Simon Clark - The Fall

The man’s voice dropped. Muttering to himself he returned to his bench where he’d left carrier bags full of his possessions.

Shaking his head, Sam headed for the shop. But he would never make it as far as the door.

‘Sam! Sam Baker !’

When Sam heard the voice as he crossed the pavement to the shop he thought for one surreal moment that the tramp had called out his name.

Instead, he saw Lee Burton rushing at him across the road.

His face was white and his black hair looked as if it had been brushed with a wild ferocity until it stood up from his head. ‘Sam!’ Lee sounded scared. ‘They’re going to take him apart in there. Everyone else is just going to stand there and watch. They’re just going to let it happen.’

Sam shook his head, bewildered. ‘Let what happen?’

‘Some thugs have got hold of Ryan – the guy in the Oliver Hardy suit. They’re going to beat the shit out of him. He spilt their drinks; he didn’t mean it; but they’re going to—’

‘Where?’

‘Back there in the hotel bar.’ Lee panted. ‘I was looking for a cop, then I saw you were—’

Sam looked up at the white-painted building standing four storeys high in front of him. ‘That’s the one? Oh, shit.’

Sam’s heart sank when he saw the sign in foot-high letters above the entrance:

Suddenly Jud’s words, heavy and potent with hidden meaning, came back to him. Just five minutes earlier Jud had said: ‘If you’ve developed a taste for English beer, you’ll find they do a very nice glass of mild in the Gryphon Hotel. And be sure to go into the public bar, not the lounge.’

‘Come on,’ Lee said quickly. ‘They’re going to kill him!’

Sam still stared up at the hotel: a premonition oozed through him. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation; it was cold and slick and turned his skin to tingling goose-flesh.

At that moment Sam reached a decision. Even though he didn’t really know Lee Burton (now without his Dracula cape) or the plump Ryan Keith, he did feel a kinship with them. They were a clan of travellers now – even though they were travelling in time. They’d have to look out for each other.

As he ran across the road he called to Lee, ‘He’s actually inside the Gryphon Hotel?’

Lee nodded. ‘They’re going to tear the poor sod apart.’

Again Sam spoke and again he knew full well what the answer would be. ‘He’s in the public bar?’

‘Yeah… Wait. How did you know that?’

Through clenched teeth Sam said, ‘Hang on tight, Lee. I think we’re in for a bumpy ride.’

By the time they were through the lobby and had reached the door of the public bar Lee had managed to tell Sam that he’d found Ryan Keith running through town, chased by two supermarket employees. He’d grabbed Ryan and had managed to get him away from the two men by hiding in the hotel. Only Ryan, naturally clumsy and now even clumsier from exhaustion, had blundered into a group of mean-looking youths at the bar, spilling their drinks. It hadn’t helped when a panicky Ryan had given them a banknote that wouldn’t be legal tender for ten years.

That’s when the shit had really hit the fan.

And that’s when Lee had rushed off to find help.

There would be no help to be had from the hotel’s usual occupants. It was a seedy, run-down place where rooms could be rented by the hour and fights in the bar were a more frequent event than the toilets being cleaned.

Sam could already hear a high-pitched warbling cry. Any betting that’s Ryan Keith? he asked himself. It sounded as if they were carving his nuts with a penknife.

The bar was a gloomy cave of a place after the brilliant sunshine outside. It stank of beer and cigarette smoke. The boards were bare, sticky underfoot. Hell… a den of strife and trouble if ever I saw one , he thought.

Around half a dozen men in their late teens were gathered around a pool table. They could have been fascinated by a tricky shot into a corner pocket – but then Sam saw a pair of feet sticking out over the table and he realised that they must have Ryan Keith spreadeagled there like a sacrificial offering.

Again Sam heard a high-pitched, ‘No-ooo… Let me go-ooo…’ It sounded like the bleating of a terrified sheep.

Sam glanced at Lee, who stood panting at his side.

Hell, this was a suicide mission. From the amount of denim and shaven heads Sam could see this was nothing less than a skinhead gang. More fruit of ’70s culture. They looked like mean bastards. This wasn’t going to be easy.

Sam decided to take as tough a line as he could muster. ‘Okay, break it up. That one’s ours.’

One skinhead jerked his head up. ‘Who the frig are you?’

‘His pal, pal . Now let him go and there’ll be no trouble.’

Now the rest of the gang were taking an interest in Sam.

One leered. ‘A Yank? And a homo in a frilly shirt? Which planet are you two from?’

‘Look,’ Sam said, ‘we don’t want any trouble. We—’

‘Well, that’s exactly what you’ve got. You’ve got trouble! Big trouble!’

Another skinhead scowled. ‘Let’s take the fuckers’ heads off.’

‘Oh, shit,’ Sam murmured. ‘Showdown at the OK Corral.’

The gang left Ryan on the table as they started to advance towards Sam and Lee. The door swung open behind Sam; he glanced back, half-hoping it would be a bunch of coppers charging in to save the day. Instead, in walked a man of around 30. The hair was darker, the face unlined, the figure leaner, but his identity was unmistakable.

‘Jud… Jud Campbell,’ Sam spoke the words before he could stop himself. My tongue sometimes escapes me… Shit, Dirty Harry had put it perfectly. He realised he should have kept his mouth shut.

‘Oh, hello,’ Jud said. (At least, the younger version of Jud Campbell did – the older one sat in the car not five minutes’ walk from there.) Then he paused, obviously not recognising Sam. But in the next second he weighed up the situation at the bar: that there was one hell of a fight brewing.

Behind the skinheads, Ryan rolled off the pool table like he was climbing out of bed with a hangover. His head hung so low his chin almost rested on his chest. He looked exhausted.

But at that moment, when he looked as if he could do nothing more than curl up on the floor, he suddenly charged at the backs of the skinheads. Sam saw this was no heroic attack from the rear: the man merely wanted to push his way through to the door, then make good his escape from the hotel.

Again Ryan’s natural clumsiness brought him into contact with a skinhead, knocking the thug forward into Jud.

All hell broke loose.

Sam saw the ferocity in the eyes of the skinheads as they lunged forward, swinging their fists.

He backed away easily from the clumsy punches. Lee wasn’t so lucky and he was soon embroiled in a slugging match with a stumpy skinhead with arms as long as a gorilla’s.

Although this wasn’t Jud’s fight, and he was already halfway out of the door into the lobby, a skinhead dived at his back, swinging blows at the side of Jud’s head.

It was a big mistake.

Jud simply stopped, turned and fixed the skinhead with such a hard stare that the skinhead stopped slugging.

Sam remembered shaking hands with Jud, and having noted those powerful labourer’s hands. If anything, the young Jud Campbell looked even stronger, with hugely powerful arms and bulging muscles under the white cotton shirt.

The skinhead took another swing at Jud. It caught him on the cheek with a thin cracking sound. Jud didn’t flinch. But that was when his eyes began to burn.