‘Look after the little tit, he’s my sister’s boy,’ Don had said earlier in the day. ‘See what you think of him, give me your opinion.’
Rufus thought that Don would not like his opinion one bit. Pikey was spineless. But he would look after the boy on this one outing, report back to Don that the kid was useless, and hopefully he would never be burdened again.
From early on in the proceedings, Pikey had been displaying nerves. While Rufus siphoned petrol from the can into a Lucozade bottle, Pikey’s hands had been shaking so hard that he couldn’t hold the bottle still. He’d ended up with petrol splashed all over his hand and arm.
When the bottle was full, Rufus stuffed paper into the nozzle to act as a fuse. Then they waited. Their information was that Pardew would come out of his mistress’s house in the suburbs of Moyross dead on ten o’clock, aiming to get home before his old lady started playing up.
And sure enough, here he was, whistling his way down the path as happy as a lark. His breath was like smoke in the cold night air. Pardew had already survived one of Don’s boys taking a pop at him. Someone had walked up to him in the street and fired a gun in his face. Or that had been the intention. The gun had misfired. The would-be assassin had been a marked man after that, showing up in the local morgue a week later.
Pardew’s car wasn’t flashy but it was – according to Don – armour-plated and bullet-proof. None of which was going to save Pardew’s fat cheating arse on this occasion.
‘You won’t get him once he’s in the car,’ said Don. ‘Don’t attempt it.’
Pardew looked portly, balding and faintly yellow in the sodium glare of the street lights.
Rufus nudged Pikey hard.
It was their signal.
Pikey, hands trembling, flicked the lighter. Then he dropped it.
‘Shit!’ snarled Rufus under his breath.
He glanced at Pardew, who had stopped walking. He’d seen the lighter’s flare. Rufus looked back at Pikey and saw that his hand was on fire.
Pikey let out a shriek.
The fire snaked rapidly up Pikey’s arm and enveloped his head.
His screams were ripping through the evening air now, his skin melting like cheese on a hot griddle.
Shit, shit, shit.
Even in the midst of his panic over Pikey – Christ! Don’s nephew! His fucking nephew! – Rufus kept a clear head.
He snatched up the lighter, lit the fuse, lobbed the bottle.
All an instant too late.
Pardew was holding a hand gun, and he was shooting towards the flaming remnants of Pikey. Rufus felt a shot whistle past his ear, then an impact, hard as a hammer, took him in the shoulder, whirling him away, throwing him off his feet. He lay there on the tarmac, hearing the blood thundering in his ears, thinking: