Numb: A Dark Thriller by Lee Stevens

few answers and soon built up a reputation as the school’s tough guy by fighting rival gangs – all while his schoolwork suffered.  After more than one threat of being expelled (a move which he welcomed but his parents would see red over) he had to find a solution and he soon saw the potential in the little bookworm in his class. Nash offered Purvis a deal; sit next to him in class and help him with tricky questions, awkward sums and long words, do his homework and coursework and no one would call him another name, trip him in the corridors or wedgy him in the toilets ever again. He’d be protected. Purvis agreed and the arrangement worked brilliantly for both boys. Nash made it through school (although he failed every exam) and Purvis became untouchable.
    Once out of the comp both young men could’ve walked away and lived separate lives but, for some reason, they’d stayed in touch. Purvis went to college and Nash began his life of crime but they would regularly meet up for a drink and a chat. Maybe, in a strange way, both were envious of the other’s talents. Maybe Purvis would have loved to be as ruthless and as feared as Nash and maybe Nash was jealous of Purvis’s brains. Whatever the reason, a quarter of a century since their school days had ended, their roles were the same. Nash was the hard-man boss and Purvis was his employee who now carried some ridiculous job title like ‘Security Consultant’ when in simple fact all he did was maintain the electronic security systems installed in Nash’s premises. But Riley was glad of Purvis’s employment within the firm. He liked the fact that there was at least one other bloke in the upper echelons of Nash’s workforce who wasn’t a violent nutcase.
    “What’re you doing here,” Riley asked him. “I thought you’d be getting ready for tonight, like everyone else.”
    “I’m already ready,” Purvis said, showing off his new suit. “Anyway, Nash wanted me to do a couple of things for him a.s.a.p. Remember the trouble last night?”
    Riley nodded.
    Nash owned two nightclubs, three pubs and one restaurant. Twilight nightclub was his baby, the first business he’d bought and the busiest club in the city. Last night, around midnight, two doormen had gotten into an altercation with a customer carrying drugs (someone who wasn’t on Nash’s payroll) and had really messed him up. Riley, thanks to his position as head doorman, had helped convince the police that the bouncers had been attacked first and had been defending themselves. He found out later that it wasn’t really true, but what could he do, shop two of his staff to the police? Of course not. Despite his disliking of a lot of things involved in his job, he couldn’t act out of character. And anyway, the guy they’d battered really had been carrying drugs with the obvious intent to sell and therefore deserved to get a hiding (admittedly, not as savage a one as he’d received) and so lying to the police had been made that little bit easier.
    After the man had been knocked unconscious and looked to be really hurt the doormen had gotten worried. So one of them had fetched a sharp knife from the club’s kitchen, got the bloke’s prints on it and left it by his prone body before the police arrived. See officer, he came at us with a knife! We had no choice! Problem solved.
    Or so they’d thought.
    “The police have requested the security footage and are sending a detective for it tomorrow,” Purvis said, beckoning Riley over to the computer screen. “You know what the doormen told the police. They said they’d frisked him as he tried to get in the club and when they found the drugs he got edgy and a scuffle broke out. Then he pulled out a knife and what they did to him was self defence.”
    “Simple scenario,” Riley said, nodding. “Not unheard of.”
    “Pity it was bullshit,” Purvis said. “And it was all caught on tape.”
    Purvis clicked a button on the mouse and the security footage from