Free Warned Off by Joe Mcnally, Richard Pitman

his belly as
he shuddered into death. In his final throes his bowels and bladder opened and
emptied six feet from my head – the smell was similar to what was in my
nostrils now.
    It grew worse as I left the fresh air.
It was old and stale and dank and held more ingredients than any horse’s
bowels. I followed the stench to the end box where the door lay open. Stepping
through onto dirty wet straw I found what was left of Alan Harle.

13
     
    He
was curled up against the inside of the wall below a torn hay net, naked, his
flesh filthy with smeared shit. His knees were pulled up to his chin and his
head lay in a foul patch of stale vomit and dirty straw which clung to his face
and hair. From the bars above him hung a heavy dog chain which was fastened
around his neck. He moaned.
    Kneeling beside him I reached to turn
his face toward me but felt myself gagging at the stench. I turned away
quickly, thinking I was going to be sick. I held it down and turned back to
him. He felt my hands on his shoulders and tried to resist, drawing himself
closer to the wall. I eased his head up and he whimpered pathetically. Small
islands of flaked whitewash from the wall stuck to his forehead and a stream of
saliva ran from the corner of his mouth down his chin. His eyes stayed closed.
    ‘Alan!’ I whispered it and didn’t know
why. No response. I pushed my fingers inside the heavy links around his neck
and he flinched. The flesh was a raw ring where the chain had sawed at him.
    I supported his head with my left hand
while my fingers followed the chain round to the back of his neck. I found a
small padlock just below his left ear.
    Easing the chain round as best I could
without hurting him further, I picked the lock. The chain end slid smoothly
from his neck and lay in the straw. I raised his eyelids and saw the eyes of a
sick waxwork dummy. The pupils were pinheads and the whites yellowish green. A
sore festered in the corner of his right eye so I couldn’t open it fully.
    His knees were still drawn up and I
turned him gently on his back to try to straighten his legs. The foul smell
welled again and I had to hurry to the door to suck fresh air.
    His right thigh and lower left leg were
badly scarred but they were old wounds from pin and plate insertions after
fractures. Shuffling through the straw I manipulated his legs and feet one by
one, watching his face for signs of pain. There was none, his joints moved
freely. I worked back up and checked his arms and wrists.
    The bones were all right but the skin on
the inside of his left arm at the elbow joint was black with bruising and
needle punctures, some of which were growing scabs. His ribs were all in one
piece, which was easy to see because they showed through his skin individually.
Harle had always been wiry but in a whipcord sort of way, now he looked
emaciated. I doubted if he’d been fed anything but heroin since his capture.
    So, no bones broken but he was in a bad
way. I decided to get him to hospital and worry on the journey about the story
I would tell. I checked the yard back and front; the last thing I wanted with
my hands full of invalid was to walk into the men who’d done this to him.
    The place was still deserted. I opened
the rear door of the car and went back for Alan.
    I scooped him up and tried to support
his head as I walked to the door but couldn’t and it hung over the crook of my
elbow. His lower legs dangled and swung as we moved. I stopped and looked out
again before going into the yard; the rain was at its heaviest.
    Carrying him through the downpour the
big raindrops pelted his flesh and ran in rivers through the stinking brown
smears, streaming down the vee shape of his rib cage and gathering in his
crotch till a pool formed, covering his pubic hair.
    When I arrived at the Casualty
Department of Cheltenham General Hospital steam was rising from my clothes and
the rank smell filled the car.
    I went in and spoke to the receptionist.
Two orderlies came back out