Howard Linskey: The Drop

Knowing Miller, he’d most likely have a Colt or a Browning, something non-flashy, old school. My heart was thumping again. The gun felt loose in my sweating palm and I was scared I was going to drop it. I was so close to finishing all this, to taking out the guy who had given Gladwell all the information he needed about our firm, then it would be over – and that was the scary part. I felt like those soldiers who knew the war was nearly finished, the enemy had surrendered and they’d won but they’d still got streets and houses to clear and they didn’t want to get shot by some mad housewife or deranged grandad.

‘The gun isn’t going to help you Miller. Not after what you did,’ I was slowly edging my way along the corridor towards the bright lights, ‘Geordie Cartwright was a soft touch, with his debts and the promise of some easy cash, wasn’t he? You sold him out to Tommy Gladwell but the Russians are all dead and so is Tommy. Now you’re fucked and you know it. There’s nowhere to go from here but down,’ Another shot hit the wall to my left so I was thinking he had to be somewhere to my right, but it was a big place and he had the advantage. If I was going to get to him I’d have to come out of this narrow corridor and then I’d be an easy target. I remembered the layout and prayed he hadn’t changed things around since I was last there. I went down low, lying flat on the ground, then I bent my arm round the corner and fired once. The noise of my gun going off was deafening in here. It couldn’t be long before some distant neighbour of his called the police. Danny must have heard the shots and he’d be wondering what to do. I’d told him to stay outside but it would be just like him to burst through the door to save me. I didn’t want him killed because of my stupidity.

Miller answered my round with two more harmless shots and I gambled he’d want to conserve what was left of his ammo. I climbed into a sprinter’s stance, kept low and launched myself forward, all the time expecting a third shot. I must have caught him by surprise because I made it behind the big metal girder before he could fire again and I was safe, for now, as long as I didn’t move.

I was better off here than in the corridor but he still had the advantage. He knew my location and I hadn’t a clue where he was. If I had a plan at this point I didn’t know it myself. I was just hoping I could somehow draw him out, get him to betray his position with another shot and finish him. I wasn’t a bad shot but that was against paper targets on a firing range, not a living person who could move and shoot back. I was about to swing out an arm and fire again when something happened that completely threw me. Abruptly, all the lights went out.

Fuck. It was pitch black, so dark I could no longer even see the gun I was holding in front of me. The bloody windows must have all been blocked up with blackout blinds, so his nuddy girls got some privacy while he took their picture, and now he’d thrown the switch.

I heard a noise and strained my ears to work it out. Miller was moving. He knew where I was. He knew the room and I didn’t. I could hear him slowly edging his way round to get me and there was nothing I could do about it. I was starting to feel panicked.

The sounds he was making were so slight I couldn’t place him and I knew I didn’t have long. In a few seconds he would be right on top of me. He could fire at me from point-blank range and I wouldn’t even see him. There was nothing I could do because I couldn’t even see the bastard.

Desperately I thrust my hand into my pocket, grabbed my mobile phone and jabbed at it. It gave off a little light from the screen but I had to risk that. The phone took its time before it gave up the feature I was looking for. I scrolled down the contacts book quickly, sweat making my hand clammy. I found the name I was looking for and dialled.

It turned out he was right by me, even closer than I thought. The sound of his mobile phone going off in his jacket pocket was deafening in the silence of the studio.

As last words go his weren’t particularly memorable, just ‘shit, fuck!’ as he scrambled to silence it. As he reached the phone he must have known it was me that was dialling him. I like to think he had a millisecond to realise I’d outwitted him before I aimed the gun straight at the noise and sent four shots rapidly in his direction.

When the sound finally died down, there was a sort of strangled gurgle coming from the floor. I had to make sure he was no longer a threat to me. I walked carefully towards the nearest wall, pointing the gun in Miller’s direction before feeling around behind me until I found the thick blackout blinds. I wrenched one of them right off the wall and the moonlight shone down onto him.

Miller was lying face up, trying to cough out the blood from his shattered lungs as it filled his airways, the dark stain spreading all over his chest, proof that I had hit him more than once. His gun lay harmlessly on the ground a few feet from him. I walked over and trod on it, whilst aiming my gun at him, then kicked it to one side. I made sure he could see me.

‘Why did you do it Miller?’ I asked a man who had once been a big part of my extended, dysfunctional family, ‘tell me it wasn’t just for the money.’

He opened his mouth and it looked like he was trying to speak but the only thing that came out was more blood. He was choking on it.

I didn’t say anything else. I knew I was never going to get his story now. He was too far gone. Miller couldn’t have explained his treachery if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t even get the words out. So I put it down to good, old-fashioned greed.

Miller had always said he was an atheist. I knew he didn’t believe in anything after this life but oblivion. Sure enough, he looked terrified as he died.

When we got back to Palmer’s house, I went straight up to Sarah’s room. She was lying in bed but awake. She looked mightily relieved to see me. When she sat up, the covers slipped off her shoulders a little. It looked like she wasn’t wearing anything beneath them.

‘Is it over?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘You finished it?’

‘I finished it.’

‘Good.’

‘Are you alright?’ she looked tired but relieved.

‘I will be,’ she said, ‘one day.’

There was an awkward moment while both of us waited for the other to fill the silence.

‘Do you want anything?’ I asked.

She nodded, ‘I want you to climb in here and hold me.’

‘Sarah, are you sure.’

‘Yes,’

She pulled back the covers. I was right. She wasn’t wearing anything. I took off my clothes and climbed in next to her.

I walked into the lock-up with Palmer. His guys had been standing guard over grey-hair in shifts all this time. He looked rough; scared and stressed, cold and hungry, still wearing the horrible clothes they’d given him down the gym. When he saw me he tried to look down at the ground.

‘Look at me,’ I ordered and he raised his head slowly, his eyes screwed up like he expected to be shot at any moment, ‘it’s over and you lost,’ I told him. ‘Gladwell is dead and so is the she-devil.’

‘Oh god,’ he croaked.

‘His bodyguards are both dead too and the Russians, all of them. Bobby Mahoney was too good for you. He has seen you all off. He’s put all of your mates in the ground.’

‘It wasn’t my idea,’ he was sobbing now and shaking his head.

‘What wasn’t?’

‘Coming down here. It was Tommy’s.’

‘Just obeying orders were you?’

‘Aye,’ he was nodding like a lunatic as if that might make me understand him better.

‘You were just a soldier, I s’pose?’