Darkmans

Автор

Nicola Barker

Жанр

Классическая проза

Год написания книги

2018

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Or is that the Mafia?

Uh…

Hold on a sec…

Did everybody notorious always end up getting wasted?

Couldn’t you be something plain and simple like a notorious doctor (if you hadn’t killed a patient? What about the bloke who created the first test-tube baby? Did he qualify?)? A notorious priest (if you hadn’t messed with a choirboy)? Could you be a notorious…a notorious sweetheart? Yes?

No. It didn’t sound right. A notorious flirt, maybe.

Kelly frowned and tucked in her skirt so the wind wouldn’t lift it and show off her thighs. It was a little short –

Should’a thought of that

– and the fabric was rather flimsy (for something supposedly military

– although she’d never yet seen anyone wearing a mini-skirt in a situation of mortal combat. Except for Lara Croft –

Tank Girl

That pretty cow in Alias…

– and she always did okay).

Kelly was sitting on a wall outside the Elwick Road Villas. It was a high wall facing a main road in Ashford’s town centre. Her brother, Jason, had taught her how to climb it (before they’d put him away. Joyriding. His thirteenth formal offence –

Aw…

Unlucky for some, eh?).

Jason always knew the best route and the shortest cut (it was a fancy wall, built from some kind of rock –

Limestone?

Granite?

– there were bits where you could find a hand-hold and a foot-hold. Where you could pull yourself up).

Kelly took another bite of her celery. A car honked its horn at her. She didn’t look towards it, merely raised her middle finger –

You twat

– and pulled her hood down lower.

Yeah. Notorious slut –

Stop thinkin’ about it

Jason was her middle brother. Jason Broad. Twenty-one last Thursday. Inside for three years solid. Served eight months already. Father of four (two different mothers). At school Billy Sloane – Sloaney – had called him queer; Jase broke his arm in three different places (the canteen, the corridor, the playing fields) and no one – but no one – could ever seriously question his masculinity after that.

Had a heart of gold. He really did. Always took care of her (once shat on the bonnet of the car of a teacher she hated –

Jap car –

Hyundai –

Mr Whitechapel –

Fuckin’ Northerner).

Jason was loyal –

Bottom line

– and you couldn’t put a price on loyalty (as her dad always used to say –

Before he ran off to Oldham with the daughter of that pig who ran the chippie…

To get the police involved!

She was sixteen next birthday – and a slag – everybody knew it

The whole family had been barred from the shop, after –

Dad’s legacy –

I mean we were hurtin’ too, weren’t we?

No decent chippie within a 2-mile radius…

– until Jason finally put the wind up them, and they moved to Derby.

The new people were definitely much better – better batter, her mum said; crispier. And they were cheaper –

Didn’t have no teenage kids –

Not that it really mattered any more, now Dad was out of the picture).

Nope. You couldn’t put a price on loyalty. Kelly cleared her throat (the celery was rather stringy) –

I’ll say as much to Beede when the bugger finally gets here…

‘Excuse me.’

Kelly frowned.

‘Excuse me.’