Put a mark on one side
He was, when all is said and done, just a cat. And a very old one at that. Scoff’s life had been full and pampered, and at least he’d died peacefully in his sleep. An hour has passed and shock has given way to dull pain. The two brothers stare in private, thoughtful silence, Daniel with his back to the sink, Alex, in the wheelchair now, beside him. Their sightlines meet at a bundle in the corner, wrapped in a blanket in the wicker basket, always Scoff’s least favoured retreat, now his chosen deathbed.
“I’ll get a box,” Daniel mutters.
He’s remembered there’s a stack of them out the back. A shame they couldn’t bury Scoff in the garden; make a little plaque and place it in a flowerbed somewhere. To have laid Scoff to rest in Sedgefield Court would have been a most fitting end. The flat and the cat belonged together. When Daniel had moved in eight years ago he’d wondered about the cat-flap someone had fitted into the kitchen window. A little over a week later, in saunters Scoff (though nameless as yet), takes a drink from the washing-up bowl, picks his way across the worktop and singles out the pedal bin as his step down to the floor, all the while Daniel watching from the table. Scoff had noticed him then, mewed confidently, stuck his tail into the air and crashed a wet nose into Daniel’s ankles. The name came over the next few hours, seeing off more obvious contenders like Orlando, Geri, Marmalade, Tiptree. He hit on the name Scoff after the animal, clearly starving, had devoured every last morsel in the house. Whether the abandoned pet of a previous tenant, or merely an exile from somewhere up the street, Scoff made No. 1 Sedgefield Court his home from that day onwards and Daniel his adoptive parent. Though the small-print in the tenancy agreement forbade it, the landlord never once passed comment on the matter.
But the flats have no garden and no flowerbeds. Short of Daniel smashing up the concrete, or opening up a drain, there is nowhere here for Scoff’s burial. A cardboard box handed over to a smugly self-righteous vet are about the only funeral rites he can expect. Daniel is doing his best now to fit his coat around his bloated waistline. He knows he must look ridiculous, but he won’t be outside for long. He slips through the front door, across the lobby and round to the rear of the building. Heavy rain has fallen again, but the boxes are piled up beneath a Perspex roof against the wall and most have avoided the wet. Something not too large or flat would be ideal. There, at the back. As he pulls out the box and turns around, his brain is momentarily flipped upside down. A flash of lightning shoots through the yard, the three-storey tower block is pulled upwards and sprung back. Someone is giving his senses the full CGI. But it’s passed in a second. Delayed shock, probably. Again though, having made it back inside, a ripple sweeps up the staircase; there’s a funnelling of the corridor. Daniel closes his eyes and waits for the world to stop pitching. Okay, he knows now what this is. It happened like this on Saturday. The effect had quickly faded, giving way to that wonderful state of happiness. With luck, it will help him through the next two hours without going to pieces, and help take away the pain. Because no way is he going to the vet’s dressed like this. Nothing else for it, those wretched bandages are going to have to come off.
Standing otherwise naked before the mirror, Daniel slowly unties the retaining tapes around his waist. For all he knows, his stomach might just fall away, his manhood come off in his hands. Bit by bit, he peels back the dressing, starting at the top left and easing down towards his right leg. At first the skin is normal, then pink, then orangey-brown. By the time he reaches his pubic hair there’s an area the size of a plate covering his abdomen, the inner circle peppered with blisters, mostly crusted over now and oozing a foul yellow liquid. The dressing could easily be mistaken for a baby’s soiled nappy, the liquid having soaked into the sterile pad and congealed around it like wax. Thankfully, his genitals and thighs are spared the worst – the splash patterns are more irregular, patchy, the burns not deep enough to have stripped the skin. It’s merciful to have the air again down there against the searing heat that even now draws to the surface, but tender, dreadfully tender – impossible to entertain any idea of putting clothing directly against the wound. The cling film comes to mind: wrap himself a few times after applying that tub of aloe-vera they’d given him, wear something loose and pop a few painkillers and he might just make it through the afternoon.
When he presents himself at Alex’s door an hour later, showered and trussed, outwardly there is little sign of anything untoward. He may just pull this off, so long as he doesn’t move too suddenly, or let anyone get close enough to suffer a noseful of the foul-smelling gel.
“I’m off now,” he says. “No idea how long they’ll keep me there. In case I’m not back for dinner, I’ve left you a tray of cold meat and mashed carrots. There’s sliced bread on the table. If you’re still hungry, I got you some Spar trifles. Just make sure you keep away from the cooker.”
He closes Alex’s door, takes two painkillers, and pours himself a glass of water. He then drops carefully to his knees, scoops up the cardboard box and heads out into the street.
The waiting room smells of antiseptic and wet dog hair. The floor is hard and grimy, the bench seats unforgiving and placed against all four walls, forcing everyone to confront each other. But for some reason everyone has chosen only to stare only at him. They’ve been at it from the moment he sat down. Maybe it’s the way he winces all the time, maybe the stench of the gel. Since ignoring them hasn’t worked, he decides to out-stare them instead.
In one corner there’s a scruffy couple with a cardboard box like his own. At first just a beak, then a whole duck’s head pokes out through the top flaps. Who in their right mind would want to keep a duck as a pet? Away to their left, an old lady sits legs apart, exposing her slip. A little dog yaps around her ankles. A nasty, whingeing child runs back and forth across the room, ignoring the monotones of her mother – ‘Kylie, siddown. Siddown, Kylie.’ No sign of their pet – theirs must be the one currently under the knife. The vet should have hung onto the three of them while he had the chance and had them all put down. Directly opposite Daniel, perched on the very edge of the bench, jeans and shirt far too tight, squats a thug with tattoos, his slavering Rottweiler staring up cross-eyed and quizzical between the man’s stubby legs. It’s the old cliché of people choosing pets that exactly mirror themselves.
All these animals look too full of life to merit any place here, but Daniel has no desire to start a conversation about ailments. His own box sits silently at odds with the rest of the room. Its interlocked flaps surround a small rectangle of open space; a skylight; an air hole. Curled up inside, freed from all this, Scoff needs neither air nor light. Had he been alive, the poor thing would be out of his wits by now. Dogs always terrified him. So did children and old ladies – and being caged up in strange places, with or without skylight. On the day Daniel had brought him in over his kidneys, getting him into a cat box had been deeply traumatic for the pair of them. Such cowards, both. All creatures become fearful as age overtakes them. Infirmity breeds mistrust. Before Scoff became ill there was no enemy too fierce to take on. Daniel surprises himself with a faint smile. He was Scoff the merciless when it came to attacking a drinking straw or a bird’s feather. Every night (the mad hour it came to be called), he would scurry under the bed and wait for Daniel to flick the prey from side to side beneath the eiderdown that reached to the floor. Each time Daniel snatched back his hand, a ginger-white paw would pop out from the shadows, claws extended, faster than the eye could see – ‘Dap!’ to the left, ‘Dap!’ to the right. And away again. Then with the passing months the game was demanded less often, played with less verve, exhausted more quickly. The mad hour shrank to minutes and then to nothing. For the last year he’d really done very little but sleep and eat, in the last few days only sleep – a life lived through dreams alone.
So sleep now little friend and dream eternal. By stroking the dimpled cardboard Daniel can almost feel the touch of the fur within, his eyes following his fingers and gradually
coming to rest on the writing on the sides of the box. ‘Whiskas Supermeat’ it says. How the hell had he missed that? But the irony is too pointed to raise a second smile. Things have happened while his mind has been travelling. It’s nearly his turn; only the Rottweiler and his squinting dog remain. The room has turned stuffy and hot. The walls crush in on him. His whole body burns. And now they too are gone; all of a sudden he is the only one left and the door to the consulting room is opening, someone is speaking his name. They’re helping him to his feet – why? Is he so blatantly incapable? Maybe he faltered back there for a moment. Ah, thank mercy, it’s her – the girl with the nice voice who’d once recommended chicken or fish when Scoff was refusing his diet food. She looks sexier in her uniform than Gulnaz does in hers, the turquoise tunic stops just above her knees. She’s shapely. There are daggers jabbing at his crotch and he fears the swelling but can’t stop it. She’s trying to ignore the messages he’s putting out; she’s adopting her ‘sympathetic in your time of bereavement’ voice. Something about a pet cemetery if he would like their number, or simple ‘In Remembrance’ cards available in dog, cat, rabbit, horse, bird, goldfish, or blank for the owner’s own favourite photo. Her voice sounds unreal and the words absurd. Cards for a goldfish??? She’s telling him she understands, and asks him just to leave the box on the examining table (and the cheque at the desk). They will make all the arrangements.
And he’s back on the street. Which street? Where did he park the car? Where can he get a drink? It’s not yet six o’clock, the Millwrights won’t be open, and in any case he needs to be incognito for a while.
And so he begins walking. The daggers are hard to bear, but there’s a lightness in his stride all the same. Scoff is dispatched. The end of an era. The night air has turned chilly. No more rain tonight – it’s a clear sky already. Streets busy with homecoming. Is he coming home? Maybe. Home to his attacker, if Gulnaz hasn’t already taken him away. How ironic having his weapon, his pistol, decommissioned by a son of the military. Yeah, well Alex’s own equipment is well and truly caput for the foreseeable future too. Fuck him. It’s all they’re allowed to do these days, the Armed Forces: disarm people.
“Gotta make sure they’re ’armless,” he sniggers.
No proper fighting. Their old man would never have approved. Who gives a shit – Gulnaz can have him. Chuck Alex in among that crowd at the care home. Let the moustache woman, Mrs Shunting-Steamers, get her hands on him. Forget it old lady, you’ll get a better ride from your dead husband than from this guy. And think of the confusion. All of them mistaking him for Daniel –
“More games. More games!” he shouts across the street in a withered voice. After all, these days Alex has started to look more like Daniel than Daniel himself. Certainly a good deal healthier. “Bring the tea and sandwiches. Music, young man!” He mimics the old lady’s mad eyes and manic dancing. “What a charming young fellow. Let’s have a sing-along. Happy New Year! I told you they were stepping out together.”
Why hadn’t he seen the funny side of this before – his injuries: that great fat baby’s nappy. What’s that fetish called – infantism, infinitism? Anyway, men in diapers getting off on having their bums wiped. Oh, it hurts when he laughs, but this is too funny. When he sneaked out to get the box, wrapped just in a coat, with that huge bulge and his bare legs showing. “I’m a nappy flasher. I’m a fucking perv!”
yed?" ... "No, because he's really heavy."He’s attracting attention. People are looking, giggling. Sorry, sorry, but it’s funny you see. Profound. It’s all connected. Take that box. That was no accident. That’s fate that is. That’s what that is. A box of cat food for a cat who refused to eat. Get it? What was it again, Kitekat? No, must have been Felix, or Katkins (is that a cat food or just those dangly bits on trees?).
Shame it wasn’t Iams.
“IamScoff.”
Oh, that’s hysterical. The tears are flowing now.
“No, I got it,” he shrieks. “They’ve even got a big ginger cat on their box. ‘Go Cat!’ Fucking brilliant. ‘Go Cat Senior’. The perfect fucking epitaph.”
Daniel has absolutely no idea where he is.
In fact he’s standing right in front of the Millwrights.
And it’s just opening its doors.
But he doesn’t know it.
And Jerry is approaching from the far end of the road. There’s a fat man with him.
But he doesn’t know that either.
“Hello, Daniel. Glad to see you looking so much happier.”
Well, there you go. See. Connected. Destiny. The very place he wants to be and the very guy he wants to see. He’s a poet n’ he know it.
Like a thespian walking the boards Daniel begins, “Happier, Yes, I’m laughing into the eyes of fate,” but he can hardly spit out the rest with grinning. “Cos my cat just died and cos someone’s trying to kill me.”
“Oh dear. Well, no wonder you’re waiting for the pub to open.”
Jerry leads him inside. The fat man follows quietly behind.
“Bit of a change from the other day,” Jerry continues.
“I didn’t know it, then. That everything is laid out so lovely for us.” The thespian again: “‘Heartache is there to purify the soul for the coming of wisdom.’ Who was it said that? Was it me? A poet and a visionary.” Daniel grabs his boss’s collar. “That stuff you gave me. What in fuck’s name is it? That stuff will evolve mankind. It lets you see in seven dimensions.”
Jerry looks anxiously at the fat man. “Yes, yes, well, keep it down, hmm?”
“There’s plenty more whenever you want some,” the fat man says in Daniel’s ear. Daniel wheels around.
“Oh, it’s yooouu! Hello.”
Even through the man’s thick, neatly cut winter suit the smell of lavender is eye-watering.
‘Faggot,’ he mouths towards Jerry. Jerry turns puce and pretends not to notice. “Er, you two already met?” he stammers.
“We’ve not been introduced,” says fat man, his little beady eyes lighting up.
“Oh, right, well, Daniel, this is Sullivan. Sullivan Morris.”
For a moment Daniel stands open-mouthed.
“You’re kidding me. Oh, that’s tooo much!” He can feel his bladder loosening, maybe his whole lower half falling to bits, for all he knows. “And there’s me nicknaming you Sumo. Sumo, the baby wrestler. Get it? Su-Mo, the perfect moniker: Su-Mo, SU-llivan MO-rris. Fate. That’s what that is.”
There’s nothing Sumo-like now about the colour of Morris’s skin. Dreading a major incident, Jerry holds up his hands to the man and pulls Daniel backwards out of earshot.
“For Christ’s sake, Daniel, button it. You don’t mess with a man like Morris. He’s been known to turn very nasty. Anyway, if that drug is as good as you say it is and you’re ever likely to need more, I suggest we stay on his right side.” He lowers his voice further. “And there’s a problem. He’s not happy about the instalments. He wants the money upfront. I think you’d better cough up or return the merchandise. We really don’t want to get him angry.” A look of genuine fear crosses Jerry’s face as his voice falls below a whisper. “Morris can be a right bloody psycho.”
Money, money, money, the root (or should that be route?) of all evil. Rats live on no evil star. Ah, baby Sumo wants his money. His mummy. His dummy. Give this man his rattle before he starts to cry, before he wets his nappy. When they’re all sat down together the two of them can share nappy stories. Nappy New Year. But now they must drink a different toast. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Scoff. We raise a glass to you with the words, ‘Go, cat senior. Go to a better place where you can eat all the meaty chunks in gravy you want, where you can scale a tree without pain, scrap with other cats and never suffer a nibbled ear or a punctured paw. Go to…’
“Daniel, are you listening to me? When do I get the money?”
“You? Why give it to you?”
“I did the deal with you. That’s how it works. If Sullivan isn’t paid, it’ll be m
e who gets it.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll get it. You know damn well I’m on half pay right now. Money’s tight, but I’ll get it.”
“Good. But when?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Promise me.”
“Yeah, promise.”
“Okay. Meet me in the car park tomorrow at seven.”
“I’m glad that’s settled, gentlemen.” Morris has waddled over to eavesdrop. “A drink then, I think.”
Jerry orders two pints and a mineral water for Sullivan. “Now,” says Sullivan, after the water has wetted his lips, “who exactly is trying to kill you, my dear? And has your poor cat really just died?”
Jerry looks relieved by this apparent drop in tension. He gulps at his pint gratefully.
“Uh? Oh, just someone I know. Someone I pissed off.”
“Oh dear, oh dear, we can’t have you coming to any harm now, can we?” Sullivan lays a smooth, manicured hand on Daniel’s shoulder.
“Sorry about your cat,” Jerry throws in from behind his glass. “Maybe I should get you something stronger with that.”
Morris pretends to be shocked. “Jeremy! I trust you’re not encouraging our friend here to mix alcohol with… his other medication.”
This guy isn’t a psycho. This guy is just a ball of girly lard. Mineral water, for fuck’s sake. And he used the word dear. If the faggot wants his money so badly he shouldn’t have parted with the goods upfront now, should he? Like Daniel has two hundred quid to give away on a whim. Maybe steer clear of the Millwrights for the next few days; get to know a few other local haunts.
He tells them about finding his cat’s body, and about this woman who’s after him but in whom he has no interest. And then he talks about something else that he can’t remember afterwards. And drinks a lot more beer with chasers. And is helped home by Jerry and fat boy. And crashes out on his bed without checking in on Alex first. And has horrible dreams where everyone is out to get him. And wakes up drenched in sweat and feeling very, very sick.
And is sick.
Before he can get to the bathroom.
Not a trace of that euphoria by morning. It’s as though he’d exhausted a month’s reserve in a single hour, leaving nothing in his brains but an inky-black vacuum. He knows today is going to be a long, long day. Communication with Alex has all but ground to a standstill; they barely acknowledge each other. Alex is edgy. Why? He’s forever moving about, sometimes in his chair, sometimes on crutches, now and then attempting a few steps unaided. No more words, nothing since that one ‘Sorry’ was wrung from him by the sight of a dead cat. Daniel has resisted baiting him any further, but it bugs him why Alex had felt so compelled to say sorry. Sorry suggested remorse. Maybe he’d poisoned the poor animal. Maybe he’d tampered with the water supply.
He begins to dread the phone ringing, or a knock at the door; the sound of Sullivan’s voice, or Gulnaz suddenly turning up to take Alex away. He can’t wait for dark and a chance to slip out unseen to some distant quarter of town. Impossible to keep his hands away from the drinks cupboard, or from the drawer beneath. It’s becoming a worrying habit. Just until his wounds are mended, a few more days and things will sort themselves out. So he can get through this. The burns are driving him crazy – intolerable itching beneath the scabs. All night long, never a wink of sleep. The slightest wrong move, a bend or a twist, and the daggers make him shout. Even now he can’t believe the furnace that still blazes down there. The pain or the itching, he can’t decide which is worse.
Below the fire, another kind of pain jabs at his belly. It’s been so long now since he last felt it that it goes almost unrecognised. Hunger. Of the most maddening kind – a hunger that refuses to recognise a remedy. There’s nothing that doesn’t leave him feeling sick at the thought. Until he sees two eggs propped up on the top shelf of the fridge door. Suntanned and smooth, like two naked infants – twins almost, but one with a spotless complexion, the other lightly speckled. Maybe they are meant to be sacrificed.
In among a bag of crumbs he finds a dog-eared slice of bread and a thick end-crust. Into the toaster they go. The bitter smell of carbonising crumbs further blackens his mood. On with the gas ring. Putting on the water. Soldiers fashioned from the toast, bludgeoned by the butter knife, bloodied with ketchup; they lie now like fallen knights at the foot of their silver chalice. For them the grail quest is over. The pan spits and sizzles its echoes of Sunday. But today the bubbles are not out to turn twins against twin; this is a holier water, blessed to purge the two babes of evil. Each egg is lowered with reverence into the font, to bob and spin in the presence of its saviour. ‘I baptise you Alex. I baptise you Daniel’. The first rises to the surface, a little froth, a tiny column of bubbles from its perfect shell, eternal life. The second quickly drowns, the skin ruptures, and threads of white DNA ejaculate into the water. Sperm and egg parting company, conception undone. A child too flawed for God’s mercy.
Proof, if ever it were needed, that Daniel and Alex are not identical. Others may not see differences beyond their character, but Daniel sees them more and more. Differences in their bone structure; how their noses and mouths twist in opposite ways. Two decades of masking his pain have buckled Daniel’s face to one side; two decades of god-knows-what else have buckled Alex’s to the other. But like those eggs before the baptism, as infants they were still untainted, differentiated only by a single flaw to the skin. Daniel alone had it under his hairline. Their mother always used to say that God put a mark on one side of his head so that when the twins went to heaven He would know which of them was which. Daniel believed her back then. Now he sees that Alex alone was left clean for the gates of heaven, Daniel branded for the fires of hell. The first to be decapitated is Alex. A rich, liquid yolk. And then Daniel. Hardened through. Thick-skinned. Hard-boiled.
This is fucking cannibalism. He pushes his plate away.
The numbness, the highs, the suffocating lows, the despair, the sickness, each day retreads the footsteps of the day before it. Night after night he’s out getting wasted in a different backwater pub, always keeping well clear of the Millwrights. How long since he was last sober – two days, three? He neither remembers nor cares. Missed phone calls and untouched mail are stacking up; he’s too scared to go near them, senders and messages all too easily guessed. The flat sinks into its own waste. A growing part of him longs for Gulnaz to come and end this, to deliver him and Alex into care. Deliver them from evil. Give them their daily bread. Maybe a home-help will finally arrive – all that early correspondence never followed up. Maybe Social Services, the police, a concerned neighbour – Mrs Cropley. But then again, maybe not. Maybe Mrs Cropley lies in her bed, a rotting corpse. Maybe the state has written off his case. Maybe Gulnaz is buried in the arms of the great doctor: her next victim for moulding into a better person. How on earth to make Prentice a better person? Surely not a better doctor. Perhaps a better lover then, perhaps a less arrogant, infuriatingly perfect little nothing.
All day long, the hammering in his head. The booze hasn’t silenced it, neither has his magical hit. Sooner or later this has to end. He cannot sustain this indefinitely. But for now the drumming just goes on. Thump, thump, thump, and still it gets louder, and yet louder. Shit, shit, there’s someone knocking. This is it. She’s come. It’s over.
He staggers from his chair and opens the door to a hard salvation.
“Hello Daniel.”
A face all inflated and flushed. Lavender water.
“Remember us? Our little arrangement? Tuesday. Such a cold night. We waited you know, for nearly an hour.”
In the shadows behind, Jerry stares down at his shoes, a broken man. His clothing is drenched. Morris comes over as taller and wider than before, the eyes so tiny that they’re lost in their sockets, all but hidden between the lids and the bags. He looks murderous, grotesque and unstoppable.
“Two-fifty, wasn’t it? May we come in?”
Daniel wedges the door with one foot while trying to gather his t
houghts. How did the bastard know where to find him? Oh shit. By having been brought here the other night by Daniel himself.
“Two hundred. We agreed two hundred.”
“Ah, but you forget the interest. You didn’t show up, remember?”
“I was going to. I’ve been unwell. He’ll tell you.”
But Jerry says nothing. They may not exactly be closest of friends, but all the same, they’ve long been drinking mates. And drinking mates always stand up for each other. By the look on his face, Jerry is a drinking mate no more.
“Well, we’ll settle up now and be off, if you don’t mind,” Sumo says.
Nothing could hold back the door from that thick, advancing left arm, or from the right that follows it, yanking Jerry inside.
“A glass of water please,” Morris smiles, leaning a wet umbrella against the wall. “And I think Mr Rushworth could do with a beer. Oh! Dear me, you do need a housemaid. Dirty, untidy. Not good for your health. Through here, I think?” He pushes past Daniel, wipes his wet boots with mock politeness on the sitting room carpet and spreads his glutinous limbs across the sofa.
“Sorry, no, you’ve got to go.” Daniel is genuinely freaked now; things are getting seriously out of hand. “I’ve got someone next door… asleep. I’ll get you the money tomorrow.”
Jerry looks alarmed. “You’ve got a woman through there, Daniel?”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Morris says, with a salacious sneer. “Not Mr George. Not the side his bread is buttered on at all.” He stands again and steps into the kitchen. Daniel knows he’s made a terrible mistake.
“No, no, don’t go through there.” Morris turns from the bedroom door. “It’s just my brother, okay? He’s not well. Really sick. Contagious.”
“Tut, tut Daniel, telling porky pies. I happen to know that you lost your kid brother when you were just a toddler. Really, such negligence. Time, I think, to tell Sullivan your big secret, eh? A young man tucked up in there? Bottom is he, or top? Now that would make Sullivan a teeny bit jealous, what with you giving me the eye like that the other week.”
Having his masculinity challenged is not something Daniel appreciates. Something elemental, a raw nerve from way back, is pricked by Morris’s jibe. The delicate child in a tree house, pockets crammed with shells, head full of shapes and theories, struggling to deal with abusive remarks, mocking comparisons with his sporty brother. Sarcastic, confidence-crushing names like ‘Mummy’s girl’ or ‘Danielle from the man he idolised. When Daniel squares his shoulders against Morris it’s someone else he’s really standing up to.
“I want you out of my flat. You’re wasting your time. I don’t have the money.”
Morris smirks. “Then I’ll take a deposit. Tell you what, go lie yourself down on your sofa. Let me fuck your cute little butt for half an hour and we’ll call it quits.”
All of Daniel’s pent up fury is released at once, a singularity of purpose that blocks his other reflexes, a greyhound triggered by the hare. There is no space to calculate the odds or weigh the options, no moment to fear the pain. He rushes forward, swings at the vile, rubbery face and connects with a left temple. It seems to cave in beneath his fist. Morris reels drunkenly and crashes into the waste bin but manages to stay on his feet. Those little eyes roll upwards before refocusing on his assailant. Jerry has already fled from the flat. It could be that Morris will turn tail also, or maybe fall backwards unconscious. A precious second is wasted in waiting to find out, the chance to throw a second punch and finish the job is gone. Daniel never sees the powerful right arm jab forward from the waist. He sees only an intense white light as something hard as rock scores a bull’s-eye with his stomach. Even Morris must be astonished at the impact of his punch, in seeing Daniel’s shirt so readily pool with blood. This is pain so intense that Daniel has no air or muscle control to scream. He simply creases forward, drops to his knees and vomits violently over Morris’s boots before collapsing in a heap. His bowels give way. Morris’s kick is neatly timed to meet with Daniel’s lolling head. The sense of falling is booted into touch by an explosion of stars and a violent jerk. Before the blackout extinguishes the light, Daniel hears, as if from the end of a long tunnel, Morris’s chilling, parting words.
“If I can’t do you, my dear, then I’ll have to do your poorly little friend next door, won’t I?”