Out of the Darkness (eBook)

2

Live by the Sword

“Tony, they’re going to kill him! Get here!” screamed the voice down the phone, in desperation. It was a girl I knew.

“Who?” I asked. “Who are they going to kill?”

I could hear her crying and shouting, “KEV!”

She left the phone off the hook in her panic, and screams mixed with guttural groans howled down the receiver. She lived in Newtongrange, roughly four miles from where I was staying. I had no transport and no way of getting there. Filled with rage, I bolted out the front door, running into the night.

I hadn’t even run a hundred yards when I noticed my brother’s mate, Knoxy. His face was lit up by the light from his phone as he’d stopped his car to send a text message. I jumped into his front seat and demanded, “Get me to Nitten [Newtongrange] now!”

“What?”

“Move to Nitten!” I barked.

I was not in the mood for a refusal, and Knoxy understood it. He sped off, shock and concern etched into his already puzzled face.

I directed him to the girl’s house and, as we arrived, I could see guys crossing backward and forward in the middle of the street. Kev and his mate Tam had been to a party and some of the local lads had turned on them. Eight lads were laying into the two of them, with delight. The car hadn’t even stopped before I jumped out, took my belt off, and started running toward them.

“LET’S DO IT!” I shouted down the street.

The two who were nearest to me responded and began moving toward me. The others hadn’t even noticed; they were too focused on kicking the face off Kev. I brought the heavy belt buckle across the first guy’s face, and it broke immediately.

Meanwhile, Knoxy phoned my twin, Michael. “Your brother’s a lunatic. He’s just jumped into a gang of lads in Nitten, and there are loads of them.”

“Is he getting done in?” asked Michael.

“No, well, eh, he’s doing them and they’re doing him.”

“What does that mean?”

I had started fighting with the other lad, and it wasn’t long before the rest of the gang noticed me. I was driven back to a fence by several of them but, as they tried to keep me pinned against it, I managed to wriggle my arms free and land several sickening blows. Shocked and surprised at this single-handed offensive, they continued to come at me. It was exhausting trying to keep myself up against the fence, although their punches were pathetically weak. Each lad gradually became more and more discouraged, through a mixture of tiredness and pain, as my punches rained onto their faces. After a while, they began to focus less on hitting me and more on keeping me held back. Like thieving poachers who had stepped on the spring of their own trap, they were now unable to go forward or backward without it snapping shut. They were stuck. Frothing at the mouth and panting heavily from a combination of fatigue and alcohol-induced dehydration, they were growing weaker and weaker.

Suddenly Kev, drunk and out of his face on drugs, jumped up from the pavement he had been lying on and ran at us. No punches, no kicks: he just ran. He was battered and cut, and unable to see through his swollen eyes – so he just went for everyone. His technique resembled more of a drunken stage dive than a combative manoeuvre, but he managed to knock the guys, himself, and me to the pavement. We all collapsed into an exhausted heap, with barely enough strength to get up and move off. The lads slowly dispersed, wheezing and coughing as they backed away down the street. However, one lad – not part of the original gang – strode menacingly toward me.

I jumped up and hit him square in the face with a crunching one-two!

Still he came forward.

I unleashed a five-punch combination – straight one-two-three-four left hook!

Still he kept coming.

I moved back and threw the best hook I had, followed by a brutal combination to his body and then his head.

Still he came forward!

I had nothing left.

My arms fell to my side as we walked into each other and began grappling, each trying to throw the other down. By now my body was utterly exhausted. I wanted to vomit. As we continued to wrestle, his head landed on my shoulder and so, with the last ounce of energy I had, I turned my neck and sank my teeth into his ear. I bit down hard into the tissue, then further again, and with a slight chew-jerk, ripped a chunk off his ear. He never moaned and never made a sound; we just moved slowly away from each other. The fight was over. I spat the bloody tatter of his ear to the grass and went home.

At the age of sixteen, I moved out of my parents’ home and got a flat in Mayfield, Midlothian. I had grown tired of having to give account to my parents, and they were sick of my lifestyle. Every time Mum heard the whirr of the washing machine in the middle of the night, she wondered whose blood was being washed from my clothes. During the day I wore the cloak of an apprentice plumber, but by night I was involved in raids on shops, car thefts, drug deals, and credit card fraud. All of this was galvanized and reinforced by violence. My reputation for brutality had spread across the city like fire on a moor, and soon I was involved in a crime syndicate that spanned the entire city of Edinburgh. From Broomhouse to Niddrie, from the Inch to Royston, my mates and I were deeply committed to each other and to our one pursuit – making money.

At weekends we’d pick the horse racetrack we wanted to go to and call the ticket section. In my best Irish accent I would reserve “Owners and Trainers” badges using the name of an Irish millionaire and renowned racehorse owner. Then, wearing our tweed suits, we would demand our tickets like obnoxious folk from a rich retinue. With our false badges, people thought we owned or trained horses. It provided the perfect smokescreen for our fraud. Nobody batted an eyelid as we signed cheques for expensive paintings and clothing at stalls at the side of the track. Then, using £50 cheque guarantee cards, we’d make bets, always under £50, thus ensuring the cards would always clear. We placed so many bets that money was always made. We would even place bets on horses we knew to be non-runners, and then we would simply receive the cash back when we handed receipts in and state, “It never ran.” It was bulletproof – they were giving us cash back for money that didn’t exist. The track was a sweet swirl of champagne, laughter, and, as always, a welcome distraction.

Things didn’t always go well. Many times I was caught off-guard leaving a pub or entering a house party. Often scenes erupted in the most unexpected ways, such as when I was at a house party in rough housing estate. A guy with a machete rang the doorbell to complain, “The music’s too loud.” I had maniacs try to stab, slash, run me over, set me up: you name it. This created a pervasive paranoia and made me suspicious of everyone.

So it was, one evening as I was leaving a pub on the edge of Edinburgh with several of my mates, a group of guys jumped out of a van and came after us with baseball bats. I stood my ground and smacked a lad to the pavement, but he clung to my legs and wouldn’t let go. He held my feet together and kept me trapped. No amount of punches or eye gouges would make him release me. And through his immutable smirk he just kept repeating, “You’re getting mangled when they get back. You’re getting mashed.”

He was referring to his mates with the baseball bats who were currently preoccupied with chasing my pals down the road, but they would soon return. Sure enough, in no time they were back. I watched as they came walking up the street, swinging their bats casually as they caught their breath. Catching sight of my predicament, they released ragged laughs and manic shouts of sheer delight. Seeing that they were nearly with us, I made one last attempt to free myself – I failed. In full anticipation of the brutality of the coming onslaught, I gripped my hands tightly round a nearby fence.

Then it started. Blow after blow rained down on the back of my head, causing my vision to blur. I brought one hand up to shield myself, tucking my head between my arm and shoulder and hunching my back up to cover as much of my head as possible. Those wielding the bats pummelled every inch of me, and it took all of my resolve not to uncover my head and instinctively place my hand where the pain was coming from. The aluminium bats made a distinctive “ping” when they missed and smacked the metal part of the fence that I was clinging to. The wooden bats, no matter what they hit – muscle, bone, flesh, or fence – made a thud like the sound of a body hitting the floor. Still I managed to keep myself up by holding on to the wire on the fence. Seeing this, they turned their attention to the hand I was desperately clinging on with. Like golfers teeing off, they took turns, smashing my hand with perfect accuracy until I could hold on no longer. I was still fully conscious when they threw me onto the middle of the road, smashing my skull and body with blow after blow. I curled up into a ball, expecting that I would wake up with a broken back or left permanently brain damaged like others I knew.

At that moment, the girl I was dating – Kim – came out of a nearby pub. She saw the attack taking place and, recognizing me as the...