Free The Devil's Breath by Graham Hurley

in no hurry. There was a dimension in this small moment of time that he understood all too well. Billy, his Billy, the face at the bedroom door, the grin on the pillow beside him, had collided with real life. And real life, with its inexplicable aches, its sudden pains, their causes, their effects, hurt.
    Billy glanced across at his father, a hesitant, interrogative look, a question. McVeigh smiled, and reached for him, trying to put the answer into words. ‘Yakov?’ he suggested.
    The boy said nothing, just nodded, agreeing. McVeigh grinned at him, trying to turn the corner, trying to change the mood. ‘Want to know what I’ve done?’
    Billy looked at him for a long moment, then shook his head. ‘No.’
    ‘No?’ McVeigh frowned. ‘
No
?’
    Billy fumbled for the door again. McVeigh stopped him.
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Because …’ Billy shrugged. ‘I dunno …’
    He trailed off lamely.
    McVeigh, genuinely confused now, bent forward across the car. ‘But, Billy,’ he said, ‘it’s important.’
    ‘What? What’s important?’
    ‘What happened. To Yakov.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘Then listen, son. Listen.’
    ‘Yes, Dad.’
    ‘No, I mean it.’
    ‘I know. I know you mean it. That’s why—’ He shrugged again. McVeigh, watching him carefully now, caught the telltale inflection, the voice still up, the thought stillborn.
    ‘Why what?’ he said softly. ‘Tell me. Why what?’
    ‘Why—’ Billy gulped, a symptom McVeigh was at last able to recognize. Guilt. McVeigh leaned forward again, determined not to lose the advantage. Billy looked at him, defeated. ‘Why I wrote the letter,’ he said.
    ‘What letter?’
    ‘To Yakov’s friends.’
    ‘What friends?’
    ‘At the Embassy. The place he works. They said it in the papers. They said he came from the Embassy. I looked it up. My friends helped me. I’ve got the address. I
wrote
to them.’
    McVeigh nodded, following it all now, understanding it. ‘And what did you say?’
    There was a long silence. Then Billy grinned at him, the firstgrin in days, sunshine after the dark. ‘I told them it was OK. I told them you’d find whoever did it.’
    McVeigh looked at him. ‘You told them
what
?’
    ‘I said you’d—’ he shrugged, delighted now, the secret out, his own little contribution, Yakov avenged ‘—I said you’d find the man, whoever it was—’
    ‘And?’
    ‘And kill him too.’
    McVeigh blinked and began to protest, to frame another question, but Billy wasn’t listening. He was out of the car and across the road, pushing in at the gate. He had the keys of the flat now, his own set, and he let himself in with another grin, tossed back over his shoulder, as his father locked the car and came after him.
    Upstairs, Billy was sprawled in front of the television, fingering his way through the channels on the remote controller, still giggling. McVeigh asked him twice whether he’d been joking. Both times he said no. He’d posted the letter yesterday. He’d addressed it to Mr Ambassador. He’d written it out twice, once practice, once in fair, best handwriting, joined-up letters. He hadn’t told his mother and he hadn’t meant to tell McVeigh, but now his dad had found out, so it didn’t really matter any more. The only thing that mattered was getting his own back on whoever had killed Yakov.
    McVeigh stood in the doorway, teapot in one hand, kettle in the other, trying to compete with the kids from
Grange Hill
. ‘You shouldn’t have done it,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t have written.’
    ‘But I had to.’
    ‘No, you didn’t.’
    ‘Yes, I did.’ He turned round, stretching lazily, the old Billy again. McVeigh looked at him for a moment, wondering what the Israeli diplomatic machine would make of a letter threatening constructive homicide from an eleven-year-old, knowing that – yet again – the boy was playing the Good Shepherd, penning him in, making the decision for him.
    Grange Hill
came to an end and the credits began to