Free Blind Needle by Trevor Hoyle Page A

again. ‘You’ll enjoy this, you really will. You’ll be floating on a pink cloud in a blue sky. Brickton’ll seem like Torrimelinos. Your very own package tour – you’ll thank me, promise you will.’ He said sharply, ‘Ready?’
    I saw a blur of white hands reaching for me and stuck my boot out. It sank into something. Ray was holding my arms and shouting, ‘Where are you, where the fuck are you, what are you doing down there?’
    His grip was amazingly strong for such a thin runt. He tried to twist my arms behind my back, shouting at Wayne on the floor. We scuffled together, doing a comic dance on the damp flagstones; Wayne was grunting and wheezing, still on his knees. It was the kind of nightmare in which your limbs are constricted by a crushing weight, and unless you break free a terrible fate awaits you. I twisted and squirmed but whatever I did I couldn’t break his grip; it was impossible, beyond my strength.
    â€˜Get up, get up,’ Ray was panting. ‘Stick the bastard if you’re going to, for Christ’s sake …’
    Wayne raised his moon face, rising slowly and murderously on one leg, wheezing like a steam engine. With my arms held fast I had no other choice but to put the toe of my boot under the hanging chin. He made a funny sound as he went over backwards and I heard the glass of the syringe break as it fell onto the flagstones and rolled into the urinal.
    â€˜You bastard!’ Ray rasped in my ear.
    Wayne was slumped in a heap, holding his jaw with both hands. I don’t like violence but I hoped it was broken. I felt better with the needle gone. I wrenched myself sideways and Ray hung on, cursing me. We staggered to and fro, feet scrabbling for a hold on the flagstones, and I managed to get his body between me and the wall andput my full weight behind my shoulder, driving it into the narrow breastbone. I heard a dry gasp as his breath left him, and his hands went slack.
    I didn’t kid myself that I could have beaten him in a real fight: the grip of those bony hands was amazing. I was lucky to have caught him as I did, and while he was still gasping I took the chance and ran.
    There was a gate with a fringe of barbed-wire along the top. I pulled the bolt back and yanked the gate open. It opened six inches and stuck. There was a dustbin in the way. It weighed a ton, but I finally shoved it aside, squirmed through the gap and ran into the street. A voice behind me (I think it was Ray’s) shouted through a spasm of coughing, ‘Next time it won’t be smack. Next time it’ll be AIDS.’
    The rain had thickened, swirling like yellow smoke in the sulphurous streetlights. I ran without direction, not knowing the town, not really caring, just wanting to disappear. After a while I slowed down, stood panting and listening; I couldn’t hear footsteps. I felt nauseous again, with the running and the fear. I leaned against a wall with my wet ice-cold forehead in the crook of my elbow and with immense relief let it come.
3
    Closer
    Getting closer
    Can you feel me
    Closing in?
    From the doorway
    Across the street
    I can spy
    Your hiding-place
    Above the shop
    With the broken sign
    E GA FOO S ORE
    The unlit room
    Where you think
    You’re safe
    Sleeping and dreaming
    Your tortured dreams
    But do you hear
    My footsteps
    Dragging nearer?
    My soft words
    Whispering
    In your ear
    Wife-killer
    Murdering bastard
    You must die too
    A death
    For a death
    The sins
    Of the past
    Wiped clean
    Not toenails
    Next time
    Not faeces
    Not semen
    This time
    Something sure
    And certain
    And permanent
    This needle
    In my pocket
    That Morduch
    Never missed …
    I slide back
    Sink deeper
    Into the shadows
    Police car
    Tall black shapes
    Peaked caps
    A brown face swims
    Behind the window
    Through the waving fans
    Of dried leaves
    A bell tinkles
    The door opens
    The policemen stand
    On the pavement
    As the Indian
    Rants and raves
    Arms