Darkmans. Nicola Barker

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      Kane rolled his eyes. Kelly didn’t even notice. She was still looking around for the brown envelope, visibly alarmed by its absence. ‘I had a package. Some black girl gave it me. Cross my heart…’

      Kane reached out his foot and gently poked the crouching Italian with it. ‘Excuse me,’ he said sweetly. ‘May I interrupt you for a moment…?’

      The Italian turned, sharply (still crouching) and raised the flat of his hand. ‘No,’ he said (in his threadbare English), ‘get loss.’

      He wasn’t Italian. He had a heavy accent (mid-European, maybe an Arab, maybe Romanian). He was crazy-looking, like a sallow Frankie Dettori on some kind of growth hormone. Kane carefully reconsidered booting him for a second time. He was smallish, and thin, but the veins stood out on his fists like worm-casts.

      Kelly struggled to get up.

      ‘Oh bollocks,’ she was muttering, ‘I lost Beede’s package. I’m in so much fuckin’ shit…’

      ‘What the hell are you doing?!’ the Romanian bellowed (and in his indigenous tongue, so it was just a stream of crazy babble to the both of them), then, ‘You,’ he continued, more haltingly (giving Kelly a firm glare), ‘jus’ stay! Okay?’

      Kelly fell down again, shocked.

      ‘Wow.’ Kane took a small step back, as if the Romanian was a complex work of modernist art, best appreciated at a distance of several paces. ‘This guy’s a real gem, Kell. How on earth’d you hook up with him?’

      ‘I already told you,’ Kelly snapped, ‘I was waitin’ on Beede…’

      ‘Enough.’ Kane raised his hand in a gesture of weary compliance. ‘I give in. Do what you like. I’m knackered. My head’s totally mashed. Just shift out of my way, will you?’

      He touched his fingers to his pounding temples.

      The Romanian did not move. Kane tapped him on the shoulder. ‘I said just shift…’

      The Romanian sprang around. ‘What are you?’ he demanded. ‘Some kind of imbecile?’ Then, ‘You! Go!’ he insisted, flapping Kane away as if he were some kind of vile bluebottle.

      ‘Go where?’ Kane tapped his index finger against his own chest. ‘This is where I live, you moron. This is my home.’

      Kelly attempted to struggle up again.

      The Romanian turned – ‘Idiot girl!’ – and firmly pushed her back down.

      ‘Ow!’ she expostulated, plaintively, as her bony arse made contact with the stone step.

      At the sight of the Romanian manhandling Kelly, Kane completely lost it. He grabbed him by the shoulders – as if to spin him around again – but the Romanian was already moving smoothly of his own volition, and as he turned, his right fist turned with him. He punched Kane in the chest with it, then followed through with a hard left to his gut. They were powerful punches.

      Kane doubled over with an embarrassing squeak. He saw the Romanian starting to lift his knee, then hesitating, as if re-considering delivering him a swift kick to the groin area (although it was still very obvious – even to him – that if the Romanian had seriously wanted to finish him off, he probably already would’ve. Those were amazing punches for a man of his stature – he was 5' 5" at a push).

      Kane remained down for a few seconds (catching his breath, consolidating, thinking this all over), before his watering eyes finally settled on the steaming coffee Thermos (Ye Gods! A gift!), and, quick as a flash, he’d grabbed it, straightened up, and thrown the contents into the Romanian’s face.

      The Romanian screamed. Kelly screamed (she was splattered, and the Romanian staggered sideways, accidentally knocking into her). Kane dropped the Thermos and heard the glass break inside of it (he took an active – almost adolescent – pleasure in the sound of its fracturing).

      The Thermos had been open for some minutes and the coffee wasn’t exactly boiling, but it was hot enough. The Romanian was scalded, yet seemed far more concerned by the damage to his clothing. He was hopping mad.

      ‘This is my work shirt!’ he yelled, pulling the still-steaming fabric away from his hairy chest, gesticulating wildly. ‘You have ruined me!’

      Kane suddenly started laughing. It was a hoarse laugh (he was winded). He pointed, weakly, at the ruined shirt (it was hardly the most glamorous-looking garment he’d ever laid eyes upon). The Romanian, meanwhile, had noticed his damaged Thermos. He snatched it up from the paving, almost howling.

      ‘My Thermos!’ he wailed (his pronunciation of the brand-name was – even to Kane’s ears – rather endearing). ‘What have you done?’

      At this point a second man arrived; another entry-phone engineer, potentially the Romanian’s senior. He had Kelly’s two lurchers with him.

      ‘What’s going on?’ he asked the Romanian. The Romanian didn’t answer. Instead he took the Thermos – his knuckles white with fury – and threw it, violently, against the nearest windowpane. The window – it was a large, double-glazed one – chipped but did not shatter.

      Even so, the second entry-phone man was visibly alarmed by this display. ‘Gaffar,’ he gasped, ‘are you off your fuckin’ head?!’

      Gaffar stood his ground, his arms at his sides, breathing heavily (like the Invisible Hulk, transforming), his fists clenching and unclenching (‘the glass hasn’t shattered, dammit’ – his eyes were screaming – ‘so now I might be obliged to hospitalise somebody’). ‘That’s not even my window,’ Kane said, still chuckling, still limply pointing, like everything was a joke to him.

      The second engineer glanced down at Kelly. ‘You all right there, love?’

      Kelly nodded. Her eyes were closed now. She was resting her head against the door. Her face was very pale. One of the lurchers nuzzled her open hand. At its tender ministrations she emitted a gentle groan.

      In the midst of all his hilarity, it finally dawned on Kane that she might not actually be bullshitting him about the fall. Had she fallen? He peered down at her, properly. He blinked (it was almost as though he hadn’t seen her there before –

      Kelly?).

      His mirth evaporated. A shattered piece of shin-bone was poking out – like a discarded lolly stick – through the tight, smooth flesh just underneath her knee. The lower half of her leg was purpling and swollen to almost twice its normal proportions. Her trainer was off (lying on the ground nearby, next to her slightly mangled-looking Nokia). If her foot was a balloon, then it’d been pumped too full of air (looked like some kind of zeppelin sent up to advertise a discount shoe-store; or one of those themed lilos which kids loved to bob around upon, in the hotel pool, on holiday).

      It was gruesome. As a boy Kane suddenly remembered shoving a piece of driftwood into the heart of a beached-up, blue-white jelly-fish (to see if it was alive, to see how it would react). That was her leg – what it reminded him of –

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