Horsemeat Surprise

“So Liam, why not tell us in your own words.  We think we know what you’ve done but the how and the why are evading us” said Sergeant Palmer.  Liam Noble looked back at Palmer with a look of disdain in his eyes.

“Have you even bothered to read my mission statement?” he asked tersely.

“Mission Statement?” Palmer replied.  “Is it in amongst that pile of papers we recovered from your van?

“Yes, it’s there along with my Risk Register, Risk Assessments of each project and a Method Statement.  Put them all together Sergeant and you’ll have your how and why”.

“Ok but how about you talk me through them, and then I’ll make sure to go back and read them later to get the full picture.”

“Fair enough” replied Noble.  “I’ll start with the mission statement.  It’s what defines my current project.  Something punchy that sums it up in an easy sound bite.

“I will be the most professional serial killer this country has ever seen”.

“And that’s it?” Palmer asked.  “And how exactly are you going to achieve this professionalism?”

“This is where I shine” grinned Noble.  I’ve been taking an e-learning course in Project Management.  I’ve even got a recognised qualification.  My genius is to take sound business skills and apply them to me more esoteric hobby.”

“Esoteric Hobby?”

“Well the qualification is called MSP – Managing Successful Programmes.  But I’ve applied it to my hobby is MSP is now Murdering Simple People”

“Mmmmmmm Ok but how does that fit in with your actual job?  I mean you aren’t some high flying suit in the city.  You deliver groceries for Tesco”.

“But don’t you see Sergeant – it’s perfect.” “Nobody ever sees a grocery delivery man as a threat.  They want you to come to the door, they’ll actively engage you in conversation and if your lucks really in you can even take the groceries inside so you get a look at their gaff”

“Look, I spend hours practicing smiling in the mirror.  I’ve got that down pat.  I read books on body language so I’m always presenting a non-verbal message of “He’s a cuddly little bear who won’t hurt anyone”

“I even follow a CSI tech on twitter who tweets from that day’s crime scenes.  You’ve got to get all the tips you can if you want to be the best.”

9 times out of 10 it works but sometimes you get a person who’s a bit more attuned.  They always take a second look in my eyes.  Nothing you can do about the eyes, can’t wear sunglasses on the doorstep.  My eyes are predators eyes.  Like a sharks.  Dark and emotionless, all they see is prey.  These are the customers who’ll complain that the driver was late or rude.  They know something wasn’t right but they aren’t sure what.

“How does this all fit in with your MSP?” Palmer sounded genuinely perplexed.

“Look, you’ve got the mission statement – you know what I want to be” The rest is easy:

Each delivery is a fresh risk assessment.  Have they got a dog? Are there too many shoes in the hall or on the doorstep indicating lots of kids, will they let me in with the groceries?  If they do let me in what kinds of locks do they have, is there an alarm panel, where’s the phone line etc”

All these things added with any info I can get during chatting with them let’s me colour code them in my risk register.  Red is a no go.  Amber – possible with difficulty.  Green is a lovely colour.  It means they are prime for a little re-visit at a later date.  Just me and my little toolkit with its collection of very painful toys.

“Right” Palmer sighed.  “I get it now.  Every delivery of yours is a stakeout of potential victims.  Ingenious in its own twisted way but how did you manage to gain entry to the houses you coded green on your register?

“Well this is the method statement.  My method is to attend the house later the same day, gain entry, subdue my chosen playmate and enjoy a few minutes or hours of recreation depending on how much fun they are being.”

“Ok but that’s not telling us how you actually got in.”

“Well the problem with the method statement was that I needed a trigger.  Something to switch off their guard when I knocked at the door.  And then Findus rode to the rescue.  Or pranced, trotted or jumped depending on which equestrian joke you prefer”

“Carry on” Palmer said fighting an urge to grab Noble and strangle the life out of him.

“The whole Findus Horse Meat debacle gave me the excuse I needed.”  “What I did is add an additional question to the risk register.”

 “Have they ordered Findus Lasagne or Tesco Everyday Spaghetti Bolognese?”

If they were green and ticked this box as well, all I did was knock at the door and explain “that the store had identified that they had bought a contaminated product.”

“All us drivers had been asked to work overtime and visit customers to retrieve the item as a precaution.”

 Invariably they turned away to go into the kitchen.  I’d step in smartly behind them, a strong blow to the back of the neck put them down and that was it.

Cable ties and a rag in the mouth and outside for my toolkit.  Play time.

“How many times did this work?” Palmer responded not quite believing what he was hearing.

“You’re the policeman and you have all the paperwork” Noble grinned  “Time to do a bit of legwork I’m afraid but I can guarantee you aren’t going to like what you find”  “I’m a very very good delivery driver”

Palmer got up and walked out. 

Noble relaxed back in his chair, all the difficult work was done.  All he had to do now was sit back and revel in the undoubted adulation that was coming his way.

Project Complete.

Brian T

WHAT SORT OF TIME DO YOU CALL THIS?

I’ve took two of my tablets, but they haven’t touched the sides and now I’m back down here with a cup of hot chocolate and the gas fire on. I’ve tried to watch a bit of telly but it was the usual claptrap, so I switched it off. I’d put the radio on for the news, but it’ll just be the same stories they’ve been running all day; disgraced politician due for sentencing, heavy snow expected overnight, two lads from Wakefield killed in Afghanistan. She said she’d be home by midnight, but the hands on the clock don’t lie and they’re telling me it’s half past.

   There’s no chance of me sleeping. Not yet.

   I can hear voices going past the window. People coming back from nightclubs; no, not nightclubs, it’s not time for that yet is it? Pubs stay open longer now. Past one o’clock, some of them. That’s what she told me.

   Another cup of hot chocolate.

   Ten past one.

   I remember the first time we fostered. We’d heard an advert on the radio. It was that actress, that chubby one who was the vicar Of Dibley. She fostered as well. In real life, I mean. It came on while we were sat in traffic. You could really make a difference, she said. We’d talked about it, me and Raymond, discussed it from every angle and then we decided we were going to go for it. We waited for the advert to come on again. I kept a pen and a piece of paper ready and then a few days later I caught the number and rang them up. They come round to do a proper visit, make sure you’re clean living people with proper values.

   Quarter to bloody two. What time do nightclubs finish? It’s two o’clock, isn’t it, nightclubs?

   She might not be my daughter but she’s my responsibility. Until she’s eighteen years old, I’m held responsible. She’ll come back though. She always does. She’s just trying my patience. Testing the boundaries. I know her game. She must think I haven’t been through this a thousand times before. If Raymond were here she wouldn’t be acting up like this. That I do know.

   I’ll hear the key in the door and she’ll creep in with her shoes in her hand and I’ll be sat here with the lights off and the gas fire on and she’ll get the fright of her life Serves her right an’all, the fright she’s given me.

   Now then, Madam, I’ll say. What sort of time do you call this?

   

Russ L

An encounter with The Great Beast

John, his wife, and the three kids, piled into the car still bleary eyed. It was 4am. Ahead of them was a nine hour slog to the remote end of Loch Ness.

John had rented a crofters cottage on the far shore, no phone signal, no internet, nothing.

The kids were giddy, tales of the monster abound. On arrival, the kids ran from room to room excitedly, arguing over who sleeps where. John looked at his wife. They both smiled.

John had set about bringing logs from the wood pile, pausing to take in the hypnotic majestic vista. The Highlands have a unique light. Ever changing. Liquid.

“I have to go into Inverness John” his wife said. “Forgotten allsorts.”

“Its miles away woman, we’ve been on the road since four”

“I’ll take the kids” she replied “you have a kip love, I won’t be long”

John passed her two twenty pound notes.

“Get a decent bottle of malt love, when in Rome and all that”…

John opened up the Ordinance Survey map onto the bed and pin pointed the position of the cottage. He noticed a name, written in tiny print. Boleskine House. It was less than a mile away along the shore.

Boleskine House is written into Scottish Folklore and has a dark history. Previous owners include several eccentrics and famously at one point, home to Led Zeppelin.

Its most infamous owner however, was one Aleister Crowley. Intellectual, Satanist, drug addict, madman. Got to have a nosey round that thought John, be a couple of hours before they’re back.

He approached the main gate from the Marshall Wade Road, September sunlight filtering

Through the vast  pines that lined the road. Apart from the occasional tweet of a songbird, Silence. The gates were padlocked. ‘For Sale. View by appointment only’ read the sign, It was empty.

John had a look around, then climbed over the low stone wall and into the one time lair of the man they called ‘The Great Beast 666’

A gravel drive led down to the property. The building was not what he’d expected, but a very large bungalow, whitewashed, and annexed at both ends. He cupped his hands up to his face and peered through the window, trying to imagine the tales those walls could tell. Murder, suicide, sacrifice, drug fuelled orgies, black magic ceremonies, and that was before Led Zeppelin moved in.

Round the back is an ancient burial site, leading down to the shores of Loch Ness.

John walked down, past the Gothic headstones, some dating back 900 years. Silence.

He’d never swallowed all that Hocus Pocus, ghosts and ghouls type stuff. It only exists in people’s heads. A fear of the unknown. All bollocks.

As John reached the Loch, thinking how great it would be to see the fabled creature, he noticed a small stone out building. Above the door, expertly carved into the lintel, was a pentangle. What horrors had that place witnessed? He wondered if it was done by the man himself.

Best get back thought John, they will be back from Inverness soon.

As he walked back toward the house, like something from the cheesiest horror film, a strong wind whipped around from nowhere. Clouds the colour of ink rolled in from across the Loch. Thunder cracked overhead, John’s pace quickened. He laughed to himself at the notion that he felt a bit uneasy. Time to leave.

As he approached the Croft, His wife was outside. She hurried towards him, clearly distressed.

“What’s wrong girl?” he said as she opened her arms.

“ I got a phone signal on the way back, your brother has been trying to get in touch, I’m so sorry John,.. your mum died suddenly this afternoon”

By the next morning, the bottle of fine single malt was empty.

All coincidence?...Yes. Still….

Si

The Turquoise Nylon Multi pocketed Packed To Stretching Rucksack Explodes....

The Turquoise Nylon Multi pocketed Packed To Stretching Rucksack Explodes....

Every day my journeys are rapt with fear and fantasy. I take a mini-cab, a tube train, a bus, a bike or I walk but at some point I am either gripped with the possibility of terrorist attack - a rotten cheating unstoppable way to die - or lost in the make-up world my music gives me.

The music started in car parks, I realised one day I could appear in my own thriller scene. Taking something mundane and letting music and motion place me somewhere more intense than the subterranean office car park full of Mondeos. Everytime I glided into the car park at work three jobs ago I would slow the car right down and roll it as if in slo-mo. Picturing it from so many camera angles. A key moment in a thriller, the strange artificial light gliding between the concrete pillars and parked cars. Electronic pop coating the tension with icing. And then I would sit in the dark, staring at the wall until the song had finished. Those final moments of dread before the daily employment strait jacket is fitted again transformed into something dangerous, mysterious, exhilarating.

And then, when I didn't drive to work any more I would take the underground to the always spring fresh Sloane Square and hit OHMSS by John Barry and walk down the Kings Road with that startling Bond soundtrack pounding. I felt I could see myself from different angles again. A man doing something far more important than the daily commute. A man whose brain is multi-tracked with cinematic images, looks, sounds. I didn't consider myself to be in a film, just that my life was being filmed. that the parking of the car or The walk to work was singularly more gripping than it had every been for a few decades.

And then the fear started set in too. I started to notice it. from fantasy to paranoia. Just as my imagination allowed me the possibility of an existence as thrilling as the music I listen to, so it can condemn me to a possibility of terror.
the terrorist bombs on the underground in recent years, the attack on gay Old Compton Street before them, the IRA bombs in the burger bar years before that. all places I pass and use. It could have been any of us, it could happen again. that rucksack, that suitcase. Clothes or nails and explosives?

If I sit by the Perspex divider will the blast fly over my head? If I change carriages will it help? If I play music will it take me out of real life fear and into fantasy? Are they the same?

The decision to imagine a camera that gives a new purpose to a journey illustrated song. Is it any different to a decision to imagine darkness, noise, deafness, terror. The inability to stay alive in the face of a bomb.

And so I sit and look at the rucksack at my feet and wonder. Is this fear, is it fantasy, am I someone else? The music stops, no-one shouts cut and the Turquoise nylon multi pocketed packed to stretching rucksack explodes....

James Brown

Telling it like it is

Telling it like it is

What did she look like?  I can't really remember.  Rangy?  Big?  Black hair.  Keen on cardigans.  Not the ragged studenty ones with holes in though.  Colour of eyes?  Don't ask me. 

She was just one of those women that you really wanted to be with, usually because she could think like you and even better, act like you and drink like you and talk like you.  So she knew that even though you usually kept at least a rough count of these things, you'd sometimes forget her "status," as she liked to call it.  Particularly after your fifth pint. 

So it was always wonderful when she took your feelings into account.  And after the said fifth pint, she wouldn't fuck about with pissy, lightweight comments like "It's not the right time of the month for me." 

She would just say, all in one go, "I'm on at the moment kid, but don't worry, because that doesn't mean you won't be getting any."

Martin C

Ripping Off Bobby D Doesn't Go Exactly To Plan

-I'm telling you the place is packed every night. It's gotta be a goldmine.
-Yeah?
-Phone 'em up, try book a fucking table then?
-Yeah?
-Yeah. You can't it's booked solid. People in this town, they go nuts for a new restaurant, and this one, with De Niro backing it, you know how New Yorkers love Bobby?
-Yeah?
-Fucking A, Yeah. Arh fuck you Sal if yous don't want in, I'll get that crew of Micks from over Middle Village  do it with me.
-No, no, no, no , no, no. I never said I wasn't interested alls I'm doing is asking questions. Make sure you've got your shit together. Ain't having no fuckin Micks knock Bobby D over. No fuckin way!

The late model Caddy pulled into the Tribeca side street and parked outside a one time warehouse. Tendy fucking lofts now for rich people who wouldn't have even walked down here 10 years ago. These sidewalks are mobbed with strollers and babies and mommies and nannies by day and at night the beautiful people come out to eat in some fancy restaurants and feel 'edgy' for a few hours.  Edgy, downtown. They wanna feel edgy they should try get some chicken wings in East New York or Brownsville at 3 a.m. Fuck 'em, they'll feel edgy tonight alright.

-You sure this is it then?
- Yeah, look Nobu just like it says in the Zagat.
-Alright alls we do now then is wait.

The two goons slink down in their seats and wait for the restaurant to empty. 2:15 it says in the Zagat.
- Hey Sal, Sal wake up, they're locking the place up.
-Ok  here we go then. you ready?
-Yeah Sal, let's do this.

-Hey buddy! Sal bangs on the window while his partner hides out of sight, his shooter drawn.
-Hey buddy, I left my wallet at my table, can yous let me in, it'll only take a minute?
The porter stops sweeping the floor and unlocks the front door of the restaurant. The two robbers push their way in past him, guns drawn and trained on the hapless porter.
-Alright motherfuckas get the manager out here or this fucking spic gets it!
-Where's the fucking dude with the money? Get him out here.
-Please! Please don't shoot me! Oh God I... Please, I'm just the porter, I clean, I wash put out the garbage, please!

From the kitchen a waiter emerges...
-Oh shit! Fuck...
-You! You motherfucka hand over the money. Get the takings now!
-Oh shit, erm, err
-Now you piece of shit don't fuck about!
- There isn't any
- What? You some kindof fucking clown, yanking my chain? What the fuck? Cash now or the wet back gets it.
- Please no don't hurt me! My family,my...
- Shut the fuck up! Get the fucking money now!
- Please, seriously, oh God don't shoot him, there isn't any money, we don't take money, it's all creditcards. Please.
-What? What the fuck do you mean?
-We, we, we just don't take cash. Nobu's not that kind of place.
-Huh? What the?
- Hey Sal I didn't know I...
- Shut the fuck up and get the fuck out of here now!

The two would be robbers run to the Caddy, jump in and screech away into the night, headed for the Brooklyn Bridge.

-Hey Sal if I knew, I swear. I... I...
- Shut the fuck up and pass me that Zagats you fucking  fuck you..
- Honest Sal, I... Here, here..
-Nobu. Nobu. Nobu. 27/30. Decor 9. Food 9. Service 9...
-See I told you it was a good spot...
- Cost $$$$ Expensive. Credit cards only. You dumb fuck.

JL

Heroine

Waiting until Jason is in full bullshit mode, regaling their mates with some tired old story, Rosie slides out of her chair and exits. The music and laughter is subdued by the length of the hallway and her need. The glory of the bathroom is revealed. It matches her mood. Fluorescent light, chipped and stained enamel, mouldy grouting, tied together with lime green woodwork. About time they moved out of this shit hole. 

Rosie’s fingers tremble as she teases the foil into a tube. A pen or even a toothbrush would make it easier but the thought is dismissed by the urgency in her veins. She also knows she should first burn the foil because later, inevitably, when she’s desperate enough to smoke the residue that collects in the tube, she won’t be inhaling the foil’s plastic coating. But again those thoughts are shouldered aside by the sour grapefruit zing in her limbs. She tears another square of aluminium, burns it and flattens it ready to receive some of the dirty brown powder. Her shaky fingers are bolstered by a fear of spillage.

The cheap plastic lighter is found and ground into life. The foil square placed over the flame and the powder, teased expertly into smoke, is quickly inhaled via the loosely rolled tube. Angling the foil away she deftly chases the bead of resin, retrieving the released.

Release. Release from the fear of pain.

The first lungful is always metallic and hot. A noise from down the hallway reminds her of her guests. She lies to herself deciding that another strike of metal on flint, the inhalation, another cough or two, not to mention the acrid smell, is all sure to go unnoticed. Sitting back warmth seeps into her limbs replacing the citrus electricity that existed before. The tide is back in washing away all the detritus, the litter of a messy mind spoiling a place of natural beauty. She’d always been environmentally conscious, so it was natural to want the shoreline free from crap.

Another and it was high tide.

*********

Jason looks up as Rosie wafts back in. She looks like she’s underwater. He notices the contracted pupils, tiny beads of black in red-rimmed white. Eyelids lowered in submission. Her lips are teased up in a Mona Lisa smile. She sits and avoids his eye - her gaze slipping over him like he’s Teflon. She rubs her nose, twists her hair and touches her neck before repeating the opiate-induced ritual. Fuck. Could she be more obvious?

Chris Williams

Big Sick Jim Martin, and the £1500 Curry

   Big Sick Jim Martin, and the £1500 Curry.

By Ian Hunter

   From its humble beginnings, The Real Thing album had now become a monster. 18 months ago Faith No More were still relatively unknown in Europe. Original singer, Chuck Mosley, had imploded after impact with a giant crack rock, and even the small band of diehard fans, who had chanced across the band’s debut album, (We Care A Lot) were unsure of his replacement, Mike Patton.

   They need not have worried. Debut single, Out of Nowhere, had launched Patton on the world; Epic had followed it up on a global scale, and 18 months down the line, The Real Thing has sold by the truck load. A year ago Faith No More were sharing a cramped mini bus with their road crew but right now their two giant sleeper buses are pulling in to a service station en-route from London to Birmingham.

   FNM’s guitarist, Big Sick Jim Martin, looks up from his copy of Massive Tits Monthly through a wall of cigar smoke, and inquires as to why they are stopping. The rest of the band shrug with disinterest and continue watching Evil Dead II, before the driver pops his head out of his cab, holding a small walkie-talkie. “Tim just radioed from the other bus and told me to park up.” 

Jim Martin sighed and went back to ogling giant buns. The door on the crews bus sprang back with a pneumatic wheeze and out stepped Tim; a wiry no nonsense northerner. Tim looked like he couldn’t manage a bag of heavy shopping but his reputation for dealing with ‘the shizzle’ was legendary. Earlier on in the tour, the support band had been warned that they were not to go to catering until FNM had sound checked and gone to eat. That’s the etiquette. Tim didn’t give second warnings. When it had happened again, he had simply marched in to catering, up-turned the support bands table, and beat them all about the head with a wooden bread board. At this precise moment he was marching across the pot holed car park toward the bands bus and he looked like he meant business. 

Big Sick Jim Martin glanced up from his boob fest, and slunk down low in his seat.

Tim climbed aboard, scanned the bus lounge, and spotted the mass of black curls atop of a pair of big red sunglasses. He walked over to Big Sick Jim and thrust a fax in front of his big black beard. “What the fuck is this, Jim?” asked Tim, with more than a hint of annoyance. 

Big Sick Jim glanced at it, not really needing to read it to know what it was. “Er, it’s a hotel bill, puss.”

Tim snatched it back. “Yes Jim, it’s a bill for your room, from The Columbia Hotel, for £1600. That’s exactly £1500 more than it should be.” Tim leaned in and snatched Massive Tits Monthly from the hands of its reader. “Would you care to explain?” 

Big Sick Jim Martin sat back with a nonchalant sigh and took the stogie from his mouth. “I spilled my curry.” 

Tim the tour manager looked at him with consternation before looking to the rest of the band to check that he hadn’t just imagined it. “You spilled your curry? How the fuck does spilling your curry cost £1500?”

Big Sick Jim Martin pondered the question and clearly decided that attack was the best form of defence. “Look, Puss, I spilled my fucking Curry, OK?” Tim was having none of it. “OK Jim, explain how spilling your curry has just cost us £1500?” Big Sick Jim blew out his cheeks and raised his arms with incredulity.

“OK OK, after the gig I went and bought a takeaway and brought it back to my room. I’m sitting on the corner of my bed pouring this cup of fuckin’ yellow shit sauce over my food and I spilled some on the fucking duvet.” Jim re-lit his cigar and continued his explanation. 

“Now I’m looking at this stain and thinking Tim’s gonna get a cleaning bill for this, so I wanted to help ya out. I went in my case and took out a can of lighter fuel, cuz I’m thinking this shit will get the stain out, right?” Tim’s jaw is slowly dropping as Big Sick Jim continues to explain. “Thing is Tim, I’m fucking scrubbing so hard to save your sorry English ass, that my fuckin’ cigar fell out my mouth and set fire to the fuckin; duvet! Now I’m thinking to myself, Tim is gonna be real pissed about this so I better help him out.”

Tim raises his palms and stops Jim in his tracks. “OK Jim, you set fire to the duvet but how is that £1500?” Big Sick Jim Martin stared back at his tour manager; his expression that of a man who just couldn’t understand what was not being understood. “OK, so I’m looking at this fire and I’m thinkin’ I need to put this baby out and stop it spreading.” 

It’s at this point that everyone thinks to themselves, what would I do? Everyone else on the bus lands on the same square at the same time. You would grab the duvet and throw it in the bath tub and turn on the shower... Wouldn’t you? 

Jim continued. “So a grabbed the duvet and threw it off the balcony.” Jims face became slightly sheepish. “Anyway, I’m eating my curry and slugging a few drinks when suddenly I can see smoke rising outside. I walked out on to the balcony to take a look and the god damn bushes are on fire.” Jim Martins face is one of; can you believe it? “So I’m thinkin’ Tim’s gonna be in real doo doo here, so I figured 

I could smother it by dropping the mattress on it. That didn’t work so well, so I tried again with the bed.... And then the wardrobe.”

Tim’s jaw was now on the carpet. He finally composed himself enough to say something.  “So let me get this right Jim, you threw the majority of your furniture from a second story hotel room and burned it in the street?”

Big Sick Jim Martin shook his head and blew out his cheeks with frustration. He looked up at Tim one last time. “What don’t you understand here?... I JUST SPILLED MY FUCKING CURRY!

Public Enemy #1

“And lastly, I want you all to keep your eyes peeled for this clown who’s nicking telephones. Usually it’s kids trying to steal the money from phone boxes but this joker, he cuts the cable and steals the phone itself. Fuck knows what he does with them.”

The police officers, fully briefed, emptied out of the meeting room and prepared for their shifts.

“Nice work on catching that mugger last week Johnson.”

“Catching? Catching? The little fucker ran right round the corner and into his arms. Fucking junkie.”

“Ask me if I give a fuck. A collar’s a collar. And we gave him the business in the cells. Little twat, robbing old ‘uns like that.”

Meanwhile, across town in a nondescript bedsit, Wayne lay on his bed staring up at the twenty seven telephone receivers hanging from his ceiling a Cramps album playing, a cigarette dangling from his lip and a bottle of tequila in his left hand.

“So what do you reckon Johnno, this tit chopping phone cables?”

“Who the fuck knows, this town’s full of loons.”

The police car crept along the high street, the two officers straining to see the receiver in every phone box they passed.

Wayne threw on his coat and set off out into the night. He checked his flat top haircut in the shop window and gave himself a knowing wink. He felt the cable cutters in his pocket and laughed to himself as he sauntered past a phone box, minus phone, at the end of his street. The Barking Dog pub beckoned and he stopped for a pint, making small talk with the landlord. On his way out, he used the Gents then deftly clipped the phone cable from the pay phone in the hallway.

“Nice.” He put the receiver in an inside pocket of his coat. These old overcoats were great for hiding stuff he thought to himself. He fished out his Walkman, put his headphones on, inserted a Meteors tape and head out once more into the night.

“I mean, seriously, what the fuck can you do with a load of phones like that? Twenty odd they reckon in the last two weeks…”

“How the fuck would should I know? Listen, drive up by the university, there’s a block of half a dozen phones there, what’d you reckon?”

“Jesus Johnno lad, you’re good.”

Wayne gave the phone boxes the once over from his vantage point in the shadows of the university’s front doors. “All clear. Here we go. Too easy.”

“Johnno lad, look, we’ve got the fucker, that’s him for sure.”

“Oi, you yer cunt don’t fucking move!”

Wayne, naturally, took off running. The two police officers gave chase.

“Hey yer fucker, come here now!”

“Johnno, go on Johnno!.”

Johnson threw himself at Wayne’s legs and took him down with a well-timed rugby tackle, Higgins followed through with a deft kick in the ribs.

“Got yer, yer little cunt.”

The two policemen pulled Wayne up off the ground as a small crowd gathered. Johnson gave Higgins a nod as if to alert him to the fact they were been watched. No more rough stuff, do this by the book.

“Now then lad, what have you to say for yourself?”

Wayne wrestled his arm free of Johnson’s grip and reached inside his coat. Higgins moved forward and grabbed at his arm. Wayne grinned pulled out a phone and looked Higgins in the eye.

“Officer, it’s for you.”

Johnny

Switch

Switch

The older I get the more I’m like my dad.  It started with the sighing.  That sigh you let out when you’re exasperated with the kids, your life and the abortion you are making of a little piece of DIY.
Mind you he’s the DIY king.
I’ve given up DIY after the experience of trying to fit a cat flap into the wall of our garage so the mangy cats can live outside.  I ended up with a hole the size of a Bengal tiger which led to my own DIY SOS to my dad to come and fix the mess.
Not only do I sigh and now breath like him I’ve started with his obsession with turning off electrical items.  I wander round after the kids braying “Sunlight is free” whilst opening the curtains and turning off TV’s, computers and particularly light switches.  He’s obsessed with switches and now so am I.  Which is ironic when you come to think of it, given where I’m sitting today.
I’m holding his hand in both of mine as he lies in a hospital bed.  He’s attached to things that beep repeatedly, take his blood pressure, do his breathing.  I’m remembering a drunken night we shared as a family back when we’d moved into our new house.
Dad came and cooked and we ate and drank and gossiped.  Over the course of the evening for some reason he got round to talking about mortality and how if he ever ended up incapable of helping himself then we were to make sure that he went with some dignity.  Nobody was listening to him, putting it down to the maudlin effect of brandy.
I promised there and then that I would help him should the time come.  We laughed it off but it felt like a promise, like I’d made a commitment.
So here we are, Me and my dad both obsessed with switching things off.  He can’t tell me that he’s had enough, that he’s knackered and ready to go.  I look round at the family standing and one by one they nod knowing it’s right and glad it’s not them.
I’ve already squared it with the doctors.  Normally family aren’t allowed to do this as it’s more a figure of speech.  But I made a promise, a commitment and they’ve relented.
I free one hand, reach over and switch his life support off.

Brian Tuck