Read Online Still Midnight by Denise Mina - Free Book Online

but the bruises of that fight never left Eddy. Pat didn’t know what was wrong with him. A bird, Eddy said he needed a bird, so Pat set him up but she wasn’t right and he gave her a slap and her brother came over and it got messy. New job, so Pat got them an indoor, but Eddy said the money was shit and they weren’t allowed to drink. Now he needed money, if only Eddy had money. One big job. Pat was losing faith, wouldn’t use his contacts, so Eddy’d done it himself, set it up and got the guns, the van, the address. And now what was wrong was an old toast-smelling man who didn’t have a hole in his head.
    Walking along the sea of frozen mud Pat realized that soon he would be what was wrong with Eddy.
    Up ahead, in among the trees, Pat saw an orange eye widen in welcome. Malki was smoking a fag, casual, standing next to the two large white plastic drums of petrol. Pat bolted over to him, slapping the cigarette from his mouth, scattering flecks of red all over the ground and stamping on them.
    Malki had been enjoying that cigarette. He looked down at it sadly. “Aw, man!” he droned. “I havenae opened the petrol, calm the fuck down.”
    Pat grabbed him by the hoodie zip, held him up on his tiptoes, and spat in his face. “You calm fucking down, Malki. You fucking calm down.”
    Drops of Pat’s spit freckled Malki’s forehead. It was so obvious neither of them said it: Malki was medically, chemically, technically perfectly calm. Despite the freezing cold of the night, despite smoking a fag next to two giant cans of petrol while being threatened by a man twice his weight, even then Malki’s physiology couldn’t summon up enough adrenaline to redden his cheeks.
    A bead of sweat trickled down Pat’s forehead and Malki watched as the urgent trail disappeared into his eyebrow and dripped from his slightly overhanging brow.
    “Not being funny, Pat, man, but have yous twos been doing steroids or something?”
    Pat let his wee cousin drop back onto his feet. “Malki—”
    “Yees are awful fucking jumpy.”
    “Just shut it, Malki.”
    Indignant, Malki straightened the front of his hoodie and, unseen, the tiny ball of foil tumbled gracefully out, bouncing on the grass, falling between the blades. Malki muttered, “… need tae be fucking rude, man.”
    Sulking, they took a petrol can each and unscrewed the caps, Malki in charge now because he had been burning out stolen cars since he was twelve and knew what he was about. It was surprisingly easy to get it wrong.
    While Pat soaked the seats, Malki opened up the tank and threaded in a line of tubing, sucking the petrol out. They didn’t want an explosion or a fireball drawing anyone’s attention; just a good, thorough job. The longer it took the police to find the van, the longer they had to muddy their trail.
    By the time Pat had finished, the fumes were prickling at the skin inside his nose, making him dizzy. His mind was on the Lexus, listening, the hairs on his neck on standby, alert for the muffled pop of the gun.
    He found Malki round the back, blowing into the petrol tank through the tube.
    “Disperse the fumes, man,” explained Malki between puffs. He smiled as he blew, eyes wide, excited.
    Pat watched. Malki came from a family of arseholes but he himself was a good wee guy. He smiled again, puffing his cheeks out like a trumpeter. How did that happen? Pat wondered. A good guy from that family, a moral guy, with standards.
    “Eddy’s lost it a bit,” he said quietly.
    Malki puffed and raised his eyebrows.
    Pat kicked at the ground, looking away because he felt disloyal. “His wife…,” he said, backtracking, excusing.
    Malki took the tube from his mouth. “Three nice wee kids.” He pulled the tube out carefully. “She’s well out of it. Did the right thing fucking off to Manchester.”
    Pat couldn’t look at him because Malki was right.
    He pulled the tube out and laid it flat on the ground, pointing away from the van and into the dark woods. He