Outside Chance (7 page)

It was worth a try. But where were the others? In the warmth of the pub having lunch, or around the town, spreading the word?

With a mental shrug, Ben stepped out on to the tarmac. The lad had given up his position by the door and now sat on one of the deserted picnic tables, looking cold and fed up. He was a lightly built child, and Ben wondered whether he had overestimated his age.

Ben looked away to get his jacket and lock the vehicle and, when he turned back, trouble had arrived in the shape of four older and far bigger boys who had surrounded the lad with the flyers. Ben guessed the collecting box was probably the object of the newcomers' interest, but they had plainly decided to have a little sport with the youngster first.

He started to walk over.

Still too far away to catch what was being said, he could nevertheless see that the boy was very frightened. He'd scrambled over the table to get away from the bullies, but this had left him trapped between them and the wall of the pub. The boys approached, swaggering, and the gaps between them decreased until they were virtually shoulder to shoulder.

Drawing closer, still unseen by any of the players in the drama, Ben judged that the older boys were in their late teens, and two of them were quite sizeable. He seethed, inwardly. Mikey had been bullied at one of his schools, due no
doubt to his academic difficulties, and the experience had blighted his life for several long months. Ben had been furious when he found out, and that same fury rose in him now.

Where were the other ALSA members? They should never have left a young lad on his own with a collecting box; it was asking for trouble.

‘Everything all right, Kenny?' Ben had no idea what the lad's name was, but tried it on the premise that the bullies might be deterred if they thought he was connected to the boy in some way.

All five youngsters turned to look at him; the ALSA boy with a dawning hope, the others with varying degrees of insolence.

‘Fuck off,' one of them said, dismissively, before returning his attention to his victim.

‘Sorry. No can do,' Ben said lightly, but beneath his turtleneck sweater his heart-rate was climbing rapidly.

The one who had spoken swung round.

‘
What?
' he asked incredulously.

‘I said, no.'

The other three turned to face Ben as well, sensing new sport. The smallest of them, a lad with a thin, spotty face, grinned nastily and said, ‘You can take him, Mal.'

Ben stopped, not six feet from the group, and tried to catch the eye of the one he'd temporarily christened Kenny, to urge him to make a run for it while the bullies' backs were turned. But he seemed rooted to the spot.

The ringleader, presumably Mal, took a couple of steps forward and leered unpleasantly at Ben, showing teeth already stained by tobacco.

‘Well?' he said.

Ben stared back at him, silently. He couldn't think of any response that wouldn't further inflame the situation.

His very stillness seemed to unnerve Mal a little. His confident snarl faltered and he glanced to his side, as if to reassure himself that the gang were still there. They were, and one of them advanced a step or two, stabbing a finger in Ben's direction.

‘Why don't you fuck off before you get hurt?'

‘I expect you know you're on CCTV,' Ben said quietly. ‘How long d'you think you've got before the cops get here?'

Two of the gang looked round uncertainly but the one called Mal shook his head crossly. ‘He's bluffing.'

He was right. Ben had no idea if CCTV was operational in the vicinity, but the thought of it was clearly unsettling them.

‘C'mon, Mal. Let's get the money and go,' the spotty one said, and at that moment the ALSA lad made a break for it, dodging round the tables and heading away towards the car park.

He wasn't quite quick enough.

Mal threw an arm out sideways as he passed and fastened on to the lad's bomber jacket, swinging him round and gathering him in like a spider with a fly.

The others abandoned Ben in favour of easier prey, and the youngster squealed in fear as the collecting box was torn from his grasp and he was pushed backwards to the point where the fixed bench of the picnic table caught him behind
the knees, forcing him to sit down. The thugs gathered round, Mal leaning over the lad and resting one hand on the table either side of him, his face not six inches from the boy's own.

The youngster whimpered, petrified, and Ben saw red.

With clenched jaw he strode forward, caught hold of Mal's shoulder and pulled him roughly away.

The ringleader staggered back, a look of incredulous surprise on his face, and Ben shoved him backwards, hard, before he could regain his balance. He stumbled back a few more strides, then lowered his head and charged like an enraged bull.

Ben sidestepped neatly, casually hooking his toe round Mal's ankle as he passed, and his would-be assailant measured his length on the tarmac amongst the table legs.

That was all very well as far as it went but, unfortunately, the idea that by taking out the leader, you take out the gang, didn't hold true. Ben turned his head to see what, if anything, the rest of them were going to do about this manhandling of their comrade, just as the spotty one launched himself, with a kind of primeval scream, at his back.

EVEN THOUGH SPOTTY
was the smallest of the four, the combination of his weight and momentum, catching Ben off balance, was enough to send him crashing sideways into another of the wooden tables, and from there to the ground. The fall shook the two of them apart but, even as Ben rolled and came to his feet, the others, emboldened by Spotty's success, joined the attack.

Ben managed a couple of wild swings with his fists before he was overpowered and pulled backwards. The hard edge of the closest bench caught him behind the knees and, with one of the lads holding each arm, his upper body was bent back over the tabletop and held there, the planking digging painfully into his ribs.

He couldn't move.

For a moment sheer, blind panic took over. Reason went out of the window and, with no regard for the discomfort of his unnatural position and the fact that struggling would make it
worse, he fought against them, writhing and kicking out blindly with both feet.

‘Christ! Hold him! The bastard nearly took my knee out!' From somewhere in front of Ben, Mal's voice cut through the haze, bringing him to his senses. He stopped kicking, took deep breaths and forced himself to calm down. He found though, to his dismay, that whilst he could to some extent control his breathing, he couldn't control the muscle tremor that had set in.

At Mal's bidding, the two holding Ben transferred their grip to pin both his wrists and his shoulders flat to the table, and he had to bite his lip in an effort to stay silent under the increased strain. It occurred to him, dismally, that it wasn't the first time they'd done this; their moves were way too efficient and well-synchronised for that. He managed to get his feet flat on the tarmac and lift some of the weight off his body, but his back was arched and his stomach felt horrendously vulnerable. He tried not to think about what Mal might intend doing next.

He found out soon enough.

His feet were swept forward and, robbed of even that tenuous support, Ben's bodyweight dropped, wholesale, on to the right angles of the table and bench. Wincing, he fought another surge of terror.

‘Ahh. He's shaking. The tough guy isn't so tough after all, is he boys?'

Mal came round to Ben's right side and leaned over him, grinning and affording him a less than enviable view of the stained teeth, pale skin and eyebrow stud. He opened his mouth
and put out his tongue to display another stud then laughed and, with his forearm, bounced on Ben's midriff.

That was more than enough. This time he couldn't prevent a grunt of pain. His back was killing him. Much more of that kind of abuse and he was afraid something would rupture. His knowledge of anatomy was sketchy at best, but something plainly had to be done, and fast.

Mal moved his forearm up to rest across Ben's throat.

Oh God, no!

Mal must have seen the fear in his eyes because he chuckled again. ‘You don't like that, do you? Well, now you know why no one fuckin' messes with me!'

He began to lean and Ben felt panic rising as his breathing was restricted. He couldn't think that Mal really intended to kill him in broad daylight, in so public a place, but neither was he sure the youngster knew his own strength, and how easily fatal damage could be caused in just such a way.

‘Credit card – back pocket,' he gasped.

The pressure continued to mount.

‘I can take those anyway,' Mal pointed out.

Ben shook his head slightly.

‘Pin . . . number,' he managed, hoarsely. His vision was dissolving into a mass of black patches.

The thug leaned closer.

‘Tell me now.'

Ben shook his head again. At first he thought it wasn't going to work, that Mal was enjoying himself too much. But then greed took over, the
pressure on his windpipe eased and blessedly sweet air flooded back into his lungs.

‘OK. Let him up,' Mal told his cohorts. ‘But hold him.'

Somewhere nearby Ben heard a door open and the sound of it obviously registered with Mal, too, because he snapped, ‘Stand him up. Quickly!'

As they hauled him to his feet, Ben purposely let his weight drag on his two captors, causing them to move closer together as they tried to support him. Using the leeway he'd gained, he suddenly straightened his legs and turned his head to butt the one on his right side with all the force he could muster which – it had to be said – wasn't nearly as much as he would have liked.

It was, however, enough.

The youngster hanging on to his right arm immediately let go with one hand and clutched at his face, allowing Ben to pull his arm free and swing it at the second one. This lad, unwilling to take on Ben without a substantial advantage, released his hold instantly and tried, unsuccessfully, to dodge the punch.

‘You cretins!' Mal screamed, but a shout from behind him signalled that help was on its way for Ben. ‘All right, go! Go on. Go – go!'

Finding himself abruptly unsupported, Ben staggered slightly, tripped over the table leg, and would have fallen if he hadn't managed to catch hold of a neighbouring table at the critical moment.

‘You all right, mate?' Someone had arrived to help, slipping his hand under Ben's arm to steady him. ‘I should sit down for a minute, if I were you.'

Ben thought that was an excellent idea, and did so.

‘You all right?' the man repeated.

Ben nodded. Broadly speaking, he was. He'd have a few bruises and his throat felt sore but it could have been a lot worse. If his escape bid had failed and Mal had discovered that the wallet containing his money and credit cards wasn't in his back pocket, after all, but in the inside pocket of his jacket, he might well have been in real trouble.

Rubbing his bruised back, he straightened up and found that several more people had emerged from the pub and a small crowd had gathered, one of whom was the young lad he'd rescued.

‘That was pretty impressive,' someone said approvingly, and there was a general murmur of agreement. ‘For once those Jones boys didn't get it all their own way.'

Ben shook his head. ‘I don't think I'd have had much chance if you lot hadn't appeared,' he said, his voice husky. ‘But you know them, do you?'

‘Yeah. Three of them are brothers: Mal, Kevin and Leroy Jones. I don't know the skinny one but they're always together, and always causing trouble. They get away with it most of the time, too, 'cos no one wants to report it. Things happen to people that get on the wrong side of that lot, if you know what I mean.'

‘That's Billy Larkin,' someone called out. ‘The skinny one with the spots. He lives down our road.'

‘Well,
I'll
damn well report it!' Ben said without hesitation.

A couple of people cheered and someone said, ‘Good on yer!'

The man who'd spoken first carried a dishcloth over his shoulder and Ben assumed he was the barman or pub landlord. His next words confirmed this.

‘Come on in and I'll get you a drink. On the house, of course. You can phone the police from there.'

Ben fell in readily with this plan and, waving away offers of help, rose to his feet, a little shakily, to join the general movement back into the pub.

‘Um, I just wanted to say thanks.'

Ben turned and found by his side the young lad with the ALSA leaflets, still clutching both those and the collecting box. Incredibly, he'd almost forgotten the boy whose plight had been the start of it all.

‘
I
should thank
you
for fetching help,' he said. ‘Are you OK?'

‘A bit shaky,' the lad admitted.

‘That makes two of us. But how come you were out here on your own? Where are the others?'

‘We're here.' A voice spoke up from behind Ben as he ducked to enter the low doorway. ‘We only popped in for a minute . . . It was just unfortunate . . .'

The speaker was one of two hippyish individuals; the sort that make protesting a way of life, whether it be
against
road building or
for
the rights of obscure minorities. Ben thought one was probably male and the other female, but he couldn't be sure. He favoured them both with a withering look. ‘Yeah. It was
very
unfortunate.'

Inside the pub a seat was found for him, and coffee and a cordless phone were produced. Ben
availed himself of all three, suggesting to the police that if they cared to come out to the pub they might find any number of witnesses to the Jones brothers' latest offence, and, after some hesitation, they agreed. It appeared that some of these potential witnesses had had their ears carefully tuned in to his conversation because within a few moments of the end of the call, the population of the public bar had thinned out quite dramatically.