Blackwater - By Conn Iggulden Page 0,19

the doorway, his mouth open in horror. Instead, my older brother looked at me and grinned. He didn’t seem to care that Michael was there. I watched in sick fascination as my brother nudged Denis with his foot. The body twitched and I thought I might lose my breakfast.

‘Dead, or a vegetable, no doubt about it,’ he said, and I swear he chuckled. I’d rarely seen him happier. Perhaps you can see now why I’ve always been frightened of him. It wasn’t so much what he did, but what he was capable of.

Michael began to move and I was pleased I couldn’t see my brother’s expression when he turned back to finish the job. There are sharks in the world and, like Bobby Penrith before him, Michael just wasn’t prepared to meet a bigger one in my kitchen, on that day. I saw him reach into his jacket for some sort of weapon. My brother didn’t trouble to stop him. He just smacked the bar against the side of Michael’s head, breaking something inside. Michael dropped almost as fast as Denis had, as the signals from his brain to his legs were interrupted.

I came to my feet in a sort of trance, feeling only pity for Michael. He was a hired man, after all, but I’d sat and watched him twist my fingers right round and I didn’t call out to save him, even if I could have.

The man Denis had hired to cause a little fear in those he dealt with had always struck me as large, not fast, but strong. It was surprising to see how my brother loomed over him as he hit him again. Fear shrinks you somehow, and courage swells you up larger than you really are. I’ve noticed that before.

I’d found my own bit of pipe in the plumber’s bag my brother had brought with him. I don’t think he heard me coming, but even if he did he didn’t expect me to smash it down on him with all the strength of years of fear and hatred. I’d seen him break a skull just a few moments before and I’m pleased to say that I did it just as neatly as he did. I killed my brother as he hit Michael for a second time, so that the two blows sounded almost together. He fell sideways, sprawling over the broken bodies. He didn’t move and I almost left it at that, but he’d seemed to think two hits were needed to be sure. I held my breath and brought the pipe down again onto his crown, with all the force I could. It was already soft and I felt it give. His eyes were open and I don’t think he could still feel anything. The first one had been pretty hard.

There was some blood dripping, but it wasn’t too bad. Most of it was on them and spattered across the kitchen. It looked just as he’d said it would, like a violent scene of a fight.

I stood looking at them for a while, I can’t say how long. My stomach betrayed me, of course, so I wasted a few minutes vomiting into the sink and wondering if I should get rid of it or leave it as a reasonable reaction to such horror. I left it, in the end. The police would come asking eventually and I knew they could be persistent. My brother was right about one thing, though. The self-defence works even better with him dead. I had an idea that I might even end up as a hero.

When my stomach had stopped going into spasm, I sat down at the kitchen table and poured a last toast to the three of them.

I raised my glass to my brother. ‘Here’s to growing up, old son. You should never have slept with her,’ I told him. ‘That was just a little too much for me. Still, it’s all forgotten now.’

I found myself chuckling, and it was an effort to stop. I wondered if he even knew I’d found out, that Carol had thrown it at me in one of our fights. He wasn’t the sort to feel guilt. I’ve no doubt that it was just a thrill for him to find a beautiful woman willing to waste an afternoon, no matter who she was married to. It was strange to see the way they acted around each other after I knew. Whatever memory they’d made had gone a bit sour, I could