by steve higgs
The Klown with the bat arrived where I lay gasping for breath, but he did not raise his bat for another swing. To my surprise, he tapped the Klown with the white wig on the arm and the pair went either side of me and began to pick me up.
What the hell?
Still fighting for breath and worried I might lose consciousness, I was unable to offer them anything other than feeble resistance. White wig locked eyes with me, ‘He wants you alive see. Otherwise, I would just gut you here and leave you for the rats.'
He wants you alive?
The Ford Transit was looming. Clearly, they were planning to put me in it and we would go for a little ride somewhere. I was trying to shake them off but the pain in my ribs when I moved was unbearable. The lack of oxygen was making my pulse hammer in my head. With two of them dragging me to the van, I spied three more keeping Basic at bay. They all looked worse for wear and two had lost their wigs. Where then was Jagjit? Had they killed him? Or was he just incapacitated? Through blurry vision, I spotted a machete in the hands of one Klown. Basic could do nothing for me without risking serious injury. I wished he would save himself or get help.
We arrived at the van where the back doors were still open. White wig adjusted his grip, trying to manoeuvre himself so that he could get me inside. Sensing my last opportunity, I swung my arm to break his grip. I didn’t want to go in the van, so no matter what, I had to escape right now. Whatever it was they wanted me for, I doubted we were going for cocktails, but as I tried to break free, the other Klown simply punched me in the ribs where he had hit me with the bat and as the fresh wave of pain hit me, I vomited.
As I emptied my stomach, the furthest most rear door of the Transit slammed shut and from behind it, Big Ben hit the Klown holding me with a road sign. The road sign was still attached to the pole it had been mounted on and at the other end, I observed as he swung it over my face, was a chunk of concrete where the sign had been ripped from the ground.
Big Ben twirled the pole, the concrete connecting with white wig's face and he let go of me instantly. I flailed my arms but found nothing to grab hold of so crashed to the ground again. A spray of blood from white wig's face hit mine. I was glad of it. He had it coming.
Laying on the ground, my vision blurred, I knew I needed to get up; the fight was far from over. Then though, I heard sirens. Lots of them. The Klowns all froze momentarily, then came collectively to a decision. They decided to leg it. To do so though, they wanted to get into the van that Big Ben and I were currently blocking their path to. Not that I was going to do much to stop them, lying on the ground as I was. Next to me, Big Ben hefted the road sign again with one muscular arm and extended the other arm towards them; come and get it, he beckoned.
Come and get it they did. I rolled away to my left to get clear of the van and give myself a chance to get up. The action of rolling over once though hammered home the point that I was broken. I could hear Big Ben trading blows behind me, but I could not get up to help.
The van’s engine roared to life and I heard doors slam shut. Then hands were grabbing my shoulders and lifting me again. I swivelled my head weakly to find a hand sheathed in a white glove holding me; another Klown trying to claim his prize.
‘Leave him,’ Someone shouted, ‘there is no time.’
I was dropped roughly to the ground where I elected to stay. Seconds later the van peeled out of the parking space just as blue strobe lights began to dance off the concrete walls. Across from me, now that the van was no longer there, I could see Big Ben. He was sat on the floor, propped against a car's tyre. He had both hands pressed to his lower abdomen where blood was seeping through his fingers. He had been stabbed.
A police car, then another swept past us and out of the car park in the direction the Klowns had gone. Two more police cars, their strobe lights flashing screeched to a halt beside us and uniformed officers spilled from the doors. I turned my head to look for Jagjit. As I scanned around, I spotted a Klown laying on the floor. It was the one with the blue wig that I had slammed into the floor. They had left without him.
Feet clad in coppers boots arrived by my head and then a knee as he knelt. I had come to know many of the cops in Maidstone, but this chap was not one of them.
‘Sir? Are you hurt, sir?’ he asked.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I replied. ‘I took a hit to my ribs. I may have a few broken ones. The big guy over there needs attention, not me.’
I looked across at Big Ben. There was a female oolice officer tending to him. Of course there was. She laughed just then, he was probably making a joke or saying something cool and guaranteeing a future shag.
The cope kneeling next to me finished saying something into his lapel mike, then turned his attention back to me. ‘The paramedics are on their way. It’s over now,’ he said.
But it wasn’t over. It was just starting. I had decided.
The officer was just doing his job, so I let him get on with his it, his words washing over me. He had probably been at dozens or hundreds of scenes where he had to deal with the victim of an attack of some kind and so was acting in the way that suited his experience. This though was different. The Klowns had singled me out. They knew who I was and what car I would be in so they must also know where I live and possibly also where my friends and family live.
I was already involved in this case through Mrs. Plumber, yet I had been very much on the fringes. Now though I was in deep. If the police got these guys first, I was fine with that, but I was going to clear my workload and take on nothing new until I had the Klowns behind bars. If Mrs. Plumber's brother turned out to be involved after all then he was going down too.
The next thirty minutes went by in a blur of medical attention and police questions. While we were administered to, Jagjit reappeared looking sheepish and sad. He was sporting a fat lip and a bruise to his right cheek that was glistening red where the skin was almost broken. He had made it to his car, but before he could get the door open a Klown with a baseball bat was upon him and taking a swing. He had avoided serious injury but had taken a few knocks while fighting the guy off and had then made a run for it. He was ashamed to have run away but we unanimously reassured him that it had been the right thing to do.
He thanked us, but I could tell he was still not happy. A cute lady paramedic had taken a look at Jagjit's face and had been openly flirting with him while she made sure he was okay. It may have been a professional manoeuvre to calm and distract him, but it seemed genuine to me. I was examined and loaded onto a stretcher. I was walking wounded and could move about, but they were not going to let me do so and I offered no resistance. In the back of the ambulance, I wondered if Amanda might show up. She was working a shift somewhere tonight. I thought about sending her a text, but my phone was in my back pocket, the movements required to retrieve it less than appealing. Enough time had passed that I had been able to get oxygen back into my bloodstream. The adrenalin rush had left me feeling spent for a while, but I was more lucid now and could follow the conversation the police were having when the two cars returned from chasing the Klown van. They had followed them out of Lockmeadow but they had lost them when they ditched the van and went on foot. The Klowns had escaped, all bar the one I had knocked out. He was being tended to by yet another paramedic. One limp arm was handcuffed to the stretcher he was laying on.
I turned to Big Ben. ‘How is it that you came to the rescue? We left you engaging in your usual sport of seeing how many girls you can shag,' I asked him.
‘I remembered that I had left my keys In Jagjit's car. You had only just left so I ran after you. Phone signal is always bad here and you lot were heading into a concrete carpark so there was no point in calling you. Anyway, as I got down the stairs, I could see the three of you facing off to three Klowns. I called the police while I circled around to come up behind them. It would have been four against three, and fairly easy with their attention split, but in the minute it took me to circle around you were already fighting and more Klowns had appea
red. Then Bongo the evil dickhead Klown from hell hacked at me with a machete.
‘How are you feeling?’ I asked.
‘Not great actually.’
‘Scar tissue looks good on a man.' Jagjit offered, lifting the icepack from his face to speak.
‘It does,’ Big Ben conceded. ‘But I fear this is going to cost me a few shags while I recover.’
‘We are done here.’ One of the paramedics said. He was stood above us and speaking to the officer in charge. Then he said, ‘Ok. Let’s go,’ when he got a nod in return.
Big Ben and I were strapped in and were going to the hospital whether we liked it or not. Jagjit and Basic were asked if they wanted to come with us. They needed no further treatment, had given their statements and were free to go. I told them to get home. Basic lived with his little old lady mum and she needed him around to help her out.
Thankfully they did not argue. We all shook hands, Big Ben and I from our stretchers and as the doors to the ambulance were shut our two friends were getting into Jagjit's car. The pub in the village would be shut by now, which was a shame because it looked like Jagjit really needed a drink.
In the other ambulance, accompanied by two police officers, was the Klown with the green wig. He was still unconscious. He was under arrest, but I suppose since he was not able to talk or listen or anything else, the question and answer section of the evening would have to wait. I was beginning to worry that I might have done some lasting damage. Not that I really cared about the person beneath the daft outfit and make-up but were he to be badly injured it would most likely cause complications and questions back to me that I did not wish to have to answer. Much easier if he came around with nothing worse than a headache.
It would be the police that questioned him, not I, so I hoped they would provide some answers. I had questions like:
Who are you?
Who sent you?
Why am I your target?
Who is that wants me taken alive?
Why are you dressed like a complete penis?
Would you like to bleed some more?
I suspected that I would not like most of the answers but getting them was necessary and it would be simpler if the police got them. I probably wouldn’t voice the final question.
The journey from Lockmeadow in Maidstone to Maidstone A&E is roughly three miles and took about as many minutes. Big Ben and I were both quiet, keeping our own thoughts. The driver had ignored the red lights as he sped out of town on the Tonbridge road, but it was late, and traffic was light anyway.
As we came to a stop, the backdoors opened to reveal the double-wide entrance into A&E. Even at this time of the day, it was busy with people coming in and out; doctors and nurses, paramedics in their green uniforms and the family or friends of people inside popping out for a quick smoke.
The stretchers were rolled out, Big Ben's first and then mine. The mild bumping and jarring far more painful on my ribs than I had expected. They were broken, of course, four of them down my right side under where my arm would naturally rest. It had taken nothing more than a brief examination by the first doctor available to confirm a diagnosis I was already sure of. There was little they could do other than give me pain relief. The bones were all in place and not splintered or likely to cause further damage. Most of the doctor's time was spent advising me on all the activities I should not do over the next six to eight weeks. He prescribed pain relief which a nurse appeared with moments later: Oramorph. It was morphine in liquid form. It would help me breathe, but other than that I just had to put up with the pain.
Not too far away, I could hear Big Ben charming the pants off several nurses. It had not taken him long to attract an unfair share of the ladies working on the ward. Looking across at them now I had to observe that most of them were young and attractive as if he had some form of invisible filter that prevented less attractive ladies from getting close. I turned to look at the nurse still hovering by my bed. She looked like a raccoon might if it lost all of its fur, developed a bad allergy that affected its skin and gained two hundred pounds. Life seemed a tad unfair at times. Big Ben had a wound to his abdomen that was almost ten inches long – can you guess what he compared the length to? The blow from the machete had been a glancing one mostly but it had also cut into his flesh and muscle. He would likely heal sooner than I and he didn't seem all that bothered by it.
I was though.
Some evil dickhead Klowns had set about my friends and me. I was incandescent with rage. What had provoked the attack? That was a question I really wanted answering? Why come after me when I am accompanied by my friends? Why not attack me when I am alone? I believed that I was not a violent person, that I only fought when I had to or was forced to. Right now though, thinking about Big Ben bleeding on a carpark floor and Jagjit going to work on Monday to meet with high-stakes clients and having to explain to his boss why he looks like he has been in a bar brawl, well I was ready to hurt some people.
I was gritting my teeth for my internal monologue and my jaw was starting to ache. I relaxed and flopped my head back onto the pillow.
‘Tempest?’
I looked up. The voice was Amanda’s.
‘My God. Are you okay?’ she asked. She was in uniform; her glorious blond hair was tucked up into her hat and she was devoid of make-up. She was still beautiful. Utterly, utterly beautiful.
‘What are you doing here?' I asked her, rather than answer her question and spend time talking about me.
‘I brought in a perp that went a bit nuts and put his head through a window. He is cuffed to my colleague and being treated just a few beds down. I heard Big Ben’s voice and came to investigate. What happened?’
‘Klown attack.'
‘Klowns? You and Big Ben got taken out by some Klowns?' she said incredulously.
‘And Basic and Jagjit,’ I corrected her. ‘They were armed, and it was six against three. Big Ben only turned up at the end.’
‘Okay. But without wanting to butter your ego, you and Ben and Basic are like a small army. Basic looks like he could not only smash through walls but eat them afterward.'
‘Nevertheless, we took a beating.’
‘Are you okay?’ she asked again. She seemed genuinely concerned.
I opened my shirt and showed her my ribs.
‘Damn,’ she whistled. ‘Broken?’
‘Yeah. Really, really broken.’
Her radio crackled to life. Whoever she was here with tonight needed her.
‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ I offered. I was glad to see her. It saved me a call. She patted my calf in an act of camaraderie. It was heart-breaking for me but had she leaned in to give me a hug I probably would have tried to kiss her so it was better that she didn’t.
She vanished from view behind a curtain further down the line of beds and I found the button thing to summon a nurse. I asked for more pain relief and another thing of Oramorph was given freely.
I don’t remember much else.
Maidstone Hospital. Sunday, 23rd October 0843hrs
I awoke to my phone ringing. I was on a different ward to the one I had fallen asleep in. I was still coming around when Big Ben appeared in my field of vision. He snagged my phone from the bedside table and answered it.
‘Blue Moon Investigations, Ben Winters speaking. How may I help you?’ He winked at me as he listened to the person at the other end. ‘It’s your mother,’ he mouthed ‘Yes, Mary. Yes indeed. I’ll pass that on.’ He hung up.
‘How’re you feeling?’ I asked.
‘Fine,’ he replied jovially. ‘A little sore at the site of the wound but I can work that to my advantage. I believe it will shortly be raining blowjobs.’
‘No doubt,’ I said, laying my head back onto my pillow. ‘What did my mother want?’
‘Just to let you know that she and your dad were just leaving your house. They had fed and walked the dogs and stayed the night rather than go home. She also said that your dad found your rum and it is somewhat de
pleted.’
‘Sounds about right.’ At least the dogs had been well catered for. They would not have been bothered that I had failed to come home. They were well used to my parents and had probably been given treats to boot.
‘Anything else?’
‘The temperature in your greenhouse was too low to keep the plants in there alive through the winter so she has turned it up and you need to get your overwintering vegetables planted now or you will miss out.’
My mother was a constant provider of helpful horticultural advice. I had grown up with a garden that provided all manner of fruit and vegetables that she would then convert into pies and tarts and stews etcetera. My parents lived only a couple of miles away from my house and it had taken nothing more than a quick call last night to get them to leave their house and go to mine.
Soon enough, the doctors came on their rounds. They came to me first, led by a tall, slightly plump lady consultant with a gaggle of mostly female junior doctors following her. She instructed one to check my chart and make a recommendation, she did not address me at any point which felt rude but also completely in keeping with National Health Service patient care. I was swiftly dismissed. The young male doctor recommended that there was no need for further treatment and I should contact my local general practitioner if I needed further pain medication. While dealing with me, I had watched the consultant as she watched the young male doctor. Behind her were two equally young female doctors, one of whom had just got a look at Big Ben. He had removed his top so that his wound could be inspected when they got to him and now she was urgently nudging her companion and motioning with her head.
The consultant was finished with me, so I began to slowly gather my things. I would wait for Big Ben so we could travel in a taxi together, but that is not what happened. What happened was the consultant lady stared at Big Ben with goggly eyes for half a minute while she tried to convince her brain to reconnect itself with her mouth. Big Ben was used to the attention and had most likely taken his shirt off just so he could distract the ladies. Just in case it was needed, which it wasn’t, he smiled one of his magical smiles and made his pecs dance a bit.