The sick feeling was rising in Martin even as he was talking to George on the phone. The suddenness of it, the silence of it, just red instantly appearing on the gray shirt, and the body crumpling to the floor, and even then, the idea appearing in his mind: he had set this whole thing up. He had set up that poor security guard for death as surely as if he’d shot him himself. Widowed a woman he’d never met, perhaps orphaned his children. Didn’t even check what new protection they might have brought in. Thought the whole thing was exciting, like cops and robbers. And now a man lay dead.
The nausea swelled up insistently within him and then found its way out. He fell over and vomited onto the pavement floor of the alleyway, coughing and spluttering. His stomach heaved again, and he tried to choke it down, but it came up anyway. Again he coughed, and then he looked up at the building across the road only to see the man with the gun looking in his direction now. The man motioned inside the unit and started walking towards Martin. Martin’s heart turned over in his chest.
He stood up quickly and ran down the alleyway in the dark.