Savage Night - Allan Guthrie [61]
"Even though we were against it?"
Martin combed his damp hair with his fingers. "Yeah."
She thought for a minute. "I don't think so."
"You could be right."
"I know my dad better than you."
"Sure."
"He wouldn't do that."
"Probably not."
Effie ran her tongue over her lips. The sickly sweet taste in her mouth wouldn't go away.
"Forget it," he said. "I'm sure there's another explanation." He leaned across, kissed her on the cheek.
"Yeah," she said.
"So what are we going to do about the kid?" Martin adjusted his towel. "Doesn't seem right to ..."
"What doesn't?"
"You know. I'm no Moral Morag but ..."
"Who the fuck's she?"
"You know what I mean."
She sighed. "I know. He's seen us. He can identify us." Her dad had wanted Jordan dead, too, but she had refused to consider it. Martin wasn't too keen either. And they'd won. Agreed to do just the three adult males—Phil, Fraser and Tommy. Or so she'd thought. But now things weren't looking so rosy for Jordan. Fuck, her dad was a right bastard sometimes.
"Shit," she said. "He's only a kid."
"Doesn't stop his eyes from working. And the police'll believe him, won't they? If he fingers us, case closed."
Jordan's voice hadn't broken yet. He was older than he looked, but even so, Effie knew he was only eleven. "I fucked up," she said to Martin.
"How the fuck did you fuck up?"
"Not getting out of here when we could have. Having that bath. Not making a contingency plan."
"You'd have preferred to spend the rest of the night covered in gunge?"
"Could have had a shower."
"And how were we to know the kid would get on his bike, cycle over here and let himself in with his own key?"
She shrugged. "We should have considered it."
"Can't consider everything. Anyway, doesn't matter. What matters is what we do now."
He was right. No point dwelling on the past. She should know. Maybe she'd been trying too hard to impress him. Didn't matter for the moment who'd sent the kid round to visit. She had to let go of the anger and think.
She must have spoken aloud, cause Martin said, "Yeah, we have to deal with this, babe."
She nodded. "I'm just not sure if we should …"
"Things are different." His face twisted. "The kid's dangerous."
Sounded like he wanted to do it. "You mean you've changed your mind?"
"You got any other ideas?"
They could ask Jordan not to mention them, say this was all a big secret. But that'd hardly be a smart move. Maybe claim that Jordan's brother didn't want anyone to know he'd gone off on that fictitious drug deal, so Jordan had to keep his mouth shut. They could bribe him. Money probably wouldn't work, but they could try offering him a fancy mobile phone or a computer console or something. But his grandmother would want to know where the new equipment had come from, so that was no good.
What else, then? Well, if Jordan was an adult, threats might work. Break something? Nah, if he went home with a busted arm, Grandma was going to wonder how that'd happened and word would get out about the nasty couple at Fraser's house.
Effie looked up. Martin was watching her, arms by his sides, one foot planted on top of the other.
"Give me time," she said. "There's got to be a way out of this."
"You think we have time?" Martin said. "We have to leave. We need to decide what we're going to do with the kid."
"You decide."
"You saying you want me to do it?"
"I'm not saying that at all."
"Yes, you are. If you can't decide, then I'll have to. And because I make the decision, I'll have to do … it, too."
"Look," Effie said, "I'm just saying, I don't think I can do it. That's all."
Martin folded his arms. "Well, I'm not doing it. You'll have to. You're the Apprentice, after all."
She stared at him. She shouldn't have told him Richie'd called her that. "What if we just leave the kid?"
"So he can tell the police we were here? Give them our descriptions? Identify us in a line up? If we don't sign his death warrant, we're signing our own. He knows what's wrapped up over there."
Effie looked at what remained of Phil and Fraser Savage. "No,