The Aftermath Read online

  The Aftermath

  R. J. Prescott

  Begin Reading

  Table of Contents

  An Excerpt from The Hurricane

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  Cormac O’Connell—Twelve Years Earlier

  “Whatcha cryin’ for?” I asked the skinny blond kid. He was sitting with his legs dangling over the side of the riverbank. I could tell he’d been crying because he was sniffling and rubbing his eyes with the back of his arms.

  “Feck off,” the kid told me. Fucking charming. I’d only been in my new school a couple of weeks. Since me da left, Ma had been moving us from place to place, looking for a replacement husband I guess. I didn’t want a replacement da. I just wanted to stay in one place for a while so she could clean herself up. Some clothes that fit me would be nice as well. I was getting sick of scavenging about in Ma’s loose change when she’d passed out after a drinking binge, then stretching the money between food and charity shop clothes. Every new school meant new kids making fun of the way I looked. I didn’t like talking much so, when they started on me, looking for an easy mark, I punched them in the face and stopped them talking. I was a pretty big kid, and you didn’t have to punch that hard to shock most people.

  “There’s no need to be a dick about it. I was only trying to help,” I said to him. I don’t know why I was wasting my time with this kid, ’cept maybe because he was Irish too. I’d heard him and a couple of other boys talking in class, and they all had Irish accents. Outside of my parents, I’d never met any Irish before. He looked me up and down then stared at me hard. Finally he said, “You can sit down if you want.” I don’t know why I shrugged and took a seat next to him. I wasn’t looking for a friend or anything. I was just curious I guess. This kid usually looked like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Where are you going?” he asked me.

  “Me ma’s out so I was going to try and get something to eat.” I didn’t explain that I was looking for some food to steal. There was no money left in Ma’s pocket when I found her passed out this morning.

  “You can come to my house for dinner if you like. Me ma always cooks enough for about five people when she’s stressed.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. I didn’t know this kid or his ma, but no way was I turning down a free meal, especially if it was hot.

  “Why’s she stressed?” I asked. He kicked at some stone embedded into the grass, and I didn’t think he was going to answer.

  “We just found out that me da’s sick. His chest is bad from breathing in some shite at work. Doctors don’t think they can fix him,” he explained quietly.

  “That blows,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. There was a gravel path behind us so I gathered up a pile of stones and dropped them down between us. He looked at me sort of confused

  “See those beer bottles down there?” I asked indicating the empty bottles someone had thrown down the bank. “You wanna see who can smash them first?”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Why not?” I answered. “Breaking shit always makes me feel better. Might work for you too.” I don’t know if it did, but he didn’t talk about his da anymore. Instead he talked about his friends and the stuff they got up to, what comics and television shows he liked. I didn’t say much. The picture on our television was shite, and I didn’t have money for food let alone comics. I liked that he didn’t push me to talk. Hell, when this kid got going, you couldn’t get a word in edgeways anyway. When I’d smashed all the bottles, ’cause he couldn’t throw for shit, we got up and walked back to his house for dinner. I was so hungry that I was practically dragging him. “What’s your name anyway?” he asked me.

  “Cormac O’Connell. But everyone just calls me Con.”

  “I’m Kieran,” he replied. “And me mates at school are Tommy and Liam. You can sit with us tomorrow if you like,” he offered.

  “Okay,” I said. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Chicken, roast potatoes, and veg, I think,” he told me. He turned his nose up at the last part, like veg was something disgusting that he was forced to eat. My mouth watered, and I dragged him a bit faster.

  * * *

  That was pretty much the day that Kieran Doherty became my best friend. The sicker his da got, and the worse things got for me at home, the more trouble we got into, mainly ’cause we were letting off steam. That and I never let anybody fuck with us. Hitting someone who deserved it made everything seem better. I couldn’t or wouldn’t hit me ma, and Kier couldn’t hit the people who made his da sick, so we hit anyone else who gave us shit.

  “You ever been to that gym John Callaghan trains at?” I asked Kier one day.

  “John Callaghan in year six?” he said.

  “You know any other John Callaghans?” I replied sarcastically.

  “Seven others, including him,” he shot back straightaway, and I rolled my eyes.

  “I heard the guy who owns the place is Irish too. You reckon he’d let us train there?” I asked him.

  “Why would he? We can’t pay him nothing,” Kieran said.

  “We could sweep floors and do jobs and stuff,” I suggested.

  “I don’t see why he’d go for it, but we could try,” he agreed. The idea of actually learning to box properly made me excited, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been excited about anything.

  The next day we headed to John Callaghan’s gym after school, and after hanging around outside for a bit, we built up the courage and went in. It was four in the afternoon and already pretty busy, mainly with older boys like John, who was already changed and going at it on one of the heavy punch bags. I itched to join him. Finally some guy noticed us and stared suspiciously.

  “What do you two want?” he asked us.

  “Can we train here?” I called back.

  “No, you’re too young. Owner’s rules are you need to be at least sixteen.” I wanted to tell him to fuck off and that we were sixteen, which we weren’t, but I couldn’t risk pissing the owner off if they were friends.

  “That’s it then,” Kier said as we walked back down the steps.

  “Fuck him,” I said. “He doesn’t own the place. We’ll just hang about for the owner to get here. I’ll offer to do jobs for him and see what he says.” ’Course we weren’t known for our patience, and by the time the guy actually showed up, we were scrapping outside the doors.

  “What the feckin’ hell are you two little shites doin’?” the owner asked us.

  “We want to train here,” I told him. “We ain’t got money but we both hit good and we work hard. We can sweep up and do jobs and stuff to pay our way,” I told him in one great big rush, trying to spit it all out before he stopped me.

  “I don’t train kids. You’ve got to be sixteen to fight here,” he said and walked past us, through the doors.

  “Can we go home now?” Kier asked. “I’m starving.” Kier’s ma cooked like nobody I ever met. She let me eat with them almost every night and I think she must have known how things were at home. She never said anything but she came to parent teacher meetings for me or, if the school ever called, backing up my story that Ma was really sick. Never one to turn down a meal, I went with him but dragged him back every day for a week until the owner, Danny, gave in and let us train there once. After that he couldn’t get rid of us. One night there and I was totally addicted. After a couple of months, John was scheduled to fight one of the boys from a gym across Canning Town. The night before the fight, Danny told all of us to grab our coats, and he dragged us to church. We knew some of the other kids had to go to church before a fight, but he’d never asked us to go before.

  “What’re we doing here?” I asked.

  “He goes to church to clear his head and
get ready for the fight. You want to be part of this gym, then you go too or you don’t get to train. That’s the way this family works.”

  It was clear that Danny wasn’t messing around. So I sat on the bench with my hands in my pockets looking bored, and Kieran sat next to me the same way. Finally Father Pat came out to get me.

  “So, Cormac, Danny tells me that you like to fight,” he said as he showed me to my seat.

  I wanted to tell him that of course I liked it, why else would I hang around at Danny’s, but I didn’t think Danny would appreciate me being sarcastic to Father Pat and I couldn’t afford to piss him off.

  “You can call me Con, Father. Everyone else does,” I answered. “And yes. Makes me feel better.”

  “About what, son?” he asked.

  “About everything,” I answered.

  “I understand that it’s getting you into a bit of trouble at school though,” he added. I shifted about on my seat wondering how he could have known that.

  “I don’t need school anyway. Me and Kier are going to leave as soon as we can. Get a job in construction before I become a boxer full-time.”

  “I see,” he said with a smile. “You have it all worked out then.” I nodded in answer. “Being a professional boxer requires a great deal of discipline you know,” he told me.

  “I ain’t afraid of hard work. I can train as hard as the other boys do,” I argued.

  “I’m sure Con. But that’s not what I meant.”

  I frowned at him, pissed off that he thought I wouldn’t be as dedicated as the older kids. I could kick half their arses now.

  “You know, there’s a story of an old Cherokee man who told his grandsons, ‘There is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It’s anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies, and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, and truth.’ The boy thought about it and asked, ‘Grandfather, which wolf wins?’ The old man quietly replied, ‘The one you feed.’ I don’t know who said it, but it’s a good story.”

  “I don’t get it,” I answered, confused. “What does it mean?”

  “It means, Con, that you’ve been dealt a bad hand in life. But one day, you have to decide what kind of man you want to be. You have to choose which wolf you feed.”

  Chapter 1

  It never occurred to me that mail was something to fear. Not until the day I came home and found Em sitting on the floor, her arms wrapped around her knees, and a ripped open white envelope on the bed behind her.

  “Sunshine, what’s wrong?” I asked. She swallowed hard and sniffed a few times like she was trying to hold back tears long enough to talk to me. I reached for the envelope, thinking it would give me some clue as to why she was so clearly freaked out.

  “Don’t,” Em croaked. “Please,” she added pleadingly. I knew then, as a tear rolled down her cheek, that whatever was inside had to be bad. Contained within a folded sheet of plain white paper were about a dozen or so photos. They were different sizes and all taken at different times, but Em was in every one of them. The earliest photo was of a smiling, happy nine-year-old. Just a normal kid out riding her bike. When the next one showed the same kid, fast asleep in her bed, I felt sick to my fucking stomach. The older that Em was in the pictures, the more invasive they became and none of them looked like they were taken with her knowledge. The last photo was really grainy, like it had been through a window maybe, or with a really bad camera, but it showed, in intimate detail, her frail, bruised body taking a shower.

  “Motherfucker,” I yelled, wanting to fucking hit something. Anything. I grabbed the envelope looking for some clue who’d sent it, like I didn’t fucking know. Frank was still in prison, pending trial, so someone on the outside must have sent this for him. The postmark on the envelope read London, which didn’t tell me much. The knuckles on Em’s hand were white where she gripping hold of her legs so hard.

  “Shit, love. You okay?” I said, hating that she looked so fucking scared. She nodded unconvincingly, but didn’t answer. I gathered up the pictures and stuffed them back into the envelope, not wanting her to see them anymore, but I knew we’d need to give them to police as evidence. The idea of her being on display like that to the police and the prosecution lawyers was as bad as knowing what she’d been through. Sitting down next to her, I wrapped my arm around her tiny body and pulled her into my chest. She was stiff as a board and shaking slightly. Rubbing up and down her arms, trying to get her warm I waited for her to talk to me. That was the way of it sometimes with Sunshine. She needed to think shit over before she could get it off her chest.

  “I didn’t know about any of them. He’s been taking pictures of me for years. How could I not know? How could I let that happen?” she asked me.

  “You didn’t let anything happen. He’s a violent, abusive rapist who’s sick in the fucking head. He did what he did because he’s a fucking whack job. Nothing you said or did gave him permission to do this.” I could see by her face that the pictures shamed her. Fuck that. There wasn’t a single fucking thing for her to be ashamed of.

  “It was bad enough dealing with what happened, but he could have hundreds of these pictures and God only knows what he does with them. As if that’s not bad enough he knows where we live. Even in prison he can get to me. I’ll never be free of him, will I?”

  “Sunshine, even if it means killing him, I swear he will never touch you again. This is just a sign of desperation. In a few more months he’ll be too concerned about how to pick up the soap in the shower without getting arse raped to worry about getting you back. He’s going away for a very long time and there’s fuck all he can do about it. This kind of shit just gives the barristers more ammunition against him.” I did my best to reassure her, but I was as freaked out as she was. The fact that he could get hold of the pictures and post them from prison had me worried about what else he could do from the inside.

  She wiped her eyes and leaned across to give me a quick kiss.

  “You’re right,” she told me. “A few more months and this will all be over.” It had to be, because I hadn’t been exaggerating. If Frank came after her again, I’d kill to keep her safe.

  * * *

  Three days later I held up my right hand so Danny could tape my knuckles, while the grip of my left hand tightened on the bench. Why did the door have to be red? Of all the fucking colors a door could be, this one had to be red. Changing rooms were pretty much the same in every place I’d ever fought in. This one was practically identical to the changing room I’d had when Em was kidnapped. As my mind played over that night, I started to lose focus.

  “You’ve got this fecker, Con, but don’t go soft on this guy. It might be an exhibition fight but Temple wants to hurt you. He wants a show. The cocky little fucker is top of his game and needs the world to know he’s staying there. He’s gonna treat you like a stepping-stone, so you show him you ain’t one, okay?”

  I didn’t hear a word that Danny said. I couldn’t take my eyes off that fucking door. My certainty that Frank was going down had picked Em up a bit, but truthfully, Frank’s letter had properly fucked me over. He’d taken Em once on fight night, and just because he was in prison didn’t mean he couldn’t send someone else to finish the job. He’d found a way to get those photos to her hadn’t he? Once I walked out the door and into that ring, who would protect her?

  The slap to my face woke me up. “Where the fuck is your head, Con? You’re fighting in fifteen minutes, and right now I wouldn’t put you in the ring with Kieran’s feckin’ grandmother,” he roared. I hung my head knowing he was right. Six months ago, I had nothing to lose. Now I had Em and I knew what losing her felt like. It made me afraid, and going into the ring like this was a bad fucking idea.

  “Kier, he’s not going to hold it together.”

  Kier swapped places with Danny and carried on taping. “What’s going on, Con?” he asked me.

  “This place looks the same as the one where she was
taken. I can’t think about anything else,” I told him. Maybe I should have made some shit up, but Kieran knew me well enough to call me on my bullshit if I lied.

  “It’s not the same, Con. You know that. Frank’s in prison, and Em has more bodyguards than Justin Bieber. You can do this. Stop worrying about what will happen when you lose everything and start getting mad at the fuckers trying to take it from you. She’s right here and she yours. So what happens when someone messes with what’s yours?” he asked.

  “I decimate the fuckers,” I answered. He was right. I needed to get my head out of my arse. I was hard as fucking nails and no one was fucking with my girl.

  “What happens if some guy wolf whistles or tries to grab her arse tonight?” he goaded.

  “I’ll decimate the fucker,” I told him more forcefully, feeling the adrenaline starting to kick in.

  “And what happens,” he said finally, “if someone tried to take her?”

  “I. WILL. FUCKING. DECIMATE. THEM.” I enunciated slowly, completely pumped now.

  “Thatta boy,” he replied with a smile. “He’s ready,” he said to Danny, who’d swapped places with Kieran to put on my gloves. My knee was bouncing, and I was impatient to get out of there. Pumped and primed, I wanted to hurt someone. The second he was done, I jumped up from the bench and started going at the pads with Kier. Cross, cross, jab. Cross, cross, jab. I cleared my mind of everything but the pads. How to move my body to land the perfect punch was instinctive. Years of relentless training did that. There wasn’t a how or a why when I fought. The only thing that concerned me about the guy I was fighting was where to land my fist to cause the maximum pain. But this time was different. This time my opponent had a face, and it was Frank’s. It burned me that, with everything that went down, I hadn’t had the chance to lay a fist on him. I was a valve with no release, and if I didn’t vent that rage and fear soon, I was going to explode, and there’d be casualties in the wake. Danny watched me spar and didn’t look happy. As far as he was concerned, getting in the ring carrying any kind of baggage was a bad fucking idea. It was why he made us go to church before a fight. Inside those ropes I was supposed to be an emotionless machine and I hadn’t been that in a long time. One of the management team opened my door. “Con, it’s time,” he told me.