Animal

by Paul Jones

  Forgetting his crumbling joints, he hobbled to the front door, and snatched it open. Shards of green glass lay scattered on his doorstep, and he just caught sight of the four youths including James Dobson marching off with accomplished cheers.

  ‘Oi!’ Fred shouted, storming up his driveway to confront the moronic yobs.

  All four of them turned.

  ‘Which one of you just smashed a bloody bottle outside my house?’

  Dobson’s face contorted into an ugly scowl. ‘Yer what? You accusing me of smashing bottles?’

  Fred noticed that the other three were still holding theirs. ‘So where’s yours then?’ he asked.

  Dobson raised his arms innocently. ‘I didn’t have one.’

  His mates thought this was incredibly funny and choked on their drunken sniggers.

  ‘No, you haven’t got one because you just threw it at my bloody front door, didn’t you?’ Fred insisted.

  Dobson became irate again. ‘No I didn’t, you silly old git. Where’s yer proof?’

  Fred pointed to the glass at his illuminated doorway. ‘There’s my bloody proof, mate.’

  Seeing that the joke had run its course, one of Dobson’s mates tried unsuccessfully to drag him away. But Dobson seethed. ‘Naw sod it! I’m not standing for that shit from this old fart.’

  Fred could sense trouble now, and not wanting to endanger himself, he thought it best to leave it at that and call the police instead. Dobson, roused by his drunken ego, started towards Fred. Immediately, his mates tried to haul him back, but this only encouraged him even more. Warily, Fred took a step back, his heart beating a bit too fast for a man his age.

  Dobson shoved him in the chest. ‘What’s your problem?’

  Fred stumbled back, his weary legs trembling with fear, but still the proud old soldier stood his ground. ‘Don’t you bloody push me, you little…’

  Crack. Fred was blinded by a flash of light and his head was rocked back.

  Dobson had head butted him. Yet, it took two or three more blows before poor Fred hit the tarmac flat on his back. The only thing he was aware of now was the star-spangled night sky above, then a large size eleven sole stamped on his face, and the back of his head cracked against the gritty tarmac. For Fred, everything suddenly went calm and serene as if the world had switched into slow-motion. Slowly, sounds and images began to form behind his concussed stupor, and the world began to speed up back to normal.

  But when his senses returned, it wasn’t the sight of his assailant who was standing over him, but three concerned neighbours, two middle-aged men and a woman with a hand clasped over her mouth in horror. Fortunately, the presence of Fred’s neighbours had caused the youths to flee from the scene. One of the men tenderly lifted his head to cushion it with a jacket.

  ‘It’s OK, Fred, the paramedics are on their way.’

  Lying prostrate on the cold tarmac badly injured, Fred began to sob. But he wasn’t crying in pain or for himself, it was for the wife who he missed, his daughter who he couldn’t be with and for the sorry depths to which this society had plummeted.

  Thankfully, Fred soon recovered from his injuries, and was able to identify his attacker from a list of computer mug shots at the local police station. James Dobson was subsequently charged with assault and battery, but in court, despite his criminal record, all he received was a fine and community service.

  Feeling extremely let down by the penal system, Fred had since become a recluse in his own home and now constantly lives in fear of any revenge attacks.

  James Dobson sat in the back of the car gloating on his good fortune at the court’s verdict, and that evening, he planned a monster binge-drinking session to celebrate. Approaching the corner newsagents at the far end of Craig-Y-Don, he ordered his mate to pull up so he could nip in for a packet of fags.

  Moments later, fags in hand, he strutted out of the store back to the waiting motor. As he reached the door handle, Dobson was grabbed from behind in a choke hold and shoved head-first into the front of the car.

  ‘What the hell?’ he gasped.

  The car sped off up the road, and turned left at the junction where it suddenly stopped.

  There in wait stood the banged up estate, and Dobson was swiftly bundled out of one car and into the front of the other. The three occupants with him, the secret vigilantes, were all clad in beanie hats and sunglasses to conceal their identities, then they took off with their hostage. The car, they left abandoned at the side of the road. There was no sign of his mates.

  Still held in a tight choke hold, Dobson struggled and gagged. ‘Who the hell are you? What do you want?’

  A head butt full in the face knocked the batteries out of his voice box. A second butt caused him to fight out in panic. The strangle hold was tightened and a series of short punches beat him into submission.

  Dobson tried to shield himself with pleading hands. ‘OK, OK, what have I done?’

  The punishment ceased for a second, and a pair of sunglasses snarled in his face. ‘What have you done? What have you done? So you like beating up old men, do yer?’

  A spark of discernment registered in Dobson’s eyes, although the rest of his face was reddening up like chopped meat.

  ‘No! No! I was drunk, I didn’t mean to.’ He choked against the strangle hold.

  The attack on him resumed, each new blow coming with a disciplinary reminder. “Feel good does it? Feel good does it? Now you know how Fred felt and all the other innocent people you’ve battered over the years. All seem worth it now, does it?’

  To Dobson, everything was just a blur of white light and thudding pain, it must have been the longest few minutes of his young life.

  Finally, the estate pulled up down a quiet road on the outskirts of Craig-Y-Don. The front door was thrown open, and Dobson was shoved out semi-consciously. As he rolled on the pavement the car skidded off with the door flipping shut again.

  Dobson lay sprawled on his back, bloodied, battered and finally punished for all the atrocities he had ever committed.

  Justice had been served.

  *

  Later that evening, Will was sitting at his kitchen table, reading back the letter he had just written on lined note paper.

  Dear Stacey,

  This is probably the only line of communication left open for me now, and will probably be the last time you will hear from me. I am at last beginning to accept that there is very little hope of a future for the two of us. After our last meeting you made that perfectly clear. But before I finally disappear out of your life forever, I feel that I need to come clean about certain things that I have kept from you during the last few years of our relationship. Hopefully after everything has been said you will understand.

  All I ask is that you grant me one last visit at my flat 8 o’ clock next Friday night. Should you not want to come, you need not reply, and we will simply leave everything where it is and bring final closure to our long standing relationship.

  Will.

  Will sighed to himself, the importance of what he’d just written weighing heavily on his mind. This was his last chance, one more try. If it didn’t work out he would be buying the next train ticket back to Warrington.

  Thinking back, through long deliberations with himself when he was in prison and during his training runs when he got out, Will had already entertained the possibility that he may not get back with Stacey. And amid those dark, solitary moments thinking how he might piece his life back together, he began exploring the idea of perhaps opening up his own gym and health spa in Warrington. To him it made perfect sense. He had always been interested in keeping fit, and he knew that in this day and age many other people were taking it up. So what could be better than to start up his own fitness centre. And with the substantial amount of cash he had accrued over the years from his secret work with the organisation, plus his lucrative dabbling in property developing, he would have a very healthy outlay for such a business venture.
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  Will nodded, satisfied, then awoke from his little pipe dreams. He folded up his letter ready to send in an envelope. Checking the time on his Seiko watch and tapping it to make sure it was still working, he wondered if he should either post it, or deliver it by hand. His conscience told him it would be better to deliver it by hand, that way Stacey would get the letter much quicker, and she might do him the favour of putting him out of his misery much sooner.

  Ten minutes or so later, Will silently slid the brown envelope through the metal letterbox at Stacey’s hotel. Afraid it might snap shut and give him away, he held open the flap with his finger. Tonight, he didn’t even want to be seen let alone be heard. Just deliver the damn letter and leave everything else in the hands of fate. Job done, he leapt back down the flight of steps, and was off like a whippet. To anyone watching it must have looked like he had just delivered a letter bomb.

  *

  The hollow thuds echoed around the interior of the chemical warehouse, and the odour of body sweat and detergent was thick in the air. It was the second training session for the team, and all were in attendance. Some were working on the focus pads, some were grappling on the rubber scrimmage mats, and the rest were lightly sparring. They even had a heavy duty punching bag hanging from a rope attached to the concrete and steel rafters.

  In one corner of the warehouse, Geoff had a giant four foot curved striking pad strapped over his shoulders, and was trying to put a bit of zip into Phil’s punches.

  ‘Phil, equal weight on both legs, and turn that hip with the punch, shoulders relaxed.’

  Phil snapped out another straight right, whack.

  Geoff grimaced, unsatisfied. ‘Still not feeling it. It’s still just an arm punch.’

  Phil blew annoyed with himself. Geoff waved for him to stop, and glanced over at Tom who was practising his jab on the heavy punch bag. Geoff shouted over to get his attention. Tom turned his head and left the bag swinging from one of his punches as he trundled over.

  ‘Show Phil how to put that beast into your punches.’

  Tom wiped his nose with the back of his mitt, and laid one into the striking pad. Geoff felt the impact, but as hard as it was, he thought it could have been better. Nodding to himself, he made the decision then and there that they definitely needed to polish up on some technique training.

  Yet to be fair this was only their first proper session together, and was viewed only as a feeling-out-getting-to-know everybody workout. Over the next couple of months, Geoff had planned each gathering to concentrate on one specific style at a time. For instance, one week they would isolate the technique of kicking, then another week, punching, grappling, Judo, fighting at close range and long range etc. Geoff even hoped to cover areas such as strategic offence and defence, and just as importantly, weapon attack and defence.

  ‘OK, guys.’ Geoff called time on the workout.

  Everybody stopped what they were doing, and moved to the centre of the floor. Geoff told them all to take a seat on the rubber mats, and all six bodies flopped down with tired grunts and groans. Geoff towelled his sweaty body down.

  ‘OK, just one more thing before we go, has anyone heard anything more about this Wilkinson gang?’

  Charlie spoke up. ‘Last week a couple of bouncers spotted two cars parked further up from the wos his name, Boulevards. They only stayed for a few minutes and off they went.’

  Geoff chewed his lip as he considered whether it was important or not.

  ‘What about the third one who we didn’t get that night, has he shown his face back at the Boulevards yet?’

  Tom shook his head. ‘Nope, probably knows what he’ll get.’

  ‘OK, we still have to stay on standby for now. And if anybody hears anything don’t forget to let the team know as soon as possible. And you three – meaning Tom, Mike, and Charlie – ‘be especially careful when you finish your shifts just in case they do know who you are. If you need us, send the message, and we’ll be there ASAP.’

  Tom raised his hand. ‘Oh, by the way, Charlie and I might miss the next session because we have to pop down to Liverpool for a bouncer’s course.’

  Geoff shrugged ‘is that it then?’

  Guy sheepishly raised his finger.

  Geoff gave him the nod.

  ‘You did say under certain circumstances, the team might be available to help vulnerable people unable to fend for themselves.’

  ‘Yes?’ Geoff replied.

  ‘Well there’s a middle-aged couple a few doors down from me, the McMurphys who are struggling a bit just like everyone in the recession at the moment. Well they went to a loanshark to borrow a few grand, but the greedy bastard put a ridiculous interest rate on the loan, and now he’s demanding something like three or four-times the amount in return.’

  Everybody looked in amazement, and Tom bristled. ‘Why the hell did they agree to something like that in the first place?’

  ‘They were probably desperate, they have their reasons, I suppose. But now this chap and his meatheads are going around to their house trying to intimidate them, threatening to break bones if they don’t cough up quick’

  ‘So why don’t they just go to the police?’ Geoff suggested.

  ‘Because they’ve been warned that their house will be burned down with them in it, if any there is any police involvement.’

  Phil, the off-duty police officer couldn’t contain himself any longer. ‘Tell them to go to the police straight away, and tell them everything including the threats. Make sure they get it all down in a diary, especially all the visits by this arsehole, the times and dates. He doesn’t want them to go to the police because he knows he’s breaking the law. I bet this guy is running a consumer credit business without a licence. And if he is he can be done under the Proceeds of Crime act. Or even by the illegal money lending unit.’

  Geoff asked. ‘So how do you actually know about all this, did you just get talking to him about it in the street or something?’

  ‘My wife Joyce works with the woman.’

  ‘Then tell them to do what Phil has suggested, and if that doesn’t work we’ll see what we can do.’

  Guy nodded obediently.

  *

  Tom’s car was parked down some quiet backstreet on the outskirts of Liverpool. They were sandwiched between the back of a clothes outlet store and an old storage warehouse. Sitting in the car with him, and just as nervous was Charlie in the front and Nigel in the back. Charlie glanced at his watch impatiently. ‘They did say, wots his name, three o’clock didn’t they? It’s gone a quarter past now.’

  ‘They’ll be here, don’t worry.’ Tom replied suddenly spotting a young man exiting the clothes store wearing a black woollen jacket and carrying a blue backpack.

  All three of them eyed the man as he approached their car and stop outside Tom’s window. Tom quickly wound it down. The man ducked his head inside, he was about early twenties with an untidy mop of brown hair and looked as if he’d been rolled around a sticky barber’s floor on his head.

  ‘Alright, mate?’ He greeted them in a broad scouse accent, then pulled out a pair of jeans from his coat. ‘Couldn’t get the levis, but these will do.’ He said dropping them on Tom’s lap.

  ‘No problem.’ Tom replied unfolding the jeans and patting them down until he found a bulge in one of the back pockets. He slipped out a brown envelope and checked that the thick wad of money was inside. Satisfied, Tom reached under the car seat and yanked out a pair of sports trainers and handed them over. Without wasting a moment the lad pushed his hand down the toe-ends of the trainers until he found the soft parcel. Content, he tapped the roof and left. All of them let out a sigh of relief.

  ‘Jobs a good un.’ Nigel chirped from the back.

  ‘Yeah, that’s if the people who we stole it from never find us.’ Charlie fretted.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s out of our hands now and we’re up fifteen grand.’ Tom smiled pleased with himself and started up the ca
r.

  Five minutes later, the scouse lad walked through the basement of a multi-storey car park. As he passed a black BMW he tossed the trainers through the open passenger window. In the front seat, a man in his early forties, wearing sunglasses and chewing gum, grinned showing a shiny gold tooth.

  CHAPTER 10

  The old boxing gym was filled with the sounds of grunts and groans and the smell of dust and sweat was thick in the air. A young man wearing a heavy parka jacket walked over to his associates who were standing watching someone training on the heavy-duty punchbag. The bald man digging vicious body hooks into the punchbag was known as ‘Razor’. He was an illegal bare-knuckle fighter, who had won two death matches to date and had another lined up for New Year’s Eve. The chap in the parka stood beside the three men watching Razor and waited respectfully for his chance to speak. One of the spectators, a shaved-headed man in his early-forties who had a single gold tooth turned to the men beside him.

  ‘So, what’s the story with Morrison?’

  ‘Word is, he hasn’t been out that long and they don’t think he’ll be ready in time Boss.’

  Boss, was short for Boss Man and he was the leader of one of the most dangerous drug gangs in Liverpool. He was also an illegal boxing promoter. Boss Man snarled showing his gold molar. ‘He better be ready. It’s gonna cost me a fortune if we have to call this fight off, unless we can get a replacement and there’s fat chance of that now.’

  The man with the parka saw his chance. ‘Boss, I have some news.’

  Boss Man gave him a look that said it better be good news.

  ‘The merchandise we sold to those chaps in North Wales, it is the one that went missing.’

  Boss Man, flitted a glance to his companions, a look that confirmed what they had suspected.

  ‘So, they steal our gear and then sell it back to us, cheeky bastards. Check out who our contacts are down that way, we need to find those dead men walking.’