Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
They needed somewhere to sit out of the rain and wait for the bus to return, so Nikolas suggested they shelter in the chapel across the road, a forlorn reminder of their enforced sobriety.
Ben was about to point out it would be locked, but Nikolas had already jogged across the road.
Ben let him make his own discoveries. He could sense a tsunami of anger and resentment pouring off Nikolas like the scent of a trapped predator.
When they caught up with him, he was staring at the door in frustration.
“Who locks a church? Who fucking locks a church? What if you needed to urgently speak with God?” He turned on the others. “Sit!” They immediately dropped down on the steps as he rounded the building out of sight.
“What’s he doing?”
Ben shook his head at John’s question, not sure he wanted to know the answer.
James got up and peered around the corner and informed them in a sotto voice that Nikolas had opened the side window of the church and had hopped up and over the sill.
In a more animated tone he whispered, “He’s breaking into a church! ”
Ben couldn’t tell whether the man was outraged or impressed. He knew what he was and hissed, “Stop it!” through the narrow gap in the widow. Nikolas appeared again and left the church as easily as he’d entered. He looked smug. Ben knew that expression only too well.
“Tell me you didn’t.”
Nikolas grinned and held out a couple of five-pound notes, some coins—and a button. This he glared at. “Who would cheat God with a button?” He chuckled and pocketed the money. Suddenly, waving their various exclamations of horror away he asked coldly, “Where’s Samuel?”
Ben cursed.
Mathew mumbled sheepishly, “I think he needed…” and mimed sorting.
They all turned back to the pub.
They all heard the scream.
* * *
There were six men around the pool table when Nikolas and Ben entered.
Six men around it and one on it—Samuel. His jeans were around his ankles, and the man who’d called Nikolas a faggot clearly had no justification for insulting anyone for having an interest in another man’s backside.
He was preparing to examine Samuel’s with his pool cue.
Four of the other five were holding Samuel down, smacking him around the head, pulling his legs wide for the invasion.
The fifth was capturing the fun on his phone camera.
Nikolas hesitated for one second. Four playing darts, two at the bar. A lot could be assessed in one second, which was just as well, he reflected, as he brought his hand up, and backwards punched the guy who’d come at him from the bar.
He broke the guy’s nose, which started everything really. All the patrons would have remembered of that one second was the two big men returning and then all hell breaking loose.
Nikolas took out the guy with the pool cue first. He was literally taken out, so he didn’t get much time to enjoy his meeting with Aleksey Primakov—Nikolas picked him up by his collar and belt then threw him head first through the window to the street.
Next, three of his mates went down—Ben took them out while Nikolas was returning.
Slow, heavy men, fuelled on outrage and beer, they were no match for him.
One of the remaining two, the one who’d been holding Samuel’s legs wide so the guy with the camera could get a good shot, turned with a face as white as the chalk on the scoreboard.
He tried to say something, but the music was so loud his shocked voice didn’t carry.
When he saw he hadn’t been heard, he tried again, raising his pool cue.
It could have been in defence. It could be called a swing at Nikolas’s face.
Nikolas took it for the second option and broke the attack with his arm, caught the stick and pulled the man up close and personal.
A head butt shattered the guy’s nose, and as he went down, a knee plastered the cartilage over his face.
Whatever he’d been trying to say, he wouldn’t be repeating for some time.
The last man at the table, the one with the camera, tried to run.
He too was shouting something. He tripped over one of his friends, falling heavily to the stained carpet, his phone sliding under the table.
He tried to scrabble away, but Samuel, who was huddled on the floor dressing, reached out and caught his ankle.
The man grabbed at the hand and snapped it viciously back, the snap was audible, even above the music, and was followed by an even louder scream.
Nikolas separated them, dragged the heavy man over to the back of the room and snapped his arm at the elbow. He wouldn’t play pool or any version of it for a long while.
Together they circled the two remaining darts players. One appeared to size up his chances and then bolted, throwing himself through the broken window to the pavement outside. The remaining man met Ben’s fist and went down in a spray of broken teeth and blood.
The last man, who’d been drinking at the bar, had tried to run for the door, but John had locked him in, sliding the bolts home.
Afterwards, he claimed he hadn’t gone all Van Diesel—stopping the guy leaving so he could be beaten too—but he’d wanted to keep anyone else from entering.
He was clearly quite pleased with himself either way, for not only did he trap the guy, he hit him with a chair, while Mathew kicked him in the knee.
The man with the broken nose who’d started the fight, had armed himself with a jagged glass.
He was shouting something in Polish, which Nikolas spoke, but muffled by blood and snot, his words were incomprehensible.
He didn’t even have time to use the makeshift weapon before Nikolas knocked his head into the bar.
Every piece of furniture in the place was broken.
Nikolas heard a voice and vaulted over the bar.
The barman was on the telephone. He raised a tyre iron and jabbed it ineffectually.
Nikolas had had an elderly female librarian swing one of those at him with more enthusiasm.
He kicked at the bartender’s head and the man dropped to the sticky linoleum without even a grunt.
Nikolas picked up the phone and listened for a moment then replaced the receiver.
He was puzzled. “We need to leave. Now.”
They piled out of the pub, expecting any minute to hear wailing sirens, but it was oddly silent.
Nikolas swore again, then suddenly commanded Ben, “Take them to the back of the church. I’ll join you in a minute.
” Ben nodded and ushered the others over.
Samuel was on his knees, his shuddering breaths noisy and panicked.
Ben hoisted him over his shoulder and ran, the other three following.
Five minutes later, Nikolas emerged from the side alley of the pub with a backpack.
He ran over to where the men were waiting.
He pulled out a key fob and clicked it. A car in the street flashed its lights and clunked as the locks opened.
They piled in with difficulty and Ben drove off.
He glanced at Nikolas then at Samuel. Nikolas nodded.
They had no idea where to find a hospital and had to stop and ask at another pub, getting a drawn map.
By the time they found it, Samuel was shivering badly and rambling, and his wrist was black, purple and yellow.
They were directed to the seating area. Nikolas explained they had a badly injured friend going into shock, but the receptionist waved uninterested at the chairs.
Nikolas turned. They were full of bleeding, broken, vomiting, groaning and shocked citizens of a night out in Burnley.
One man appeared to have put his hand into a meat grinder—the appendage swathed in bloody bandages until it was the size of a watermelon.
Another in filthy clothing was lying across four seats and there was a pool of vomit on the floor beneath him.
There were five men wearing togas for some reason, each of them bloody and battered.
The six of them sat at the back of the row of seats, shell-shocked.
Nikolas glanced at his watch and swore violently when he saw it was broken.
He then remembered the broken nose, which had started the fight, and smiled privately.
He took Ben’s wrist. It was eight o’clock.
They’d been out two hours. Good date so far.
He suddenly remembered the backpack he’d liberated from the pub.
With a flourish, he brought out a bag of crisps and handed it to Ben.
Cheese and onion, which he knew was Ben’s favourite.
Ben took it reverently then eyed the others guiltily.
Nikolas huffed and tipped a pile of crisps and peanuts onto the floor.
It was seven hours before Samuel got seen.
They were all asleep. Ben was lying across a row of plastic seats—possibly the most uncomfortable furniture ever invented by man, which is why they employed them in waiting areas such as A&E—his head in Nikolas’s lap.
Nikolas was the only one who woke with Samuel when the nurse came up to them.
He gave a brief account of what had happened and she led Samuel away.
Three in the morning. It was not a good time to be awake yet still exhausted.
Nikolas felt tiredness like a drug taking him down, dulling his thoughts.
What the fuck? It kept repeating in his head.
What the fuck was going on?
They’d been set up…deliberately sent to that pub so something like this would happen. Did any psychologist seriously think being raped with a pool cue would count as effective therapy?