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On an unlit road nearby, he starts the next task. His hands are shaking. He’s never plated a car. The police assumed he’d know how to do it, but he’s always been rubbish at mechanics, DIY, anything like that. He can’t figure out how things go together. He drops two tiny screws, which roll around on the pavement, blending easily into the tarmac. ‘Shitting hell,’ he says, kneeling down to try and find them with his fingertips.
It takes him forty minutes to plate the car and he cuts his hand, right across the palm, with the sharp edge of the number plate. But it’s done. Another crime committed.
Ryan drives to the port, where he waits, as instructed, for Ezra to be free, then coasts up to him, getting out and handing him the keys.
‘Perfection,’ Ezra says. Right there, at the cold port, Ryan loses his nerve. Imagine, imagine, imagine, is all he can think. Imagine if Ezra realizes who he is. Ryan may not be in danger of getting arrested, but he is definitely in danger of getting fucking murdered.
‘Great,’ Ryan says. His hand is trembling as he reaches to clap Ezra on the shoulder. He disguises it, lets his jaw swing, a common symptom of being on cocaine. Let Ezra think it’s that, that he’s coked up, like his brother’s associates.
Ryan looks just beyond Ezra, to the cargo ships, the brightly coloured cranes against the night sky.
Ezra meets his eyes. Something seems to pass between them, though Ryan doesn’t know what. His knees begin to weaken, and he disguises it by hopping from foot to foot.
‘First one?’ Ezra asks carefully.
‘Yeah. First of many.’ Ryan rocks back on his heels. They will kill him. No matter the police protection, the safe house he will go to if his cover is blown: these people will kill Ryan if they discover him. Stop thinking about it. Just stop it.
‘We’ve done forty this week,’ Ezra says.
‘Forty cars?’
‘Mmm.’
Wow. Ryan blows air out through his mouth. The scale of this is bigger than even he realized.
‘You hurt your hand?’ Ezra asks.
‘Yeah, no big deal,’ Ryan says. ‘Just the number plate.’
‘I did the same with DIY earlier!’ Ezra says, showing Ryan his own palm.
‘Ha,’ Ryan says, his mind spinning.
‘You should get Savlon on that,’ Ezra says casually, like they’re two kids, not men in an organized-crime gang. Fucking Savlon.
Day Minus Five Hundred and Thirty-One, 08:40
It’s May, but May the previous year. This isn’t right, how far back she is. She’s got to speak to Andy. To ask what to do. To stop it. To slow it down.
Jen descends the stairs and can tell just from the light and the noise of the house – Kelly cooking, Todd chattering away – that it’s a weekend. She stops on the penultimate step, just listening to her husband and her son’s easy banter.
‘That would be uninterested,’ Todd is saying. ‘Disinterested means impartial.’
‘Why, thanks, OED,’ Kelly says. ‘I actually did mean impartial.’
‘No you didn’t!’ Todd says, and they both explode with laughter.
Jen walks into the kitchen. ‘Morning, beautiful,’ Kelly says easily. He flips a pancake. The scene looks so normal. But … the photograph. He has some relative, out there, that he’s never told her about.
It’s painful to look at him, like looking at an eclipse. Jen can feel herself squinting. ‘What?’ he says again.
Her gaze goes back to Todd. He is a child, a kid, an adolescent. Huge feet and hands, big ears, goofy teeth that haven’t yet settled and straightened. Four spots on his cheeks. Not a sniff of facial hair. He’s short.
She drifts over to where Kelly is flipping the pancakes.
‘So you were saying you are impartial to my computer game?’ Todd asks Kelly.
Kelly’s black hair catches the sunlight as he adds more pancake batter to a pan. ‘Yeah – that’s what I meant.’
