A Man Alone (9 page)

Doyle watched from his position beneath the trees with a sense of quiet detachment. He nodded to himself. It couldn’t have gone better. Picking up his rucksack, he walked away from the burning building. His taxi driver had told him of a place where he could have a good time. He was going there now. Turning his head to look at the mayhem behind, Doyle smiled. But then again, he was having a very good time already.

He took his time. As he neared his destination, a small convoy of cars sped toward him. Leading was a dark SUV. Doyle pulled the bill of his cap lower until they passed. Then he quickened his pace.

Inside the Lancaster, Doyle sensed the mounting hysteria. Standing at the bar he lifted his head and could almost smell the excitement. The news of the explosion had reached the punters. It was karaoke night, but only some pissed up tart wanted to sing. Persistent as she was, the guy in charge put her off, told her next week. He was already rolling a cable round his arm, happy for once at the prospect of an early night. Doyle heard snippets of conversation, odd words as they tried to make sense of the explosion. Words like, gas, the Irish, or Muslim extremists. Why the Taliban would want to take out a taxi firm above a Chinese chippy was anyone’s guess. Doyle’s appearance didn’t register. To them he was just another scruffy guy standing at the end of the bar.

Doyle put the rucksack on the floor, his hands on the counter. He looked round the room. The place was sparsely populated and the snug empty. Those locals who had called in for a few before heading into the city had gone. Others had followed Wood and his cronies to the site of the explosion. The Lancaster was left to those whose days and weeks tumbled one into another, whose lives were made infinitely better by the addition of alcohol to occupy the spaces left behind.

Satisfied, Doyle lifted a finger and tried to catch the barman’s attention. He had a face like a fish. Turning his cod-eyed stare on Doyle and seeing he was no one of any importance, he looked away, continued his conversation. He wore a yellow T-shirt with ‘Love is All Around,’ printed on the front. Doyle saw the girl he was talking to. Long-limbed, athletic. She had a pretty face with long lashes and sensuous lips. But the constant demands on her body had tarnished her looks and worn her down to the point of exhaustion. She sat on a barstool, cupping her chin with a hand lest she fall asleep at the counter. ‘Love is All Around?’ Doyle shook his head. In this place, love was all upstairs. And had a price.

Doyle drummed his fingers on the wooden bar. He did have another way of getting the man’s attention. He reached into the rucksack, his hand grasping the Mac-10’s pistol grip. Bringing it into the open, he looked at it. It was small, compact, made of plastic. Apart from the barrel sticking out of the body, it didn’t look like a gun at all. Doyle knocked off the safety, pushed the stock into his side, pointing at the bottles on the shelf behind the bar. He squeezed the trigger.

Three seconds. Three seconds was all it took to empty the magazine. Doyle took a step back, his eyes wide in disbelief. Now he knew why Sergei had laughed and called it “spray and pray.”

The pistol grip jerked in his hand. He fought to keep the barrel down but the weapon was too light. Bullets shattered the bottles, the mirror too. Keeping his finger on the trigger, plaster from the ceiling fell around him and then it was empty. As the first shot was fired, the people in the Lancaster scattered. A table overturned, chairs fell and glasses broke. Giving Doyle a wide berth, the Lanky’s customers gave no quarter in their panic to escape. They pushed one another out of the way, scrambled for the doors. It took little longer to empty the pub than it did to empty the gun’s magazine.

Doyle stood in a bubble of calm. He dipped his hand into the rucksack, found the spare magazine, and replaced the empty one in the gun. Smoke wisped in the air. Doyle breathed it in, relishing the tang of an old and familiar smell. When he looked up the place was deserted. Now it was just him and the barman. He narrowed his eyes, pinning him to the spot. “Who’s upstairs?”

The guy couldn’t answer. Shock, thought Doyle, did that to some people.

Speaking softly he gestured with the gun. “Get the girls from upstairs—everyone from upstairs,” he said. “And get them out.” He glanced at his watch. “You’ve got two minutes.”

Doyle waited. At last the guy exhaled. He hadn’t taken a breath since Doyle’s finger first curled around the trigger. Red in the face, thankful he wasn’t on the end of another burst of gunfire, he sidled away taking the stairs two at a time. As he disappeared from view, Doyle reached for his cigarettes and lit up. So easy to get back in the habit. Then he looked at the gun’s smoking barrel and his brow creased. So easy to get back in the habit.

Above him he heard doors slam, footsteps, and a babble of hard-edged foreign voices. A girl’s round face peered over the banister. He waved her forward. A rag-tag line of semi-dressed girls and three crumpled men followed, one still hitching up his pants. The barman came last, treading carefully lest he annoy Doyle. Doyle cradled the Mac-10 in his arms, followed them with his gaze all the way out. He looked at his watch. Time was short. Calls would have been made, mobile phones burning hands in their desire to message Barry Wood.

Doyle took one last look, made sure the place was empty, and put the rucksack behind the bar. He tucked the machine-pistol under his jacket and strolled through the door into the night. A few people hung around outside, but no one was going to stand in his way. Once clear of the pub, Doyle walked straight and fast, crossed the road, and walked down the slope toward a line of houses. He walked until he heard the screech of tires behind then stepped away from a streetlight’s glow and looked back. Barry Wood’s SUV had just pulled up outside the pub.

Silhouetted against the glare of the Lancaster’s frontage he watched Wood get out of his car and slam the door. Wood waved his arms, gesticulating while those left in the wake of his outrage pointed in Doyle’s direction. Heads turned to look. Wood strained, peered into the gloom, and with a few men about him, started after Doyle.

Crouched down by a low wall, Doyle raised himself and levelled the Mac-10.

He fired a burst and watched Wood dive to the ground. Two others jumped a garden and took cover behind a fence. Again he squeezed the trigger. The windscreen of a parked car shattered. As far as he could tell, he never hit anyone. But hell, bullets flew everywhere. Reaching for his phone and finding 2 in his directory, Doyle pressed call.

Behind the Lancaster’s wooden counter his rucksack exploded. It hammered the night and shook the houses. The sound echoed through the streets, passages, and every back alley in the district. But Doyle didn’t wait to see. He was walking away—fast.

D
OYLE HAD LEFT HIS
car at the back of a scrap merchant’s. It was dark and there was no one around. He tossed the Mac-10 over the wall onto a pile of loose metal—it was about all it was good for now—and drove to the Formule 1 opposite the Albert Dock. The hotel was cheap, and as its name suggested, formulaic. But it had a passing clientele that suited him. The guy at reception was foreign, disinterested, and took his money with barely a glance.

The room had just enough space to walk around the bed. Doyle disconnected the smoke alarm and lay with his head on the pillow. He smoked a cigarette, stared at the ceiling, and began to think. The house wasn’t safe. Even with the place crawling with police he wouldn’t put it past Wood to try something. For the moment no one knew where he was. But he couldn’t stay there forever. And what about Josie and April?

His guilt was a physical thing that flushed his cheeks. Doyle hadn’t thought much about them—hadn’t thought much at all. He had said this was for them, that a man like Barry Wood had to be stopped. But was it justice or a desire to return to the man he once was? And tomorrow...? Doyle took the cigarette from his mouth and blew a smoke ring toward the ceiling. He hadn’t thought about that either. The man wouldn’t back off, that much was certain. Wood had too much self-regard. The respect he thought was his would take a battering if he couldn’t handle one man. But he would be on his guard now. Doyle would have to tread carefully. But that could wait until tomorrow. Right now he needed to sleep. He dropped his cigarette into his coffee cup and turned off the light.

Doyle heard giggles and muffled voices through the thin walls as the couple next door fucked like rabbits. Outside his window, he heard angry snarls, a shout and a glass breaking. Pleasure and pain—the twin sounds of the city. Doyle yawned and turned onto his side. He was soon fast asleep.

I
T WAS A BLACK
dream. Doyle was drowning. His limbs heavy, his mind numb, and every time he tried to rise from the suffocating hell, he was dragged back down. Far away a bell tolled. Was this the end? Was this…

Doyle woke with a start. The covers were wrapped around his head. On the bedside table, the stupid plastic £1 alarm clock rang fit to burst. Pulling off the crumpled sheets, he turned off the alarm and reached for his phone. Doyle switched it on, looking at the screen. A dozen, maybe more, messages from Wood detailing what he was going to do to the ‘cunt’—the ‘fucking cunt’ that had blown away his pub. Doyle deleted them.

There was also a missed call from Josie, several in fact. When he called, she was frantic. Josie stuttered and coughed into the phone. When she had calmed enough to speak, she said just four words. And they chilled him to the bone.

“April,” she said. “He’s got her.”

D
OYLE WAITED IN HIS
car. He had driven north of the city, to dockland—a post-industrial wasteland of warehouses and empty yards. He glanced at his watch then raised his eyes to look through the windscreen. Opposite was a box shaped building with ‘Just Tires’ on a sign above the door. The proprietor had left an hour before giving him a cold fish stare before rechecking the locks on the door and pulling down the metal shutters of the tire bay. Whatever Doyle was doing, it was none of his business.

The conversation between Doyle and Wood had been basic: be at the Stanley dock at six and April could go free. Him for her, it was that simple. Doyle spat out the window. He doubted it would be that simple.

He checked his watch again. It was 5:40.

Doyle lit a cigarette. He knew how these things went, had been present at plenty in the past and knew the rituals, the pretense of honor, the ultimate self-sacrifice, and the clean, unfussy execution of the victim. That’s the way it was when both sides knew the rules. Whether Barry Wood knew them too was another matter.

5:45. Doyle flicked the cigarette stub out of the window. The idea of driving away had crossed his mind, but April’s desperate cry as Wood held the phone to her mouth before making his demands was imprinted in his head. He could as much abandon her as he could fly to the moon. Anger coursed through him. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not now, not after so many years. Doyle closed his eyes and let his anger slide. He mustn’t lose it—not when he was so close.

Doyle checked the glove compartment. The .38 was there. He was tempted, but slammed the door shut. No heroics. There was one chance. It relied on Barry Wood being there and doing as he promised.