He was trapped in the room. Some kind of macho thing he’d done there, splitting Liz from him so the lunatic would have to pick one to chase. Liz might escape if she was quick, but Karl had no way out.
He turned to seek another door. What he found was a dead man in a chair. The window was to Karl’s left and the desk was facing it so Gold could enjoy a view his clients might never again see; he was turned so that he was facing the door. The desk lamp had been positioned so its meagre light bathed him, illuminating a ragged red slice right through his throat and blood all over him. Beyond him, a fireplace burned with real coals.
A display, Karl realised, feeling his fear and revulsion peak. It was how McDevitt wanted it to go down – Liz and Karl in the doorway, frozen with shock; McDevitt, behind them on the stairs, watching their distress for a few seconds before he announced his presence.
The door started to open. He turned, backed away. In his panic he forgot about the dead guy for a moment and backed right into the man’s legs. Liz entered, struggling against a hand clamped in her hair. Mick was right behind her with the gun resting on her shoulder, aiming at Karl. And now he had both of them right where he’d wanted them all along. All Karl had achieved with his macho deed was to save Mick the trouble of herding them into the office.
Mick pushed her hard, right into Karl, slamming them into the dead guy. All three of them fell down: the fat solicitor came out of his chair and slumped on the bloody carpet. Karl and Liz scrambled to their feet and backed up against the far wall, right by the burning fire, with Gold lying near their feet. Mick kicked the door shut, and they saw his shoulders relax, much as a man might do when he’d finally got home after a long day. Their enemy, finally, had what he wanted, nicely packaged up in a box. He gave a laugh, and shook his head – what-a-day – and moved to the far side of the desk. He dropped his gun onto the oak.
Their eyes followed the weapon: he’d released it. That was what he wanted, too, because now they couldn’t avoid seeing what lay on the desk.
‘I got a headache worrying about this,’ he said. ‘One chance, one dream, and how to live it to its fullest. A headache, I tell you.’
The fingers of one hand slipped over the desk, and settled upon one of the three items.
‘Was it about pain and suffering? Or was it about making a statement with ingenuity and gruesomeness? Bones crushed, would that do it for me? A body like a bag of Lego?’
The fingers moved away from the hammer, and touched the second item.
‘Skin and flesh sliced up a thousand times, would that do it for me? A body as a piece of kirigami?’
Away from the razor blade slid his fingers, and onto the third item.
‘Maybe I would warm up that cold heart of yours instead,’ he said as he stroked the fire poker.
Karl tensed. They were only six feet from Mick, who wasn’t holding a weapon or looking at them. With luck, he could be across the desk in half a second. It might be their only chance to— He felt Liz grab his hand and squeeze, but not because she was scared. He realised she was anchoring him, preventing him from making a move. He no longer saw Mick as a distracted man open to attack. He saw Mick’s proximity, his empty hands, his blind eyes as a test, as a taunt. He was trying to trick them into making a foolish move.
Mick hung his head, eyes on the floor. But Karl’s body was locked into inaction by fear as well as by Liz’s firm grip. For seconds the scene was frozen: no movement except for the rapid rise and fall of Karl’s and Liz’s chests.
And then Mick looked up.
‘Suicide,’ he said. ‘Suicide by someone who craves life; surely that kills not just the body but the soul as well, because that’s a place my weapons can’t reach. I could offer you the hammer and the blade and the poker, but no vital areas, of course. That game is too quick. No hammer to the skull. No blade to the carotid. No burning metal through the eye and into the brain. But suicide is a ticket to Hell, I thought, and I can’t have you reunited with him. No way. Not even in a boiling pit in Hades.’
Liz said: ‘Hell? You foolish man. Whatever my husband did to a monster like you, you deserved it. He’ll be in Heaven, and I’ll be right by his side soon. Why don’t you just get it over with.’
Karl’s legs almost buckled. But the strength quickly returned to them, and with it he did something even more shocking than Liz’s softly delivered words. He stepped in front of her.
Mick picked up his gun, and he was smiling. Karl realised his little act of defiance had played right into his hands. With their deaths, Mick’s fun ended. So, he was delaying. This was foreplay. It could provide Karl with an advantage, but his mind was blank as to how to use it to get out alive.
‘Step aside, Seabury. If you want it to be quick.’
He moved, but not by choice. Liz thumped him aside.
He stepped in front of her again. Mick’s expression didn’t change, as if he hadn’t noticed, or had something on his mind. ‘“Whatever”,’ you said. ‘“Whatever he did to me.” So, you don’t know. You don’t know because he didn’t say, and he didn’t say because—’
‘I know everything he ever did, you bastard,’ Liz yelled, and thumped Karl aside again. This time she even stepped forward so that Mick’s gun was only feet away.
‘He did nothing to you. He told me everything he ever did. Everything.’
Mick grabbed the collar of his sweater, two-handed, and for a split second the barrel of the gun was pointed right at his chin. Karl prayed the bastard would blow his own head off. He tugged the sweater down to expose the ugly wound on his upper chest.
‘He did this to me. He never told you about this, though, did he? And shall I tell you why?’ His eyes seemed to become slightly distant, as if his mind was racing back – a jagged shard of metal, forked, like a lightning bolt, pierces his flesh in two spots, one below and one above the collarbone – ‘Because he was ashamed?’ Mick continued.
‘No, please don’t!’ he screams, his right arm outstretched, reaching ahead, but short, too short by inches, or miles, because either way he can’t stop this.
The pain in his chest is excruciating, and blood flows. His fingers fall short still.
‘Don’t, don’t, don’t!’
His fingers continue forward.
‘Please!’
‘Because he was ridden with guilt? No, no, no. You want to know why I killed that fucker?’
…a pair of eyes stare blankly back at him, devoid of emotion. He grabs their jacket in desperation, takes a vice-like fistful.
The bolt pushes deeper into his skin. An inch, and then another inch. The pain throbs throughout his chest like an electrical charge.
‘Don’t, don’t, don’t!’ he moans.
Deeper still. The blood starts to flow, mixing with more blood on the floor. The metal between the jagged forks hits the flesh over his collarbone, and movement is checked.
‘Please, T—’
‘Fluoxymesterone and imipramine, that’s why. Mix them, add a hint of lemon, and you have a psychotropic drug. Cheap, dangerous. It’s called Buzz. It’s new and popular and your fucking husband sold it through a dealer in his club, a guy called Rapid. It can cause a serious paranoid reaction. It can turn a man into a raving lunatic.’
… there is a massive jerk, all shoulder muscle, and Mick screams as the bolt pushes deeper, bending and then snapping his collarbone, and the prongs force themselves further in, and the blood gushes out of his chest and soaks his clothing.
‘Your husband never told you about this.’ He drew back his gun arm and slammed the butt of the weapon twice into his wound. ‘Because there was nothing to tell. It meant nothing to him. Like squashing flies against a car bumper. Not a minute of sleep lost.’
Liz said nothing, and Karl couldn’t see her face, but he saw Mick’s expression, and the shock written all over it. A happy shock like you’d see on a man hearing against-the-odds cancer remission news. That look was on his face because of the one Karl knew was on hers: belief.