Storymania - Scars by Kerry L Schofield

Scars
Kerry L Schofield

Extract 1

John Jevons describes his early life.
[Narrated by John Jevons]

  Thinking back, I suppose it all started with Sheena.
  Sheena was a punk rocker, like the Ramones said - she was also my girlfriend. We lived together, had done since I left home at the age of seventeen to get away from my bloody alcy psycho dad. He'd been hitting me for years, and by the time I was fifteen I'd had enough, so I smashed his face in, even though he was a lot bigger than me. The coppers turned up, I suppose Mum must have called 'em, and pulled me off the filthy, whisky-stinking old bastard before I killed him. Would have been better for me, and for Mum, if I had done, but anyway, he didn't press charges, being my dad and no lover of the pigs, so I got away with it, legally anyway. They asked a lot of questions - "Does your dad ever hit you?" Stupid bloody question, "has he ever touched you?" The answer to that was no. My dad was a git but he wasn't a pervert. Anyway, when I got home he came out with the first and only nice thing he ever said to me:
  "I'm proud of you, son." He said. Then he pulled back his fist and punched me in the face, the hardest he'd ever. I fell over and lay at his feet, covered in blood, my head thundering and a black mist floating in front of me. Before the mist came in and filled the world completely - just as I was passing out, to be less poetic about it - I heard him finish,
  "Never fucking do it again."
  I had problems after that - more problems, that is. I was never a bad kid, I did well at school, believe it or not; dad was OK when he was sober and Mum was great. Not the brightest, not the boldest, but she was good to me and still is. She even does my washing, even though I tell her I have a woman in to do it now. After the 'accident' though - for Mum's sake it was always an accident - I didn't seem to do so well anymore. I had trouble thinking ahead, I got into a lot of trouble over stupid things I wouldn't have bothered about before. No one made any effort to understand, but then again I never told people that I'd lain on the floor unconscious for three hours after Dad whacked me, that when I woke up my face was covered in dried blood and my head hurt so much I couldn't move, that when I did stand up, I was so sick and dizzy I couldn't walk. Mum had to half-carry me to the bedroom and I stayed there for two days until the sick and dizziness went away, and I could get around a bit better. It got me a week off school, but it definitely wasn't worth it. The biggest problem though was the headaches - really bad ones, worse than migraines, so bad I couldn't do anything but lie down and wait for it to pass. I'd feel sick as well. After a while I noticed that the bad ones only came when I was upset or angry or something, so I tried to stop getting upset and angry. That didn't work, because since the whacking I felt things a lot more, too. I still don't know how much of it was stress and misery and how much of it was brain damage. The worst headache I ever had was after Sheena left me, and we all know whose fault that was, certainly not mine and not even that Gordon's. She was well off me before she ever met that sad bastard. But I'd better go back to the beginning anyway and tell you all about her. My agent's paying me a lot of money to write this autobiography and I'd better start doing it right. They'll edit everything anyway, they always do, but I won't let them change any facts - our fans want to know the real story, not some made up bollocks I'm sure, even if the bollocks would be more interesting.
  Sheena and me went way back, all the way to kids' school, primary or nursery or whatever it was. We met first when we were about five, I think, and got together when we were fourteen. I hadn't had a girlfriend before although she'd been with lots of lads - not been with in that sense, I was her first in that way, she was a virgin when we first had it away. It was in the back seat of her Dad's Ford and I knew she was a virgin because she screamed blue murder and I thought I'd killed her. It got better after that, I don't know what she was complaining about. I won't go into all the details about what I thought of her and our first kiss and all that cobblers, it's boring, I'll just tell her what she looked like, so you know, and then I'll get on with the story - or 'narrative' as my editor tells me it's called.
  Sheena was drop-dead gorgeous. She looked a little bit like Jule, our drummer, but not that much, although they had the same hair - blonde in a big spiky pony tail sort of thing. Sheena was little and thin though, whereas Jule as you all know is a big girl, and she (that's Sheena) had enormous blue eyes and a killer smile. Perfect skin, perfect figure, always wore very tight short skirts, up to her armpits, they were, and fishnet tights. Bit of make-up, not that much because I didn't like her looking like a prostitute and told her so, not that she usually listened to me. She wore big Doc Martens boots as well, but then we all did really, back then. I say 'back then' as though it was years ago but it wasn't you know, not that long. I mean Vic's the baby, isn't he, and he's only five years younger than me. Fritz is older, not by much, I'll come to him in a minute.
  Yes, Sheena was a looker, and when we moved in to a grubby little flat in Scarp Street (in 1977, the real golden year, the year Never Mind the Bollocks came out) we were very happy. In London, our flat was, by the way, my accent isn't put on at all. Neither is Vic's, he's genuine Cockney through and through, born (or at least first found, and fostered) not far from where my Mum and Dad lived, actually, funnily enough, though we never met, not until he turned up for that audition - more of that later though, I know, that's the bit you want to get to, you're all interested in the band, not my early life, right? But anyway I've got to pad this out a bit, it's supposed to go on the bloody bestseller lists after all. Should I be swearing on the bestseller lists? Sod it, Stephen King does.
  I will get on with the story, I swear. Hang on - yeah, me and Sheena. I'm dictating this, that's why it sounds funny. I can dictate better than I can write. I hope to God someone does edit it, I must be coming across as a right arsehole.
  So Sheena and me moved into the flat, just the two of us, paying the mortgage wasn't easy of course and neither was doing the cooking and cleaning, which I had to because Sheena worked all day at the Pissed Parrot - the Dancing Cockatoo pub a bus ride away. I hadn't got a job, which you might be thinking was where all the trouble started, but it wasn't my fault she left and it wasn't Gordon's, who was a sad git really and not that good looking - it was Johnny fucking Rotten's fault, anyway. She turned up, didn't she, the cow, with an enormous poster, stuck it on the wall in the lounge - the bloody lounge, for Christ's sake, as though we were living in a student dormitory - and said, slushily,
  "He's dead sexy isn't he?"
  "Who, him?" I asked, looking at the picture in disgust. I felt a stab of jealousy - Sheena had never said she fancied anyone before, except for me of course. "No, he's an ugly bastard." I said.
  "He isn't!" She squeaked. "He's sexy, I think so, anyway, and what would you know, you're just a bloke. And at least he's making money, I bet he didn't have to pawn his Dad's watch to pay the mortgage."
  "Oh, what? We've done this one, love, for Christ's sake let it go. It isn't my fault we can't manage the bills."
  "Yes it bloody is!" Sheena shrieked - the one thing I didn't like about her (apart from her sodding nagging, that is) was her God-awful screaming voice. "If you had a job..."
  "Please, pet, give it a rest."
  "I work all day! I work half the night as well!"
  "I make your tea, don't I?"
  "It's not natural though is it?" Sheena wasn't the brightest either. "It's funny, a bloke making the tea and doing the ironing. John - " and now her voice dropped, she sounded serious, although what she said was utterly barmy.
  "John - are you a pouf?"
  "What!?" I couldn't quite believe she'd asked that.
  "Of course I'm not a bloody pouf!" I replied in astonishment. "If I was a pouf I wouldn't be living here with you would I? I'd be up the road with Tim wouldn't I? Come off it, you silly cow." She burst into tears. Oh, Christ.
  "Sheena, Sheena, I'm sorry love, please don't cry. I didn't mean it."
  "It'd all be all right if you'd get a bloody job." She wailed. I put my arms around her but she shoved me off.
  "I will, love." I pleaded. "You know I will. Ok it's hard now but as soon as I hit the big time, we'll have lots of money. And we'll have a big house on Park Lane, and a car, and a dog..." She shook her head, glaring hard at the wall.
  "You and your stupid guitar. You'll never hit the big time, John, because you're bloody crap." And with that she stormed off.
  I sat on the sofa, staring at that huge picture of Johnny Rotten, wondering if he'd ever had this trouble, thinking probably not. That last crack of Sheena's had hurt; it wasn't true either. My bass guitar was my best friend, except for Fritz - more of him in a minute - and it meant nearly as much to me as Sheena did, though I pretended that wasn't true. I knew I was good, really good - it was just a matter of time before it started going my way. I could play all the Pistols' stuff, and even wrote a few bits of my own, not much but a start. Just a matter of time. Sheena had no vision, that was her problem. Not her fault - like not having a job wasn't my fault. It was just the way things were.

Extract 2

Meeting with record producer Finley Macbeth.
[Narrated by Jevons]

  We went on for a couple of months, getting on basically all right, still not playing our own stuff, but Vic said he had some ideas and I was working on what would become the rhythm for our first produced song, Streetlamps Lit. We were hoping to get a gig, playing covers of other people's stuff, of course, by the end of the month, when we were practised enough. We'd got a pretty decent repertoire which included some stuff from the Pistols (of course), the Ramones, the Clash, the Stranglers and a couple of others. Vic could sing anything, and in the early days, opposite to how we do live performances now, he'd sing whatever we fancied playing. These days as you know Vic runs the show totally, he picks what he wants to sing, and whatever it is we go along with it. If he wants a break we play an instrumental. If he wants to do a cover we more or less improvise if we don't know it properly (though he usually only pulls that on us for a joke; sometimes he even makes stuff up on stage, and we just go along with him - the audience never seems to notice, so watch out for that, we do it nearly every gig).
  Fritz had been talking to some local clubs about gigs, but he was also (and I didn't know this at the time) having a word with a record producer, and not a minor one either. Fritz had decided we were good enough to at least try and audition for Finley Macbeth, ever known afterwards, of course, as the Scottish Bastard. Macbeth was a psychotic Scot with a seriously strange outlook and a weirder sense of humour. He was very big in the business even then and had produced for some pretty major bands (Vic told me that the Scottish Bastard had a room in his enormous mansion just full of photographs of him with all the bands he'd met, produced for, or managed, and the list was bloody impressive as well as fucking enormous).
  Fritz didn't tell me this until the evening before I had to go for an interview with the Bastard himself, and I - well, you can imagine, I shit myself.
  "What the fuck do you mean, an interview with Finley Macbeth? What does he want to see me for?"
  "I thought you'd be pleased.."
  "Pleased! We don't have any fucking songs, Fritz!"
  "It doesn't matter." He seemed disappointed but didn't shout or anything, that's one the things I like about Fritz, he's so calm. "We will eventually. At the moment he's just interested in the image, the style, the talent. It's actually not important in the business whether one can write songs or not - it's the delivery that counts." I was still unconvinced.
  "Fritz, man, we've been together for a couple of months, we've never played a gig and we don't even have a fucking name yet!"
  "Macbeth is interested in new punk talent. He says that the music around at the moment is - how did he put it? A load of effing shite."
  "Yeah, well, he's right about that, bloody New Romantic bollocks."
  "So you'll see him?"
  "Of course I'll bloody see him. I don't hold out much hope though, I mean come on." But I was warming to the idea, although scared to buggery at the thought of meeting the Scottish Bastard, who was rumoured to have reduced at least fifteen punk musicians to tears in the decade he'd been in business, allegedly beaten the crap out of a dozen more with a hunting crop, poisoned three, and buggered one. Still if it was the break we'd been looking for, I'd give it my best shot. Hang on though, why did I have to see him? Fritz was the manager after all. I put this question to him as we got ready for bed.
  "He wants to see you, John. This is your band, your talent, and it's you Mr. Macbeth is interested in. If all goes well and he likes your attitude, he'll want to see the rest of the band, and if he likes them too, he'll give us a full audition." He made it sound so straightforward and easy! But it occurred to me that Fritz must have really pulled some string to get us a meeting with the Bastard, really worked hard. And he'd done it all for me. I leaned over and whispered,
  "Thank you." just before we went to sleep.

  I was less grateful the next morning. I woke up shitting myself (well, not literally, you know), got dressed in a sort of daze, and wandered around the flat until Fritz got a hold of me and made me have a wash.
  "You've got to be there at half past ten." He said. It was like going to the bleeding doctor's. I put on my most imposing but least dirty clothes and sat about drinking tea and panicking until Fritz got the van (for which he'd part-exed the Ford his parents bought him back when we were kids).
  "Have you told the others about this?"
  "You know I haven't. We don't want them to get disheartened and this is, after all, rather a long shot."
  "You can fucking say that again." I muttered blackly.
  Fritz had to drive like a demon to get us there on time - it was my fault really, I kept changing my clothes like a bloody girl. First I didn't look hard enough, then I looked too scruffy, then my shirt stank, then I looked a right pouf - nothing seemed to work until Fritz ripped up one of his own shirts, poured cold tea all over it, tore the sleeves out leaving the cuffs and put it on me by force, spraying it with Old Spice. We turned up just before half ten in a frazzled state, went up a mile long drive through some huge poncey wrought iron gates, and pulled up outside the most unbelievably opulent (my editor tells me 'opulent' sounds better than 'fucking pricey') mansion you ever would want to see. Fair scared the shit out of me, and even Fritz, used to all that bollocks, looked pretty disturbed. The fact that is was painted green, green for Christ's sake, didn't help matters much. It had about a hundred little windows all gleaming in the weak and smoky morning sun, ivy growing up the walls, though you couldn't see it very well on account of all the green, and big wooden doors, tightly shut.
  Fritz climbed down from the van and marched straight up to them, then marched back and dragged me with him. He pulled a bell, and I shit myself for a third time, waiting for some bloody liveried footman or something to open up and tell us to fuck off. He didn't. All I heard was the yapping of a dog - sounded like one of those little ankle biting bastards - and a bloke swearing in what sounded like foreign and what I found out later was probably Gaelic. The Bastard had a fondness for using Gaelic to confuse the bollocks off anyone he cared to talk to who wasn't Scottish.
  The door was thrown open, anyway, and in the frame stood the yapping dog - an Aberdeen terrier, you know, one of those horrible fluffy white things - and above it, a little bloke, with bright red hair and a sort of manic look in his eyes. He was wearing a kilt, and I thought, what the fuck? This couldn't be Finley Macbeth, record producer, businessman extraordinaire - could it?
  It was, you know. He was the funniest looking bugger I've ever seen in my life, and trust me, I've come across a few not only hit by the ugly stick, but with it stuck firmly up their arse. I would have laughed if I hadn't looked into his popping eyes at that moment and seen something - well, not to put too fine a point on it, that made me piss my pants (for variety). The bloke was obviously fucking insane, that was it.
  He spoke then, and even Fritz jumped back a pace, and he'd met him before.
  "Hamish! Down!" He was talking to the white yapping thing, which was jumping about hysterically and trying to hump his left leg.
  "He's excited!" Macbeth exclaimed - pretty much everything he said was either exclaimed, screamed, or screeched, so bear that in mind if I ever use the word 'said' in the context of him. "We've only had one veesitor todeey - " (I can't think of any other way of putting across that impossibly thick accent of his) "and I killed him!" Fritz and me just sort of looked at each other, not really knowing what to say, believing every word of course. Suddenly Macbeth seemed to shrink, stepped back (he'd been looming - well, under us) and said in a more normal tone of voice,
  "Och, only jokin'. Come your way in boys." So we did, trying not to meet his eyes as we went passed, stepping over Hamish. We were waved into a huge living room with three sofas, armchairs, expensive looking pictures (all nudes), statues in the shape of penises, vaginas, tits and God knows what else, and (my favourite) an enormous hand giving the two fingered salute where a stag's head should have been on the far wall. All the furniture - no bullshit here - was tartan, so was the carpet, so were the walls where you could see them for nude piccies. To break the ice, because Macbeth was giving us his pop-eyed expectant stare, I asked whether the biggest one in the middle was a blow up of the pull out in the last issue of Big and Bouncy. Fritz kicked me in the ankle and said loudly,
  "I think, John, that it is rather a beautiful example of pre-Raphaelite art." Macbeth peered at us and corrected,
  "No, the boy's right, it's the middle pages of a porn mag."
  "Told you." I muttered as we followed his example and sat down on a tartan sofa. As soon as we did so Macbeth leapt up again screaming,
  "Did I tell ye to sit down? Och, now I'll have tee disinfeect that." We stood up quickly and he shrieked,
  "Och, had ye ageen! Can ye nae taek a joke ye thick English bastards? Sit ye down, sit ye down. Dreenk?"
  "Er, no thanks, Mr. Macbeth."
  "I said, would ye like a dreenk?"
  "Um, OK, I'll have a cup of tea."
  "I said, would ye lik a fucking dreenk?" Fritz cleared his throat; it sounded a bit like
  "Scotch."
  "I can see that...oh sorry, yeah, Scotch." OK, but he had me all confused, this Scottish Bastard Macbeth perked up and shouted,
  "Margaret! Margaret! Oh, I forgot, I sacked the cow. Ah weell." He got up and wandered off. Fritz turned and smiled at me.
  "It's going well. He likes you."
  "How the fuck can you tell?"
  "We're still here, aren't we?" But then the Scottish Bastard came back with three whisky glasses - full. He handed one to me, drank one and put the other on the coffee table in front of him, ignoring Fritz totally. I took a tentative sip of the brown stuff. It almost burnt my throat out. Macbeth settled back contentedly, farted and drank half the second glass of Scotch.
  "Now, the other night lads, what a night that was! See me, see party, see fifty cases of Willie Grant's, see absolutely fucking legless shagging Debbie Harry's hairdresser on the ottoman! Och boy," he added, looking at me as though for the first time, "ye've got a big piss stain or somethin' on your shirt, did ye nae notice?" There was something about the bloke that just made you feel like a schoolkid talking to a psychotic headmaster. You'll think I'm totally soft but come on, you've never met the Bastard.
  "No, Mr. Macbeth. It's tea, Mr. Macbeth. I'm sorry, Mr. Macbeth."
  "Och, don't apologise, if ye want to goo oot wi' stains all over ye that's no concern o' mine is it? Right then, laddies, tomorrow, eh? About half past one, see ye there, fuck off now I've got a hangover."

Extract 3
The attack on vocalist Vic Damage by ex-keyboard player and drug addict 'Cockroach' Stevenson. John's drug phobia is explicitly revealed. Given in the form of police statements.

(Adapted from statements given to the police)

Statement of Vic Damage

  Well, I was coming home fairly late after a bit of clubbing - don't look at me like that, copper, it's not my fault they let you in underage: who doesn't take advantage of the system when the system's crap? - as I was saying, it was rather late, about two in the morning, I believe. What are you looking at me for? I haven't even got to the important bit yet, why would I by lying to you?

Sergeant: Please carry on with your statement, Mr. Damage.

Yes, I am doing, thank you. I arrived at the warehouse door -

Sergeant: Which door?

What do you mean, which door? The office door, of course.

Sergeant: What were you doing at the warehouse?

I've told you this. I live there, because I haven't got anywhere else to stay. Now can I finish my fucking statement please?

Sergeant: Mind your language, sonny!
Vic's solicitor: My client would simply like to be allowed to complete his statement uninterrupted.
Sergeant: All right, go on. Less of the attitude, and be detailed.

Thank you. Christ's sake. Anyway, I entered the warehouse, having unlocked the door using my key, this key here. I moved into the office by putting one foot in front of the other, then the other foot in front of that, and thus I propelled myself using bipedal locomotion into the area I designate my bedroom.

Sergeant: Any more of that and I'll make sure I find something to charge you with. Like manslaughter.

Sod off, mate, I didn't kill the bloke, it had nothing to do with me. He did it himself.

Sergeant: That's for the law to decide.

With your assistance, eh? Trust me to get a bent copper.

Sergeant: Get on with it.

Right. When I got to my bedroom, which is in a small office in the back of the warehouse, I started to get undressed for bed. I'd taken my boots and jacket off when I heard this noise coming from the main warehouse. So I popped out to have a look.

Sergeant: Now we're getting to it. What happened then?

The cast of Fantasia danced across the floor with the hippo playing John's bass.

Sergeant: I could have you for obstructing the cause of justice!

I'll obstruct more than that if you don't stop asking stupid questions, mate! You know what happened next. That bastard Cockroach was waiting for me.

Vic's solicitor: Sergeant Reynolds, my client has recently been through a difficult and frightening experience. I would ask you to remember that he is a victim...

[Laughter]

... a victim and not a suspect.

Sergeant: All right, all right. I'm only interested in the truth, just the same as you are.

Actually he's more interested in the fee. Sorry mate, but it's true, isn't it? Don't panic, you're doing a great job. Mr. Macbeth knows how to pick his lawyers, doesn't he?

As I was saying. I came out of my bedroom, on the alert, but I didn't see him at first.

Sergeant: Were you carrying a weapon, Mr. Damage?

Look, I thought we were being robbed or something, what would you do if you heard someone breaking into your house in the middle of the night?

Sergeant: Were you carrying a weapon!?

Yes! Yes, I was, sort of. I had my knife. And before you ask, the gun was his, not mine. I don't like guns.

Sergeant: Go on.

It was dark in there, the lights were off. I didn't put them on straightaway, because I hoped he wouldn't notice I was there.

Sergeant: Who?

Well, whoever was there. Cockrot, as it turned out.

  I walk slowly along the warehouse floor, feeling the damp dirt through my socks, with the sense that something is about to happen. It's eerie, in the dark, in the silence, knowing there's someone there but not who. So I have enough of it, get fed up, call out, "who goes there? Friend or foe?" No answer. Then this horrible nasty laugh echoes through the open space, the dark space, the empty space which suddenly isn't empty anymore. He comes out of John's office wearing nothing but black, his teeth gleaming white in the darkness, with something else gleaming in his hand. Something metal, I can just see it in the moonlight, such as it is, coming through the window of John's office, which faces the street. I hear a lorry go by but there is no help for me. As he comes closer and my eyes adjust to the dimness I can see him - it's Cockroach Stevenson. He comes closer still. There's nowhere for me to go so I hold my ground, and yes, I have my knife, a switchblade, I keep it in my boot. I raise it, open it, allow the light to glitter upon it, a warning. Stevenson only smiles at me, because he knows that my knife is no match for his pistol, which he also lifts and points right at my heart. I can't fight. I wouldn't have a chance. I can see now that he's lost his mind. So I start to talk.
  "Come on, Cockrot, you know what'll come of it. You can't get away with it, mate, not a fucking chance. So stop being stupid and throw the gun away." He simply smiles.
  "At least tell me what your problem is. Is it the band? Come on, you hated us all anyway." Nothing.
  "Is it Julie?" Still silence. And suddenly I wonder whether the man is dead already, the way he doesn't speak, the way he just keeps coming towards me, slowly, smiling all the time. His eyes are totally vacant, but glittering, as the moonlight strikes them. His steps are slow, shambling, unsteady. Then I realise the reason. He's stoned, on what I have no idea. Then I start to feel a little bit afraid. You can't reason with a man who's off his head. Still he comes closer, and I see that he's planning to make absolutely sure by shooting me point blank. He's right up against me now, so I back away. I back into a wall. All over. He presses the barrel of the gun against my bare chest, over my heart, and smiles and smiles.
  Then something happens inside me, a sort of instinctive reaction. I lift my bare foot and kick out at him with speed and strength born of desperation. His reactions are slowed by whatever substance he's poisoned himself with, and although the gun remains in his hand, he's knocked off balance. Nevertheless he fires and he doesn't entirely miss. There's an explosion of red and white and black...

He shot me, I didn't know at the time whether it was serious or not. It bloody hurt, then I blacked out. After that, I don't remember anything until the ambulance and your lot turned up.

Sergeant: Interview ends 9:30.

Statement of John Jevons

Sergeant: Just relax, Mr. Jevons, and tell me everything you can remember about what happened this morning.

John's solicitor: Take your time.

I...I arrived at the warehouse at about 2:30, maybe a bit later.

Sergeant: What were you doing there?

I went to check on Vic.

Sergeant: Why was that? Were you expecting something to happen?

Not...not especially, I sometimes check on him late. I knew he'd been out with Julie - that's his girlfriend - and I just wanted to be sure he'd got back safely.

Sergeant: I see. What did you see when you arrived at the warehouse, Mr. Jevons?

There were no lights on. I thought that Vic was either in bed or not back yet, so I went inside through the main entrance. I...didn't go into Fritz's office until later.

Sergeant: Fritz?

Our manager. We live together - I mean, share a flat. And an office, it's at the front facing the street.

Sergeant: Thank you. Go on.

I was going to Vic's room, passing through the main part of the building where the instruments are kept...and...

John's solicitor: Take your time.

And...well Vic was there. Lying on the floor. It was very dark in there but I could just make him out. And there was blood...so much blood. I thought he was dead...

Sergeant: Think carefully, Mr. Jevons. What else did you see?

The knife, Vic's knife. It was clean!

Sergeant: You looked?

I just noticed, that's all. And then there was...there was the...the needle.

Sergeant: A needle.

The sort that they - they inject - you know. A needle. For fuck's sake, do I have to spell it out?

John's solicitor: Take it easy. Do you want to stop?

No...it's all right. I'm sorry. I've got this thing about drugs, about - about needles in particular, anyway, it doesn't matter. But when I saw that I didn't know what to think. I thought he was dead.

John's solicitor: I think perhaps we should have a break.

No, no - I want to finish.

Sergeant: What happened then, Mr. Jevons? Did you go into the office?

Not right away. I went to Vic first. He was covered in blood, and he hadn't got a shirt on or anything so I could see it - the injury, I