A Nice Place to Die Read Free

desperation, ‘I think I’ve come at the wrong time. Everyone seems to be out today. Perhaps you could mention to your parents that my door’s always open, right?’
    He was sweating. This was absurd. They were harmless kids. But he started to move away, knowing that he must not turn his back on them. It seemed to him that he could smell his own fear. He’d always thought that was just something people said about fear, but now he knew that it was true.
    â€˜Got a day off school, have you?’ he said. ‘That’s nice. You must study very hard these days to pass all those exams. I feel sorry for you kids today, there’s so much pressure on you all to do well. But one day you’ll be glad you worked so hard.’
    The teenagers looked at each other and showed their teeth as though they were about to laugh but they didn’t laugh.
    You fool, Tim told himself, of course it’s school holidays.
    â€˜That’s your advice, is it, Rev?’ the boy on the motorcycle said. ‘That’s what got you to where you are today, is it?’
    The boy slowly and deliberately rolled a joint, lit it, then inhaled and passed it to one of his mates.
    â€˜You want a drag, Rev?’ one of the younger kids asked, pushing against Tim and blowing the aromatic smoke in his face.
    â€˜Don’t you know that stuff’s dangerous,’ Tim said, trying to sound like an older brother, not the heavy father. ‘You could get addicted,’ he said. ‘It affects your brain, leads to short-term memory loss . . .’
    â€˜What brains are you’re talking about?’ the first boy said. ‘Don’t you know we don’t have no brains?’
    The kid with the joint reached up to touch Tim’s dog collar. ‘Woof, woof,’ he jeered and they all laughed. The boy, encouraged, grabbed the collar and pulled it off.
    â€˜Walkies, walkies,’ he said, imitating Tim’s voice and accent. ‘Look, Kevin, I’ve let him off the lead.’
    Tim suddenly felt horribly vulnerable.
    â€˜I’d better go,’ he said. ‘Things to do, places to go.’ He very nearly giggled in his embarrassment. It was a nervous habit he had never been able to break.
    â€˜Yeah?’ Kevin said. He picked up Tim’s new blue bicycle and threw it at him. Perhaps he didn’t actually intend it to hit him, but the young vicar was moving forward and the bike knocked him down.
    â€˜Oh, I say,’ Tim said.
    He could hear the way he sounded and he knew that they would mock him for it because he was old-fashioned and had nothing in common with them.
    His spectacles had fallen off. Without them he was almost blind.
    â€˜These what you’re looking for?’ one of the boys called, and Tim heard the crunch of glass as his tormentor stamped on them.
    The boy pushed the spectacles roughly against Tim’s face, nicking his skin with the broken glass so that blood began to dribble down the side of his nose.
    â€˜Four-eyes, four-eyes, you got a bloody nose,’ one kid began to chant.
    He was so young his voice hadn’t even broken.
    â€˜No, it’s just a scratch,’ Tim said, trying to wipe away the blood with the back of his hand.
    â€˜Not good enough for you, Rev?’ Kevin said, ‘You looking to be some kind of martyr, are you? I’ll give you a bloody nose.’
    He hit Tim hard in the face. The sudden pain left the young vicar confused, struggling to catch his breath as blood poured out of his nostrils.
    Tim tasted the blood at the back of his throat. As more teenagers began to hit him in the face, he put up his hands to try to hold them off, but he couldn’t see where the blows were coming from. He couldn’t speak, either; he just made a silly little protesting sound that seemed to enrage his tormentors further. He began to pray silently, Please, God, what do I do now?
    He started to blubber, trying to get to his