As it turned out, the hotel foyer was almost deserted, and the Sunday lunchtime street was only sparsely populated with pedestrians. For want of any better ideas, Sandra made a vague attempt at playing for time. When they reached the pavement at the bottom of the hotel steps, she stopped and looked back and forth along the road.
‘Now where the hell did I leave it?’ she said, scratching her head for good measure and with almost as much exaggerated theatricality as a Stan Laurel impersonator.
She was enjoying winding the guy up but wondered if this might not be her best strategy when she felt the heat of his breath in her ear and caught a whiff of stale beer as he said, ‘Listen, hen, I’m nae even gonna count tae three.’
‘Maths not your strong point, eh?’ The beginnings of a smile were short lived as the gun barrel caught her somewhere in the region of her right kidney.
The flash of pain persuaded her there was little to be gained from the smartarse approach, and she was about to set off down the pavement when an elderly man with a thin grey moustache and a checked cap stopped in front of her and said, ‘You’re looking a bit lost, love. Can I help at all?’
The smile reappeared and now spread unhindered across her face. ‘That’s very kind of you. I’m actually trying to get to er… the er… bus station.’
‘Happens I’m going that way meself,’ said the man, beaming back at her. ‘Come on and I’ll show you the way.’
As he began to turn, Sandra felt a firm hand on her shoulder.
‘Ye know, darlin’,’ said MacFarland. ‘I think I must have left ma wallet back in the hotel.’
Sandra was momentarily struck by how much venom someone could inject into the word “darling”. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘Well never mind, darling. Perhaps you could catch us up.’
She felt the fingertips dig into the flesh of her shoulder and thought she heard the faint click of the gun’s safety catch.
‘I dinnae think so, pet.’
The man in the cap looked mildly puzzled but gave them directions to the bus station and then went on his way with a cheery wave.
This time, the gun barrel scored a direct hit on her kidney, and Sandra bit her lip to stop herself from crying out. Again, she smelt the warm, beery breath as MacFarland lowered his mouth to her ear and said, ‘Ye tired o’ living or wha’?’
Another violent prod in the back gave her sufficient motivation to start walking, but after thirty or so, she spotted a boy of about eleven or twelve running towards them with a skateboard under his arm. She offered up a silent prayer that his plastic helmet and the protective pads on his elbows and knees would prevent him coming to any real harm from what she was about to do, and when he drew level with them, she edged her foot to the side and made the lightest of contacts with his right ankle. The kid staggered and dropped his skateboard, his arms flailing through the air as he fought an instinctive and desperate battle against the forces of gravity. But the speed of his momentum and Sandra’s accuracy meant that there could only be one winner, and he sprawled onto the pavement in an awkward tangle of limbs.
MacFarland had no time to react before Sandra threw herself down on her knees next to the boy’s contorted body.
‘You okay, kid?’ she said, carefully turning him onto his side and then onto his back. She examined him for any sign of blood or serious damage and was relieved that there didn’t seem to be anything obvious. The vacancy of his stare was worrying though, and she tried to remember her First Aid lessons and what you were supposed to do to treat concussion.
Just then, however, the boy’s eyelids flickered, and it was as if a light had been switched back on inside his head. Sandra noticed the tears that were beginning to form and felt a wave of guilt.
‘You hurt anywhere?’ she said.
He blinked again. ‘Don’t think so.’ He groaned as he attempted to push himself up into a sitting position, and Sandra told him to stay where he was for a few more minutes till he got his breath back.
She looked up at MacFarland and tried to ignore the intensity of the rage that glared back at her. ‘Here, give me that,’ she said and reached out towards the jacket which was still draped over his arm.
‘Bloody comedian now, are we?’
‘I need it to support his head.’
‘Aye, right,’ he said with a snort of derision.
A small group of people had begun to gather by now, and a smartly dressed woman with a poodle rounded on him with a look of disbelief. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Give her the jacket.’
She too stretched out a hand towards it, and MacFarland took a step back. ‘Listen, hen, why don’t ye just piss off and mind yir own bloody business? Okay?’