Road Kill

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Road Kill - book excerpt

Prologue

Apocalypse-Idyll

Definition: Apocalypse – A prophetic revelation, especially concerning a cataclysm in which the forces of good triumph over the forces of evil.

It is not, as many believe, a pottie, portable infants toilet that collapses if a fat ugly retired copper sits on it. This is serious and, actually happened, mainly because a fat ugly retired copper got hold of a bazooka. A bazooka used to be bubble gum but, in the wrong mouth, say for instance, a Malacopperism plagued, fat ugly retired copper, the results can be, were, and still are, devastating, fatal even.

Definition: Idyll – A mental mechanism, operating consciously or unconsciously, in which a person or persons, or a Duchess, overestimates an admired attribute.

This can be attributed to many British upper middle-class individuals who, in their innate ignorance and air of self-importance, perceive their manor to be better than the average chocolate box picture of an urban or suburban haven. Frisian Tun was such an idyll (prior to the apocalypse). It was an idealistic residential, village (said with a French accent) and has / had, a picturesque (said with an English accent) cosy appearance. Apart, that is, the house of a cockney barrow boy police inspector, who could not grasp the basics of gardening or decorous conversing. Nor could he comprehend why snooty people didn’t laugh at his hilarious jokes? And, “to make an omelette you have to break several things, not just eggs”. He would say, so you knew the destruction of an Idyll was not his fault.

Before and After – What follows is before, and then, afterwards, is after. Not afters, as that would be a dessert, say, apple crumble and custard. Suffice to say this is a scary story when you get to the after bits, especially if the custard has gone cold. You, the innocent reader, will be lured into a sense of a secure world of haute-monde and geography and, when you are least aware – Bam!

Warning – What was lovely, could turn ugly. Not Jack Jane Dick Austin, because he was already ugly. However, his wife, Mandy, Duck, Austin, well, she was lovely but, could turn ugly even when Dick had done absolutely nothing wrong, like say, blow up an idyll, kill some gangsters an shit…

The Narrator

‘Der Day, 6th Ju… what?’

‘Der Day? I think you mean D day, as in Dee?’ a megaphone voice from out of the darkness.

‘That’s what I said Diddli?’ … thinks… ‘So, it’s not Der then?’

‘No - Start again.’

Jack started again, ‘Dee Day, 14th June 2014 and it is the 70th anniversary of Operation Lie-in, from the… what now?’

‘Sea Lion.’

‘Where?’ a shared titter.

‘It’s Operation Sea Lion? Or was that the planned German invasion of England?’ another detached mumbled voice.

A megaphone shout – ‘Start again!’

‘What?’

‘Did you seriously not hear that?’ Mandy asked.

‘Hearing aids?’

‘Hearing aids.’

‘Start again?’

‘Start again.’

‘Dee Day, 6th June 2014 and it is the 70th anniversary of… what now?’

‘We’ve looked it up and it’s Operation Overlord.’

‘Start again?’

‘Start again.’

‘Dee Day, 6th June 2014 and it was the 70th anniversary of Operation Overlord and my brother’s birthday, he will be, what, fifty seven, now – shite!’

‘What?’

‘I forgot to send him a card.’

‘Cut!’

‘Cut what?’

‘He means stop for the time being,’ Mandy explained to her Dipstick.

‘I could do with a girl grey. Monkey tea for you, sweet’art?’ Sweet’art nodded yes, she liked his decision making abilities. ‘We’ll have a girl grey, no milk or poncy lemon and a monkey tea, please, no sugars – there you go; spit spot.’ Pause. ‘Nothing seems to be ‘appening? Anyfing ‘appening?’

‘Let’s go home. Get your hand off my bum.’

He took his hand off.

‘I was joking, dinlo.’

He put it back. She liked the feel of his hands on her bum, although he was most definitely a Dinlo and, when he undressed her, he was like a kid unwrapping a Christmas present. Still, she loved the twerp.

‘Who said that?’

‘Me’

‘Can you do the narration – what’s your name?’

‘Susan Narmee… I suppose. Yeah, I can.’

‘Right Sue – let’s start again.’

So Sue started, ‘Dee Day, 6th June 2014 and it is the 70th anniversary of Operation Gaylord… what? Was that okay?’

‘Yeah – the editor can pick that bit up,’ resignation.

‘It was not a particularly audacious start… what?’

‘Auspicious, it’s auspicious – carry on.’

‘Don’t you talk to me like that!’

‘Sorry.’

‘Carry on?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Do I detect a note of exasperation?’

‘Yeeeeeeeah,’ a distinct sound of air expelling as if squeezed through the neck of a balloon.

‘Exasperation, most certainly it was,’ Ms Narmee replied, in the manner of Yodel.

‘Yodah!’

‘That’s what I said diddli?’

Can you narrate in italics please?

Yes.

The Banana Boys.

The week running up to Friday’s planned celebrations had been blessed with remarkable weather, or so people remarked. They also remarked upon a marked contrast to the days that ran up to the original D Day, which this Friday’s celebrations were to mark. However, if the weather had anything to do with it, this Friday, the day of The Dee Day, the seventieth anniversary, would get only four out of ten, which, is not a very good mark.

A dense sea mist shrouded Southsea Common, an expansive grassed tract of land that fronted the ancient fortified seafront of Portsmouth in the UK. The lumps of World War Two machinery, weapons, materiel and paraphernalia and, the tents accommodating Muppets, who spent their weekends playing toy soldiers in ill fitting Dad’s Army uniforms, were lined up in a regimented military fashion. The exhibition had been regimentally laid out by Reginald Menthe, Portsmouth City Council’s head of setting out lumps. He’d had a lot of experience with lumps. Reg’s wife, Mrs Menthe, whom, in their more intimate moments he called “Sugar”, was a lump, and in the fog, the result of Reg’s regimentation of paraphernalia and, Mrs. Sugar one might add, was, well, grey lumps.

I imagine those who do not know Mrs Sugar Menthe have already conjured a picture, but if you are struggling, bring to mind the vintage saucy seaside picture postcards with the blushing, generously proportioned, battle axe woman. There, got it – well she was like that. If you haven’t got it, never mind, because she’s not in this book, even though this book, in parts, several actually, is certainly saucy.

Keef Bananas (not his real name as that was Keith) looked on and sighed to his number two, Dave Lillicrap. He was number two because his name was Dave Lillicrap, also known as Shitlegs. Rather apt, those with a modicum of astuteness thought, though he was in actual fact and in reality, really and truly, the second in command of this South London delinquent gang, who up until very recently had been on the Lamb.

This is not a pun on mint saucy, though one might be forgiven for thinking this. On the lamb is an Americanism that roughly translated means, on the run, or in criminal parlance, lying low, hiding from the filf as they had been very naughty boys – see the book: Merde and Mandarins.

Apart from his name, Shitlegs was an unremarkable man and truthfully, not ideal material for command and decision making, on this day of marking and remarking the letter Dee. Keef gave him the same mark as the weather, four out of ten, or D out of A to E, which for a second in command was not saying much about the rest of his chums. All things considered, giving this weather of dense fog four out of ten, when it was nigh on impossible to see your hand in front of your face, did not say much for the leader either, though we have to allow, considering it was the intention of Keef and his chums to purloin a Sherman tank, that the cloaking effect of the weather may have been considered a bonus by Mr Bananas.

‘Oi, stop there…’

‘What?’

‘I’m not a chum.’

‘What?’

‘A chum. I’m not a chum. We are not chums. Keef may have a Duchess for an aunt but I’m not Uncle Josh.’ And Shitlegs looked around and elicited support from his other, for want of a better word at the moment, chums, and they enjoined their second in command enthusiastically, as you would expect from chums, supporting another chum.

‘What are you then?’

They gathered their heads and discussed a subject that had never arisen before and, after a short while settled on something other than the election of Shitlegs as unofficial spokesman; he was second in command thus his presumed right. Shitlegs turned, because this is what you do in stories, you turn. ‘Cronies,’ he said, turning back again. They looked at each other in turn, except for Keef who had his head in the mist in exasperation, coincidentally, and also coincidentally, he was tall, straight backed and slim and always held his head high, except when he was ducking. His aunt had told him he was aristocatty and he believed he was.

It was agreed. ‘Yeah, we’re cronies and Keef is aristo-fingy.’

‘Good, can we get on?’

The cronies gathered their collective hideous, crony heads, which matched their hideous appearance and discussed the matter. They’d never been asked if they could carry on before, ordinarily by this time they would have been arrested and be on their way to a lovely warm police cell. They were on the lamb until quite recently, as they had only just escaped a capture at a local saw mill and later, a shoot-out beside a Dorset Cottage in the snow. So, you see, the mist was having some beneficial effect in occluding the reappearance of the Banana gang in Southsea, which is likely why Keef gave it four out of ten, this weather being particularly good if you were on the lamb, or intent on stealing some heavy armour.

Having appeared to agree on something, Shitlegs, spokes-thug, replied, ‘Yeah – alright then.’

‘Carry on,’ a loudhailer.

‘Who said that?’ Shitlegs asked nobody, as he could see nobody. He could see nothing, except his hand, which was just in front of his face.

From the edge of the Common, Keef Bananas and his cronies looked on at the labyrinthine, though regimented, collection of murky grey lumps with not their first bewildered look of the morning. To be fair to Keef and his cronies, they were rarely up this early, six am and, were hardly ever down at the seaside, except for Keef who on occasions visited his aunt, the Duchess, in Frisian Tun.

Keef looked at the diagram Reggie Menthe had given him as part of his covert insider dealing, although the Evening News had published it a week or so ago and it was generally available to anyone not of a crony, chum, or even hideous naughty boy persuasion. Keef spun the plan in his hands. Looked this way, then that way, sideways and then decided that this, not that way, was best. ‘Oh fuck it, let’s just go and find it,’ he said, exasperated. This seemed like a plan to the cronies and it is this that marked Keef out as a leader; his ability to make decisions.

This remarkable characteristic was also on his Curriculum Vitae that the London Metropolitan Police force kept up to date for him, to save him worrying about administration. Keef was what they used to call in the olden days, a Prima-Donna villain and he had no time for paperwork. Despite Keef’s patent leadership qualities, administration was not a particular forte and rarely appeared on his radar. Interestingly, on the top of his Met CV, was a CV he had purloined when he was only seven, when just a lad in Ivver Green…

He means Hither Green in south London, but no-way was he going to be Uncle Josh, even if his aunt was a Duchess.

… and that was when he commenced his life of crime. It was in fact, a 2CV, which is twice as good as a CV. A Citroen 2CV was a car that resembled an Anderson shelter on wheels and had the speed of my aged aunt on a bad day, having had a largely ineffective dose of Dio-calm. As a consequence of this remarkable decision of mastermind thievery and, the subsequent shortest ever known car chase in the history of the London Metropolitan Police, Keef’s CV had at the very top of the lengthy list, the remark, Not very bright. Now at twenty three years of age, and this is only my opinion, we are talking four out of ten on the intellectual scale, a bit like the weather, not at all brilliant and, coincidentally, he was a gangster with a foggy brainbox.

‘Oi,’ a detached voice sounded from within the mist, threatening, and noticeably not intellectually challenged, more enquiring in a forceful but polite manner that is oft known in Britain as middle class assertive. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, pretty please.’

‘Shut it mush. You shouldn’t ‘ave put a fucking tent in such a stupid position.’ Keef carried on, blindly leading his stumbling cronies in the fog, here and there, this and that way and, the first part of Keef’s master plan, stealth, went well and truly out of the window. Still, what they lacked in creeping, directional, and searching skills, they more than adequately compensated for in aggression and a remarkable grasp of the Queen’s Street English that would easily trump middle class assertive, when backed up with brute force.

Eventually they found what they were looking for and Keef stood back before the Sherman tank and allowed himself to be bathed in shrouded crony adulation. He was good, he knew it, and this of course was frequently his downfall. That, and his harebrained ideas like, “Let’s nick a Sherman tank and shoot the bollocks off that tart Jack Austin and his missus”, both of whom, it transpired, had transgressed the unwritten law, even before you think that as a lady, Mrs Austin, would have no bollocks to be shot off.

I can tell you, as narrator, and as it was obviously not written down anywhere, the unwritten law in this instance was: “Don’t go upsetting Keef’s aunt, getting Poles in, or digging up his booty or weapons or dead bodies, or there will be fucking trouble, comprendeh”. The law, which for the benefit of this book we can confirm, was not written, but was formulated at about the time Keef was watching a number of Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns, last week. Not that he would have anything to do with any shite Wop stuff, of course. (Wop is a technical literary term for an Italian or any such Italianate shite and, for the sake of middle class balance, shite is sometimes referred to as S H one T. See how the middle class English drop the ‘I’ and supplant it with the numeral One, and ‘E’ is dropped altogether as “shite” is Irish; foreign readers take note).

‘You got a baby then Keef?’ Brains asked.

‘What, I don’t got no baby, what made you say that?’

‘You done said someone half inched (pinched – stole) yer booties.’

As narrator I can inform you that it was last week, Wednesday, that Keef mentioned he needed to collect some weaponry and cash from their hidden booty. Now you may begin to comprehend how long it takes for Brains to process information and, why he held the record for the longest interview by the police that involved only two words. I am reliably informed that the two words were “Fuck off”. Ordinarily a solicitor would suggest using the words “No Comment” but Brains had just told his solicitor to fuck off, and he had.

Keef flicked his fingers several times and eventually they clicked. ‘Shitlegs… the keys.’ Keef had moved on and held his hand out, (he’d finished flicking) whilst looking around generally, but in particular up to the turret and the flank of the tank, wondering where the door was.

Shitlegs patted his pockets, but he already knew, he didn’t don’t ‘ave no keys to no tank.

I believe this was how Mr Shitlegs expressed it in his thinking.

‘Maybe you don’t need no keys?’ Brains said by way of amelioration.

‘Brains, der, of course you need bloody keys.’ Keef replied, waving his arms expansively in the fog, to encompass all of the Banana cronies into his theory, such as it was.

Brains was the intellectual one of the cronies, he had half a GCSE in technical drawing, the actual part he had failed, some would argue the more practically necessary half, was in arse scratching and, he had a Library card. Well, you get the drift? Brains did contemplate asking if he could work with Reggie Menthe in the council, by way of a leg up, so to speak, to better himself, but Reggie, who also hailed from Ivver Green was having none of it. He blamed that bloody Sugar lump of a trouble and strife (wife) of his likely as not, Brains thought, wondering if he should send a saucy postcard home to his mum to let her know he was at the seaside. Then he remembered he was actually on the run from the law; that was close. The Banana Boys were, as previously pointed out, on the lamb, because they’d been baaa’d.

‘Who are you and what do you want with my tank?’ Another polite, but assertively middle class voice from deep in the mist, distant, detached, and slightly effeminate, just the hint of a certain desperation for a trip to the toilet.

Keef turned to a man advancing out of the fog. He was a goofy middle-aged, middle-class, comfortably well off man in Michael Caine, toffee nose twat glasses and pink corduroy trousers. A vision of comfortably well 'orf idiot, emerging from the mist. The man had not changed into his American, Dad’s Army uniform yet, probably would do that after he had been to relieve himself, which would likely happen quite soon and directly into his pink trousers, shortly after the Banana Boys had relieved him of his tank.

I’m only guessing, but it is a reasonable assumption I feel.

‘This your tank?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, give us the fucking keys.’

‘It don’t need no keys,’ the man said, with a vacant expression, seeming to examine grammatically what he had just said, but mostly the manner in which he had said it. He clearly felt uncomfortable and at this stage I would ordinarily recommend Dio-calm, it almost did the trick for my Aunt Delores who was at the time running down her stolen 2CV.

‘It don’t? Well bugger off then,’ and Keef nudged the chap in the now soiled pink corduroys and the current representative of middle class England went flying backwards and bumped his head on Shitlegs fist, whereupon, he settled down for a bit of a lie-in, except that was the German plan for the invasion of England, of course. Keef pointed out this very fact, irrelevantly, to the comatose, soon to become, former tank owner and, he and his chums, sorry cronies, were only interested in Der Day stuff, what was Gaylord.

‘Right then, where’s the door?’ Keef asked.

Brains tugged at his partial GCSE, in other words he scratched his bum in an intellectually ponderous manner as became his status as Brainiac Banana, and suggested they had to go in through the lid at the top. Keef clipped him around the ear.

Blimey, who’d be a baddy? Apart from you get to wear black hats.

‘What was that for?’

‘For being a bozo. Now, find the door.’

Brains clambered up onto the top of the tank and opened the lid, pointed and said, ‘This is the way in.’ He was clearly disgruntled.

Unfortunately, Keef and his cronies had quite poor inter-personal skills and were not, in the main, particularly brainy at reading and interpreting the manner and mode of inflection in a person’s speech.

‘Well, why didn’t you say so?’ See, Keef did not read Brain’s body language or tone of voice, but Brains knew it didn’t pay to question Keef.

I suppose you learned things like this early on, when you decide to become a bozo baddie hoping to get a black hat.

However, the way had been indicated and everybody piled in through the lid. Keef, then Shitlegs, as he was second in command, Brains and the two other cronies Gerald and Simon followed.

‘Kin ‘ell there’s no bloody winders (windows), turn the lights on,’ Keef ordered.

‘It’s a fucking tank, they don’t ‘ave no winders…’ Brains noticed the circumspect look of his leader in response to his animated reaction and muttered, in a pleading defence, ‘… it’s a fucking tank?’ Brains demonstrating not only exasperation, but the cerebral ability that had earned him his half a GCSE and had his teachers scratching their head…

Not their bottoms – teachers don’t do this, at least not in the classroom. …wondering if they should submit him for English Literature; they had of course

spotted his library card, but failed to notice the inscription indicating membership of the children’s library and, in particular, the picture book section.

Never let it be said that Keef did not catch on fast. He flicked Brains on the nose with his thumb and forefinger and set about looking for the light switch, some bullets and a steering wheel. ‘Brains, you look for the bullets. Gerald, the lights for Christ’s sake. Simon, steering wheel please and Shitlegs, you look for the front windscreen. Which way is front? They should ‘ave ad bleedin’ winders. Put the fucking lights on.’

Brains derred, switched on the lights and pointed. ‘This ‘andle is for steering, these shells are the bullets and, someone looks out of the lid and shouts down turning instructions to the driver.’ He tapped his fingers on the stick that was the steering wheel, and applied a rather risqué grin, which in theory was appropriate as the D day landings were to be in France, where of course, it would be tres risqué, as there would have been a lot of Germans not having a lie-in, despite it being their plan.

Keef pondered and, not for the first time, wished he had not decided to rob the local library because Simon thought they would have a load of late return fine money and, it would all be sausage and mash! (Cash) It was on that robbery, which incidentally only netted them 75p, they met Brains. Keef should have known that an eighteen year old, spot ridden, beanpole youth, reading Enid Blyton’s, Noddy, was not necessarily a good sign, even though he could read without following the words with his index finger; quite novel (not the book) where Keef came from. However, as it turned out, Brains knew where the Library back door was, had a bike and could give Keef a getaway crossbar. Shitlegs, Simon and Gerald were nicked and would have been in serious trouble if the police had not let them go because they were laughing so much and did not know how to write up the crime of the century.

‘Well, sort it then.’

There, you see, Keef commanded