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The four men were National Front racists whose only purpose in life was to hate.
      Charlie Collins finished his beer and looked at them over the rim of his glass. The tallest of them had a small swastika tattoo hung in dumb racist anger beneath his left eye. According to the old ragman, he had been the one who had taken most delight in kicking his face in, but only after they were unable to find anything with which to light the petrol poured over him while he slept under stained and filthy cardboard.
      There were no pretensions about Charlie. He looked exactly what he was, a hard-as-nails street fighter; often referred to as the Junkyard Dog but never to his face. In an attempt to ease the tension he rolled his powerful shoulders inside his black bomber jacket. The need to hurt them was strong, but he was already street-branded and it would not take the dumbest of coppers too long to put him in a blue-serge frame. So he was in no hurry. Six years in prison had made him acutely aware of time, every last second of it.

At first the one-to-one scrap with a rival bouncer had been too easy. Corcoran had been scrabbling around in the dirt trying to work out which way was up, and at that point Charlie should have crippled the Oldham shithouse. But he had let the bastard come back and force him to visit a place he had never been before, the borderline between being able to eyeball the next hard-case to come calling, or dropping his eyes to the gutter where the rubbish lived. So he had jabbed a thumbnail deep into Corcoran's right eye and stamped all over him to ensure that second thoughts came before those of revenge.
      It worked, all right. The following day Corcoran died in hospital.
      Manslaughter they called it.

Charlie ordered two pints off a bottle-blonde with too much backside for the jeans she was wearing. She fluttered false eyelashes at him and smiled through a line of vivid red lipstick.
      'Anythin' else I can do for you?'
      He shook his head, paid for the drinks. She pulled a face before moving down the bar.
      His cousin Jack laughed. 'As slack as worn out knicker elastic.'
      Charlie stayed silent. Eyes locked onto the swastika.
           'When does Asian Joe get out, Charlie?' asked Jack, as cigarette ash lost out to gravity to land in a puff of grey dust on a carpet as well-worn as a lovers' lane.
      'Next week.'
      'Jesus. All that time and with nowhere to put your hard-on but in the palm of your hand. Eight days locked up Strangeways would do my head in good and proper, never mind eight years. Don't know how the hell you two survived.'
      Charlie shook his head. 'Tomorrow never existed for Joe. The amount of time he spent worrying about the future could be folded inside a blade of grass.'
      'What about you?'
      'I've still got the scars.'
      'Defending the Collins Clan honour, no doubt.'
      'That, and my arse.'
      Jack laughed again. 'Has Irish still got her sights set on Joe?'
      'Sure has.'
      'Does he know?'
      'Sure doesn't.'
      'Feel sorry for him. Say, Charlie, when are you going to get Irish off the game? She weighs no more than a soggy beer mat and the back streets of Manchester are no place for the likes of her. Look at that young kid a couple of weeks ago, dumped in a wheelie bin with a broken beer bottle inside her. Sooner or later some punter with a shot-gunned brain is going to cause Irish the same kind of grief.'
      'Don't need saying, Jack, but you know Irish; she's one stubborn little Mick. Says she needs the money but I'll keep pecking her head, even though it's a good way of becoming a eunuch.'
      Jack looked up. 'Here we go. The National Front is about to leave the trenches. No doubt the smelly bastards will be all eau de fuckin' armpits. How do you want to play it, Chas? You're paying the money.'
      Charlie eased his big frame away from the bar. 'If they'd had a match or a lighter, Alf would have been burnt toast. The main man deserves the best.'
      Ten minutes later, a bank of clouds swept across the moon to leave only graveyard darkness. Charlie let them get within a couple of yards before he stepped out of the shadows.
      'Jesus Christ,' blurted the Swastika Man.
      'Too late for His help, Adolf.' Charlie broke his left shinbone with the first swing of the baseball bat and then pulped his right knee with the next. An upward sweep mashed his groin and a rising knee flattened his nose as he jack-knifed into it. His head snapped back to leave him dancing like a slapstick comedian with jerky movements as if operated by strings. He fell awkwardly to the gravel and made sounds in his throat as if he was gagging on shale.
      Jack Collins grabbed a shirtfront and pulled a fair-haired youth onto a head butt, threw the ruined face to one side and drove a knee in to the crotch of a pair of Wranglers to leave the owner gasping in open-mouthed shock. Jack grinned at the sound of Doc Martens crunching gravel as the last one legged it out of the car park.
      The Swastika Man coughed and was sick down his coat.
      'Come on, Jack,' said Charlie, 'time we were off.'

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