Daisy in Chains(29)

Ten – it’s not over till it’s over.

Crusher has sneaked around behind and Wolfe finds himself grabbed in a headlock. Wringer is running in. Wolfe jumps, kicking backwards with both feet, and this is his second mistake. Both men pitch forward. They’re going down and Wolfe will be the one underneath. Once a fight goes to the ground, the heavier man nearly always wins.

Hitting the floor almost ends it. Crusher is flat out on top of him. Wolfe can’t draw breath but Crusher has to shift to strike his next blow. He leans away, pulls Wolfe up and turns him over so that he can get at his face. That is his last mistake.

Mountain climbers are always stronger than their build would suggest, they have to be, to haul their own body weight up vertical cliff faces, and much of that strength is in their core. Wolfe’s abdominal muscles are second to none.

Wolfe grabs Crusher’s ears, already sore, and pulls down, simultaneously tensing his oblique muscles and crunching up. His aim is perfect. The ridge of the frontal bone, just below his hairline, strikes down exactly on the bridge of Crusher’s nose. One of the strongest bones in the human body striking two of the most delicate. Blood spatters across Wolfe’s face as Crusher’s nasal bones fracture. Now, at the end of the fight, he risks his fist. A sharp punch to the point just above Crusher’s ear, where the parietal bone meets the temporal bone. This is one of the weaker points of the skull and a recognized pressure point. Crusher slumps. Wolfe rolls and now he is the one on top.

He grabs Crusher by one ear, raises his fist with the other hand and looks at Wringer. ‘One step closer and your boss is picking teeth out of his shit.’

Wringer gets the message. He doesn’t care that much anyway about a couple of fat birds. He steps back, holds up both hands in a surrender gesture. He’s done.

Wolfe grabs both ears again and bangs Crusher’s head down hard.

‘You so much as look me in the eye again and I will cut off your dick and feed it to you. Do you understand, fat boy?’

No response. Another sharp slam of the head. More blood drips on to the tiles.

‘Do you understand?’

A grunt of assent. Wolfe jumps to his feet, looks from Wringer to Slim. The younger man is on his hands and knees now, bleeding from the lip. ‘Same goes for you two. And you, dickhead in the doorway. Have you got it?’

Eyes down. Grudging nods. It’s the best he can hope for. He turns back to Wringer, the only one relatively unscathed.

‘Give me five minutes, then bring them round. Gavin’s lip is going to need two stitches and I can probably set Terry’s nose for him. It’ll be quicker than waiting to go to hospital. And I can give you all something for the pain.’

Wringer gives a brief nod. ‘Thanks, Doc. I’ll bring them.’

‘And clean this f*cking mess up.’ Wolfe leaves the room and heads back to his cell. Nobody stands in his way.

Some say street fights are won with the right attitude. An ability to put aside fear and weigh straight in. Some say they are won by those in the best physical condition. Wolfe knows better. He knows that street fights – specifically those taking place within the close confines of prison walls – are won by a superior knowledge of human anatomy.





Chapter 20


Independent on Sunday, Sunday, 12 October 2008

LOVE’S LABOURS LOSING?

Sandy East goes to meet one of England’s most notorious married couples.

At first glance, Nigel and Carly Upton look like any other recently married pair. She is slender, with sleek, dark hair and an elfin face. He is larger, a strongly built man, albeit unaccustomed to physical exercise in recent years. They sit close together on the sofa, holding hands as they talk to me. Clearly in love, still at the stage where physical contact is regular and important, but mature enough to be self-conscious about being openly and demonstrably affectionate, they could be any couple that have found a fresh lease on love in their middle years.

Until you remember that Nigel Upton has served seven years of a life sentence for the murder of two teenagers. And that the two met, fell in love and married while he was a convicted prisoner in Strangeways.

Upton was arrested in 2001, following the discovery of the bodies of Sam George and Esther Fletcher in their car in a well-known ‘lovers’ lane’ just outside Buxton in Derbyshire. Prior to the double murder, police had received numerous reports of a man loitering in the area, watching the ‘courting’ couples. Investigators believed that Sam and Esther surprised and recognized their Peeping Tom and didn’t live to report him to the police.

Carly Upton, née Gleeson, was an unmarried forty-one-year-old primary school teacher who became interested in Upton’s case, started writing to him, then visiting and eventually campaigning for his release. Her efforts mainly took the form of letters to newspapers and Members of Parliament and minor fundraising until she had the great stroke of luck to secure the interest, and then the support, of Maggie Rose, a lawyer, author and campaigner who first came into the public eye last year when she secured the release of triple murderer Steve Lampton.

Rose spotted three significant discrepancies in the case against Upton. First, that the primary crime scene, where the two bodies were found, was contaminated by bystanders and the first police officers to attend. Second, that the initial search of Upton’s house was incomplete, necessitating a second search and opening up the possibility of evidence being planted between the two. And third, that crucial evidence suggesting Upton could have been several miles away on the night in question was withheld by police at the original trial.