'Don't you have any decency in you?' spluttered the man. 'Don't you have parents or are they like you. Trash!'
The yob leader let the grin slowly fade from his face before he turned to the others and said, 'He's talkin' about my mum. Did you hear what he said about my mum?'
'Old bastard!'
'Give him one!'
'For God's sake stop it! Leave him alone!' pleaded the woman whose plight had prompted the outburst.
'Shut up! We're comin' to you darlin'!' said the yob leader without taking his eyes off the man who was his current target. 'Nobody talks like that about my mum, nobody… understand?'
The man was given no chance to say anything before the yob smashed his forehead down on the bridge of the man's nose and split it wide open. The man's spectacles shattered and blood showered down on to the seat in front of him as he collapsed with a gasp.
'For God's sake stop it!' screamed a woman at the front and others joined in demands to the driver.
The feeling that the passengers, who had up until now been an assortment of ineffectual individuals, were beginning to gel into a cohesive opposition began to tell on the yob leader. 'You heard what he said about my mum!' he appealed, obviously feeling that now he had been given a valid reason for behaving in the way he always did anyway. 'You heard him! Old bastard. Deserved all he got, he did.' The other yobs agreed but their support was subdued as they too felt the pressure of public opinion mount against them and looked at the sorry figure of the man holding his face while blood ran down his wrists to disappear into his cuffs.
The woman in the tight skirt slipped out of her seat and pressed the emergency door release button. The doors hissed back and she stepped out into the night and was quickly on her way.
The yobs were still uncertain of their position as they looked about them. The driver too was beginning to gain confidence; his fingers were considering a move towards the handset.
'Oh fuck them!' snarled the leader. 'Bunch of wankers! Let's get the fuck out of here!' The yobs poured out of the open door and ran off into the night. 'Let's get the tart!' was the last comment the bus passengers were to hear.
'For God's sake drive on!' demanded one of the passengers. 'Before they change their mind and come back!'
What a piece of luck, thought the man at the back. He had been restored to anonymity by the behaviour of a bunch of human trash, the sweepings of the municipal streets, the lager swilling bottom of the social heap. He got up from his seat and pressed the bell. The driver avoided meeting his eyes in the mirror and the man was pleased at being proved right. The driver would no longer remember anything about him. The incident with the rattling instruments would be forgotten. The driver would only have room in his head for one memory of this night, his run in with the yobs and how they had terrorised his passengers while he had sat there too scared to do anything.
As the man alighted, people were flocking round the injured passenger and discussing whether it was best to drive straight to the hospital or whether they should stop and wait for the police to arrive. The man heard the hospital option win as he stepped down on to the kerb to wait until the bus had moved off into the night before starting to walk backwards along the road to where the woman and the yobs had alighted.
It was only three hundred metres to the spot but when the man got there, all was quiet. He stood still for a moment and looked about him like an animal sniffing the night. It was a quiet area. The road was broad. Trees lined both sides and a wide grass verge on one side separated a housing estate from the road. On the other side, the side where he stood, there were railings between him and what he thought might be a park, although he didn't know the area at all. It was difficult to tell because of the dense shrubbery on the other side of the railings. It could be a bowling green, tennis courts or even a boating pond.
He imagined he heard a distant laugh and trained his ears in the direction he thought it had come from. There it was again. He was sure this time. It had come from the shrubbery another hundred metres or so down the road. The man looked about him and saw that he was still alone in the road. He walked on with deliberate slowness, taking great care not to make a sound. He moved towards the spot where the noise was coming from.
It was them! And they had the woman! They were enjoying the woman and he could hear them arguing in stage whispers over whose turn it was next.
'Keep your hand over her mouth!' hissed one.
'For Christ's sake hold her legs apart!' demanded another.
'Scared she'll snap it off?' giggled another in the darkness.
'For Christ's sake get on with it!'
Scum! thought the man. An ignorant rabble who deserved all they got from the bitch but tonight they would serve their purpose for him. Tomorrow the bus passengers would conveniently remember that the scum got had off behind the woman and that the last words of their leader had been, 'Let's get the tart.'
Time was getting on. The road would not stay quiet for ever.
The man moved another thirty metres along the pavement and hoisted himself over the railings. He dropped to his knees and paused for a moment before moving silently into the bushes. He circled around the area where he knew the yobs were located. When he was in the position he wanted to be in he called out sharply, 'Police! Come out of there!'
The air was suddenly full of curses and the sound of breaking twigs and branches as the yobs scattered through the undergrowth in panic. The man stood perfectly still until the sounds had faded into the distance, then he moved towards the sound of sobbing.
He found the woman lying on the ground supporting herself weakly on one elbow and weeping. The bottom half of her body was naked and the clothes on her top half were in tatters. 'Thank God,' she whispered weakly. 'Thank God you've come.'
The man looked down at her, earth in her hair and blood on her face where she had been beaten. He looked at her breasts hanging down on her stomach and the pathetic way she tried to cover her crotch weakly with one hand. The whore was still at work. He felt the hardness begin and was angry with himself.
'You will not trap me you whore!' he hissed, undoing his trousers and taking out his erect penis.
Fear filled the woman's eyes as her nightmare soared to new heights. For a moment her mind refused to believe what was happening then she opened her mouth to scream. The man lashed the back of his hand across her face and sent her sprawling before any sound got out. He masturbated furiously over her while staring down at the curves of her body and the smoothness of her thighs. He climaxed over her prostrate body and gasped, 'I don't need you… You bitch. You can't trap me!'
The woman whimpered and scratched at the earth as terror and shock threatened to deprive her of her reason. She did not see the man open his case and take out the rubber apron. She was oblivious to the glint of the surgical instruments as he laid them out on the plastic sheet.
The man finished with the woman. He had cut away the evil from another of these creatures. But there was more to do if the yobs were to get the blame. Complete disfigurement was called for. The knife cut and hacked its way down the corpse.
The man stepped back from the scene and took off the apron. He laid it on the ground and folded it inwards so that the blood was to the inside then he placed it inside a plastic bag and returned it to the briefcase. The instruments were wrapped and placed in another plastic bag. Gloves were placed in yet another and the case was closed.
Without looking back at the body, the man moved off through the shrubbery but only to freeze at the suggestion of a flashing light somewhere through the trees. He crouched down in the long grass near the railings and waited as the light grew brighter and nearer. It was blue.