Max Wolfe 02.5 - Fresh Blood (8 page)

He had laughed at those girls with all the other men.

And now his words were edged with bitterness and contempt and anger.

‘Whores,’ he said. ‘Cheap whores who like drink and drugs. Sluts who show themselves. Girls who like men. Many men. Typical girls of this country. Oh, listen to me! These are not decent girls! Will you listen to me?’

Someone was kicking the stool he stood on.

‘Whores,’ spat Mahmud Irani, and then he said no more, not another word, because the stool was gone and all at once the rope around his neck cut deep, deep, deep into his throat and his feet were kicking wildly at nothing but the air.

He soiled himself immediately.

The red light watched him squirm and writhe and twist, wild with panic and pain, so much pain, his body thrashing desperately at the rope that cut into his flesh, deeper and deeper every second.

The rope first compressed his jugular vein and then the much deeper carotid arteries, stopping the flow of blood to his brain, abruptly turning it off, his brain instantly swelling, making Mahmud’s eyes roll back into his head and his tongue loll out of his flapping mouth and a choked gurgling sound come from somewhere deep inside his throttled neck.

The red light watched Mahmud as he was strangled by the rope around his neck.

And the pain!

Mahmud did not know that there was so much pain in the world. The minutes passed as slowly as centuries. But after what seemed to him a thousand years but was less than five minutes he finally stopped kicking and his arms went limp by his side.

Mahmud Irani choked out his very last strangled breath in that secret white-brick basement that hides deep below the city.

The red light went out.

And on the wall, the faces of the girls were still smiling.

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Epub ISBN: 9781473535497
Version 1.0

Published by Cornerstone 2016

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Copyright © Tony Parsons, 2016
Extract from
The Hanging Club
copyright © Tony Parsons, 2016

Tony Parsons has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Cornerstone

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library