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Thomas was gone.
Harry sighed relief, but didn’t relax enough to trust the situation. He needed to get out of there, get to the others and tell them about the things he’d witnessed. He turned back around and faced the corridor.
This time his heart did not stop. He was becoming too used to the horrors of the night. Lying on the floor in front of him was his dead wife, Julie. Her body and face were battered and bruised, bones splintered and askew.
Like a car crash victim.
Harry looked down at the twisted form and listened to his heart scream. The final image of his wife’s dying form had always stayed with him, but never did he have to confront it face-to-face. Not since the night it happened.
Julie turned her head up towards him. Harry heard the broken bones scraping and grating against each other. She was the very personification of agony. “Harry,” she spoke in a condemning whisper. “Why did this happen to me? Why are you not with me?”
Harry shook his head. He didn’t have time for this. This wasn’t his wife. Whatever it was, he owed it no explanations. “Because you’re dead, Julie.” He stepped over the twisted, shattered body and headed into the corridor. “And I’m not.”
Chapter Twenty-TWO
Damien wasn’t sure why he lied; perhaps only because it was fu
Was that why he’d done it? Because of Steph? Did the thought of her and Harry copping off together irritate him? Steph wasn’t like the usual girls Damien boned. She was strong, with a mind of her own, and took control of people in the same way he did. He admired that.
Fact that she’s fit-as doesn’t hurt none either. Too good for that drunk, Harry.
But it was more than simple jealousy. Damien had actually gained pleasure from Harry’s predicament and that was what troubled him most. Over the last few hours, Damien had seen that Harry wasn’t that bad a bloke. The guy’s heart was in the right place, and it turned out that he did have a backbone after all. Despite all that, Damien still couldn’t tolerate the way Harry always played the wounded soldier. Always making people want to come up and ask if everything was okay. Always moping and drinking himself into a stupor. Oh, poor Harry, they would say. That man is so full of pain and anguish, yet he still keeps going. What a guy!
Damien scowled. Screw that! Everyone had it hard and Harry had no right to make out like his problems were worse than everyone else’s.
He did lose his son though...
Damien shook his head and stood away from the now-cushionless bench he was sitting on. Nearby, Jess and Jerry sat with the dying polish kid. Damien had chosen to stay nearby just in case the kids needed help. He’d been impressed by the way Jess had glassed the old bird giving her grief and respected her for it.
Took balls.
Damien sat back down on the cold bench and carried on his brooding about Harry. The man didn’t deserve sympathy because Damien had it just as bad as he did. No one cared about his problems though. No one had ever given a damn when his dad was wasted and beat him black and blue. Trying to toughen you up, boy! Teach you to be a man. No one cared when Damien’s dad had made him deal drugs at ten years old. No one will suspect a kid, so get yourself on that corner and don’t come home till you’ve sold it all. And no one cared when Damien’s dad had tried to pin an assault charge on him.
The rage that flowed constantly through Damien’s veins began to hot up. When his dad had gone to prison last year, Damien had felt free for the first time in his life. But it didn’t last. He’d been ordered to take over operations and report to his father in prison daily. Keep the money safe for me, Dame, for when I get out. Make me proud, son.
Yeah, I’ll make you real proud, dad!
Damien thought back to when his dad had gone down, and what for. Kicking the shite out of that lad until he was a whimpering, bleeding mess. Kid was no older than I was.
Gazz Brown had been a tough kid. When he’d knocked Damien spark-out and taken his stash, Damien’s father was not happy. Not happy at all. So, in a drunken rage, his dad – along with a group of the ‘boys’ – had taken Damien to go find Gazz. And find him they did. The well-built lad was at the back of a local supermarket selling Damien’s supply to the warehouse workers. His father saw red – had gone red. Like a wild bull, he tore into the youth, cracking bones and shattering teeth, stamping and kicking long after the boy’s beaten body covered the ground, motionless. It was almost ten minutes before Damien’s father was dragged away, and by that time someone had called the Police.
Even now, Gazz was still in a coma, and Damien’s father had gone to prison for the crime. Who knew supermarkets had so many CCTV cameras? The worse thing about the whole situation was that his dad had ‘the boys’ circulate rumours that it had been Damien to put poor Gazz Brown into a coma. Damien’s father had even tried to convince him take the fall for it. It would increase his rep, he’d said. Despite the CCTV exonerating him, Damien had nonetheless become feared on the local estate as a vicious, animalistic thug. His father had finally become proud.
But tonight was supposed to be the night where Damien did something to make himself proud. He was going to disobey his father for the first time and do the right thing for once. But instead he found himself trapped inside a rotten pub with a bunch of losers.
Like Harry. A loser who only cares about his next drink.
Finally it clicked. The reason Damien hated Harry was because the man cared more about getting wasted than anything else. Just like Damien’s father had. Every time he looked at Harry, downing another pint, night in night out, he had thought about his father. He’d pegged Harry as just another, selfish – fuckface – father that would rather get pissed than look after his family.
But I got it all wrong, didn’t I? Tonight Damien had learned that Harry was a good man and a good father; a bloke that cared so much about his son that, when he’d died – however it’d happened – he’d just given up on life. Harry’s family had obviously been his entire world, and when they died part of him went with them. Damien finally understood the man’s drinking.
And he could forgive it.
“I should apologise,” Damien told himself, “but first I gotta take a piss.”
###
This is it! Nigel’s body teemed with excitement. Harry had gone downstairs, freaking out about something, and Lucas had followed him. The grumpy shrew, Kath, had disappeared somewhere to clean the gore off her ugly face and Damien was at the other end of the pub, along with Jerry and the young girl, Jess. If he played his cards right, she would be next.
But first he had Steph to deal with.
I’m finally going to have her.
Nigel had watched with delight as everyone gradually departed, then Steph had gone into the toilets alone. Now was his chance. He would follow her in, knock her out cold, have his way with her, and then slit her throat with his trusty pen knife (sharpened to perfection). By the time he dumped her body outside in the snow no one would be any the wiser. Nigel would plead ignorance of Steph’s whereabouts and, while everyone would worry, that would be it. What else could they do?
First thing in the morning, he’d hop in his lorry and get the hell out of there, spend a few months in France maybe; ensure that he never returned to the area. Easiest thing in the world. Raping and killing women had become as second nature to Nigel as taking a leak; just another bodily function.