In Too Deep

Chapter 4

4

The taller man might have had a height advantage, but he was nowhere near as well-built as the man who was standing in front of him, almost a full foot shorter. That didn’t bother him, though. He had fury on his side.

‘What do you mean “not quite according to plan”?’ the taller man barked, his jaw clenched.

‘There were... complications,’ the smaller, stockier man replied, trying desperately to think of a way out of this situation. He knew he was in some deep s**t.

‘You only had one thing to do. What the hell went wrong?’ The veins in front of his temples were pronounced, a sign of his vastly increased blood pressure.

The shorter man looked towards the floor, licking his lips and biting the bottom one. ‘Her kids were there.’

‘What? I thought you were going to wait until they were out of the way?’

‘I was. I did. It was gone midnight, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t know the damn kid was going to get up, did I?’

The taller man ran a hand through his thinning hair, the other locked onto his hip. ‘I told you we should have done this another time. During the day, when the kids are out. This is a f*****g mess. One big f*****g mess.’

‘And I told you that would be a bad idea with witnesses about,’ came the terse reply.

‘Well this didn’t exactly turn out to be a f*****g brilliantly executed plan, did it?’ the taller man shouted, spittle flying from his lips. Then, a little calmer, he added, ‘Did the kid see you?’

The shorter man shook his head. ‘She saw something, no doubt about that. There’s no way she’d recognise me, though.’

‘How can you be sure?’ he asked. ‘Do you even realise what this means? This could blow the whole f*****g thing out of the water. We’d be f****d before we’d even started. Do you know what the hell’s at stake here? Do you realise?’

‘Yeah, I realise. Of course I f*****g realise. But there’s no way in hell she’d recognise me. No-one would. I made sure of that. I was dressed head to toe in black, for Christ’s sake. I looked like a f*****g ninja. What more did you want me to do?’

Letting out a noise that sounded a bit like a laugh, the taller man shook his head. ‘Not gather an audience, perhaps? Might’ve been a good start.’ He exhaled noisily, then lowered his voice. ‘Did it work, though? Did you... y’know...’

The shorter man swallowed, hard. That wasn’t a question he wanted to be asked. ‘I don’t know. She was making some weird gurgling sound. It could go either way.’

‘Either way? Why the f**k didn’t you just finish her off?’ The taller man was growing more incredulous by the second. Pay peanuts, get monkeys, he thought. And he’d ended up with the runt of the litter.

‘What, with her kid standing there watching? Do me a favour.’

‘You were paid to do a job, Clyde. That means you f*****g do the job, alright? That’s how this works. You don’t just stop and come home because there’s a kid stood at the top of the stairs.’

‘Yeah? So why didn’t you do it then?’ the smaller man replied, squaring up to him. ‘If you think it’s so easy, why didn’t you go round there and do it? Or is it ‘cause you didn’t want to get your hands dirty? If you don’t want to take responsibility for it, if you want someone else to do your dirty work, don’t go complaining when situations change.’

The taller man laughed again, mainly out of disbelief. He certainly wasn’t used to being spoken to like this. ‘When situations change... Jesus Christ. You’re telling me situations have changed? What do you suppose happens if Tanya Henderson lives? What then, Clyde?’

‘I dunno. She was alive before, wasn’t she?’

‘Oh yeah, she was alive. She was definitely alive. And she was getting in the f*****g way. You think someone like her’s going to take this as a warning? If that was the case we’d have given her a warning. That’s why we needed her gone.’

‘Well what did you expect me to do?’ the shorter man said, getting the distinct feeling that whatever he did would have been wrong.

‘I expected you to do your job properly. And if you leave witnesses... Well, you don’t leave witnesses.’

‘What, so you’re saying I should’ve killed the kid now? Jesus Christ, man.’

‘I’m saying you don’t leave witnesses,’ the taller man said, his voice deadly serious. ‘How you interpret that is entirely up to you.’

The shorter man put his palms out in mock surrender. ’Look, I’m sorry, alright? I don’t know what else to say.’

‘Say nothing,’ the taller man replied. ‘Nothing.’ He sighed deeply, rubbing one hand across his stubbly chin as the other stayed planted on his hip. ‘There’s only one thing we can do.’