I'm a lot fitter than I used to be, but I'd taken something of a beating that morning and my head was still banging away, so when I came at my opponent and hit him across the shoulderblades with the bat I'd liberated, I don't think I did anything like the same damage I'd done to his friends with the CS gel, even though I had a clean shot.
The Scotsman lost his footing, but righted himself quickly and proceeded to kick the dog very hard in the throat. This time, the connection was far better and Tex went over on his back. Ignoring me, he made the most of his advantage and landed a sickening blow with the bat on the animal's head and I knew that this was the end of Tex's resistance.
'My dog! What the hell are you doing to my dog?'
Tex's owner stood by the track, ten yards away, his hair and clothes wet from walking through the undergrowth, the shock on his face as all-consuming as that of any crime victim I'd seen. He was a big man, a couple of stone overweight, and on the wrong side of middle age. He had the look of the long-term office worker about him, and I knew he wasn't going to be able to offer much in the way of assistance, bar calling for help, which was the last thing I needed. He also looked like he was about to break down and cry. His eyes were watery behind the thick-rimmed glasses.
'Get ta fuck, old man!' snapped the Scotsman, already turning back to me with the air of someone keen to complete unfinished business.
Which was when I summoned the last of what strength I had, leaned back with the bat as if ready to hit my own home run, and smacked him round the side of the head.
It still wasn't the best of blows, but at least I managed to daze him. He fell to one knee, clutching his head with one hand, but still holding on to his weapon with the other.
I went to whack him again, but out of the corner of my eye I saw the first guy I'd sprayed getting to his feet, his eyes now uncovered. He was pretty stocky as well, with the scar giving him the sort of face that you could imagine appearing on the cover of a book about pub brawls. He didn't look very happy either.
He turned in my direction and took a step forward, starting to say something less than complimentary, so I threw the bat straight at him and scored a direct hit right between the eyes.
'You fucker!' he yelped, stumbling backwards into a pothole on the track and losing his footing.
At that moment, Tex's owner howled an obscenity of his own and charged down the Scotsman like an ageing buffalo, grabbing him in an all-enveloping bear-hug that appeared highly effective. 'You're not getting away with this!' I heard him shout as he wrestled with the other man, using his ample weight in an attempt to smother him. He was crying too – loud, violent sobs – and I suddenly felt very sorry for him.
But this wasn't the moment for expressing sympathy. It was time for me to make a move, since this was a battle I was never going to win. Shouting to the owner to get out of here himself before the others recovered, and adding the immortal lines, 'It's too late for the dog! Save yourself!' I ran over to the four-wheel drive, slamming the boot shut. I hoped that the assault I'd launched from it a few minutes earlier had surprised the driver enough that he'd left the keys in the ignition.
He had.
I jumped inside and started the engine, slamming it into first and accelerating away. In the rear-view mirror, I saw that Tex's owner still had the upper hand, but that Scarface had now recovered and was going over to assist his mate. He also had the bat I'd chucked at him in his hand. Tex meanwhile lay motionless in the middle of the track, in the same position he'd fallen in.
I cursed. It wasn't my problem. The owner should have run while he'd had the chance. Why take on men like that, however upset you are? In the end, you've got to be pragmatic. Retreat when the odds are against you. But the guy was still an innocent who'd done nothing wrong, and if I left him there God knows what would happen. I was a copper for a long time – getting close to twenty years – and even if for a lot of that time I hadn't been a particularly nice one, I still didn't like to see an obvious injustice being committed when there was something I could do about it. I felt sick and I felt exhausted, but it didn't stop me from looking for a space to turn round.
I'd driven about a hundred yards when there was a break in the trees to my left. I changed down to second, swung the wheel and mounted the bank before reversing straight back into a tree on the other side of the track. Turning the wheel as far as it would go, I just managed to manoeuvre the vehicle round, and then I was heading back in the direction of the fight. I'd been gone no more than twenty seconds.
I was in third gear and coming fast when I rounded the corner and saw Scarface standing in the middle of the track, bat above his head, ready to strike. Beneath him, the Scotsman was now sitting astride the dog-owner, pummelling him with his fists. The dog-owner's arms were in front of his face as he tried to protect himself, and his feet were only inches from the prone dog's head.
Scarface looked up when he heard the engine and he blinked rapidly as his reddened eyes tried to focus. He shouldn't have bothered. If he'd had any sense he'd have used the time to get out of the way. Instead, for me it was third time lucky. First the CS gel; then the bat; now the car, which put bluntly was more like a tank.
I hit him head-on and he flew over the bonnet and banged against the windscreen with a satisfying thud. He seemed to hold that position for a second, and then I slammed on the brakes and he rolled off the front, leaving a dirty stain of blood on the glass. I didn't bother flicking on the wipers. Instead, I flung open the driver's side door so that it was fully extended, and shoved the car into reverse.
The Scotsman was just getting off his victim to make a break for it. However, he'd also taken a bit of a beating so wasn't as quick as he should have been, and was only three quarters upright when the edge of the door struck him full in the face. The momentum sent him crashing over backwards with a pained yelp not unlike the one Tex had made when he'd been hit. I turned the wheel slightly, only just managing to avoid hitting the dog-owner's feet, before coming to a halt again.
It was a pretty grim scene. Scarface lay slumped on his side, about ten yards up the track from Tex. Moustache was still writhing on the floor with his hands over his eyes. The Scotsman was on his back, arms outstretched, a huge gash running vertically down his face. He was conscious, but no danger to anyone. And the dog-owner, his face bloodied too, was sitting upright, his glasses broken, looking across in shock at his dog's body.
Still, I thought, putting the car back into first, it could have been worse. He might be traumatized now, but one day he'd tell this story to his grandchildren. And embellish it too, no doubt.
Without warning, my vision blurred again as I experienced a sudden wave of nausea, and I had to swallow hard to stop myself from vomiting. It took some seconds for the nausea to pass and the blurring to clear. Then, keeping my head low so he wouldn't get a decent description of me, I touched the accelerator and moved away, trying not to hit Tex but not bothering to avoid Scarface, who I drove straight over. His mug would fit even better on the cover of a book about pub brawls now.
Harsh, perhaps, but when you make your living breaking the heads of people you don't know, you shouldn't expect a rash of Get Well Soon cards.
11
The place where they'd taken me was an isolated wood just off the M25 near Hemel Hempstead, and the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that this was where they'd planned to kill me and dump my corpse. My opinion was bolstered by the discovery of a brand-new loaded.45 revolver in the 4x4's glove compartment, which presumably was intended to finish me off, once they'd beaten the shit out of me. I'd been lucky that Tex and his owner had shown up, but the fact remained that Les Pope evidently wanted me out of the way very badly indeed, and was prepared to go to some extreme lengths to make sure he succeeded.