Blast from the Past

26

Outside in the wet and empty street Peter knelt in the gutter, his fingers straining at the metal grid that covered the drain. His upper lip was crusted with blood from when the door of the telephone box had bashed his nose. The knees of his trousers were soaking up the filthy London water and the rain was falling on his head.

Peter noticed none of these things.

His whole being was concentrated on the black hilt and glinting steel blade that he could see lodged three feet or so below him. His precious knife, sitting precariously on the jutting brick within the wall of that water-bloated urban intestine. His precious weapon, teetering on the brink of the bowels of the city.

“Bastard. Bastard. Fucking bastard,” he muttered through the soggy scabs of blood and the bitter-tasting rain.