Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [121]
‘I would’ve got the kid before,’ Carl said as the car pulled away, sounding worried that this might all turn out to be all his fault. ‘I would’ve, but Eddy Stone stuck his nose in, so I ’ad to do ’im instead.’
‘You dirty stinking bastard,’ Jack raged. Not caring that Carl was driving, he started to pummel the back of the thugs head. ‘I’ll kill you, do you hear?
I’ll kill you!’
209
‘Hey, get off me you stupid little –’ The car swerved wildly before Carl brought it to a shrieking halt, the force knocking Jack forward and then back into his seat.
By the time Jack had recovered, Carl was leaning over the seat, his arm pulled back, readying a punch. Jack didn’t even have time to raise his arms to protect his face.
Everything went black.
As they turned into Silchester Road, Dennis ran ahead of Mikey preparing to scamper up the fire escape so Mrs Carroway wouldn’t see him. Mikey followed his little brother’s progress with his eyes. The streets in Notting Hill were dangerous. If it wasn’t the drunks hassling you for beer money, then it was bored Teds looking for a bit of aggravation to liven up their day.
Mrs Carroway must have been listening for the sound of his key because she opened her door and waylaid him as he tried to slip across the downstairs hall.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ she muttered, looking disappointed.
He only nodded a greeting in reply. She never seemed to demand anymore from him.
‘If you see that Jack Bartlett, you can tell him that he’s gonna be out on his ear if he don’t come up with his rent by tomorrow.’
Mikey just shrugged and took the steps two at a time.
‘I mean it,’ she shouted after him. ‘I’ve been too easy on you two. You’re taking me for a ride.’
As Mikey entered their room he saw that Jack was lying, motionless, face down in the middle of the room. The window was open, but Dennis wasn’t in sight. Mikey hauled Jack over; one of his eyes was bleeding and he wasn’t making any sense, but he was breathing.
Someone started screaming outside. A young, high voice.
Dennis!
Mikey let Jack fall back to the floor and hurtled out of the window and down the fire escape. Below him on the street, Carl Scraton had got hold of Dennis’s collar and was struggling with him, razor in hand. Dennis was kicking and screaming: doing anything which might loosen the thug’s grip on him.
Mikey had never run so fast, taking the steps of the fire escape three at a time, but he knew he wasn’t going to make it to them before Carl got a chance to use his knife. He reached the last step of the fire escape and sprinted towards them just as Carl tucked his blade under Dennis’s chin.
It was too late.
210
Suddenly, Carl Scraton was jerked backwards. Two heavy-set black men in builder’s overalls had stepped on to the pavement from between a car and a van and witnessed what Scraton had been about to do. They pulled him off the boy, looking at him not with fear or rage, but with complete and utter disbelief and surprise.
‘What did you think. . . ’ One of them started to say, shaking his head.
The other had pulled Carl’s razor out of his grip and was staring at it in total astonishment.
The first man’s surprise was beginning to turn to anger. ‘A boy? He’s just a boy. What kind of –’
Carl Scraton was standing between them, looking shaken, unsure whether to run or fight.
Mikey hit him with all the force he could summon, pushing him on to the floor and screaming a string of curses at him. Some cool, quiet part of his mind decided then and there to kill Carl Scraton. It was the only way he was going to be able to make sure that Dennis would be safe. Safe for ever.
Mikey wasn’t aware of the two men trying to pull him off Carl, or off the Teds who, on seeing what looked like a lone white man being set upon by three blacks, decided to join in. All Mikey could see was Carl Scraton’s face alive with fear and pain as he hit him and