He saw them exchanging looks.
He couldn't remember how, but he had managed to hurt some of them. Blood, grazed faces, one of them carrying his arm tucked into his side.
"Come on then!" It was a job to stay upright, but he could see their indecision.
He was winning.
Then a heavy blow hit him in the back. A boot, full body-weight behind it. It sent him staggering forward, the club falling from his hands.
He bounced into someone. They caught him, pushed him back across the circle, into someone else's arms. Another push, back across the circle, until dizziness took the feet from beneath him and he was on the ground again, trying to protect his head and balls from the boots and clubs.
They're going to kill me, he thought suddenly.
He lashed out a hand and knocked a boot so that its owner lost balance. He wasn't just going to lie there and take it.
Inspiration struck and he grabbed a fistful of dirt from the path and managed to throw it into someone's face. The man turned away, rubbing at his eyes and cursing.
He grabbed an arm and used it to swing the man at the others, confusing them, giving himself a chance to stand up properly and prepare to run.
Suddenly there was a fierce, high-pitched barking and a brown and white blur was in their midst, jumping, snapping.
He tried to focus, gathering himself as his attackers suddenly realised what was happening.
It was a dog. Two beautiful, angry dogs.
In an instant the gang turned and ran away, disappearing in moments around a curve in the path.
"Gladys! Gwynnie!" A man's voice. Grudging, suspicious tones. "Come here!"
The two corgis came trundling back along the path, having given up pursuit of the gang. Nick wanted to kiss the damned things.
Their owner was still calling for them. Nick saw him now—a middle-aged man, fists buried in a misshapen anorak—waiting a short distance back along the path. Nick raised a hand awkwardly in acknowledgement.
The first corgi shot past him and he turned slowly, spotted the other charging in pursuit.
Then he changed his mind. This dog wasn't in pursuit of its friend, it was coming straight at Nick. He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped as the dog threw itself through the air at him, snarling and yapping.
He raised an arm just in time, as the dog crashed into his midriff, knocking him back onto the ground. He rolled over to defend himself and the dog sank its teeth into his hand.
"Gwynnie!" the man called. "Come here." Reluctantly, the dog let go and Nick rolled over into the grass, curling up into a ball, ready for the next attack.
Chapter 15
The man left quickly, with the dogs securely leashed. Nick tried to thank him but it was clear that he didn't want to get involved: all he had seen was a gang of young men fighting. He hadn't sent the dogs in to sort it out, the two corgis had simply been running ahead, getting into trouble. "They aren't even my dogs," said the man. "I've just got them for a favour."
Nick considered pursuing him, trying to explain that he was the innocent victim, but that would achieve nothing. The poor man had been frightened enough already.
He started to walk.
Most of his body was numb, except for a dull, pulsing ache in his chest and sharp pains in his left side with each step he took. His ribs had taken some damage—he recognised the feeling—but the fact that he could move told him the rest was probably superficial.
He tried to convince himself that he had been lucky, but it didn't really feel that way.
He felt a strong urge to go out on Stone Point and sit at the very end. Alone, with the sea and the wind, he could gather himself, try to straighten his head.
But he knew that if the gang saw him out there he would have no escape.
Instead, he took the shortest route out of the Dubbs, across a playing field to Barrack Lane. Soon he was on the Main Road and he felt a little more secure. He stayed on the north side of the road, just in case they were waiting for him amongst the towering holm oaks of Cliff Park.
Once he was in the town centre he felt safer. To attack him in the streets was a very different matter to doing it amongst the derelict buildings of Beacon Hill.
Still, he was wary as he approached his digs. He didn't know how thorough Andy Gayle's preparations had been. Did he know where Nick was staying?
The streets appeared deserted. Nobody lurking in the shadows, or in the mouth of the nearby alleyway.
Finally, satisfied that he was alone, Nick drew the key through the letter-box on its length of string and let himself into the darkened house. He went quietly up the stairs to the landing and then straight into the bathroom.
When he peered into the mirror a stranger stared back at him.
He had taken beatings before. They were inevitable in his line of work. Even when you came out on top—as he always had until tonight—you always took a few knocks. In the mirror, he saw the difference between the odd lucky blow and the kind of sustained kicking he had received an hour or so earlier.
His face had become rounded, the skin stretched tight with swelling. One eye was almost closed, its surrounds already a purplish black, the eyebrow split and probably in need of stitches.
His nose was red and bulbous, but he prodded it about for a few seconds and decided it was probably not broken. There were inflamed grazes across a cheek, both jaws, one side of his forehead.
Carefully, he slid his jacket down across his shoulders, and in that simple movement was reminded of 'Nicky', disappearing over the mound, sliding her jacket down. He could understand Gayle and the others: angry and hurt, seeing Nick go free and needing a scapegoat. He knew how young men worked each other up. They were wrong, and they had been incredibly stupid, but he understood what had made them be that way.
But 'Nicky'... She was the one who had trapped him, lured him. She had coolly singled him out at the pub, a man she must believe to be the killer of another young woman. She had picked him up, walked for about half a mile, mostly alone with him. Of course, the boys would have been nearby to defend her—Nick recalled that they had never really escaped the noises of people in the streets—but what if he had pulled a knife?
She'd taken that risk.
He remembered her behaviour and realised she had even enjoyed it. Was it like rock climbing without safety ropes, or those people who did parachute jumps from tall buildings?
He wondered what she did for kicks the rest of the time.
He undid his shirt and studied the bruises appearing across his torso. He undid his trousers, let them drop and checked himself over.
He would survive, he decided. His morning run might only be a short walk for the next few days, but he would survive.
He went through the bathroom cabinet and found an old, grubby-looking bottle of TCP. He decided cold water would be just as good. He filled the basin and with a spare flannel he started to clean himself up.
Eventually, he began to look a little better. He took down a packet of plasters he had found in the cabinet and cut one into narrow strips, which he then used as improvised butterfly stitches across his split eyebrow.
When he had finished, he went back to his room, took two aspirins, which he swallowed dry, and then tried to settle down to sleep it all off.
But sleep didn't come easily and when it arrived, it didn't last along.
~
Nick was woken by a banging from downstairs.
The front door.
His first thought was that Jerry's brother had come to finish his evening's work.
He squinted at his clock. A bit before one. He could only have been asleep for about five minutes.
He heard Jim McClennan cursing and shouting as he emerged from his room downstairs. The front door was opened and Nick's landlord started to swear even louder.
Heavy feet thumped on the stairs and Nick tried to rise from his supine position.
Voices from the landing, then his door crashed open.
; "Nicholas Redpath?" demanded a man in a suit. The light came on and Nick screwed his eyes shut against the glare. When he opened them again, the besuited man had been joined by Detective Inspector Langley and two uniformed men.
"That's Redpath," said Langley. He was staring at Nick's battered face. "Bloody hell," he said. "This one put up a fight, did she?"
~
They booked him in and the custody sergeant told him to call his solicitor. After that he was led down to a cell, somewhere in the fluorescent-lit depths of Bathside police station. Nick walked slowly, numbed by the speed of events. He was here voluntarily this time—'helping with enquiries'—but it was clear that he was in a lot of trouble, once more.
They left him for a time in an interview room and when the door next opened Dougal Banks was there, looking hurriedly dressed and appearing as ineffectual as ever. After a brief exchange of words, they were both shown through to the doctor's room.
Nick remembered Doctor Sanderson far more distinctly than he had been able to recall his solicitor, even though he had met Sanderson only briefly whilst Banks had been at his side for a day and a half. The doctor was an overweight man with rounded shoulders, metal-rimmed glasses, a beard and thin, sandy hair. Dishevelment suited him well.
He looked at Nick, as he entered the room, and shook his head as if disappointed. "What a mess to get yourself into," he said, in his soft Edinburgh accent. "Will you take off your clothes and let me see to you properly?"
Nick started to undress. "There's been another, hasn't there?" he said. Banks looked awkwardly away, almost as if he hadn't heard the question—he had already made it quite clear how little he wanted to be here.
Doctor Sanderson nodded, briefly, and moved closer to peer into Nick's eyes. "But she most certainly didn't do this little lot to you, now, did she?"
Nick finished undressing and allowed the doctor to check him over. "You'll be winning no beauty contests for a day or two yet," said Sanderson at one point. A little later, running a hand over Nick's rib-cage, he said, with a boyish grin, "You really should see a doctor about this, you know." Then, more seriously, he added, "I'll arrange a trip for some x-rays, I think. Okay?"
When Sanderson checked the dog-bite he asked if he was up to date with his tetanus jabs. Nick shrugged. "Well I'll give you one anyway." After all he had suffered, the needle was nothing.
His eyebrow had opened up again, some time on his way to the station. Doctor Sanderson cleaned it and then put in four stitches. "You're lucky," he said. "The sight of blood usually makes my hand shake. You'll have to have these taken out in a few days. If you come to my surgery at the Health Centre on Friday I'll take a little look. Alternatively, of course, I could come here... Okay? Does that hurt? Good. It means you're human. I was beginning to doubt it: you took a lot of punishment, you should have suffered an awful lot worse than a couple of cracked ribs and a few poxy stitches. A word of advice. Would you take that from me?"
Nick nodded.
"Next time, just give them whatever they want, okay?"
~
There were three officers waiting for him in the interview room: Langley, Cooper and one who introduced himself as DCI Cornell.
Cornell took charge of the questioning, once the preliminaries were over. "Where were you this evening between the hours of seven o'clock and midnight?"
Nick looked at the DCI He was a tall man, a little portly with advancing age. Grey hair was swept over the top of his balding head, his face was hard and lined as if it had been carved from a block of stone.
"Answer the man," said Langley. His voice sounded tired, deflated. He must have realised he was wasting his time.
"You know he doesn't have to," said Dougal Banks, leaning forward from his place behind Nick. Proving he was still awake, Nick supposed.
He sighed. "Well," he began. "There was this girl..."
It was the wrong thing to say. There was an immediate change in the atmosphere of the interview room. Everyone appeared to be holding their breath, leaning towards him, waiting.
"I was at a pub. Got there about sevenish. I played pool with a fat kid. Then I had a drink with two girls."
"Names?" prompted Cornell.
"The pub was the Anchor, in Eastquay." The atmosphere was broken. He hadn't given the answer they had wanted. "I don't know the fat kid's name. He looked about sixteen. Beat everyone at pool for the whole evening."
"The girls?"
Nick swallowed. "They called themselves Nicky and Nichola. It was a joke, I think." He saw the officers exchange disbelieving looks. "Come on," he said. "If I was making it up, I'd do better than that, wouldn't I?"
"You were at the Anchor with these girls and the fat boy all evening?" asked DCI Cornell.
Nick nodded.
"Then how did you acquire your injuries?"
"We were turned out of the pub just after ten-thirty," said Nick.
"Who?"
"Me and the one who called herself Nicky—shortish, dark hair, bit of a Goth. Her friend had already left. We went for a walk along the front and then through the Dubbs."
Cornell glanced at Langley, who explained. "Old War Department land," he said. "On Beacon Hill. Due for redevelopment some time next year." He turned to Nick. "Why did you take her there?"
"She took me. 'Somewhere quiet,' she said. We were jumped by a gang. After my wallet, I guess."
"This 'Nicky'?"
"She got away. The gang laid into me until some guy came along and his dogs broke it up. Except they weren't really his dogs, of course. I went back to my digs, cleaned up, and then you lot came calling."
"Who was this man?" asked Cornell. "Why was he out at that time of night?"
Nick shrugged. "He was looking after the dogs for a friend. Maybe they're incontinent."
Cooper came away from where he had been standing against the wall. "Bullshit," he said. "I've never heard so much bullshit. A fat kid and two girls whose names you don't know. A gang who just happen to be there to jump you. Someone saves you but you don't know who—"
"I'm afraid I really don't..." Banks interrupted Cooper's tirade, then stopped when he realised he was the only one talking.
Cooper backed off, under the stern looks of his two superiors. He shook his head, muttered an apology.
"Did this one put up a fight, then?" asked Cornell. "Did you enjoy that?"
Nick met his stare. "Yeah," he said. "With baseball bats and Doc Martens. What does it bloody well look like to you?" He gestured at his swollen face, then waved his hand so that they could all see the teeth-marks the corgi had left. "Does it look like it to you?"
"Come on," said Langley, who had been quiet for most of the interview. "We've heard what Doctor Sanderson has to say about the injuries. I think we've heard enough now." He was speaking to his superior, but now he turned to Nick. "We need to confirm your story," he said. "What about this 'Nicky'? She just got away?"
Nick nodded. "They went for me first," he said.
"Why did they jump you? Why didn't you report it to the police?"
"They wanted my money, I suppose. I didn't report it because I've seen enough of this place already, attractive as it is."
Cornell leaned over the table towards Nick. "We'll check everything you've told us," he said. "Any discrepancy and we'll find it. You understand?" He paused, then said, "We'll speak again soon." He pushed himself away from the desk, walked around Nick, staring all the time, and left the room.
~
Langley came back alone, about an hour later. Banks was away somewhere, making a telephone call, but Nick didn't bother to ask for him.
"You're free to go," said the policeman.
No apology, but then Nick had not expected one.
"You have the fat boy to thank," Langley continued. "The barman didn't remember you—the place was too busy—but he knows the pool ace and the kid remembered you. Said you let him win the last game."
"What happened tonight?" asked Nick. "Where was it?"
Langley
looked at him, hard, then shrugged. "Read about it in the papers," he said. "Yes, there's been another. Up in Suffolk—Cornell's patch. Young woman walking back from the pub. Short cut across the heath, despite all the warnings." He shook his head, tiredly. "The bastard must have followed her."
"You're sure it's the same killer?"
Langley nodded. "Might be a copycat, but yes, I think it's the same one." He looked at Nick again and continued. "Struck her in the back of the skull, pulled at her clothes before he lost his nerve." He smiled and added, "You may find your room's been rearranged. Your landlord gave us permission to search it."
It was the closest he'd come to an apology.
"Murder weapon?" asked Nick.
Langley nodded. "He went prepared this time. Didn't just pick up the nearest rock."
"Did you get anything from the second appeal?"
Langley shook his head. "A few cranks," he said. "Come on." He followed Nick out of the cell and they walked together through the station to the custody office.
A few minutes later, with the formalities behind them, they stood outside on the steps. Nick breathed deep, his spirits lifting sharply.
Langley turned to him. "You needn't worry about Andrew Gayle any more," he said. "I've had a word."
Nick was surprised. "How did you know?" he asked.
Langley smiled. "I'm a detective, aren't I? You were lying, it was obvious. You should have told us."
"The kid doesn't know any better," said Nick. "You're not going to...?"
Langley shook his head. "You had no reason to protect him after what he did to you, but no. We've put him in the picture. He appreciates the error of his ways."
"Who was the girl?"
"Just someone he knew," said Langley. "Listen. You'd best keep clear of that crowd. Young Andrew knows he was wrong, but he's a hot-headed boy. Best not get involved, okay?"
Nick shrugged, and then he realised Langley had put his hand out for him to shake. He accepted. He wasn't used to this kind of treatment from the police.
One More Unfortunate Page 14