Acts of Violence

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Rush hour was over, but the relentless hum of traffic from the King’s Road – reassuring and irritating at the same time – never abated. From the direction of Brompton Oratory came the sound of angry horns, followed by the wail of a siren further in the distance – probably an ambulance heading in the direction of the Cromwell Hospital. Gazing up at the darkening sky, Michael Nicholson took a drag on his Rothmans King Size and wondered what exactly he was doing back in London. When he was growing up, the city had seemed impossibly alive and exciting; now, after almost a decade living in Shanghai, it seemed about as dynamic as Derby or Carlisle – and almost as alien.

With a gentle nod of his head, Nicholson expelled the thought along with the smoke; he had never been given to introspection and his forties didn’t much seem like the time to start. Focusing his attention on the cigarette, he took a last drag, watching the end flare in the gloom before flicking the stub over the edge of the terrace and into the street below. Throwing back his head, he quaffed the gin and tonic he was holding in one hand, before wiping his mouth with the back of the other. It was his third gin of the night, so far, and he was beginning to feel pleasantly woozy. On average, he would get through six or seven gins, along with a bottle or two of wine over dinner, before falling into bed. It wasn’t so much that he was an alcoholic, more that he needed to self-medicate against the boredom.

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