by V. C. Linde
From injuries found on fighting dogs during raids, it has become clear the depths to which these owners will sink to make their dogs vicious enough to win fights against other trained dogs. Some of these dogs have been beaten, starved, hung from tree branches, kicked in the ribs and jaw, had their legs broken and cigarettes put out on their bodies or had scalding water thrown over them. Owners deliberately goad the dogs into becoming more aggressive so that from birth the dogs learn the only way that they will get food and water is to fight. They are often bred in battery conditions with little light, no room to exercise and filthy living spaces.
Organised dog fights are no longer just about the so-called sport. The amount of money bet on big fights can be tens of thousands of pounds: there is a huge amount at stake and jail sentences are not an effective deterrent when so much money is on offer.
Police and RSPCA officers from Operation Scorch are asking members of the public to report any known instances of chain-fighting (“rolling”) or to say if they just suspect that organised dog fights are happening in their area.
Scarlet left the newspaper on the coffee table and thought back to the boys she had seen outside her flat when she had arrived home after her first therapy appointment. She remembered that the dogs had been straining to get at each other’s throats, and the cold laughter of the boys. Scarlet was used to seeing the status dogs that so many of the kids walked out with, but knew most of the dogs were friendly. There was little common ground between the cheery-looking Staffordshire terriers that were exercised twice daily past her window and the vicious animals she and George had walked past.
In the warehouse basement next door, eight dogs were chained around the walls. Thatch came and went often, but was never there for all that long. His right hand man, Roy, took care of all of the training, ran the fights and knew the dogs. Thatch handled the other side of the business. The part that could be managed from a pub with a pint in one hand and a series of green envelopes in his pocket. The basement was starting to smell like blood. There had only been a few dogs rolled there - a test for the pit as well as the pups - but the scent lingered, layered over the smell of paint and damp.
Thatch also had a paper in his hand as he walked from the warehouse to the Phoenix. He was planning on getting a pint of stout and telling everyone exactly what he was thinking. As he opened the door to the pub he could see several of his mates sitting in the corner. He pushed the door open wider and yelled across the pub.
“Have you fucking seen this shite?” He waved the newspaper in the air, as though anyone in the Phoenix didn’t know what would have made Thatch mad that morning. A glimpse of a brightly coloured offer for a £5 holiday above the headline contrasted with the thick black headlines left face-up as Thatch threw the paper onto the bar.
“Pint, please, Steve,” Thatch muttered before crouching onto a stool. He spent the rest of the day quoting the article, adding his own emphasis and expletives.
“Cruel and fucking barbaric,” he spat “How the fuck would they know? Never seen a bit of sport in their entire fucking lives.”
“’Any person with even a little sympathy for animals would be horrified to learn what was happening within our cities.’ Ha! Like these stupid cunts have any idea what really happens in our city. Like them to really see it. As if anyone cares about the fucking dogs any more than we do. They eat better than our kids.” Thatch trailed off, seeming to pause for thought, but possibly just replenishing his supply of swear words and vitriol before he started up again.
Several hours and a lot of drinking later he was still fuming.
“’There has been a steady fucking shift in emphasis from sport to betting and blood-lust in the spectators...’ Useless cunts, should keep their noses out.”
“’Educate the fucking owners.’ We’re not bloody retards.”
“So what if we let the dogs chew at some bark. It’s a fucking tree, not a person: who cares? Fucking tree-huggers.”
“’Blood flows freely.’ Well, of course it does. No different to a fucking rugby match. They don’t call down the cops if a rugby player gets his fucking nose decked in but if it’s a dog then suddenly we’re all the motherfucking devil.”
Thatch held court in the Phoenix for the rest of the day before going into the warehouse, drunk and angry, to see what he was building. He kicked at the cages and shouted at the walls.
CHAPTER FOUR
December
Scarlet couldn’t tell if she was really alone or not. She had been up to the lobby that morning to grab her paper and had seen the black face of the Doberman staring at her from behind the glass doors. It didn’t have a lead and wasn’t tied to anything. No one was around. She picked up her mail and walked towards the door, looking for an owner. The closer she got to the door, the angrier the Doberman became. It snarled and bared its teeth at her. By the time she’d reached the door and put her hand out, it was barking violently, spittle spraying over the glass. Scarlet didn’t dare go out to look for someone who might claim the dog, so she took her hand off the door and backed away, scanning the lobby again for the owner who had left the dog outside. The dog didn’t stop barking until she’d gone from the lobby and she could still hear it growling all the time she was walking back to her apartment.
It was a quiet shift at the bookshop - few people had come in and even the regulars were staying away, unwilling to brave the winter cold and harsh winds outside. It had been snowing earlier in the week and the whole city was holding its breath, waiting for the flurries to start again. The city prepared for more bad weather by being grumpy and over-reacting. A little snow and it would grind to a halt. People were complaining of poor roads and delayed trains. Inside the bookstore they had lit fires in all of the fireplaces; the coal cracked and popped to its own tune.
George opened the door gently to prevent the bell from ringing too loudly. He leaned over the counter, quickly kissing Scarlet, and then headed deep into the stacks to choose something to read while he waited out her shift. There were only two other customers in the shop and after they had left, Scarlet went to curl up on George’s lap, both of them squashed into a chair by one of the fires.
“How come you’re not at work this afternoon?” Scarlet asked.
“I’m researching,” George said, holding up an old text about the architecture of Istanbul. “I’ve got to start some new drawings and I want to get some ideas in my head first. How’s work been here today?”
“Quiet. I think the snow scared everyone off. I don’t mind, I’ve been able to get some ideas mapped out for the January menus.” She said.
“Have you decided when you’re heading home over the holidays?” George asked casually.
“I’ll go back for a week or so, I think, I don’t want to be there any longer than that.”
“Can I drive you to the border? At least then you won’t have to cope with taking all your stuff on the trains.” George asked, looking at her carefully.
“Sure. Let me know when you’re free and I’ll let my Mum know.”
“What about on the way back? Want to come and spend a night at the family home and I can drive you back?” he asked.
“Thanks, I’d like that; but I think I’ll just get a train, because I’m not sure when I’ll be heading back,” Scarlet said, turning the page of the architecture text still open in George’s hands. The bell rang loudly and Scarlet jumped up to return to her post at the counter.
“Scarlet?” Nick’s voice came from the doorway.
“I’m back here, just coming,” Scarlet called. George sighed and turned back to the crusaders’ buildings and pictures of conflicting religious decorations.
Nick sat on a cold wooden bench, waiting. Scarlet had been gone for three quarters of an hour and he had finished the book he had brought along to read. His phone buzzed quietly inside his jacket pocket.
“Hey,” Nick answered, smiling at see
ing his boyfriend’s face on the screen.
“Hey, yourself. Where are you?” Alex’s voice boomed through.
“I came with Scarlet to see the Doc. She seems a lot more herself since she started her treatment and I wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to have to get home on her own in this weather. She said that she tends to be a bit out of it after a session.”
“How much longer will she be in there?”
“Today, about five minutes. In total, who knows? I don’t understand how it works. She’s getting better at talking to me about it but, Man, it’s still like getting blood from a stone,” Nick said.
“Maybe it’s hard for her to talk about. It can’t be easy to open up on something like that.”
“Yeah, I know. But I hate that she’s embarrassed about it. If she had any other illness she wouldn’t keep blaming herself and I don’t want her thinking that we don’t understand,” Nick muttered, huddling down in his jacket against the wind.
“But we don’t really understand, sweetheart,” Alex said gently, “We’re not inside her head so there’s only so much she can explain to us. She’ll talk when she can and in the meantime you keep making sure she gets home okay.”
“Yes, Boss.” The smile crept into Nick’s voice and made Alex laugh.
“See you at home.”
“Bye. Love you.” Nick hung up and stretched his legs out, pushing himself up and going to wait outside the building for Scarlet.
“So. How did it go today?” Nick asked, as they walked down to the bus stop.
“Fine.”
“What did you do?”
“Talked about how to change automatic negative thoughts,” Scarlet answered quietly.
“Oh. What’s them, then?”
“Not jumping to the worst possible conclusions when you’re in a certain situation, more or less.”
The boys had started taking it in turns to meet her after she’d had a session with the Doc, but she much preferred it when George met her. Then there was cake and silence until she found her own way of letting him know what they had been talking about. Nick tended to keep asking questions until he thought that he understood. She had to say enough to satisfy him or he’d worry and then bother her with it. He seemed to be working on the idea that telling him everything she had said to the shrink worked better than the time she had actually spent in therapy.
He nodded along, agreeing with her and adding his own suggestions when he thought he knew enough to join in. While Scarlet recognised that he meant to be supportive, she found it infuriating. He always ended up saying something patronising, along the lines of ‘It could be worse’ or ‘It’ll soon get better’. She tuned back in just as he finished speaking.
“You’ll get there.” Scarlet smiled, partly at how irritating his behaviour was and partly because he was trying to be kind. Nick didn’t know how cruel those words sounded to her. Some of the sessions made her feel in control, as though she knew just what she was supposed to be doing: that her work was right and mattered, that her friends would be the support she needed rather than a chain keeping her in the false sense of self that she had been hiding behind. Other days she left feeling like she had been dragged backwards into a world she didn’t recognise and then dumped there to figure her own way back. Then she couldn’t trust anyone because she knew no one would really understand when she needed to be alone. Knew that they would keep sending her ideas for “real” jobs that she could apply for. Knew deep down that the people she was trying to trust only loved the Scarlet she was trying to leave behind.
Teddy stopped going to the Phoenix. It wasn’t a bad pub, but not as good at the White Boar. Thatch wasn’t as much of a prick as he’d expected. Mind you, this pissing government made the devil look like Christ himself. He made a call, fixed a date and sauntered back into the heart of the city. His own territory was safe enough, but they were all being more careful. They’d put a system of warnings in place. No new people. No one that couldn’t be verified, over and again. As he walked past the small park at the back of the railway lines, he spotted a lad that looked vaguely familiar. He seemed too young to be one of Thatch’s regular boys, but Teddy raised a hand, just to be friendly. The boy froze and then waved back.
Jas kept watching Teddy until he’d rounded the corner and then turned back to Yassin.
“I said, was that him?” Yassin asked.
“Yeah, that was Teddy. I can’t believe he recognised me, I only saw him once. Maybe Thatch told him about me,” Jas worried.
“Don’t worry about him. There’s a bunch of the Green boys heading this way. They’ve got that new bitch on a lead as well, the one your dad was saying won last month.”
“Fuck.” Jas looked worried as he leant down and clipped the chain onto Whiplash’s collar. The dog looked up at his master, tongue hanging out, the remnants of a chewed-up log at his feet. Whiplash was expecting a treat, usually after he’d ripped anything apart for Jas he’d get something, some sort of reward. He yipped up at Jas, reminding the boy what a good job he’d done of protecting him from the branch.
“Shut it, Whiplash,” Jas’s voice crackled.
“Alright, girls?” The Green boys were jeering and taunting: one of them lashed out a foot towards Whiplash and Jas jerked him back. Whiplash knew what being kicked meant and he began to growl, showing his teeth. The bitch strained on her weighted lead at the sound and started barking, scratching at the ground, trying to get enough purchase to push herself forwards towards Whiplash.
Jas leaned back and pulled on Whiplash’s chain as the two dogs starting scrabbling at the floor to get at each other. The bitch’s gums were swollen and red, probably from bee-stings, and her left ear was already gone. She was too big ever to fight with Whiplash properly, but the rules weren’t the same in a chain-fight: no ref and no rules. Plus Jas couldn’t back off without being a pussy. The Green boys weren’t really dog men, they were more interested in girls and drugs, but they saw the money made by men like Thatch and Teddy and they decided to get themselves dogs to replace their knives and guns. Possession of the latter carried heavier prison sentences. The boys were laughing and then one of them kicked the bitch in the ribs, pulling her backwards and using a stick to get between the dog’s jaws.
“What the fuck?!” The biggest of the Green boys turned on his mate.
“Cops. Other side of the park.” The rest of them had been so focused on the dogs that they hadn’t seen the police getting closer or the Green boy trying to warn them.
“Shit. You’ll be back here at 8 o’clock or everyone’s gonna know you’re too scared of me and me dog. 8 o’clock.” The Green boys ran back out of the park. Jas and Yassin walked quickly away in the opposite direction.
“We going home or to the Phoenix?” Yassin asked as they hurried along.
“I dunno. Let me think,” Jas said
“You can’t let Whiplash fight that bitch again, she’ll rip him apart.”
“You want me to back out of a fight like a girl?” Jas said, rounding on Yassin. “We’re going to the Phoenix. I’m coming back at 8 o’clock to fight them and you’re coming with me.” He strode ahead and pulled Whiplash along with him. The dog trotted to keep up, alternately looking at where he was going and looking up at Jas, who was scowling and refused to look down.
Thatch wasn’t in the pub, but Jas’s dad, Roy, was sitting at the end of the bar. Fifteen minutes later they were knocking on the door of the warehouse. Thatch looked at Roy, who kept quiet and shoved the boy inside.
“Alright, Jas, what brings you to my palace?” Thatch asked with a grin.
“Some of the Green boys were in the park, the cops came around but I’ve got to take Whiplash back at 8 o’clock to roll with one of their bitches. I wanted to...” Jas stopped and looked down at his dog. “I don’t know how to get him ready.” He finished. A grimace flashed over Thatch’s face: he hated th
ese young twats thinking they could fight dogs anywhere; they didn’t know what they were doing and the dogs were usually nasty mongrels. Thatch led Jas and the dog down into the basement and started showing Jas how to run Whiplash through the pre-fight preparations that he used on his own dogs. The sounds switched from threatening to whimpering. Metal and wood scratched and claws scraped. While they were there a stream of people came and went from the warehouse. Thatch seemed to know all of them. There was a whiteboard propped up by the stairs with coded locations, letters, names and phone numbers. Everyone was getting ready for the raids that they knew were going to be happening soon. Accents flowed around Jas as he trained Whiplash and washed him down. Names and faces were sometimes familiar, but a lot of them were new, people that Jas had never seen before. Judging from how wary Thatch was, a lot of them were strangers to him too.
“You got a gun, boy?” Thatch asked him.
“No! You think he’s going to lose?”
“Dunno, might do and you don’t want him suffering. Hang on.” Thatch went to a cabinet and pulled out a syringe and handed it over to Jas. “Use this if you need to, be fucking careful with it, though.”
Jas took the pre-loaded syringe and looked at the name on it: ‘Euthatal’. Jas wrapped it in a rag and tucked it into his jacket.
At 9.00 pm that night the laughter rolling off the Green boys washed across the park and soaked into Jas. Whiplash had gone mad for the first ten minutes of the chain-fight, got underneath the bitch and wrecked her. Jas had heard his jaws rip through fur and heard the hollow crack as Whiplash latched his jaw over the bitch’s muzzle. Then it changed. The bitch had gotten her teeth on Whiplash’s back leg and the traction had ripped the muscles right off. After that, Whiplash had to drag his hind quarters through the blood-soaked grass using his front legs and collapsed down onto his chest when the bitch slammed into him. Jas and the Green boys were yelling, encouraging their dogs to keep going.
