Read Online Dancing Towards the Blade and Other Stories by Mark Billingham - Free Book Online

through a grey metal door. They try to keep the families separate until the last possible moment, which is understandable, I guess, and even though there was only me and some crazy woman who’d been writing to Anthony for the last few years, we had our own escort. The prison chaplain would be a ‘witness’ too, of course, but I guessed he had no choice but to be kind of neutral about what was happening, so he didn’t really count.
    The deputy warden’s highly polished shoes squeaked on the linoleum floor as we walked toward the room next to the execution chamber. Then he opened the door and politely stood aside as I walked in.
    The place was pretty crowded.
    I knew there would be a few State officials as well as representatives from the media, but I hadn’t figured on there being that many people and it took me a few seconds before I spotted her. She was sitting on the front row of plastic chairs, her mother on one side of her, the other older woman and her psycho brother on the other side. Like everyone else, she’d turned to look when the door opened and I saw the colour drain from her face when I nodded to her. Her mother leaned close to whisper something, but she just shook her head and turned round again.
    I walked towards the front of the room and took a seat on the end of the second row. We sat in silence for a couple minutes, save for some coughing and the scrape of metal as chairs got shifted, then one of the officers ran through the procedure and raised the blind at the window.
    Tony was already strapped to the gurney.
    There were three men inside the chamber with him and one of them, who I figured was the warden, asked Tony if he wanted to say anything. Tony nodded and one of the other men lowered a microphone in front of his face.
    Tony turned his head as far as he was able and said how sorry he was. For what he’d done, and for all the shit he’d laid at his own family’s door down the years. He finished up by saying that he wasn’t afraid and that everyone on the other side of the glass should take a good look at his life and try to learn something. I’m not quite sure what he meant by that and, things being how they were, it wasn’t like I had the chance to ask him.
    He closed his eyes, then the warden gave the signal and everything went quiet.
    Three drugs, one after the other: the sedative, the paralytic and the poison.
    It took five minutes or so and Tony didn’t really react a great deal. I saw his lips start to go blue and from then until it was finished, I paid as much attention to her face as his. She knew I was watching her, I could tell that. That I was thinking about all the things she’d said, and the things she’d asked me to do to her the night before at the Huntsville Palms Hotel.
    Wanting to see just how good she felt about herself the next day.
    I left the room before she did, but I waited around just long enough to get one last look at her. Her face was the colour of oatmeal and I couldn’t tell if her mother was holding onto her or if it was the other way around. I guessed she was right about one thing; that it would not be something she would forget.
    I had to shield my eyes against the glare when I stepped back out into the courtyard and walked towards my car. I drove out through the gates and past a small group of protesters with placards and candles. A few of them were singing some hymn I couldn’t place and others were holding up Tony’s picture. Later on, I would be coming back to collect my brother’s body and make the arrangements, but until I did, he wasn’t going anywhere.
    Right then, all I wanted was to get away from The Walls and drive south-west on I-45.
    To get another look at that big beautiful lake in the daylight.

Now read the beginning of
    the new Tom Thorne novel
    The Dying Hours

 
    How much blood?
    When he’d finally found the right website, once he’d waded through all the mealy-mouthed crap about having something to live for and trying to seek