1
He liked sleeping with the dead.
Some people might think it weird but sod them and the horse they rode in on. There was a reason they talked about laying people to rest. Graveyards were an oasis of calm, a place to think about where it all went wrong – or, as in his case, how others had screwed it up for you and how you were going to make them pay.
But this wasn’t really a graveyard. It used to be, according to the sign by the road, on the other side of the grassy expanse where he was lying down. Ballast Hills Burial Ground was the place they buried non-conformists in the 18th Century.
These days it was practically invisible, unless you looked very closely. On the surface it was just a small park with a winding footpath around it; a footpath made up almost entirely of old gravestones. How many people had even noticed that they were literally walking over people’s graves? The one beneath his feet read:
‘Burial place of Richard Dunn Cabinet Maker. Henry, his son, died August the 8th 1753. Aged 2 years’.
It was one of several kids’ graves scattered along the path. What a miserable fucking era to be born in. Two was no age to die. At least these days most people managed to make their three score years and ten. Most people.
He reached into his rucksack, searching for another can of lager to take the edge off but he was out of luck – could have sworn there was one left. Instead he pulled out a steak pie that someone had dropped in his lap earlier that day when he’d been sitting in a doorway on Dean Street, studying the passers-by, hiding from some but mainly hoping to see his face. He hadn’t been hungry then and it was stone cold now, obviously, but, in his current circumstances, when life gave you a meat pie you ate the bastard and enjoyed every last morsel of it.
Voices carried to him on the wind, moving closer he reckoned, and then footsteps, coming up the stairway from the riverside. A few moments later two men appeared by the entrance to the park, stopping as they caught sight of him sitting on the grass. Though it was getting pretty gloomy he saw them put their heads together, as if they were having some kind of quiet chat, before they started moving towards him again. He was pretty new to all this but there was a bad vibe about them, like the guys who’d chased him the other week – how he wished he’d stayed in that shed, ignored the screams, minded his own business like usual. He wolfed down the rest of the pie and started to get up. He was way too late, his reactions dulled by one beer too many. They were almost on top of him now.
A camera flashed in his face, momentarily blinding him.
‘What are you doing?’ he cried, turning his head away and blinking furiously as he tried to clear his vision.
‘You look familiar. Have we seen you before?’
Maybe they really were the same ones who’d chased him? He looked back round at the taller of the two men, who he thought had asked the question.
‘Well?’ Lanky said. The man’s voice was muffled by a scarf wound tightly around his mouth but it was obvious he was a local.
‘Don’t remember.’
Lanky laughed.
‘Trust me, you’d remember us. Where you from?’
‘Round and about.’
‘You don’t sound like you’re from round here,’ the second, shorter, man said, edging around his mate, closing off any possible escape route. If there were any doubts in his mind about the threat level, they’d disappeared. He glanced around, looking for help. There was no one in sight.
‘Well?’ Shorty said, adjusting his old-fashioned balaclava. Both men were clearly attempting to hide their faces. There was never a good reason for that. He needed to get out of there.
‘I’ve been away.’
‘That right? How about you go away again?’
‘No problem,’ he said, struggling to his feet. If he was upright he might be able to outrun them.
‘Let me help you,’ Lanky said, holding out his hand.
The man instinctively reached out to take it and was yanked up, too quickly to keep his balance, his rucksack slipping from his shoulder and falling to the ground. Lanky picked it up for him.
‘Got your car keys in here, have you?’
‘I don’t drive.’
‘Aye, right.’
The tall man looked across at an old Nissan parked just across the road.
‘Whose is that then?’
‘Not mine.’
Lanky felt around inside the rucksack then checked the pockets on the outside.
If he was going to run, now was the time, but all his worldly possessions were in that bag. He watched in horror as the contents were tipped onto the ground.
‘Pack it in’ he cried, reaching out to grab the bag. His hand was slapped away which stung like a bastard in the bitter cold.
‘What d’you do that for?’
‘Sorry, but my mam always taught me snatching was rude. Here you go.’
Lanky held the rucksack out but pulled it away again as he tried to grab it. Then the bastard did it again.
‘Try saying please,’ his mate said, sniggering.
‘Please,’ he muttered, ashamed of himself but wanting this over before it got out of hand.
‘That’s better,’ the tall prick said, holding out the bag.
He reached out for it again but once more it was pulled away.
‘Stop messing about, you twat,’ he said, immediately regretting it.
‘Twat, am I?’ The tall man looked over to his friend. ‘If you think I’m a twat you haven’t met my pal,’ he added.
The kidney punch sent him to his knees where his head collided with Lanky’s knee, which was no accident. Neither was the kick in the balls from behind which had him rolling around on the floor.
The kicks came fast and furious from then on, any pretence at this being anything other than a planned beating long gone, each kick punctuated by a word.
‘Fuck. Off. Back. To. Manchester. Or. Whatever. Shithole. You. Crawled. From. You. Benefit. Scrounging. Freeloading. Twat.’
He covered his head with his hands but glimpsed one of the men’s steel toecaps through his fingers as it thudded into his face, several teeth snapping, broken chunks falling into his mouth. Half-choking on the bits of enamel and old fillings floating about in his throat, he tried to sit up. That only made him more open and the kicks rained in again.
A rib cracked, then another. He moved his arms to his side to protect them but got another boot in the face for his troubles. Through the blood he saw one of the men – he’d lost track of which was which – slip a pair of knuckledusters onto his hand. The first punch broke his nose. The second crashed into the side of his head, making his ears ring. It would have knocked him out cold if he hadn’t turned his head at the last minute.
When he looked up and saw the blade of the Stanley knife glinting in the light of the nearby lamp post he almost wished it had.
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