Read on for an exclusive extract from ‘Villain’ by Caro Savage.
Villain
Caro Savage
1
It was an exceptionally cold winter’s evening in Chiswick in West London. Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. Colder than the hinges of hell. Colder than a witch’s tit. Colder than a bucket of snowman’s piss. Colder than…
The homeless man lying in the doorway tried to recall yet some further expression for the cold weather. He was playing this little game in an attempt to distract himself from the icy chill that was biting through to the very marrow of his bones.
Shivering, he huddled deeper into his sleeping bag, which he had additionally cocooned with sheets of newspaper and bits of cardboard boxes. With his fingerless mittens, he reached for the small bottle of cheap brandy he’d purchased earlier that day from a nearby off-licence. He held it up to the light and examined it with a glum expression on his face. Empty.
Illuminated Christmas decorations hung from the lamp posts all along the affluent street in which he’d chosen to bunk down on this particular evening, their glittering lights projecting a wholly illusory warmth. He didn’t know the exact date, but he knew Christmas wasn’t far off, although it was kind of hard to get into the festive spirit when you were homeless.
If anyone had asked his name, if anyone had cared, he would have told them it was Dave Boakes. He came from Bristol originally but had ended up here on the streets of London by dint of a long chain of unfortunate occurrences the nature of which he didn’t like to dwell on too much.
These days, Dave just concentrated on getting through life day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, and not for the first time he wished he owned a watch so that he could mark each of those seconds passing by. The only problem was that time seemed to pass so much more slowly when you were cold.
Dave had positioned himself strategically near the entrance to an expensive restaurant in the hope that the passing patrons would feel sorry for him and give him some money. In front of him was a metal mug in which he’d placed a few coins in order to stimulate people’s generosity, but he hadn’t had much luck so far this evening.
He looked over at the restaurant. What he wouldn’t give to be in there right now, sitting in the warm, tucking into a nice juicy steak accompanied by a big glass of red wine. He felt his mouth begin to water.
He blinked the fantasy away. No point in tormenting oneself. He turned his head away from the restaurant and as he did so a movement caught his eye a little way down the road. Squinting, he tried to make out what it was.
At first, in the dimness of the shadows, everything was indistinct, but then he saw it again, a twitch of motion there, low down, by the back of a smart-looking S-Type Jaguar, one of several very nice cars parked along this road. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was a figure clad in black kneeling down doing… something.
Intrigued, Dave squinted harder, but it was difficult to make out details for the figure was operating just beyond the pool of light cast by the nearest street lamp, and they were wearing some kind of hat pulled down low over their face which obscured their features. However, some instinct told him that whoever they were and whatever they were doing, they were up to no good. So he stayed completely still as he watched, figuring it was probably in his best interests not to draw too much attention to his presence. At times like this the relative invisibility of being a homeless man conferred a distinct advantage.
After a short while, the figure stood up, fluidly detached itself from the car and melted away into the shadows.
Dave blinked and looked again but it had vanished completely, like some spectral presence that had never really been there in the first place. Much as he’d recently polished off a bottle of brandy, he was pretty certain he hadn’t been imagining what he’d just seen.
At that point, the door of the restaurant swung open, letting out a gust of noise which made him turn his head sharply, all thoughts of the mysterious figure dropping from his mind. He saw that a couple had emerged into the chilly night and it looked like they were heading in his direction. A bolt of anticipation shot through him. Here was his opportunity, the chance to earn some money.
The man ambled along in a self-assured swagger, his black leather jacket flapping open despite the freezing weather. The woman was wrapped in a figure-hugging fur coat, below which a pair of slender long legs ended in towering stiletto heels. The woman, in particular, looked quite glamorous, like some kind of model or actress, and both of them looked considerably well-off.
The couple were laughing, the man saying something indiscernible in a low rumble, the woman tittering in response, their puffs of breath frosting in the night air. It sounded like they were tipsy, bathing in the high of a good evening.
They were drawing closer, the woman’s heels clacking sharply on the pavement as she tottered along a little unsteadily, her arm hooked into the man’s elbow, their conversation becoming more clearly audible the nearer they got.
‘Now remember you promised me,’ the man was saying in a rough, gravelly voice.
‘When we get back to the car,’ the woman replied, with a coy twinkle in her eye.
‘I’ve been waiting for it all evening,’ he said with a leering grin. ‘And I can’t wait any longer.’
‘You won’t be disappointed,’ she purred seductively.
Dave readied himself for their imminent approach. They were only a few metres away now. He projected the appropriate air of two parts dejected to one part cheerful and one part humble, a recipe he’d spent some time refining.
‘Spare some change?’ he said as they passed, making sure not to sound too whiny.
The man stopped abruptly, pulling the woman to a halt beside him. He peered down at Dave, the smile dropping off his face. Up close, Dave absorbed his appearance – a large diamond stud in his left ear, his loud shirt open at the collar revealing a heavy gold chain around his neck, a chunky, expensive-looking watch on his left wrist and one of those rings with a gold sovereign in it on the little finger of his right hand. He certainly didn’t look short of cash, that was for sure. And he appeared to be coked up, if the wide twitching eyes and the clenching jaw were anything to go by.
Dave suddenly felt uneasy. Just beneath the surface, he could detect the whiff of violence, as if this was the kind of bloke who thought nothing of doling out a beating to anyone who looked at him the wrong way. Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut. He wondered if the man was going to assault him. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had done so. He felt a faint quake of fear. He gulped and braced himself for a possible kicking.
‘Taters, innit?’ growled the man.
Dave had no idea what the man was talking about. He could have been talking Mongolian for all Dave knew.
The man tutted and shook his head in mock scorn at Dave’s ignorance.
‘Taters-in-the-mould,’ he said slowly, enunciating each word.
Now Dave understood.
It was Cockney rhyming slang.
Potatoes in the mould. Cold.
It was a London thing. It also meant the bloke wasn’t posh. Even if he was well-off.
Dave nodded slowly, mentally adding it to his list of idioms. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It’s bloody cold.’
The man eyed him for a few moments, then fished inside his leather jacket and pulled out a diamond-encrusted gold money clip containing a fat wad of notes. Dave eyed it hungrily and licked his lips.
The man ostentatiously plucked out a note. It was red in colour.
Surely not…
Dave swallowed and wondered if he was seeing things. His heart began to beat a little harder.
The man bent down and dropped the note in Dave’s metal cup, alongside the ten- and twenty-pence pieces. ‘Merry Christmas,’ he said.
Dave stared at it, speechless. It was indeed a fifty-pound note. He picked it up. It was real. Crisp and firm. He wasn’t dreaming. Rarely, if ever, did he get to handle one of these. It was miracle enough when he got given a fiver but this was something else. Merry Christmas indeed.
He looked up, stunned with gratitude, but the couple were now walking away, sauntering across the street. He hadn’t even had the opportunity to say thank you.
He looked back down at the note. What sort of person carried around that kind of cash? The bloke must be properly loaded to give away fifty quid just like that.
Fifty quid. His mind swam with the possibilities. This was a game changer. Now he could pay for a warm bed to sleep in tonight. Or he could buy something decent to drink at last. Maybe a nice whisky like Talisker or Highland Park. Or get himself a big slap-up meal. Hell, he could even go into that restaurant right now and order a big juicy steak.
Fingering the note lovingly, he looked up in teary-eyed gratitude at the couple. They were now immersed once more in conversation. Dave suddenly glanced around vigilantly. Best put the money out of sight before some street person or mugger noticed it and tried to take it from him. He quickly tucked the note inside his grubby coat.
Regarding the couple again, he saw that they had now crossed the road and had come to a halt by a parked car about a hundred metres away. It was an S-Type Jaguar. The classiest one out of all the cars parked there.
At that point, a recollection tugged at Dave’s memory. Something about that particular car, that S-Type Jaguar… But then it passed. What with the cold and the residual alcohol in his system, the neurons in his head were moving too sluggishly to be able to do their job properly.
The couple got into the car. The doors slammed shut.
BANG.
The S-Type Jaguar exploded in a huge fireball.
Dave felt a wave of heat scorch his face.
He blinked in shock as pieces of twisted burning wreckage crashed down on the pavement around him. A lump of smoking flesh landed, plop, right in front of him. It was a human arm attached to a piece of torso. Still fastened to the wrist of the severed body part was the big pricey-looking watch he’d noticed the man wearing just moments earlier.
Dave looked on in horror, his ears ringing in the aftermath of the blast.
At least it wasn’t so cold any more. Quite the opposite.
We hope you enjoyed this extract. To read more, purchase the full novel here: https://amzn.to/2V9uUKH