Swan Song

by Tom Butler

  The dog walker could see them, but it wasn’t a rare sight to see youths play fighting or just messing about, so he ignored them and let his dog stretch the lead further. The animal didn’t seem to have any interest in humans and carried on sniffing around the base of trees and any long grass he or she could find.

  Grass was what Budgie was now tasting too. Noah had whacked him with the elbow of his tattooed arm as he tried to get to his feet, and for good measure, he had kicked him in his back which sent him flying forward. The man Budgie called JC didn’t seem to have the stomach for a fight any more and had backed off, and Noah was adding to his brother’s weight to keep Cal pinned to the ground.

  ‘Keep the bastard there,’ he sweated. ‘Where’s that fucking knife?’

  Cal used to work out in a gym, but of late, he didn’t have the money for the subscriptions. But he was still too strong for the brothers, having regained a footing on the wet grass and freeing himself with one mighty show of strength.

  ‘Stay back, or I’ll kill both of you.’

  It sounded like he meant it. The knife looked bigger than before, and its inch wide blade had a serrated edge.

  ‘Come on,’ Noah tried talking to him. ‘Give it up. Drop the fucking knife and piss off while you can. Go on, drop it.’

  This, Noah thought might have worked had it not been for a bloody-nosed Budgie climbing back to his feet and grabbing hold of the knife. Cal seemed relieved to let it go although unlike JC, he had no intention of deserting his friend.

  Fuelled with hatred, Budgie flashed the knife in front of James, and Noah acted spontaneously, yelling out and throwing himself at the man. James could not see the knife anymore and Noah had stopped yelling. There was blood on the offending tee shirt and blood on Budgie too. But who’s blood?

  James needed to do something because Budgie was getting up and Noah wasn’t.

  The knife was still in Budgie’s hand but he wasn’t gripping it tight as though his life depended on it. Just a well-aimed kick which jarred his wrist made him drop it. He looked at James who was ready to aim a dozen kicks if he had to, then he glanced across to Cal, and both men turned tail and ran. Cal tripped over the dog’s lead, and both of them swore at the old man who looked startled. They then ran faster than they had ever done in their lives.

  Noah had fallen on his front but was now on his side. He was, thankfully, moving, but that had much to do with his body shivering with cold. The knife wound was hidden from sight and James was crying. Phillip was first to reach him, frantically fingering the front of his mobile phone to summon assistance.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Hal shouted across to Wes who was now bending over Noah and doing what he could to help him.

  ‘What did they do to him, James. Tell me?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s been stabbed, but I’m not sure where.’

  ‘Are you injured?’

  ‘I’m OK.’

  Wes knew some basic first aid but not much that would help with stab wounds. He had to search hard to see where the blood was coming from. It seemed low down, certainly nowhere near the heart but there was a lot of blood. Taking off his shirt he tried to stem the flow, and he asked James to help by adding pressure. After wiping away tears, he knelt down and did as he was asked. There still seemed an awful amount of blood.

  ‘Press quite hard, you won’t hurt him,’ Wes instructed him. Calling out to Hal, he got him to go to his car and fetch a blanket. ‘We must keep your brother warm,’ he said.

  James was inconsolable and asked. ‘Is he going to die?’

  ‘Not if I can help it. Keep that pressure on, you’re doing great.’

  ‘Please don’t die,’ James said to his brother whose eyes were closing.

  ‘Just keep the pressure on the wound, somebody will be here soon.’

  Wes was guessing that the knife had caused a substantial wound to Noah’s abdomen and was at least encouraged by the presence of a fairly strong pulse given the dire circumstances.

  ‘You’re doing brilliantly James. Don’t ease up on the pressure. Keep talking to Noah, we don’t want him passing out.’

  Phillip had produced a torch from somewhere, and when he aimed it at Noah, for sure his eyes flickered.

  ‘Come on, big brother, stay with me,’ James urged, as the beam of the torch shone bright.

  It attracted a couple of moths, and James thought that was bizarre. His mind wasn’t thinking straight, and all of a sudden, he felt cold. Hal, who had dashed over to see what was happening was the only one wearing a jacket, and upon seeing James trembling, he quickly took it off and put it around his shoulders.

  ‘Don’t let up on that pressure,’ Wes repeated. So far, he seemed to be doing just fine, but where was the help his brother badly needed?’

  From the direction of the city came the shrill of a siren, and James prayed that it was an ambulance and not the police. It got louder and louder, but James dared not look up to see what it was when it arrived in the street at the far end of the park.

  ‘Thank god,’ Wes exhaled. ‘The paramedics are here.’

  Wes’s previously light blue striped shirt was mostly red in places now but it had helped to save somebody’s life. He put an arm around James, and they hugged. A paramedic praised them for their quick thinking. He seemed pretty sure that Noah would have been dead had they not done what they did and the police, who had still to turn up would now have a murder on their hands instead of a malicious wounding.

  Despite now wearing Hal’s much too large jacket, James felt the cold in his bones. A small crowd had gathered at the park’s entrance and a few had ventured in. Two police cars came in quick succession, and after speaking with the paramedics, a cordon was put around the park, and not even Sylvia and Liz, briefed by Phillip on his phone were allowed access.

  Noah was in a serious but not life threatening condition they were told, and then they got to see him fairly close up as he was stretchered briskly into the ambulance with Sylvia allowed to sit with him prior to being whisked away at speed. Phillip, conscious that everybody had been drinking at the party, ordered a taxi to take James, Wes and himself to the hospital where they insisted James go to A & E to have his injuries checked over. Compared to his brother, he had only minor scratches and a bruise or two. And he was still analysing in his head the lengths that Noah had gone to in order to protect him. Was there really something called “brotherly love” after all they had put themselves through? It certainly felt like it.

  ******

  Chapter Twenty

  They sat in silence and let the nurse carry out her checks on Noah. A doctor had told them the knife had luckily missed vital organs, puncturing his lower stomach lining and inflicting superficial damage to his intestine. A longer bladed knife and entry at a different angle could have severely injured him and left him fighting for his life. The doctor praised the actions of both James and Wes Crowley, explaining that blood loss was the most serious consequence of that type of injury. What they had done was crucial in the time before the paramedics reached him because often people bled to death in such a scenario; he told them from experience. Unless there were complications, he felt sure that Noah would not need major surgery, and there was nothing to suppose that he would not make a full and fairly rapid recovery.

  That was music to the ears of Jed Murray who, along with his daughter, had rushed to the hospital upon hearing of the terrible attack. Though not daring to mention it, his biggest concern was a charity concert he had agreed for the band to partake in next week, where Hooded Eye would rub shoulders with some of the icons of rock, including Black Sabbath and Motorhead. Charity events didn’t make you any hard cash, but they upped your profile and gave you much needed publicity. It wasn’t always about making money. Fame came in many disguises.

  He knew it would have been nigh impossible for him to find a suitable stand in for Melissa had it been her incapacitated instead of Noah. As both the voice of the band and its driving force, she was a hard act to emulate bu
t not so the bass guitarist. He had once been too ill with food poisoning to go on stage for several gigs and with minimal phoning around, Jed had found Greg Summers to replace him. Greg was trying to carve a solo career for himself after a tempestuous fall out with a rock band called Titans of Liberty. Jed liked Greg a lot and so did Joe Slater. But Melissa thought him too cock sure of himself and would not ever consider him as a permanent fixture. But Greg would receive another call from Jed tomorrow to be asked to fill in again though he knew that would upset his daughter who had never quite liked the way Greg looked at her behind Joe’s back.

  For the Proudlock family, it had been a long, sleepless night. As if it wasn’t enough to cope with the trauma of what had happened to Noah, a stressed out Sylvia had also fretted over Phillip, Luke and James. Her husband had been incredibly brave to stand up to the thugs invading his home and had bruised ribs and a sore leg wound for his trouble. Luke’s nose had not been broken, and he had suffered a small cut to his top lip which, at least, guaranteed him plenty of sympathy and much attention. James, too, had a few marks purporting to be bruises. But apart from that, he had escaped relatively unscathed.

  For Mary the scars were only psychological ones, and she should have been used to them by now. She was immensely proud of James for what he had done for his stricken brother and hoped this would be the end of all the feuding between them. In a corridor outside his hospital ward, she even told James this, but he made no promises.

  ‘When Noah’s better, we’ll talk,’ he conceded. ‘Let’s wait and see.’

  Mary wanted more from him. A lot more.

  ‘We should all sit down and talk. This isn’t just about you and Noah. It affects us all.’

  There was no getting away from the fact she was right, even if it grated on him a little. One of the things that Sylvia was quick to emphasise about Mary was her maturity, and this was the perfect example even if James thought it was too soon after the events of the night before.

  ‘I don’t see why it can’t be like it was,’ she continued, sure he would agree. ‘After Mummy died we had to stick together. The three of us, remember? No one would have offered us a home if they thought we fought all the time. It wouldn’t have been fair on them would it?’

  Hardly ever had she spoke about her mother dying, but this was prevalent if she was going to get her point across.

  Avoiding an answer, James said, ‘It’s not as simple as you think. Perhaps when you’re older you’ll understand.’

  He felt some discomfort from a strain to his back as he shrugged. It would soon go away, he thought.

  Mary, feeling that he was patronising her wouldn’t let go so easily.

  ‘I don’t want you and Noah making up now just for it to go back to the way it was. I hate it when you argue. Why can’t you just get on?’

  James could feel another shrug coming on because he didn’t have an answer.

  ‘Because…because we’re brothers, I suppose.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Well, things don’t always run smooth in families. You’ve seen it for yourself with Luke and Clare sometimes. They often don’t see eye to eye.’

  He thought immediately that he had chosen a bad example. In the main, Luke and Clare were fine together. Sylvia had brought them up to respect each other.

  Mary, standing her ground said, ‘They don’t fight like enemies. Do they?’

  She had him on the end of a pointed stick and still wouldn’t let go.

  ‘Look,’ he said in a loud whisper. ‘I’ve said we’ll talk, and we will. Do you honestly think Sylvia won’t have something to say about it? We’ll sort it. But only when the time is right.’

  ‘Promise me,’ Mary whispered back to her brother, staring hard into his eyes.

  Staring back and not once looking away from her he muttered, ‘OK, I promise.’

  She would have liked him to say it louder, but for now, given the ordeal they had all been put through, it seemed enough. James did then ask her how she felt about the baby Noah and Sinead were expecting and unremarkably it was her turn to resort to muttering.

  ‘I wish it had been someone else,’ she sighed honestly. ‘That girl looked wild to me. But there’s nothing anyone can do about it now.’

  Indeed, there wasn’t. Siblings had no hold over each other on who they could and couldn’t choose as their friends. The same applied to the selection of boyfriends, husbands, girlfriends and wives. Needless to say, James knew his sister would try to befriend Sinead after grilling her at some point, and in that lay the acid test for any type of lasting relationship. The poor girl wouldn’t know what had hit her.

  Throughout Monday, there was much information gathering to be done; Sylvia and Phillip wanting to know whether Darren ‘Budgie’ Bird and his gang of two had been apprehended, the police interviewing all those involved to ascertain what had really gone on, the local and national press asking for statements to help them write their stories.

  The police, at the request of a doctor, had put off interviewing Noah until tomorrow, but not so James who, after all, was the reason why these bullies and ruffians had so violently gate crashed his birthday party.

  ‘What exactly is your relationship with Darren Bird, the man you say stabbed your brother?’ he was asked.

  As with his sister he struggled with an answer.

  ‘Well, he was sort of a friend until he started making threats against me.’

  ‘What did you do to turn him against you?’

  ‘Nothing really. I realised he was only being friendly to get something out of me for himself,’ James explained.

  ‘Such as?’ the interviewer asked.

  ‘He thought he could sort of look after me and make sure I was safe.’

  ‘Like a minder?’

  ‘Yes. He talked a lot about it, and I started to feel he was getting carried away.’

  ‘So why didn’t you just tell him to leave you alone?’

  ‘I thought if I just stopped seeing him and didn’t answer his calls he’d go away.’

  ‘But he wouldn’t go away and that’s when the threats started, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So why didn’t you report these threats?’

  ‘I never thought to. I never took them too seriously,’ he lied.

  ‘Had this man ever threatened your brother, Noah?’

  ‘No, never. Noah was just helping me.’

  ‘Trying to protect you?’

  ‘Yes. Not for a minute did I think he’d end up getting stabbed.’

  James almost said to the policeman that it had all been his fault but reigned back just in time. That would have made him culpable for what had happened to Noah, and he might have ended up sharing the blame. And forever feeling the guilt too.

  As ordeals went, the police interrogation was pretty awful. It had begun with him admitting that Darren Bird used to be a friend and ended up with him almost shouldering the blame for what had happened. The police might need to interview him again they had said. He looked forward to that like a visit to the dentist and prayed it would not be necessary.

  Noah Swan was certainly not blaming his brother and was lapping up the plaudits for being so brave. A local newspaper said he was a hero who had, without fear, tackled a crazed knifeman threatening to kill his younger and much more vulnerable brother. This was yet another piece of great publicity for the band as far as Jed was concerned, and he milked it himself by making quotes that had much more to do with Hooded Eye and his daughter than the individual who had attracted the press attention in the first place.

  It was good PR and reverberated around the whole of Leicestershire and beyond. The story made local radio, and TV and a camera crew and interviewer spent much of Tuesday morning at the house with Sylvia making endless cups of tea.

  It was Wednesday before news of Darren Bird reached James. He had been rounded up together with Cal and JC, but all three of them were telling of a very different version of events, unan
imously claiming James had invited them to his party before turning nasty towards them and virtually inciting his family and friends to attack them. They mentioned a lot of drink being involved and capped it by insisting it was James who had produced the knife, Budgie claiming he was only defending himself when Noah got accidentally wounded by it.

  ‘It’s pure fiction, and they know it,’ Wes had said, trying to console James. ‘The police aren’t that gullible.’

  But doubts built up inside him, and as yet, he still hadn’t spoken to Noah about laying their hostilities to rest.

  Though conscious of what his sister had said to him on Monday, he felt it was up to Noah to tell him when he was ready to talk, given he was the one confined to a hospital bed. Enjoying almost celebrity status and persistently flirting with the nurses, Noah was in no hurry to be discharged any time soon. He was fairly lapping up the attention from fellow patients too and adding to his growing fan club without playing or singing a single note on stage.

  The same policeman who questioned James had now taken a statement from his brother. It appeared to tally and all that was needed was for the police to discredit the ridiculous notion that these three men, one of them armed with a knife had been the victims not the perpetrators.

  That might be harder than anyone on the receiving end could imagine. Due mainly to a third party witness, who was claiming he had stumbled across two gangs waging war against each other whilst out exercising his dog late at night. Not anything like the true version of events, of course, but still an individual bystander’s observation which in many cases would be highly acceptable evidence.