16

Calum is sitting on his couch, playing video games. Gran Turismo 5, if you care. He enjoys it, despite his racing deficiencies. He glances at the clock. It’s now ticked past five o’clock. He can feel the nerves starting to tickle at the bottom of his stomach. It doesn’t matter how many times you do the job. It certainly doesn’t matter how good you are at it. If you’re anywhere close to being a normal human being, then you’re going to be nervous about it. In a few hours’ time he is going to head out into the night and murder a man. It looks like a simple job. He knows he’s good at what he does. Doesn’t matter. You’re taking a man’s life, and that’s worth being nervous about.

Six o’clock. He switches the machine off. Find things to do. He won’t be leaving his own flat until after ten. He and George will head to Winter’s house after eleven and check it. If there’s no sign of life, they’ll leave and come back again after midnight. Calum’s confident they won’t be home by then. So he and George will sit and wait. There’s four hours before he does anything at all. Into the kitchen. Open the fridge. Get something to eat. Not much – the nerves won’t allow it to settle. He looks at what’s there. Very little. Not much of a foodie. He takes out a packet of bacon, switches on the cooker. There’s fresh bread in; he’ll have a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea.

Twenty past seven. He’s putting the TV on, but there’s nothing he can settle down to watch. So hard to settle to anything. He needs to kill time. Another two and a half hours before he leaves the flat. He walks round the flat. There’s too much energy in him. You don’t want to be bursting with that nervous energy when the time of the job comes; you’re much more likely to make a mistake. Some people have ways of expending the energy. Calum knows one gunman who swears by sex before any job. The best sex you’ll ever have, apparently. Even if that fellow can’t find a young lady to share his exuberance with, he will satisfy himself. Anything to kill the nerves. Calum won’t accept that. Worse than energy is the opposite. He knows he makes a lot more mistakes when he’s tired and lethargic than he does when he’s on the edge.

Pacing the little flat. Starting to feel a little tired in the legs. He knows he has to do something. He’s left getting changed until the last minute, making sure he has something to do. A pair of black jeans, a plain black top. Both items bought months – maybe more than a year – ago. Never been worn before, will never be worn again. They’ll be carefully placed in someone else’s general rubbish bin. Not a recycling one. Then they end up in landfill. There are some who put the clothes into charity shops. Some places have large recycling bins, usually outside supermarkets, where you can drop off old clothes. Some people use those. Calum can’t abide the idea of the clothes still being out there, possibly with his DNA on them. Long shot that they would ever be found, but still a risk he won’t take.

He has two balaclavas. These are difficult. You don’t want to be seen buying balaclavas regularly. It goes without saying that it carries risk. A few years ago he bought a boxful over the Internet. He had them sent to the house of a friend, went and picked them up. It’s a risk, always. You buy something that almost only has criminal use. You buy them on a false card. You have them sent to an address where the occupant will happily claim to have ordered no such thing. You then keep the box hidden in the loft of your mother’s house, without telling her it’s there. It would concern her. She would want to know what you were doing with them. Awkward questions. He had taken three from the box a month or so ago, guessing that he might need one soon. He needed two. George won’t have one of his own.

Not every job requires dressing up. Sometimes you’re sure there will be no witnesses. Sometimes there’s no risk in letting them see your face. Sometimes they need to see your face before you can get close to them. This isn’t one of those times. There will be witnesses. Those witnesses will be interviewed by the police. Every precaution must be taken. Calum knows that, and he trusts George to be professional enough to know it as well. No talking inside the house. No sloppy mistakes that could lead to identification.

Calum stuffs the two balaclavas into his pocket. A man dressed all in black, with the ability to hide his face. If he were stopped by the police, in a car that didn’t belong to him, he would be caught. Caught with a gun, and he would be looking at a mandatory jail term anyway. The journey to and from work is treacherous for the men in his business. He removes the guns from their hiding place, sliding shut the vent on the chimney. He’s always careful not to disturb the little layer of dust on the top of the vent, convinced that it might give the impression that it’s never been touched. They would be able to tell, he told himself. If they really looked, they could tell. Don’t ever give them a reason to look at you. That’s why working for someone like Jamieson is a risk. Being close to an organization that is surely being watched means you will be watched. That flash of doubt runs though his mind again.

He’s left the living-room light on in the flat, left the television on. Not too loud – just loud enough to be heard if you pressed your ear to the front door. He’s getting into the car now. He’s still unfamiliar with it, isn’t comfortable driving it. It seems to want to lurch forward when you first press the accelerator, and then there’s no power to get it up to speed. He’s not going to race to the meeting point with George, so speed is no concern. It’s the threat of stalling at traffic lights and being asked by a passing cop if you need help. The threat of being involved in some minor accident because you don’t have full control of the car. Anything that might draw attention.

Calum’s picking George up from a building site. It’s a random meeting place where they know there are no security cameras. You don’t pick up from home – that’s a risk. You pick up somewhere random. You pick up somewhere that you won’t be seen. George drops into the passenger seat.

‘Nice motor,’ he’s saying with a smile. It’s the sort of small, gutless vehicle that an old lady would drive. Nothing to draw attention.

‘Nice enough,’ Calum says in response. They pull out onto the street and head towards Winter’s house. Calum’s glancing at the clock. It’s nearly eleven o’clock; it’ll be a little after by the time they get there. He’s expecting the house to be in darkness. He’s hoping it will be. No surprises. Please, no surprises.