G=They Ate the Truth 7

You'd think, if you hadn't experienced them, that bullet holes are
neat and clipped, maybe smoking a little - like neat hole-punches.
Instead, as I learn, they are ragged, more like tears than holes - a
little like the hole you get in a wall after you take a rawlplug out,
only much more so.

Please don't think I'm stupid enough to stand there admiring the wonder
of projectile weaponary whilst someone shoots at me - I'm on the
ground, an arm curled around Lorrie and we upended the kitchen table
for a bit of cover. Both of us are keeping low and I notice with
embarrassment that it is me who winces at the noise and she who
squeezes me reassuringly.

I am looking at escape routes (and also at our meal, which is spilled
all over the floor - the pasta buds in thick tomato sauce) but it looks
risky to try to make it to another room. The shooter is aiming too high
at the moment, the bullets whipping through the air and hitting the
back wall far behind us - I want to see the bullet in flight - the
stupid thing with my time perception is I don't feel in as much danger
as I ought to - I am perceiving this as though it were yesterday or a
year ago, I am interested in whether I can see the bullets like
blackened bees tearing up the air, corkscrewing into the
plasterboard.

Someone shouts, "Get down", from the kitchen.

I shout back, "We are down. "

It is Alastair, half-crouching and with a gun drawn, still in his cream
suit but not looking half as relaxed as when I last saw him. There's
another man with him, wearing dirty denim and a white short-sleeved
shirt with buttons that resemble Foxes glacier mints - his hair is
whipped up and colours like lemon mousse and chinos - his hair looks
like clouds, or the sea, or meringue or? whatever, it doesn't look like
hair and it troubles me almost as much as the shooting.

Somebody needs to slap me, I have gone into shock. I know this, but you
can't just ask someone to slap you, can you ? It just happens when
someone falls to pieces around someone manly who brusquely shouts,
"grab a hold of yourself man."

"You hurt ? " asks Alastair, looking at the red mess on the
floor.

"Tomato sauce, " I say to him, "Pasta. See, we knew you were coming.
"

"Who the hell is this? " asks Lorrie, punching me on the arm.

"Sorry, " I say, "I forgot that you two don't know each other. "

"No, " says Alastair, enjoying the banter, despite the bullets coming
at us, "We haven't really met, have we ? "

Spending time with Alastair is like meeting an old girlfriend's new man
and wanting to dislike him intensely but finding yourself quite liking
him, despite best endeavours.

The other guy moves towards the kitchen window - I can't see this, but
I can tell because he knocks some spoons onto the floor and I can hear
the noise as he moves the blinds.

"Building site, " he says, "No line of fire to this kitchen, but I can
see the lens flare. "

"Right, " says Alastair, "We've got to get you into this kitchen, then
we can deal with the sniper. You first Lorrie. "

She gives him a look that says, you know my name and shouldn't. I guess
she throws that look at a lot of people these days, but it must still
feel awkward every time.

He stretches out his arm, it is about a foot away from her - she needs
to move, get up and into that kitchen as soon as possible. As always
she moves like a cat, quick and lithe. I feel more than a little
jealous as Alastair grabs her hand and pulls her close, into the
kitchen. This is a movement that his body knows with her, he knows her
sharp and soft places. Of course, she doesn't remember that.

I go next, and my dash to the kitchen is much less graceful and I
scrape my shin on the fridge door. I hop about for a bit shouting
"bollocks" - natural instinct, regardless of the circumstances. They
all look at me with something like disappointment.

"Can we trust these people ?" Lorrie asks me, mindful of the fact that
they both have guns and she doesn't know who they are.

"Who? " I say lightly, "Alastair and Matthew ? I presume you are
Matthew. No, of course not. But at least we know that we can't. "

Alastair puts a hand in the small of his back and pushes, grunting
slightly, "All cramped up from the car. Thought we'd best keep an eye
on you. "

Lorrie's eyes are shining and I can tell that she's pissed at me. I
haven't seen her mad before, so I have no comparison I can make, but
even so, I know when someone is angry. She's wondering if she can trust
me, if I've been talking to these men about her - which, I suppose I
have, a little bit.

"The girl stays here, " says Alastair, "Matthew can watch her. You,
come with me. "

We indulge in a little bit of wolf, goat, cabbage. He doesn't want to
leave us alone, and can't take Lorrie outside while someone's shooting
at us, I don't want to leave Lorrie alone with someone who has a gun -
given that I don't know for certain whether the bloke shooting is a
friend of Alastair and Matthew.

After a moment, we settle. Alastair, very reluctantly, gives me his
gun, so that I can be certain he won't just hold me up once we get
outside, Matthew gives Lorrie his gun - that way she's safe from him.
He hands it over to Lorrie.

"What do I do? " asks Lorrie.

I say quietly to Alastair, "Does she know how to use a gun?"

He nods. And I say to her, "Just pull the catch back - the rest of it
is easy. Don't shoot anyone unless it's strictly necessary. "

Alastair and I leave the kitchen, by the back door. I can see the
building site, but not any lens flare. I don't know what I'm looking
for, this isn't my area. Alastair is by my side, keeping low. He gives
me an odd look.

"What? " I say.

"Are you not going to follow your own advice ? The safety's still on.
"

I adjust it, trying to give a look of contempt to show that I was well
aware of that.

As we move towards the building site, I see the bricks, gathered into
blocks of maybe two hundred, all wrapped in thick clear plastic. I can
smell the dust and already feel like I need a shower. Following
Alastair's guidance, I keep low and use the cover that the site
provides. We get ourselves up on wooden sloping planks, up high, to the
point where Alastair whispers that the shooter must have been.

There are some metal casings on the boardwalk, this must have been
where the sniper was hiding. I also notice cigarettes, about fifteen
butts. There's something not right about them.

"Look, " I say to Alastair, "These are smoked right down - not a bit of
white left. "

"So ? " he says.

"So, only kids do that. Real smokers stub them out with half an inch
left, it is only kids that need to smoke right down to the filter. And
what sort of assassin smokes on the job ? There's DNA on those. "

He chews this over. As we stand looking, we hear a noise, towards the
back of the site, on this level. We make our way over to it.

Maybe it is the smell of cement, but all I can think of is watching my
father make his Oriental chess set, he had thick red rubber moulds that
he had to fill with plaster, holding them carefully and watching them
until they set, then he had to roll them off - they were like condoms
with the thickness of wellington boots (not that I knew that at the
time), and when they were dried and out of the moulds he would turn
them in his hands, looking for any imperfection. He claimed to me that
once he had turned out a pawn and the chunky halberd had snapped of.
After that, he would turn the piece upside down and pick up a
pre-snipped circle of green felt, glueing it carefully to the bottom.
The pieces were gorgeous, the rooks heavy serious and purposeful, the
bishops with an angular crooked feel to them, I imagined them sliding
down corridors whispering bad things in the wrong ears.

I am still thinking about the chess set when the boy assassin shoots
Alastair in the stomach. He looks almost as frightened as I am - he is
maybe fourteen, painfully trendy running shoes, chapped lips and wisps
on his upper lip. I lift the gun hesitantly and point it at him, but
with no real conviction. I'm as bad as I was threatening Alastair with
the box. The boy realises and turns, making a run for it.

"Christ, you muppet, " says Alastair, thickly, " Give it to me. "

I hand him the gun and watch as he shoots the boy in the back. Is it
less bad than doing it myself ? I knew exactly what he was going to do.
I don't know if the boy is dead, I just know he fell. Alastair
continues to hold the gun in his hand, unsteadily pointing it as blood
soaks his blue shirt. There's a brief moment when I think he looks
magnificent, a true hero, then I realise that he is trying, even as he
dies, to look like Tim Roth as Mister Orange.

I move over to him, all I can think of doing is applying pressure, but
when I do this, he screams in pain. He is having difficulty breathing -
this is so stupid, I know how to save him - I saw it on ER, the one
with Ewan McGregor. All I need is a drinking straw, a bloody drinking
straw would save this man's life. Something that fifty people are
probably throwing away right now.

There should be something I can say, something reassuring. His friend
has probably called for backup - he just needs to hang on.

"What fragrance are you wearing ? " I ask him.

He looks at me wildly, as greasy blood slicks his shirt, "Are you
hitting on me?"

I shake my head, "No, I just like the smell. "

"Cologne, " he says, "Thierry Mugler. It's very light. Don't put too
much on."

"Hey, " he says, in between coughs where the blood he produces is the
thickness of tomato puree, "This really, really fucking hurts you know.
"

This is not a surprise to me, and I tell him so. It's my dumb idea to
have held the gun that's got this man killed. And then I have to
mentally find-and-replace killed with shot. He's not dead yet, he might
make it.

His mouth is working really hard, trying to get air in and words out. I
move my face closer to his, still pressing on his wound, but with
barely any pressure - the sort of weight you might put on a scale to
see if the needle moves.

"This is important, " he says, "I've got to tell you something. "

"God save the Queen, " he says.

This makes me so angry I press harder, "Jesus, " I say, "There's no
need to say something bloody cryptic. "

He coughs again, "Alex, I've spent my whole life wanting to be a spy -
do you really think I'm going to miss out on the last part ? "

We don't say anything else for a minute and after that, I'm pretty sure
he's dead. Taking someone's pulse and saying 'he's dead' looks so easy
in the movies, but it isn't, not really. Especially when your hands are
slippy with blood.

I'm ashamed to say that I wipe them on his jacket before I stand up.
Cologne, I think, Thierry Mugler.

* * *