“I AM THE LAW!” Boulder belted, his impression of Sylvester Stallone nigh-on perfect. Starling laughed instantly, hunching over and holding his stomach. “DROP YOUR WEAPONS!”
“Okay, please. Please stop!” Starling again tried to breathe through.
He leant forward, resting his forearms on the steering wheel of the police car they were sitting in. Boulder was in the passenger seat, allowing Starling, who was one of the top drivers in the whole of the Met, to take the wheel. They were stationed just under the rail bridge near Waterloo station.
The nightlife was picking up and the two of them watched from the warmth of their car as the inebriated and the drug using denizens of the night went about their business. In the distance, between the station and the Southbank Centre, Starling spotted the London Eye, the giant wheel turning slowly and lit up with dazzling effect, watching over the capital.
The shift was only an hour or so in, yet Starling secretly wished for something to happen. Something that involved more than calling someone an idiot, confiscating their illegal substances, and sending them on their way.
He wished something exciting would explode his shift into life.
In a well maintained, spacious three bedroom house in Abbey Village, Lucas sat across from his best friend at the dining table, their eyes locked as he laid down his cards.
“Twenty One!” Lucas said, confidently.
“Fuck!” Alex slapped his cards down angrily, pushing the chips into the middle. “I thought house always won?”
“They do…” Lucas said, smirking. “Usually.”
Lucas picked up his phone. It was just past eleven fifteen. Still no word from Helen. He clicked her name, hit the phone button and raised it to his ear.
“It has not been possible to connect your call.”
He hung up before the message played out and dropped it on the table in frustration. He picked up his final beer and took a sip.
“Voice mail, huh?” Alex asked, dealing the cards out again.
“Yeah,” Lucas sighed, gathering in his cards. “She’s probably just had too much wine at Mary’s or they're putting the world to rights. You know what Helen’s like.”
Alex chuckled as he put the deck to one side and held up his cards.
“Yes I do.” He took a look at his cards and smiled.
“Fold,” Lucas threw his cards in.
“Goddamn it!” Alex threw his in as well. “Anyway man, I’m sure she’s fine and you'll hear from her in a bit.”
“Oh absolutely!” Lucas said, taking the deck and shuffling the cards. “I’ve no doubt she’s safe and sound.”
Another freezing blast of the evening’s ferocious breeze, alongside the now rapidly occurring droplets of rain, made Helen’s mind up. She stuffed her phone and hands into her pockets, hunched her shoulders so her mouth was covered by her coat and took a deep breath.
She then strode purposefully through the park’s metal gates and disappeared into its shadows.
The noise of the traffic from the main road abruptly disappeared, blocked out by the surrounding nothingness and silence. The narrow, concrete path felt coarse beneath her, the emptiness of the surrounding grass stretching beyond the trees intensifying the feeling of isolation.
It was so dark. She could barely see the benches that lined the pathway, and felt closed in by the overhanging branches of the tall, pillar-like trees.
Her footsteps echoed.
The rustling of the trees shimmering behind, above, and in front of her. She focused her mind, just a few minutes and she would be out the other side. She looked ahead, the small square of orange in the vast stretch of black was the entrance to the park, a small gate slicing the row of hedges in two.
Suddenly, about twenty feet ahead of her, a figure of a man walked from one side of the darkness to the other. It was a brief moment, the outline of a man cutting across the orange square of safety.
She stopped in her tracks, taking a deep breath. She thought about going back, it had been safe for the few minutes and the several feet she’d walked already.
She turned around to retrace her steps and looked back to the gate she’d entered through.
A hooded figure stood in the middle of the path.
Helen shook, her knees felt like jelly and she started walking backwards, deeper into the dark clutches of the park and away from the figure who was about ten feet from her. As she slowly walked backward, she collided with something.
“Hello princess.”
She felt warm breath on her ear and screamed, the arms of a stranger ran around her waist, trying to restrain her. She struggled, flailing her arms about, before striking her sharp, pointed elbow back and catching the attacker just under the ribs. She felt the air fly from his lungs and he released her. She fell to one knee, her handbag hitting the floor and spilling everywhere.
She looked up and saw the other figure striding towards her, coming from the direction she’d walked alone just moments before.
She left her bag, turning on her high heels and then began to run, flicking her shoes off into the dark to aid her cause. She could hear the footsteps gaining on her, two unknown men, men she had never met in her life, chasing her with nothing but ill-intent.
Every step began to feel heavy, the concrete below acting like quicksand and Helen was struggling to lift her feet to run. The orange square of freedom began to shrink from her view, she could feel the darkness ebbing its way closer to her with its dark, spindly fingers.
“Gotcha!” one of the men yelled as he leapt forward, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. Helen struggled, and managed to fling a fist behind her, catching the hooded man in the groin. The attacker stumbled back, howling in pain as the other chaser stopped to help him.
Suddenly, Helen felt lighter, her pace picked up and the exit began to expand. Freedom in just a matter of seconds.
The first figure stepped out once again, just in front of the exit. His hood was up and his head was down, a black outline of a man. A shadow.
Helen began to slow down, screaming for help, hoping to be heard through the darkness and over the traffic and the London nightlife.
Footsteps grew in volume behind her, so she ran straight towards the exit and then quickly turned left at the last second, evading the man’s grasp and running up the side path just inside the park.
“Run all you like, bitch!” the man shouted. “We’ll find you.”
Helen felt the tears racing down her cheeks, her heart pounding at her rib cage. She was on the verge of a panic attack.
She wanted Lucas. Lucas would keep her safe.
If only he was here.
She stopped as she ran past the end of the bush and looked up at the dark night sky. She only just realised it had been raining the entire time and she was soaked through.
“Thank you!” she uttered to the darkness.
She turned and ran out through a side gate and into the street, waving down the first cab she could find.
Tommy Drayton turned right off the main road, down the small residential street running alongside the west side of Russell Square Park. He watched the road appear in front of him through systematic sweeps of his windscreen wipers, the rain unforgiving and unrelenting.
“What the fuck?” Tommy exclaimed as a petite blond woman ran from the entrance of the park, drenched from head to bare toes. She was waving frantically, her arms like propellers slicing through the rain.
Tommy braked immediately and the blonde woman ran to the car. She flung open the door and dived in as quickly as she could.
“Is everything okay?” he asked, as she slammed the door, her tears mixed with the rain on her face. She slumped into the chair, sobbing.
“Please just drive,” she pleaded, looking back through the droplet-covered rear windscreen to see if her attackers were still chasing. Tommy drove on slowly, looking at the poor, young woman in his rear-view mirror. She was shivering and her right knee was bleeding.
“What’s your
name?” he asked, trying to bring her back from whatever had happened to her.
“Helen,” she answered, her mascara leaking down her face like black veins.
“I’m Tommy,” he told her reassuringly, smiling into the mirror. “Don’t worry darling, we’ll get you home.”
“I’m staying at the Hilton.”
“The one by Euston?” he asked softly, his eyes looking at her in the mirror.
Helen nodded and searched for her phone, remembering that it was lying on the pathway in the park where she’d been attacked.
She wanted to call Lucas. Hear his voice.
She began crying again. Tommy pulled up at a red light, braked and then turned in his seat, sliding the plastic partition to the side.
“Hey, Helen.” She continued to cry. He handed her a packet of tissues. “Would you like me to take you to the police?”
“No thanks,” Helen mustered. She took the tissues and dabbed her eyes, shaking her head at the amount of make-up staining the soft paper. Tommy offered her an apologetic smile.
“What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Tommy started up again as the light turned green, turning right onto the next street. “I mean, if the police ask me what happened, I kind of need to know, right?”
“I was chased by some guys.” Helen had managed to compose herself a little, showing that strength that Lucas always told her was beautiful. “I think there were three. I think they wanted to rape me.”
“Fuck me!” Tommy exclaimed, his eyes widening with horror. “They didn’t hurt you did they?”
“No, not at all.” Helen took a tissue and wiped the blood from a small cut on her knee, the rain washing the blood down her shins towards her bare foot.
“The hospital is just up that road there,” Tommy pointed ahead.
“Please, can you just take me to the Hilton? I need to call my husband.” Helen steeled herself not to cry again.
“Absolutely,” Tommy smiled.
Helen sat back in the seat, tilting her head back to look at the ceiling. She could feel tears forming at the sides of her eyes as the relief of surviving the horrible attack came flooding in. She thought of Lucas, how he would be in the car straight away to come and collect her.
She wanted to hear him on the phone.
Lucas would protect her from anything.
“I hate this town, I really do,” Tommy interrupted her thoughts. “There are so many fucked up people out there, you know? You can’t be too careful.”
Suddenly, Tommy slammed on the brakes. Helen lurched forward from her seat, colliding with the panel separating the front from the back section. She pulled herself up angrily, but before she could say anything the door to her left opened.
The three hooded men poured in from the cold, wet outdoors, two of them grabbing her by the arms and hoisting her up onto the row of seats. The other closed the door and while Helen wriggled to free herself, she realised that Tommy had just been circling around the park. They were back at the side gate she’d burst free from minutes ago.
Helen struggled and screamed, pushing as hard as she could to get to the door. The two hooded men sat either side of her were trying hard to restrain her, but Helen was a fighter. She elbowed and clawed, screaming for help at the top of her lungs.
“For fuck’s sake, can someone shut her up?” Tommy yelled back through the partition while driving towards the red light ahead.
The struggle continued and the hulking driver slammed on the brakes. In one fluid motion, he slid the plastic panel to the side again and leant in.
With one hammer-like fist, he struck Helen straight on the side of the jaw.
Her world went black
.CHAPTER SIX
Helen would never recall the drive, as she was still unconscious when they’d arrived. The three men left the back of the cab as soon as it came to a halt and Helen woozily came to as they moved. She tried to struggle, but found her arms tied up behind her back, and her feet tied together at the ankle.
Her jaw ached from the blow she’d received earlier, but nevertheless, she tried to scream. She was gagged, the cloth tied too tightly for any sound to come out apart from a deep muffle.
Panic began to spread through her, her muscles shaking in fear. The driver’s door slammed shut and she could hear the crunch of Tommy’s shoes on gravel. Tommy appeared in the doorway, holding up his hands to try and instil a measure of calm.
Helen tried to scream again, thrashing her body about as he reached in and hoisted her up over his well-rounded shoulder. She was tiny in comparison, his arms almost bulging out of the black jumper he wore over his solid body. He hauled her from the car and marched across the gravel to an empty, rundown garage. Helen wildly looked from side to side, trying to find anything she could recognise.
She was completely lost.
She began to cry, pleading with a higher power she never had faith in to send someone to save her. She begged for Lucas, heartbroken as the realisation set in of what was about to happen.
If only Lucas had been there.
If only.
Tommy pushed open the side door and walked into the dusty room. Some objects were covered by a sheet in the far corner. A lone light hung from the ceiling, the bulb just bright enough to cast a small pale circle over the room. The only object the light reached was a relatively new-looking sofa, a dark leather three-seater.
Tommy dropped Helen on the out of place sofa.
“I’m sorry.”
He couldn’t look her in the eyes. He turned and disappeared into the darkness. She heard his footsteps heading away from her and she lay on the sofa, terrified and alone.
She heard the door slam shut.
She began to cry.
Tommy let out a deep sigh as he closed the door. He rested his hands against it, dropping his head just to clear his thoughts. That poor woman. She had a life. She had told him she had a husband.
This was the way things were. He had made his peace with it a long time ago.
He walked across the gravel to his black cab, his three younger brothers standing around it. Matt, the oldest of them, sat in the driver’s seat, his hood still up and a furious expression on his face. For years he had been at loggerheads with Tommy, voicing his disagreement with his and the rest of their brothers’ actions. Tommy knew Matt felt out of place in the family due to having a different mother which was evident as he was mixed race, his complexion much darker than the rest of the Drayton boys. Standing by the boot of the car, Harry was hunched over, sniffing a small pile of cocaine from a metal scoop he’d retrieved from his pocket. He was gangly with greasy black hair, almost the complete opposite to Tommy. If Tommy had had his way, Harry would have been removed years ago. He was nothing but a junkie. But Curtis had said Harry was the youngest, he needed the most looking after.
Tommy believed all he needed was a bullet through his skull.
On the bonnet sat Lewis, the runt of the group and the youngest after Harry. Lewis was thin, with almost see-through hair that floated around his head like black mist. His face was thin and gaunt, his teeth broken and jagged.
He looked like a rat and Tommy didn’t believe that was far off from an accurate account of Lewis’s character. Tommy approached all three of them, stuffing his hands into his trouser pockets.
“All three of you did well tonight.”
Before any response had been voiced, the sound of tyres crackling over the gravel grew louder and a shiny, black Bentley pulled up alongside the four Drayton brothers. The engine died, the door flew open, and dressed in a custom-tailored suit, out stepped Curtis Drayton. The eldest of the brothers, Curtis was only beaten in size by Tommy, who he treated with equal respect and disdain. A silence fell over the family as Curtis stepped across the gravel towards Tommy.
“Well?” His voice was husky, the wind carrying it. Curtis was in his forties, a few wrinkles beginning to appear on his permanently angry face. His hair had thinned and was cut short to hide t
he fact. His eyes were the darkest brown, like simmering coals of fury.
“She’s in there,” Tommy pointed with his head and Curtis smiled, showing his immaculate teeth. He patted his brother on the shoulder and strode across the car park, disappearing into darkness as he approached the door. He entered the building and slammed the door shut behind him.
Tommy ran a hand over his face, shaking his head slightly. He folded his arms, turned and slumped against the side of the black cab.
“He’ll appreciate what you boys have done tonight,” Tommy said, like a football coach addressing his team. “He always does.”
“If it keeps him happy then it means life is easier for us,” Harry said, before bending down and sniffing another line of cocaine up his nostril.
“Can you not fucking give that shit a rest for one fucking hour?” Tommy angrily chastised Harry. The youngest brother immediately batted it all off the back of the cab, rubbing the remnants of the drug under his nose, sniffing deeply.
“Fuck this shit!” Matt said, pushing himself out of the driver’s seat.
He pulled a cigarette out from his pocket, lit it with a zippo and then blew out smoke into the air. He nodded at them all and began walking in the direction opposite to the way the cars were facing. Tommy didn’t look up, he stayed, arms folded.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Matt stopped in his tracks and turned back, catching his older brother’s stare and returning it with venom.
“Me?” Matt showed no fear of Tommy, despite being half his size. 'I’m going home. I’ve done what I’ve been asked to do and it's all bullshit. I’m not going to stand out here to shake that sick bastard’s hand and congratulate him on raping that woman. Fuck that. And fuck you, Tommy!”
Tommy pushed himself gently off the car and stood face to face with his brother. They were the same height, but Tommy had at least eighty pounds of muscle on Matt and they both knew it would be over in seconds.
One by One: A brutal, gritty revenge thriller that you won't be able to put down. Page 8
