The Wolves of London by Mark Morris Read Free Book Online Page A

haphazard pile of textbooks, documents, lecture notes and student essays which needed marking.
    I eyed the third drawer down on the left. That was my ‘miscellaneous’ drawer, which contained all the bits and pieces I had no real use for, but was reluctant to throw away. I stood in the middle of the room, hovering for a moment, and took a swig from my mug. Then I said, ‘For fuck’s sake,’ and banged the mug down on the wooden blanket box in front of the settee, next to Kate’s Toy Story colouring book. Marching across to the desk, I yanked the ‘miscellaneous’ drawer open, half-hoping the envelope might have mysteriously vanished in the weeks or months since I’d last seen it. But there it was, small and white and dog-eared, poking out from beneath this year’s Father’s Day card that Kate had made for me. I’d put the number in an envelope because I’d been reluctant to transfer it to my address book, or to the contacts file on my computer, thinking that doing so would have been like officially accepting it into my life, making it permanent somehow.
    Lifting the envelope from the drawer, I stared at the name on the front and sighed. Then I opened the envelope and took out the folded sheet of paper, which was low-grade, flimsy, torn from a standard-issue prison notebook. Unfolding the sheet with one hand, I lifted the telephone with the other and thumbed the connection button. As soon as the receiver started to hum I dialled the number scrawled on the sheet.
    When the phone rang at the other end my mouth went instantly dry and my head and heart started to thump in unison.
    He won’t be there , I told myself almost hopefully. He gave me this number years ago. He’s bound to have moved. He might even be back inside.
    After three rings the phone was picked up. ‘Hello?’
    The voice was wary, clipped, unwelcoming.
    ‘Benny?’ I said.
    ‘Who’s this?’
    I licked my lips. They were so dry it was like pushing a stone between two sheets of sandpaper. ‘I don’t know if you remember me, Benny, but… it’s Alex. Alex Locke.’

FOUR
THE HAIR OF THE DOG
    I start each academic year by telling my new students about my less-than-illustrious past. I do this not to impress them, or frighten them, but simply because university campuses are hotbeds of gossip and hearsay, and if I didn’t say anything then chances were that sooner or later they would stumble upon some far more distorted version of the truth.
    Although kids of that age – or young adults, as our esteemed principal insists on calling them – like to pretend they’re too cool to be impressed by anything or anyone that’s older than they are, the initial response I never fail to get from each influx of students is wary respect bordering on awe. Many of my colleagues think I should milk this for all it’s worth, but I’m not comfortable with the ‘hard man’ image – and not only because it’s misplaced. The thing about violence is that it’s so antithetical to the majority of so-called civilised society that in the eyes of those who’ve rarely been exposed to it, it attains an oddly glamorous, almost mythical status.
    But real violence isn’t glamorous at all. It’s savage and ugly and squalid. People are often destroyed by it, both physically and emotionally. It leaves nothing but fear and misery in its wake; it fucks up lives, permanently, irrevocably.
    This is something I take great pains to drum home when I’m telling my story. Career criminals might seem cool with their designer suits and their entourage of hangers-on, but they’re really not the sort of people you want to be around. The majority of them are psychological wastelands; sociopaths. Yes, they can appear loyal, friendly, even charming, but in truth they often only mimic human behaviour in order to get what they want. And woe betide anyone who becomes a nuisance to them, or outlives their usefulness, or just happens to be in their way at the wrong moment. I’ve heard of