The Drop

phone he must have known it was me that was dialling him. I like to think he had a millisecond to realise I’d outwitted him before I aimed the gun straight at the noise and sent four shots rapidly in his direction.
    When the sound finally died down, there was a sort of strangled gurgle coming from the floor. I had to make sure he was no longer a threat to me. I walked carefully towards the nearest wall, pointing the gun in Miller’s direction before feeling around behind me until I found the thick blackout blinds. I wrenched one of them right off the wall and the moonlight shone down onto him.
    Miller was lying face up, trying to cough out the blood from his shattered lungs as it filled his airways, the dark stain spreading all over his chest, proof that I had hit him more than once. His gun lay harmlessly on the ground a few feet from him. I walked over and trod on it, whilst aiming my gun at him, then kicked it to one side. I made sure he could see me.
    ‘Why did you do it Miller?’ I asked a man who had once been a big part of my extended, dysfunctional family, ‘tell me it wasn’t just for the money.’
    He opened his mouth and it looked like he was trying to speak but the only thing that came out was more blood. He was choking on it.
    I didn’t say anything else. I knew I was never going to get his story now. He was too far gone. Miller couldn’t have explained his treachery if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t even get the words out. So I put it down to good, old-fashioned greed.
    Miller had always said he was an atheist. I knew he didn’t believe in anything after this life but oblivion. Sure enough, he looked terrified as he died.

THIRTY-EIGHT
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    W hen we got back to Palmer’s house, I went straight up to Sarah’s room. She was lying in bed but awake. She looked mightily relieved to see me. When she sat up, the covers slipped off her shoulders a little. It looked like she wasn’t wearing anything beneath them.
    ‘Is it over?’ she asked.
    ‘Yes,’ I said.
    ‘You finished it?’
    ‘I finished it.’
    ‘Good.’
    ‘Are you alright?’ she looked tired but relieved.
    ‘I will be,’ she said, ‘one day.’
    There was an awkward moment while both of us waited for the other to fill the silence.
    ‘Do you want anything?’ I asked.
    She nodded, ‘I want you to climb in here and hold me.’
    ‘Sarah, are you sure.’
    ‘Yes,’
    She pulled back the covers. I was right. She wasn’t wearing anything. I took off my clothes and climbed in next to her.
    I walked into the lock-up with Palmer. His guys had been standing guard over grey-hair in shifts all this time. He looked rough; scared and stressed, cold and hungry, still wearing the horrible clothes they’d given him down the gym. When he saw me he tried to look down at the ground.
    ‘Look at me,’ I ordered and he raised his head slowly, his eyes screwed up like he expected to be shot at any moment, ‘it’s over and you lost,’ I told him. ‘Gladwell is dead and so is the she-devil.’
    ‘Oh god,’ he croaked.
    ‘His bodyguards are both dead too and the Russians, all of them. Bobby Mahoney was too good for you. He has seen you all off. He’s put all of your mates in the ground.’
    ‘It wasn’t my idea,’ he was sobbing now and shaking his head.
    ‘What wasn’t?’
    ‘Coming down here. It was Tommy’s.’
    ‘Just obeying orders were you?’
    ‘Aye,’ he was nodding like a lunatic as if that might make me understand him better.
    ‘You were just a soldier, I s’pose?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘What am I supposed to do with a captured soldier Terry? No POW camps in Newcastle mate, haven’t you heard?’
    ‘Please… ’
    ‘I don’t think so. I reckon you’ve had your chips.’
    It was a prearranged signal for Palmer to pull out his gun then make a big show of loading a magazine and cocking it.’
    ‘No,’ the tears were flowing now.
    ‘I think we have to say goodnight now Terry.’ I told him.
    ‘You don’t have to… ’ he pleaded.
    My mobile rang noisily in my pocket. I’d turned the volume up to its highest level. I gave an exasperated sigh and answered it, ‘hello?’
    ‘Is that the gay advice line?’ trilled Our-young-’un. ‘I think me little brother might be a bender,’ he hung up laughing.
    ‘Bobby,’ I said, trying not to laugh too, ‘yes, I’m here with him now, that’s right,’ then I made a point of looking up into Terry’s