The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 10

BIG GUY by Paul Johnston

SO I’M ON the train back from Oxford, where I’ve been signing copies of my latest novel. The staff in Blackwell’s and Water-stones were about as interested as Hollywood producers are in actresses over fifty, so it didn’t take long. Then again, the seventh in my series featuring the maverick, eighteen-stone muscleman Storm Waters (yes, unaccountably, I like Pink Floyd) got only one review in the national press and that was less than complimentary: “Andy Stewart’s Waters series is about as lively as a dried-up lake these days. Give us a break, mate – preferably terminal.” And I bought the tosser a ludicrously overpriced drink at the Taunton Crime’n’Cider Fest last summer.

I peer through the rain and make out the stained concrete cooling towers at Didcot. Already the honeyed walls of my alma mater seem leagues away. Ha! Like I went to Oxford. It was the university of life for me – left school at sixteen with no GCSEs, worked in various burger bars for more years than I can remember, wrote unsolicited album reviews until one (of Bowie’s Reality – think hatchet) finally got picked up by an ever-so-cool (they thought) monthly, worked behind the bar at far too many music festivals, drank a lot, smoked even more etc., etc. But I also read, widely and carefully. I did my research, I calculated what sold. And then I wrote the first Storm novel. You know the clichéd advice, “Write what you know”? Screw that. I’m five foot five in my DMs and have never been over nine stone, even when I binged on burgers and beer. I used my imagination and uncaged the big guy – ex-Royal Marine, ex-SBS, now freelance fist-for-hire, Storm Waters. He takes the fight to the bad men and saves the world. Frequently. Kind of James Bond with bigger abs and biceps, plus a much bigger weapon or three. Naturally, the women go wet for him. More surprisingly, they’ve gone for me too. I’ve had publicity girls, editors, bookshop managers, journos, TV interviewers and even a supermodel (admittedly well past her prime) in my pants. Then there are the fans. Don’t, whatever you do, get me started on my fans…

I’m reading a film mag and listening to Radiohead on my iPod when I realize something’s going on further down the carriage. It’s one of those crappy trains where the first-class section is small and only for City wankers. Besides, I like to go steerage. It keeps me in touch with my readers though, disappointingly, I’ve seen no one reading a Storm novel all day. Anyway, from the way the white-haired ticket collector’s head is going back and forward, it’s obvious he’s having a go at a passenger. I unplug and listen in.

“That’s only a single,” he’s saying. “You’ll have to pay full price to cover your return journey.”

The punter, a young guy with unwashed hair and a scabby leather jacket, starts mouthing off, not too loudly. I still catch several F-words. So do other passengers in the vicinity. One of them’s a well-dressed old woman with blue hair.

“Do you mind?” she says, in a voice that could cut crystal from long range. “Some of us don’t appreciate that kind of language.”

Leather Jacket ignores her and keeps unloading on the ticket collector, whose cheeks have gone what I think is puce – I’ve never been much good at anything other than the basic colours. Maybe that’s why I’m a noir writer.

“If you don’t pay, I’ll have to issue a penalty notice and put you off the train at Reading,” the official says. There are beads of sweat on his forehead and suddenly he looks well past retirement age.

The kid doesn’t care, he just keeps on fucking and buggering, his head down. I wonder if he’s ingested illicit pharmaceuticals. Or maybe he’s a diabetic having a hypo. Someone should take a look at him.

Blue Perm’s on her feet now, having a good old rant. Three or four other passengers have joined her, surrounding Leather Jacket like a lynch mob. The sun comes through the clouds and I can see spittle flying from their lips.

I ask myself what Storm would have done. Probably grabbed the offender by the ankles, held him upside down and shaken him till the money for his fare fell out of his pockets. That’s not an option I have. Although Leather Jacket’s skinny, he’s at least six inches taller than me. So I decide to play peacemaker.

“Excuse me,” I say, from behind the ticket collector. “I’ll pay his fare.”

That makes them look round. The offender is the only one paying no attention, his chin resting on his chest as he keeps on spouting semi-audible abuse.

“You can’t do that,” Blue Perm says, the powder on her face shifting like snow before an avalanche.

“Yes, I can.” I wave a twenty-quid note under her nose, then offer it to the official. “Keep the change…” I peer at the badge on his jacket “…Ken Burns, Customer Services Specialist.”

It would have been the smile that did it. I’ve been told about it often enough, usually by women after the main event. Apparently it makes me look patronizing, arrogant, rude, vicious and self-obsessed, maybe all at the same time. Anyway, I’d successfully got everyone in the vicinity’s goat. Except the kid’s. At last he’s quiet, maybe even asleep. Or has he passed out?

“The lady’s right, sir,” Ken says, pronouncing the last word with maximum disrespect. “Passengers are obliged to have a valid ticket on their person for all parts of their journey.”

“Come on,” I say. “I’m giving you the money for him.” I look at Leather Jacket. He seems to be breathing regularly and his colour is normal. Probably stoned. “Just print out a ticket and we’ll get back to minding our own business.” I give Blue Perm a death stare.

“I hardly think you’re minding your own business,” she says, turning to her friend, Purple Furze, with a tight, triumphant smile.

With hindsight I shouldn’t have stuck my tongue out at her, but it was the only way I could avoid upending a tanker-load of Storm Waters’s notoriously esoteric vocabulary of abuse over her. I follow up with a pair of raised middle fingers that may have got a bit close to her nostrils.

Both Blue and Purple give strangled squawks of consternation, the former grabbing the Customer Services Specialist’s sleeve with a vein-corded claw.

“That’s it,” he says. “I’m calling the Transport Police.”

Then I hear my hero’s voice.

“Is there a problem here?”

Everyone looks at the big guy – six foot four at least and built like Arnie before he did his Reagan act. He’s got crew-cut blond hair and is wearing a green combat jacket. Storm Waters in the flesh! Am I dreaming? Did someone sprinkle hash over my Bran Flakes this morning? I feel a stupid smile spread over my face.

“This…man insulted me,” Blue Perm says. Nothing about Leather Jacket, who’s now snoring peacefully. “He…he…”

“Flipped you the bird in stereo,” says Purple Furze, in an American accent.

Storm runs a disparaging eye – actually, two – over me. “We can’t be having that, can we?” he says, in a voice with the same mixture of Cockney and parade ground as my man’s. He grabs my shoulder and turns to the smirking official. “No ticket, eh?” He plucks the twenty quid from my hand and gives it to Ken. “That’s no reason to cause trouble, sonny.” He pushes me towards the end of the carriage.

I would have pointed out that I’m thirty-seven, but I’m struggling to keep up with his rapid pace. Plus the grip on my shoulder is vice-like.

“I…I write books,” I say, trying to take the sting from the situation. “You’re…you’re in them.”

The big guy stares at me as if I’m what pond life excretes. “Books? What do you mean, I’m in them?”

“Storm Waters,” I say. “Ex-Marine, ex-”

“I’ve read one of those,” he says, tightening his grip even more. “Or rather, a bit of one. Fucking shite, mate.” He leans closer. “And I should know. I was in the SBS.”

That’s all we say. When the train comes into Reading, he frogmarches me to the doors. Ken’s there, but the coloured-hair ladies are keeping their distance. Leather Jacket’s still asleep.

“Easy to trip when you get off these trains, isn’t it?” Storm says.

Less puce now, Ken smiles. “See it all the time.”

The doors open and I go flying.

I wake up in hospital – a broken shoulder, three cracked ribs and severe concussion. I never find out what happened to Leather Jacket, but I’m not betting that Ken Burns, Customer Services Specialist Masturbator, used my money for his ticket. I could have set my lawyer after the big guy, but I believe in learning from experience.

Storm Waters – he’s history. My new hero’s a baronet with a monocle, and his mother has a blue rinse.