Kevin Brooks - Dance of Ghosts

Or maybe he’d picked up his ‘little girl’ for another reason altogether.

I sat back, closed my eyes, and thought about it.

When we arrived at the police station, I was taken to the custody suite and told I’d have to wait until the custody officer was free to see me. There was no one else in the room, and I hadn’t seen anyone else being processed as I’d been led through the station, so I guessed that orders had been given to make my stay as long and uncomfortable as possible.

And I was right.

After about half an hour in the custody suite, during which I was told that I wasn’t allowed to smoke, the arresting officer took me along to the custody officer who laboriously explained both the kerb-crawling charge and the drink-drive procedure to me. My personal details were taken and checked — another long wait — and all my belongings were confiscated, including my cigarettes, phone, and the photograph of Anna Gerrish. I was asked countless questions about my medical history — specifically if I’d had any problems with depression, drug addiction, alcoholism, etc. — all of which I refused to answer. I also refused the offer to contact a solicitor. Next I had to provide two more breath specimens, and a blood and urine sample — which I knew for a fact was totally unnecessary — and, of course, this meant more waiting around for the appropriate medical staff. After that, I had my photograph, fingerprints, and DNA taken, and then the custody officer explained to me that after conferring with the arresting officer, it was his belief that if I was released immediately I’d more than likely get straight back in a car and commit another offence, and that, in view of this, I was to be further detained at the station overnight.

It must have been getting on for midnight by then — I was only guessing, as they’d taken my watch away — and I was hoping that the worst of it was over. I was really tired now, and while I wasn’t exactly looking forward to spending the rest of the night in a cell, at least it would give me a bit of peace and quiet for a few hours, time enough to think, and rest, and maybe even sleep.

I should have known better.

‘I’m afraid we’re a bit busy tonight, Mr Craine,’ the custody officer informed me as he led me down to the cells. ‘It’s just been one of those days.’ He smiled at me. ‘I hope you don’t mind sharing.’

And with that, he opened the cell door and ushered me inside.

As the door clanked shut behind me, locking automatically, I looked over at a giant-sized man who was sitting on the edge of one of two small beds — his legs splayed wide, his empty eyes fixed hungrily on me. He was, without doubt, one of the nastiest-looking individuals I’d ever seen. A massive man, well over six feet tall and almost as wide, he had long, lank, greasy hair, half an ear missing, yellowed skin, long dirty fingernails, and a lightning bolt tattooed on his neck. He was wearing a purple tracksuit, the top unzipped, revealing a hairless fat chest underneath, and he was smoking a king-size cigarette with the filter ripped off. He was so huge, so solid and heavy, that the metal-framed bed was bending under his weight.

He grinned at me, showing tobacco-stained teeth. ‘Well, now,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you a sweet-looking thing.’

My father didn’t overburden me with advice when I was growing up, but one of the things he taught me, a lesson I’ve never forgotten, was that although violence should be avoided whenever possible, it’s an integral part of human nature. And, as such, you have to know how to use it when necessary.

‘There are only three things you have to know about fighting, Johnny,’ he told me. ‘You hit your opponent before they hit you; you hit them as hard as you can, preferably with something other than your fists; and you hit them wherever it’ll do the most damage. And remember, you’re not trying to humiliate your opponent, or show them how tough you are, you’re simply trying to hurt them as much as you can and incapacitate them as quickly as possible.’

And that’s what I had in mind as the big bastard heaved himself up from the bed, cupped his hand over his groin, and began lumbering across the cell towards me. I didn’t want to wait for him to reach me, and I didn’t want to give myself time to stop and think about what I was doing, and so — ignoring every cell in my body, all of which were screaming at me to get as far away from him as possible — I willed myself to move towards him. As I did so, I saw a brief flash of surprise in his eyes, and maybe just a moment’s hesitation in his walk, and that’s when I looked up at the ceiling. By the time he’d instinctively followed suit and lifted his head back to see what I was looking at, I was close enough to slam my fist into his unprotected throat. I put everything I had into the punch, throwing it so hard that my feet actually left the ground for a moment, and the big guy went down like a sack. As he lay there on the floor, clutching his throat and gasping for breath, I took a step back and launched a cannonball kick at his groin, and then — just for good measure — I gave him an equally hard kick in the head.

He just lay there then, not moving, not making a sound, a thin dribble of blood oozing from his half-open mouth, and for a moment or two, I thought I might have killed him. And as I knelt down beside him to check for a pulse, I could already hear a self-recriminating voice in my head saying, Now you’ve done it, haven’t you? Now you’ve really gone and fucked things up . But after a few heart-stopping seconds of fumbling around, trying unsuccessfully to find a pulse, I finally felt the faint movement of blood beneath my finger.

He was alive.

Everything was OK.

Nothing to worry about.

I reached into his pockets and removed his cigarettes and a lighter, then I went over and sat down on the bed, lit a cigarette, and waited for him to wake up.

It didn’t take long. Within a few minutes he started groaning and coughing, and pretty soon he’d opened his eyes, spat on the floor, and heaved himself up into a sitting position. He didn’t look too good — his right eye was blackening where I’d kicked him, his throat was swollen and red, and his face had turned a sickly grey colour. He couldn’t sit up straight because of the pain in his groin, and every time he took a breath it sounded like he was dying.

‘You all right?’ I asked him.

He coughed, spat again, and looked at me. ‘Fuck you.’

I threw him his packet of cigarettes, half of which I’d already removed for myself. He took one out and put it in his mouth, and I threw him his lighter. He lit the cigarette and immediately started coughing again. I took one of his cigarettes from my pocket and held out my hand, waiting for him to throw the lighter back. He glared at me for a moment, then grudgingly lobbed it over.

‘Just so you know,’ I said to him, lighting the cigarette. ‘If you come anywhere near me again, I’m going to kill you. All right?’

‘Fuck you,’ he said again, but there was nothing in his voice — no venom, no violence, no threat — and I knew he was just making a noise, an animal response. He was hurt, wounded. Physically and emotionally. And I didn’t think I’d have any more problems with him. But even so, as I watched him crawl back across the floor to his bed, and painfully clamber onto it, I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping that night.

After a long and sleepless night, I was finally released from the cell at nine o’clock the next morning. The custody officer who let me out wasn’t the same one who’d locked me up, and I got the impression that — unlike his predecessor — this one wasn’t in on the set-up.