"Blakey on Tour - Part 15"

(An ongoing story. Part one here)

'I'll meet yers back there by the van, right?' I shouts after Jock, watching the cow parsley calm to a standstill after he'd crashed through it and stirred it up not ten seconds prior.

It were odd, knowing that Jock were down there. You wouldn't know it, everything being quiet and still again. He'd shouted and whinged a bit when I'd first pushed him, just like the Highlander in the film, but that soon stopped once he got his momentum. Then I heard that noise down the bottom, a sort of a cross between a thud and a squelch. And a crunch. It weren't a nice sound, thinking about it now, but I knowed he'd be alright. Highlanders is immortal, and this were the only way for him to learn that.

'Bring a couple o' fish, eh,' I yells, trying to cheer him up with a little joke. But my voice were a bit quieter now and less sure of itself. This were all new to me as well, mind you. 'And some chips.'

I set off down the path again, stopping after a couple of steps to add summat to the order. 'And a couple o' fishcakes,' I bellows, hearing it echo deep down below. 'And see if they got any saveloys. If they ain't, get a few battered sausages. And some mushy peas - three of the little cartons of it. Right?'

It seemed to echo louder and louder the more scran you ordered, and by the end of it I could hardly hear me own voice for it coming back at us. And it took a long while to go quiet again, that last word lingering like a curry fart in a church. Then I noticed summat about it, just as it finally wafted away into silence: it weren't the same as the last word I'd shouted. I'd signed off with 'Right', hadn't I? This weren't that. Not the way I had it in me swede anyhow. This were 'Blakey...'

Which gives you the fucking creeps, don't it, no matter how hard and courageous you is? Mind you, it were like as not Jock, replying to us from down there in the gulley. I knowed he'd be alright.

The path came out into a clearing after a couple of twists and turns, and that's where I found meself a couple of minutes later. I were still headed for the flickering flame we'd clocked from the road, far as I knowed, but as yet I'd found no trace of it. Only a whiff of burning wood on the breeze, which put us in mind of bonfire nights as a youngun when they used to burn a big guy down by the river at Ditchcroft. I'd never understood that tradition meself. Far as I seed it, some bloke called Guy Fawkes tried blowing up the Houses of Parliament, although they caught him in time and punished him by burning him, which seems a bit strong but there you go – they was all cunts in them days. But why's we got to keep on burning him every fucking year? And who's this Parliament feller anyhow? And why's he got all them houses? Is he a landlord or summat? Cos if he's anything like Kettle it should have been him they burned, not the poor sap who made a stand against him. I'll tell you about Kettle in a bit. Suffice to say he's the cunt I have to pay rent to.

Anyhow, so I were getting this whiff of smoke on the breeze, but there were summat off about it, summat a bit manky and damp, like the pong you gets in one of Kettle's houses. I wandered around a bit, poking around here and there and wondering what were what and where the fucking fire were, when I chanced upon it. As in the fire.

But it were a fire no longer.

I were stood on it, and the heat from it rose up through the soles of me boots and made us step aside and have a look. I'd thought it a simple pile of wood at first but it had been a bonfire alright, not ten minutes prior by the heat still coming off it and the embers round the edge. But someone had put it out, and the Kettle-like whiff were from the damp ash and half-burned bits of wood. And piss. There were a definite element of urine in the air, rancid and unmistakeable like the very rare occasion when you wakes up after a massive night on the pop to find you've pissed your pit.

I crouched down and had a closer gander, marvelling at the sheer bladder capacity and accuracy of someone who could put out a bonfire just by slashing on it. Had to be some kind of giant, for fucking surely - no way could Alvin pull off such a feat of pissing. And there were no sign of corpses being burned here. Not even a tuft of hair or some blackened bones or a touch of barbecued meat alongside them other smells.

I stepped around a bit, noting the flattened grass and a couple of empty baked bean tins nearby, and one of them oblong corned beef ones. This were a camp, pure and fucking simple. Some poor homeless cunt had been dossing here and I'd scared him off, all thanks to Highlander back there and his cock-and-bollocks story about Alvin saying he were gonna burn that corpse, which were Dracula or summat. The more I thought about Highlander, the more I saw what a shite-spinner he were. I wouldn't be surprised if he were laid out down in that gulley right now, mangled and bleeding and with his brains spilling from his smashed swede. That'd serve him right for claiming to be the Highlander.

I were knackered now and hungry. All I wanted to do were get home, rustle up a few Pot Noodles and crash out in me pit, safe in the knowledge that I'd cleared up another mystery here. I tell yers, I dunno what this town would do without me. I were like all the members of the A-Team rolled into one – the brawn of Clubber Lang, the good looks of Murdock, the cigar of Hannibal and whatever the other one had. I started whistling the theme tune to that program as I went back the way I'd come, picturing the burger van out by the roadside and how I could make it look like the one from the A-Team with a lick of paint. But that thought flew right out of me swede when I heard it.

'Blake...' it went, distant and echoing like before but clearer, and most defo not the voice of Jock nor anyone else I knowed. 'I saw what you did, Blake...'

I pegged it the fuck out of there.


(Come back tomorrow for more...)