Reckoning

Police sirens wail through air, puncturing the otherwise moderate fibre of the day. They come from different directions, carried to your ears on the wind like howling banshees, amplifying your senses; focussing your mind.

A great cliff of charcoal grey cloud rolls across the sky like some huge megalithic wall of dark, volcanic rock drifting through the air, bloated and swollen, stubbornly retaining its precipitous essence until it can no more.

Thick, heavy raindrops pound down, bouncing off the ground in an uncompromising torrent. Water streams from the curved camber of the road down into the gutter, racing towards you, pulled along by gravity down the mild gradient of the street as you near the section of wrought iron fence where he sat for a short time, slumped. Beaten.

The last remnants of blood are washed away before your eyes as you cast your gaze downwards to the sheen of the paving stones beneath your feet, the unrelenting rain still hammering down. Around the corner, at the foot of the road you see him limp away, disappearing behind the red sandstone tenement building, heading westwards, hand held to his ribs applying pressure to the wound.

You follow tentatively, brisk enough not to lose him, yet slow enough to keep the distance between you intact. Your grip tightens around the straps of the rucksack over your shoulders with such intensity that you grimace and draw a sharp intake of breath as your nails dig into the palms of your hands as you approach the blind corner of the tenement.

After preparing yourself for a moment, you peer round only to find no one there. The only people out in the monsoon like conditions are those in the slow moving cars and steamy windowed double decker buses that crawl along the road, whipping up Catherine wheels of spray from their tyres as they cut through the shallow river of the street.

Suddenly, through the downpour you see him across the street. He emerges from behind two buses, still limping and apparently in some pain but despite this, goes unnoticed; the people safe in their warm, dry vehicles too concerned with making it home to their equally warm, dry homes where they’ll be sheltered and safe from the perilous conditions.

He looks around; distrusting, shaken, the day’s events having turned his world – his reality, upside down. You crouch down, as though to tie your laces, the incessant rain running down your collar and trickling down your back, before taking a furtive glance once more across the road. Another double decker bus partially obscures your view. You think he disappears down a street to the right, behind a pub, the light from which mirrors off the glass-like pavement through the open door as a patron enters from the street. You can’t be sure whether he walked by, or if he too entered.

Crossing the road, a car slows down to a stop, letting you pass. You nod your head in thanks and are momentarily startled as yet another police vehicle careers up the road overtaking the slow cars, it’s blues and twos announcing its passage as they pull over, giving it clearance.

You turn the corner at the pub and think you can see some spots of blood on the ground, the rain being slightly less pronounced on the side street, partially sheltered as it is, flanked on either side by three storey tenements. It’s of little consequence in any case, serving only to reassure you you’re on the right path. Seeing him hobble across the tarmac at the far end of the quiet residential street confirms it.

Nearing the end of the street, you again approach the building’s edge with caution, allowing yourself only the merest of glances until you’re sure it’s safe to continue. The density of residential property becomes more sparse, replaced by derelict factories and wasteland. Industrial ruins left to rot just as the communities they once supported had.

One such site, razed to the ground years before, is fortified by a perimeter fence of timber hoarding some eight feet tall. On one of the panels you see a pinkish, though rapidly diminishing — through dilution from the still driving rain — bloody hand print. You feel your way around the surface area of the panel, running your fingers to the bottom where there’s some clearance from the ground. By giving a sharp, measured pull, you find the panel comes away enough to allow you access through to the other side.

Squeezing through, you wonder how a man of his considerable frame managed it and question if he really did come through here, at this point, or used another way in.

In the distance through the thick, wet undergrowth, sitting on a raised concrete plinth, signalling where a building of some type once stood, is the crudely constructed doocot.

You had suspected he may be headed here, having been made aware he’s a known fancier of pigeons, or ‘doos’ as they’re known in the local parlance. Another area where he imposed his will on others through intimidation, even violence, you’ve been told, though you can’t comprehend how.

It’s now that you see him again, coming into your line of vision as you crouch there on the sodden ground, rain still beating down on you so that your clothes now cling to your body like another saturated and superfluous layer of skin. He climbs the two or three steps up to the door and fumbles with the padlock, getting it open after a short time. He disappears inside, closing the door over behind him.

You survey the area till you’re satisfied that there’s no one else in the vicinity, and begin to stealthily approach the green painted, corrugated sheeting-clad doocot. You look at the hasp on the door to see if the padlock’s still there. It isn’t. He must’ve taken it inside with him.

There’s a relatively young silver birch tree standing near you. You look for a branch of a suitable size and slowly and gently work it up and down, and side to side, eventually oscillating it round in one motion at the node, where it reaches out from the slim trunk. It breaks and as you pull it quietly from the tree, it tears a strip of bark down the trunk as though it refuses to let go. You break it down to a smaller size and get rid of all the smaller offshoots so that you’re left with a small stick around two feet long. It’s thin at one end, getting gradually thicker (around three inches in diameter) at the other where it branched out from the trunk.

The wood is green, in that it’s fresh and holds water. This makes it extremely supple and difficult to break, unlike an old, dried out twig. You bend and flex it in your hand until you’re satisfied it will hold before approaching the door, quickly closing the hinged hasp fixed to the structure, over the staple screwed to the door.

You jam the length of branch into the staple and pull it down until at around three quarters of the way it can descend no more.

‘Who’s that? Who’s oot there?’ his voice comes from within.

The door rattles as he tries to open it, vibrating harder still as he kicks or barges it with his shoulder. It budges not a bit, the limber branch being more than equal to it.

‘Very fuckin good! Get the door open, dae ye hear me? Ah’m no fuckin aboot!’

You ignore him, instead, taking the rucksack off your back, clicking open the flap, and pulling the toggle along the drawstring, opening it up wide. You retrieve the twenty litre gerry can from within. Placing it down, you go into the zipped up pocket on the flap, pulling out the strips of torn bed sheet you placed there earlier. Inside each of your jacket pockets you feel a milk bottle, wrapped with yet more pieces of torn sheet. One’s still intact, the material having provided a protective cushion around it in transit. The other is broken though, most probably when you came through the fence.

Disappointed though you are, you’re satisfied that it shouldn’t pose too much of a problem and after carefully placing the undamaged one down on the ground, you place the length of hosepipe you brought with you into the can and syphon petrol up until you feel it enter your mouth making you vomit briefly as you place the other end into the bottle. As it fills with petrol, you place some strips of material in to soak.

The door and walls bang and rattle as he persists with trying to make a forceful exit, shouting all the while about what he’s going to do to you when he does. Still you remain silent, his threats carrying no menace to you.

You take the gerry can and begin to pour petrol around the timber base of the structure, feeling a strange comfort in the sound of the birds inside gently cooing.

‘Coln! Is that you? Is that fuckin petrol ah kin smell? Listen tae me, ah don’t know whit that cunt McShane’s telt ye, but whitever it wis, it’s a lie. Ah know we bumped ye years ago fur aw they fags but ye know how it is, eh? Just tryin tae turn a coin, eh? That wis then, though. A fuckin long time ago, man. Tryin tae say ye’ve never pult a fly wan yersel? Eh?’

Still you say nothing, instead working your way around the building pouring the petrol, letting it douse and marinate into the old railway sleepers and plywood skirting around the base. Seeing some discarded beer and wine bottles, you repeat the action with the hosepipe, filling them also.

The rudimentary stucture shakes and rumbles as he throws his weight at the door. Still the pliable branch holds true.

‘Coyle? Is that you ya wee prick? Came tae finish me aff, eh? Is that it? You an yer wee pals couldnae fuckin dae it earlier so ye dae it this waiy? Eh? Aye ah kilt yer Da. So fuckin whit? He wis a fuckin junkie cunt. HE FUCKIN SLASHED ME!

So, ah shagged his wife. She wis fuckin gantin oan it. Tryin tae play hard tae get but ah know whit they’re like. They say naw but they mean aye. Yer maw wis oot fuckin lookin fur it. Bet she never telt ye that, eh? Who could blame her, eh? Yer Da wis too interestit in gettin full ay the skag wae the rest ay them. AH JUST GIED HER WHIT SHE WIS WANTIN!

YE FUCKIN LISTENIN?

She goes back an sais ah raped her. RAPE? How kin it be rape when she wis oot in the pub wae her pals fuckin wantin pumped, eh? Yer Da goat me when ah wis masel. Fuckin sneaked up when ah wisnae expectin it an took ma fuckin eye oot! IT WIS ONLY A MATTER AY TIME TAE AH GOAT A HAUD AY HIM!’

You pick up the milk bottle with the long strip of rag in it and light it, throwing it hard and high to the top of the tower. It explodes in an incendiary blast, the burning liquid, running down the grooves of the corrugated sheet metal, igniting the timber around the base.

‘THIS ISNAE FUCKIN FUNNY. YE BETTER OPEN THAT DOOR! AH’LL FUCKIN KILL YE, YA CUNT! OPEN THE FUCKIN DOOR. THINK YER A FUCKIN GANGSTER? OPEN THE FUCKIN DOOR AN WE’LL FUCKIN SEE!’ he screams, thundering into the door. It doesn’t budge.

You work your way round the building from around thirty feet away, throwing the other bottles high up the structure, same as before, and as they smash, they too ignite in a ball of flames, the lit petrol rolling down the sheet cladding like lava.

Even at this distance, the fierce heat makes you shield your face to protect yourself. Flinging the rucksack and the empty gerry can at the inferno, you walk away, his screams already fading away to nothing before you make it back to the loose section of hoarding to make good your escape.