistake. He must’ve been past help anyway.’

‘But he got up and walked two hundred yards.’ Billy felt his legs twitching. He grabbed the back of a chair to steady himself.

‘Yeah, and then he died. Anyway, I don’t know why you’re wasting your time worrying about Frank Whitehouse. Word on the net is that he was a nasty piece of work and the world’s better off without him.’

Billy had both hands on the back of the chair now, gripping hard.

‘He had a son.’

‘What?’

‘You heard. Five years old. Ryan.’

Charlie shrugged.

‘Charlie, we both know what it’s like to grow up without a dad.’

‘OK, I feel sorry for the kid. But we’re getting way off the point here. We did the right thing.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘And I suppose you’d rather be locked up in jail on a murder charge?’

‘Of course not.’

‘What then?’

‘You were only worried cos we were all on those stolen pills of yours.’

‘I didn’t see you turning them down in the bar.’

‘You weren’t interested in saving me, you were only interested in saving yourself.’

‘If that’s all you think of me, Bro, it breaks my heart.’

‘Fuck you, Charlie, don’t get all superior with me. I know you.’

‘I had to make a decision, you and Zoe were rabbits in the headlights. I did what Mum would’ve wanted.’

‘Stop fucking using Mum like that.’

‘She wouldn’t want us to destroy our lives over this.’

‘I said leave her out of it.’

‘Reporting the accident would’ve been like disrespecting her memory. Is that what you want to do, disrespect Mum?’

Billy lunged for his brother, grabbed his shirt and shoved him so that the two of them spilled off the chair and on to the floor, beer and sandwich flying. They struggled on the ground for a while, Billy trying to punch Charlie but only glancing the side of his head, his knuckles crunching into the floorboards. Charlie backhanded Billy across the face, knocking him sideways and bringing tears to his eyes, a sting of blood to his cheek. Charlie scrambled on top and used his weight to pin Billy down, holding his wrists against the floor in a gesture of surrender. It was all over in a few seconds, Charlie getting the better of his little brother as usual.

‘Just relax,’ Charlie whispered in Billy’s ear.

Billy was struggling to get free from the weight of his brother, but Charlie had a firm hold, a lifetime’s experience of keeping Billy pinned down.

‘Take it easy.’ Charlie spoke softly, like he was comforting a baby.

Billy’s breathing slowed and the tension left his body. He caught his breath back. ‘It’s OK for you, I have to follow the story. It’s in my face all the time.’

‘I know.’ Charlie was still holding Billy’s wrists and sitting on top of him. ‘It’s fucking stressful, I understand that. I know all about stress. I deal with dying people every day at A amp;E, you think I don’t know? But we just have to stay cool, and this will all blow over.’

‘You think?’

‘We have to keep it together. Help each other through.’

Billy looked at his wrists, Charlie’s thick fingers still holding tight. ‘I’m OK, you can let go now.’