London Calling - James Craig [11]
Whatever. Having called time, Ian had already moved on in his mind, and was thinking about the people that he had to meet in the morning. They were Chileans, dealers in ‘specialist’ technology, and very nice clients. Happily, they were also undemanding types, which would be just as well on this particular occasion.
He was just dreaming about demolishing a full English breakfast when he felt a sharp, burning pain explode through his abdomen. ‘What?’ he cried, his eyes welling up before he could even open them. This time, the flesh was definitely tearing. There was another blow before he could throw off the pillow and flip over on to his back. The sheets beneath him were turning red. Then he saw the blade, dripping with blood, his blood, being waved in front of his face. I should scream, he thought as he watched the knife scything through his cheek, extending his mouth all the way to his left ear. Help! his brain screamed, but all that came out was a gurgle.
A series of blows rained down on his face, neck and torso. Even as he was bringing his arms up to his head in a futile attempt to defend himself, he was mesmerised by the weapon. It was almost as if it was working on its own. Once, twice, three times, he tried to grab it, simply attracting gashes to his hands and arms. Grabbing a pillow, he tried to hide from the attack, but a swift knee to the balls sent him sprawling. As he fell off the bed, his head bounced off a side table and he landed on the floor.
Dazed, he tried to curl up into a ball but found himself being dragged back on to the bed. Maybe he cried for his mother; or maybe he just imagined that he did. For what seemed like an eternity, the blows kept descending. Even the repeated moaning, as metal penetrated flesh, and the occasional grunt of his assailant could not drown out the whirr of the air-conditioning.
As he drifted out of consciousness for the last time, Ian could not believe his bad luck.
FIVE
Yorkshire, June 1984
‘Sit still, sunshine. This is going to hurt.’ The voice was tired, bored, provincial. Not friendly, not interested.
Fresh out of Hendon training college, Constable John Carlyle felt a long way from home.
‘You’ll feel just a little sting. Move around and it will get worse.’
‘Shit!’ Carlyle screwed up his face and closed his eyes tightly. The sweat trickled down his forehead from beneath his recently refreshed number-one buzz cut, mingling with the TCP liquid antiseptic that had just been rubbed into the gash above his right eye. Although barely two inches long, it felt massive and deep, and Carlyle could feel it opening and closing as he wiggled his eyebrows. He was sure that his skull was now exposed to the elements. Maybe my brain will slip out, he thought. Assuming that he still had one.
‘Sit still! Surely you London boys can take a bit of rough-and-tumble, can’t you?’ The pasty paramedic, dressed in a green jumpsuit, his gargoyle face looking washed out in the glare of the intense sunlight, stood back to admire his work. He pronounced himself satisfied, then quickly slapped a plaster the size of a cigarette packet on Carlyle’s forehead.
‘You’re done,’ he said.
Carlyle opened one eye. ‘It hurts.’
‘I told you it would.’ The gargoyle took a quick swig from the TCP bottle, swilled it around his mouth and spat it on the ground. He offered to share a taste. Carlyle shook his head and looked away. Wiping more sweat from his forehead, he felt the heat rising from his face and felt the snot desiccating and solidifying in his nose. This was not where he wanted to be, stuck in the middle of a row of terraced houses in the middle of some hapless, downtrodden, down-at-heel village in the middle of the north of England.
Even the weather was wrong. In the middle of his dark mood, summer had finally arrived, exploding on the scene in all its glory. What little breeze there had been earlier had vanished. The sky was a deep blue of infinite promise, suggesting long summer holidays, vanilla ice cream with strawberry sauce on top, and deckchairs on