Behind the houses was scrubland that terminated at a post and rail fence, with farmland beyond. On the other side of the fence, running parallel, was a gully.

They climbed the fence and walked along it, just their heads visible to anyone who might have been in one of the buildings. They walked slowly because the ground was littered with trash and rocks. Karl led, with Liz bringing up the rear. He was cold and wished he’d selected more than just a T-shirt for the trip. Then again, he hadn’t expected to be traipsing around some field. They walked in silence. It didn’t take long. Times flies when you’re walking into the unknown.

The back of the house had an extension that looked like a kitchen. The light was on and the chimney poured smoke. People sometimes went out and left lights on, but surely not fireplaces burning away. Karl had hoped Gold would be in. Now he wished the guy would pop out of existence. They’d come all this way, but he suddenly had a bad feeling about this house.

To shift his mind off what lay ahead, Karl said: ‘Danny said he lost the use of his legs in a bike crash. Is that true?’

In the dark, he saw her chest vibrate. Humour, but the annoyed kind. She said: ‘You’re wondering if it was actually because of the job he did. Working for my husband. Some kind of gangland thing. Because they all die or end up in prison, right?’

He nodded. ‘Understandable, right? Look what we’ve been through today, Liz.’

‘Danny wasn’t tortured by a rival gang, he didn’t get shot during a bank robbery and a home-made bomb didn’t explode while he was fixing it to a prosecution witness’s car. It’s not like it appears in the movies. Okay?’

He could tell she was sick and tired of people talking about her husband’s way of life. Well, he bloody chose it. And she chose him. And Karl had been slap bang in the middle of it today. ‘Sorry I asked.’

She mellowed. ‘It was a bike crash, Karl. I admit that Danny had a role that he needed to be fit and active for. After the accident Ron booted him out. It didn’t go down well with Danny, of course. For his own good, Ron said, but that annoyed Danny. Said it made no sense. But in the end, Ron had to cast aside the caring boss attitude and become mean. He said Danny was no good to him as a cripple. But I’m glad Danny got out. He’s my friend.’

It was virtually an admission that it was dangerous to be in Ronald Grafton’s orbit, despite her response thirty seconds earlier.

‘Now let’s talk no more, because we’re wasting time.’

He turned his attention to the house again, knowing she was right. A minute wasted here meant a minute longer to get to Katie. ‘So what do we do?’

In answer, Liz climbed over the fence and, bent low, scuttled across the scrubland. She stopped at the kitchen window and looked in, eyes and forehead peeking up like some kid noseying on a neighbour. It would have looked funny, except that it proved even Liz was nervous about what they might find at the house. Their pursuers had posted men outside Karl’s house: they could have men waiting here too.

Karl shouted a whisper, trying to draw her back until they could formulate a plan. But when she tried the door and it opened, he cursed and followed her.

They stood at the open door, bathed in light, and waited, listening. No sounds. He didn’t want to walk inside, even just one step. His instinct was screaming at him not to.

‘Through the kitchen door there’s a hallway. Three doors and some stairs. A waiting room, a study, and the office. Bedrooms upstairs. Normally he lives in the study with his books and iPad, but if he’s waiting for us then he’ll be in the office. Second door on the right, just past the stairs.’

Karl forced himself to enter the house. Big, confident steps, although he wasn’t sure that they’d look that way to anyone watching. The kitchen floor was carpeted, which helped kill the sound of their footsteps. The door in the far wall was ajar and he put his head through. Slowly. No one chopped it off. As promised, a hallway beyond. Dark, but faint yellow light flickered on the ceiling.

A door in the right-hand wall was wide open. Outwards, just eight feet away, and hinged on the side nearest to him which meant he couldn’t see the room it belonged to and, worse, it blocked his view of the entire right side of the hallway. And whoever might be hiding there with a knife. On the left side was a wooden staircase, rising towards him, which meant he could only see the underside of it. Cardboard boxes were neatly stacked underneath. Gold’s files, no doubt. There was a door by the foot of the stairs, shut, with a plaque that said: WAITING ROOM.

His two choices were: backtrack and flee into the night, or step out and face what was behind that door.

He scuttled quickly to the door blocking the hallway, leaned close and peeked through the gap. A lamp on a table shed enough light for him to see most of a study. It was empty of life. He shut the door and tried not to convince himself he did it to clear an escape route.

Now the rest of the hallway was exposed. No masked madman. Two more doors: the front door in the far wall, and one at the end of the right-hand wall. The office. The door was open like an invitation. The flickering yellow light, surely from a fireplace, oozed from beyond. The last place to check, because Karl had already decided he wasn’t going upstairs. Gold expected them, and if he wasn’t waiting down here then something had gone badly wrong. But he could spare three more seconds, make a few more steps, to know for sure. He was tempted to call out for the man, but didn’t. Always safer if— He was within two steps of the doorway when he sensed it: the unmistakable feeling of another presence.

---

McDevitt was sitting on the stairs, near the top, where he’d been invisible until right about now. Waiting for his prey to step right into the trap.

Spotting Mick, Karl tensed, ready to grab Liz and run back towards the kitchen. Half the hallway was a blind spot for the gun because of where Mick sat: three steps and he would have no angle to fire at them. It was the very reason they hadn’t seen him as they walked the hallway. But he could fire before they took one step.

The gun moved back and forth between Karl and Liz. As if he was unsure of who to shoot first. But the giveaway was that his eyes didn’t move from Liz. Karl figured he would shoot him first, to rid himself of the bigger threat.

But Mick didn’t fire, and he didn’t speak. Karl realised he was awaiting their move. He wanted to see how his trapped rats would react.

So, Karl made a move, hoping to delay what now seemed inevitable. He said: ‘We can work this out, Mr McDevitt, sir. There’s no need to hurt Elizabeth or me. I just want to go home to my pregnant wife.’ A pleading tone, the use of an honorific, and an attempt to humanise Liz and himself, because he’d read about that tactic. All to appease the man.

But Liz, clouded with sudden rage in the presence of her nemesis, wasn’t on the same page and cut him right off with: ‘You killed my husband, you pathetic animal’.

Karl expected the gunshot and tensed; McDevitt’s response was a smile. Her outburst had broadcast her inner anguish, and he was clearly pleased by this. He shook his head slowly.

‘His bloody, chopped-up body was the last stop on a route of self-destruction. And his suffering isn’t done yet. When I go to Hell, he’s got more coming. You’ll be there to watch.’

He stood up. While Mick was rising to his feet, Karl hissed run and jabbed his arms hard into Liz’s back, forcing her forwards. She was propelled along the corridor into Mick’s blind spot. He turned and grabbed the doorframe and hauled himself around it. The ploy worked: no gunshot; though Karl did hear footsteps thudding down the stairs as he slammed the door.

Beyond the door: shouting… thudding… still no gunshot.

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.

‘After all this fannying around, that was all I needed all along,’ he said, almost incredulous. ‘For you to know that bastard’s in Hell.’

He took a deep, satisfied breath, lifted his gun, aimed it right at her face and pulled the trigger.