Blakey on Tour - Part 23

(An ongoing story. Part one here)


Course, I were sorted now.

On the vibrating diamond front, I'm on about

Not only were I getting Kirsty reunited with her wayward old man, but he were alive as well. One minute he's a mangled corpse lying in a ditch, next he's ticking and breathing, if a bit scratched and bruised and half cut from the hard stuff he'd been supping. When you looked at it like that, you could see that I'd saved him, really. I'd saved Jock's life. And I were banking on his daughter seeing it that way. Mind you, I couldn't see why she wouldn't. It's fucking logic, ennit?

'Nah, it ain't a vampire, honest,' I says to Jock. 'It's defo someone you likes. Don't fret over it.'

'Ah'm no frettin', Royston, I just cannae take nae more chances. Those bastarts are oan tae me, are they no? It's no often a person survives an assassination attempt from a pack o' them cunts. They'll be doubling their efforts noo, youse mark my words.'

'Just fuckin' relax. Would I let you down, Jock? Would I?'

He grabbed an arm and wheeled us around. At first I thought he'd suddenly remembered the truth about the gulley business and my part in it and wanted his own back. Then I clocked the look in his eyes, which was gazing into mine. I've only seen that look once before – in the eyes of my own infant lad, Little Royston. It's a look of total trust and adoration. Thinking about it, I don't reckon I ever actually met Little Royston before the witch got her, me being in Parpham when he were borned. But I'd shut me peepers and imagined holding him many a time, and here's the look I got off him on each of them occasions. Then I'd put him down somewhere and fuck off down the pub, cos he'd started wailing or shit his pants or summat.

'Ah want youse to know sumthin right here and noo,' says Jock after a few seconds of that look, eyes getting a bit moist. I hoped to fuck he weren't gonna start wailing. Or shit his pants. 'Youse and me, we've been through a lot, have we no? Yesterday, eradicating that one in the hearse and chasing doon the female one in the Hoose o' Despair, ah feel that we bonded a bit. Do youse feel it?'

'Hoose of Despair?'

'Aye, it's what they call it, that place behind the canal.'

'The fuck's a hoose?'

'No, ah mean... look what I'm saying is that I'm considering you as fully on board noo. I know ah can trust yis, Royston. From noo oan, far as ah'm concerned, your mooth speaks only gospel. So if yis say there's a nice surprise waiting on us up there by the road, ah'm with yis.'

'Good. For fuck sake.'

'Ah'm gettin' quite excited, actually.'

'So you fuckin' ought to be,' I says, setting off again. I knew Kirsty'd still be there, and that she wouldn't abandon little Vectra nor swipe my new motor and leave us out here to fend for my own arse, but I didn't want to keep her waiting too long. Birds can be a right pain when you gets em itchy. Mind you, it's a good way of setting em up for a shag and all. But that could wait. Not too long, mind – my bollocks felt like a couple of cricket balls in a bag. Jock went down.

'What the...?' I says, turning about and clocking him scurry behind an old oak tree. 'Jock, what's the fuckin' problem now?'

'Blue light,' he whispers, beckoning us over. 'I sweer ah just saw some blue light up there. Ah'm no going up there.'

'Eh? But...'

'Blue light signifies vampire activity, Royston. Didn't youse ken that? Ah'm gonna have tae educate yis.'

Vampire activity? He were mental, Jock were. Mind you, I could soon see what he were on about, when I walked on a bit and looked through the trees: blue flashing lights, up there by the road. No doubt about it. 'It's coppers,' I said.

'Keep yis voice doon,' he says, still not coming out. 'Vampires have got super-sensitive hear—'

'It's fuckin' coppers, for fuck sake. Can't you hear their radios and that? And look, you can see the edge of one of their vans up there. Shite.'

'It's no what yis think, Royston. Polis they may appear tae be, but it's vampires in disguise. Ah know how them cunts work.'

'Fuckin' shite,' I says again. Cos it were shite, weren't it? Soon as the coppers gets involved, shite is what everything turns to.

'No, it's alreet, Royston,' Jock were saying, unscrewing another half bottle. Fuck knows how many of them he were packing in his pants. 'See, ah've got a couple o' wooden stakes here in mah poke. We just need to—'

'Look, just hang back here a min, right?' I says. 'I'm off up there for a scout. I don't come back in five, fuck off without us, right? And, I dunno, keep yer eyes peeled for vampires or summat.'

He started protesting but I hared off up the path, keeping low and getting that Rambo feeling again, which were easy cos I were still dressed like him. Best bit were that I seemed to have stowed my monkey wrench in the back pocket of Jock's trousers. I got it out and clamped it between me gnashers, which allowed us to use my paws for sweeping the undergrowth aside as I ploughed silently through it.

'Aaah, you fucker,' I says, sweeping some stingers aside. They was all over this bit, and no way were I going through em with me top off and some of them nettles reaching me nipples. Mind you, I were close enough to see what were going on roadside now. And it weren't healthy.

Not for Kirsty anyhow.

She were getting led into the back of a squad car just then, cuffed and none too happy about it. In another motor you could see Vectra, a WPC holding her just then and copping an earful of lairy babby. I didn't blame the little lass – you should have seen the way the copper were holding her. I had her, I'd have her quiet and kipping in no time. Everyone knows you're meant to give em a nip of whisky. Only a tiny bit, mind. No more than three or four capfuls.

I got my bottle out and took about twenty capfuls, without actually using the cap.

Thinking about it, and with the whisky warming me cockles and the bottle empty, this weren't so bad. Alright, so the vibrating diamond of my life were in a bit of shite at the minute, but I felt sure I could yank her out of the cells with a word in certain ears – namely them of Nathan the barman. I still weren't sure how that worked, but Nathan just seemed to pulls strings and make shite happen, no matter how high up them strings went and who were on the other end of em. And on the Jock front, I were shet of him now. I could just leave him back there behind the oak tree, stake held aloft and a gallon of whisky sloshing around in his grots and guts. I could have done that from the start, really, saving meself a lot of grief. But my swede hadn't been straight yesterday, and now it were. Plus there were summat about that fat Scottish cunt that I just couldn't turn me back on, not when he were in front of us and making us feel soz for him. It were like he were my little bother, a little boy lost in a big modern world, and I had to look out for him else he'd be crushed 'neath the wheels of, I dunno, a bus or summat. And it hadn't turned out so bad anyhow – if I hadn't have joined up with Jock, I wouldn't have met Kirsty. It were all about her now.

And clearing her of a crime she never committed.

I closed me peepers and pictured her there in the cells, sitting all lonely and scaredy. Then the door swings open and I'm there, a massive silhouette in the doorway, couple of dozen coppers lying broken on the floor behind us. I'd sweep her up in me arms and carry her off into the night, then find a nice comfy spot in the grass somewhere and shag her. You pictures it, then you does it – that's the way it works with men of action like meself. I opened my eyes. I clenched me fists. I filled my lungs with air. It stank a bit. 'Thought ah'd lost yis back there,' says Jock, pulling alongside.

For fuck sake.


(Come back on Monday for more...)