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“Is this fella giving you hassle, Mr Yate?” the monster asked in a deep, near unintelligible drawl that could only have come from the Welsh Valleys.
The other’s grin stretched almost ear to ear, making him look all the more like a primate. “Would you like us to escort him out for you sir?” No doubt there, a fucking Scouser! No wonder he looks like a monkey.
Yate was out of his chair and pointing frantically at Jake. “That… that recorder. It’s mine. I want it. Stop him!”
Yate, you really are a stupid, fat bastard. Jake shot the older man a cold, narrow-eyed look as he twisted, trying to keep both minders in view.
The Welshman stepped forward, hand outstretched. “I’m gonna have to take that from you.”
“This is police business,” Jake growled, twisting to face the bigger man. “You boys scuttle back to your cage before someone gets a slap.”
The Liverpudlian moved closer, cracking his knuckles. “Ha, would you get a load of this tosser. Old Bill? He’s as much Old Bill as me ma’s the Duchess of Cambridge. Oh, and didn’ that sound like hostility to you, Jones?”
“That it did. And we don’t like hostility, do we, Tim?” They both grinned; as if the very thought of a fight made them giddy. “Now, I don’t think you heard me. I’m afraid I must insist, mate. Or I’m going to take it.”
Jake’s gaze darted from Jones to Tim, and then back to the Welshman. Tim and Jones? More like Bill and bleedin’ Ben.
“Well, looks like you’re not giving me much choice…” He held the recorder up for them to see, then out as if about to pass it to Jones, only to pocket it. “Well, come and get it.”
They came at him as one.
Though Tim was the faster, it was Jones who reached Jake first, a titanic fist curling through the air. The punch should have hit him dead in the side of his head, just behind his ear, a blow almost certain to stun, if not knock out. Except, the smaller man side-stepped, so it passed by harmlessly, before sticking his foot out, tripping the big man, then slipping down and under Tim’s attack. That should have left the smaller of the two men open, but he had not devoted himself fully to the attack and his reflexes were good enough to check himself as he went, countering Jake’s riposte by twisting away, keeping his delicate flank out of the line of attack.
Jake didn’t wait. This was the more dangerous of the two, the faster and more controlled. He had to be put down hard and fast. Or he’d let the Welshman take the lead, using the bigger man as a shield whilst he attacked from all around. So, Jake came on hard, his first punch a winding jab to the throat, sending the Liverpudlian reeling. Jake followed with his second attack, a devastating phoenix fist to the solar-plexus that had the slightly bigger man doubling over, opening him up for a coup de grâce.
And then it was over.
The punch slid past the ribs and into the liver with such a force that it had Tim crumpling to the floor like a sack of potatoes as Jake, his only means of support, slid away. The monkey grin was gone, replaced by a twisted grimace of agony as colour bled into his face and he writhed on the floor, desperately trying to draw in the breath to scream.
It took all of three moves to put the Liverpudlian down. Three moves. Three blows. Three moments.
Jones was just clambering back to his feet when Jake turned to him. Red-faced, the big Welshman’s eyes moved back and forth between Jake and the writhing heap on the floor. He wanted to attack but had been unnerved by his associate’s quick dispatch. Now his mind was working, weighing the odds.
Jake couldn’t help his grin. At barely seven metres squared, Yate’s office would never have been his first choice to fight such an uncommonly large man. Space and speed were vital when fighting stronger men. Should he trip over a piece of furniture or become entangled with the brute, he was as good as dead. But an unsure or angry foe was far more likely to make mistakes.
“Alright. Come on! Come on sheep shagger! Bah! Bah!” Jake mocked.
That did the trick.
Bellowing with what could have been an instinctive hatred that all Celts retain for their Saxon neighbours, Jones lunged. And Jake let him. Let him come in close. Let him close the gap, then parried the coming blow with a sweep of his arm that deflected Jones’s punch as Jake stepped in with one of his own, straight between the bigger man’s eyes. Bone knuckled bone as the Welshman’s charge drove him onto the blow, crushing the already crumpled cartilage in his nose so that it seemed to explode in crimson, before Jake’s follow-up kick sent him stumbling into the back of a leather sofa.
With a colossal hand pressed to the bloodied mess of his face, Jones glared back at Jake before his eyes darted sideways to an end table, upon which stood, well within arm’s reach, a foot-tall sculpture of the Venus de Milo. He sidestepped, hand outstretched.
“Don’t you bloody dare.” The Glock was in Jake’s hand, sights trained on the pulped ruin that had been the Welshman’s nose.
Jones froze. “Don… Don’t shoot.”
“Then don’t make me. Keep them up, yes, that’s it, above the shoulders.” Jake advanced forward slowly. “Now, Sunshine, I’m afraid this is either about to get very messy or go very, very…” The Paras could teach a man just about everything there was to know about blood and pain, but nothing ever really beat the classics. So, he settled for kneeing the bigger man in the balls. “Bad for you.”
Eyes rolling, Jones’s knees buckled, and he slumped to the ground, unconscious
“Not so big now, are you?” Grinning, Jake holstered the pistol and, without sparing a glance back at the Welshman, turned on his heel and stepped over the equally unconscious Tim.
Yate could barely contain himself. “Sergeant! Wait! No… Jimmy Dawson”
Jake paused, hand outstretched, to grasp the door handle. He threw a backward look across his shoulder. “What about him?”
“He was there. He’ll talk to you.”
