The Walking Dead

His face, behind and above the scarf, felt the heat of the spreading blaze, and he started to run. Well, he wasn't a kid, was he? Couldn't run fast, could he? Do the best he was capable of, wouldn't he? Hadn't gone fifty paces and his stride was already shorter and he could hear his man behind him, panting like a bloody pig, and he heard the shouts and the cackle of the radios, then the pounding of bloody boots. Benny Edwards, the Nobbler with the reputation, thought his world was caving in on him.

It did, sooner than he'd reckoned possible.

He was a couple of strides from the back wheel, breath sobbing in his throat, when the door of that bloody van — the window-cleaner's — heaved open, swung on the hinge and was right out, blocking him. He tried to swerve but hadn't the control of his legs and fell. In the fraction of time before his face hit the road, he saw the big fuckers spill out of it. He was down. Two of them were on him. Hands searched his clothing, probed into his pockets, and his arms were wrenched into the small of his back. He felt the cold of the handcuffs on his wrists. He'd always thought, if it went, sour on him, that there'd be a ring at the door around five in the morning, detectives in the hall with the courtesy to let him dress decently and give the missus's cheek a peck, and a solicitor — not that fucking Nat Wilson, no way — at the police station by the time he reached there. But he was on his face with the grit of the road in his eyes and he felt suspended in the depths of humiliation… and was.

* * *