I froze for a moment, and I’m not proud of that. It felt like the music had stopped, but of course it hadn’t. Carol screamed and then I moved, jumping down and grabbing hold of two slippery bodies, locked together. My brother had been taken completely by surprise, but as I heaved at them he was grunting and fighting like a madman. I could see the whites of their eyes and bared teeth. The pair of them were straining at each other’s flesh with desperate strength. I couldn’t break my brother’s grip. My hands slipped on the skin, and to my horror I realized there was a hell of a lot of blood coming from somewhere. There was broken glass everywhere and beer and blood on my hands. I reached down again, and at that moment the dry ice machine kicked in. Thick fog filled the dance floor and we all went blind.

I strained to take a breath, terrified that I was going to be punched or cut while I couldn’t see. I still had a hold of slippery skin, and somewhere below me they continued to gouge at each other in a frenzy, causing as much pain and damage as possible.

I heard the bouncers coming at last and there were pointing hands and shouting people everywhere. I felt strong arms pull me away. God knows where Carol had gone to at that point. I didn’t blame her for getting clear of it. I blamed the evil little drunk that the bouncers threw out of a back entrance.

My brother was lifted to his feet looking like a wild man. He was dazed and covered in trails of blood right down his bare chest. The bouncers took him to their own bathroom somewhere in the back of the club, and I went with him to wash the muck off my hands. It really is amazing how blood can gum up your fingers. Even a small amount can go further than you think.

We were alone in that echoing bathroom and I felt like an actor behind the stage. The music had continued right through what happened and we could still hear the thumping rhythms, though they were far away. All right, I hadn’t been involved, but I’d been afraid and I was bloody. I felt like I’d survived a battle. Away from the crowds and the danger my spirits rose quickly enough, even when I saw the gash in his neck from the bottle. It seeped sluggishly, producing a dark, heavy trail that would not be staunched.

He looked at it in the mirror and I saw how pale he’d gone.

‘We should get you to hospital, for stitches,’ I told him. He was still stunned and I didn’t want him to ask why he’d been attacked by a maniac for no reason. I knew it should have been me and I felt enough relief and guilt to be lightheaded.

When he turned to me, I could see he was raging. I handed him a wad of toilet paper for his neck.

‘He could have killed me,’ he said, dabbing at the wound while he stared back at himself in the mirror. ‘Where did he go?’

‘He’ll be long gone by now,’ I replied. ‘The bouncers threw him out.’ He shrugged, pulling on his shirt over the pad of tissues. He swore as he saw his trousers had been gashed and that there was more blood staining the cloth.

‘He owes me,’ he said.

I followed him out.

He should have gone home, that man, whatever his name was. He shouldn’t have been standing at a bus stop only fifty yards from the club. That was his second mistake of the evening, and sometimes just one can get you killed. When he saw my brother stalking towards him, he should have run, he really should. Instead, he just grinned the same soft grin, like he didn’t have a care in the world.

My brother hit him hard enough to put him down, cutting his knuckles on the man’s teeth. Then he kicked him as he lay there, twice before he even curled up. I should have stopped it then. Hell, I should have stopped him leaving the club and just insisted on taking him to hospital. I didn’t, though. I wanted a little revenge as well. I could have been killed that evening. I’m not proud of it, but there was a debt to be paid.

Another kick to the head and it should have been over, but two more muted thumps kept him down. I couldn’t see the man’s face, and I didn’t want to. I was slow holding my brother back, but in the end, when it was late, I did. I take comfort from that. I am not him, even when I’m full of anger and spite. I am not. He would have kicked that man to death. Maybe he did.

We left him there on the pavement and I did take my brother to hospital to be stitched and flirted with by a nurse. I read the next day’s papers looking for news of a killing in Camden, near the Underworld club. There was nothing.

When we met Denis, Carol still drew men in when she was hungry, though she’d learned a few things about keeping them at arm’s length as well. For years I hadn’t had to deal with one of her hangers-on, those peculiar males who would pretend to be a caring colleague or a friend while they waited for her to fall into bed with them. It was usually enough to have a quiet word, just to let them know I knew. I didn’t need help until we met Denis Tanter. Even then it might have been enough to turn a blind eye to a few afternoons in hotels until she had scratched her itch.

You think the first time is going to kill you, but it just doesn’t. The night is the worst one of your life, but when sleep does come it turns off your imagination. You wake up the next day and she’s there making breakfast and everything is all right again. I could have lived with that, I knew I could. The problem with Denis Tanter was that he wanted Carol all to himself.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT gives one man power over other men? You’d think it would be money, or some high position, being a judge perhaps, or a politician. In all honesty, when are you ever troubled by that kind of level? I’ve never had the Foreign Minister turn up at my door and insist I move my car. I think if he did I would probably call the police. I’m not saying they don’t have power, of a kind. Of course they do – too much of it, maybe. It just isn’t the sort of thing that presses you down on a daily basis. You don’t have them come into your house and take your wallet, if you see what I mean.

There is a lesser place, though, underneath the courts and security guards, right down where it can really tear the spleen right out of you. It doesn’t take an army and it certainly doesn’t take enormous amounts of money. For just a few hundred pounds a week, one man can hire another one to punch and kick and break, maybe even to rape or rob, if that was needed. Just one man to do whatever he’s asked. That’s all it takes. I can only imagine what it must be like to have one.

Men like Denis Tanter spend a pleasant evening in a restaurant, and by the time they get home, someone they want to frighten has had his door kicked in and his fingers broken by a complete stranger. You can’t go to the police because you know they’ll make it worse the second time. You know that fear is usually enough. Most men aren’t able to stop one violent criminal holding them down and battering their head so hard on the kitchen tiles that they break. Most men care about a woman, or a child, something that grabs them and squeezes their chest in terror if they’re even mentioned. You don’t get fear like that from politicians or judges. You know they have limits, no matter what happens. If you walk free out of court, you don’t expect the police to send men round to your house that night to give you a bit of justice.

I’d actually met Denis’s man, Michael, at the New Year’s Eve party. He wasn’t enormous, like those bouncers you see on club doorways. Denis had found himself a solid, six-foot boxer without a single moral to trouble his conscience. I even chatted to Michael that first evening, and I think I should have had some sort of warning, some instinct. Life would be a lot easier if we felt a shiver down the spine when we met a man who will be punching us unconscious a month later.