Morales

The dark grey clouds were gathering slowly, ominously, above London. As they were usually prone to do, indeed, but more so recently as the days of winter edged ever closer. The fanfare of Hallowe’en had faded, from what little there was amongst the dreary Southern folk, into early November chills and showers. Crisp, brown leaves lay in hastily raked piles on the pavements, occasionally trodden on by the morning’s early risers.

The roads, at this hour, were beginning to fill with workers and parents alike, the ones who had set their alarms half an hour earlier to avoid the rush. The buses were shipping cargos of sleepy heads to stop after stop, and the smell of coffee and cigarettes wafted through the air as it blended with exhaust fumes and cheap aftershaves, the blue collar cocktail that was the standard to the senses. 

Small newsagent owners were opening their shutters to the early birds, supplying them with their morning newspaper and a friendly nod. School children bought packs of gum and sweets and crisps, for themselves and their friends, two at a time being the most the shop keeps would allow in at any one time, even with the unpredictable schedule of the school-rented double decker.

The sun pressed on in its gentle arc through the sky, reaching its late-morning position as the minimum wage workers clocked in and the school bells rang to signal the start of the day and the unemployed pressed the well-worn snooze button on their alarm clocks. The alarm clocks would pause for five minutes of heavenly silence, the limbo between slumber and wakefulness, before blaring its unforgiving siren again.

The sound pierced Michael Holland’s eardrums, and yielded a stir under the thin blanket as he stretched himself awake. As he strained his neck to look at the offending technology, checking the time to be nine thirty, he groaned and fell face first back into the pillow. Minutes later he was snoring, but the alarm clock sat patiently, continuing to ring without sympathetic regard for its cream-crackered clientele.

Some feet away from the near-corpselike state of the young man, another had taken a significantly more proactive approach to his wake-up call. Sitting up on a made bed, in the room adjacent to Michael’s, was the fresher faced form of Niamh Casterly. Through the thin walls, she could hear Michael’s alarm go off every morning, and so never bothered to set her own.

Michael, half conscious, heard her get out of bed, walk to the dividing wall and knock quietly, three times.

“Up?” she enquired, her voice muffled slightly but still as bright as ever.

“Getting there,” he called back tiredly. He slapped the alarm silent, and rolled out onto his feet, rubbing the remnants of his rudely interrupted inertia out of his steely grey eyes. As he opened his bedroom door and walked into the small living room, he yawned and stretched. Slowly, the plan for the day ahead trickled into his consciousness, and he took a deep breath.

“Game day, Holland,” Niamh said seriously as she came out of her door. She was right; today would be difficult. “Have you decided yet?”

“No,” he responded quietly. “You?”

She paused hesitantly, before looking directly at him. “Yes.”

Michael’s eyes widened, as he raised his head, suddenly very much awake.

“Shit. What’re you gonna do?”

“I think I’m gonna sell it.”

…

“It’s worth at least a thousand quid, Michael,” Niamh again looked at him, but this time there was desperation with the guilt. “I haven’t seen a number bigger than twelve in my account in months.”

“Yours doesn’t have so many strings attached, Nim, I’d sell it if I were you,” Michael sighed. He felt honest, saying that, which had felt like a strange relief from his own heavy conscience. A thousand pounds was a lot of money, to them, but Michael had a bigger dilemma. Niamh had found a buyer of an old piece of technical equipment she had from a job at a laboratory, a job that she was unfairly fired from. He had something a little more conflicting, but significantly more expensive.

“If they find out I nicked it, they’ll sue me for tons,” she protested.

He frowned. “So don’t sell it?”

“But it’s worth a thousand! And in all honesty, Michael, I don’t think Al’s really gonna do anything with the gun, god knows why but if he knew the first thing about firearms he would’ve slapped you in the face when you told him it was worth four thousand quid,” she laughed slightly. Evidently she was having no moral dilemma about screwing the company that screwed her.

“I just hope he doesn’t bloody implicate us in anything stupid he does,” Michael said bitterly.

“Aha, so you will sell it to him? Great, so, let’s pay rent for the next two-”

“Wait, hold on. I don’t know yet,” he interjected, stopping her before she got too far ahead of herself. “Don’t gun shops in America have waiting periods and background checks?”

“This isn’t exactly a legitimate transaction, Michael,” she shook her head. “Look, what else are you gonna do with it? If Damon finds out you nicked it from him, he’ll come after you. Better to pawn it off, surely?”

“Well, yeah, but if I go back to him, I could tell him I found it, or borrowed it or…” he trailed off, not quite sure where he was heading with this thread of thought.

“Yeah, let’s think of all the possible questions that raises,” she said, smirking. “Damon’s a twat, and we need the money, so-”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, sighing exasperatedly again. “But Al’s not much better.”

There was a short silence, before it was pierced by a loud ring, from Michael’s phone. He checked the screen, and his face drained of colour. Niamh noticed, and mouthed ‘Damon?’, and he nodded his head, before answering.

“Hello?”

“Holland. I’m coming over.” The phone beeped as he hung up. Michael turned to Niamh, then sprinted to the door, checking it was locked.

“Michael? What happened, is he here?” Niamh said worriedly, almost instinctively locking the windows.

“He said he’s coming, fuck. Think he knows?” Michael’s voice waivered slightly, before he remembered; he had the gun. “Shit, I have the gun. What do we do?”

“No idea, d’you think he has another gun?”

“Fuck if I know, Niamh. Shit, we can’t let him know we have the gun,” he said, running back to his room, frantically rummaging through the drawers until he found it. “What do we do?” he said again, breathing heavily.

Niamh looked at the gun, then at the front door, before frowning.

“Hide it, and when he comes over we’ll play innocent.”

…

“I need your help.”

Damon sat on our couch, ragged and tired, his eyes anxious. His hands were shaking as he held a mug of tea. Michael glanced at Niamh, who smirked again.

“With what, Damon?” Michael replied carefully.

“You can’t tell anyone, okay? No one.” He said it nervously but with assertion. It worried them both, as Niamh’s slight smile fell and Michael’s hands twitched nervously.

“What did you do?”

Damon paused, choosing his words seemingly quite carefully.

“I shot someone.”

No one said anything for a short while, as the words echoed in each of their ears. Niamh looked at Michael, her eyes wide with fear now. Damon had shot, potentially killed someone, and they had the smoking gun. Michael took a small breath and looked at him.

“Okay. Explain.”

“I shot someone. Just a bloke, I was supposed to kill him, and this man was gonna pay me, and I don’t know if he’s dead,” he said it all very quickly, almost rehearsed.

Michael considered the problem; Damon was coming to them for help, which was practically unheard of, yet he was sure this was not something he had intended to get involved in. Niamh looked at him again, her eyes searching his for a response. Would it be bad if he turned Damon away? If Michael sold the gun to Al, then he’d be susceptible to police investigation, and Michael would be rid of it.

“I also got rid of the gun, safely, but I don’t know if he saw me. The person I shot,” he added.

Michael frowned; was he blowing smoke out of his arse? Damon had no idea where the gun was. He had to get rid of him, now.

“No. Absolutely not,” Michael stood up, and said it firmly. “No fucking chance, Damon.”

Niamh caught on quickly. “You shouldn’t have told us, you stupid twat,” she almost yelled, before becoming aware of the high volume and turning slightly red.

Damon sighed, stood up, and placed his mug down. Michael thought silently, at least he didn’t smash it.

“Fine.” He walked to the front door, but Niamh called a question.

“Out of curiosity, who did you shoot?”

Michael groaned; so much for not being involved. Damon turned to face them.

“Ricky. Ricky Pollard.”

Niamh’s face drained, and Michael’s breath caught in his throat. As Damon shut the door behind him, Michael turned to her.

“Al, what was his brother’s name?”

She said the word silently, unable to summon her voice.

…

“This explains why Al wants the gun,” Niamh said, two cups of tea later.

“And why he’s willing to pay so much for it,” Michael replied, shaking his head. “Are we middlemen in a revenge plot?”

“I think so. If we sell Al the gun, then-“

“We pocket five thousand and he takes revenge on-“

“Damon, if we tell him who shot his brother.”

“Do we tell him that? We can’t rat Damon out, he’d be a dead man walking.”

“But if we don’t, then Al might take a few people down looking for him,” Niamh said, and the horrifying idea of more people dying at what could perceptively be seen as their hands seemed to hang in the air. Michael sipped from his cup of tea, and sighed.

“We could tell the police. Say we found the gun, thought we should take it before he did anything with it, found out what it was used for and went straight to them.”

There was an even longer silence.

“But the five thousand.”

“Four thousand,” he corrected her. “We still have one thousand from that dodgy thing you stole.”

“That would cover a month rent, and food for a while. Assuming we don’t get a job any time soon, which we probably won’t.”

Michael turned to her; “What do we do then?”

She shook her head; “I don’t know.”

…

Later that day, as the sun flirted with the horizon, the streetlights flickered on and headlights began to beam, Michael Holland and Niamh Casterly stood in their flat, holding a bag with five thousand pounds, wearing huge grins. Thirty miles or so away, Damon sat in a prison cell, and Al Pollard sat on his hands for what Michael and Niamh hoped would be the duration of Damon’s impending prison sentence.

“We did the right thing, didn’t we?” Michael asked her, smiling slightly.

“If Al stays put for twenty five years, perhaps. Ricky’s alive, anyways, and he’ll be alright.” Niamh replied

 “Al can bide his time,” Michael agreed. “Twenty five years is enough to stew, even if he has a gun. He hasn’t really got the balls to use it anyways.”

Niamh turned to him, concern in her eyes.

“We might’ve thought that about Damon, though.”

“Damon was desperate. Al’s just angry, but that’ll go when Ricky gets better. Hopefully.”

They looked at each other, their concern only slightly abetted. But the thought of financial security, for the near future at least, seemed to null the feeling slightly.