He took one look in the mirror and saw that his neck had been slashed, due to the hectic shaving with the blunt razor in the bathroom. He shrugged his shoulders; he didn‘t care.

  He lit up a cigarette, although he had informed his colleagues and Sally that he had quit, and picked up the many packets of mints he kept in his bedside drawer. He had to adapt to the role he played when he went into work; he had to be a completely different person whenever he was around his colleagues, as the last thing he needed was their pathetic pity. The last thing he needed was for his colleagues to learn about his dark past.

  At last, for him the last day of November had passed and the worst of it was over…for another twelve months at least.

  He looked in the mirror at his crumpled suit, his face looked like shit. He needed a woman to keep him in check, to stop him binge drinking on the weekend. He had a woman, a good one that he treated like crap.

  But not anymore. Things were going to change.

  The loneliness he felt the night before confirmed that he needed her. He promised himself right in front of the mirror that his maltreatment of her was going to stop. Sally was the only one for him, and the poor woman didn’t deserve to be treated the way he treated her.

  He then rolled his eyes and cursed himself again, as he stared at himself in the mirror. He began to slowly peel his suit off. This highlighted that the booze would have to take a backseat and Sally a front one, as the alcohol was rotting his brain.

  It was Sunday morning. He didn’t need to go to work until Monday!

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Tuesday evening was an unusual day for the Thai boxing session to take place, although it didn’t bother any of the kids. Waters had to text every boy about the rearrangement because he had to work late on Wednesday evening. A couple of his driving pupils had tests coming up and two of them booked double sessions for Wednesday evening, paranoid that they were going to fail.

  Nevertheless, all the boys had turned up including Luke Beattie and Thomas Campbell. Luke, again, was grinning to himself as he sarcastically said hello to Thomas. Thomas shuddered, knowing that Luke knew something he didn’t. Thomas was convinced that a beating from Beattie was just around the corner. I wish he’d get it over and done with.

  The boys all shuddered as they walked into the cold hall. Waters was already there, the lights were on, and he had just put the heating on.

  “Right lads.” Waters clasped his hands together and began to rub them furiously—he was also feeling the cold. “Get yourselves ready and be out here in the hall in five.”

  “You’re not training with us today?” a boy with black hair asked. Thomas had never spoken to him before and although he was called Charlie, the boys nicknamed him scab, because of his mild eczema.

  “Not today, Charlie. I had a bit of a tweak in my hamstring last week. Be best if I give it some rest.”

  “You’re getting old, David,” Beattie quipped. “You’ll be turning up in a Zimmer frame next year.”

  The boys all laughed, and Thomas joined in.

  “That’s enough out of you, Mr. Beattie,” Waters said jovially.

  Changing the subject, Beattie added, “Have you told Tommy about his surprise yet, David?”

  The laughter had diminished within seconds and Thomas could feel eyes burning through the back of his head. Waters groaned and shook his head with disappointment, and glanced over at Beattie with a fraction of malice in his face. Beattie lowered his head apologetically; he had blurted something out that he was quite clearly told not to.

  Some of the boys had already gone into the dressing room to get changed for their training. Four remained outside the dressing room, including Beattie; all were wondering what Beattie was talking about.

  Thomas spoke up nervously. “Wh-what’s he on about?”

  Waters smiled and pushed his glasses back to the top of his nose with his middle finger. “Every other month we have a little sparring session. All the boys have paired off, which leaves you and Luke. But don’t worry. You’ve hardly trained for a month, so I’m not expecting you to do this month's spar. All the boys do it, but it’s optional. You can join in next month, after Christmas, when you’ve had a bit more experience.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Thomas said. “I’ll give it a go.”

  “It’s just putting your training into practice. Your punching and kicking techniques, keeping your guard up—that sort of thing. I’ll be there to make sure things don’t get out of hand. I‘ll be pairing you up with Luke, throwing you in the deep end just to see how you cope this Sunday.”

  “That’s okay by me.” Thomas nodded unconvincingly.

  He turned to face away from Waters and headed for the dressing room; he looked slightly to his left to see Beattie beaming. Beattie was going to get what he wanted.

  He was going to denigrate Thomas in front of the boys. Thomas was convinced that Waters wouldn’t let it go too far, but all the same, it was going to be humiliating. If he was going to get a bit of a beating by Beattie, he would be laughed at. But if he was getting a severe beating and Waters jumped in early to stop the fight, again, he was still going to be laughed at.

  As the boys were nearly ready for their session, Thomas, Beattie, and a couple of others, were struggling to catch up as they quickly and frantically tried to strip off in the changing room, getting ready for the training session.

  “So what d’ya reckon, Eric?” Beattie sat in his underpants, calling out to one of the other boys who were rapidly trying to change into his gear.

  Beattie was only yards away from Thomas. “How long do you think our Tommy will last, out of three rounds?”

  Eric shrugged. He didn’t want to get involved; he hardly spoke to Thomas, but had already come to the conclusion that he quite liked the boy.

  Beattie continued with his teasing. “The lads reckon thirty seconds.”

  Thomas was hurt by this comment. Were all the boys talking about him behind his back? Was this episode going to be worse than the incident when he ran away from his friends who were getting mugged in Stafford? He would have to move town again, he thought.

  “The lads have said no such thing,” Eric spoke, and winked at Thomas.

  Thomas was pleased with his response; his paranoia about the boys had evaporated as soon as Eric had made his comment. Eric wasn’t scared of Beattie, in fact, out of the two boys, Eric was the more experienced fighter out of the two, which was the reason Beattie never responded to Eric’s comment. The difference between the two of them was that Eric was a good guy, and Beattie was a bully who used his skills that he had been taught to negative effect on people.

  “I reckon he’ll last one round,” Beattie blurted out to nobody in particular.

  Thomas had put his shorts on and was ready to go. “I think I’ll last the full three rounds.”

  Beattie chuckled out loud, it was so false, that even Beattie himself stopped laughing after hearing the sound of his own voice. “I’m gonna maul you, sunshine.”

  “You probably will." Thomas smiled. “But nobody is expecting anything else. But imagine if you don’t manage to put me down in those three rounds. You’ll be a laughing stock. If you can’t even beat a puny boy like me, someone who can’t fight his way out of a paper bag, all the boys will piss themselves laughing.”

  “I’m gonna fuck you up, and probably more after the fight.”

  “Beating me up outside,” Thomas mocked and wagged his finger. “I would have to be forced to tell Waters about it, and then you’ll be chucked out of the club forever. Then what will you have? A life stuck at home, with your alcoholic mother.”

  “At least my mother's still alive!” Beattie growled.

  Thomas was shocked by this vicious comment; even by a nasty piece of work like Luke Beattie, this was a shocking way to hurt someone. Thomas continued to smile and fought back the tears. As his dad used to say: Always smile at your enemies, it winds them up.

  Thomas exhaled long and slow and spoke calmly. “Your mother's like a bowling ball. She gets fingered, chucked in the gutter and still comes back for more!”

  Eric laughed out loud in the background, as he put his orange gum shield in his mouth. But Thomas wasn’t impressed by what he had just said. He had just insulted someone’s mother and would do anything to get his own mother back from the dead. He tried his best not to bite, but Luke had taken it too far and now Thomas had gone down to Beattie’s level.

  Thomas could see the venom on Beattie’s face and Eric called out to him. Beattie turned around to face Eric. Eric shook his head at Beattie as if to say: Don’t even bother.

  “You’ll keep, Tommy,” Beattie snorted, and stormed out of the dressing room.

  “Thanks,” Thomas said to Eric.

  “You better be ready Sunday,” Eric warned. “Luke’s gonna be fired up for you this weekend.”

  “Well he’s going to have to wait!” Waters bellowed, and walked into the dressing room. “I’ve thought it through. Sorry, Thomas, but I think you need another month on the pads and a bit of sparring with the other lads, before I put you in full pelt with an experienced guy like Beattie. I hope you understand.”

  Thomas shook his head with fake disappointment. It was a staged attempt to look disappointed, but the truth was, he was relieved.

  Thank fuck!

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Wednesday had been a stressful day for Ricky Hernandez, and he was out walking alone. He had had a bad day at work and wanted desperately to tie his boss up, and beat him to death with a cricket bat.

  Knowing that such an action would result in him losing his job, as well as spending a vast amount of time in prison, he decided against it and went to the toilets at his work after the incident and took his anger out on a few toilet doors. His wrath had increased every time he thought of the occurrence that occurred at 3pm.

  It was trivial, but Ricky was having an argument with a fellow colleague about music during their fifteen-minute tea break. Two teams were formed and the short quiz turned into an argument. The question was: Can you name songs by The Beatles that has a woman's name in the title?

  There were two teams and numerous songs were reeled off such as Eleanor Rigby, Lovely Rita, Sexy Sadie, Julia and Michelle. At this point, both teams were stuck for another song. Then the boss, who was also sitting in the canteen, announced that whoever got the next one, could go home an hour early, seem as though Christmas wasn’t far away. He would only accept the first answer. Hernandez chipped in and smiled proudly as he shouted out Dizzy Miss Lizzy. His team members patted him on the back and Ricky's face was wearing a mask of smugness.

  Unfortunately, the boss corrected Hernandez and told him that Dizzy Miss Lizzy, the closing track off the Help album, was a cover and was written by Larry Williams. He was reminded that the question was: Name as many Beatle songs that has a woman’s name in the title?

  Hernandez, a fierce competitor in anything, was raging, and his anger was multiplied when his boss laughed at him mockingly. The other team came up with Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and had won the trivial competition. To make matters worse, off the top of his head, the boss informed Hernandez that he had the pick of other songs such as, Dear Prudence, Martha My Dear, Polythene Pam, Maggie Mae, Lady Madonna, The Ballad of John and Yoko and Penny Lane. Although Hernandez and his group tried to salvage some pride and argued that Penny Lane was named after a street, the boss insisted that Penny was still a woman’s name.

  It didn’t take much for Hernandez to lose his cool. Two months ago, Ricky had gotten drunk and kicked in the glass door entrance to the old folks home, simply because he had dropped his lamb kebab on the floor. Knowing that it would be unhygienic to eat the thing off the floor, he returned the kebab to the fast food restaurant, but they refused to give him another one for free. Seeing that the Turks were in the background working away with their knives, even Hernandez had the sense not to antagonise the owner and opted to go home on an empty stomach.

  Two days after that incident, he had been contacted by phone to meet up for talks about joining an exciting project. He had been contacted on the strength of the Bennetts' recommendation.

  Now bored beyond despair, Hernandez walked the cold desolate streets. At least his Wales trip was only a few days away; he was looking forward to that, as he didn't have many friends and was looking forward to a bit of male company. Since he had been dumped by his girlfriend, for being too vigorous in bed, he searched for things to do on an evening. He wasn’t one for console games and hated football, so he needed to do something.

  Walking near Averill Drive heading towards the outskirts of Rugeley, in the distance, Hernandez saw a pair of headlights pull into a secluded car park, which he knew was a rare thing these days since people had been scared away from the area. He knew the firm were very strict that this was something that gave the town a bad name. He decided to check it out. He had nothing better to do.

  *****

  Brian Jenkins knocked on the door of five Averill Drive. The door slowly opened and he was greeted with a smile. Sally Page ushered Brian in, and looked around the street before closing the door as if what they were doing was forbidden. She didn’t know why she did it herself. They were both single adults, and had nothing to hide.

  “Fancy a drink?” Sally asked.

  “Always,” Brian quipped.

  He was handed a glass of Shiraz and looked at Sally, dressed in her red silky pyjamas that clung to her tightly revealing her magnificent rear, he smiled to himself. He was falling in love with her, but didn’t know if it was too early to tell her how he felt. After the way he had been treating her, she probably thought that it was one of his sick jokes.

  “You look gorgeous,” he spoke softly with sincerity. “Those pyjamas suit you.”

  “Don’t worry,” Sally said with a smile. “If you play your cards right, I’ll let you take them off.”

  Jenkins shrugged his shoulders and took Sally by surprise, when he announced that he would rather have a quiet evening in, get merry and watch a Korean film called Old Boy that was on later on.

  Sally looked stunned, but was simultaneously pleased. “That sounds nice.” Although Sally and Brian were unaware that the film was brutally violent, had scenes of torture in it, and contained incest.

  “You never know, I might even give you a shoulder rub later on,” Jenkins teased.

  “That would be great, that A and E department was mental last night. I still feel tense after that evening shift.”

  She sat down and put her bare feet on his lap; she had one hand on her thigh and the other holding a glass of red. She could feel Jenkins eyes on her and she slowly turned her head.

  “What is it?" She smiled.

  “Nothing.” Jenkins shrugged. “Just looking at ya.”

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Bill turned off the ignition and looked over to his wife, Sandra. She smiled tensely and brushed her hair behind her ears. She wasn’t too sure that this was a good idea. They had tried Cannock's beauty spots but it was too busy up there and there were too many weirdos. Where they were now was perfect, but since they had an incident with the two men a couple of weeks ago, this seemed like a bad decision, although it added to the excitement for both of them.

  “What do you reckon?” Bill said to his wife.

  Sandra answered, “Some people seemed reluctant to come here when we were on the web, they all seemed to prefer Cannock or that secluded car park in Lichfield.”

  “If no one turns up, we’ll try Cannock again. It was a bit too hectic for my liking last week.”

  “Yeah.” Sandra nodded. “There were too many people. Some people were staring in at us, and we didn’t even flash them to give them permission.”

  “It was like a free-for-all, there were a lot of young men up there.”

  “I think those young men just went up to have a perv; none of them were with any girls.”

  Suddenly a car pulled into the car park and Bill looked at Sandra, she smiled with delight.

  “Let’s see who it is first, they might not be here for what we want.”

  They waited five minutes and saw that there was no real activity going on from the two figures inside the car. Maybe just a couple of young men having a smoke of dope? Or a teenage couple aching for some privacy?

  “I don’t like the look of that.” Bill pointed at the entrance of the sequestered car park.

  They both watched a short figure briskly walk into the murky car park.

  “Let’s just go,” Sandra begged. “Remember what happened last time?”

  "I know." Bill nodded. "But there was two of them last time."

  *****

  Hernandez walked briskly towards the entrance of the secluded car park on the outskirts of Rugeley. He knew, along with Stile Cop, that this was an area that had been targeted by his new fellow colleagues in order to clean up the town. These kind of places attracted all sorts such as drug takers, swingers, drunken yobs—everything that brought shame on a society. People needed to know that it was a no-go area.

  He had heard about trouble in another area in Rugeley; it was a car park near the town centre. It was a car park for the local supermarket but was used for another reason one Saturday morning.

  Around 3am, eight cars had pulled up, and the dance music began to blast out of their car stereos, upsetting residents who were trying to sleep nearby. Hernandez had heard that the firm only heard about what had happened the next day, and just by luck, one of the elderly residents had taken down the registration number of two of the vehicles that were involved and the registration was printed in the local newspaper, as this was considered big news in a small quiet town like Rugeley.