44

Pete came at me as if he were in a sprint, fists as high as his temples on either side of his head and eyes glaring at me. I felt the crowd behind me move back, such was his aspect. I ran towards him, two steps to give me momentum to launch myself into a flying kick. My left foot hit his chest and my right leg straightened to smash the sole of my boot into his face. We both went down and I rolled clear and onto my feet. Pete staggered to his feet as silence hit the crowd. This wasn’t expected. Then my supporters exploded into a wall of sound. I could see the blood streaming from his smashed nose and split lips. There was a heel mark on his left cheek and that eye was closing. I was so keyed up I could have seen a pimple on his ear. Pete was made of stern stuff and was moving as I attacked with a stabbing kick to the side of his right knee. He was damaged and from his left side I threw a left hook that found his left eye as the target.

With terrific speed and the whole weight of his shoulder behind the blow, he whipped his right fist into my solar plexus. I was moving backwards so that reduced the impact but not enough. I felt my knees go and the pain racked through my body. More than pain – agony. I couldn’t breathe and my body wanted to just stop and lie down, but my head wouldn’t let it. I was fighting for my life here. I was on my feet and went to my right, desperately trying to breathe as instinct pushed me to avoid the right upper-cut that just touched the very tip of my nose. Contact would have finished me for good.

Frantically, I buried my left fist into his left eye and back-pedalled like mad to gain a picture of the situation and get my breath back. This was no fight; this was a battle. Blood streamed into his eye so he didn’t have much sight to his left and he was limping like he was crippled. His right eye glared at me through the bloody mask of his smashed face.

I moved to his left and around him so that he was turning to see me. I delivered a sidekick so the sole of my right boot slammed into the side of his undamaged left knee. He went down on his knees and I delivered a roundhouse kick so the toe of my boot hit the base of his skull. I thought that would be it, but it just seemed to enrage him. He staggered to his feet, lowered his head and charged me. I got my avoidance wrong and his head slammed into the left side of my ribs as I tried to twist away. I was sure they were broken but Pete Costello was on his hands and knees. I was behind him and I took a penalty kick aimed at his crotch. It was a goal. He let out a yelp and clutched himself as he writhed on the ground. I kicked him twice more in the body before a pair of strong arms grabbed me from behind and a voice said, ‘Enough, Jake.’ It was Harry and I collapsed. I think I was crying with pain and exhaustion.

The announcement was made as fifty-two seconds and I was the winner. I didn’t feel like a winner. I felt that I had been run over by a steamroller.

Doc was working on Pete and shouting for an ambulance. He was thumping Pete’s chest to get his heart going. He stopped and gave artificial respiration by holding Pete’s nose and blowing into his mouth. Somebody then arrived with a stretcher and I was put on it and taken at what seemed to be a trot to the sick bay. I can remember Nurse Carstairs passing me, heading for the ring with an oxygen cylinder and an assistant with the portable defibrillator. This was serious then.

I came to my senses in hospital. It was morning. Senior Prison Officer James was there and a uniformed policeman.

‘Okay, Jake?’ she said.

‘How’s Pete?’

‘He’s okay, Jake. He’s resting at the moment, having been bandaged up, but they’ll have to operate on his right knee and do some repairs to his face. He’ll live though, but it’s probably good we don’t have conjugal visits because I don’t think he could function.’ It was only then I remembered scoring a goal.

A man in plain clothes came into view. ‘I’m Detective Constable Carstairs,’ he said waving a card at me that I couldn’t read. ‘Tell me what happened.’

‘Oh, we were just sparring, trying out stuff and as you can see, it worked.’

He stopped making the notes. ‘Sparring you say?’

‘Yes, sparring.’

‘A bit violent for sparring wasn’t it?’

‘Well, if you’re going to learn anything you best do it for real, Detective Constable Carstairs. Are you related to Nurse Carstairs?’

‘Yes, she’s my –’

‘Enough, DC Carstairs. Let’s wait until tomorrow when we can talk to both of them.’

‘Yes, Sergeant.’

I didn’t see the speaker but he was a smart cop, saving time on something that he sussed was going nowhere. I was pleased that Pete was okay; well, as okay as could be expected. If he had had a coach like mine it would have been a very different story and probably I wouldn’t have been able to write it.

I never did find out the relationship of the detective constable to Nurse Carstairs. That afternoon I was transferred back to prison and put in the sick bay.

After lockdown that night, there was a commotion. We knew immediately that somebody had died; it was that sort of commotion. Harry was looking out of the window and I knew he was the root cause of the commotion.

‘Peter Jackson, Harry?’ I asked.

‘I think it might be, Captain. He made a phone call today.’

‘Will you be in any trouble?’

‘No, I shouldn’t think so. I received a call to tell him to make a call to his brief.’

‘Petal’s weapon? Peter said she was deadlier than the male.’

‘Oh, she is. I think she was some form of reptile in a previous life and brought all her venom with her.’

‘Want to talk, Harry?’

‘No, not really, Captain. When it is my time to go I’ll ask Petal to fix it. Go to sleep and then it’s all over.’

‘It’s after lockdown; how would the screws know if it’s that quiet?’

‘Simple. The phone call must have told him there was no reprieve. He took the stuff and set an alarm. The alarm would keep going until the screws opened his cell to turn it off and they would find him dead.’

‘How you feeling, Harry?’

‘Bloody awful, Jake. I had an obligation to meet and I met it but I really can’t feel any upside to that.’

‘So you are free and clear.’

‘Yes, Captain. Free of all obligations now apart from keeping you alive.’

‘Thank you in advance for that, Sergeant.’ We had moved through the emotional support to the reality of our jobs.

‘What will happen now?’

‘Bennie Copland will take over as the top man. We will ensure a smooth transition. Well, I’ll ask you to get Arty and Big Fred to nursemaid Bennie and you can be an advisor to him. That’s what Peter Jackson wanted as you won’t be around long enough to do the job. Peter was really surprised you were undercover; he wanted you as his successor, but he had doubts about you surviving the fight.’

‘Wow, thanks for that, Harry.’

‘I knew you would survive, Captain.’ There was something in the way he said that but I wasn’t going to ask. Was it in what he had just said? ‘Free of all obligations now apart from keeping you alive.’