It had been an uncomfortable experience and one in which he’d had to use all his natural cunning to survive, but it had also been a very interesting one. He couldn’t wait to tell his friends about it. And his father. His father especially would be proud of the way he’d thought on his feet, catching his kidnapper out so smartly.
His father had taught him so many good lessons. That words can tear an opponent to pieces far more effectively than even the strongest blade.
And of course, that in law, as in life, there is no place for sentiment.
So what if the lunatic’s son had died? His death had had nothing to do with Lucas, nor with his father. His father had simply done his job. Why then should they be made to pay for this other man’s misery?
He mounted the steps, opened the door and walked out into the Hayer’s hallway. Ignoring the photographs on the wall, quite oblivious to them, he went over to the phone, even allowing himself a tiny triumphant smirk as he dialled the police.
Didn’t hear the footsteps behind him. Only knew that something was wrong when the phone suddenly went dead before it was picked up at the other end. As if it had been unplugged.
He turned round slowly, the hairs prickling on the back of his neck.
Saw the man.
Stocky, with close-cropped hair and narrow, interested eyes. Dressed in an ill-fitting blue boiler suit. Stained. An unpleasant familiarity about him.
Found his eyes moving almost magnetically towards the huge, gleaming blade of the carving knife in the man’s huge paw-like hand.
The fear came in a quivering rush.
Now it was Patrick Dean’s turn to smirk.
Another Life
Roz Southey
I’D ALWAYS KNOWN it was either me or Keeg. Mates then enemies. One of us was going to have to die.
It was never fucking well going to be me.
The flat is dark, full of shadows. As I walk naked across the room, moonlight stripes the floor. The polished-wood, paid for with my hard-earned. Floor to ceiling windows, velvet curtains. Chrome and glass furniture, plasma screen TV, pictures worth a fortune. We used to look up at blocks like this, me and Keeg, back when we were fourteen. Ponsy fuckers, we’d yell. Fucking fat-cats. And pudgy-faced wankers in posh suits would peer out at us in a mixture of fury and fear.
Now I’m the one looking out.
Down below, in the courtyard, there are four yobs, toting beer cans, shadowboxing. Keeg’s there, doubling up in mock agony at a play kick to his guts. One of the yobs lumbers over to an ornamental tree, hikes down his zip and pisses. My mates. Twenty somethings who still think like fourteen-year-olds. Who spend their lives stoned out of their minds. Drink or drugs, who cares. We started with glue nicked from Woollies then bought E on street corners then moved on to the hard stuff. Okay, so I have that kind of stuff now, stashed at the bottom of the biscuit tin. But I earned the cash to buy it with; Keeg and his mates just pinched something.
Keeg’s shouting up at me. He sees me. Our eyes meet. And hate. He hates me for going over to the other side. I hate him for reminding me what I once was.
I let the blind snap back into place. How the hell did they get through the security gate? You have to show the guard your ID, look into a camera, that sort of shit. And why are they here, anyway? To piss me off, that’s why.
There were five of us, and me and Keeg were top dogs. Kev and Keegan — unbelievable — we thought it was meant. We bossed the gang, we said what fucking went and we fucking did it. Go to school? What the fuck do you learn at school? You’ve got to be out there, grabbing the world by the balls and letting it know what’s what. Want some money? Take it. Want some drink? Steal it.
We lived it up like crazy. We had the entire neighbourhood shitting its pants when they saw us. Standing outside the supermarket with our hoods up, kicking at the walls, leering at the kids in their prams, running straight at the oldies, swerving only at the last moment so they’d totter and shout.
Christ, it was good.
Except.
Except for those lousy evenings when it was pissing it down and no one would let us in the pubs, and even the students in Kentucky Fried Chicken chased us out. Bizzy cars cruised past, winding their windows down and the pigs taking a good long insolent look at us. Those were the nights we’d break windows, to hear the glass break and alarm bells howl. The nights we wondered what the fuck we were doing here, what the world was all about, and who cared anyway. Bored as hell.
I dress. Jeans, T-shirt, leather jacket, trainers. Only the best. The guy who stares back at me from the mirror looks good. Good face, good body. Not your average wanker. And all the clothes’re top quality, none of your mass-produced shit. I’ve left all that behind. Way behind. Only the best.
Particularly when you’re going out to kill.
First time we did it, we were scruffy. Worse than scruffy, we looked shite. Keeg’s T had more holes than shirt, I’d spilt beer down my hoodie, hell, I’d been sick down it. And my jeans. Frayed to start with and I wore them right down on my hips so I could get the crotch real low. Keeg said they made me waddle and he could see my underpants and they weren’t clean. Not pretty at all.
He was a kid, the one we found. Homeless. Huddled in a doorway, with big eyes full of tears and a nose dripping snot. Eighteen maybe. We were fourteen. And there were five of us — that made up for him being bigger than us.
“Hey, mate,” Keeg said. “Want some beer?” He held out the half-full can, the kid grabbed for it. Keeg upended the can and poured it over his head.
The kid went mental. He screamed and shouted and kicked out with his feet and flailed around with his arms. One of his feet caught Keeg on the shin and he swore. “Fucking fucking fucking shit,” he yelled. “What the fuck are you doing?” And he kicked back.
Then we were all doing it. Kicking and stamping and jumping up and down and hearing cloth tear and bone crack. And I stomped, and went on stomping, and on and on until there was only blood, and the shrieks subsided into groans. And all the anger went into my feet and came out again with every jump and in the end there was nothing left except the kind of relieved emptiness you get after wanking.
And you know why we didn’t get caught? Some fucker had smashed the CCTV. We washed off the blood in puddles, then lit a bonfire under our clothes in one of the sheds on the allotments and burnt the whole place down. Vandalism, they called it. Fucking cops didn’t have a clue.
The next one, me and Keeg did on our own. This time we went looking. Maybe three weeks later. Fucking truant officer had been round and my mum’s boyfriend gave me a beating for skipping school. As if he’d never done it when he was a kid. Doesn’t like me around all day, that’s it, not since I walked in on him and mum fucking on the sofa. Christ, that was horrible.
So we were out in the frost and the hail, and it was a Monday night in November and we’d already been thrown out of three pubs for being too young. We’d tried nicking beer from the off-licence but they’d run us off. So we pissed around the city centre, getting stared at by bouncers and sniggered at by girls wearing damn all.
“Hey,” Keeg said to one of them. “Fancy a bit of something, then?”
She was twice his height and six times his weight and I bet she’d never pulled a bloke in her life. But she just looked down her nose at Keeg and said, “I bet your willy’s no bigger than my kid sister’s pinkie.”
Keeg went for her.
She screeched and kicked out and grabbed at his hair. His head smashed into her boobs and she bullied him back against the shop window, then kneed him in the groin. Then she marched off with a sneer and a swagger.