At four in the morning Barbados Jones, a good-natured black man of Afro-Caribbean origin, got out of bed, got his flask ready, and left his small terraced house on Arnold Avenue in Birkby, Huddersfield. He walked down the street heading towards his place of work, a textile factory on Worsted Road. It was the only textile manufacturer left in a town that had once boasted scores of them. He turned a corner and gasped. There, right in front of him, on the gable-end of a house, was a shadow that looked to him to have been cast by a gigantic and terrifying beast.
His eyes followed the legs of the shadow to the base of the wall, then along the pavement to where the beast stood. It was then that he realised it wasn’t a terrifying beast at all; it was a domestic cat, albeit one that was rather larger than normal, and rather odd-looking. Its midsection resembled a circular saw. He exhaled and relaxed, and as he was fond of cats, he crouched down and rubbed his fingers together.
“Here, kitty kitty kitty,” he said.
The cat looked for a moment as if it was minded to ignore him, but then it padded over. He stroked its cheek and it began to purr. He ran his hand over its back, then stroked it under the chin. The cat’s spine was hard as titanium and serrated. The serrations were so sharp that they sliced through the skin on the palm of his hand without his even noticing.
The cat purred more loudly and sniffed Jones’s hand and began licking it.
“That tickles,” said Jones laughing, unaware that his hand was bleeding, and that the cat was licking the blood trickling from it.
Soon there was no blood left, but the cat was still hungry, so it opened its mouth wide and bit off a chunk of the flesh between Jones’s thumb and index finger.
It began chewing it enthusiastically.
“Aaargh!”
Jones held up his hand and looked at it.
“What the, what the..?” He gasped.
Before he could think how to end his question, a number of other cats appeared: Goliath, Stump, Oscar, Tiddles, Sally, Becky and Florence.
Jones looked at them as they advanced. They reminded him of a pride of lions. He retreated, the realisation coming to him that they were hunting for food,, and that he was the closest thing to a square meal that they could see.
The next thing he knew was blinding pain. Henderson pounced first and the other cats followed, sinking their claws and teeth into his arms and legs and torso.
Soon all that was left of Barbados Jones was an indistinct bloodstain on the pavement outside number 51, Bleardale Avenue, Birkby, Huddersfield.
CHAPTER 21
Adrian Broadbent had begun his career in the 1970s as an apprentice TV engineer working for Acme TV Repairs and Rentals (Huddersfield) limited. Colour televisions had swept the nation shortly after he’d been taken on, and the new technology had provided him with an ample supply of work.
He’d shown initiative and had risen to a managerial position with Acme by the end of the eighties.
By the end of the nineties he was running the company. The owner who’d set it up was still there, but he had become little more than a figurehead; it was Adrian who pulled all the strings.
Adrian had done equally well in his personal life. He’d been a good-looking young man, and likeable with it, which meant that he’d been a hit with the many women he met through his extensive social network. He seemed to know all the right things to say to put women at ease, and a good proportion of those he met wanted more from Adrian than small talk.
So he sowed his wild oats, as he described it in the terminology of the time, and at the age of thirty-five, after he felt he’d sown enough of them, he at last married an attractive, intelligent woman who was ten years his junior, and settled down to a conventional life in Stonker, a posh suburb of Huddersfield at the top of Stonker Edge.
Mr. and Mrs. Adrian Broadbent had been an instant hit on the newly-built housing estate where they’d bought their expensive home. Adrian could tell a tale, and was something of a man’s man, in spite of his way with the ladies; and his wife Sandra was bubbly and effervescent, with the result that they were constantly being invited to the dinner parties that were all the rage in those times.
On Saturday afternoons, Adrian would meet a group of his mates in a pub called the Slubber’s Arms, and after a couple of pints they’d go to the football ground to watch Huddersfield Town lose, and they’d bemoan the result, and all happily go home to their wives, most of whom had been glad to see the back of them for an hour or two; but not Adrian’s wife. She always missed him when he was out of the house, and she was always pleased to see him when he returned.
The couple lived near to the Stonker Edge golf club, which was cheek-by-jowl with Stonker Edge Farm. Adrian fell in with a group of people who played golf, and they encouraged him to take up the game, which he did. He persuaded Sandra to try it, and the couple began playing golf together on Sunday mornings.
The couple’s happy existence continued, with the dinner parties and golf being briefly put on hold after the birth of their twin girls. Once the twins were old enough to be left at home with a babysitter, the social life of the Broadbents continued as before.
In the 90’s Adrian was able to expand the company and improve his income. He and his wife had bought a house on a large plot, and they had an extension built which gave them two spare bedrooms and a garage big enough to accommodate all five of their cars, plus a home movie theatre. Their movie theatre became a popular feature on the Stonker party scene.
Everyone who met the couple could see that they were happy together, and that they were living the dream.
And they would have been, had Adrian not been harbouring a terrible secret.
It was a secret he dared not share with anyone, particularly his wife, until a certain day dawned.
That was the day that he got to know Paul Formby properly.
Paul Formby was a young apprentice that Adrian had set on at Acme TV Repairs and Rentals (Huddersfield) limited, just as he himself had been set on as an apprentice some twenty-five years previously.
Paul was the opposite of Adrian in many ways: he was a good-looking young man, but shy and reserved, perhaps because he spoke with a lisp. Unlike Adrian, he didn’t play the game of being the man’s man. He went quietly about his work then stole off home at the end of the day, back to the small terraced house where he lived with his mother.
Adrian often worked late, and sometimes his young apprentice did, too, and Adrian found himself enjoying the times they were alone, discussing their interests after everyone else had left. After a particularly late shift one day, Adrian suggested to Paul that they should go for a pint together. He was delighted when Paul agreed, and also a little guilty, as he suspected that, deep down, he had motives that went beyond mere friendship, but he told himself it was just an innocent drink between mates, or employer and employee, and he’d taken other members of his staff out for the odd beer before, so why not Paul? Anyway, they’d enjoyed a drink together and Paul had gone home, and that was all there was to it. Or so he’d told himself.
But something happened during their meeting that he’d feared for many years. He felt himself getting on so well with Paul that he let his secret slip.
Immediately he’d done so, he regretted it.
That one tiny and almost innocent indulgence with Paul could cause his wife a great deal of misery, if it ever got out.
No more meetings after work with Paul, he told himself.
But he couldn’t stick to it, and nor could Paul. And indeed, it soon became apparent that Paul was cut from similar cloth to Adrian.
CHAPTER 22