Undefeated

by Reardon, Stuart

  Kenny’s face was turning blue and his eyes were bulging. Nick threw a punch at Kenny, catching him on the jaw, hoping that there was still some fight in him, but he just slipped to the shag pile carpet. Nick barely realised that Molly was clawing at his arm until he shook her off, accidentally elbowing her in the face. She sat down heavily, holding her streaming nose.

  Suddenly, Nick’s awareness flooded back, and he was appalled when he saw what he’d done. There was shattered glass and splatters of blood everywhere.

  Nick was panting as he watched Molly crawl to Kenny on her hands and knees, wailing that he’d killed him.

  He hadn’t, but for a moment . . .

  Did she really care about that arsehole? Molly had always said that Kenny was a moronic dickhead with the brain the size of a gnat and the social skills of a badly trained, incontinent Labrador. Un-fucking-believable! He’d defended Kenny, stood up for him. Now, she was kneeling next to him as tears blackened with mascara stained her cheeks.

  Nauseous with disgust, Nick turned away.

  His trust, his love had been betrayed, treated as worthless, butchered and tossed away.

  It’s all gone.

  He left the door wide open as he strode from the house, but when he saw Molly’s car, the one she’d nagged him to buy, the one he’d paid for, he lost control again.

  He was still beating the fuck out of the bright red Mini Cooper when the police arrived.

  “Drop it, mate!” ordered one of the police officers.

  It took a moment for the words to penetrate his rage-flooded brain, but when the officer repeated the order, Nick dropped the wrench obediently and waited, panting as sweat coated his body. Molly was screaming and crying, pointing a shaking finger at Nick as blood dripped onto her dress.

  Nick wondered if she’d taken the time to find her underwear.

  The police didn’t hesitate, pushing him against the remnants of Molly’s car and fastening his hands behind him.

  “You are under arrest on suspicion of assault and criminal damage. You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

  Nick hadn’t spoken since he arrived at Kenny’s house. Not once.

  Not a word.

  The police officer glanced at him to see if he’d understood, then continued.

  “It is necessary to arrest you for preservation of evidence and immediate safety of others under Code G of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Do you understand?”

  Nick nodded.

  He watched as paramedics helped Molly and Kenny into an ambulance. Kenny’s throat was purple and his eyes bloodshot.

  “He’s a fucking nutter! Have you seen what he’s done to my house! He wants locking up!”

  Kenny’s voice was hoarse, but Nick just stared, wondering if everything Ken had ever said to him was a lie. He’d put up with laddish, dickhead way for years, thinking that there was a decent man underneath.

  Ken’s betrayal was hard to understand, hard to take.

  And as for Molly . . .

  Love had turned to dust.

  His eyes turned to her, screaming and wailing as the paramedics tried to calm her down. She should be enjoying this, he thought dispassionately. She always loved being the centre of attention.

  A little worm of guilt worked its way inside him as he noticed her purple eyes and swelling nose. Looked like it was broken. He tried to swallow past a hard chunk of disgust. You didn’t hit women: that wasn’t how he’d been brought up.

  The rage had burned itself out, leaving him numb, as yet unable to reach the deep emotional well of misery, shame and despair.

  “NICK RENSHAW HAS been arrested!”

  Anna stared as Belinda delivered the news.

  “What? Are you sure? Why?”

  “Assault and criminal damage. Apparently, he caught his fiancée in a compromising position with another man, and then smashed up her car and the fella’s house. Can you believe it?”

  For a moment, she was speechless. Poor Nick. Poor, poor Nick. She knew only too well the deep, fierce pain of betrayal.

  But she wondered . . . could she imagine him beating up his best friend? Could she imagine that? She’d seen the passion for his game, sensed the deep waters that flowed through him, but this sort of violence?

  There was a long pause.

  “They say he hit her, too.” Belinda’s voice dropped to a whisper.

  “No!”

  Anna’s automatic denial was immediate.

  “That’s what they’re saying. It’s already all over the internet.”

  Revulsion flickered, spreading a wildfire of horror throughout Anna’s body. She pressed her fingers against her forehead, trying to erase the mental images Belinda had unwittingly set loose.

  How could he do that? How could a man like Nick hit a woman? It seemed impossible. But he’d been arrested for it. How had she gotten it so wrong again? She really didn’t know him at all.

  Disappointment stole her breath, and her stomach churned.

  An hour later she received an email from Steve Jewell’s assistant cancelling all future appointments for Nick Renshaw.

  So that was that.

  “Time for your phone call.”

  Nick followed the police officer who pointed to a cheap-looking plastic phone on the desk.

  “I can’t use my mobile?”

  “Just the landline, sir.”

  “Okay.”

  He took a deep breath and called his agent.

  “Mark, it’s Nick Renshaw. I’ve fucked up . . .”

  After that, he sat quietly in the police cell, stretched out on the thin, lumpy mattress as the wheels of justice ground a path through his life. His thoughts were sluggish and spinning at the same time. He knew that he’d just detonated a bomb under his career. Or his whole life.

  Shouldn’t he feel something?

  The police had given him a breath test when he’d arrived at the police station, although he wasn’t sure why. Maybe because he’d driven to Kenny’s house before losing his rag and going terminator on the fixtures and fittings. Maybe drunken rage was easier to understand than sober rage.

  He breathed in slowly, trying to filter out the smell of piss and bleach, and the slurred rambling from the cell next door. For a moment, the muttering stopped, and then Nick heard the sound of vomiting.

  He studied the bandage over the knuckles on his right hand, still slowly oozing blood. When had it started? Had they been together all along, laughing at him behind his back? Or maybe it was new? All those nights when he’d been too tired or too sore while he recovered from his surgery, too much of a miserable git to go out with her, had it happened then?

  And then he wondered if it mattered, wondered if he cared.

  The emptiness inside numbed him.

  He’d been booked in by the Custody Sergeant and been checked over for any injuries as well as having a short mental health assessment, his hands were bandaged, and then he’d been put in a cell.

  All he could do now was wait it out. He’d been told that the police had 24 hours to collect evidence, which included statements from the injured parties, photographs of injuries and the damage, and a search for witnesses. Kenny’s neighbours were probably lining up for that one.

  Pain and despair slowly filled the vacuum where love and friendship had lived. And he realised that nothing about his life had been real.

  Eleven hours later, Nick had been interviewed, charged, and released on bail with the conditions not to approach the injured parties, Kenny’s house, Molly’s mother’s house, or Molly’s sister’s flat.

  The solicitor his agent had found for him was a brisk, well-dressed woman, with the clipped tones of someone who was perpetually busy. Mark probably had Miranda Wilson-Smith on speed dial because altercations between belligerent rugby players wasn’t unusual. She was the go-to guy when you’d got “in a spot of bo
ther” as Mark put it.

  “We’ll need to meet as quickly as possible to start planning your defence, Mr. Renshaw. Given that the assault included a weapon . . .”

  A wrench from a tool box was a weapon? Yeah, probably, when you swung it the way Al Capone swung a baseball bat.

  “You’ll appear in court at the first available opportunity, probably within one or two days, to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. I would advise you to plead guilty; if you plead not guilty, the case will be referred to crown court for a trial. And that could drag on for six months or more.”

  Nick dropped his head into his hands.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt her. It was an accident—I’ll cop for the rest.”

  “But you agree you assaulted your fiancée?”

  Shame burned him—he was dreading telling his mum, his sister.

  “Ex-fiancée,” he said softly. “Yeah.”

  “The magistrate will hear the evidence, then adjourn for sentencing.”

  “As quick as that?”

  “Yes.”

  Nick felt an odd sense of disconnection. The man who’d raged around Kenny’s house hours ago felt as though it had happened to someone else; as if he’d watched through the wrong end of a telescope as some maniac systematically destroyed his former friend’s house. All that fury, overtaken by a frenzy of destruction, it seemed so remote from him now. The pulse of pain and betrayal beat weakly deep, deep inside him.

  He ought to care that everything had gone to shit. But he didn’t. He didn’t care about anything.

  Miranda Wilson-Smith packed all her papers away in her briefcase and left him with a severe warning to stay away from Ken and Molly. He had no problem with that. Seeing them even once more in his lifetime would be too much.

  The desk sergeant handed back his phone, shoelaces, car keys and wallet with polite indifference. Not much seemed to ruffle the police officers. There was that disconnection again: his life had imploded messily, bleakly, and it was just another twelve-hour shift for them.

  When Nick looked up, his dad was standing there, watching him with so much love and pity. Nick swallowed several times before he could speak; the weight of how he’d disappointed the man who’d given him everything left him wordless.

  His father wrapped his arms around him and hugged him tightly.

  “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  “It’ll be alright, son.”

  Nick stepped back, grateful for the undiluted love he saw on his father’s face. He didn’t think of his dad as old, but today he saw the grey flecks in his hair and the lines of life and love, grief and happiness all leaving their mark over the years.

  He slumped wearily into his old man’s battered Volvo, and it was only when they’d driven for ten minutes in silence through the late evening traffic that he realised they weren’t going to Nick’s house.

  “Dad? Where are we going?”

  “Trish has gone to pick up your car from Kenny’s,” he sighed, “and your mother wants you home.”

  “Oh.”

  His dad glanced at him but didn’t say anything else.

  Home. He hadn’t lived under his parents’ roof since he was 19, but it seemed right to go there now.

  His mum threw open the front door and hugged him tightly, talking quickly and wiping tell-tale tears.

  Nick hated to see his mother upset, hated to see the worry and regret on her face. And when Trish arrived back with his car, she was furious, torn between threatening to beat the shit out of Kenny even though Nick knew that she’d always had a bit of a crush on him, and trash-talking Molly. Either way, he didn’t want to hear it.

  His dad handed him a can of Stella and his mum made his favourite cottage pie, as if food and drink could make it all better. If he was ten, it might have worked, but he appreciated the effort.

  He ate mechanically without tasting anything, drank the beer and then a second and a third as they watched with the anxious, tortured faces of people who loved you but didn’t have the power to make it all better.

  “Alright if I kip here tonight, Mum?”

  He knew his mum would like that and he couldn’t face going home just yet. At some point he’d have to go back; if nothing else, to find out how much Molly had taken since she still had a key. Right now, he didn’t give a tuppenny fuck.

  “Of course you can stay. I’ll go and put fresh sheets on the bed for you.”

  “I’ll clear up in the kitchen,” muttered his dad.

  Trish came and sat beside him, his big sister who hadn’t been bigger than him for 14 years.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Nah, you’re alright.”

  “Is there anything I can do? Slash her tyres? Slash his tyres? Post ugly-drunk photos of them on Twitter? I’ve got loads.”

  Nick gave half a smile and leaned back on the settee.

  “No thanks, sis. My brief says I can’t go near them or it’ll make things worse.”

  There was a long silence, then Trish spoke softly.

  “Did you really hit her?”

  He opened his eyes and met her worried gaze.

  “It was an accident.”

  “Really? You can tell me, Nick. I’d understand.”

  He sat up straight, staring at her tight expression as understanding rushed through him.

  “You don’t believe me! Jesus!”

  “I do! I’m sorry. I had to ask.”

  “Did you? You couldn’t just believe I’m not like that? I’m your brother!”

  Trish bit her lip.

  “I thought maybe, in the heat of the moment, you just lost your temper. It happens.”

  “Fuck, Trish! If you don’t believe me, I’ve got no fucking chance of convincing anyone else. I can’t believe this is happening. My own sister!”

  “Oh God, Nick! Of course I believe you! I know you wouldn’t lift your hand to a woman. It’s not in your DNA. I hate that the mardy cow has done this to you!”

  He stood up, glaring at her.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out. Home. Away from here.”

  The idea that his family thought he was the kind of man who battered women made him physically sick.

  “Don’t go! Not like this!”

  He brushed past his mum who was holding two mugs of tea.

  “Nick?”

  He kissed her cheek quickly.

  “Sorry, Mum,” he muttered.

  He ignored his car keys, knowing he was too lit to drive. Instead, he walked quickly, shoulders hunched and hands shoved in his pockets, his expression bleak.

  The dark streets were quiet and Nick was utterly alone with his thoughts. On the way, he stopped at an off licence, studying the brightly-lit rows of spirits, wine and beer. Oblivion in a bottle. Cheap at the price.

  As he neared home, his footsteps slowed, the emptiness spreading inside to fill every part of him.

  The street was silent when he reached his house but in the orange glow of the streetlamp, he could easily read the red paint sprayed across the front door in foot-high letters.

  WOMAN BEATER!

  He touched the paint but it had already dried. Whenever this had been done, it was hours ago.

  He turned the key in the lock, pushing open the door slowly, then stood staring at the wreckage inside.

  Everything had been trashed, pretty much the way he’d trashed Kenny’s house. He wandered through his home, staring at the graffiti sprayed across the walls, wading through shards of broken glass. All Molly’s stupid throw cushions had been gutted, and he was followed by a cloud of feathers as he moved from room to room.

  The worst devastation was in his bedroom. All his clothes had been slashed or had paint poured on them, and the duvet looked as though wild animals had torn it apart.

  He slumped on the settee, angling himself to avoid lumps of foam protruding through the ripped material, and opened the first of two bottles of Scotch that he’d bought, tipping the burning alcohol down his throat. He paused,
wiping his mouth and remembering the night Anna had drunk Scotch and the clever stuff she’d said about the flavour—guacamole? Whatever. Nick took another swig, enjoying the burn in his throat and his belly as the amber liquid made its way south.

  He sat in the unlit room, drinking until the darkness consumed him.

  The next morning, the shit hit the fan.

  Nick’s phone buzzed continually as the alerts and notifications started to flood in.

  Online news sites had picked up the story, and were enjoying the real-life soap opera:

  Rugby Renegade in Police Custody!

  Top Player in Vicious Assault

  Minotaurs’ Fullback Charged

  Battered Girlfriend Tells All!!

  Nick struggled to sit up, feathers caught like snow in his black hair. His body ached and his tongue felt as if it had been at the bottom of a parrot’s cage all night.

  His phone was full of dozens of messages and missed calls. He jabbed at it with bleary eyes, sitting up a little straighter as he read the accusations against him.

  Shit, this was bad. Really bad. He realised he’d made a serious mistake by letting Molly get the PR upper hand. But now it was too late. There was no way he was coming back from this, not for a man who had the reputation of being a bullying abuser. Not that he had anything to come back to.

  His stomach was sour with whiskey and grief, and he wondered how he’d go on. What would life be like now? Where would he go? What would he do?

  Someone thumped on his front door and he heard voices yelling. He hadn’t bothered to pull the curtains last night, so he could see camera flashes and realised that there were reporters outside.

  Then he heard a key in the lock and tensed. Molly?

  But it was Trish. She marched into the room and slapped him across the face.

  Fuck, that stung!

  “What the hell, Trish?”

  “That’s for walking out last night and making Mum cry. And this,” she slapped him across his other cheek, “is for not answering your phone and generally behaving like a knob.”

  “Bleedin’ hell, sis! Is this your idea of sympathy?”