The Runner by P.R. Black

Author:P.R. Black [Black, P.R]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781789543131
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

31

Blood dripped onto the pristine white bodywork of the MG. Mick Harvie tutted, then wiped it off with the edge of his sleeve. She noticed his hand was shaking uncontrollably.

Freya kept her distance from him. Caught between pain and humiliation, he had stalked off once they’d gotten out of Bernard Galvin’s back gate, muttering to himself. She gave him a little bit of space, after making sure she had everything safely recorded on the device in her pocket. At the car, she noticed his face was still bleeding quite heavily, staining the salt and pepper beard and dipping onto the collars of his green military jacket. Freya thought of raindrops pattering the fronds of a plant in the jungle.

Galvin had come out to leer, bathing in curtain-twitching attention of his neighbours on the narrow little avenue. He had, perhaps wisely, ditched the shotgun somewhere.

‘Lovely to see you again, Michael. Do come back and we’ll take tea sometime.’ He gave the thumbs-up sign, and grinned dementedly. From a distance his wide grey eyes seemed to glow. ‘You don’t even have to knock! It’ll be a pleasure to see you.’

‘Bastard,’ Harvie snarled. ‘I will make it my mission… I swear to God…’

They reached the car. Harvie’s limp having grown progressively worse.

‘Mick?’ Freya said. ‘Turn around… Please. It’s all right. I just want to check you out.’

‘It’s fine,’ he said. He actually smiled; his front teeth were smeared with blood. He ran a tongue over his teeth, frowned, then dabbed a finger against the enamel. Seeing his bloody fingertips, he spat onto the pavement. ‘I’ve had worse. Not for a while, but… I’ve had worse.’

‘I’m not sure I believe you. Look, you’re hurt. We’ve got to go to the police…’

She didn’t stop herself in time. Harvie laughed. ‘If you want to give a statement, head on up the drive. He seems to enjoy company.’

‘We should get you to casualty. It was a head injury… did you hit your head on the ground when you fell?’

‘I hit my head on a few things, at high speed.’ He fiddled for his keys, face pinched tight, whether in concentration or in pain, it was hard to say. At this point he looked old – properly old, the bent old man he would surely become. An inch or two shorter than he thought he was.

‘Are you going to be all right to drive?’

‘Don’t insult me. You going back to the smoke?’

She nodded. ‘Look, I think I’ve got a first aid kit in my bag… No offence, but I don’t want you to bleed on me.’

He sighed. ‘All right. I’ll indulge you. Let’s get in the car.’

Inside, she cleaned the cut with wipes and passed him a dab of antiseptic. He applied it the way a nun might apply blusher, then accepted a further offering of cotton wool and a sticking plaster over the top. The other side of his face was already swollen, and at closer quarters she could see his mashed lips had swollen. ‘He blindsided you, Mick.

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