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serious business of getting thoroughly rat-arsed.
    â€˜Oi love,’ said the biggest of the trio, an obese barrel of a man in a West Ham shirt and dirty jeans. ‘What you doing then?’
    Niki, engrossed in practising her deadly karate moves, didn’t even hear his question.
    â€˜He’s talking to you,’ said the second man, a weaselly little runt with a pockmarked face, wearing a fake leather jacket and combat pants.
    Once again Niki didn’t hear.
    â€˜You cunt,’ spat the third. Well built, but rapidly turning to fat, he nonetheless thought himself a wow with the ladies, despite his repellent body odour.
    His words got through to Niki’s brain, and she turned towards them. ‘What did you say?’ she asked, her accent hard in the morning air.
    â€˜Fuck me,’ said the first one. ‘A bleedin’ foreigner. What are you then? A fuckin’ asylum seeker on the scrounge?’
    Considering none of the trio had done a day’s work in decades seemed to make no difference to his righteous indignation. Years of reading reactionary tabloids had convinced him that anyone with a foreign accent was only in the country to steal the benefits he received from the state, and that were his natural right.
    â€˜What do you want?’ asked Niki. She was confused about why the men were picking on her.
    â€˜He wants to know what you’re up to, you dumb fucking bitch,’ snarled Weasel.
    A native east-ender might have come up with some quick remark, or possibly told them to piss off and mind their own business. Even if they were mob-handed, and well on the way to being drunk and disorderly.
    â€˜I’m practising,’ said Niki. She wasn’t afraid, just a bit perplexed by their attention.
    â€˜Practising what?’ asked Pock-marks. He was beginning to enjoy the sport. Nothing like three men against a lone woman to add a little spice to the day. His little firm were feared in many a boozer from Hackney to Limehouse, and barred from most for bad behaviour. But one on one was not their idea of fun.
    â€˜Martial arts.’
    â€˜Fucking Kung-Fu ,’ said Weasel. ‘ Glasshopper .’
    This piece of wit caused them all to laugh nastily.
    Niki didn’t know what he was talking about, as Kung-Fu had never reached Russian TV in the Seventies.
    She looked confused again. ‘What?’ she asked.
    â€˜Fucking ignorant Gyppo,’ said the first man around a mouthful of Stella Artois, and he went to push her down.
    It was his second mistake of the day. The first was getting up.
    Niki swayed away from his touch, and moved within reach of the Lady-Killer who grabbed her by the shoulder. Another bad idea in a lifetime of them.
    Niki turned sharply and roughly pulled her shoulder away.
    Weasel laughed. ‘What’s the matter with you two?’ he said, ‘She’s just a girl,’ and he tried to stuff the hand not holding the can up her tee-shirt.
    It was this clumsy attempt to touch her that filled her with rage. She bounced on her Nike trainers, and appeared to simply touch the man three times. Once on each shoulder, and once in the solar plexus. Weasel dropped like a stone, his can erupting foam, as Niki spun on the balls of her feet and delivered a kick to the Barrel Man’s crotch. His scream froze passers-by as he doubled up and fell to his knees, his beer joining Weasel’s on the grass.
    The Lady-Killer was thinking twice about what to do next. Who the fuck was this woman, and what had gone wrong with the day?
    Almost as an afterthought Niki chopped him beneath his nose, and his two front teeth, of which he was inordinately proud, were forced down his throat. When the second chop hit his Adam’s apple, they were projected out of his mouth in a gout of blood.
    The third strike was at his right knee, and as he lost all feeling in his leg, he too hit the deck.
    â€˜Don’t ever touch me again,’ said Niki, to their