‘Sanguinem ex oppositione...’ she drawls, blood spraying as she speaks.
The baby is still crying, and Ben wishes above all else for this horrible scene to end. He changes tack. Defensiveness hasn’t worked - perhaps an all-out attack will surprise her and he will get the upper hand, he reasons. With that, he summons up all the rage he can, all the hate he can muster. He knows he shouldn’t, and that it is a bad practice in combat, but he knows it is that brute rage and strength that will help overcome this unlikely she-beast. He runs for her, and unleashes a scream, hoping that it will add to her confusion. He diverts his run, so he can leap off one of the low benches to his left and give himself a flying attack. In less than a second he is airborne, coming down on the baroness - who herself brings her knife up to meet him.
The blade rips into Ben’s right thigh, but Ben barely notices it, as he flies over the woman’s left shoulder. As he falls, he brings his own left arm around the woman’s neck under her chin. Ben knows that despite the lack of a plan, this is working out alright so far. From where he is, he can execute a quick smooth judo takedown. He bends forward, locking his left arm around the woman’s neck, and ripping her backwards over his arched back. She topples, as the knife tinkles somewhere. She crunches backwards onto the floor by the fire, with Ben still behind her. He aims to make his next move the last move of the fight. He keeps his left arm tight around her neck, and brings both his legs around her torso, interlocking his ankles. He brings his right arm around her forehead to clamp her head in place, and contracts all his body at once - locking the baroness in a monster sleeper-hold. He lies back and squeezes with every ounce of his being.
Ben has been forced to use this move a couple of times, and he knows when he gets down to it, it’s one that is very hard to beat. He grips and doesn’t relent. The woman squirms, but his legs stay firmly locked. His right thigh burns from the fresh gash, but it seems manageable for the time being, as he starves the woman of oxygen. She starts to kick frantically and buck. It’s not an aimless spasming, however, as Ben realizes she is trying to get closer to the altar. She’s not doing a bad job of it either - Ben can’t let go of any limb lest it weaken the sleeper hold. He has to keep squeezing and hope that she passes out before they can get to the altar. Ben doesn’t know if the altar is sturdy - it looks ok, but he can’t risk a stray kick sending the whole thing, baby and all, toppling into the pyre. But they are getting undeniably closer.
He is forced into action. He barrel rolls the woman onto her front, with himself still attached now on top of her back, as she is face down in the dirt. But that only gives the woman the chance to rise to her knees, which she sure as hell begins to do. Ben has to roll again, onto his back, but they are getting dangerously close to the fire now.
He throws his weight to his left, onto his back again, and this brings a blood-curdling, choked scream from the woman. He wonders what has happened to bring about such a response, but then he notices. He has rolled the woman’s feet into the fire. He can see the black patent leather of her shoes bubble and pop. Ben closes his eyes and squeezes, begging for the end. As awful as the scene is, he knows he has her now. The kicking and bucking continues, but there is a growing futility to it. An awful leather and flesh BBQ stench wafts up to Ben’s nose. Sadly, the flesh part of the smell is not foreign, and it brings back nasty memories. The woman has stopped screaming, and the bucking has nearly stopped. Her body loosens in tension, and flops in his arms. His mind can’t help but think the ridiculous phrase: ‘I just choked out an old woman while her feet were in a bonfire’.
He let’s go, and shoves the woman off him onto the floor - her feet still in the fire. He sits back and doesn’t know what to do next. Pull the woman out, or leave her for the authorities. It doesn’t look great for his record, burning an old woman’s feet off. Oddly, it seems to him that chucking her whole onto the bonfire might not look as sadistic. It’s a strange logic that doesn’t sit well with him, but he knows it might be the only way to stop this woman from harming anyone else. God knows how much harm this woman and her flock has reeked across this quiet beauty spot, but he knows that if he puts her on the fire, there will be no chance ever for her to commit or incite another atrocity. He puts his arms under he shoulders, and throws her unconscious body onto the fire. He doesn’t wait to see what happens, and turns straight to the altar.
He approaches the swaddling, hearing the crying and hopes to God the infant is ok. He peels back the top layer to reveal a naked, pink, sooty but intact baby boy. Ben thanks his lucky stars, and breathes out. He puts his hand on the boys chest, which slows the crying almost immediately. He has no idea what to do with children, so his gesture is purely an instinctive one. For the first time in a long time, he experiences happiness. Glee feels so foreign to him, it comes as a surprise.
Sirens drift from over the lake. He looks back through the trees, and can see the dim flicker of red and blue down below. Time to go. He looks at the child, knowing the child is now safe. If he were to leave now, the authorities will be here within minutes to take the child, he reasons - plus the fire will keep him warm until they get here. It won’t be long before he is back with his father. He wraps the child again, and, with a gesture that surprises himself yet further, he plants a kiss on the child’s forehead.
‘Take it easy, kid.’ he says.
And with that, he looks straight up to the inky abyss of the sky. He can see the North Star. His work here is done. The baroness is dead. He runs and dives into the tree-line before the police can spot him, and heads off in an easterly direction. Back to England, back home - away from one of the most horrible and unexpected scenarios even he, in his combat-warped mindset, could ever contemplate, imagine or survive.
CATCH 23
1
The trial had absorbed Ben from the start. It had been splashed all over the television, all over the radio, all over the red-top newspapers. The broadsheets had barely touched it, and that perhaps should well have been an indicator of things to come.
Despite all the posturing of the media, about how Terry ‘The Turn-Up’ Masters was as guilty as they come, with a rap sheet more extensive and weighty than most hardback novels, the man had walked free.
He had practically stood on the court steps at the end of the trial, and admitted his guilt to his part in the armed robberies of a series of East London jewelers. He hadn’t been present at any, but they had tied him to them thanks to some sloppy circumstantial evidence. One of the robbers had failed to fully tuck the collar of a particularly garish Hawaiian shirt down the neck of his boiler suit he was wearing for the robbery, which was like a red flag for the CCTV police investigators. A quick scan across the CCTV in a five mile radius of the first crime scene, revealed that The Turn-Up’s own son, Markland, had been wearing that exact same shirt on the morning of the robberies. He was ID’d wearing that shirt in Tesco, passing through Marylebone Station and, hilariously, on the street where his father owns a pub (The Old Tupenny). Ben reasoned that Markland must be, for want of a better phrase, thick as pigshit.
Now, Ben sits in a rented Mondeo, staring through the drizzle-specked driver’s window, at the front door of that very same pub. He has kept his distance to about 100 yards, and sits normal and relaxed, pretending to browse half-heartedly through a newspaper. When he had rented the car, he had also rented a kids booster seat to help with his story - if anyone asked why he was was sat doing nothing, he could say he was waiting for his kid to come out of whatever posh kid activity comes to mind. He fancies going with ‘piano recital’ today.
He doesn’t worry too much at all about being either recognized or quizzed. He has absolutely no connection to the Masters family, nor does he have any connection with any authority - well not anymore. If the Masters were to look him up, chances are they’d find that Ben was perhaps even more wanted than they were, and connected to crimes just as grisly. They’d also probably find that nice little caveat that now appears on any paperwork of an official nature re
lating to him: ‘DISHONOROUBLY DISCHARGED’. Given how bad that sounds, Ben almost thinks they should look him up.
Ben hadn’t been too bothered by the crime (nobody had been hurt). What had crawled under his skin was the fact that Masters Sr. had been so untouchable, despite the myriad of crimes that are widely attributed to him. This was the first time he had ever seen the inside of a courtroom, but it doesn’t matter: a quick google search reveals in lurid detail a guilty verdict. His wikipedia entry is a menu of some of the most godawful murders the streets of London have ever seen, peppered with the most liberal use of the words ‘allegedly’, ‘reported’ and ‘according to a source’. If the reports were to be believed (and Ben does believe them) then Masters has a horrible record for dismembering his competition, and distributing their remains to the rest of his opponents. It’s a reign of terror that has kept a stability to the London organized crime scene, in that nobody dare step up to take on the Masters’. But it has also brought an unruly bloodshed to the city that nobody who has come in contact with it can ever forget. Innocents scared on the street, neighbourhoods in the vice of terror... The Masters’ are bad news.
When it comes to business, oddly, Ben found that the internet was less forthcoming. He knew of the pub, but that was pretty much it. Which of course, left the usual unofficial avenues of business the modern London gangster tends to busy himself with, namely drugs, arms and intimidation. But he didn’t have specifics.
Ben wasn’t here to pass judgement on those crimes, moreover he found himself traveling to London based on one solitary line in Masters Sr.’s address on the court steps. He had stood there with a long cream jacket perched on his shoulders (unable to look more like a 70’s New York mobster if he tried), and had been asked ‘Are you pleased to be acquitted of the charges?’. Masters had stared back into the female reporter’s face, then let his eyes lower lasciviously. It was stomach-churning to watch, as the bug-eyed old pervert took her in, his game of intimidation in full flow. When his eyes came back up, he smiled and drawled: ‘It didn’t take the jury long to realize that the true Prince of London is untouchable.’.
On hearing it on the television in his Travelodge hotel room in Monmouth, Ben had felt that grim revulsion rise. At that point in time, he had been fleeing a particularly nasty situation in North Wales - a situation he had been most happy to commit to the farthest point of his rear view mirror and leave there. The figurative bile had risen at this vile man on the screen, and Ben, in search of a purpose, suddenly had one.
On the baking streets of Afghanistan, Ben had left the best parts of himself. But he hadn’t done it so that scum like Terry Masters could run a bloody rule over the capital of the country. He hadn’t done it so that Terry Masters could boast about being teflon to the nation, despite the numerous crimes he is linked to. He hadn’t done it to come back to this once great nation and barely recognize it. Suddenly, Ben had an interest. If the law couldn’t touch Terry, then, as a fugitive of that same law, Ben surely could. Ben had rented a car and set off to the capital.
He had been waiting for a glimpse of Terry for 48 hours. Ben had managed to get hold of a copy of a book about London crime, which featured Terry on the odd occasion but alluded to him heavily in others. It was the author’s one and only book. God know’s where he is now. The book had said that Terry’s secrecy was paramount, and his movements always discreet - save for the occasional moment of brashness used primarily as a reminder, as if to say ‘I’m still here and you still can’t get near me’. It strikes Ben that that seems to be directed at both Terry’s competition and the authorities simultaneously. A goading... a gloating... For Ben, it rang like a ‘come and get me’ plea. And that’s just what he set out to do.
Ben has covered the pub in it’s entirety, and knew exactly the layout of the pub without ever having had to set foot inside. He’s been on the roof before dawn. He’s been in the alley at the back. He’s looked through the downstairs windows. And today, as soon as he has definitive proof that The Turn-Up is inside, he’s going inside for a quiet pint. Or at least it will start quiet. If he gets in there, and the numbers look alright, he intends to get his hands on that lowlife piece of gutter-waste and get a confession out of him. Ben checks the mic on the inside point of his right shirtsleeve cuff, right by the button - still there, still fairly unobtrusive. He checks the dictaphone in his jacket pocket, which is connected to the mic via his sleeve. Also perfect - batteries charged, levels checked. Argos had come up trumps. The idea is to press record, get in, and make conversation. He’ll pretend to be hammered if he has to get those words, or he’s also prepared to dish out a hammering if it means he gets those words on tape.
Ben’s role at present is not one he is comfortable with, but has accepted. He knows he has no place in this society. He knows that this society would never respect him. Service men don’t always occupy a high place in society post-army, let alone disgraced servicemen like Ben. However, despite himself, he can’t find himself to turn his back on this society. At times he hates this society with a flaming passion, and is outraged at how much he has given with so little in return. But he can’t not care for this society - he seemingly can never forgo it’s protection. He has no idea why, but he will bleed for this society. He will give everything for this society.
For Ben, it is a horrible marriage, but at least he has made peace with it. He believes that the problems in society comes from it’s influences and undercurrent. Case in point, the culture of fame and celebrity. And that has begot a sense of entitlement in society, that we all should seek the trappings of such a lavish lifestyle. Now people want to be somebody just because it appears that that’s what everyone aspires to. The desire for fame has never been so fierce. It sickens Ben. Seeing these girls who want to marry footballers, with no interest to careers. Seeing these lads get caught up wanting to be on reality tv, because it gets you famous. It’s hopeless, Ben thinks. He can think of hundreds of examples where society is being flushed down the bog in slow motion, each more garish and unsettling than the last.
Ben often sits and wonders why he feels he owes such a pitiful society his protection, and he wracks his brains solemnly. Then he remembers the badge, the name, the honour of his position (well, at the time) and the simple word: England. Dear England, with it’s history so rich and it’s democracy so febrile. Dear England, with it’s green hills and industry. Dear England, with it’s dear Queen. When Ben thinks like this, he chastises himself quickly for being so maudlin. The romance of England is long gone - all that remains is the broken-down shell of a once thriving empire, with a bickering government trying to steer a disenfranchised and disillusioned populous out of the cave of economic uncertainty and ever-growing debt. Some ideal to fight for that is.
Ben is quickly snapped out of his thoughts by man tottering along in his rear view mirror. The street is very quiet, but this man wearing a black jumper and cream khakis seems to fill it with his charismatic, jaunty walk. He ambles along at a fair rate, but looks very much like he is loving life. He might as well be singing ‘Oh What A Beautiful Morning’ as he goes, thinks Ben. Ben has a suspicion as to the man’s identity, and it’s a suspicion that is confirmed by a couple of small observations. The red-top rag under one arm... The sparkling earrings in the left ear only... The shock of unruly black hair (so black that only an obvious bludgeoning dye-job can be responsible for it)... It’s him alright. Terry ‘The Turn-Up’ Masters.
Ben can’t quite believe his luck, and checks his watch. 2pm. The pub has been open for a couple of hours this drizzly Friday afternoon, but Ben’s hunch had been correct and here he is. Ben had believed that if you owned a pub, Friday nights would be one you’d often spend at your place of work, through sheer force of habit. Ben was convinced that at some point today, the man himself would show. And, as if by some glorious magic, here he is. Early, but Ben had hoped as much. The earlier the better - less people in the pub, less things can go wrong. Ben has learnt through painful experience that the be
st way to ruin a plan is clog it with an unpredictable drunkard. And a pub? Well, that sure has the potential to up the quota of unpredictable drunkards.
Ben changes nothing about his behaviour - he doesn’t freeze, nor does he frantically spin round to get a clearer view of his target. Moreover, he carries on slumping (if that’s even possible) in his seat just as relaxed as before. He closes his eyes, as if struggling to stay awake. He doesn’t worry where Masters is going - there can only be one destination. The pub. As Masters nears the car, the whistling becomes audible to Ben - he can’t make out the tune, but as an aficionado of detail, he will likely never forget it. The Turn-Up strolls past, ambling care-free like he is on holiday. It infuriates Ben - every day must feel like a quaint getaway when you’ve got the whole city under your thumb and you’re as unimpeachable as the damn Queen.
Masters hops the curb, and wanders directly through the front door of the pub, with the swagger that only the landlord could bring. Immediately, Ben moves.
He opens the car door with no strict urgency, and locks it without any special attention. He starts for the pub, twirling the keys in his hand, just for a second - he hopes the overall behaviour will give the impression of a bloke who just really fancies an early pint on a wet Friday, and is very grateful for the opportunity. He decides, along with all else, that he quite fancies a pint himself, and that makes the charade of walking innocently into a pub all the easier to execute. A simple stroll to the front door along a quiet street (‘too quiet?’, Ben ponders, but doesn’t dwell on), and the front door is in sight. He does a quick mental prep session (namely whispering to himself ‘Don’t fuck up now...’) and enters.
Ben Bracken: Origins (Ben Bracken Books 1 - 5) Page 6