Read Online Breaking Point by John Macken - Free Book Online Page B

persecution.
    A light drizzle was beginning to fall, and Navine tried not to feel too grateful for the shelter. It still felt unnatural, a mini leper colony, displaying the antisocial underclass to the world. There was no dignity to it; there had been more before, when he used to nip out of the pharmacy and loiter in a doorway or lean against a wall. The rain stepped up a gear, slightly larger droplets running down the shelter’s clear sides. Navine pulled a batch of prescriptions out of his pocket, visualizing on which shelf and in which section each drug was housed. When he returned, he would round them up in turn by memory. It was a game he played with himself to keep his mind sharp. RapidAct,
Diabetics
, Shelf 3C. Co-coadamol,
Pain
, Shelf 5. Mystatin,
Fungals
, Shelf 2A. Prednisolone,
Steroids
, Shelf 11. He replaced the prescriptions and committed the information to memory.
    Two more smokers entered the shelter. Navine shuffled back to make room. The speaker was playing a classical song. Navine recognized the piece but not the composer. He noticed that his fellow smokers weren’t lighting up. They had turned to face him, and Navine glanced away. They certainly weren’t staff. They had the look of 90 per cent of the hospital’s patients: rough, sports clothing, probably tattoos beneath their sleeves. Really, Navine believed, if you ever needed proof of the link between socio-economic group and health, come and look around a hospital. They were like exclusion zones for the middle classes.
    Navine pulled on his cigarette. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that the men were still staring at him. He flushed slightly, uncomfortable. The rain beat down more heavily. He turned to face them.
    ‘Do you need a light?’ he asked.
    In an instant the two men stepped forward. They filled the width of the shelter. Navine tried to retreat but had nowhere to go. He stared at them in surprise. He judged them as the kind of animals that attacked NHS staff. Usually, though, they did it inside the building. They were tall and wide, baseball caps pulled low, the collars of their sportswear pulled high. Like the fourteen-year-old scrotes you saw in the town centre trying to dodge the CCTV.
    Navine was suddenly on edge. Neither man had answered. He finished his cigarette and said, ‘Excuse me, I need to get back to work.’ They stayed where they were, a wall of flesh and bone. Navine looked through the perspex wall of the shelter. It was distorted with swollen raindrops. There were people in the middle distance but no one close. The world outside the shelter suddenly looked blurred and warped.
    ‘Really, I should be going.’
    One of the men thrust his hand forward, palm open, and pushed it into Navine’s chest. Navine was forced back until he was pinned against the rear wall of the shelter. From nowhere, a punch took his breath away. Another bent him double, penetrating deep into his stomach. Navine fought for air. In between gasps he said, ‘I can’t give you any drugs.’
    ‘We don’t want drugs.’
    ‘What do you want then?’
    ‘We want you, Mr Ayuk.’
    Navine pulled himself upright and squinted at them. They were looming over him in the small shelter. ‘How do you know my—’ He didn’t get any further. The second man leaned forward and pummelled him in the ribs, five or six quick jabs. Navine moved to shield himself, hunching his shoulders and crossing his forearms. Fists continued to smash into him, slapping his skin, breaking blood vessels, bruising muscles. Long second after long second. He curled up tighter, soaking up the blows. And then everything stopped. When he looked back up they were already outside, walking away, figures deformed by the wet plastic of the smokers’ refuge.

17
    SARAH HIRST RAISED her eyebrows and took a sweep around the Procedures room. ‘So, what have we got?’ she asked.
    Mina and Charlie glanced at each other. The Path assistant shuffled a couple of papers. Dr Bernie Harrison, Dr