Free A Killing Moon by Steven Dunne Page B

said Nick, clearly pleased with his clever answer. He paused, composing his next utterance, but Jake was way ahead of him.
    ‘The answer’s no, Nick.’
    ‘No what?’
    ‘You’re not going with me to the bar again.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘You’re just not. You stay here.’
    Nick returned to his eating, sulky. He finished his plateful before eyeing Jake’s untouched meal. Jake saw him looking and pushed his plate across the table. Nick gathered it in and began devouring the untouched food with gusto.
    ‘You gonna lock me in again?’ Jake didn’t reply, an answer in itself. ‘What if there’s a fire?’
    ‘There won’t be.’
    ‘But what if there is?’
    Jake blew out his cheeks, coming to a decision. ‘Okay, I won’t lock you in if you promise not to go out.’
    ‘Why would I go out?’ said Nick. ‘I got no money.’
    Jake considered. He walked to the kitchenette and picked out the 50 p coin from the scraps of change. ‘For the meter. Watch some cartoons. Don’t light any matches. I won’t be too late.’
    ‘Can we have beans again for tea?’ grinned Nick.
    ‘Did you hear me, Nick?’ Jake’s eyes burned into his brother’s cherubic face. ‘Do not go out. Promise?’
    ‘I promise.’
    Jake trotted down the eleven flights of crumbling concrete steps and out on to the busy road. The morning sky had darkened since his shopping trip to Lidl.
    As usual, he glanced over at the ramshackle building that dominated the roundabout at the junction with Lara Croft Way. Every day since the Cream Bar had closed, Jake had looked across at it, and every day the weeds had got a little higher, the iron gate a little rustier and the paint on the brickwork a little dirtier. The place had been closed for several years and was one of many Derby hostelries in which Jake had pulled pints. In fact, he’d been working that last night, the night the police had shut the place down after a gangland fracas had turned ugly. Jake had been a keyholder, and the bar’s closure had been so sudden that no one had thought to ask for them back.
    Once things had died down, he’d let himself in to see if there was anything worth taking. He was no tea leaf, but he had pay owing and saw no reason not to help himself to anything of value, not that there was anything left after the owners had stripped it. Coppers too, probably.
    Shame. It had been good to hold down a full-time job knowing that Nick was only a hundred yards away, safely watching TV in the flat after he got home from school. But when the Cream Bar had closed and Nick left school with no qualifications and no skills, Jake had had little choice but to work part-time and leave his brother outside various bars until he’d finished his shift – it was either that or not work at all. And with Nick so helpless, not working was often the norm.
    But now he’d landed a plum full-time job with good pay, and for the first few days he had been happy to leave his kid brother in Bar Polski’s staff cloakroom with a fun pack of sweets and a comic. Not any more. If he wanted to keep hold of his new job, he had no option but to leave Nick alone in the flat. And that was asking for trouble.
    The best-laid plans  . . .
    Jake dragged his thoughts back to the day ahead and how he was going to handle Max if he saw him. He didn’t want to lose his job, but something had to be done. He sprinted in front of traffic to beat the lights, then ambled along Osmaston Road towards the centre of town.
    From the comfort of his van, Max watched Jake pass, sinking down into the driver’s seat at his nearest tangent. When Jake had disappeared from view, he took a hearty pull on a bottle of vodka before spinning the top back on and tossing it on the passenger seat. Grabbing a large bunch of keys from under the seat, he got out and locked the vehicle before spitting contemptuously in Jake’s direction.
    He looked up at the tower block. He could make out Nick pressed up against the window, scanning the