Doctor Who_ Warchild - Andrew Cartmel [2]
‘That’s right,’ said Creed brightly. He was getting as bored as Eve.
‘You should come out when I’m practising some time and we can run a few targets together. Blast a few bad guys.
Maybe even put a side-bet down to sharpen our interest.’
‘Sure, let’s do that,’ Creed lied. Stanmer was the better shot and he knew it — at least on the target range.
‘And after a spell on the range I’ll get you lifting weights,’
Stanmer rubbed his blunt stubby fingers through his sweaty crewcut. ‘Fight that old middle-aged spread.’
Eve was tugging at Creed’s hand again. ‘Well, we’d better be going.’
‘You’re lucky,’ said Stanmer. ‘Having the whole weekend to take it easy. Personally, I’m going to get some steam then it’s back in the weight-room. No rest for the wicked, I guess,’
he chuckled. ‘You’ll see what it’s like when I start you on a training programme.’ He jabbed a playful punch at Creed. His heavy muscular fist crashed into Creed’s bicep hard enough to raise a bruise.
‘You’re not starting me on anything,’ said Creed, smiling a dangerously fixed smile. ‘I don’t lift weights. Number one: free weights are dangerous. One awkward lift can wreck your spine for life. It’s a stupid form of exercise. The pattern of movement is all wrong. It’s artificial. You never see an animal doing anything that stupid. Number two: I find it boring. All that endless repetitive movement just bores the hell out of me.’
‘Sure. Artificial. Boring.’ Stanmer nodded. ‘I guess there’s always excuses if you’re looking for them.’ He aimed another punch at Creed’s arm, but Creed had run out of patience now.
He let his body slip into a defence stance, stepped inside the punch and caught Stanmer’s fist in mid-air. He moved with such speed that he saw a flash of frightened surprise in Stanmer’s eyes. Creed felt a hot stab of satisfaction. He’d had enough of this little prick standing here condescending to him, treating him like a middle-aged has-been while his daughter danced from foot to foot with boredom.
So instead of letting go of Stanmer, he squeezed. The man’s hard, chunky fist made an odd popping noise in Creed’s hand. Creed had hardly begun to squeeze when he saw Stanmer’s face go white with pain.
He let go instantly, regretting what he’d done. He moved to try to help the man but Stanmer jerked away from him.
Creed bit his lip. He’d gone too far. Stanmer was an oaf but he wasn’t stupid. Come Monday he was going to have to go back to the office and work with this man. He watched Stanmer leaning against the wall, flexing his hand as colour slowly returned to his face.
He was stuck with Stanmer. And Stanmer could be very dangerous to Creed on a professional level.
And perhaps in other ways.
But it was too late now.
Stanmer smiled an insincere smile, holding his hand at an awkward angle. ‘Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you back at the office,’ he said, his voice trembling slightly, barely under control.
‘Yeah, take care,’ said Creed, hearing the shaming insincerity ringing loudly in his own voice.
‘And don’t work too many late nights. But I forgot, you don’t, do you?’ Stanmer was grinning now, as if a pleasant thought had occurred to him. ‘Except those nights when Amy is working,’ he said.
Stanmer turned away, leaving Creed standing there, sick with rage.
‘I’d like to see you do the trick out here.’
Ricky and his friends were sitting waiting for a bus in the baking heat of the August day. The bus-stop was situated across the highway, a kilometre from the sports centre, in the middle of a featureless concrete nowhere. Under the unrelenting glare of the sun it might have been a geometric landscape on some alien planet, implacably hostile to human life.
Either side of the wide road had been cleared of vegetation in readiness for some ambitious development project which had stalled, leaving the hectares of flat, red dust to be stripped by the wind. The sports complex was a small box in the distance and there was no sign of human life.
The boys were sick of waiting for the bus. Ricky knew that his dad would have given them a lift