It was a powerful body shot, a left hook, the weight of her body behind it and Leo was not expecting it. He was completely taken by surprise. Off balance, he staggered under the force of the blow and Hanlon slammed a right hook into his temple. Leo fell back, shaking his head to clear it. Hanlon was amazed he was still standing; he must have a head like a rock, she thought.
Angrily, Leo advanced towards her. Things were not going to plan. He started throwing a volley of what seemed like endless punches. He was breathing hard through his mouth, his lower face smeared with his blood. Hanlon blocked most of his punches with her upper arms and hands, ducking, slipping the head shots. The body shots were hard and painful, they slammed into her like hammer blows, but she was used to being hit, she was used to pain and she knew she could take these. One or two got through to her head and she saw stars. Leo wasn’t smiling now, his face was grim; he had realised the unthinkable. He was a lot heavier but he wasn’t as fit and he simply couldn’t match her for speed, accuracy or skill. This wasn’t a kind of cat-and-mouse game; Hanlon was fully capable of beating him.
Hanlon for her part knew that if Leo won, she could well end up dead or seriously injured. Leo was stronger than Hanlon, but she was fitter, she was faster and she was better. She was a survivor. And she was angry. A roll call of tougher, meaner men than Leo that she’d fought and beaten flashed through her head, not to mention that fucking whirlpool. She grinned at the tattooed Glaswegian. Is that all you’ve got, Leo?
Leo dropped his right hand low and swung his shoulder back. He was obviously winding up for an enormous right that would smash down Hanlon’s defence and knock her down, if not actually knock her out.
To Hanlon it was so obvious what he was intending to do and it was the break that she had been looking for. She stepped close to him; the right side of his body was completely unprotected and she slammed a looping, vicious left hook into the exposed side again. It nearly dropped him and she finished up with the same punch again, this time with her right, this time to his head.
Leo went down to the floor, practically unconscious, and Hanlon kicked him as hard as she could in his groin with her Doc Martened foot. His body jack-knifed and she kicked him again in the stomach. She rolled him on his back, straddled his body, pinning his arms down with her knees. Leo was barely conscious and she hit him again at short range in the face, four times. His nose exploded in blood, his face was covered with it, and his eyes closed.
She stood up, panting for breath, her knuckles crimson with Leo’s blood – it was everywhere, over his clothes and hers – and feverishly went through his pockets. Leo was unconscious, still breathing, still alive, but currently no threat to Hanlon.
She found his wallet, the fob for the Merc and his keys. There was a plastic bag with several grams of white powder in his pocket, coke, she guessed. She took that too. She pulled his phone from his jacket pocket; it was cracked but otherwise intact.
Hanlon dragged him by his feet to the back of the Merc, opened the boot with the remote and heaved Leo up. First his head and shoulders and chest so he was half inside, then, grabbing his feet, she pulled the rest of him upwards and inwards. The boot was sizeable and he fitted in comfortably. He moaned and his eyelids fluttered. His face looked terrible. His nose was swelling, as was the flesh around his eyes, his lips were a bloody mess and one of his teeth was missing, either on the garage floor or somewhere inside his mouth.
Hanlon took him by the right hand and pressed his thumb on the circle at the base of his iPhone. To her relief, the screen lit up. She went to Leo’s contacts; there was a Lee Anne Gillespie listed. She brought up the details. There was an address as well as a landline and mobile number. She photographed them with her own phone and then, for good measure, took a couple of photos of Leo. Then she slammed the boot shut.
Now she could relax. The fight had taken more out of her than she had realised. That could have been her in the Mercedes. Her legs suddenly felt very weak and she sat down heavily on the cold, rough concrete floor of the garage. For a horrible moment she thought she was going to faint or throw up.
Get up and get out, she told herself angrily. This is probably where Leo lives – his mates could come at any minute. It would be unbelievably stupid to win the battle and lose the war.
She stood up. She heard muffled shouts from the boot and dull thuds as Leo, who had now come round, struggled in the confines of the Merc’s boot. She walked over to it, leaned her mouth close to the metal.
