Savage Night (20 page)

"Not like Fraser here."

"Affects people differently."

"I just wanted to slow him down."

"You did that okay."

"How do you feel?"

"Fine. How about you?"

"Fine." She closed her eyes momentarily because she couldn't trust herself not to look at him. "Where did you put Phil's head?"

"In the kitchen. In a carrier bag. I got sick of it staring at me."

She looked at him.

"The eyes wouldn't close. No matter how hard I tried. And I did. Kept at it for ages. But they kept springing open. Freaky."

"Don't be a girl, Martin."

She walked past him into the kitchen. The bag was on the worktop next to the sink, a large Evans' carrier. Martin must have got it from his mum: she was a big lady.

Effie opened the bag, lifted out Phil Savage's head by the hair. With her other hand, she gently thumbed an eye shut. When she raised her thumb, the eye sprang open. She tried the other one. Same result.

"See?" Martin said, in the doorway.

Effie hadn't known that dead eyes could refuse to close. Who knew they were so stubborn. She lowered the head back into the bag. "Back to work," she said to Martin.

She took off her clothes. Once she was naked, she opened the holdall that was resting on the counter, took out a pair of gloves and snapped them on. Put on a pair of booties. She found the spare hacksaw and rejoined Martin in the sitting room.

Martin had started on Savage's wrists. About a third of the way through the left one. The blade was sticking. She could hear it. A wet crunch. Pause. Another.

She stared into the pool of blood, her reflection rippling as Martin moved his blade jerkily through the corpse's wrist.

***

TEN MINUTES LATER, Effie was wrapping Phil Savage in a sheet she'd found in Fraser's linen cupboard. Well, she was wrapping Phil's torso in it. His head was still in the carrier bag in the kitchen.

She said, "He's heavy."

"Tell me about it," Martin said. "It was a real pain getting him into the tub."

"I'm impressed."

"You should be."

"I said I was."

"So you should be."

She looked at her boyfriend. His head tilted to the left. He was streaked with blood and sweat. The hair on his chest was matted, dried red. She looked down at her own chest.

A mess. As if she'd been given five minutes to paint the room red on pain of death. She gazed up at Martin. "You okay?" she said.

"Never better." His lips twitched.

Liar. She'd have to watch him.

After all, it wasn't as if he'd grown used to killing people. Not like Richie, Effie's big brother.

***

EFFIE HAD UNEARTHED Richie's secret early on, right after his third hit. Actually, he'd been smoking blow very heavily around that time, and although she'd noticed something was amiss, she'd never have guessed what the problem was. She didn't need to, though. He made a confession to her.

"Effie," he said, and she remembered the pub they were in, a bit out of the way, but one of the few places in Edinburgh they could find draught Beamish. They were big fans, rated it much higher than Murphy's or Guinness, and regularly made the trek to the other side of town for a pint or two. He slid a cigarette out of his pack, held it out for her to light. She grabbed one for herself. Both heavy smokers in those days. "We're close, right?"

They were. They'd never argued, not as adults anyway. She nodded.

He leaned in, spoke in her ear. "I have to tell you something."

She turned her head towards him. Said in his ear: "Tell me."

He did. At first she didn't believe him.

"A hit man?" she said. "Bumshite."

But he wasn't smiling. "Is that so hard to believe?"

"Yeah," she said. "It is. What're you playing at?"

"I'm serious," he said. And he looked it.

"Fuck, Richie," she said. "Fuck." She took a drag of her fag. "Fucking hell." Her hand was shaking. It wasn't that she was scared of him, though. She had nothing to fear from Richie. No, her hand was shaking with excitement. "How many?" she asked him. "How many people have you …?"

Turned out the one he wanted to tell her about, the one that had fucked him up a bit was the last one, hit #3.

"That's why I was in Manchester," he said. "Ugly hole of a place." This was way back in the days before the Arndale bombing. He'd done another hit there afterwards in '99 and said the place was unrecognisable. "The target worked in an Italian restaurant."

"Target? That the word you use?"

Richie shrugged. "Why not?"

"They use it on TV, in the movies."

"I know," Richie said. "I think that's where Carlos gets it all from."

"Who's Carlos?"

"Tell you later. Anyway, I tried to figure a way to smuggle in a handgun, hide it behind the cistern in the toilet."

"Like in
The Godfather
!" All movie-romantic like. He was young. Effie was a year younger, and knew exactly how he felt.

He smiled, his eyes lighting up. "Too many complications, though."

In the end, he'd opted for something much easier. At least, superficially.

"I befriended the target," Richie went on to explain. He looked away, stared at the wall for a bit, then said, "He was gay. I went back to his flat with him and suffocated him with his pillow." He looked at the wall again. "Afterwards. While he slept."

Yeah, Richie'd got naked with the guy. But that didn't make him gay. He'd just taken advantage of the best way to get the job done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Effie said, "You got too close."

"I know."

"You won't make that mistake again."

"No."

"Tell me about Carlos."

He did. Spanish guy living in Edinburgh and arranging contract killings using a tanning salon as a front. She never believed in him completely till she met him a few months later.

"Tell me about the others," she said.

She was fascinated and had remained so. She knew that wasn't how she was supposed to feel, but Richie felt the same way and he said it was just the way their minds worked, that they were special. She wasn't sure about that. But they were different, no doubt about that. Maybe it was genetic. Their dad didn't think like anyone else she'd ever met either.

From that night on, Richie told her everything. After a while, it was almost as if she was there on every job. She'd asked him more than once if she could go with him, but he wouldn't let her.

Which was something she was glad of the time he nearly got caught in the woods at Almondell. She remembered him telling her about it, and she was so wrapped up in the story that when she moved her arm to brush his hair off his face, she realised she was sweating under her armpits, beneath her breasts, behind her knees—just as if she'd hightailed it through the woods too.

She didn't know at the time that the target was Martin's dad. But she did now. And she wished she didn't.

Living with the knowledge of who'd killed her boyfriend's dad carried a lot of responsibility. She'd had to tell Dad. There was no way round it. She just hoped he'd be able to keep his mouth shut.

If Martin knew ... well, he couldn't be allowed to. She couldn't tell how he'd respond. Maybe he'd blame Richie. She could see how that might happen. From a certain perspective, Richie was to blame. But Richie was just someone being paid to do a job. If it wasn't him, it would be someone else.

If Martin knew … shit, she couldn't let it lie. Well, if Martin knew what Richie'd done, maybe he wouldn't love her any more. There, she'd said it. That's what she was scared of.

But there was no reason for Martin to think Tommy Savage had farmed out the hit to a subcontractor. No reason for him to suspect Richie.

Sometimes she wondered how much she felt about Martin was on account of guilt at what Richie had done. She'd never know.

She loved Martin, though, whatever. And he loved her too.

She couldn't afford to be scared.

Tonight's job with the Savages was complicated. Richie would have probably turned it down if Carlos had offered it to him. Course, this wasn't a contract Carlos would have been negotiating. This was from the heart, not the pocket.

They'd planned it together. Her, Dad, Martin. Richie'd helped. Hard to dispense advice from behind bars—they wouldn't even let him out for his little brother's funeral, the bastards—but he'd managed to get access to a mobile a couple of times and chat for a few minutes. Phones were small enough to smuggle in these days, though it made her wince to think about how that was done. He'd taken to calling her his apprentice. And if she ever considered following in his footsteps, the Apprentice had a certain ring to it. Richie was known as the Expurgator. Effie's idea, although she hadn't come up with the name, just the suggestion that he needed one. The name had come from the title of a book he'd found in a charity shop. But contract killing wasn't for her. She'd never be the Apprentice. She liked people too much. Most of the time.

Between them all, they'd agreed who to kill, and how and where. She was glad Martin was here. Dad couldn't be around, of course, but he was happy keeping an eye on Tommy Savage. And somebody had to look after Mum.

It was good for Effie and Martin to do something together. This was as much for him as it was for her. She just wished she could explain to him how much.

***

THE FIRST TWO killings were over, but carving up the bodies was a painfully slow process. Martin had finished sawing through Savage's wrists, which just left Fraser. You wouldn't think a person would have so much meat and bone and sinew to get through. Effie had a new respect for butchers.

She'd didn't mind the mess, though. Never had a problem with blood. Haemophobia ran in some families, but not theirs. It was just Dad.

Phil Savage was wrapped up nice and snug in the hall by the door. The sheet he was rolled up in was smeared in blood but nobody was going to see it. The sheet was just a handy way of conveying him out of the house and into the van, later, without making too much of a mess.

Okay, she couldn't postpone this any longer. They'd stripped Fraser. Stuffed his clothes in a bag with his uncle's. Slung the body into the tub.

Time to get on with it.

This might be hard, no matter how right it was.

She put the hacksaw blade to his neck.

It
was
right. No doubt about it.

***

WOULD HAVE BEEN nice if the weather had stayed dry. But, no. Started to rain when Mum and Dad arrived. They'd all sat around drinking. Took awkward sips and smiled sadly at each other. Dad kept saying, "I can't believe he's dead," till Effie told him to shut up.

He wouldn't. After a while, she got out a crossword book. Tried to keep herself amused. Block out Dad's whining.

Dad hadn't been the one who'd looked after Grant. Twelve years old, Dad's off to prison. Then Mum tries to end it all and screws it up, leaving Effie to bring up her little brother. And was Effie whining?

Martin got up, offered everybody more drinks. Tea or coffee?

Dad came over, crying. Put his arms round her, set her off.

Sat like that till Martin came back from the kitchen and he started too.

Mum was the only one dry-eyed.

They managed to block out their grief for a couple of hours by planning what to do with the fucker chained up at Old Mrs Yardie's.

Decided on a few things there and then.

—
They'd make him suffer as much as they were suffering.

—
No women or kids were to get hurt.

—
Effie would get to know his elder son, Fraser.

—
Martin would handle Phil, the brother.