Peter James - Dead at First Sight

He was shaking, in agony, shock kicking in. He nodded vigorously. The two men turned and walked out of the kitchen.

Toby Seward stared at the rivulets of blood pouring down around the blade of the knife and running along the board. He hovered his left hand over the handle of the knife, wondering if he had the courage to pull it out. Shaking too much to think straight.

Got to stop the bleeding. Got to phone. Phone for help.

The phone was on the far side of the kitchen. Should he pull the knife out?

He touched it with his left hand. Gripped it. Closed his eyes.

Footsteps. He opened his eyes.

The shorter man hurried back in, holding his machete. ‘You got a problem there, dude, right?’

Seward shook his head, eyes bulging in pain and fear. There was nothing back. Just blackness. Dead eyes.

‘Can help you out there, bro.’

‘Thank you,’ he gasped, the pain becoming more unbearable by the second.

The man lifted his machete and brought it down hard, severing Toby Seward’s wrist cleanly, a few inches up from his hand.

Tooth strode out of the blustery wind into the Stag pub and a smell of stale beer and old carpet. He was fifteen minutes early. He was always early.

Early gave you advantages. Time to look around, check out the faces and the body language, locate the exits.

The pub wasn’t busy. A handful of men were seated at the bar. A group of three men sat around a table, and one banquette was occupied by a couple, a glum-faced man and a hard-bitten brunette. All of them studied him, some overtly, some surreptitiously. It felt like he’d entered some private members’ club for lowlifes, where no one was welcome, and which only a total loser would ever want to join.

There were plenty of big watches, gold medallions and vulgar rings on display, and just about everyone in here looked like they might be up for a fight with little provocation.

He spotted Eddie Keys in seconds. A tattooed mass of advanced muscle and less advanced brain. Dressed in a leather flying jacket, holding a straight glass of beer in his hand, the pair of slim, dark glasses perched on his head made him look about as stupid as stupid gets. He was talking to a guy beside him who was the wrong side of seventy, with a fake tan and orange hair.

Tooth strode over to the bar, his military posture as ever adding a few inches to his short stature, and eased himself onto a stool next to his date. There was no acknowledgement. He waited a couple of minutes, then ordered a double Jim Beam on the rocks from the barman, an old guy with a seen-it-all face. Without a sideways glance Tooth said, ‘Thought you were meant to be buying me a drink?’

‘I gotta take a piss,’ his date said. ‘Know what I’m saying?’

‘I gotta take one, also.’

‘Wait two minutes.’

Tooth obliged, paid for his drink and drank half of it. Then he walked across and into the stinky Gents toilet. He sidled up to the next urinal to Eddie Keys. Moments later, Keys dug his hand inside his jacket and handed Tooth a carrier bag. A very heavy carrier bag.

Tooth stuffed it into his belt and closed his jacket over it. ‘What do I owe you?’

‘Nothing. Sorted. Now fuck off.’

PC Holly Little, accompanied by her partner, John Alldridge, drove the Mondeo north from the Clock Tower, heading slowly up Queen’s Road. The B-Section Response crew was on lates this week, the 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift. Thursday, Friday and Saturday were the busiest nights generally in the city of Brighton and Hove. That was when everything tended to kick off, but equally, as the two experienced officers well knew, you could predict nothing. It was the big buzz of the job for all officers working response, that you didn’t know what was going to happen in five minutes’ time.

Or in this case, thirty seconds.

A female voice from the Control Room came over their radios. ‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five?’

‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five,’ Alldridge acknowledged, calmly.

‘We have a reported panic alarm from a residence that’s had a previous homophobic attack. Five-seven North Gardens. Can you attend, please, Grade One.’

‘Five-seven North Gardens, yes yes,’ Alldridge said. ‘On our way.’ He leaned forward and switched on the blue lights and siren.

‘Just off the top of this road,’ his colleague said, accelerating hard and pulling over onto the wrong side of the road to overtake a bus.

Jules de Copeland stood out in the dark street, his hoodie pulled even lower over his face, waiting for his idiot companion who had dashed back into the house. Suddenly Ogwang appeared, holding his machete, which was now dripping blood.

‘What you done, man?’

‘He’s gotta learn.’

‘What you done, you douchebag? What the fuck you done?’ He could hear the piercing scream from inside the house.

Then a different scream. A police siren.

‘Split! Gimme your blade!’

‘No way.’

The siren was getting closer.

Copeland looked around in panic. His brain was spinning. This was a one-way street.

Right was against the traffic. Left was with it. He sprinted to the left. Ogwang followed.

Moments later, the siren louder, they were lit up by headlights.

As they swung into North Gardens, at speed, the officers saw the two figures sprinting away. Holly Little accelerated hard again, gaining on them.

‘That’s fifty-seven!’ John Alldridge called out.

She stood on the brakes. ‘Check the house, I’ll stay on them.’

‘OK.’ He unbuckled his belt.

She halted for just the fleeting second it took for him to jump out, then accelerated off.

He crossed to the front door. As he reached it a figure staggered towards him wearing an apron over a pullover, holding his right wrist with his left hand, blood spraying everywhere as if his arm was a hosepipe, a catatonic look on his face.

For an instant it was like a scene from a horror movie. Except, Alldridge realized, this was real.

The man’s wrist had been severed.

If he didn’t do something immediately the man risked bleeding to death. All his training kicked in. He put his hand higher up on the man’s arm, pushing his sleeve up, and squeezed hard. Blood spurted into his face.

‘Help me,’ the man was whispering. ‘Help me, oh Jesus, help me.’ He sounded faint.

John pressed his phone button. ‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five. I urgently need an ambulance and back-up.’

‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five, copy.’

The man’s face was draining of colour as he looked at his wrist. Had to get a tourniquet on him, he knew. And fast.

Tightening his grip on the man’s arm, he steered him back into the house, thinking desperately, What to do, what to do, what to do? There was blood everywhere, on the floor, the walls, the ceiling.

The man led him into the kitchen and to his horror he saw the reason for the severed wrist. A hand, looking like something from a joke shop, was skewered to a chopping board by a knife.

What could he use?

He spotted a tea towel. And a wooden spoon with a long handle. ‘There’s an ambulance on its way,’ he said, trying to reassure him. The man was now looking a deathly pale.

How much blood had he lost?

Somewhere in the distance John Alldridge heard a siren. Getting closer.

Hurry.

‘What’s your name, sir?’

‘Toby,’ he said, weakly.

‘Toby, I’m going to sit you down at the table, OK?’ Seward looked at him with barely comprehending eyes.

Alldridge grabbed the tea towel, wound it once round Toby’s wrist, then jammed the handle of the wooden spoon into it and, using it as a lever, began twisting until it was as tight as it would go.