Tom’s brain raced away feverishly. Should he run? He was reasonably confident he would be fast enough to escape the man stood next to him. The other two were farther away so they shouldn’t present a problem. He guessed he was probably much younger than any of the assailants, no doubt much fitter too, and not having over-indulged in excessive amounts of alcohol like they had would surely give him an even greater advantage. He should easily be able to escape them. But then, that would mean abandoning Randy, wouldn’t it? What would they do to him? Would he too be found floating in the bay a few days later? Stuffed full of heroin, like Mark? He shivered yet again, but that thought entering his mind was enough. He knew then exactly what he had to do.

Aiming at where he guessed his captor’s vitals would be in the dark, Tom brought his right foot up swiftly, and with as much force as he could muster. The feel, as his foot landed, confirmed the accuracy of his guess. Spot on.

The man gasped loudly, exhaling even more of his foul-smelling gasses into the air. Doubling forward with the excruciating pain, crumpling towards the ground in writhing, sickening agony, he then discovered his chin meeting, point on, with the Tom’s rapidly rising knee. The pain, already hovering on the limit of human endurance, now shot off the scale, allowing the Irishman to find his relief in the immediate unconsciousness.

Not waiting to see if the man would get up again, Tom straightaway pushed backwards with his hands against wall behind him as hard as he could. Gaining the necessary momentum, he launched himself outwards into the air with his legs astride and feet outstretched. Each foot found its target with enviable precision. The two remaining assailants both staggered, falling backwards, stunned, hitting the gravelled ground painfully hard before releasing a deluge of incoherent profanities.

Pulling Randy up from off of the ground it was Tom’s turn to shout, ‘Run!’

‘You ain’t gotta say that twice, man!’ Randy exclaimed, obeying in an instant.

The two of them, still vaguely aware of the mountain of blasphemy polluting the night air behind them, sprinted out of the car park and raced along the back alley towards the safety offered by the friendly looking streetlights adorning the road ahead. Once at a safe distance, and after checking over his shoulder that they were not being chased, Tom suggested that they should walk. The adrenalin was beginning to subside. He could feel his knee that had so squarely contacted with that chin beginning to hurt him. Imagining the enormous bruise that would be there by morning, he prayed he hadn’t done any serious or lasting damage to it.

‘Shit, man! Where’s you learn to fight like that?’ Randy asked, as they slowed the pace to a fast walk.

Tom grinned back at him. He wasn’t going to break the illusion now by confessing he didn’t normally fight, or that in truth he didn’t really know how to fight - that it was something he had never before experienced for real.

Years ago, as a young boy in Brisham, he had attended the local martial arts classes and been told he was quite good, but he had never considered that to be proper fighting. After all, everybody knew all the moves and they could anticipate exactly what was coming next. No, that wasn’t fighting; that was more an arty type of thing. Almost theatre. This had been his first real fight in earnest, and he was more than pleased with his performance.