‘Hi Kev,’ two girls called. Heavily made up and ready for a night out, they tottered over to him on too-high heels.
‘Hello, ladies,’ he said, straightening. ‘How are you?’ They were regulars.
Derek shifted in his chair. He had a good idea what was coming next.
‘We’re good, aren’t we?’ Chelsea giggled, nudging her friend.
‘Yea,’ Tracey said. ‘We’re good.’
‘How’s the kids?’
‘Brats but we love ’em,’ Chelsea replied for them both.
‘You clubbing tonight then,’ Kevin asked, ‘or just here to chat me up?’
‘That depends, don’t it?’ Chelsea replied, and they both giggled.
‘On what?’ he asked, feigning ignorance.
‘On whether you let us in, Kev,’ Tracey said.
Kevin leant slightly forward, peered out from the doorway at the short queue lining up against the wall to his right. ‘If you join the queue now you’ll get in no problem,’ he said, suppressing a smile.
They giggled again. ‘You know we haven’t any money, Kev, to pay to get in,’ Chelsea said.
‘You haven’t spent all your benefit money already?’ he exclaimed in mock surprise. It was a similar conversation every Friday evening. They were both teenage single mums and didn’t have twenty pounds each to get in. Once inside it was easy to get guys to buy them drinks.
‘Kev, stop teasing us,’ Tracey said. ‘You’ll let us in, won’t you?’
‘I’m thinking,’ he said, obviously enjoying the banter.
‘What you thinking, Kev?’ Both girls grinned seductively.
‘About what you can do to persuade me,’ Kevin said, looking over their heads.
‘I can’t,’ Chelsea said, ‘I’ve got me monthly, but Trace can.’
‘Is that right?’ he said, bringing his gaze back to Tracey.
‘Yea. But you let us both in. Special offer. One for two.’ They laughed and his eyes creased into a smile.
He glanced up at the CCTV camera trained on the entrance, at present with him framed in its doorway. There was another camera just inside the door.
‘You know where,’ he said to Tracey. ‘But don’t make a song and dance about it or you’ll get me fired.’
Tracey took the hint and quickly slipped out of view of the camera and disappeared down the alley that ran alongside the club. Chelsea went to take their place in the queue as Kevin stepped out of the doorway. ‘I’m going for a slash, mate,’ he told the guy waiting with his girl at the head of the queue. ‘I’ll be back shortly. Keep an eye on things and I’ll let you in for nothing.’
‘OK, mate.’
Undoing the button on his black three-quarter-length coat as he went, Kevin turned the corner into the alleyway and out of sight of the camera. He could just make out Tracey waiting for him in their usual place. She and Chelsea were interchangeable and took it in turns to give him his Friday night treat, his bonus to make up for low wages and their ticket into the club. Although they were out of sight of the cameras, he was supposed to be on duty so they needed to be quick. But part of the excitement for him was in the immediacy. The fuck without foreplay.
Flattening her against the wall, he quickly undid his trousers, yanked up her short skirt and pulled aside her thong. She groaned as he thrust into her, from pain or pleasure he didn’t know – or care. Hard thrusts, deep inside; he kicked her legs further apart so he could penetrate her fully, animal-like in his taking of her. It could have been anyone he was fucking. But that was probably true for her too as long as it got her into the club. Thrusting faster now, he would come quickly, with no need to hang on in there and wait to satisfy her. She was his for the taking.
Then a sudden movement from behind. Kevin’s eyes shot open and Tracey screamed. A flash of silver, the glint of metal. A faceless head with only slits in the balaclava for eyes, the pupils dilated and the whites glowing menacingly in the dark. It was all over in an instant; no time to avoid the knife.
Kevin’s face registered shock and surprise before pain. Tracey screamed over and over again as the attacker vanished as quickly as he’d appeared, disappearing out of the alley and into the night.
Blood pumped from the wound in Kevin’s neck and spurted down Tracey’s front. He staggered back, groaning and clutching his neck. Shaking violently, with her legs barely able to support her, Tracey ran out of the alley and to the front of the club.
‘He’s been stabbed! Kev’s been stabbed!’ she shouted hysterically.
He staggered out behind her, both hands clamped to his neck impotently trying to stem the flow of blood, before collapsing onto the pavement in full view of those waiting in the queue, and the camera.
Derek gasped and stared in horror.
The queue quickly dispersed like ants; some fearing that they might be next ran away while others went to Kevin. Chelsea ran to her friend and screamed at the sight of all the blood. Some people were just staring at Kevin on the ground, not knowing what to do. One guy was phoning for an ambulance, another two were actually taking photographs on their phones. Finally, a girl who said she was a trainee nurse knelt beside Kevin and put pressure on the wound to stem the blood while they waited for the ambulance.
‘Jesus,’ Derek said, unable to take his eyes from the screen. ‘He needed to be taught a lesson, but not like that.’
There was then what seemed like an interminable wait before the ambulance and police arrived, but was only seven minutes according to the clock on Derek’s computer. The paramedics went to Kevin, one opening a medical bag while the other thanked the trainee nurse and took over the compression on the wound. As they worked to save Kevin’s life, the police moved the onlookers away from him, and then began asking them what they’d seen and heard of the incident. They all said similar: that they hadn’t seen it happen but the guy was a bouncer at the club and had been stabbed in the alleyway over there.
‘He went to have a piss,’ the guy who’d been at the head of the queue said. Then Tracey, her clothes stained with Kevin’s blood, came forward and told them what had really happened. When the young officer had finished taking their statements, Chelsea asked if the club would still open and if they could get in for nothing.
‘Jesus, have you no humility?’ Derek exclaimed aloud, appalled.
He watched carefully as the police cordoned off the alleyway, now a crime scene, and the paramedics continued to work on Kevin. Then, with an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, a drip attached to his arm, and a large dressing covering his neck wound, Kevin was lifted onto a stretcher and into the ambulance, apparently unconscious.
Derek watched the ambulance leave, its blue light bouncing off the buildings and then disappearing out of view. Another police car arrived and a plain-clothed man and a woman got out of the rear. Forensics, he guessed. They exchanged a few words with the officers and then donned their white protective paper Tyvek suits. A spotlight was set up so they could see and they disappeared down the alley while other police officers went inside to speak to the owner. But Derek had seen enough. Powering down the monitors, he feared the worst.
Chapter Seven
‘A bit of a naughty boy then, by all accounts,’ DC Beth Mayes said, reporting to her senior. ‘Literally caught with his trousers down.’