Adam screwed his eyes tight, but the awful sounds kept coming to him. He’d known Luke the longest of all, met him at the union in Freshers’ Week first year; four hours later they were steaming drunk best friends. Now Luke was lying in a spreading pool of his own blood, his head being caved in by a fucking lunatic.

Adam opened his eyes and glanced at the mess of Luke’s head, the blood and brains, skull and hair. He felt a rush of fury swell up inside him. His stomach spasmed and he vomited acrid liquid down his front. He spat and tried to wipe his mouth on his shoulder.

Joe turned, wiping blood and sweat away from his forehead and breathing heavily.

‘Looks like we’ve got a squeamish one,’ he said, taking a swig of peatreek from the canister.

‘You’re not going to get away with this,’ said Adam.

‘You going to stop me?’ Joe let out a melodramatic laugh. ‘I don’t think so.’ He shook his head as he got his breath back. ‘It wasn’t my fault, I only did it to prove a point. Hedge Cunt here said I didn’t have the bollocks to kill someone, so I had to show him. If anything, it’s his fault your bumchum is dead.’

‘Fuck you,’ said Roddy.

Joe tapped out a line of coke and snorted, then threw the case to Grant who did likewise.

Molly stared at Joe. ‘I knew you had turned into an evil bastard, but I never thought you were capable of this.’

‘Just shows you, doesn’t it?’ Joe smiled. ‘You’re married to someone for years, you think you know them, but they turn out to have hidden depths.’

‘You need help,’ said Molly. ‘Psychiatric help.’

Joe laughed. ‘Fuck that, I’m not mad, just bad. And certainly dangerous to know. You of all people should appreciate that.’

‘I don’t know how you ended up this way, Joe, but it has nothing to do with me. Or the miscarriages, if that’s what you’re blaming.’

Joe strode towards her. He grabbed her jaw and turned her face towards him.

‘I never said any of this was to do with you, did I?’ he hissed. ‘Why don’t you just shut up with the psychoanalysing bullshit for once, eh?’

‘I’m just trying to understand,’ said Molly.

‘Well don’t.’ He was still holding her face by the chin. He smiled and moved closer till he was inches from her. ‘Remember all the fun times we had in that marital bed?’

‘Joe …’

He turned to Adam. ‘Did she tell you she likes a bit of rough stuff?’

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Adam.

‘The odd slap or punch gets the juices flowing,’ Joe said, turning to Molly. ‘Doesn’t it, dear?’

Molly looked him in the eye. Adam tried to imagine what the hell it had been like between them. Joe must’ve been a completely different person, that’s all he could think. He looked at Luke’s body and wanted to stick a gun in Joe’s face, watch him suffer the way he’d made them all suffer.

‘In fact, just talking about it is getting me horny,’ said Joe.

Molly’s eyes widened.

‘Joe,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Don’t.’

He grabbed her and dragged her to her feet.

‘Leave her alone!’ Adam shouted as Molly struggled to break free. Joe had a tight hold as he kicked over the whisky cask she’d been leaning on and forced her to lie across it face down.

‘Get those scissors, will you?’ he said to Grant, who fetched them from the table.

Molly was struggling, so Joe smashed her head off the barrel to subdue her.

‘Fucking leave her,’ said Adam. He got up, then stopped as Grant pointed the shotgun at him. Grant handed over the scissors then stepped backwards, keeping the gun trained on Adam and Roddy.

Joe reached down and cut the restraints from Molly’s ankles.

‘Got to get those legs spread, haven’t we?’ he said with a grim laugh.

He pulled her jeans down and Molly screamed.

Adam looked away. The noise in the barn got louder, a crescendo of machine buzz flooding his ears. He focused on the growing sound, which slowly changed and grew to a deafening hiss and shriek. Suddenly he felt himself knocked backwards as a blinding flash of incendiary light exploded in his peripheral vision.

He looked up to see Grant waving his arms around cartoonishly, his body engulfed in flames. The side of the nearest still had exploded down its riveted join, a ragged hole in the copper spewing clear liquid and blue flame everywhere.

‘Jesus fuck,’ said Joe. He was on the ground next to Molly, where they’d been knocked over by the blast. He scrambled towards Grant and the still, but was pushed back by the heat. He ran to the table, picked up a fire extinguisher and pointed it at the inferno.

Adam felt something hit his foot. It was the scissors. He looked up and saw Molly slumped on the floor, jeans round her ankles, looking at him, then the scissors. He shuffled round, picked them up with his tied hands, knelt with his feet behind him and clumsily cut his ankle ties. He looked at Joe, who had his back to them, pointing the extinguisher at the still, then at Grant, who was rolling frantically around on the ground.

Adam ran over to Molly with the scissors in his hands still tied behind him, turned his back to her then spoke over his shoulder.

‘Put your wrist ties in the scissors. Careful, I can’t see what I’m doing.’

‘OK,’ she said, then after a moment: ‘Cut.’

He forced the scissor arms together and felt something give under the pressure. She took the scissors from his hands and cut his ties. They both looked at Joe, who was still blasting the extinguisher at Grant. The noise and heat from the fire were ferocious. Molly pulled her jeans up and ran over to Roddy, who was watching them with wide eyes. She cut his ties and helped him up.

Adam kept an eye on Joe. The shotgun was on the ground next to Grant, both of them still aflame. Grant had stopped rolling. Adam could see the handgun in Joe’s trousers. He felt a tap on his shoulder, and turned to see Molly indicating the barn door. Behind her Roddy was reaching for the coke tin discarded on the floor. They both ran past him towards the door. He turned to look at Luke’s corpse then followed them, stopping briefly at the table to pick up a torch.

‘Hey!’

Adam turned to see Joe coming towards them, dropping the fire extinguisher and pulling the gun from his waistband.

‘I don’t fucking think so.’

Molly and Roddy were at the door and heading into the night as Adam bolted after them. He heard a sharp crack and felt a bullet whiz past his head.

He got to the door, ran outside and slammed it behind him. There was a latch on the outside, which he threw over. The door shuddered as Joe crashed into it, but held.

‘I’ll fucking kill you,’ said Joe through the door, followed by two explosions as bullets ripped through the wood and fizzed into the snow.

Joe began to kick the door from the inside as Adam turned. Molly and Roddy were heading round the side of the barn and he ran to catch up. Around the other side they found a police car, but it was locked.

‘What do we do now?’ said Adam, breathless.

They heard a crash from the other side of the barn.

‘Run,’ said Molly.

Joe appeared round the corner and spotted them. They ran behind the car and found a narrow lane leading uphill. Shots rang out and they all ducked.

There was the sound of another explosion from inside the barn.

Joe looked in their direction, then back at the barn. ‘Fuck!’ he shouted, then ran inside, leaving the three of them hurtling up the lane into the freezing, snowy blackness.