Luke Delaney - Redemption of the Dead

October 1993

She pulled her coat tight against the chill of the approaching winter, but still she felt a shiver run the length of her body, some terrible feeling refusing to leave her. She comforted herself with the fact that the sun was high overhead and that she’d seen several other people walking in the same park in Hither Green, south-east London, but still the feeling remained of some nearby malevolent force — watching. Waiting. She leaned inside the buggy and adjusted her young child’s clothing, smiling and softly chatting as she did so, but constantly flicking her eyes from left to right. An increasing sense of panic made her hurry as she grabbed the buggy handles and began to walk towards the exit of the park, the wooded area on her left suddenly dark and threatening.

She stuck to the path, walking so fast she was almost jogging, until the sight of another mother with her two children playing on the grass no more than a hundred metres away began to calm her fears and she slowed her pace. A small smile spread across her face as she reprimanded herself for her foolishness. She took a few deep breaths to chase away the remainder of her panic and headed towards one of the park’s exits.

First all she heard was the rustling sound of branches being pushed out of the way and the breaking of twigs under foot. He moved so fast she didn’t have time to react — not even to scream as he burst from the woods and stood in front of her, his chest rising and falling as fast as her own, his eyes as full of fear and panic as her own. She felt her lungs involuntarily filling with air as she prepared to scream, but he saw her body’s intention and leaped forward, the huge combat knife pressing hard enough to her throat to draw blood.

His voice was full of terror and excitement. ‘If you make a sound I’ll cut your throat — I swear I’ll cut your throat and then I’ll cut your baby’s. Understand?’ She managed to nod as the madman slid around to her back and gripped her by the hair while keeping the knife at her throat, pushing her forwards now, away from her child and into the waiting trees.

* * *

A thin layer of dark red blood sprayed across his face as he drove his fist into the deepening cut above the man’s right brow. As the man staggered backwards he nimbly pursued him across the across the slightly springy floor, waiting for a chance to further punish the cut, but the man was using both fists and forearms to protect his face, making it almost impossible to hit him. He swallowed his rising anger and tried to stay in control, knowing that if he allowed the fury inside of him loose he would struggle to rein it back in. He had to control it — use the tools he’d been given to harness the aggression, but control the fury. He bent slightly at the knees and began to pound the man’s ribs and the kidneys that tried to hide behind them, powering his right fist into the man’s side, then his left, swiveling at the hips as he constantly shifted his body weight to maximize the impact of each punch. Finally the man could bear the pain no more and was forced to drop his arms to his sides for protection, leaving his face and the cut exposed. Instantly he sensed the man’s mistake, his body slightly straightening and rising as he channeled every ounce of power into his left fist that hooked and flashed through the air, tearing into the cut above the man’s brow. Heavy droplets of maroon blood danced into the sky before splashing on a group of drunken, baying men standing nearby, making them curse and cheer together. A savage right fist parted the man’s elbows and hands as it travelled towards his exposed chin, crashing into the jawbone and rocking his head backwards and at last he collapsed to the floor, blood from his ruptured brow seeping to the surface and pooling under the side of his head. A man in black trousers and a bloodstained white shirt, adorned with an oversized bowtie stepped in front of the stricken man, protecting him from his assailant, furiously waving his arms to warn everyone that the fight was over.

The victor was ordered into a neutral corner of the boxing-ring, forcing himself to retreat from the man lying at his feet, fighting his instinct to finish his adversary once and for all, to eliminate him as a possible risk forever, cursing the padded gloves that cramped his hands and lessened the impact of his blows — deprived him of the pleasure of feeling the man’s skin breaking over his knuckles — blood staining his hands in victory. The rules of the ring had given him some control over the ugly demons that beat in his chest, but when he was in a fight and had his quarry run to ground he cursed their restrictions and confinement. ‘Get up,’ he muttered through his gum-shield. ‘Get up.’ He wasn’t finished with the man on the floor — wasn’t finished punishing him for crimes he hadn’t committed — wasn’t finished beating the man in the same way he’d beaten his own father in his dreams — wasn’t finished seeking redemption and revenge for his own tortured childhood. But the man in the shirt and bowtie waving his arms told him the fight was indeed over — at least the one in the ring.

He headed back to his own corner where his trainers and team waited with water bottles and towels, only to be intercepted by a man in a suit carrying a microphone who’d stepped under the ropes, grabbing him by the wrist and pulling his gloved fist aloft. He tried to pull away, but was held firm, the man’s beaming face contrasting starkly with his own grimace, the white gum-shield making his mouth appear swollen and ape-like as he peered through his head-guard into the crowd of hundreds of people who’d packed in to the York Hall, Battersea to watch their own kind fighting each other while they drank heavily; some to forget, some for enjoyment and some to escape from the realities of the job they all shared, even if just for a short time. The booze made them brave, almost every member of the crowd now convinced they too could climb into the ring and fight as mercilessly and efficiently as he had.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ the suited man sang into the microphone, ‘the winner of this year’s Metropolitan Police Lafone Cup, for the middle-weight category — representing ‘3’ Area — a round of applause please for PC Sean Corrigan.’ Cheering mixed with boos, and hand clapping with the sound of stomping feet as Sean scanned the crowd — confused by the faces surrounding him — some smiling joyously while others were twisted with hate and anger, until he remembered where he was and that the fight had only been a boxing match — not like the fights he’d had on the streets of East Dulwich before he’d joined the police, where the right to live in peace, to walk to and from school without losing what little he’d had to the other near-feral children had to be earned with his fists and whatever else it was necessary to use to vanquish any would-be assailant. He wrenched his arm free from the man in the suit and paced back to his corner, continually scanning the faces in the crowd, recognizing a few of them, pushing past the men who waited for him with water and towels, their faces confused by the lack of joy in his as he ducked under the ropes and pushed his way through their small crowd.

‘Sean?’ the head trainer asked, only to be ignored. ‘Sean?’ he shouted above the sound of the crowd, at last making him look around, his eyes red and glassy as if he’d just spent days in armed combat. ‘You alright, son?’ Still no answer, just the coldest of stares from Sean’s deep blue eyes. ‘What the fuck’s the matter with you?’

‘Nothing,’ he finally replied. ‘Just get me out of here.’ The trainer nodded as if he understood, even though he didn’t. He draped a wet towel over Sean’s head and began to lead him through the crowd towards the changing room, oblivious to the two men sat at the back of the hall watching them — studying them.