– It’s the police.

Audrey pulls up the double-barrel that belonged to his friend – clicks it hard, twice.

She shoots every corpse through the heart again – then the head.

Places the gun next to Rab as if he’s just dropped it and he is too doped to move now – he stares into the great kenoma with pupils so wide and black the blue of his eyes is barely visible any more. Bai double-locks the door and puts the bolt on – so it will take the police some time to get in. She climbs up the drainpipe. Audrey climbs out behind her. The two of them are dressed all in black and, unable to be seen from the street, they disappear – just like that – entirely from sight.

1989

Flat 8F8

Ivor (37) ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone

IVOR LIES in the dark with Ray-Ban sunglasses on. He isn’t cool enough to be a vampire. But he’ll do anything to avoid sunshine. His wife fucked his best friend – in a bed he built for her no less. Ivor doesn’t have it in him to care any more. He never thought that at his age he would be homeless – or without his own place, anyway. Esme’s room smells of wee and My Little Ponies. It is a plastic, synthetic-haired, ammonia smell.

The city is waking.

Down on the streets cars trail, yellow, blue, green, red.

Street lamps wink out.

Knots in his gut.

It would be better to go blind than to see daylight.

That’s a shameful thought.

Why anyone fears darkness, he does not know.

It’s a blanket.

It’s a solace.

Turn the lights down.

Put a record on.

Walk through a city lit by little moons.

That’s what Esme calls the street lights – a whole walkway of little moons. He imagines himself in the Meadows with his niece, her tugging at a kite with the stars behind it, or him taking her out on midnight adventures, or them having a picnic up Arthur’s Seat, lit only by candles, or winter when it gets dark early so he can take her out to the ice rink in Princes Street Gardens and run around in the tree maze with her and make her smile. Esme has never asked him why they don’t do anything in daylight. She thinks his car has blacked-out windows because he is cool. That’s how he drives to the pit. Pulls his cap down. The walk from car to pit entrance has his legs trembling but he does it so he can just get in there, to calm the fuck down and get on with his working day. Without that routine to hide in and with no other way of making money underground… he needs to change everything.

In a minute – he’ll make breakfast for Esme.