Chapter 1

Me — I am Paul, Paul Windles, known by all my mates, and my enemies, as BP. I think BP stands for Big Paul, but it's also a reference to British Petroleum, they are pretty big as well. I weigh twenty four stone, stand six foot four inches tall and wear a full beard. I am forty eight years old but I am still very fit as I spend half my working life outside; people don't mess with me. I have even been accused of scaring children! I work on the petrochem sites as a clanky, that's a mechanical engineer to the rest of you.

Dressed in my site gear; yellow reflective jacket, yellow over trousers, hard hat, and in north-east Scotland in winter, gloves and a balaclava under my hard hat, I look like a larger version of any of the other construction workers. I might look like them but I am a specialist; I design and commission compressors and turbines, the things that actually pump the gas to your house.

My personal life is a mess. I have a cheating whore of a soon-to-be-ex-wife and there is a restraining order preventing me from going within a mile of the house that we shared until about eighteen months ago. Not that I have any intention of ever going near the bitch again!

I caught her in bed with one of the local magistrates when I returned home unexpectedly late one night. OK, so I beat him to a pulp and broke his arm, but he did have his dick in MY wife. The police got involved but he wouldn't press charges. I explained to him that the pictures I had snapped on my phone as I entered our bedroom would be e-mailed to everyone who was anybody in our home town. He didn't want his nasty little affair to become public; it's not good for the image when you are sitting there in your dark suit looking down and passing judgement on the local riffraff. I did tell his wife how he came to have a broken arm and cracked ribs. And I gave her a copy of the pictures I had snapped before I rearranged his body a bit. He will soon be free to pursue his little fling with my soon-to-be-ex wife without fear of any consequences as he will also be getting divorced.

When I first suspected my slag of a wife was giving it away, nearly two years ago, I took a few precautions. I bought a small run down single story farm cottage about twenty two miles from Aberdeen, the area where most of my work is these days. Maybe run down is the wrong word, there was no electric or running water and the roof had more holes than a fishing net. But hard work during the summer has made it habitable; its nowhere near finished but that's another story. The property is in my Mum's name and the whore (wife) knows nothing about it, she thinks I am renting. It was paid for with a re-mortgage on the marital home. The cheating bitch didn't bat an eye lid when I took the mortgage out because I bought her a new car out of it. Anyway, she will have to sell up but even with the recent economic problems there will be enough left after the mortgages are paid to buy her a place and leave me some cash. It just won't be in a snooty area with two garages and four en-suite bedrooms, which is what she has got used to.

As you can probably tell, I am sick of women. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy sex, in fact I need a shag, I just don't like the mind games that seem to go with it. As a result I have taken to trawling the pick-up bars as I find the tarts off the estates will put out in return for a good time which, in their eyes, is a skin-full of booze paid for by me. I never take them back to my place or stay over at theirs. I either shag them in the car or at their flat (if they don't have a boyfriend or kids at home) and then go home. Every so often one will try to get her hooks into me but at that point I drop them like a hot coal and keep well away from their usual haunts. I am not above paying a whore from the docks area if she doesn't look too drug infested. I never force them to do anything they don't want to and avoid the ones that obviously have a husband or boyfriend.

I have never hit a woman and never would. Even when I caught the slag in bed with dick-head I never touched her. I shouted at her and she was scared out of her wits, after all she witnessed the beating I gave dick-head close up, in fact she pissed herself, but I never laid a finger on her.

Anyway, back to the story, I am currently working in one of the design houses as a specialist, contracted in for six months or so. I like to get into Aberdeen early, the traffic at rush hour is evil, and I have taken to having breakfast at a little cafe I usually park up at the office at about ten to seven then walk the five minutes or so to Jock and Betty's, they open at six-thirty. There I have a 'Full Fried Breakfast' and get back to the office around quarter to eight. Once you go into a place like this on a regular basis you get to know people and I soon got chatting to the proprietors. Jock would call me a 'bluudy sassanach' and I'd call him a 'Scots bastard' but it was all in good fun and they were a lovely couple. They were in their late sixties and had been running the place since they married, that was over forty years ago. The stories they told of their times running the place over the years were always amusing.

There were also other regular customers. When I arrived each morning there would be two council workmen, a couple of IT people from the local offices, a girl in an electric wheelchair, also in IT, and, while I was eating, a few more office and dock workers would arrive. We each sat at our own tables unless a few occasionals, as Jock called them, came in, then we would double up. We used to talk about everything; sport, politics, work, women, and the girls about their men. It was like a little social club and the nice thing was it crossed social boundaries as well.

One morning as I walked along the quay towards Jocks I heard a scream from a dead-end side street with old warehouses on either side. It was a woman's scream and I went to investigate. About fifty yards up the street three youths were surrounding Shona, the lass in a wheelchair from the café. They had tipped her out on the floor and I could hear one of them saying, "She doesn't have any legs, I wonder what a twat without legs looks like." They were pulling at her clothing and she was trying to punch them.

They hadn't seen me as they were paying attention to the girl on the ground, who was trying to fend them off. I charged at the one nearest to me and he went down, his leg making an ominous crack as I fell on top of him. He screamed in pain. As I fell I grabbed one of the other scum-bags and took him down as well. The third one legged it.

I left scum-bag one where he was and held on to scum-bag two. I forced him against the wall and held him by his neck. His first comment amazed me. "You can't hit me I'm sixteen." I saw red at this point and buried my fist in his stomach, hard!

Scum-bag one was trying to drag himself away and I shouted to him, "Stay where you are or I'll break your other fucking leg." I then concentrated on number two again. He had got some of his wind back and I asked very quietly, "Who was your mate, the one that ran off, I want a name." At first he looked defiant but I think he realised I was serious when I grabbed hold of his ball sack through his trousers, quite gently, but with the threat of worse pain to come. He gave me a name. I then released his balls and brought my knee up hard where my hand had been. He was out of it.

This whole scene had taken less than a minute. I turned to Shona who was on the ground. She had dragged herself to her wheelchair but was propped up against it as it was still on its side. I lifted her up, she had amazingly strong arms and she held on to me while I righted her wheelchair, I then set her down in it. Fortunately there appeared to be no damage.

"I can't thank you enough," she said. "I think you saved me from a possible rape. Aren't you going to get into trouble, that kid looks badly hurt."

"I don't know, let's go talk to him."

I went over to scum-bag one and rolled him onto his back roughly with my foot. He screamed as his broken ankle got caught but I didn't care. I bent over him and got right in his face to say, "As I see it you have two choices. One, you make a complaint to the police about me, but Shona, my girlfriend, will make a complaint of attempted rape. I may or may not get away with it but either way, bearing in mind the circumstances, I won't go to prison. You'll get sent down and when you get out I'll find you and finish the job. When I'm finished you won't need a doctor, just an undertaker. Two, we call an ambulance, you say nothing, you make sure you and your two mates are never seen around here again, and accept the broken ankle as the cost of attacking and attempting to rape my girlfriend."

As I was talking he shit himself, literally. I heard the unmistakable noise and the smell hit me within seconds. It was the 'my girlfriend' comment that scared him. He very quickly decided that option two carried far less opportunity for pain and suffering and I rang 999.

The ambulance arrived in a few minutes and carted off scum-bag one. Scum-bag two had legged it as soon as he saw that my attention was on his mate.

As the ambulance pulled away Shona came over and said, "Come on, I'll buy you breakfast today. What's that about me being your girlfriend?"

"I wanted to make it personal with him so that he believed my threat to harm him if he went down the legal route. It worked didn't it, he actually shit himself, didn't you hear it or smell it. Anyway, what the hell were you doing down this alley?"

Shona explained that she was delivering some work to a company that had offices in the converted warehouse. She had dropped it in their letter box when the three thugs attacked her.

We went down the quayside to the café together. By the time we got there the shock of it all had hit Shona, she was white and shaking. I immediately explained the situation to Betty and she took Shona out the back to dress her hand which was grazed, and comfort her. All the regulars were curious but I played it down, I didn't want the attention.

Shona came out of the kitchen about ten minutes later looking much more composed. One hand was bandaged and the other held a cup of coffee which was definitely laced with some 'Scottish water'. I was eating my breakfast and she joined me.

"I really can't thank you enough," she said. "Those three have threatened me once before. I'm sure they would have raped me if you hadn't turned up."

I told her that anyone who hit a woman was beyond the pale as far as I was concerned, and to pick on someone in a wheelchair was even more despicable.

"You seemed really scary when you first started coming in here. The two lads on the bins told Jock that they wouldn't dare call you a 'bluudy sassanach'. But then, as you talked, everyone realised you were OK. Still, after what you did to those two that you caught, I wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of you." She paused for a minute then said, "What's your problem with women though, you seem really bitter, why?"

I didn't want to open up about my personal life so I just said, "Oh, some shit at home but it's sorted now, and I'll be a free of it in six weeks." The divorce was in the court system now.

"OK. Well I owe you one, probably more like a hundred actually. I've seen you round town on a Thursday night a couple of times, if you ever want to talk I'll be there for you."

The comment about Thursdays surprised me but I let it pass.

I had a chat with the two council lads and told them if they ever saw any of the three scum-bags hanging around the area to let me know. They had seen them around before and knew who I was talking about. But they were never seen again.

I was back at my usual time the next day but not at my usual table. Jock brought my mug of tea to Shona's table and I shared her table from then on.

We would talk and, bit by bit, we found out more about each other. One day she told me how she ended up in a wheelchair. She lost her legs in a car accident when she was fourteen, twelve years ago. She was the passenger in a stolen car. She now did occasional voluntary work for a charity who tried to help young delinquents.

"So, did my reaction to those three that day shock you?"

"No," she said, surprising me. "If more of them came into contact with someone like you they probably wouldn't go off the rails. After all, do you think those three will ever try anything like that again?"

I just shrugged. "I guess they wouldn't want another run in with me but I don't think they'll change their ways, just be scum-bags somewhere else."

"I learnt my lesson the hardest possible way," she said softly with a touch of sadness. "Look at me now, a cripple in a wheelchair. Before the accident I was out there mixing with the bad ones and sexually active. Yes, at fourteen I would have sex with anyone if I liked the look of them. Then bang, I'm in hospital for months and when I come out I need help with everything, even going to the loo. I've only had sex a few times since.

"But I stuck at my school work, passed my exams, albeit a year late, went to uni, got a degree, a job and my own place now. If I hadn't had the accident I would probably have been another notch on your Thursday night bedpost." I looked shocked but she carried on, "From my contacts I've found out who the lad with the broken ankle is, he's back at school and studying hard. When you dealt with him he saw the dark side, the same as I did twelve years ago. The trouble is we pussy-foot around with these yobs but we're not doing them any favours. My story has turned around more lives than all the other volunteers put together, and that's not me bragging."

We had talked non-stop for half an hour and I realised the other regulars had been listening.

"God! It's twenty to eight," I said, breaking the spell. "I need to be in work now."

"Why don't you talk about your demons," she said with a warm smile as she handed me a piece of paper with a phone number on it. I put it in my pocket and forgot about it.

When I left work I went for a pizza then started a trip around my usual bars and thought I had struck lucky in the second, the Scotsman. There was a group of six girls around a table, it looked like a birthday party. Two looked half decent, two were fair, and two required thick beer goggles. They seemed to be aged between twenty and thirty but it was hard to tell with the dull lighting in the bar. I went to the barman, Stu, and ordered my usual, a pint of lemonade with a dash of Guinness. It looked like beer but was actually almost non-alcoholic. I asked about the group of girls and he said it was a birthday party. I told him to send a round of drinks over and tipped him as I always did. He charged me for seven drinks and I looked puzzled. He said, "One of 'em's in the loo." Usually the trick worked with a group like that, one of the 'available ones' would detach herself from the party and join me at the bar.

At that point I got distracted, Stu had left the bar for a few seconds to gather empty glasses, he always liked to make sure there wasn't a ready supply of ammunition if anything kicked off. To be fair, since they had employed a doorman, things had calmed down a lot. I had only put the Scotsman back on my 'list' when they took on a doorman, previously it had been like dodge city on a Thursday and Friday nights. As he picked up a glass from a nearby table one of the lads sitting there kicked off, claiming the glass he had just picked up was half full. It was a standard trick to get a free half pint. Stu just said, "OK, cool it down, I'm not that stupid." He looked over to the door to see where Baz, the doorman, was and as he turned away, the lad picked a bottle up and prepared to smash it on Stu's head. I grabbed an ice bucket off the bar and slammed it into the side of the face of the pillock with the bottle. He ended up falling over the table spilling all their drinks.

At this point Baz came in and headed towards me. In an off-handed manner Stu said, "I owe BP one, that prick was going to bottle me."

Baz got hold of the pillock and said to his mates, "All of you out now."

Baz was my size but a good few years younger. With both of us facing them the fight went out of the other three. He marshalled the three others ahead of him and dragged pillock behind him. As he threw pillock out of the door into his mates he told them they were all barred.

"That's the second time you've saved my arse," said Stu as he went back behind the bar.

"If I get lucky with one of the lasses over there I'll forget it," I said. "If not I'll take it out on your arse." He knew I was joking and we both laughed which dissipated the tension.

As I sat back on my stool I heard a voice beside me, low down, "Causing trouble again BP. Thanks for the drink by the way."

I looked down and saw Shona, in her wheelchair, at my side. "What are you doing here?" I asked.

"It's my sister's birthday," she replied, "I'm with her and her mates. Come over and join us."

This was not how I planned it, but I didn't see how I could now get off with one of her sister's mates, or even worse her sister, without it getting complicated. I thought I may as well join them and enjoy a drink with them.

Two things struck me as I sat down with them. How trashy the other girls looked compared to Shona who was, by far, the nicest looking of them all. And how my vision was going, I was starting a fucking migraine! I suffer with them from time to time. All sorts of things can start one, stress is one of the triggers.

I knew it was going to be bad one when the nausea hit me about fifteen minutes later. Shona must have noticed because she said, "Paul, you look terrible, what's the matter?"

"Oh, must be something I've eaten," I said as I got up and went outside to get some fresh air.

As I went out Baz said, "Fucking hell, BP, you look awful."

With that my tea hit the pavement. I leant against the wall, half my vision was ragged and my head hurt. Baz brought me a glass of water and said, "You look like shit, mate, I'm putting you in a taxi, our treat, we owe you one. I don't know what's the matter with you, I know you don't drink much, but you can't drive in that state."

"I've started with a migraine and it's a bad one. I'll be OK."

"Maybe," he replied, "but I am not taking any chances. I'll get you a taxi."

As he finished there was a whirr and Shona's voice piped up, "You don't need to, I'll take care of him and I promise he won't drive." She turned to me with her hand out and demanded, "Keys!" I really wasn't in any state to argue and handed her my keys. "Wait with him while I fetch my car," she said to Baz before zooming off.

Stu had brought a chair out, and I sat on it. By now there was a little crowd round me and one of Shona's party said, "Do you think we should call an ambulance?"

Another, I assume it was Shona's sister, said, "No, he's a mate of Shona's, she said she'd take him home." There were a few ribald comments and giggles. All I wanted to do was lie down and shut my eyes, but I knew they meant well.

No more than five minutes later a silver mini-mpv pulled up at the side of the road and Shona said, "Come on, get in." I got in the passenger door and sat down. As I did so I noticed she was still in her wheelchair. The conversion allowed her to drive her chair up a ramp at the back and into her driving position.