Last chance

Craig drags himself out of the alleyway, pain etched on his face, a moan escaping his lips. With a great effort he pulls himself up and leans against a wall holding his stomach. His tears splash on the pavement.

“Jesus, mate, what happened? Are you okay?” Two men run up to him, and one puts an arm on his shoulder. Craig tries to speak, but they can’t understand him through the sobbing.

“Here, mate, sit here and calm down,” one says.
Craig slides slowly down the wall, trying to get the crying under control.

“These men,” he gulps, “they grabbed me and took me in there and beat me up!” The sobs return worse than ever.

“Who did this?” they ask.

“Three black guys,” Craig whispers. “They took my money. I can’t get home.”

One of the men mutters something that sounded like “black bastards” and then asks Craig where he lived.

“Tunbridge Wells,” he tells them, a bit calmer.

“I need to get the train but I ain’t got any money.”

The men are both getting their wallets out. “How much do you need?”

“Are you sure? It’s twenty-two pounds fifty.”

“Look, here’s thirty quid. Do you need any help getting to the station?”

“Oh thanks so much, no it’s okay, you’ve done so much already. Give me your address and I’ll get my dad to send you the money as soon as I get home.”

“Don’t worry about it, son, you just get yourself home.”

Thanking them once more, Craig gets gingerly to his feet and limps down the street. As he turns the corner, he glances round then picks up speed. He congratulates himself on the black guys comment. That was a spur of the moment improvisation but he’d judged it would help his cause with those two and it paid off. At Leicester Square he slips through the ticket barrier behind some tourists and runs down the escalator. On the tube, he counts his money. Almost a hundred quid. Not a bad day’s work.

Back in the flat he microwaves some ravioli and slumps onto the sofa. He reaches for the remote control.

“How does it taste?”

Craig jumps and the pasta in his mouth slips down the wrong way; he begins to choke. The old man strides across the room and slaps him hard on the back, almost knocking him to the floor. A piece of ravioli flies out and lands on the coffee table with a splat, like a blood-soaked leech. Craig gasps for breath as he looked up at the stranger.

“Who the hell are you?” he finally manages to get out.

“Don’t you worry about that,” says the old man. “I’ve been waiting for you and I just want to talk to you for a few minutes.”

Craig stands and faces up to the visitor, who is a few inches taller but slightly built. “Get out of my flat now and I won’t hurt you,” he hisses between gritted teeth.

The old man smiles at him like an indulgent grandfather to an impudent boy. “Just sit down, my boy and listen. And let’s be honest, it’s not exactly your flat, is it?”

Craig eyeballs him for a few seconds but the old man shows no signs of backing down so he sinks back onto the sofa.

“Alright, just say what you’ve got to say and then get out,”

The old man smiles again and settles back into the armchair. “Craig, lad, you’ve had a hard life at times, I know. But all these things you do. They’re not right.”

He pauses for a moment, but Craig doesn’t respond so the old man continues. “Conning innocent people, pickpocketing, fraud. Not to mention the way you got hold of this flat. Blackmailing poor George who is so afraid people will find out he’s a homosexual he would rather give up his home and live in a shabby bedsit while you swan around here. Every day I hope he will just tell everyone that he’s gay and then your power over him will be gone. Most people think he’s is anyway.

“You’re a bright lad in many ways, Craig, but you use your brain for all the wrong ends. But here’s your opportunity to start again. You can do it. Start living your life right, be honest, be kind. In short, go straight. You just need to want to do it.”

The old man stands up. “This an important moment and you need to think very seriously about it. I’ll give you a few minutes to come to a decision. I’m going to make a cup of tea. Would you like one?”

Craig lunges out of his seat and thrusts his knife up into the old man’s stomach. It disappears up to the hilt. Red oozes slowly out, treacly and sticky, like jam out of a doughnut. The man calmly wipes it off his shirt with a finger and pops it into his mouth. “No tea, then?” he comments and heads towards the kitchen. Before the door he pauses and speaks over his shoulder.

“Think very carefully. This is your last opportunity.”

He closes the kitchen door behind him. Craig runs to the front door but it won’t open, doesn’t even rattle in the frame, like it’s been welded shut. He tries the window with the same result. He bangs on the glass but the people outside don’t look up. Desperate, he grabs the heavy lamp from the sideboard and hurls it at the window but it rebounds at speed and strikes him in the face. He is lying on the floor when the man comes back, his tea steaming in an Abba mug.

“So, have you come to a decision?”

Craig squints up at him, his eye already swelling shut. He nods, the movement making his head throb.

“Excellent,” the old man says heartily. “Let’s make it all official and above board.”

He lays a piece of paper on the floor by Craig’s head and reads aloud. “I, the undersigned, hereby pledge to cease my nefarious ways and live a life of goodness and virtue from here on in. Woe betide me if I fail to do this.”

He hands Craig a pen and gestures at the contract. Craig grabs it sulkily out of his hand and holds it over the paper. He chooses from his arsenal of fake names and begins to write, but his hand refuses to obey and scribbles his true name. The old man whips the paper briskly away and folds it neatly away in his pocket.

“Shall we shake on it?” His handshake is surprisingly gentle, the skin smooth, like a waxwork hand. And then with a strange nod, he turns abruptly and walks away. Craig hears the front door open and shut before collapsing onto the sofa and falling into a deep sleep.

He awakes blinking in the light, stiff from sleeping awkwardly on the sofa. His mind flicks back to the previous night and the strange old man. Craig shudders as he recalls the feel of the unnatural hand on his skin.

But now as he stretches and yawns in the sunlight streaming through the window, the memory seems more like a dream. He feels foolish and berates himself for letting the old man get away with pushing him around.

In the bathroom he examines the mass of purple, blue and black round his eye and smiles into the mirror. That looks great, he thinks. Reckon I’ll get well over a hundred with that beauty.

He waits, watching people as they pass. He spots a likely looking man and readies himself.

Craig staggers out onto the street and falls to the pavement, rolling into the legs of passers-by who scatter around him. He writhes for a minute but no one comes near him. He cautiously opens his good eye to check but no one is even looking at him.

A massive pain suddenly rips through his body; as if he is being pulled apart. He doubles over and lets out an animal howl. He rolls desperately, trying in vain to escape the agony and drops into the gutter. Wrapping his arms around himself he screams for help, but no one comes. Somehow the pain grows even more and Craig blacks out.

The policeman feels for a pulse, then turns to his partner and shakes his head. He searches for identification but finds only a folded piece of A4 paper, signed at the bottom. Bemused, he reads aloud.

“To whoever finds me, please do not waste time looking for my killer. I did this to myself.”