Death on the streets

In the dark, the halogen orange glow of the street lamps combined with the grey stone buildings and rain soaked pavements, created an air of gloom. He moved silently in the Adidas trainers, his worn and cracked three-quarter-length brown leather coat pulled close across his chest and his woolly hat tight down against his shaven scalp.

 

He had spotted his victim alight from the pub and had watched the slightly unsteady gait of a man who had consumed more than a couple of pints after a hard day at the office. The selected target had just intended having a quick drink and passing the time of day with the landlord of the ‘Bricklayers Arms’ and pub acquaintances. He had stayed for a second and then a third before noticing that he was later than he intended and hurriedly made his excuses before collecting his coat and leaving. His thoughts were consumed in concocting a tale to mollify his wife as he headed for his bus.

 

The rain beating steadily, masking any impact from the thick-soled training shoes. New shoes, recently acquired from the proceeds of his trade. They allowed him to gain ground on his victim. To get really close so that he could almost reach out and tap him on the shoulder. The victim was all too intent on making his way home and too occupied with thoughts of pacifying his wife over his lateness to notice any danger. The alcohol had also dulled his senses.

 

He could feel the shape of the recently sharpened butcher knife in the deep left-hand pocket that he had constructed in the coats lining. The street was deserted. His left hand gripped the cut down pickaxe handle in the equally capacious right hand pocket. He was close enough to smell the alcohol on his victim’s breath, carried to him in the wind. He pulled the pick axe handle clear of his jacket, took two quick steps forward and to the left side of the man. His first battering blow struck across the victims right kidney area. The second caught at the back of his knees as he fell like a stone. The soft toe of the trainers caught the man on his left cheekbone as he crumpled to the wet pavement. The victim lay still and made no sound. He kicked him again, this time to his midriff area just to ensure there would be no resistance.

 

He had learned early on in his trade that the secret of a successful mugging was to make an immediate and violent impact. Little resistance followed such a brutal assault; less chance of the hero effect kicking in. He had read somewhere once that a victim’s best chance of catching an attacker off guard and gaining the advantage was immediately after the initial confrontation when the mugger had stated their intent by word or action. A split second decision, no time for weighing or considering, any delay and the moment would be lost and the victim paralysed in the scenario by the power of the attacker. A tactic only for the brave and able bodied.

 

Violence had been part of his life for as long as he could remember. He recalled the horror of cowering behind an armchair as an eight year-old listening to his father beat his mother. He still felt the pain of the punishments metered out by his father at the merest whim. He felt resented and hated and thought that he must have done something so evil to make his father behave in such a way. He spent many night-time hours lying awake in fear of another unprovoked attack. He fantasised about escape and discovering that he had been given to the wrong parents by mistake on the maternity ward.

 

It never happened and his misery continued until he was ten and his father dispatched him from his south London maisonette to his grandparents terrace in the Highfield area of Leicester. Too late to prevent deep, deep scars upon his personality. In fact the abandonment compounded his feelings of worthlessness and left him feeling profound emptiness that he knew would never be filled.

 

At school he learned to take what he wanted and ruled by sheer terror. He had a fearful reputation among his peers and no one could match his propensity for gratuitous violence. By eleven he had been out of control and his grandparents could no longer cope, so he was moved to a children’s home after several failed attempts at fostering. There he soon established his authority over the other kids and the staff, and he was never free from trouble. He was moved to a residential school for boys with emotional and behavioural difficulties. There he was described as one of the most disturbed youngsters they had ever seen; staff believed he was likely to end up in the penal system or become a victim himself of someone else’s anger. Some staff in contact with him even felt him to be a danger to the public.  

 

He was referred to a child psychiatrist and over a period of four years was seen, assessed, case reviewed, assessed again, discussed endlessly between professionals, assessed yet again and given counselling. Nothing changed. In fact his degree of violence escalated as he grew. And he grew. At sixteen he was five-eleven and fourteen stones in weight. His attendance at a special school did nothing to modify his behaviour and he was seen as one of the most difficult cases ever dealt with by the education department.

 

His charge sheet at Charles Street police station was by the age of sixteen that of a hardened and violent criminal. Criminal damage, assaults too numerous to mention-including assaulting a police officer-taking and driving away, burglary, robbery and possession of controlled drugs, almost the whole spectrum of crime. He seemed to thrive on it and showed no remorse for his actions whatever.

 

He stood over his victim who lay curled up motionless on the wet pavement; the rain soaking into his clothing and running through his hair and down his unmoving face. He felt no sense of wrong doing as he looked down at the unconscious figure with blood oozing from his nose. He felt no sense of danger, only power. He didn’t even bother to watch the damp, silent street in case he was discovered. He was in his primeval element. He stooped and removed the man’s wallet from his inside jacket pocket; he pulled off the gold coloured bracelet watch from the limp left wrist and tried but failed to remove the wedding band from the left hand. He riffled through the man’s pockets, discarding his keys onto the pavement and removing all his loose change. He removed all folding money and credit cards from the wallet and dropped the wallet by the fallen form. He turned and casually headed back towards the city. After a few hundred metres he stopped, turned against the front facade of a grey office building, wrenched down his fly zipper and relieved himself against the wall. To any onlooker the sight of such a large man and the sound of the heavy stream of urine cascading down the wall with steam rising from its hotness looked eerie in the gloom. He finished his business, purposefully and slowly shook his penis dry, turned in the direction of his still unconscious victim, snorted a mouthful of snot and spat it venomously down onto the street before stuffing his manhood back into his pants, yanking up his zip and continuing on his way.

 

The squat was difficult to distinguish from the other dilapidated terraces in the Highfield back street. Being black was not a problem here. Neither was being poor or being a drug user. He had used his Asian origins as a bargaining counter on several occasions over the past couple of months. He had used it as a threat against the police when arrested, he had used it when arguing with the benefits agency and he had used it when arguing with his social worker and his probation officer. He had only been back in Leicester for six months. Until eighteen he had had to remain in local authority care in Burton-on-Trent. On reaching eighteen he could no longer be kept in care and had to make the sudden and brutal transition to self-sufficiency. His social worker and probation officer had tried to help him but he rejected the offer of a hostel place in favour of finding his own way in the world. He had found the squat by latching on to a group of fellow drug users and had moved in uninvited. No one dared to challenge him such was the fear he instilled.

 

He felt he could do anything he wished. Only recently he had left the Greyfriars social services office after a disagreement with his social worker. He had gone down into the street and made an unprovoked attack upon a stranger standing in a telephone box, in full view of the office staff. No charges were ever brought. He felt unstoppable. The violence he had learned in the children’s homes was now converted into violent street robbery in order to feed himself and satisfy his drink and drug taking.

 

She was mesmerised by his power. By the awe he inspired in others. By the fear he struck into those around him. She had asked him in the pub when they had been drinking cider and taking speed if he fancied a f**k.  He didn’t seem that interested but when they returned to the squat she had gone with him to the single room he had claimed from the previous occupant-who was now sleeping rough on the streets. They had continued the relationship for five of the six months he had been around. He was very jealous of anyone who he thought took an interest in her. He had hit two complete strangers who had deigned to look at her over the weeks. She enjoyed the attention.

She was seventeen and had been on the streets since the age of thirteen when she escaped the boredom of the village in Northwest Leicestershire which had been home to her for all of her life. She was painfully thin-partly by nature, partly due to the drugs and life style she led. Her natural auburn hair was long, unkempt and dirty. Despite her age, her dress sense was stuck in seventies cheese cloth, jeans, sandals and leather wristlets. She enjoyed the protection he offered. Never before had she felt so safe. She also thrilled in the unpredictability of his powerful behaviour.

 

They had planned to spend the day raising cash from shoplifting in the city. It was frighteningly easy to lift; particularly as a group. Some shops were unbelievably simple to rob but even those with good systems of detection could easily be breached by a well-organised gang.

 

They had to choose their targets carefully, as they needed to sell on the stolen items to get cash. They also had to vary their patch so as not to become too familiar to the store detectives, sales staff and security personnel.  In one store selling popular baby goods, easy to sell on and always in demand, the gang would spread out and fill their bags with unpaid for goods. Then at a prearranged signal they would heads for the door while a decoy took a tagged item seemingly accidentally to the door to examine it in natural light; setting off the alarms. The gang would make their escape while the staff dealt with the “false” alarm.

 

They met at McDonalds at one o’clock to assess their success or strike rate. Between them they had amassed no less than six hundred pounds worth of goods. Resale value one-third that if they were lucky. They would easily blow the proceeds in a couple of hours. They decided to quit for the day. No point taking too many risks, besides they needed to offload the stolen property and buy their gear to keep them ticking over.

 

He never lifted any goods. He stuck out like a sore thumb so he acted as a decoy and provided muscle should it be required. He had once broken the jaw of a store detective who tried to detain a member of the gang and, on another occasion, he had shoved a female store detective through a plate glass window.

 

They were in the pub by six-thirty having already turned their efforts into hard cash. This they used to buy street drugs of various descriptions, some whizz, some barbs, some black Morocan and some “Es”. That would keep them going for now. By eight o’clock they were starting to get “blinded”.

 

He had felt angry all day. He felt like a coiled spring. When he was like this violence was inevitable.

***

He had been sleeping rough since the mad black b*****d had told him to get out. No one argued with that b*****d; he had a reputation for having an extremely short and volatile fuse. He had been on the streets many times in the past few years and in Leicester it was easier than in some towns and cities, plenty of places to go during the day and lots of cover at night. It paid to team up with other down and outs, protection in numbers; extra eyes and ears. Some even took dogs onto the streets with them so that they could sleep at night and have some early warning of any impending danger. And danger there was on the streets. Paddy, or Irish and Rab or Rab “C” had plenty of experience on the streets. They knew how to survive. He had met them before when they dossed together near Abbey Park. He had met them again at the market during the day, taking cover and making the best use of spoilt fruit and vegetables. Sometimes a stallholder would give them some casual work in exchange for some meagre supplies. They walked together during the evening to keep warm and had shared the food they had managed to cadge or scrape together from street begging. They would wander the city centre until after closing. They sometimes found good bounty in the form of discarded take away food or that they were given in drunken generosity. They had bought three bottles of cheap sherry, which would help them to sleep in the chill. They were glad of the warming feeling and by the time they had consumed every last drop they all felt a little more comfortable. Paddy and Rab could drink. He had seen drinking but these two had mastered the art. Paddy seemed pissed most of the time, which turned him into an even more genial character, full of the crack. They passed the pub entrance as a group of youths were spilling through the doors. They were caught up in the throng of about ten boisterous and blasted kids. They were jostled and ridiculed by some of the group while others just moved off in the direction of Belvoir Street. He suddenly recognised Pathak among the group. He was with the skinny b***h. He turned and quickly walked into the pub entrance, pulling Rab with him. Paddy was being pushed and shoved by two guys. He was giving them a licking with his thick Irish brogue. He saw Paddy say something to the girl, he couldn’t hear the reply but suddenly he saw Pathak shove Paddy forcibly up the side street next to the pub. He heard a heated exchange.

***

She walked past the tramp being jostled in fun by the boys. He was giving them some verbal but it was just banter. As she passed him he smiled at her said “Hello” and winked. She had to walk round him as he swayed unsteadily on his feet. She looked back and saw her boyfriend push the tramp up the side street. The rest of the gang walked on oblivious. She saw him hit the man several times and saw him fall. She heard the high spirited voices of the others disappear in the distance; she felt a sense of detached revulsion as she watched her boyfriend stamp forcibly on the fallen mans skull. She heard the sickening crack of bone caving in and shouted in vain to him

“Stop it or you’ll kill him!”

But he continued to kick at the man. She turned and ran.

***

He pushed the Irish git who had leered at his girl up the side street. He had heard the expletives in the lilting Irish tongue. He saw red. He hit the man full in the face. He felt the man’s nose explode as blood splattered him. He hit him in the stomach and as he fell, kicked hard at his groin. The man was on the floor in agony. He raised his right foot and stamped the Adidas training shoe down on the side of the man’s head with great force. There was a sickening crack as his skull shattered and descended and inch into his cranial cavity. He would not walk the streets of Leicester again.

 

He caught her after a few hundred metres and grabbed her by the shoulder.

“I’ve killed him. I think I’ve killed him. He shouldn’t have tried to mess with you” he said.

He sat at the table. The cafe was not busy, but it was enjoying steady trade. Buses came and went from the terminus every few minutes. The squealing of breaks, revving of engines and sneezing of compressed air gave the place an air of activity, a sense of importance. He munched at the sandwich and drank the milk shake. He looked down at his trainers and was angry at the red stains that now spoilt the whiteness of his new footwear. He looked at his girl friend, she was shaking her head slowly. He showed the stained trainer to a waitress passing the table, and said

“She doesn’t believe I killed the old b*****d”. He laughed. He was on a high.

 

Reviews

[Claire Twinn]

You have an in-depth insight into the lives of these poor people, their desires, tastes, smells, feelings. It all feels so real!

[John Alexander McFadyen]

Thank you Claire coming from Glasgow helps lol