PART I
The old woman glanced up from her book to see the kindly gent from two doors down take his evening constitutional. For over a year now, without fail, she had watched him leave his house and struggle up the incline bearing greater weight on his stick with each day. In a passing conversation she wondered why he felt the need to go out as dusk fell and his strength waned, but his reply was merely a stubborn need to leave the house. She sighed and returned her gaze to her book giving no further thought to the gents impending disappearance.

His path took him up the hill and into the seedier side of town. Here live the ne’er-do-wells and down and outs, the drug pushers and pimps. Discount shops, one man betting shops and cash converters lined the streets while kids played in streets lined with broken lights and abandoned cars in which teenagers fucked after dark. The man hobbled past the buzzing streetlight he associated with entering these slums and decided tonight to venture into the alley behind the run down shops. The smell from the bins infused the air with sour pungency and glass crunched underfoot. Out of sight of the public he was able to walk properly, the necessity of faking his decrepit state less important. He was still old he told himself and had to be careful not to fall or annoy any thugs, but he now used his stick to prod at heaps of tattered rugs and piles of cardboard that the homeless used to keep warm, once or twice eliciting a moan or angry curse.

He passed overflowing industrial bins and piles of rubbish strewn across the alley, left there by the desperate searching for something to eat. A distant part of his mind felt for these bums as the cold night closed in and his breath turned to white puffs, but he was too old to pay much attention or even do something about them. In his vast experience they had usually done it to themselves and besides, they had their uses. And he hoped the one he saw a few nights ago was still here. A light went out ahead as a shop owner left for the night. He paused to allow his eyes to become accustomed to the darker alley then pushed on. Finally he came to the place; a recess on the right behind a money exchange, its high security bars announcing the potential treasure trove within. The recess seemed to be an old garage from which the door had been ripped off and then half the space bricked up. He cared not what was behind the brick, only what was under the heap of rags in the dark far corner. Using his stick to push aside a tatty red and green rug he exposed the dirty face of a young man.
‘Perfect.’
He hadn’t woken the homeless boy and after checking he was still breathing, and to protect his investment, he stooped and replaced the rug. ‘Don’t want him to get frostbite anywhere.’ The man remained in place for a few moments, imagining what he would do with his gain. A smile creased the corners of his mouth and drew his wrinkled skin into tighter lines. This was the one. Re-affecting his aging state the man hobbled from the alley and returned home. The woman at number 76 had long since turned in for the night.

* * *

His dad was beating him again, this time with his thick leather belt. No matter how much he cried and screamed his dad, a big man with the strength of a bear, held him down and whipped at his bare ass. His mum was made to watch but she didn’t cry. He always got the impression that she rather enjoyed it. Certainly his dad never hit her and she would fuck him tonight as though nothing had happened.

The ordeal ended and he was pushed off his dads lap. He fell with a thud to the floor and winded himself. He dad left him there and both he and his mum left the room. He snivelled for a bit, imagining what might happen should a neighbour come in to find a twelve year old boy on the floor with his shorts around his ankles and a red, possibly bloody ass. Finally deciding no such luck was about to occur he stood, gingerly pulled his shorts and underwear up, and made for the kitchen cupboard where the creams and ointments were kept. His mum had shown him that at least. He took care of himself and went to hide in the woods behind the house. Finding his private space, a clearing in the middle of several thick tree trunks and surrounded by sharp holly boshes, he took off his shirt and sat leaning back on his hands, allowing the sun filtering through the trees to warm his skin.

He hated his dad but if he was totally honest with himself, Nathan knew he deserved the belt.