by Conrad Jones
‘The one nearest is the youngest Johnson boy.’
‘Bad bunch, the Johnsons.’
‘Mary from the Co-op found them. She was putting rubbish into the skips at the back and said she could smell something funny.’
‘I heard they’ve been shot.’
‘Did she see them up close?’
‘She said they’d been set on fire. Smelled sickly sweet and made her vomit, she said.’
‘Poor Mary.’
‘She said they’ve been battered to a pulp. She couldn’t recognise them.’
‘How does she know it’s one of the Johnsons then?’
‘Tattoo on his neck, apparently.’
‘Oh, yes. He does have a tattoo. Under his ear it is.’
‘Which one is the youngest Johnson?’
‘David, I think. Nineteen he is, I think.’
‘Was.’
‘Drug related, I bet you.’
‘Well, you don’t have to be Inspector Morse to work that out, Beryl.’
‘I’m just saying. Drugs I bet.’
‘Wonder who the other lad is? Poor buggers. They don’t deserve that, no one does.’
‘Drugs. It happens all the time with drugs.’
‘You at the bingo later?’
‘Double jackpot today.’
‘I’ll be there. Our Sarah is coming with me.’ The tone of the woman’s voice became secretive. ‘Her fella has pissed off with another woman. She needs a trip to the bingo to cheer her up, bloody shame it is.’
‘Ooh, what a bastard. Do her good a trip to the bingo.’
As the conversation changed to the mundane, Bryn made his way out of the alleyway. He took an alternative route, which would take a little longer but would skirt the incident. He weaved his way through the estate until they reached the last row of houses before a zebra crossing that would take them into the park. Alice stopped to sniff a gatepost. Bryn laughed at her and waited while she sniffed the layers of scent built up over years by hundreds of animals who had walked by that way. He looked around while she decoded the doggy messages. It had been a long time since he had ventured to this part of the estate. The gate post belonged to a house that was surrounded with ornate metal railings fixed to a new brick wall. There were cameras on every corner of the building.
“That dog had better not be taking a shit on my pavement!” A voice growled from beyond the high fence. Bryn turned around and saw a morbidly obese man waddling out of his house. He was six feet four at least and Bryn guessed he weighed somewhere between twenty-five and thirty stones. His facial features were almost lost in the fat that surrounded them. He had no cheeks or chin or neck, just rolls of flab that joined his head to his shoulders. Bryn had never seen anyone that huge. “I’ll kick it up the arse! What are you staring at, you gormless scrote?”
Bryn realised that he was staring at the man with his mouth open. “What?” he mumbled, embarrassed. His face reddened. He looked behind him in case the man was talking to someone else. He noticed that the paving slabs around him were a different colour to the rest of the pavement. The slabs directly in front of the man’s property were spotless, not a single blob of chewing gum to be seen. Bryn couldn’t compute how a man couldn’t care less about his appearance but had new fences and the pavement steam cleaned.
“I said your dog had better not be taking a shit on my pavement! I’ll kick it up the arse!”
Bryn was gobsmacked. A mixture of anger and amusement fought inside him for control. He looked down at Alice, who had finished sniffing and sat waiting patiently. “She’s sniffing the gatepost, that’s all.”
“Good job or I’ll kick it up the arse.”
That was the third time that the threat to kick Alice was made. Bryn had heard enough. He was normally polite but he hated rudeness and aggression. “You couldn’t kick a football, mate, never mind my dog,” Bryn quipped as he walked away. “You couldn’t lift your foot high enough. Fat bastard,” he added quietly under his breath.
“What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
“No one talks to me like that, you little scumbag!”
“You want to calm down or you’ll give yourself a heart attack.” Bryn said walking away. “Go back inside and have a couple of Mars bars,” he added a little louder.
“I’ll have you!” The man looked towards a red mobility scooter that was parked on the driveway next to a new Range Rover.
“What are you going to do, chase me on your fat scooter?”
“It’s a mobility scooter,” the man growled.
“You’re not disabled, you’re just fat. So it’s a fat scooter. You’re a disgrace, mate. You look like you’ve eaten your parents.”
“You cheeky little scrote,” the fat man growled. “I’ll have you when I get my hands on you!”
“You won’t get your hands on me. Fat pervert.”
“I’m warning you,” the man’s breath was becoming forced. His face reddened. “I’m sick of you scummy kids from that estate.”
“Whatever. I was just walking my dog.”
“Scum! That park is full of dog shit because you lowlife kids from the estate don’t pick it up. You’re scumbags the lot of you!” Alice sensed that Bryn was angry and under attack. She snarled and bared her teeth. “That thing should be muzzled!”
“She doesn’t need a muzzle. You obviously do. It might stop you eating the contents of your fridge before lunchtime,” Bryn called over his shoulder.
“Scum that’s what you are!”
“Whatever, Jabba.” Bryn walked on faster much to Alice’s delight. She could see the grassy expanses across the road.
“I’m going to phone the police!”
“Phone them,” Bryn called back to him. “Picking up the phone will do you good. It’ll be the most exercise you’ve had for a decade, fat knacker.”
“Just you wait, little shit! I’ll have you and your dog!”
Bryn waited for a gap in the traffic and crossed the road. The fat man had made it to his fence. He waved a podgy fist in the air between the railings and shouted abuse that Bryn could no longer hear; his words were carried off in the wind.
He spent the next twenty minutes watching Alice run around like a lunatic. She didn’t chase a ball or a stick. She ran in ever increasing circles, changing direction every now and again. When she ran a little too far away for Bryn to be comfortable, he whistled and she would come back and sit at his feet panting, tongue lolling from the side of her mouth until he said that she could run again. “Go on, girl,” he said and off she went like a greyhound chasing a hare.
Alice was tiring when Bryn spotted a fat scooter heading in his direction. It was red. His heart thumped in his chest when he recognised the huge bulk of the man he had argued with. A much younger man was striding alongside the scooter; their faces were dark with anger. The fat man had a twisted scowl, his accomplice a half smile half snarl, menace oozed from him. Bryn called Alice to him and secured the lead to her collar. The men were a hundred yards away and closing fast. He wished that he hadn’t been quite so insulting to the fat man now.
‘Your smartarse mouth will get you into trouble, Squirt!’ rattled around his mind. ‘How many times have I told you about your smartarse answers? You think you’re funny, Bryn but one day you’ll get yourself into trouble!’
The men parted making it harder for Bryn to escape. His eyes darted left and right looking for a way out. He wasn’t particularly afraid of them but he was worried about Alice; he needed to avoid physical confrontation at all costs. Had he been alone, he would take his chances running away. He jogged every day and he was quick too but with the staffie on her lead, he wasn’t sure that he could change direction quickly enough to outrun the younger male. He looked lean and fit, older and stronger than himself. Bryn chose to walk to his left, plotting a path fifty yards in front of the fat scooter. He could only hope that they would shout some abuse, threaten him and let him walk home.
The men anticipated h
is manoeuvre and altered course to intercept him. “Come on girl,” Bryn broke into a jog. Alice wagged her tail and kept pace with him. He waited a few seconds and darted to his right, accelerating quickly. The staffie broke into a canter much faster than his, threatening to pull him over. It completely wrong footed his pursuers. Bryn put his head down and sprinted as fast as he could, arms and legs pumping in rhythm.
“Come here, you little bastard.” The fat man cursed and tried to change direction but the path wasn’t wide enough to accommodate his machine’s turning circle. “I told you I would have you and your mutt!”
Bryn heard his foul curses on the wind but he didn’t slow to look back. He maintained his speed, Alice dragging him to his limit, enjoying the game. Dog walkers and joggers began to watch what unfolded, alerted by the abuse being shouted across the park. Bryn ducked beneath a branch and darted across the park towards the lake but the men changed their angles, always looking to intercept him at some point. Bryn realised that the younger man was gaining quickly and he completely changed direction, running deeper into the trees but he couldn’t shake him off. He fell over a tree root, losing more ground, scrambled to his feet and bolted out of the trees and across a stretch of grass. A number of people were now looking on with concern but the man was running like a demon, gaining all the time. He was hissing threats and abuse with every breath.
“I’m going to fucking do you!” Bryn dug deep and pushed as hard as he could but the footsteps neared and neared, coming dangerously close, every metre narrowed the gap. “You’ve had this coming, cheeky little bastard. Stop there, you little prick!”
Bryn heard the words from close behind him. Too close. He heard the rhythmical padding of training shoes on the grass growing nearer still, close by and gaining ground. The man was quick and fit, quicker than Bryn and Alice while they were joined by the lead. He tried to increase his pace once more, adrenalin and fear coursing through his veins but he simply couldn’t run any faster. The options raced through his mind. He couldn’t outrun the man over a distance. If he carried on running at full tilt, he would be exhausted when the man caught up and that would hinder his ability to protect himself and Alice. He made the decision to stop, unclip the staffie and face his pursuer. She would be more able to avoid the men if she was free.
Glancing over his shoulder, he gauged that he had enough time to stop, let Alice off the lead and ready himself. He spotted a park bench and ran behind it. Alice stopped and sat panting while Bryn unfastened her. The fast approaching footsteps didn’t slow down. Bryn thought the bench would act as an obstacle to hinder the man’s progress but it hadn’t. As he turned to face him, the man leaped onto the bench using it as a launch pad and hurled himself headlong at Bryn.
When the impact came, it was brutal. The man tackled him and Bryn felt the breath knocked from his lungs. He landed heavily on his right shoulder with a sickening thud. His head bounced off the ground sending white hot bolts of pain through his brain. He struggled to catch his breath as the man turned him onto his back and straddled him, his knees pinning Bryn’s arms to the floor. A flurry of heavy punches rained down. Bryn felt his front teeth piercing his lip and the coppery taste of blood filled his senses. His nose burst and he twisted and bucked beneath his attacker but he couldn’t throw him off. The blows continued to hammer down.
“Leave him alone!” a woman shouted. A couple of passers-by had stopped. A teenager took out her phone and began filming. “I’ll call the police!”
“Get off him, he’s just a kid.”
“You’re a fucking bully, get off him!”
“You’ll mind your fucking business if you have any sense.” The man shouted in reply but he didn’t relent from his attack. Many witnesses watched and shouted for it to stop but none dared to intervene. The sickening blows rained down, drawing blood, breaking bone and causing the brain to reverberate against the skull. Bryn thought he was going to die, right there in the grass. He wondered what would happen to the staffie, would she run off and be lost, captured by the dog wardens and destroyed? The thought of Alice not getting home spurred something in him. Bryn cried out for help, his shout made thick and guttural by the blood.
“Get off me! Help me!” he wailed. “Someone get him off me, please!”
Alice heard the panic in her master’s voice and she attacked. Her teeth sank into the man’s ankle, ripping and tearing the flesh, her powerful jaw crushing the bone beneath. A fang pierced the fibula with an audible crack as Alice bit down harder. The man screamed and shifted his weight. He lashed out at the angry staffie but she wouldn’t release him. Bryn twisted beneath him and freed his right arm. He looked around, desperately searching for a weapon. His eyes fell on a perforated house-brick. He reached out, fingers groping, touching the mud and moss that covered it. Finally his fingers found the perforations and gripped the brick.
Alice redoubled her attack and Bryn saw the man reach inside his leather jacket. He saw the flash of steel as he pulled out a hunting knife and Bryn knew that he had seconds to act. The jagged blade arced through the air towards Alice. Bryn aimed the brick at his attacker’s head and brought it up as hard as he could. The corner of the brick impacted with the temple, splintering the sphenoid bone and driving a fragment of the skull into the brain. A soft squelching thud echoed across the park. The man was silenced instantly and he slumped onto the wet grass, a surprised expression on his face. Bryn watched his pupils narrow as his life was extinguished. He had never seen a dead person before but he knew that this man was dead and he knew that he had killed him.
Bryn felt tears stinging his eyes. He spat blood onto the grass and climbed out from beneath his attacker. Alice had to be persuaded to release her grip on his leg and she growled at the lifeless body as Bryn put her back on the lead. He stumbled over to the bench and sat down. Onlookers spoke to him, asked him questions, dabbed his bloody nose with a tissue and offered soothing words but he was barely aware of them. Shock was shutting his brain down. As the first police car arrived on the scene, Bryn noticed the red mobility scooter in the distance. The traffic stopped as the fat man steered it onto the zebra crossing and made his way back to his house. The policemen approached slowly, carefully.
“Put that down, lad.” One of them said softly. “Put it down and walk towards me slowly.”
Bryn was confused. He looked down at his right hand and realised that he was still holding the bloodstained brick. His eyes fixed on a flap of skin and hair that was fixed to the brick. That was once attached to that man’s head, his brain processed. For some bizarre reason he held the brick up in front of his eyes and inspected it. An ambulance squealed to a halt. The crowd of faces looked at him, their mouths moving but their words garbled. The police officer pointed to the brick and shouted instructions but they didn’t mean anything to him, he looked back at them, eyes glazed.
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” Bryn said, voice cracking. Blood flowed freely from both nostrils. Alice sat as close to his leg as she could, still protecting Bryn; her tail wagged at the approaching strangers but she sensed something bad had happened.
“Okay, son,” the officer said with a raised hand. “We believe you but you need to put the brick down.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Bryn tried to explain but his lips were numb, brain confused and the power of speech disabled. His top lip quivered as he spoke. Hot tears fell from his eyes as he put it down on the grass and walked towards the policemen. Alice trotted alongside him excited to meet new people but oblivious to how dire the situation was.
2
“I’m DI Braddick,” Marcus introduced himself as he entered the forensic tent. His blue forensic suit distinguished him from the CSI team, who donned white. “You must be Kathy Brooks?”
“That’s me.” She paused to make a split second assessment of the new DI. Thirties, black, lean, designer stubble flecked with grey; so far a significant improvement on the last DI she had worked with. He had been a fat ignoramus from Manchester, who
smelled of cheap aftershave and stale sweat.
“I don’t think we’ve worked together before.”
“No, we haven’t, nice to meet you.”
“I’m told you’re running forensics here.”
“I’m senior SOCO on this one unfortunately. You may want to use some of this,” she said handing him a small jar of tiger balm. “It’s much stronger than the usual stuff. Don’t get it in your eyes and wash your hands before you use the toilet.”
Braddick smiled and nodded knowingly, inside his stomach was churning. The smell of burnt flesh knocked him sick, brought back memories, memories that he fought with daily.
“Will do,” he said smearing some of the gel across his top lip. The corpse at his feet was broken and burned. He wrestled with similar images in his mind, images from the past. Images of her. Pushing them back into the dark reaches where they belonged, he focused his mind. “What have we got so far?” Kathy identified his accent as outside the city but not far away, somewhere between there and Manchester. She had heard rumours about Braddick. He had been on secondment with the National Crime Agency for three years, with a spell as an observer with both Europol and Interpol, being groomed for the fast-track up the ranks. Rumour had it that his progress had been derailed by some indiscretion but the details were sketchy. The tent rattled as DS Adrian Burns entered. His big frame filled the doorway. “You know my DS?”
“Ade and I have worked together more times than I wish to remember.” Kathy joked. Ade blushed and grinned. “Sorry. That sounded wrong didn’t it.”
“Not for the first time,” Ade grunted. He shuffled inside his paper suit, his size not designed for the disposable garment.
“Or the last,” Kathy said as she stepped back from the body at her feet and put her hands on her hips. “Okay, if you’re comfortable, I’ll tell you where I’m up to.”
“Please, carry on.” Braddick nodded.
“We have two males, brothers,” she smiled thinly. The thought that someone would have to tell their mother that her sons had died in such terrible circumstances was not missed by her. “They’re David and Mathew Johnson, age nineteen and twenty-three respectively.” Braddick raised his eyebrows at the details. Kathy noticed his reaction. “I’m not psychic, both had their ID on them, debit and credit cards are still in their pockets and a few hundred pounds in cash was stuffed into Mathew Johnson’s mouth,” she explained. “Tells me they ripped someone off?”
