 
Addison / PF FOR EBOOK / 257

Para las ninas
[Wednesday  
](tmp_8a064c5f01abb9d73180cd55f59c6d39_gJeSZU.ch.fixed.fc.tidied.stylehacked.xfixed_split_002.html#Wednesday)[Thursday  
](tmp_8a064c5f01abb9d73180cd55f59c6d39_gJeSZU.ch.fixed.fc.tidied.stylehacked.xfixed_split_005.html#Thursday_)[Friday  
](tmp_8a064c5f01abb9d73180cd55f59c6d39_gJeSZU.ch.fixed.fc.tidied.stylehacked.xfixed_split_007.html#Friday_)[Saturday  
](tmp_8a064c5f01abb9d73180cd55f59c6d39_gJeSZU.ch.fixed.fc.tidied.stylehacked.xfixed_split_010.html#Saturday_)[Sunday  
](tmp_8a064c5f01abb9d73180cd55f59c6d39_gJeSZU.ch.fixed.fc.tidied.stylehacked.xfixed_split_013.html#Sunday)[Monday  
](tmp_8a064c5f01abb9d73180cd55f59c6d39_gJeSZU.ch.fixed.fc.tidied.stylehacked.xfixed_split_016.html#Monday)[Welcome to Rotterdam  
](tmp_8a064c5f01abb9d73180cd55f59c6d39_gJeSZU.ch.fixed.fc.tidied.stylehacked.xfixed_split_019.html#Welcome_to_Rotterdam)Some time later

Wednesday

Walkin On Sunshine
'Ah Christ! Man! Jesus fuckin Christ!'

Billy 'Hash' Brown stands braced with the hose in his hands, the jet of water blasting into the red mush of human meat and hair, shattered bone and blood.

'That's fuckin mingin!'

He's alone on the stolen boat's little wooden deck, like the cleaner on a scaffold after a clumsy execution.

The brains that had exploded from the young lad's head stick together and try to cling to the thin slats like a dropped strawberry mousse, resisting the water blast before, finally, sliding across the deck and over the side of the boat and into the flat North Sea.

'Mingin.'

Somewhere inside Hash's own head, there's surprise that the kid's oxygenated brains weren't grey like in the films.

Blue, even.

He looks away.

'Man,' he gags. 'Ah fuck. Man. Ah man.'

The pressure from the hose rocks the boat a little, sending ever-widening ripples out into the otherwise calm water. All the way home to North Shields. One hundred and seventy six nautical miles to the west of this wet nowhere.

There's only one other living human being in any direction between here and where the hot yellow sky meets the sea.

And two dead ones.

'Fuck,' Hash groans. 'Me.'

More pieces of the boy's exploded head scurry away from the water jet and wash over the side.

'Ah man, ah man. I'm sorry son. I'm so fuckin sorry. Ah man. I didn't, I didn't?'

A chunk of skull won't budge.

It's the hippy kid's fontanelle - his crown, the part his adoring mother had smoothed and protected when he was a baby, her youngest son at her breast.

'Oh Jesus,' Hash mutters, turning his face away from the mess. 'Jesus fuckin Christ. That fuckin psycho. I didn't know he'd? How?'

It wasn't an accident.

'Billy!' a hard man's voice shouts from high overhead, aboard a second boat.

The one they'd both arrived here on.

Kirrin.

Except Kirrin really is more ship than boat. A top-of-the-range fish-seeking missile. The little boat Hash is now washing clean of murder rocks gently in her shadow.

Hash turns and creaks his head back on his neck to look up, high overhead to the deck of the huge deep sea trawler. But all he can see is a man-shape cut from the ferocious yellow sky. He knows who it is though, he brought him here; Talbot, Wade Talbot.

Kirrin's Skipper.

'Stop fuckin around man,' he barks. 'Hurry up!'

Fisherman.

Father-in-law.

Killer.

The two boats rock slightly from the power of the hose. Tethered by a thick rope, side-by-side and alone in the Dogger bank fishing grounds in the open expanse of sea that separates eastern Britain from western Europe. Hash cuffs his hand over his eyes and again looks up Kirrin's sheet metal wall, but the shape and its voice have gone.

'Fuckin psycho,' he mutters.

He returns to his duties, pointing the jet of water at the big chunk of skull, it looks like the top of a cracked coconut. It resists and then begins to roll, tumbling over, showing the red insides then the brown hair on top, the red insides then the hair - red and brown, meat and hair - until it skitters over the side and into the sparkling silver sea.

'Ah man! Mingin!'

Billy watches it float on top of the water, hair-side up to the burning sunshine like the kid it was part of had been for a cooling dive and was about to break the surface and smile.

Fish rise from the deep, feeding off the tasty underside, moving it from side to side in little jerks.

'Ah, man!'

He turns away, gagging on something his body thought it had long since digested - a packet of salt and vinegar crisps, eaten at four o'clock this morning when he and Talbot had left the dock alone aboard Kirrin. A canny bag o' Tudor for the journey. Hash isn't keen on eating before these trips, not trusting nor liking the sea.

Hash leans against the rail, the hose pumping aimlessly over the side and into the sea.

'Fuck,' he sighs. 'Me.'

He rubs his brow with the back of his hand.

And, for the first time since the two boats met on the high seas eleven minutes ago, he tunes into his surroundings. Ears freed from the heavy blast and splash of the industrial-strength hose.

A radio on the deck is playing "Walking On Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves. A radio station somewhere obviously reaches this far.

It's crackly but loud.

"I'm walking on sunshine, woh-oh, I'm walking on sunshine, woh-oh. I'm walking on sun-shine, woh-oh-oh - and don't it feel good!"

'Aye,' Hash mutters, leaning against the rail and looking at the mess floating on the sea. 'Feels fuckin grrrreat. Just ask this poor cunt.'

A smaller fragment of skull flips over on itself as Hash turns and points the hose at what's left of the kid's exploded head. It skitters overboard and into the sea.

"Hey, alright now, and don't it feel good! Hey . . ."

'Fuck off!' Hash says, and boots the radio over the side into the bloody water.

Sploosh.

Katrina joins the house band from the Titanic under the waves.

'Stupid fuckin Yank.'

'Billy!' Talbot screams from above.

Up on Kirrin's deck, Talbot pulls on the fire hose.

'Pack it in! Y'fuckin talkin to y'self man.'

Talbot yanks it out of Hash's hands. It whips up and blasts him from crotch to chin with a hard jet of water.

'Fuck's sake, man!'

Hash grabs his balls. There's a lot of power in that hose, he feels a sickness down where the wires from his nuts are plugged into his guts.

'That'll fuckin do, kidda, that'll do,' Talbot barks down from the rail. 'Christ. You're a right fuckin woman.'

Talbot pulls the writhing spurting hose up over the side of Kirrin's deck like a chopped anaconda.

'We need to get movin. You know the plan, kidda, right?'

Most of the meat and skull fragments and brains have gone overboard and Hash stands in a shallow film of bloodied water.

Holding his balls.

'Aye,' Hash looks out across the vast sparkling cornea towards home.

North Shields.

Two urban words that spell 'paradise' to Billy 'Hash' Brown.

'I keep headin west then drop anchor when I see land. I get it. I get it. It's okay. I've got it.'

'Okay right, undo that rope. Just keep headin west kidda, just keep headin fuckin west. Do y'hear? The Tyne is directly west of here, even a spastic like you can't fuckin miss it. West. Got it?'

'West,' Hash says, as he works at the stiff knot in the rope that joins the two boats, releasing the small boat from the big trawler like a duckling set adrift of her mama.

'Fuckin west, I got it the first time.'

The little boat drifts out of Kirrin's shadow.

And sun spills from the sky onto the little boat's deck and onto the back of Hash's virgin white neck like molten steel from a blast furnace.

Talbot disappears and Kirrin's engines roar into life.

The big trawler growls away towards home, the gap between them widening fast.

Hash shuffles around into the wheelhouse and starts the engine. It coughs then fires and farts. A lawnmower next to Talbot's Bentley.

'Fuckin shitbox!'

He pulls on the little black lollipop that is the throttle, feeling for the power. This the first time he'd ever skippered a boat. Billy Hash Brown had never found his sea legs - never looked for them, to be honest. He wasn't here for the fish.

Hash focuses as hard as he can on the little black earth in the bowl screwed onto the wheel house's cheap Formica dashboard, to make sure the white W is on top of the arrow. It isn't. It's on top of a big E. His head starts to ache.

'Jesus fuckin Christ,' he says.

He turns the wheel.

Kirrin has already steamed far away, shrunk to the size of a toy boat in a bath, her twin engines daring the Royal Navy to a race.

Hash pulls the lever down hard and the stolen boat's engine starts to moan then grows to a grumble before settling on the sound of a broken tractor heading up a hill.

'Ah man, this is gonna take for fuckin ever!'

He spins the wheel round and around until the W kisses the arrow - 270 degrees.

West.

And Hash is alone, utterly alone.

Nobody around for mile after wet nautical mile.

Only ghosts for company.

'Fuck!'

He needs to stop the thoughts forming. He reaches for his brown Kappa tracksuit top and shuffles around in the pockets. He pulls out a green packet of tobacco and his cigarette papers. Trying not to take his eyes off that W in the compass. He wrestles the cigarette together and reaches for his lighter.

It always gives him a snigger. A woman in a bikini becomes naked when you turn it upside down.

He exhales the smoke - 'Jesus-fuckin-Christ' - attached to his favourite phrase.

And almost relaxes, his left ear right next to the plastic speaker for the CB radio. He checks the W is where it should be and looks out at the twinkling, calm water. He puts the cigarette back to his lips for a second drag and . . .

'ZZZZZzzzzzzZAAA'

. . . . a LOUD blast of static, right into his fucking skull.

'Fuck me!'

It throws him back into the wheelhouse's starboard window.

Then comes the voice.

'FREDRIK? zzzz FREDRIK? zzzzzzZZ.'

'Ah?' Hash almost cries. 'What the . . . fuck?'

He puts his hands on top of his head.

It sounds like the Klingons, on the other side of the sun - a woman with a smoker's throat. A worried mother, trying to reach her son.

Her dead son.

'Fffff . . . ?' Hash says.

The sweat freezes on his back and neck and snaps off in tiny icicles.

'zzzzz Fredrik, waar bent u zzzzzz Fredrik? Fredrik? zzzzzz.'

'What the?' Hash drops his hands to his side.

'I?'

He leans back against the door and looks at the radio's red eyes.

'Fredrik?' it continues. 'Ontmoette u Talbot?'

Hash lifts his hands and grabs the door frame like he's about to do a chin up . . .

'Fredrik . . .'

And boots the radio from its housing.

'Jesus fuckin Christ!' he shouts, just the rattling boat's engine now for company.

He grabs the wheel tight and stands and stares at the black bowl of water with the floating compass inside, keeping the W over the arrow - 270 degrees.

'Jesus fuckin . . .'

He puts the cigarette back to his lips.

And goes west.

Thursday
'BASTARDS!'

Ted Berry whips his eyes to Wedge . .

'You FUCKING . . . little . .'

. . . drops them back to his exercise book, closed on his desk.

'. . . BASTARDS!'

The freshly demented teacher slams the wooden bat against the blackboard.

Bang.

Face red like the man spreading the bars of his cage. A prison guard with his truncheon, finally breaking under years of strain.

Bang.

Released into violence.

'Shit the fuckin bed,' Berry gasps. 'We're dead.'

They'd had it coming, had it coming a long time. But it was a shock just the same; soft-arsed, boy-loving Mr Fenwick - man oh man, he's lost it, gone, left the map.

This the first time he'd sworn in class.

'I ffknnn . . .'

Ever.

'. . . HATE you lit-tle . .'

And with such foul abandon.

' . . . cuh-unts.'

The word comes out like 'currants'.

'WHO?' Mr Fenwick screams and scans, chalk dust settling in his jazz beard. His audience nailed to desks at the elbow.

Three columns of fear.

'EH?'

Mr Fenwick stands before the class in his rolled up shirt sleeves. An executioner, a waste paper basket on his desk for the collection of heads.

The rounders bat his axe, held now in both hands.

'WHO?'

The teacher whacks the blackboard hard with the bat.

Bang!

'WHO?'

Bang!

'WAS?

Bang!

'IT?'

Berry's guilty pen twitches, held in a rare position – switched on, humming - poised for learning, for the first time ever in an English class. A little late in the day to be showing an interest – this the very last English lesson of the school year.

Frankland High School closes today at 3:45pm, freeing all its 967 teenage inmates for a six week parole.

The Summer Holidays.

Mr Fenwick's battered wooden empire sits beyond the main school building, a Portakabin hut dropped by a crane on a spare bit of a grass between the school hall and the gym. Too cold in winter, too hot in summer – such is life at a northern comprehensive; too many pupils, not enough classrooms.

Berry turns his face to the window. Arthur the caretaker is out there in the firestorm cutting the grass. He sits bare chested, shorts sticking to the municipal tractor's red plastic seat as he drives its spinning blades over the football field, perfuming the air with the sweet green smell of fresh cut grass, the oversized lawnmower sounding like a huge metal insect.

He flicks his cigarette butt to the blades.

This just happened:

'Quick, he's fuckin comin,' - chair legs screeching \- the English teacher bouncing like Bambi towards the wooden shed holding a rounders bat and a tennis ball, happy he'd survived to the end of another school year - throwing open the door - a vacuum of hot air and suppressed laughter - then; sucked into the trap.

'Right class, no work today, who fancies a game of round . . .'

The waste paper basket they'd balanced overhead between the half-closed door and the frame had spun and hung for a fraction, adjusting, before - clump \- swallowing Mr Fenwick's head whole. The class exploded into laughter, even the swots and the girls couldn't resist; Ned Kelly - sure as shite - standing there on the torn lino.

'Cunts,' the teacher finally articulates the Australian term of endearment.

His teeth grind.

Bang!

He smashes the bat into the blackboard.

'CUNTS!'

It was the dog shit that did it.

'CUNTS!'

It was Wedge's idea to scoop up the steaming turd and mix it in with the pencil shavings, snot rags and chewing gum that usually lived inside the bin.

Bang!

A stinking monster of a shit to be proud of, laid fresh at the extent of her leash by a guilty-looking hound. Mr Fenwick's beloved beagle; Karma. Tied up outside in the shade.

Bang!

Bad Karma.

'ANSWER ME!'

He looks, seeks, pleads to Nathan Boyle and Jo Mole, king and queen of the front row. Swots, one of the handful here keen to actually learn English prose. They look back in horror, not sure of whom they're most scared. Normally an easy equation - Bez and Wedge. Not today though, their mild-mannered teacher's been replaced by Captain fucking Caveman.

And he's armed.

Fenwick's nose twitches to his shoulder, face curling away from the still warm turd dribbling down the front of his beige shirt like a platoon of slugs.

'Oh Jesus Christ! Come on. Class? Who was it? Please tell me. Who was it? Just tell me who it was? Eh? TELL ME who it fucking was!'

Bang!

Bang!

BANG!

Thirty-two faces stare back.

'NOW!'

And, for the first time – ever – Mr Fenwick can read them.

Ted Berry turns his face back from the window.

'Fuck,' he mumbles.

Mr Fenwick snaps his head to the right, brain cells twisting and aligning like frayed copper fibres seeking a connection, reaching out into the void; from the weird pumpkin head of Jason Wujkowski, sitting at the front desk next to the window.

'Woo-fuckin-cow-shkee?' he whispers - no teacher ever got Wedge's name right.

To . .

. . . Mr Fenwick's eyes flick left a millimetre.

The circuit completes.

'Berry? BERRY!'

Ignition.

'CUNTS!'

Berry tips his face down to his Work In Progress (he'd been grinding 'SHAKESPEARE SUCKETH COCK' deep into his wooden desk since well before Christmas).

'YOOO? ARRRRAAAA!'

Nine months, eight half-hour lessons a week of stupid questions and comments – 'sir, sir, was Bill Shakey a bender?' 'sir, sir was Dylan Thomas in the Magic Roundabout?' - giggling and farting from these two little fuckers long ago dragged to the front row from their natural berth at the rear – 'sir, sir, sir?'

'It wasn't me,' Wedge splutters. 'I was the last one in.'

'The last one in?' Mr Fenwick points the bat at Wedge's ample head, then the door. 'YOU! Were the last one in!'

'Ehm? I mean,' he lies. 'It wasn't me. The. The, y'know. The poop and that.'

Mr Fenwick stares to the back and closes his eyes.

'Aaaaagh!'

The tractor rattles by.

'Aaagh!'

The teacher wrenches himself one hundred and eighty degrees to face the blackboard, spilling pencil shavings, chewing gum and a slug of Karma shit onto the torn, badly-fitted linoleum as he goes.

'Aagh!'

Imminent summer freedom and the fact he's had these two little cunts demoted out of his class next year – their last at Frankland Community High - coaxes Mr Fenwick back up the pacifist's path.

He takes in and holds a chest of air.

'Agh,' he sighs, deflating.

Wedge twitches against Berry's shoulder, shakes, snorts, splutters.

Stops.

Silent.

Berry turns and looks at his fat head in true horror.

Always the same story. No escape. Whenever a teacher blew a gasket, Wedge was somewhere in view - pulling spastic faces or making fart noises with his armpit, drowning Berry in spasms of his own laughter. Hours and hours added to his school sentence, serving detention after school for laughing in a teacher's face.

'Fuck!'

Berry looks down, trying to lock his chest. He studies the art, the majestic curl of that beautiful S in 'Sucketh' \- carved in Ye Olde Worlde letters. Ground into the wooden desk with a dozen Bics borrowed from girls with fluffy, lime-green pencil cases, an ambitious project way superior to the scrawls of previous generations, it really is a work of some distinc . . .

'Fuuuuuck!' he whispers, trying not to breathe.

The sheer weight of his creative genius won't flatten the fizz. His neck grips hold of purple reins, pulling tight on muscles concealed in the pink valleys of his brain like a horse breaker. He squeezes and pushes the laughter bubbles back down his spine. He follows up with a well worn mantra.

'Wedge, don't laugh!,' he says. 'Wedge! Don't! I'll piss me fuckin pants!'

Mr Fenwick can't hear them. He sighs, sags and improvises, working a theme he performs at drama class every Wednesday evening in white gloves - a mime. He reaches into the blackboard's gutter for the chalk. His Thai Rolex wobbles loose around the ginger freckles of his wrist.

He sags.

The armpits of his beige shirt wet pools in sand.

He sighs.

'Right.'

Mr Fenwick exhales and lifts the chalk, creased shirt hanging out from one side of his trousers.

'Right, OK. Rightio! Class? Rightio, we'll . . ?'

He's still got the rounders bat in his other hand.

Rounders. A good, unisex English summer schoolgame. Americans had made the bat bigger and used a heavier ball and renamed it 'baseball'. Fucking Yanks - the Brits invented everything.

'Wedge,' Berry hisses. 'Don't man. Just fuckin don't! We're gonna get away with it man.'

They both turn to look at the teacher.

Mr Fenwick had left home with his shirt tucked into his underwear, probably by his mother.

'Right, OK. Rightio!'

On his way to the hut, he'd pulled at his shirt – probably to get some air up his back in the heat. But his bright yellow Y-fronts refused to let go of the shirt and have been pulled up his back into full view.

The elastic in the waist of his kecks is now taut as a rubber band.

There's also signs of a stain.

'Ah,' Berry breathes out, seeing the future. 'For fuck's sakes man.'

Wedge's face begins to peel back for laughter. A hand rising to point, just in case anyone has missed it.

Mr Fenwick's treacherous wrist creeps from the blackboard, sneaks behind his back and down to deal with this moist pressing irritation. He lifts a hip slightly then firmly buries his chalk fingers into the arsehole of his worn out corduroys.

'Fuckinhell!'

The teacher pulls his uncomfortable underpants away from his anus, freeing his Y-front elastic from his shirt with a crisp elastic smack.

It cracks around the silent shed like a snapped ruler.

Fatal, fatal mistake . . .

Wedge bursts, falls forward, whine-barking like a crushed puppy.

'Nyaaa!'

Not so much a laugh as a scream.

For Berry, there's a fraction of clarity, the final nanosecond of life you get after a shotgun has been discharged in your face.

'Wahaaaah hah!'

He throws his hand over his mouth and squeaks, unravels; snot bursting through the gaps between his fingers. He tries to force the laugh back down his throat, gripping it like a long suppressed turd - but the turtle's out now and swimming.

The class erupts with them. A teenage tidal wave of humiliation crashing into Mr Fenwick, English teacher of Class 4b.

'You ffffffffffknnn . . .'

Mr Fenwick begins a new mime, one he didn't even know he knew, deep-set in DNA.

'. . . cuuuu . .'

A heavy ache across the lino slats.

A girl screams.

' . . . nnntts!'

The wooden bat is the exact same size and weight as a policeman's truncheon.

'FUCKING . . . !'

The teacher swings it at Berry's head.

'CUNTS!'

He ducks

It smacks Wedge in the temple - sending his king-sized cranium into the window. The pane cracks, a spider's web expanding up and out from the point of impact.

Berry collapses onto the desk and covers his head in defence of the next, imminent blow. Mr Fenwick is close by, he can smell him; the bleach-like odour of the frequent, squalid masturbator.

Wedge is at Berrys left shoulder, choking down air. His hands at his throat, breath rasping from his mouth like a nipped balloon.

The familiar death rattle of the chronic asthmatic.

'Jesus!' Berry jerks up, forgetting the teacher.

He pushes him back by the shoulders.

'Where's y'hooter? Wedge! Y'fuckin inhaler?'

Wedge leans forward and puts a hand in his pocket. He pulls out a white box with a blue stripe – 20 Regal Kingsize cigarettes – and slaps them onto the desk.

'Y'hooter, fuckwit.'

He slides from his seat, screeching the desk across the lino.

Dying.

The inhaler now in his hand – fags and inhaler, Wedge's life and death, always in the same pocket.

Mr Fenwick; soft-as-shite easy-target Mr Fenwick is now a sandcastle; teenage waves hitting him, the stares of hated pupils pulling him down and washing him away.

Just a wet hole remains.

'I'm sor, I didn't mean. I'm so, sorry.'

Berry pulls the blue lid off the prison-grey inhaler, shakes it and puts it to Wedge's mouth.

'Open y'fuckin mouth!'

He does as he's told, wheezing.

'Breathe!'

Wedge gasps a blast of the magic gas as Berry pushes the canister down and the medicine squirts out.

He splutters.

Again.

He's alive.

Saved.

'Fuckin . . .'

Berry jerks to his feet sending his chair to the floor.

'Y'bearded fuckin turd!'

Mr Fenwick stands alone, mouthing words, whining, dancing, trying to move his batting arm as if to point, searching for the power which has now washed away.

He opens his mouth.

Closes it.

Squeaks.

Speaks.

'Look,' he points the bat. 'Now, let's all calm down. You. You? You can't speak to a . . '

Mr Fenwick looks at the crack in the window pane, sees his career.

The class hyenas look out across the Serengeti.

Mr Fenwick isn't staying.

He drops the bat and turns for the door, rattles the thin piece of wood from its frame, takes three steps down to the ash path and is away, feet puffing dust toward his tied hound and her empty bowels. Soon his green Mini, a classic, skids gravel and dust up through its black and silver number plate.

And he's gone.

Berry looks down at Wedge, half his fat head shaded by the table.

'Here Bez?' he beams, lungs patched - for now - by Ventalin.

Unlit cigarette at his lips.

'What?'

'Did y'just call a teacher a 'bearded fuckin turd?'' he smiles. 'Y'can't do that man.'

Berry kicks at him with his scuffed Oxfords.

'Y'fuckin twat-bastard! I thought you were havin a proper fit,' he kicks again. 'Y'fuckin little . . .'

Wedge rolls away and runs out the door.

Free now for the summer, free in the sunshine. All but the class's swots and cowards behind him, cashing in for a half day.

'Six weeks!' Wedge screams as he goes. 'Woo hoo! SIX fuckin weeks! Six weeks free of this fuckin shit hole! Woo hoo!'

Two and a quarter nautical miles to the east in the North Sea, and Billy 'Hash' Brown finally finds the lever he's looking for.

'Jesus fuckin Christ,' he says. 'Jesus fuckin . . .'

He pulls it.

'. . . Christ.'

And the little boat's anchor falls from her bow. It hits the water with a heavy metal splash and she lists and complains as the steel goes in search of sand.

Hash looks out over what's left of the North Sea to the thin crust of land he's found at last, cooking way off in the distance like a vast pizza.

He exhales his favourite swear word.

'Fuuuuuck.'

Home.

So near. So, so far.

At least he thinks it's home, there are no signposts out here. He'd stood with his hands locked to the knobs on the ship's wheel staring at the W, keeping it over the arrow in the compass bowl with blinding concentration all evening, into night and into the long new day with only the thugger-thug-thug, thugger-thug-thug of the little boat's feeble engine for company before, finally - hopefully - sighting land just now.

It's seven minutes before midday.

The deep, dark hours in total blackness had been the hardest. Every bump or clatter a headless man walking the lonely deck out there in front of the wheelhouse.

The plan now to wait for dark and Talbot's voice over the CB radio calling him home.

He heads back to the wheelhouse.

'Ah, Jesus fuckin fuck. . ,' he spits. '. . . fuck!'

He'd forgotten about the radio set, the front kicked off and its body dislodged from the housing by his stinking Converse All Star shoe.

'FUCK!'

Hash rubs the black holes of his eyes with his palms then looks again at the radio and then up to the arrow on the glass bowl compass pointing to land.

'Fuck! Fuckin cunt!'

Home.

'Fuck.'

He thinks of Kirrin and her array of gadgets.

'He'll find me? He'll find me! He'll fuckin have to.'

Reassured now, as much as he can be, he kills the idling engine. He looks to the shore, a wet mile or so to the west.

'I'll fuckin swim home.'

Silence.

Then the scream of a seagull, she's not landing here \- this boat had never had a fish on its deck. She flies away.

Hash again rubs the deep, dark holes of his eyes then steps out from the wheelhouse. The sun beats the thinning crown of his head with gold-mailed fists and so, like all good Englishmen - he takes off his t-shirt and lies on his back on the deck. He looks at the sky, one arm behind his head, the other rubbing his off-white belly - a shade Dulux has yet to put in a can.

Geordie Blue.

A brave little cotton wool ball tries to outrun the sun, vaporous wisps curling like the arms of a sprinter in slow-motion - it burns away.

'Fuuuuuck,' he closes his eyes. 'Me.'

Hash lies on the deck, a washed-out corpse dragged up from the deep. Exhausted in the sunshine, only the sound of the boat gently cutting in and out of the water like a spoon into jelly. Eyes freed now from the glass onion pointing home, his mind begins to recline.

And he drifts . . .

~

. . . back to yesterday, the first of these brutal sunny days.

Aboard Kirrin - Wade Talbot's fish-seeking missile. No crew. Just the two of them.

They'd left the dock at dawn and headed due east into the glassy North Sea - straight into the rising sun as she lifted herself from the cold water. A fireball lost, missing from the skies over an African plain. The sea, it seemed, evaporating before their eyes - slowly emptying like a sink.

Six hours on very fast boat.

One hundred and seventy six nautical miles due east to the Dogger Bank fishing grounds.

Every one of them directly into this new sun.

They'd skimmed effortlessly - three dozen pistons pumping thunderously, hammering nautical miles free from the water.

Then Talbot looked at his radar.

'What the fuck?' he said.

He tapped the gadget with a finger.

'What the fu . . ? Who?'

He looked at the horizon.

'Who the fuck is . . .?'

He again tapped the radar.

Talbot's face then reddened and hardened - maddened \- into the face on a crucifix.

There was no doubting it, there was a boat where it shouldn't be.

Right on top of his buoy.

The radio message from the other side was clear and, anyway - the buoy was always there. Once a month, every month, Talbot's buoy had been bobbling around in that same spot for over thirteen years.

But yesterday it was not alone.

'What the fu . .? Who the fuck?' Talbot whispered.

He made up his mind.

'Thievin . . . fuckin . . .. . . CUNTS!'

He'd pulled down hard on the throttles of both mighty engines.

Talbot's blood overheating like water in an old kettle as they speeded across the ocean. Hash could only watch, way too afraid to take the shaking, rattling, whistling, boiling thing off the stove.

'Thievin CUNTS!' Talbot had roared at the sun, gripping the knobs on his ship's wheel like the throats of skinned children.

'CUNTS!'

And they'd skimmed on relentless across the calm lake that was once the cold, capricious North Sea. On towards the boat they could see now on the horizon, the boat in the spot - the spot where the buoy should be. Talbot's spot. Tied to Talbot's 13-year-old buoy.

The little boat - this little boat - slowly coming into view, the face of the young lad on the deck smiling up at the monstrous approaching machine.

A big fat spliff at his lips.

'Thievin CUNT! Bastard!'

The orange tube of the distress flare in Talbot's fist, his finger on the plastic ring-pull trigger at its base and . . .

~

. . . Hash jerks awake.

'Gaaa!'

The whooshing sound flying through his head, seeking a target.

Any target.

'Jesus fuckin . . .'

He gasps down warm air, rubs his eyes then looks at the horizon.

The land is still there.

'Jesus fuckin.'

He needs his medicine.

'Fuck,' he says, pushing his palms into his eyes. 'Me.'

A spliff.

A big fat fucking spliff, that'd do the job.

That's the cure.

Then he stops, turns his head and looks up across the deck to the bow.

'Man?' he lifts himself up onto his elbows,

'Fuck me!' he jerks up onto his feet, leaving a Hash-shaped pool of sweat on the deck, and launches himself seven feet north up the boat like a startled gazelle. He reaches what looks like a big white coffin screwed into the deck up by the bow.

The hatch that had been swung wide open when they'd met the boat is now closed, locked - with a big old rusty padlock. By Talbot's hand.

'Ah fuck?'

For want of a better plan, he heads to the wheelhouse.

He looks around, opens a few compartments.

Nothing.

He looks down at the hatch by his feet, he puts his finger into the brass ring and pulls. There's stairs down. He pauses.

'Fuck it.'

He heads down, heels to the wall, until he reaches the bottom.

It's dark, he fumbles around by his right shoulder with his back to the ladder and presses what has to be a lightswitch.

It is.

The little room is lit by a dim bulb. It looks like a student's digs down here, a guitar - posters on the wall. Information he really doesn't want or need.

He inhales.

There's an old metal box to his left with a white desert hat on top. He picks up the hat and opens the toolbox.

And finds a heavy old monkey wrench alone inside, the metal long since turned a turd brown colour from its original grey.

The kind of industrial tool you'd only ever find with very big nuts to turn nearby.

'Bobby-fuckin-Dazzler!'

He turns and flies up the ladder like he's wearing a jet pack. He slams the hatch closed and heads up the deck. He raises the wrench, remembers the hat in his hand - puts it on his head. He again raises the wrench high over his head and gives the padlock half a dozen healthy whacks, smashing the clasps and the padlock entirely free of the wood.

A heavy, rusted old wrench for a heavy, rusted old padlock.

Just the job.

He drops the wrench with a clatter and kicks the lock and its latches over the side of the boat.

Sploosh.

And lifts the lid.

'Ffff?'

Just a box, an empty box.

He puts his hands in and taps the bottom, it sounds hollow. He lifts away three planks of wood and . . .

'Jesus fuckin Christ!'

A true stoner's wank fantasy lies below.

The entire front end of the hull is packed with brick-sized brown blocks, all neatly wrapped in water-proof cellophane.

Packed in tight.

Hundreds of the fuckers - thousands, even.

Hash grabs one of the bricks, tears away the cellophane with his teeth and breathes in the sweet aroma. It smells like heaven, herbal heaven.

'Woo hoo!' he shouts across the ocean, the brick over his head like a prize.

'Woo fuckin Hoo!'

Cannabis resin.

You could build a very chilled-out house with the stuff.

'Fuck! Me!' he jumps up and down. 'WOO HOO!'

He heads back to the wheelhouse for his brown Kappa tracksuit top and searches the pockets - he pulls out a packet of Rizla cigarette papers, his tobacco and the Clipper lighter with the woman in a bikini on it, bought in Amsterdam on his stagdo.

He heads back to his spot on the deck and sits, shaded by the wheelhouse.

'Hah hah hah!'

He pulls out three papers, licks the corner of one and sticks it to the second in a straightline - making sure the folds align. Then he licks all the way along the gum of the third and attaches it halfway down the two joined skins. He folds it over.

Skins ready to load.

He burns a corner of the cannabis brick, a thin whisp of white smoke going directly up his right nostril. He breathes it in.

'Ah man! You fuckin beauty!'

He lifts a clump of tobacco from the green pouch and separates it between his fingers, feeding it uniformly into the skins.

Hash looks at the size and scale of the block of dope, shrugs, and burns off a rich man's load, sprinkling it along the top of the tobacco.

A monster spliff - enough to floor a Rasta.

He takes the papers between the index fingers and thumbs of both hands and starts to roll, rustling the tobacco and cannabis into shape. He gently licks the rim then smooths it closed. He nips one end of the joint, rolling the spare paper between his finger and thumb into a point. He tears a small piece of cardboard from the Rizlas then rolls it, making a tiny cardboard tube. He sticks the roach up the other end of the joint.

'Fuckin right, man.'

He gives the joint a smoothing, it's perfect. Like a tampon.

'Well earned, son. Well fuckin earned.'

He puts it to his lips and lights up, pulls the sweet smoke hard into his chest. He holds it there to see how it feels in his lungs, then breathes it out slowly over his tongue like a sommelier tasting a fine wine.

'Fuckin right, man,' he says, giving it top marks. 'Fuckin right.'

He smiles, salutes the sky with the spliff. Puts it back to his lips - and smokes it all in four deep tokes, flicks the butt over the side.

Closes his eyes.

~

. . . and drifts straight into the jagged rocks inside his head.

'Thievin CUNT bastard! Thievin CUNT bastard!'

Talbot's blood fizzing like a shaked Tizer bottle.

Yesterday.

It happened, it really happened.

The young hippy kid on the deck of the little fishing boat - THIS little boat - big fat spliff at his lips. He'd waved then pulled the spliff from his lips, offering it up to the wall of metal as Kirrin pulled up alongside - a peace offering and a shy smile.

Talbot had disappeared for a moment, giving Hash half-a-dozen beats of thinking time; the face of a thief, does an enemy give a friendly wave and a smile?

Then Talbot was back.

'Wade?'

The orange tube, the distress flare in his fist. He'd pulled away the safety cap at the base and had his finger on the plastic ring pull. The trigger.

'Thievin CUNT . . . '

He pulled it.

' . . . BASTARD . . .'

Too late, but Hash had worked it all out.

'Wade, this boat's delivering the gear . . .'

Vvvvwhoooooosh!

The industrial strength firework had left its tube, dipping in a low arc across the thin stretch of water between the two boats.

It smashed into the young lad's mouth.

Bullseye.

Wade Talbot had always been good at darts.

The kid was driven back against the wheelhouse wall, still smiling.

A distress flare in his throat.

Rocket fire roaring from his mouth.

Hash saw the light in the young kid's eyes - actually saw the light behind them inside his head - just as it . . .

Exploded.

A dull thud and then a wet splash as his head tore open - all over the deck and out into the sea. Brains, shattered bone and blood rained down. Blood pumping out of his neck with nowhere left to go, no brain left to feed.

The firework hissing and spinning manically in the blood and flesh on the deck.

Insane, out of control.

The freed flare flashed around the bloodied deck until it spinned out of control into the sea.

Hiss.

And then the other guy had come up from below deck, sleepy-eyed and heavily - mightily - stoned.

Pulled up from a deep place by all the noise. If Talbot had waited a heartbeat, he might have recognised the face of a friend.

But Talbot disappeared again.

The new kid got to see his headless friend sitting up against the wheelhouse wall as if taking a rest, blood pulsing up from his neck in ever decreasing spurts.

The new kid turned to look up.

To see Talbot reaching for him with the long stick with the hook on the end that he'd usually dip over the side to fish in a stray piece of fishing net.

Sploosh.

And he was overboard, Talbot trying to hold him under the water with the pole. But he was strong and he was fighting.

Splashing.

'Waarom? Waarom! Wat doet u?'

Screaming for his life in a foreign language.

'Hulp! Moeder! MOEDER!'

'Billy! Help man! For fuck's sake! Put some fuckin weight on the pole. Hold the cunt under!'

And Billy 'Hash' Brown had done as he'd been told, pulling down hard on the pole from above until the kid stopped fighting and started floating.

Face down in the water.

~

. . . Hash rises, sluggishly this time.

The smell of burning flesh in his nostrils, feeling the shaking writhing man on the end of the big stick like an oversized eel. As a boy, Hash had never even caught a fish - he'd not had the heart to so much as pierce the worm to bait his hook.

'Jesus fuckin,' he slurs. 'I'm so. I'm so fuckin sorry man. Jesus fuckin.'

He reaches down for a new spliff and builds it, quick and clumsy this time, trying to get his eyes to focus. His fingers fumble for sense, looking for an anaesthetic.

Finding one.

He sucks deep and hard until it's all gone. He folds another. Smokes it the same.

And his eyelids collapse finally on peace.

His brain now beyond the reach of thought, of pain.

The little boat slowly rocks around on her anchor, soothing him further. The sun eating into the shade inch by inch like sand before the rising tide.

Hash groans and mumbles something, swats at the sky.

But he can't reach the sun.

The earth rotates, the shade shrinks, the boat moves on her anchor - the sun edges up his left elbow and over his nipple, across his chest and into his face.

Anaesthetised.

Free from thought.

Course set for a world of pain.

A quarter mile inland from the crusty shore, and Ted Berry stands inside what looks like the concrete entrance to a nuclear bunker; the subway tunnel under a busy road.

Cars flit flit along the deadly dual carriageway overhead.

It's nice and cool in here against the shiny concrete wall.

Flit flit. Flit flit.

People always rushing somewhere - there'd been body-shaped yellow marks up there on that road for years before the council had dug this hole last year. It took half-a-dozen deaths to spur the bores into action.

Flit flit.

Berry stands with one foot against the cold wall watching his best friend work on his hobby out there in the sunshine halfway up the cracked-earth of the verge.

'Weird fuckin freak,' he says.

Wedge holds the magnifying glass keyring he'd stolen yesterday from Maynards stationery store and is focusing hot light at a discarded copy of The Sun newspaper.

Page three.

The laser beam focuses on an unfeasibly-breasted woman's left nipple. A wisp of black smoke rises and the yellow pin prick turns orange and opens out into a perfect little black hole with a glowing orange rim. The circle expanding with, at first, no obvious flame. Her tits flare away from her chest and fire eats her face.

And she's gone.

'Wedge?' KP says, arriving at the top of the verge.

Jason Wujkowski nods a 'what?'

'Y'not right in the fuckin heed mate. What y'burnin that bird's tits for?'

Brian 'KP' Kelly had decided to copy Berry and Wedge's early leap over the school wall, simply rising from his desk and leaving the Retard class when he'd seen the top of Wedge's oversized cranium pass by his window.

'Shut the door after you, Brian,' the bored teacher had said as he left.

So he did.

KP may as well be sewing mail bags or hammering out number plates, for all the use school is to him.

He scuffs down the bank and stops beside the trainee pyromaniac.

'Weird fuckin freaks,' Berry smiles, shaking his head. 'Weird fuckin freaks.'

KP's small little peanut-shaped head next to Wedge's massive napper. They should join the circus, steady work if you can get it.

Wedge crumples up another piece of paper and lovingly offers it up to the dying flame.

It barks into life.

He rips off a bit of cardboard from a box he'd taken from behind The Pheasant pub on the other side of the park that leads to the subway - a sturdier, slower fuel. He sits on the soil and stares into the flames, cigarette in his mouth. He leans forward, puckering his lips, and lights it from his fire.

Coughs.

KP reaches the path, bends down and picks up a stone and throws it at Berry - it clatters around behind him in the subway.

'Alreet fuckheed?' KP says. 'How's y'arse for warts?'

'Not bad. Y'been out suckin cocks?'

'Aye, y'dad's. For baccy.'

Berry picks up a stone, throws it at the peanut.

Misses.

The council had only just got around to lining the path to the new subway with a solid surface, going for the cheap option of scattered grey stones on top of a thin bed of sand - arming a platoon of little bastards. Many an adult bound for the subway had felt the sharp smack of a stone on the back of their head to the sound of laughing feet running the opposite way up the path. A red five bar gate of 'kills' there beside Berry's head.

A game that'd only ever wear off when the stones were gone.

One day they'd take the hint and finish the job, Tarmac the fucker properly.

KP reaches one of two facing benches on either side of the path and opens his school bag. He pulls out a big bottle of warm Tizer and sits on the dry mud verge instead of the bench with the dead old man's name inscribed on a brass plaque.

'Fuck?' Berry says, thirst raging.

He steps out into the firestorm, feet crunching on the thinning stones and sits next to KP on the bank. He drags up a yellow slab from the back of his throat and – thwock \- fires it across the open crusty soil like an aboriginee's dart.

Slap.

It lands complete and intact on a rock of dry mud like a fetus.

It crawls away.

Thwock.

Slap.

Twins.

Ted Berry had mastered the art of Cool Spitting at an early age.

Glug, pop, glug.

KP's mouth hasn't left the bottle's red teat.

'Y'greedy bastard,' Berry says. 'Giz some.'

He reaches down and grabs the bottle and tilts it to his head.

'Baaaaarp,' KP releases an operatic blast of gas. 'Brrrrrp. Baaaaarp! Ah.'

A brief splash of Tizer blesses Berry's tongue. But the bottle collapses in on itself with a plastic pop.

Empty.

'Cunt!?' Berry says. 'Y'greedy fuck. Y'necked it all?'

'Baaaaarp.'

Berry swings a foot at the peanut.

Misses.

'Cunt.'

He throws the bottle.

Misses.

'Wedge?' KP says.

No answer.

'Hey, Wedge? Wedge man?' KP shouts across the path. 'Wedge man? Hey? Hey man, Wedge?'

He throws one of the council's stones at what should be an easy target, Wedge's head.

Misses.

'Wedge? Wedge man? Wedge-ski? Wedge man?'

The Head rotates.

'Go to the shops and get some pop man.'

'Fuck off.'

'Go on man. I'll pay if you go.'

'Nah.'

Wedge feathers the flames with a branch.

'Fuck this,' Berry says, rising. 'I'll go.'

'Hang on, hang on,' KP says. 'I'm comin. It's too fuckin hot here.'

He gets up, turns to Wedge.

'You comin melonhead-ski?'

'Nah.'

They leave Wedge staring at the dancing cackling shapes and crunch up the path.

~

And soon arrive at The Grange shopping precinct. A grey lake of paving stones laid out in a square between block buildings - masonry and chipboard boxes that arrived one afternoon a few years back, flat-pack from Shops R US. Triumph of '60s built, social design.

A decent gust of wind and they'd be away.

Stressed mothers flit between the shops alongside the skivers and the unemployed, gathering supplies for the coming storm - there's only three minutes left until the school bell rings at the big school on the far side of the estate.

Three minutes.

A pig's head sits in a shop window on the corner, the rest of its body sliced out on trays, eyes closed and empty. A red apple rammed into its mouth, forcing its face into a smile.

It almost looks happy.

'Poor bastard,' Berry says.

The butcher, Mr Surtees, reaches into the window and lifts a tray. The spectacles on his nose are the highest prescription possible before the optician would be forced to prescribe a dog.

His eyes swim like fish in bowls, flitting between the trays.

'Speccy-eyed cunt,' Berry says.

Mr Surtees had never liked The Berry Family - especially since he'd appeared at their front door holding his weeping daughter's hand and a broken bike, blaming young Ted for a joyride, to which young Ted had given his standard reply ('Wasn't me, wasn't there.')

The death smell of meat and sawdust seaps out through the thin strips of red and white tape that guard the open doorway.

Berry taps the double-glazing.

'Oi nine eyes!' he shouts.

Mr Surtees looks up, his goggle eyes taking a beat too long to focus through all that fucking glass.

Berry gives him a big rubbery smile and prepares to launch two fingers.

KP nudges his arm.

'Fanny.'

A girl fidgets from the hairdresser's, looking in the clothes shop's massive window, moving the new hairdo this way and that until something aside from her fringe catches her eye, and she disappears inside.

'Saggy tits,' KP says.

'Listen to fuckin Elvis,' Berry snorts. 'Y'got pretty high standards for such an ugly cunt.'

They head towards Prestos, the supermarket that's quickly putting all the other shops in the precinct out of business. The big shop's doors swish open without assistance.

The future has no handles.

Berry glides up the white tiles to a long row of chest freezers packed full of fish fingers, peas and pies and anything else that can survive being embalmed and frozen and then sold on light years later as if nothing happened.

He dives in, arse hanging over the side.

'Ah, man. Fuckin right!'

The icy wind being pumped around inside chills the sweat against his skin.

He grabs a blue box of ice pops, clear plastic tubes filled with frozen juice - and jerks, arse first, back out of the fridge.

'Oop.'

He whacks into a trolley packed with dark green tins. A defeated grey-haired man in a cheap blue uniform has a four pack of Heinz baked beans in each hand. He places them on a shelf, lines them up neat.

'Shit. Sorry Ken.'

His name is stamped into a white plastic rectangle pinned to his chest. Ken Graham, highly skilled on heavy lathes that no longer turn. Now a shelf-stacker at Prestos.

'Just make sure y'pay eh, son,' he sighs.

Berry heads to the row of checkouts.

They're all busy.

'Fuck's sakes.'

He tries to judge the speed of each queue, it's a difficult decision. He takes the left aisle. Two people stand in front of him, all holding baskets. No trolleys.

A wise choice, surely the fastest option.

But he'll still have to wait.

Nightmare.

'Fuck's sakes.'

The woman at the front is taking fucking ages, chatting away to the woman working the till.

There's the muffled sound of heavy metal music, a masturbatory guitar solo, coming from the guy in the middle.

Berry pushes a finger into the lip of the box. It's glued tight.

'Fuckin thing.'

He tries harder, tearing it open. He pulls out a red ice pop, squeezes it tight as his teeth attack the clear plastic. But ice pops are in high demand by mums with young kids and these have not long been dropped by Ken into the freezers.

They're not yet solid.

Blood red juice geysers off Berry's lips and onto the back of the man standing in front of him in the queue.

The man's wearing a pure white t-shirt with the European tour dates of a band called The Scorpions on the back.

'Shit the fuckin bed!'

There are now a dozen new, nameless dates between Trondheim and the man's thick black Euro-mullet. Some red dots of strawberry flavoured water may well have flown into that awful haircut.

A big Sony Walkman is clipped to the belt of his faded black jeans.

Berry diverts his eyes to something of sudden yet fascinating importance.

'Fairy Liquid, only 21p,' he mumbles. 'Fuck me, what a bargain . . .'

The man's basket jerks down the runway to the checkout lady.

'Hello there,' she smiles, reaching into it. 'Lovely day again.'

The guitar solo gets louder as the man pulls the headphones' metal halo down from his ears to his neck.

He doesn't say anything.

The tinny sound of the solo wanks ever higher as the guitarist's fingers crawl up his fretboard.

'I said 'lovely day,'' the lady beams.

She taps his purchases into the till; a red label bottle of Thunderbird wine, a green coil of clothes line, a silver Stanley knife, an ounce of Golden Virginia tobacco and a green pack of Rizla cigarette papers.

He pays and – tap tap, beep beep, chigger chigger, chigger chigger – gets a receipt and change.

'Thank,' he says. 'You.'

Two words.

More than enough to reveal he's not from these parts.

'Ooh,' says the check-out lady - who could well be Ken's wife, she may even have got him his job here. 'Where's that accent from then?'

'I am from Europe.'

Dead pan.

Berry places his box on the runway, ripped open end pointing into his crotch.

'Ooh well,' she waxes, impervious, 'We've pinched your weather.'

He puts the wanking guitar back over his ears and walks away, ignoring her friendly smile.

'Miserable cunt,' Berry mutters.

Berry's box of ice pops heads down the rubber treadmill.

'Hello pet,' she says.

'Hiya.'

She looks at Berry as if he's buying a bra.

Smiles.

'Boys don't wear lipstick.'

'Wha?'

She smiles again, but says nothing.

'Bloody hot again Peggy,' Berry says, filling the silence.

'Yes,' tap tap, beep beep, chigger chigger, chigger chigger. 'But there's no call for that kind of language now, is there? Seventeen pee.'

He hands over the coins and turns to the door.

They swish open on half-a-dozen kids in dark blue uniforms.

One of them flies by towards the sweet section.

'Alreet Bez?'

Berry grunts.

He pulls out an ice pop and rips open the clear plastic with his teeth, soaking his tongue and throat with sweet bliss. Orange slush rushing out to every extremity.

'Ah, fuckin right man!'

Better than a wank, maybe.

He steps into the sunshine and sticks another ice pop in his mouth and slurps at the strawberry flavoured water, it bursts across his chin, he wipes the back of his hand across his lips and looks up.

'Fuckinhell.'

A teen tidal wave has crashed over the shopping precinct's grey courtyard. Blue trousers, light blue shirts and badly knotted ties. A hormone storm cloud, raining down. Hundreds of the bastards, all aged between 11 and 16.

'Alreet Bez?' another couple of voices squeak.

He ignores them.

A strawberry pop – frozen only to slush - follows, evaporating into his brain. But the route this one took actually hurt, like an ice pick through the forehead.

'Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!' he moans, stamping his feet. 'Ice cream head! Ice cream head!'

He opens his mouth like a werewolf, to try and stretch away the frozen pain caused by the ice.

Does a little dance.

'Ice cream head!' he says, from the back of his throat. 'Ice cream head!'

'Hi Ted.'

Holly Wujkowski - everything exactly as it should be, where the artist intended.

Wedge's twin sister.

Not identical twins, obviously, seeing as Wedge has a cock and Holly a fanny. Plus, she's 47-minutes Wedge's senior, the longest stretch of peace Wedge had ever had since. Forty-seven minutes, a hell of a long time when you've yet to even be born. Wedge would be still up inside their mother, if the doctor hadn't reached up in with forceps and fished him out, kicking and screaming.

''olly?' Berry says, mouth still open.

'You dancin?' she smiles.

He closes his mouth and jerks upright.

'You askin? Ha heh heh.'

Hot red blood cells fly into his face.

'Ha heh heh.'

He sticks the ice pop back into his mouth for want of something to do with his hands.

She's in her uniform, blue shirt over fully formed breasts. Hair not quite blonde but almost, cut into a bob. She's already out drinking in real pubs every Friday and Saturday night.

A cretinous zombie begins to rise up from its crypt in Berry's pants.

Holly's eyelashes flick down briefly to his crotch.

She smiles.

'Hiya Holly,' KP says, a Mars bar at his lips and a two-litre bottle of Lashings ginger beer cooling a soaked armpit.

'Hi Bryan.'

He points the molten turd at her.

'Bite?'

'Ehm, no. No thanks.'

'What y'up to?' KP chomp chomps, his mouth like a cement mixer filled with the estate's entire supply of dog turd.

'Meetin Fee then goin to town.'

He rips off another lump and nods behind.

'Just seen her.'

'Oh, where?'

'In Prestos. Least I think it was her,' he says through the Mars bar. 'Fat arse.'

'Ha heh heh,' Berry laughs.

'Sorry?'

Chomp chomp chomp.

'Fee,' he points over his shoulder to Prestos with the Mars bar. 'She's got a big fat arse.'

Holly whacks him on the arm, knocking his favourite food to the ground.

The zombie in Berry's pants is fully involved in proceedings.

'She's my friend. She has not got a fat arse. Little Dick.'

'Yeah she has,' KP holds his hands out like he's riding a moped. 'It's a great place to park y'bike, right between her cheeks.'

'Ha heh heh,' Berry snorts. 'Ha heh heh.'

Holly raises her fist, KP jerks back to the door.

'Prick.'

She turns to Berry, her hand outstretched and open and low, palm up - right in front of the zip of his pants.

'Can I have?'

'Wha?'

She gives him a crushing Stupid Dumbfuck look.

'An ice pop. Can I have one?'

The zombie practically bursts out of his trousers and hands her one himself.

'Course.'

He shuffles the remaining pops in the box up to her face, just like a Stupid Dumbfuck.

She fishes around inside and pulls out a flacid red stick. She squeezes it until it hardens.

A glorious smile tickles the edge of her lips as she grips it in her fist – as if she'd had lots of practise.

'Hot,' she breathes.

'What?' Berry hears his voice, but doesn't recall giving his mouth clearance to speak. He's lost the instruction manual for his brain and is frantically pushing buttons.

'Hot. Today. Ted,' she smiles. 'Hot. It's hot.'

She puts the ice pop up to her face, tears open the plastic and puts two inches of slush into her mouth.

'Aye, fuckin scorchio,' KP answers. 'I need to wipe the crack of me arse man, feels like a fuckin donkey licked it.'

Berry's eyes nip closed.

Holly glances at the sweating peanut, then decides she didn't hear what he said.

'Where's the other one then?'

'Ehm?' Berry says. 'Who?'

'Jay. Your mate. My dick brother.'

Berry nods his head backwards.

'Park. By the subway.'

'Burning stuff,' KP says, rummaging a green ice pop from the box and putting it to his forehead. He turns it in little circles at his temple.

'Something wrong with that fucker's brain.'

'And Sam?' she says, the way she said the name pokes a jealous hole right through Berry's rib cage. It exits somewhere between his shoulder blades.

'Is Sam there?'

Sam Smith was Berry's best friend at primary school, but had since grown chest hair and was drinking in the same Whitley Bay trainee-drinker pubs as Holly, where ID for those who can almost look the part is never required.

'Nope,' KP says, noticing her tone. 'Fancy him?'

'Stop being an infant Bryan.'

Twist. Twist. No denial.

'He's got to be a bender,' KP says. 'Takes it up the arse like a good 'un, I reckon.'

He bursts the ice pop into his mouth, slurps the glorious slush.

'Fucker should come out the cupboard.'

She touches KP's arm.

'Closet. Bryan. The closet. I'm sure y'safe pet.'

'Hiya Holz',' a girl bleats from the automatic doorway. 'Hiya boys.'

'Alright Fee,' KP says.

'Ha heh heh.'

Holly beams, kisses her pal on the cheek and joins arms.

'What yous up to?' says Fiona Cooper.

'Nothin, nothin,' KP says, bending to rescue his melting Mars bar from the pavement. He stuffs it back into his mouth. 'Just burnin stuff and that.'

'What?'

'Bite?' he asks.

'Aye, go on then,' she says and puts her red painted lips around the last drip of diarrhoea hiding in the black wrapper.

'Y'greedy cow!' KP says, rolling up the wrapper and throwing it at her smirking head. 'Y'scranned the lot.'

'We off then?' Fee says, rotating the turd in her mouth, she pulls tight on Holly's arm.

'Aye pet, let's go. Bye bye boys. Be good.'

Berry watches Holly cross the paving slabs, tight cheeks wrestling inside her tight skirt.

'Y'right like,' Berry says, as he watches the two girls walk away, Fiona Cooper's arse like a sack of spuds.

'What?'

'Fat arse.'

'Aye. Minger. Wouldn't touch her wi yours.'

'Aye, righto,' Berry snorts. 'Y'fuckin made for each other man.'

KP's hand shuffles inside the box and he pulls out the final three ice pops, places two against his forehead and sticks the third in his mouth.

'Fuck me,' KP says. 'It must be a hundred fuckin degrees.'

Berry reaches inside the empty box. He punches KP hard on the arm and grabs the last two ice pops from his forehead.

'Y'greedy fuck!'

They walk back across the park to the path that leads down to the subway, kicking stones and ignoring school kids.

Wedge is still dropping cardboard into his fire.

They head down the stone path towards him.

KP picks up a stone and – thwack \- throws it off the back of Wedge's head.

'I won a coconut!' KP says, running down the final few feet and grabbing Wedge by the head. 'Mister! Hey Mister! I won a coconut! Ha ha ha.'

Wedge shakes him free.

'Fuck off man!'

'Y'sister's lookin for ya,' Berry says.

'Fuck her.'

'Okay.'

In the city, and reporter Rick E. Delaney strides across the newspaper's back lobby with a still warm copy of The Evening Kernel newspaper folded into his armpit. He rams open the door to the alley.

Screech.

The teeth-grating scrape of heavy steel door over the metal footplate whips Norman the security guard's head up from his silver-on-black epaulets

Screech, screech, scrape.

It passes three times over the plate; deflecting Norman's attention away from the wank mag hidden inside his own Final edition. He stares from inside his glass box at the departing powder blue shirt.

'Cunt,' he says - factually correct on two counts – eyes refocusing on pink openings.

Delaney emerges into the alleyway, the word 'Editorial' hammered into a piece of metal high above his head. He flicks open the folded newspaper, and there it is in black and white – By Rick E. Delaney.

'Front page again, Rickeroo,' Delaney says, loud enough for the sunburnt female shoulders on the step below to hear. 'Front page again.'

The sexy girl from Classifieds turns her head.

'What?'

Delaney smiles and pulls out his silver plated cigarette case and carefully selects a smoke from under a little piece of elastic rope – Gauloises; because he'd learnt to pronounce the name. He taps it on the box.

He looks at her, beams her with a smile.

'Turned out nice again.'

She grunts, flicks her own half-smoked cigarette to the pavement, grinds it under heel and heads back indoors.

'Knob,' she mutters.

The door scuffs open, gently.

'Hiya Norman,' she says.

'Hey doll.'

Delaney has been an Evening Kernel reporter for eighteen-impatient-months – he awaits world renown; it's in the post, he just fucking knows it.

He pauses for a fantasy close up, his best side – the left, always the left - smooth like an English rose. White. China white. The withering sun seems not to have noticed him. Wet shaved every day for no reason other than that's what men do on the adverts. The same blade has been in the Gilette grip since well before Christmas and is still as sharp as when it left the pack.

Delaney glances up on cue. He pauses, then cups hands. He lights his cigarette and flicks the Zippo lighter closed.

Breathes.

The smoke glances his lungs.

And he splutters.

Coughs.

He doesn't smoke, not really – his is a delicate chest. His eyes nip as he stands in the alley. He coughs twice more.

Evening Kernel delivery vans queue single file at the mammoth press hall gates, waiting to fill up on Final editions.

The alley shakes. The roaring, rumbling beasts spit out ten copies a second.

'By Rick E. Delaney,' he says.

He coughs again. Finally itching away the smoke tickle.

Men way too old to be paperboys struggle out of the Evening Kernel's womb carrying a slab of newspapers in each hand. The plastic ribbon that binds them slicing into palms like blood brothers.

Delaney smiles.

'Here come The Spastics.'

The vendors head up the alley to their pitches across the city. There they stand before a portable stall with a sheet of paper glued to the front.

COUNCIL TOILET FIGHT

Words crafted to tempt the reader like an old butt ugly whore showing only a gartered leg round a doorframe.

Two drunken burghers kicking fuck out of each other in a public toilet?

Great tale!

Or a routine council story - elevated to the front page on a slow news day?

Always the latter.

Still the men run. Utterly incapable of calling out the simple words 'final', 'newspaper' or even just 'Kernel' – instead, projecting a sound normally accompanied by vomit.

''The Evening Kernel,'' Delaney reads the paper's masthead. ''All the news you need.''

He steps off the kerb and turns the opposite way down the lane, the old cobbles sliced precisely in half between light and shade. He stays in the shade and is hit by a wave of office girls on their way up to the square seeking alcohol.

'On the drink again girls?' he smiles. 'Don't do anything I wouldn't do, eh?'

Give it eight or so drinking hours.

A binge, they call it.

And at least one will be banged in the churchyard or end up with her legs spread in a cheap BnB as a shaven headed moron on a stagdo from Essex delivers five strokes before blowing his load and falling asleep. The Legend of the Geordie Lasses, shared amongst the stags on the train home to wives and girlfriends.

'Little sluts,' Delaney says.

But the only parting these girls do for Delaney is around him to walk by.

He stops under a man with a hammer, a sign hanging high above the door of the Printer's Pie pub. The two beige curtains of his hair flop into his eyes.

He looks himself in the eye: Rick E. Delaney – the world's greatest reporter, all he needs is a trilby with a PRESS card in the band, and he's fucking there. Complete.

He flicks his cigarette away and salutes the glass to make shade.

'Excellent.'

The younger crowd he's looking for are there; a foursome in the corner. He attacks the saloon door, it whips through its hinge. He steps in, it whips back open to the sunshine.

Opens, closes, opens to the sunshine.

Closes.

His eyes adjust to sepia and his ears to - a pair of lips whistling the theme tune from 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.'

A live performance.

He's heard it before.

A different voice adds the 'wah, wah, wah' refrain.

Delaney's Hush Puppies fuse to the floor – it's a Pie imperative to keep the feet moving over the soiled shagpile.

A queasy smile scuttles across his face.

'Dick! Old fruit!' Peter Lee, The Press Agency's 25-year-old bureau chief shouts across the chairs. 'How the fuck are ya?'

Heads turn.

Trapped, Delaney turns to face them.

The Press Agency double act of Peter Lee and Daniel Evans, far flung sentries for the national press, are sitting in the upholstered corner in their crumpled suits sipping dregs from pints. Lee lifts his glass and wiggles the serum in the bottom.

'Your round?' Lee says.

Assorted reporters, printers and sub-editors lounge under a carbonised fog. Rory the landlord had suggested the name The Smoker's Lung as futile resistance to an imminent revamp by the brewery.

'How are you?' Delaney says. His is a bland, Home Counties accent – you'd never know, because he'd never tell you - but he grew up plain old Richard Taylor on a housing estate in Hull.

'I see you've got the splash tonight,' Lee says, swallowing the dregs.

Burp.

'Of course,' Delaney's face opens.

''Of course'?' Lee says, shaking his head. 'Dick.'

'Total Dick,' Evans agrees.

Lee gestures towards the copy of that day's paper wedged in Delaney's armpit.

'Kev Clarke was in earlier saying how you'd only made one call and knocked his name off his exclusive and put yours on. He says he's gonna . . . What was it again Ev?'

'He said somethin like 'if you see that fuckin byline bandit cunt Dick Delaney, tell him I'm gonna kick his fuckin head in.''

'Aye, that was it,' Lee says, he raises his empty glass at him. 'He should be back soon.'

'What?' Delaney says, glancing over his shoulder to the door. 'Oh don't be ridiculous, I did as much on that story as he did. It's not my fault if The Editor wants his best reporter's name on it.'

He smiles.

Delaney had made one call, added five words - 'Councillor Sow refused to comment' - to the bottom of the district office man's exclusive and sent it flying solo into print, knowing the sub-editors would be too busy to check Clarke's name was still on the copy. And, anyway, couldn't give less of a fuck about either reporter's ego.

Delaney turns to the bar and lifts a shoe from the carpet, it resists like a plunger kissed to a window.

'A front page lead, is a front page lead,' he says.

Fwup click, fwup click – he heads to the bar.

'Gee and tee please,' he says, hunting for change in his pocket. 'Ice no lemon.'

'Sorry love?'

He stares and moves his lips like the man on daytime TV who moves his hands around for the deaf.

'Gin. And. Tonic. Ice. No. Lemon. Lemon. No. Lemon. Please. Thank. You. No lemon.'

He smiles at the trainees and pays, collects his drink. He sits where he'll get the respect he deserves; amongst the new crop of cub reporters from the paper's in-house graduate training scheme.

A course Delaney himself completed last year.

'Silly tart,' he tuts, fishing out half a bruised lemon from his drink. He drops it in an ashtray.

Ellen Carter, a member of the same year's intake as Delaney, is also at the table. She's already doing occasional shifts in London on a broadsheet. A fact that actually physically hurt Delaney, when she'd told him.

'How are you Rick?' she asks.

'Excellent,' he says. 'Fantastic. Top of the world.'

'Front page,' says one of the bairns. 'Well done.'

'Of course,' he says, turning his back on him.

'So,' Ellen asks. 'What's new with you?'

'I got a call from The Sunday Sorted today,' Delaney tells her, loud – glancing towards Lee and Evans at the next table.

Neither is looking.

'Really?' she says, interest and real status-depleting-terror in her voice.

'I've been offered a contract,' Delaney lies. 'I've got to go down next week and sort it all out.'

'Congratulations,' Ellen says. 'Oh, well done Rick. That's great news. When are you leaving?'

The children mutter in awe.

'Soon,' he says, enjoying the jealous rays.

But the conversation with The SS news editor worried him. That, and the fact he'd deleted two years off his age and added fictitious Fleet Street shifts to his CV.

'You've got a month's casual work over the summer,' the voice told him down the line. Germanic. Efficient.

Delaney had thanked him ever-so-much for his very kind offer.

'And make sure you bring a good tale down with you.'

'Thank you, yes sir. I. . . Hello? Hello?'

Delaney puffs his chest at the memory.

'Hi Ev,' Ellen says to the crumpled suit on its way to the bar.

'Hiya Ellen,' he looks down on Delaney. 'So you off to join The...' Evans burps, ''scuse me... join the Joy Division then?'

'Sorry?' Delaney smiles up at him.

Daniel Evans is short man, 27 – the same age as Delaney. Thick framed glasses under greased down black hair. He looks like an accountant - in a tailored suit he'd blagged on a press junket to a Savile Row tailor.

'You off down to join The SS? I've got a few mates worked there, they say it's like joining a cult. You're fuckin dead meat mate.'

'I'm sure I can hack it,' Delaney says, grip on his conviction slipping a notch; 'bring in a tale'.

'You having a leavin do Tory boy?' Lee says from the corner.

'Oh? Yes. Yes,' Delaney shines, looking around at the trainees and Ellen then up at Evans and across to Lee. 'Of course. Why not? That'll be fun.'

He soaks up this unexpected respect, enjoying the rays like he'd never enjoy the sun.

At last!

'Think anyone'll come?' Evans exhales smoke in his face, 'Dick.'

Friday

Boat hole
Billy 'Hash' Brown has made it home at last.

Sort of.

He sits on a stool at North Shields fish quay staring at the ground, the stolen jungle hat pulled tight to his ears. All he can see are legs and feet, feet and legs, he daren't look up – it's not a good idea - his new skin condition won't allow it.

It's busy.

Every other day is market day.

Dozens of civilians mingle with the orange plastic pants of the fishermen. They mill around between stack after stack of iced crates lined up in rows by the starboard sides of the fishing boats moored out in the dock known locally as The Gut, even the old fishermen can't recall why.

At least Hash is in the shade under the corrugated iron roof, his stool placed in an improvised iglu between two stacks of iced fish packed in crates.

But out there, planet earth spins on into the sun.

'Jesus fuckin, ' Hash breathes. 'Fuck.'

Nylon nets on the gathered boats' decks seem to be melting, and anything metal claims the skin of any young fisherman dumb enough to touch it.

The deep sea trawler Kirrin fills three of The Gut's berths. No fish is safe from Kirrin - no matter the depth or distance. The kit on this thing could beat NASA to life on Mars. Sleek lines. The Aston Martin of the fishing fleet. Navy blue with a white deck and bridge. Almost brand new.

Beautiful.

Her owner must've sold a shitload of fish.

'Fuck,' Hash sighs. 'Me.'

A fish lies amongst ice with her friends in the top crate at Hash's shoulder, staring him right in the face. Silver death with an open, confused eye.

'Feel no pain,' Hash says. 'So they say.'

He looks at the fish.

'Lucky bastard,' he sighs, turning his sautéed eyes away.

'Bollocks,' the fish replies.

Hash looks at it.

'What?'

Nothing.

Hash closes his eyes.

Opens them.

'Jesus fuckin.'

They focus on a cowboy's Cuban heels as their segs click scratch click scratch towards him along the wet concrete of the dock, the inverted flame stitching on the vintage leather lapping up at the boxes of dead fish.

Frankie Cain, owner of the finest collection of rodeo boots this side of Texas, limps on down the fish market. The north east's answer to John Wayne, holding the obligatory ten gallon hat.

The weather, for once, matches his clothes.

Hash would normally lounge back and smile, watching the owner of the Gunslinger fish and chip shop bemused - quick to take the piss.

But not today.

Staying still is one of life's absolute necessities.

'Hey sonny, how y'doin?' Frankie says to Hash's neighbour, Willis - working his lungs through today's second pack of Superkings.

It's 9.17am.

'Hey Franko,' Willis says, voice like a shot blasted wall, 'Where'd y'park y'fuckin horse? Heh heh.'

They talk fish.

Orange water proof pants strobe by, but Hash keeps his eyes locked on congealed fish guts stuck to the river's concrete lip.

A kid with a hose, a YTS trainee paid his dole money by Maggie Thatcher for this 'training', blasts the mess over the side into the water.

Hash closes his eyes.

'Feel no pain.'

'Bollocks.'

He opens them again, looks at the fish.

Sighs.

'Aye well, Willis,' Frankie says nearby. 'Be seein ya.'

The boots arrive at Hash's improvised iglu.

'Hey sonny,' Frankie says to the top of Hash's head. 'How y'doin?'

Frankie steps forward to fondle Hash's cod friend next to the flop rim of Hash's hat, tight blue jeans gnawing at his testicles - right in Hash's face.

'Alreet Fran . . .'

Hash tips his head back to get the old bastard's varicose ball bag away from his eyeballs.

Schoolboy error.

'Aaagh! Ayaz!'

The burnt skin on the back of his neck smears away from the flesh.

'Ayaaaz!'

He lifts his hands to his neck, but there's nothing they can do.

'Ayaz man! Ayaaaaaz! Man!'

They're fucked too.

A high price - but the going-rate nonetheless - for momentarily forgetting his new affliction.

'Ayaaaaaaaz MAN!'

'Jesus fuckin Christ!' Frankie says, holding the talking fish to one side like turd prize. 'What the fuck happened to you?'

The fish puckers her lips.

Frankie looks down on a face he'd last seen on a documentary about the Vietnam War, a blistered child victim of good old indiscriminate Uncle Sam. Proflugate with napalm.

'Fell asleep,' Hash croaks to the fish. 'In the sun.'

'Sheesh. You don't wanna be doin that now, do ya? Must be a hundred fuckin degrees. Seen the state of ya?'

'Aye,' Hash replies. 'Fuckin daft, aren't ah.'

'Y'not wrong like son, y'not fuckin wrong.'

Frankie hands him the fish.

'No pain,' Hash says.

'Sorry?'

'Wha?'

'What?' Frankie shakes his head. 'Y'wanna go lie down son, y'talkin to y'self and that.'

'Eh?'

Frankie moves his hat to the other hand and sighs.

'Don't see y'here that often son. Part time job, is it?'

'Aye. Just help out the father-in-law once a month like, for a bit beer money.'

Frankie's eyelashes flick the distaste away from his face

'Aye, well,' he says, looking up for the man in question. 'How is Mr Talbot?'

'Same as.'

'Aye well,' Frankie puts his hand to his brow and salutes like a cattleman. 'I'll be seein ya sonny. Look after y'self now. Come by for y'supper, maybes I'll give y'a free stottie like, seein as y'disabled and that.'

'Aye.'

Frankie looks down at the flayed face, steps away, turns.

'And stay out the fuckin sun man, we're not built for it up here man.'

He clicks off to a - 'Hey sonny, how y'doin?' - warm greeting at the next stack of boxes.

Hash looks straight ahead.

'Fuckin 'disabled'?' he mutters. 'Cheeky cunt.'

The fish quay has the pure, indelible smell of death done-and-dusted: fish guts piled in a skip at the edge of the dock smoulder and ferment under the sun's grill; a B-movie monster sure to rise one night with the full moon.

Hash licks a thin layer of slime from the roof of his mouth and back of his teeth.

'Mingin.'

The stench never quite leaves the men who work here, you can find them in any of the scattered, ragged bars in town – smelling of the small squares of cheap soap only found in public toilets. They may as well have scales of their own, for all the good washing does them.

Some give up and stink, always, like the sweaty bollocks of a marching army.

Hash's head jerks up to look at Kirrin.

Another silly mistake.

'Ayaz man! Fuck! Ayaaaz man! Ayaaaz!'

A fish buyer walking by Hash's stack - 'What the fuck?' - almost jumps sideways into the river.

'Ayaz man! Ayaz!'

'Ayaz man' y'self,' the buyer says. 'Y'stupid fuckin prick.'

More rubber trousers pass by.

And there he is, The Codfather himself; Wade Talbot, walking the plank down to the dock from Kirrin in soiled white t-shirt and tight yellow '70s football shorts, a crate of fish balanced on each shoulder like some sort of twisted striptease.

'Y M C fuckin A,' Hash mutters to the fish in his hands.

Talbot steps onto the dockside and drops the boxes to the stack.

Hash jerks his skull away just in time.

'Ayaaaaz! Ayaz man!'

A melon breasted mermaid carved into Talbot's forearm surfs across his brow.

'Bloody hot again kidda.'

Talbot has two volumes; LOUD or hoarse whisper.

'Feelin alright now are ya?'

Today, two tone Talbot's dial is cranked to max.

'Fine, aye. Don't worry.'

The fisherman edges forward and bends his head to Hash's hat.

'Punters?' he whispers.

'What?'

Talbot's eyes are black dots, busy as protons.

'Punters?' - loud.

'No, not yet.'

'Y'got it straight kidda, right?' he adds. 'Y'know what to tell em?'

'Aye, we've not got any. We haven't taken delivery. We dunno when any's comin.'

'Good lad,' Talbot barks. 'Good lad.'

The word PIES, scratched into Talbot's knuckles in blue ink, slaps flat against his son-in-law's back.

'Euaaaaagh! Aagh!' Hash cries. 'Aaagh! Ah ha haaagh! Ayaz man!'

'Jesus! Sorry, sorry son,' Talbot says, applying the brakes to MASH before it lands. 'Sorry, sorry son.'

'Aaaayaz,' Hash breathes. 'Ayaz.'

Talbot stands back.

PIES and MASH, Talbot's own interesting take on the usual LOVE and HATE knuckle tattoos.

'Jesus fuckin Christ! Listen? If? If y'need any help I'll be on the deck kidda. And? And? Don't y'worry about a thing. If y'need me, you know where I am.'

Talbot looks up the dock at the row of busy stalls, he leans forward and puts his hand on the two fish pillars.

'Listen, kidda. Y'know you and wor Kathleen mean the world to iz, don't ya?'

The black dots of Talbot's eyes zip around. Hash had married Talbot's daughter last summer, under grey skies and spitting rain.

'Don't let what happened get to ya man, just put it behind ya. It's just this fuckin heat man, the sun. It sent me a bit - dunno.'

He spins a finger at his temple. Innocent, like he'd had a couple of drinks too many and sung bad karoake down the club.

'A bit fuckin loop the loop there for a minute. Ha ha. I thought they were tryin to rob us man. You'd've thanked me if they were.'

Hash rises from his stool.

Strips of flesh separate from vertebrae like leather jackets knocked from a rail. 'Ayaaaaaz! Ayaaaaz man!'

He stumbles towards Talbot, pushed by Our Lord's slapstick sense of humour.

'Jesus kidda,' Talbot says stepping forward to steady him by his left shoulder - lucky, it's the only part of his upper body left unburnt, saved by the shadow of the wheelhouse as the boat rocked to shade.

'Y'really are in a bad fuckin way.'

'Like y'say man, forget it,' Hash croaks. 'Nobody knows fuckall.'

'Good lad,' Talbot says. 'Good lad. It'll be fine, nobody'll ever know. Just pretend it never happened.'

'Aye boss, never happened.'

Talbot raises MASH and takes Hash's cod friend from his hands, places her in the top crate.

'Nobody'll ever find the fuckin thing,' he whispers. 'Never in a billion fuckin years will they find it. Just put it out ya mind.'

He walks the plank to Kirrin's deck and barks a command to one of his overheating crew, back on duty and trying to look busy fiddling with a net in the shade. Talbot cracks him around the ear, knocking him flying into the melting nylon nets.

Hash stares at his fish friend, chilling in the top box of the stack.

'Fuck,' he sighs. 'Me.'

He gently turns his head towards the wide gates thrown open to the burning sun.

A tall youth strides along the quayside towards him, his over-long arms swinging behind his bony arse, as if wafting away farts.

Foggy - Mark Fogarty - thinning blonde hair smeared to his head. Blue check lumberjack shirt open to the nipples, a plunging red V sprayed onto his chest by the sun.

He starts throwing elaborate body shapes, trying to avoid contact with the milling buyers and workers.

'Fuckin dick head,' Hash snorts.

The young YTS lad, now carrying boxes, bumps heavily into him - leaving white fish scales down the side of Foggy's prized Levi's.

'Hey!' Foggy says, stopping. He opens his arms and looks down at the mess on his jeans. 'Fuckin hell man!'

'Sorry mate.'

Foggy swipes at the organic sequins now attached to his pants.

'I'll fuckin 'sorry' ya, y'prick?'

A fisherman clatters him from the other side.

'Will ya!' Foggy spins. 'Will y'all just fuckin stop it!'

A smile rips open Hash's face.

Not a good idea.

'Ayaaaz man! Ayaaaz!'

He waits for his face to fall back into position.

'How can y'work in this fuckin place?' Foggy says.

Hash raises his arms a little to test his flesh, preparing it for movement like a meat cape.

'What y'got y'tracksuit on for?' Foggy asks of Hash's Kappa jacket, zipped up to his neck. 'It's roastin man, y'wanna . . .'

Foggy looks at Hash's new face for the first time, peeling up into his stolen hat like bark from a scorched tree.

'What the . . fuck?' he snorts. 'What the fuck happened to you?'

'Don't ask Foggy man, don't fuckin ask.'

Hash takes two turtle steps away from his fridge.

'Y'got any?' Foggy says.

'Nah.'

Foggy stares into the top box, face curling in disgust at the fish.

'Leave her alone, she's just chillin.'

'Wha?'

Hash moves like a reptile shedding its skin.

'Howay,' he says.

'What's up?'

'Nowt, man. Just keep walkin. I don't want Talbot seein us.'

'Fuck aye,' Foggy says, looking nervously over his shoulder. 'Bloke's a fuckin nutcase.'

They pass through the open fish market gates and out into a nuclear firestorm.

Hash buckles.

Wilts.

'Jesus,' he breathes, blood whistling up his body and out the top of his head. 'Fuckin Fuck.'

He wants to speed across the toasted tarmac to the chippy like a barefoot child on hot sand.

But he can't.

'Lovely day eh? Ha ha ha,' Foggy says. 'Fancy goin to the beach?'

'Fuck. Off.'

They head out across the road to the row of shops and step under a blue sign – Kristiaan's fish and chip shop.

And into a hot wall of frying batter.

'Oh, Jesus! Oh Jesus Fuckin! Fuck. Me.'

There is no other shaded option, the chip shop had never before had the need for air conditioning.

Hash shuffles up to the polished chrome counter, sucking in all the air he can find. He steadies himself beside the pickled eggs, swooning.

'What y'want?' Hash croaks at Foggy.

'Tea.'

'Tea? In this heat? Tea?'

'Aye.'

Hash stares at him, then turns to the counter.

'You're fucked in the head.'

A lady looks at him from the other side of the chrome and glass cabinets full of fish and pies and battered pineapple and sausages.

'A tea and a Coke, shit loads of ice,' Hash croaks. 'Please, Madge.'

She pauses, the chip basket in her hand – her face says; how does this blistered prick in the stupid hat know me name?

Hot fat drips through the basket's metal wire.

'Tea and a Coke?' Hash pleads softly, looking at Madge like a clubbed seal. 'Please?'

'Oh, oh? Hello Billy Brown,' she sniggers, shaking the chips. 'That's a nice tan. Been on y'holidays?'

Foggy grabs the drinks and relaxes his string bean body onto a plastic chair.

'Y'been to hospital?' Foggy asks, reaching for his green wrap of Golden Virginia and Rizla papers. He starts to roll a cigarette.

'Nah. Just here.'

'Even y'voice is fucked man, y'sound like y'been learnin to fuckin fire breathe. What the fuck?'

'Fell asleep,' Hash says, easing down into a chair. 'On the boat.'

'On the boat? Talbot's boat?' he glances towards The Gut. 'What the fuck y'playin at, gettin on a boat with that psycho bastard? Y'get seasick on the fuckin pedaloes.'

Hash takes a sip of Foggy's tea by mistake. It bites his tongue and jumps down his chin.

'Fuck's sake man!' he splurts.

He drops it, the scorching tea spills onto the table and drips into his lap

'Fuckin hell mate,' Foggy says, lifting the cup and putting it back in its saucer. 'Y'wanna get y'self away to bed. You're a fuckin mess man.'

'Listen Foggy,' Hash says, leaving the tea to roll its way down his chin. 'It's all fucked mate. Everythin. Fucked. Fucked!'

'What?'

An elderly couple look over, disapproving of the language.

Foggy lights his ciggie.

'There's no more gear, y'gonna have to live off y'dole money or find somewhere else.'

'What?' Foggy whispers and leans forward. 'Y'fuckin jokin. There's a drought on man.'

He looks down at his chin. He picks a stray bit of tobacco from his lip.

Hash closes his eyes. Two tears roll.

'Fuckin hell mate,' Foggy says. 'You cryin?'

Hash opens his mouth and takes in a full chest of chip shop air.

'Fucked,' he whispers.

He creaks up onto his feet like an old man's erection.

'Look. It's just the fuckin way it is.'

A white string of spit joins his lips like gum. More tears line up at their ducts.

'It's fuckin over. Over! Finished. Fucked!'

He turns and heads back to the iced safety of his stool and his new friend.

The dead fish.

On his way from the coast to the city, and Ted Berry's eyes scan the departing platform as the fat yellow Metro train glides its electric way up the tracks. A frustrated artist has tagged the word 'Boz' on the station wall in bubble letters imported from the New York subway.

Even vandalism has been Americanised.

'Bez?' Wedge says, rocking with the train tracks at Berry's shoulder.

The grafitti winks away, Berry turns his head to watch it go.

'Wha?'

'Sucks cocks.'

'Aye, for baccy,' Berry replies, lifting a finger. 'You finger blokes' bum holes and that. In toilets.'

Sam Smith is opposite, going backwards up the tracks in a Brazil football shirt – the name ZICO and the number 10 ironed onto the back. His bright red ADIDAS – All Day I Dream About Sex – bag sits on the empty seat next to him, his football kit inside.

'You two are weird,' he says.

'What?' Berry says, incredulous. He points at Wedge. 'Smell his fuckin fingers!'

'What's with blokes and cocks and arses?'

'Ha heh heh.'

'You know all about blokes and cocks and arses,' Wedge answers Smithy. 'Admit it.'

'I know more about snatch than you ever will.'

Berry sniffs the air.

'Man, what's that smell? It smells like cat piss.'

Smithy pulls his red bag closer – his favourite trainers inside, dying. Adidas Samba. No matter how many times they go round with the soap in the washing machine, there's just no saving them.

This trip to the city is to buy new ones.

The Metro judders into the first station and the doors cough open – Smith's Park. Five solid, angry looking young men get on the train and bowl down the aisle towards them. One of the youths staring at them, all the way, without blinking.

He pushes Wedge's head to the side as they pass.

'What the fuck you lookin at?' he says. 'Fuckin fat head.'

The feral kids walk on down the aisle, smelling of glue and beer.

'Shit the fuckin bed,' Berry says. 'They eat their fuckin young up here, man.'

'Fuck, man?' Wedge says, glancing over his shoulder. 'They gone?'

'They're sittin down,' Smithy says. 'Up there.'

They slouch at the back of the train, a bench apiece. The tannoy parps and the door's black rubber lips kiss closed.

Fifteen seconds later, and they open again at the next station. The Ferals rise from their seats.

'They're gettin off,' Smithy says.

'Thank Fuck for that,' Wedge turns to check.

Two 14-year-old girls board the train, yipping excitedly in uncomfortable bras. They sit down on the other side of the aisle.

Their eyes flick shyly in Smithy's direction.

That rancid ammonia smell couldn't, surely, be the boy in the bright yellow shirt.

The doors close.

Samuel Smith is, it has to be said, a very good looking boy. Maturing fast, chin peppered with teenage bristles. And these fine days suit his Mediterranean skin. He's also an exceptionally good footballer.

What a bastard.

He and Berry had been best mates at primary school, but the last eighteen months had seen Smithy surge ahead towards manhood. He even smells grown up, aftershave and sweat.

Berry pulls his favourite t-shirt, a lime green Le Shark, away from where it sticks to his chest.

'Fuckin scorchio,' he says.

He looks out of the window. A grass verge. Rolling weeds. A yellow police cone and a shopping trolley. The train gathers then bursts into a warzone, derelict buildings sprinkled across the discarded plain.

No man's land.

More weeds and space, space and weeds. Soon the red brick of a housing estate fills the window frame and the train jerks away speed in approach to the station.

Heads turned to the window or tilted down to newspapers and magazines, bop from side to side up the carriage as it clatters along the track.

'Fuck?' Wedge says.

He rolls onto his left buttock and leans against Berry's shoulder, face squeezed yet inflated.

'What?' Berry says. 'Ah, fuck off man. Don't. Don't man.'

Berry's eyes nip and he puts his nose into the crux of his elbow.

Buh-dumf!

Wedge's fart bassoons through the Metro carriage with crisp, head turning clarity; eyes spin in search of the source. The two Lolitas stop yipping mid-syllable and look to past the Brazilian dreamboy to his two annoying mates.

'Scruffy bastard,' one mouths to the other.

Wedge pulls Berry's elbow away from his nose.

Sniff.

'AH! Fuckinhell man! That's fuckin WRONG man!'

Worms appear at Wedge's temples as he rings his colon from shit to tip like a cake decorator.

A gaggle of wet Daffy Duck quacks depart his sweaty rectum.

He relaxes, tenses up an octave and pipes out another set.

The poison gas rolls and claws its evil indiscriminate way towards nostrils. Berry takes in another dose of soiled air then pulls his t-shirt over his nose.

A back hand volley sends the scent of a dozen dead swamp toads towards Smithy who, of course, can't resist a test whiff.

Sniff.

'Aaaah! Man!'

The train pulls up to a new station and the hydraulic doors again cough open.

'Y'scruffy bastard,' Smithy says, raising his t-shirt and wafting his hand in front of his face towards the door

'Pheeeeew,' nods the proud father. 'Y'could sew a button on that.'

A grey haired man dressed for tennis steps over the threshold and pushes his motorcycle cop sunglasses up into damp hair, his top lip and sunburnt nose twitch.

'What the hell's that?'

His wife keeps her thick, gold framed sunglasses over her eyes as she follows him onto the train. She could be an extra on Dallas, some oil baron's plastic wife. She wafts the cooler air around in front of her sun slapped face.

'Is it the bins?' she says.

'The bins? Some bugger's dropped one,'

They walk on. The tannoy parps and the doors glide shut.

The train rattles onto a metal bridge high over a grass gorge and approaches the fat bend in the river. The tangled shape of an oil platform is being fussed over by cranes. Tiny bursts of acetylene light mark the spots on the scaffolding where men sting the steel. The train slides off the bridge, runs parallel to a road and then brakes, slowing into the station.

Two men in traffic warden uniforms stand on the platform.

'Shit?' Berry jerks forward. 'It's?'

He stiffens in his seat as the window glides to a halt; the dark suits step forward, a bright orange badge with a black letter M on their caps.

The train stops.

'Fuck, it is,' Berry says as the doors flick open. 'It's The Checkies.'

The two ticket inspectors board the front carriage.

'What?' Smithy says, spinning to look over his shoulder. 'They gettin on?'

Passengers inside the other carriage hand over their thin yellow tickets.

The two young girls smirk.

Smithy fidgets.

'Told ya we shoulda bought tickets,' he says.

The tannoy parps and the doors begin to close.

'Fuck them,' Wedge says. 'Checkie wankers.'

'Gettin off,' Smithy says, darting up and out with his bag.

'What the fu . . .' Berry says. He jumps up after him as the doors slide along their runners, Wedge gets snared; they open and release him, leaving a grey slash down his white t-shirt.

'Fuckin homo,' Wedge says. 'What's the matter? They didn't even get on our train.'

One of the Checkies spots them bundling from the doors and steps to the closed door. The pair of carriages jerk free of the concrete and the Checky glides slowly up the platform. He's a young, efficient looking little accountant with round glasses and a square head – jaw locked with ambition in a job that fits him.

A great future ahead of him in The Force.

Wedge's pants are down at the back.

'Moonie!' he shouts, his white backside exposed to the sun. 'Checkie wankers! Kiss me fuckin arse!'

Equally suited to his role.

He slaps his arse cheeks.

'Ha heh heh.'

The train accelerates away.

Berry looks around.

'Where's Smithy?'

Berry walks under the brown corrugated iron roof that covers the station entrance.

'Smithy?'

He's on the other side of the barrier at the ticket machine fumbling through his tracksuit pockets.

'What y'doin?' Wedge asks.

'Buyin a ticket.'

'Fuck for?' Berry says.

'Checkies. The Checkies.'

'Fuck the Checkies,' Wedge says. 'I'm not payin.'

'We're not fuckin bairns anymore man. It's only ten pence.'

The machine demands a coin. Smithy feeds it, waits for it to spit his ticket then walks back to the barrier. He pushes the thin yellow card into the slit and steps through chrome rods and onto the platform.

'It's a tenner fine,' Smithy says. 'It's not worth the grief.'

Wedge grabs the ticket as it jumps up from the slot on top of the barrier.

'Hey, give . . .'

He curls the ticket into his mouth like a strip of Juicy Fruit gum.

'Y'fuckin dick!' Smithy says.

Wedge's jaws work the ticket to a yellow mulch.

'Nyah ha ha.'

'Prick.'

Another train tickles the wires overhead and is soon up against the platform. Flashes of flesh and clothing turn into bodies on orange seats as the train comes to a halt. The doors open. The trio step into the carriage and collapse in identical poses.

The doors parp their tune.

Berry tilts his head again to the glass; the train rises up to window level with the bedrooms of a row of terraced houses. People appear inside, here and there. But no one is fucking or fighting.

They never are.

He stares over towards a fresh tangle of dormant cranes that scratch at the skyline over a colossal black shed, as long as the river bank itself. The shed stretches out for acre after acre. One fading painted word, vast, is stencilled along the side – SHIPBUILDER.

'Fuck,' Berry says. 'It must be mental in there.'

'Where?' Wedge says, chewing Smithy's ticket.

Another station arrives.

'In that fuckin shed thing.'

'Eh?'

The two Checkies board the train with the other passengers, in disguise – they'd taken off their hats.

'Tickets,' says the little Himmler ticket inspector, glasses slipping down his nose. 'Please.'

He puts his hat back on, he loves his hat.

The older checkie steps back onto the platform and lights a cigarette.

Smithy spasms for the door, changes his mind then sits still, staring at Wedge's rotating mouth.

'Cunt,' he says.

'Tickets,' the Checky repeats, his hand out towards Wedge. 'Please.'

Berry watches the young Checky's face; his head is oddly hinged, the top half of his skull moving when he talks but his lower jaw is locked in position and protrudes far enough to scoop pickles from a jar. Both rows of teeth are wired with dark metal train tracks. Braces.

He looks like a human stapler.

'Do you or do you not have a ticket?' he says with an erection in his pants, probably.

'Well?'

Wedge spits the yellow mess into the ticket inspector's hand.

'There y'go occifer.'

The Checky looks down at the rancid mulch then up at the head-in-a-hurry.

'Get off MY fucking train,' he commands. 'Now!'

'But that's a valid ticket!'

'Ha heh heh.'

The Checky bends down and puts his freezer lips between Wedge and laughin boy Berry.

'It is!' Berry points.

'And where's yours?'

'Up me fuckin arse.'

'Get off my train. Or I'll call the police.'

'Y'mean?' Wedge looks around. 'You're NOT the police?'

Outside the train, and the older Checky loosens his tie then waves to the driver.

The doors close.

'Name?' the young Himmler asks Smithy.

'Samuel Alfonso Smith,' he says.

Wedge looks at him.

'Al-fuckin-fonso?' he snorts.

Berry watches the bureaucrat flip open his pad, then lick the tip of his pencil.

'Hey mister?' Berry says.

'Yes?'

'What y'do that for?'

'What?'

'Lick y'pencil.'

'What?'

'Y'know. Why do people do that? Lick their pencils? Don't they work like, without y'lickin them first?'

'Do y'lick y'mate's pencil too?' Wedge says, nodding to the other checky.

'Ha heh heh.'

'I bet you rub each other's balls and that, at night, with y'hats.'

The checkie shakes the doubt from his head.

'Address?' he says to Smithy.

'1 Purbeck Close, Preston Grange, North Shields,' he answers, truthfully.

'Fuckin Smithy man?' Berry mutters.

The little Himmler scribbles, rips the ticket from his pad and hands it to Smithy.

Then he turns to Edward James Berry.

'And what's your name?'

'Michael Jackson,' he says. 'No middle name.'

The checky licks his pencil, scribbles.

'Address?'

'Ow!'

The little Nazi looks up from his pad as Berry drags his feet back two paces and jerks a hand out to his side. Then the other.

'Ow!' he squeaks, grabbing his balls.

'Sorry?'

'Sorry – ow! - it's me nerves,' Berry says, easing the tightening strings in his cheeks. 'Ow! Three Billy Jean Drive, Preston Grange, North Shields. Ow!'

The checkie pushes his cap back, rips out the ticket for Berry and turns to Wedge.

'Name?'

'Mick E Mouse,' he says, upside-down-reading the pad the checkie holds in his hands like The Bible. 'That's emm, oh, you, ess, ee,'

'Address?'

'Err? That's err, number two. Sir. Ehm? Number two Dis Nay Land Drive, North Shields.'

'Ha heh heh. Ha heh heh.'

The checky's eyes sharpen but see nothing. The smug little civil servant rips out Wedge's ticket from his almost empty pad and hands it over.

'Right,' he says, flipping it closed.

Job done.

The steel ropes rattle.

'Don't get back on the Metro. Next time we'll call the police.'

'Is that what y'wanna be, like?' Wedge asks, as he crumples his piece of paper into a ball.

'Pardon?'

'Is that what y'wanna be like, when y'grow up? A copper? So y'get to nick people properly and y'know, beat them up with your truncheon and that?'

'You think you're dead clever don't you?' he says. 'That's a ten pound fine each, don't suppose any of you little tramps have it on you?'

Berry nips Smithy, hard, on the back.

'Ah man! Fuck y'doin?'

'Nah,' he says for him.

The older checky drops his cigarette and grinds it with his shoe then kicks it down for the track rats. The train arrives and the doors open. He barely moves his head as four laughing 10-year-old boys sprint passed him from the train.

'Checky wankers!' they shout as they run across the platform and leap the barrier. 'Fuck off!'

The young Nazi takes a quarter stride in their direction then accepts defeat. He crosses the words 'Mind The Gap' hammered into a piece of steel on the new train's threshold.

Wedge throws his crumpled up ticket, it hits the checky on the back of his cap.

The tannoy parps and the doors start to slide closed. The ticket inspector turns.

Just in time for a close up of Wedge's naked arse cheeks, smeared against the glass.

'Moonie!' he screams. 'Checky wankers!'

Prreeeeep.

His fart lacks propulsion - like an old door on a rusty hinge. He gathers himself for a final push on his bowels as the train starts to move away.

Baa ha-haar!

It sounds like a crisp packet bursting in a puddle.

'Ha heh heh. Ha heh heh.'

The train and Wedge's arse cheeks part company, two bum sweat marks evaporating slowly from the glass.

Wedge lunges upright, putting his hands on his hips.

'Fuck!' he says, squirming up a further inch on tightly-clenched buttocks. 'I think I followed through?'

The train unfastens from the station and glides up the polished parallel lines like a fat yellow zip.

≈

Smithy takes the first of forty one concrete stairs down to the street.

'I'm not gettin back on again,' he says. 'I'm gettin the bus.'

'Eh?'

Berry cups a hand over his eyes. The towering black shed he'd seen from the Metro spreads off to the east with no end in sight.

'Right, OK. Aye.'

The arm of a yellow crane, rigid as a pterodactyl's perch, is hanging high beyond the gates of the shipyard.

'Man, I wanna get inside there,' he turns to Wedge.

But he's not there. He's on his way down the steps, puffing out smoke.

'Sniper's fuckin dream,' Berry says. 'Hah heh heh.'

Berry picks up a gravel chip and throws it.

Misses.

He heads down the steps, gaining speed as he goes.

'Bell End!' he shouts.

He reaches street level and looks down to the shipyard.

The massive shed squats deceptively small from here, its endless roof sitting almost square to the office blocks at the top of a steep ramp that falls away to the shipyard's doors.

A red-ink dolphin leaps between the words 'Swan' and 'Hunters' - a firm famous across the world for the construction of massive, killer ships.

Not anymore, not really.

The last thing out of here was a tiny ferry. The Pride of the Tyne now crosses the river like a kid's toy.

'We gotta get in there man,' Berry says.

'Maybes we can play with the cranes?' Wedge yelps. 'Fuckin spin them around and that! Lift things up. Fuck man, let's go!'

'What about me new trainers?' Smithy says.

'Fuck y'trainers man,' Wedge says, pointing. 'Looker. Cranes and that.'

Berry nudges Smithy down the path and over the road, the Tarmac pulls at their soles like hot treacle.

They turn right at the front of the yard, looking for a gap in the red brick.

'Me trainers . . '

'In a bit man,' Berry says. 'There's nay fuckin rush.'

West along the river, the wall is replaced by a brand new fence. It seems to be guarding nothing more than a patch of dry derelict land. White canvas tents are pegged over it at regular intervals.

'What's this?' Wedge says.

Berry steps back to look at a sign.

''Segedunum Roman Fort – English Heritage archaelogical dig,'' Berry reads. "The Strong Fort – the precise spot where Emperor Hadrian had finally halted the expansion of the Roman Empire.' And, hey?'

'What?' Smithy says.

''KEEP OUT,'' Berry reads. ''Trespassers will be electrocuted.''

'What?' Smithy says, reading the sign.

A man attached to a beard crosses from one tent to another, one of many beards sifting almost two thousand years worth of brick and dirt in search of the past.

'It says 'prosecuted' you wanker.'

'Hey aye, it does,' Berry says, he pulls a spaz face. 'D'uh!'

'Fuckin spic wankers,' Wedge says. 'Geordies were too hard for them.'

They wander through the open gate.

'Ah, c'mon man,' Smithy whines. 'This is stupid man. The sign? I need to get to town.'

But he follows.

They head behind the tent where the beard went.

There's the sound of a belt being undone and pants heading to the floor.

A groan.

'Fuckinhell!' Berry whispers. 'He's doin a shit! Ha heh heh. Ha heh heh.'

Wedge puts his fingers to his lips, and points behind the makeshift toilet.

'Hole,' he mouths. 'In the fence.'

'Ha heh heh.'

There's a gap in the much older fence that blocks access to the dockyard below.

The fence has been neatly opened by an excavating beard, showing an uncharacteristic bit of initiative - looking for the Emperor's clothes a few feet beyond the site's official permit from the local council.

Stones possibly laid by conquering hands sit in an open grave, the soil painstakingly removed over many hours with a toothbrush.

Wedge pushes through the gap, scattering them down the bank.

'Oops.'

The man in the tent groans and there's the crisp cracking sound of a turd being born, the beard's anus making a clean break of things.

'Nyeeugh,' he groans, dropping the rest of his load like cement from a mixer.

'Go on son!' Berry whispers. 'Ha heh heh.'

Berry pushes Smithy through the gap.

They're inside the shipyard.

Piece of piss.

Berry and Smithy follow Wedge out into a gulley behind two storeys of 1930s red brick. White doors hang from a hinge like kicked teeth. Berry sticks his head in the door, there's a staircase strewn with envelopes and random sheets of paper.

Just your average derelict office block.

Boring.

There's not even any windows left to smash.

They scout around the side of the building.

A strip of grass falls away to a steep drop of about twenty feet.

Berry looks up.

'Shit. The. Fuckin. Bed.'

The sheer ludicrous scale of the dock yard brings him to a halt.

It's a vast concrete clearing.

A few years earlier HMS Ark Royal, the Royal Navy's brand new flagship no less, had been built here, she'd flooded streets and houses on the south bank of the river when she was launched. They'd had to dredge the river just so her hull wouldn't stick to the bottom.

Berry had watched the aircraft carrier sail out to sea, holding onto his big brother Will's hand at the feet of Lord Collingwood's monument high above the mouth of the River Tyne. He'd dreamed for days about being a sailor, just like Will.

The sheer scale of the boat being drawn from the fat mouth of the river like a swallowed sword had – until now - no context. The tugs had disconnected their ropes and parped their phantom horns as the gigantic galleon floated into the North Sea with the turds and the tampons.

Berry takes in the skyline, it's cluttered with painted motionless steel; cranes standing guard every few hundred yards like iron storks.

The skeletons of a spent metal army.

'This place is fuckin mental,' Berry beams to no-one \- even Smithy has gone. He's scuffing down the green bank to the concrete plain holding his Adidas bag.

Berry is struck by a chemical blast to the brain stem.

'Neeeeeeeeeaaaa!'

His legs scuttle down the grass verge and he tips into an involuntary forward roll.

'Shit fuck!'

He rolls and rises, rolls and rises - the world turning from green to blue, green to blue until something bony breaks the rhythm.

'Oof,' Smithy squeals. 'What y'doin?'

Berry gets to his feet and straightens his t-shirt, Wedge is standing in front of him.

'Tit,' Wedge smiles. 'What y'doin.'

Berry grabs his ample head under his armpit.

'Ha heh heh.'

'Fuckin get off man . . .'

He rubs his ears.

'BELL!' Berry shouts into one of them.

'END!' he shouts in the other.

He unlocks Wedge's head and sprints across the plain.

'BELL! END! Woo hoo!'

In the city, and Rick E. Delaney's eyes are locked on the trainee reporter's arse as she stands at the water cooler filling a plastic glass. She's hot off the press this one, star of the fresh new intake from the newspaper group's graduate training scheme.

'Delaney!'

The news editor's Ulster bawl screeches passed Delaney's ears and out the open plan office's window to the High Street, traffic tooting by.

A fan moves the hot air around Delaney's desk.

Click.

It wafts his hair to the right as he turns to watch the young girl walk back to her desk.

Click.

'Delaney!' Craig Munroe, the news editor, shouts again from the thin row of computer screens in the centre of the news room.

'You fuckin idiot!'

'What?' Delaney shakes his head, pushes back his hair.

'Sorry?'

Delaney gazes over to the newspaper's street boss – Bambi-eyed, bemused - one hand in his hair.

Click.

'You fuckin deaf, or what?'

Ellen Carter winces as she touch types at her keyboard opposite Delaney, the green screen flashing in her glasses.

'No, no. I was just . .'

'Got a second?' Munroe says. 'Shall I get back to you later?'

'No, no,' Delaney beams. 'Fire away.'

'You're weatherboy. Two hundred words. Ten minutes. Hurry the fuck up.'

'Me? But?'

Munroe picks up a ringing phone.

'News desk,' he says it like anyone else would say 'fuck off'.

Delaney looks back at himself from inside his own green terminal and twitches his head to the side to move a hair curtain from his eye.

'Message pending' flashes at the top of his Atex computer screen, he types 'rms' - the code to read a message. It's a page full of text, The Press Agency's national weather round up, sent by Munroe. There's a note at the top of the copy; 'Wake the fuck up. Weather report. Regionalise. 200 words. Ten minutes.'

'Fat IRA twat,' Delaney mutters.

'Protestant,' Ellen says as she types.

'What?'

'His dad was in the RUC. The IRA shot him.'

'Good.'

'Rick!'

'I'm too bloody good to be weather boy,' Delaney says. 'Why doesn't he give it to you to do?'

He taps at his keyboard then nods to the adjacent desk where the new trainees re-arrange faces and phone voices, trying to look and sound like grizzled hacks.

'I mean . .' he says. ' . . . to one of the kids to do?'

Sarah Walker-Stone, the reporter whose naked buttocks he'd just been slapping in his head, sits with the rest of the bairns. She's pretty, if a little plain - a great future ahead of her reading an autocue for local TV news.

Click.

He beams a smile and winks.

She flushes.

'She's got a boyfriend, Rick,' Ellen says. 'Ben. He works upstairs on the mag. Nice guy.'

'So?' Delaney says.

The room sounds like a call centre, phones ringing - muffled conversations and tapping keyboards.

'Weather stories are for learners,' he mumbles to himself in his screen. 'I'm sick of doing stupid weather stories.'

'Anyway,' Ellen says. 'What do you care, you're leaving. Right?'

Her fingers reach for the words of that day's front page splash; a round up of sporadic riots across the country tacked onto a minor local skirmish that may or may not have had something to do with the sun. Page one in the local newspaper handbook: find the local angle (even if there isn't one).

Last weekend's copy of The Sunday Sorted sits on Delaney's desk, it's masthead boldly proclaiming its world view with the three words spelled out in a gothic typeface last seen in the Third Reich.

Mum Swaps Kids for Drugs, is the front page headline.

He paints his own name above the story in his mind.

BY RICK E. DELANEY! \- he feels he's worthy of the exclamation mark.

'Munroe's such a fat, talentless turd,' Delaney whines on. 'I could do his job better than him, any day. I'd stay if they'd put me on the desk. How can they expect to hold onto the most talented people if they don't look after them?'

'You told him you're joining The SS yet?' Ellen says, glancing from her screen to his face then to the clock on the red wall spinning towards deadline.

She presses the SEND key.

'Not yet, no.'

Delaney pauses and reads the top of The Press Agency copy attached to Munroe's message, pleased to see 'By Peter Lee, Press Agency News' at the top.

'Another talentless turd,' he says to himself in the screen.

He deletes the name and inserts his own, smiling as the characters form.

Just typing his name is enough to give him an erection:

EXCLUSIVE

BY RICK E. DELANEY

The Kernel's house style is not for reporter bylines set in capitals, it'd always be the first change the sub-editors had to make on any of Delaney's copy - he'd never noticed.

Delaney looks across to Munroe, a telephone is pushed against the side of his damp, sunburnt head. His face inflated by the pressure of his job. And lager. His hand is deep inside a sack of Tudor crisps, salt and vinegar flavour. He pushes a handful into a ham sandwich, lying pink and open on his desk. He crushes it closed with the palm of his hand.

'Go on, fatboy, have your heart attack now,' he whispers. 'I'll even write your obit. 'Fat talentless twat died today at his desk - and there was much rejoicing . . .''

'Rick, for God's sake. Don't say things like that.'

Click.

The fan moves his hair.

Click.

His eyes settle on the news desk clock.

'Eek!'

He grabs the telephone and calls the local meteorological centre to get the report for the day.

'Look out y'window son,' the weatherman tells him. 'It's bloody hot.'

'Thanks.'

Slam.

He starts to write.

''The north east is set to keep walking on sunshine,'' he reads to his green reflection.

He pauses. Smiles, nods to himself.

''As the hottest start to the summer since records began is set to continue. Experts say temperatures could break all records and reach over one hundred degrees. A Tyne meteorologist told The Kernel: 'Don't pack away your bikinis and trunks just yet, it's going to keep on being a scorcher for quite a while yet, that's for sure.'''

''Quite'?' Delaney ponders. He deletes the word - no matter none of it it was actually said, the meteorologist is a scientist not an artist. And it's what he meant, really. Plus, fuck it, they're usually wrong anyway.

He reads over his words, taps his cursor back to the word 'break' and replaces it with 'annihilate' - changes his mind, replaces that with 'obliterate' - then searches the story baskets, cutting and pasting text sent in by reporters in district offices, swotting their names off their stories - he presses the SEND key and his name flies, solo, into print.

Munroe leans back to one side of his chair and grabs at the crumpled cloth of his suit jacket. He pulls out his Marlboro red cigarettes and gets up.

He glances back at his screen and leans forward and down, peering into the glass, as if a bird just shat on it.

'Fuck me,' he says to his reflection, aggressively hitting his delete key nine times.

'Delaney!' he shouts.

'Boss?'

'How the fuck can a weather story be an 'Exclusive'?'

'Oh, oh? I? Haha.'

'Such a cunt,' Munroe mutters. 'Such a fuckin cunt.'

He sighs and steps away from his desk, three sheets of paper in his hands. He passes the general reporters' cluster of desks on his way to the door.

'Well done Ellen,' he says as he passes. 'You're a star. That page one copy went through untouched.'

She purrs up to him like a stroked pussy.

'Thanks boss.'

'Brown nose,' Delaney mouths to her.

'You could learn something from that girl Delaney,' Munroe says from the back of his fat departing head.

He pushes open the door and steps out into the hallway, he presses the button for the lift.

Ellen nods at the door.

'Now's your chance,' she says. 'What you waiting for?'

'Sorry?'

'To tell him.'

He looks at her, confused.

'You're leaving.'

'Oh, yes,' Delaney says. 'Yes, you're right.'

He gets up and heads for the door.

The lift pings as it reaches the ground floor, just two flights of stairs below.

'Lazy fat pig.'

Delaney takes the stairs. Framed front pages of a footballer with an awful perm line the stairwell walls as he goes, in celebratory poses, like the pastor in some evangelical church. Delaney reaches the ground floor altar and the final team photo – some sort of Last Supper, a football and scarf in place of the bread and wine. The headline is just a name: KEEGAN! - more than enough around these parts.

'Messiah my arse,' Delaney says. 'You still won nothing.'

He takes the final step passed the security guard - screech, screech, scrape \- and out into daylight.

'Cunt,' Norman grunts.

Munroe is on the other side of the alley in the shadows reading the sheets of paper, a story for tomorrow's paper, his first cigarette is already down to the filter. He accepts one of Delaney's, wrenching it from its gay silver box.

'I need a word boss,' Delaney says.

Munroe grips the fag tight between thumb and forefinger like a dart, lights it. He looks grey, a creature that doesn't belong above ground let alone out of doors.

A heart attack waiting to happen.

He's 34.

'I need a word too, Delaney.'

Delaney's feathers flutter. He rolls out his number one winning smile.

'Really? What about?'

'You,' he exhales. 'Being an utter cunt of a kid.'

Delaney's smile drips away like diarrhoea.

Munroe puts his fag to his lips and sucks hard.

'Well, I don't think that's very . . .'

'Shut the fuck up,' he jabs the nearly finished cigarette dart at Delaney's chest. 'You're nowhere near as good as you think you are. You think you're fuckin Hemingway, but you're not. You're a shit, sloppy writer – fuckin cliché-riddled wank, and most of it's made up. Everything is fuckin 'set to'. Well, I'm 'set to' send you on your fuckin way. Idiot.'

He drags hard on the fag.

'But . . .'

'Shut up. And I'm fuckin sick to the tits of reporters complaining that you shafted them. You're always pinching bylines and pissing everybody off. What the fuck is wrong with you? Eh?'

No answer.

'You're shit Delaney. Dog. Shit. A fuckin fraud. Out your depth. You wouldn't know a good story if it pissed in your ear. You've not once brought in an exclusive of your own. Not once. You should fuck off and get a job in PR . . .'

He drags smoke hard and deep into his lungs, looks at the filter and shakes his head at the wanky brand name on the barrel.

' . . . where you belong.'

'How dare . . . that's. That's just not true.'

'What's not true?'

'Everything. All of it.'

Munroe flicks the cigarette away and pulls out his own box of Marlboro reds.

'Go on.'

He doesn't offer Delaney one.

'I can't be that bad,' Delaney says. 'If one of the nationals wants to poach me.'

'Fuck off,' Munroe snorts, man breasts shaking with a heavy laugh. 'Hoo hoo hoo.'

'It's true!'

The news editor looks up over his cuffed palm as he lights his fag.

He drags hot tar into his lungs.

'Go on.'

'The Sunday Sorted.'

'Hoo hoo hoo hoo.'

The laugh is raucous, unrestrained.

'Hoo hoo hoo hoo.'

'Hey, but?' Delaney says. 'I? In.'

'You're fuckin jokin, right?'

'In London,' Delaney continues. 'I've been offered a contract and. And everything. There's nothing you can say to keep me. And . . .'

'Interesting,' Munroe says. 'When do they think you're gonna start?'

'Soon.'

'Like fuck you are,' Munroe says, dropping his cigarette butt and grinding it under his heel. 'You're on three months notice, loads of reporters are on holiday and I need someone to do the shit shifts. Starting tonight. One of the kids has gone off with stress.'

'You can't do that!' Delaney snaps.

'I think you'll find I can matey, read your contract,' he says. 'If I let you go any earlier it's because you're shit and I'm sick of the fuckin sight of you. Your training contract was finished this Christmas, and that was gonna be the end of the fuckin road for you here matey. And that's the truth.'

Munroe heads to the door, Delaney follows.

'In the meantime, don't make any plans for the weekends, eh. You're busy.'

The sweating news editor steps through the doorframe.

He stops and turns.

'You'll not last at The SS matey,' he says with the cracked voice of experience earned hard. 'You're not good enough.'

Down by the river, and the distant bang of a hammer on sheet metal and the release of gas signify at least one pair of human hands at work.

'Man, this place is fuckin lush,' Berry says.

The Romans chose their spot well, the site of the ancient fort overhead would have been high up on the hill with a view up and down river and across its banks to the south - everywhere in reach of their crossbows. The concrete shipyard a late arrival, built down below 1500 years later.

'Where's all the blokes?' Smithy says.

'Eh?'

'The ship workers and that?'

'Fuck knows,' Berry says. 'Maybe it's their summer holidays too.'

Massive orange pipes stretch out across the concrete like desert cannon, stacked in pyramids under a big red crane. Big cable spools that once fed fat wire by the metre into ships lie discarded across the concrete plain. The scattered detritus of a dying industry.

Concrete spreads left and right for what seems like miles. And the ghosts of busy men silently go about their trades.

A voice comes as if from the other side of the river.

'Wankers!'

It's Wedge, sounding like a tannoy announcement in a train station.

'Cock suckers!'

He's invisible.

'Where the fuck?'

'Wankers!'

'Where's he?' Smithy says.

Wedge appears at the far end of one of the massive tubes like a blonde fuse.

'Oi wankers! Over here.'

Berry dives into the next pipe.

'Ha heh heh.'

It's dark and cool inside the metal tunnel as he races along on his hands and knees towards the light at the far end. The dank cold and smooth metal cave a welcome break from the sun.

'BELL,' he shouts. 'END.'

The two words bounce against each other like two drunks falling down a well.

'Bellius endius!' Berry shouts. 'Ha heh heh. Ha heh heh.'

He falls out and lands chest first on the concrete, his knees and arms covered in orange dust.

'Woo hoo!'

Clang clang clang.

Wedge is banging a third tube with an iron bar.

'GAY BOY,' he shouts.

Clang clang.

'COCK SUCKER!'

Clang clang.

'STRETCHED ANUS!'

Smithy flops out into the sun and knocks Wedge back against another fat brown tube.

'Fuckin dick,' Smithy says. 'That's really loud!'

Wedge regains his balance, clutching the pipe.

'Watch it, fuck boy. I'll stick this up y'arse.'

Smithy brushes the orange dust from his legs.

'Though,' Wedge adds. 'You'd probably like that, wouldn't ya?'

Berry sits in the mouth of the pipe.

'You two want some time alone?'

'I need a piss,' Smithy says.

He walks away.

Wedge has a cigarette at his lips, he lights it.

'Must be a bender,' Wedge says, watching Smithy walk away.

'Maybes that's why y'like him so much.'

'He's a knob. Fuckin borin. Givin his real name to the checkies and that. Wanker.'

Wedge pulls out his inhaler, shakes it and blasts magic gas into his dodgy lungs.

He puts it back in his pocket, and the cigarette back to his lips.

Berry shakes his head.

'Idiot.'

Berry looks up at the hot sky, it's like it's attached to his face. His forearms feel as if they've been dipped in ants.

'Ow, shit man.'

They're bright pink.

'Fuck this man,' he says.

He steps out across the roasting grey concrete to the shade cast by a red crane. It's a monster; bigger, neater, less complicated than the rest. It takes a good twist of the neck to see the top, this one like a metal spider holding a fishing rod. Its hook open and scratched free of rust. Used recently, possibly stacking the brown pipes.

Berry sits on a cable spool, tipped face down. It's like a giant thread bobbin made from two wooden discs, rusted bolts holding them to a central barrel. Three other cable spools sit discarded in the shadow of the crane.

Smithy sits at the river's edge staring up at the sun with his shirt off, his crab ladder had long since crawled up his belly and seeded his chest with thick black hair. He looks up at the sky like a sunbathing turtle.

'Fuckin Roman,' Berry says.

Smithy's hairless father is the double of Elma Fudd. But Ginelli's ice cream van was often parked near the Smith house, empty – a queue of hopeful kids waiting for ice cream man's return.

'Alfonso?' Berry wonders.

'Yeeeaaaa!'

Berry spins his head to the noise.

'What the fuck's he doin now?'

Wedge is rolling a cable spool taller than he is, pushing it towards the river like a Roman wagon wheel. He disappears between its outer rims each time he gives a heavy push at its inner hub.

He's rolling it – blind - towards where Smithy sunbathes.

'Fuck?'

He's closing in fast, Wedge blinded by the tall wood of the spinning wheel, Smithy celebrating the sun.

'Smithy!' Berry shouts. 'Get out the fuckin way.'

Smithy turns, sees the fast approaching cable bobbin. He jumps to his feet, leans left then right like an indecisive goalkeeper.

'Get out the fuckin way!'

Wedge heaves a final time then lets the bobbin go, stumbling forward as it leaves his hands.

The goally finally chooses a post – he dives left.

A good choice.

The spool spins the final few yards to the river's edge and disappears.

There's half a second's silence.

Kerrrrrr shplooshh.

Wedge walks to the lip and watches the bobbin float down river.

'Woo hoo!' he screams. 'Woo fuckin hoo!'

Berry leaps to his feet and looks at the three cable spools under the crane. He chooses the biggest - and heaves. It really is a big bastard, a good two feet taller than he is.

He pushes it with his shoulder.

Nothing happens.

'Fuck's sakes . . . move y'fuck . . . n . . . BASTARD!'

Nothing happens.

'Fuckin. . . Aaaagh!'

He heaves like a galley slave but the thing still resists its natural inclination to roll.

'Aaaaaagh!' he heaves again and, this time, it shifts slightly from its long settled place on the pitted concrete.

It creaks.

'H'ware . . y'fuckin . . bastard!'

The joins in the slats start to turn with the satisfying crunch of heavy wood on a hard surface.

'Nyaaagh!'

Berry grunts and pumps, putting hand under hand between the wooden slats, making the wagon wheel inch forward then accelerate.

'Yaaagh y'bastard!'

Soon the slats spin through his hands like fruit in a slot machine.

'Yaaaaagh!' he screams. 'Ha haaaaagh!'

The blood thumps through his ears, chasing the thrill through his body.

'Bez!'

His hands punch speed into the wheel.

'BEZ!' closer

His ears tune in.

'Nyeeeagh!'

'BERRY!'

It's enough to slow him a fraction.

'Wha?'

Crunch!

The bobbin smashes into something solid and jolts, throwing him back, jarring his wrists and stabbing a thick spelk into the palm of his right hand.

'AGH! FUCK!'

The wheel disappears and Berry falls hard to the floor, taking skin from his knees. Grit pierces his palms like buckshot.

There's a double blood beat paradiddle in his ears before. . .

Kerrrr dumf!

It sounds like a car being crushed at the scrapyard.

Not wet at all.

Berry lifts his head.

One side of the bobbin was shorter than the other and it had rolled to the left around the top of the pyramid of carefully stacked pipes. Then smashed through a rusted, busted, waist-high yellow fence.

'What the fuck?'

He peers down a cliff face carved from the riverside and lined with concrete.

'Fuckinhell!'

One of the ship yard's dry docks.

It's a long way down.

Health and Safety haven't been around here in a while. The broken piece of fence swings out over the void like a shrub in a Roadrunner cartoon.

The cable spool crashed through the fence, into a boat's mast, bounced, then smashed into three pieces on the concrete, 40-odd feet below.

'Man, oh man!'

Wedge falls to his side. Their slapped pink faces looking over the edge of the coffee stained man made cliff.

'Man,' Wedge says, struggling for breath.'That's a big fuckin hole.'

He shakes his Ventalin inhaler, and takes two blasts of gas.

'Aye,' Berry says, he points his spelked hand down. 'But look what I hit.'

'Fuck?' Wedge says. 'Good shot.'

Smithy's sweating face falls between them.

'What's that?'

'It's a dry dock,' Berry says.

'I know that, you twat,' he says, pointing down. 'That.'

A quarter of a mile away, and Billy 'Hash' Brown has lost control of his car, hands locked tight to the wheel.

'Jesus! Fuckin!'

The battered Vauxhall Chevette rams up the kerb and onto the path. He jabs his feet at clutch and brake.

'Ayaaaaaz! Man! Fuckin! Ayaz! Ayaz man!'

And it stops outside number 11 Avon Road.

Which is handy, as that's where he was headed.

Foggy's house.

'Ayaaaaaaz! Man!'

It was, technically, possible to park closer to Foggy's front door, but it would have meant smashing through his front yard wall.

Hash rests his head on the steering wheel.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

'Ayaz, man,' he sobs, gently. 'Ayaz.'

Beeeeeeeeeeeeep.

He really shouldn't be driving – not in his condition.

His foot relaxes off the clutch and the car judders forward.

Stalls.

Jerking his head from the horn.

'Agh! Uagh-ha-ha! Aaaagh!'

His ruined skin whips like a wet towel, independent of the meat below.

Back.

'Ayaz man!'

Forward.

'Ayaaaaaz! Man!'

Back.

The car finally stops moving.

Hash sits back and closes his eyes, folding everything in and keeping it still for three whole minutes.

'Ayaz, man.'

The pain ebbs away, leaving a dull throb in its place.

'Need a spliff,' he chants his mantra. 'Need a spliff.'

He opens his eyes.

A man fresh from the Bible looks back at him from inside the rearview mirror.

'Jesus fuckin!' he says.

The skin is bubbling up towards the white flop rim of his hat in fat little puss volcanoes. Red veins push blood across the whites of his eyes.

He reaches for the door, determined.

'Spliff!'

Hesitates.

The enemy is out there, up in the sky with God. Omnipotent in the day. Her yellow, nuclear veil swathed across the rows of red brick houses that is the Meadow Well estate. There's neither a meadow nor a well anywhere nearby. Never has been. A council dullard with a powerful pencil actually believed giving the refurbished council estate a sedate name would make it a sedate place.

Wanker.

'Fuck. Me.'

Hash stares at the scorched, chipped path to Foggy's door like it's the Outback. It's a 13 foot walk to the doorbell.

That's a long fucking way, for Billy 'Hash' Brown.

'Spliff!'

He pushes the car door until it clicks and locks, open. He turns his body to the right and lifts his feet out into the sunshine.

It really is a lovely day.

'Jesus fuckin,' he breathes. 'Fuck. Me.'

And pushes himself up.

'Ayaaaaaaaz man!'

He's vertical. He pushes the car door closed and turns, he puts the key in the door and locks it. Flips the handle.

He moves.

Slowly.

A tarred and feathered, humiliated man hobbling for home.

He lifts his feet up a small kerb where a gate should swing. His feet take him up the path.

And he's there.

Piece of piss.

'Jesus fuckin.'

He presses the bell.

Silence.

'Jesus fuckin fuck.'

He taps on the piece of plywood that fills the hole where a pane of glass should be, it throbs softly against its tacks but doesn't make much of a sound.

'Foggy?' he croaks. 'Foggy?'

He clears his throat. It doesn't help. He still sounds like he's swallowed sand.

'Foggy?'

He taps the wood again.

'Foggy?'

He rests his forehead against the door.

'Please. Please be in.'

He taps, this time with a fingernail.

And Foggy's dog goes batshit - insane – hurtling towards the door from his bed in the kitchen.

'Arf! Arf! Arf!'

'Oh fuck, Nigel! Shh Arf. Shhhh. Nigel! Shhh. Calm down boy.'

Bang. Scratch. Scrape. Bang.

The pitbull jumps up at the other side of the door, hammering and scratching at the wood like a new species – a genetic leap – a Shark of the Land. With almost as many teeth and exactly the same number of brain cells.

Scratch. Bang. Scratch.

There's the tap tap of stockinged feet behind the door, coming down unstable stairs.

'Who's it?' a sleepy, female voice.

'Mel? It's Hash. Fuck's sake. Don't let Nigel out!'

Scratch. Scrape. Bang.

'Arf! Arf! Arf!'

The chains loosen.

'Arf!'

Scratch. Bang. Scratch.

The door opens.

'No Mel, Mel! No! Fuckin NO!'

Hash lifts his hands.

'Fuck!'

'Arf! Arf! Arf!'

Nigel leaps at his belly, paws flaying the burnt skin of his chest and thighs in happy welcome for Billy 'Hash' Brown - his bestest friend in the whole wide world.

The pitbull terrier has had a bad press, this one anyway - Nigel is soft as clarts. A slobbering lover not a fighter.

'Ayaaaaz! Ayaaaaz man! Mel! Mel! Get him fuckin off me man! Ayaaaaz!'

Mel grabs Nigel's bullet studded collar.

The teenage girl's lashes are crusted with eye snot.

'Arf! Arf! Arf!'

'Jesus Christ, Billy. What the fuck's up wi you? Nigel loves ya man.'

He stands on the path like a melting candle.

'Ayaz, man,' he moans, gently. 'Ayaz.'

She turns and drags wimpering Nigel through a wallpaper jungle of embossed trees, peeling in patches.

Hash follows like a mauled gazelle.

The walls have absorbed enough smoke in their twenty years to fill a cancer ward. The house has the organic, musty smell of abject disregard.

Mel opens the door to the back yard from the kitchen and pushes Nigel out.

'Arf! Arf! Arf!'

He barks and scratches, fights the door. Cries.

'Tea?'

'Tea?' Hash replies, 'Fuck no. Water. Just water. Got any ice?'

Nigel whines.

'Y'can take y'jacket off Billy, and y'hat. Make y'self at home and that.'

'Nah, I'm alright Melanie. Don't worry.'

She's wearing a man's white t-shirt which falls to her mid thigh, neck stretched down to her cleavage, a black Nike tick sits under her right tit.

A single flash frame of a small pink fanny and a downy knot of pubic hair flashes into Hash's mind.

'But, it's boilin man,' she begins.

She rubs the yellow crust from her eyes.

'It must be a hundred deg . .'

And finally, they sharpen.

'Jesus, what the fuck happened to you?'

'Nothin. Just the, y'know, the sun and that,' he points to the brown ceiling. 'The sun.'

She looks up - needlessly, even for Melanie Cole.

'The sun? Fuck me Billy. Y'shouldn't be sunbathin in this weather. It's like that bloody Swahili dessert out there man.'

'Desert,' Hash says. 'Sahara des-ert, not dessert.'

'Wha?'

'Doesn't matter,' he sighs.

'Hash?' a male version of Mel's sleepy voice.

Hash shuffles back under the door frame and looks up the stairs.

'Ayaaaz! For fuck's sake man!'

His eyes follow a set of hairy toes up monkey legs to a tight pair of purple y'fronts; wisps of coconut hair have unfurled from the damp sides. Foggy's chafed eyes peer down either side of the twin holes of his nose and through the thin ladder of hair up his belly. His right nipple is pierced.

'Fuck me, it's The Invisible Man,' Foggy snorts at the man in jacket and hat in his hallway. 'Y'got any?'

'Nah man, I told ya this mornin man. There's none. Have you?'

'Me? I sold out a week ago man.'

'But? But? I need a spliff man!'

'So do I mate, so do I.'

He heads back to his pillow and Hash aches back into the kitchen; he sits down at the table.

'Let me just shift these for y'Billy Brown.'

Mel fusses about, moving festering cups and plates around the table but accomplishing little.

There's a flash of saggy washed out cloth at the cleft of her legs, more grey than white. His eyes drift up passed the Nike tick then back down again.

They pause.

There's a lard coloured splatter at the crotch end of the t-shirt. Quite possibly a spunk stain.

Hash closes his eyes.

She clicks around the stack of dishes in the sink with the kettle's base and opens the tap, it complains like a skinned rat's trying to crawl through the pipes.

'He's skint again,' she says.

Water finally bursts into the kettle.

'Got nothin Mel, nothin.'

There's a new, assertive tap on the front door's chipboard window.

Nigel starts to headbutt a hole in the back door, angry this time.

'RRRRRRarf! Arf! Rrrrrrarf!'

'Mel,' Foggy shouts from his duvet. 'Answer the fuckin door.'

'Get it y'self,' she says, halfway back through the wallpaper Amazon. 'Y'lazy bastard

'Who's it?' she squeals.

'Foggy in?' the breaking voice of a teenage boy.

'Who's it?'

'Crosby,' he says through his nose. 'Sean Crosby.'

'Who?'

'Crosby,' the voice cracks. 'I want some blow. Got any gear yet?'

'Cock,' she rasps, opening the unlocked door. 'Don't say that in the street, y'fuckin idiot.'

The door opens.

'Karl,' she screeches.

'What man?'

'It's one of y'bairns.'

A greased down head of black hair enters with the spilled sunlight. Two gold hoops pat against the bad skin of his cheeks. There's downy black fluff across his top lip, a crap Indian woman's moustache.

'Wait there,' she tells the teenage boy.

Mel comes back into the kitchen.

'Fuckin bairns,' she says.

Melanie Cole only left school herself last year.

Foggy's feet patter down the stairs as Mel opens a cupboard above the sink. She pulls out a cream coloured earthenware jar with 'COFFEE' formed across it in fat brown letters.

'Got any blow?' the boy asks Foggy

'What y'after?'

'Teenth.'

'Wait there.'

Foggy patters into the kitchen, scratching at his purple crotch. His hair is tussled up from his forehead like a breaking wave, there's a duvet line down one red cheek.

He starts to laugh.

'What?' Hash says, as Mel hands Foggy the jar.

'Looker the state o' ya,' Foggy says. 'Fuckin Twat in a Hat.'

He walks back up the hall, puts his hand in the jar and pulls it out again, handing the kid a lump.

'Seven fifty.'

The kid lays two green pound notes into Foggy's hand then starts counting out coins, all tens and bronze.

'Fuckin hell man,' Foggy says. 'Shrapnel? You busted y'fuckin piggy bank or what?'

'S'all I've got.'

The boy leaves.

Foggy comes back up the passage.

'I thought y'had none?' Hash says. 'Man, skin up. I need a fuckin spliff!'

'I haven't.'

'Eh?'

'That's snide shit,' Foggy explains, handing Mel the tin. 'Nay good. I've had it for ages. Never been able to sell the fucker.'

Mel opens the lid to check he'd put in the money.

He hadn't.

She stares at him until he holds out his hand. She pours in the coins. Stares at him again. He sighs and pulls the notes out of his underwear. She puts the coffee jar back on the shelf.

'Y'sellin that to everyone?'

'No cunt would buy that shit stuff man, they'd suss it straight away. It's for clueless little cocks like him,' he nods to the door. 'He shouldn't come knockin at me fuckin door first thing in the mornin.'

The red clock embedded in the cooker says 1:13pm.

'I've got me reputation to think of and that.'

'Richard fuckin Branson there.'

Foggy sits down at the table.

'Any tea or what?'

'The fuckin kettle's boilin,' Mel says, pushing down the cold kettle's orange button.

She starts fishing around the piled up dishes in search of mugs.

'Poo,' Mel says. 'What's that smell?'

Hash looks at her, turns slowly to Foggy.

Desperate.

'Let's try some of that gear anyway?'

'It's made of fuckin rubber mate. There's nay blow in it at all. Total shit. I got ripped with it years ago, in Byker.'

'But, I NEED a fuckin spliff man! I'm dyin!'

'There's none, man. Nowhere. Nobody's got any. Nobody.'

'Need a spliff!'

'Nobody's got any.'

'I. NEED. A. Fuckin. Spliff!'

'Fuck. Me! I. Heard. Ya. The fuckin first time. I've got fuck all man.'

'What about Kelly?'

Foggy's head shakes.

'Barry? Bazza's got some, surely?'

Another head shake.

'Oily?'

'Nah.'

'Rod?'

'Nope. Jane and fuckin Freddie have got fuckall either. Y'psycho father-in-law supplies every cunt, man.'

'What about in toon?'

'Cunts. The lot of em,' Foggy says. 'Last time I got some was in Byker.'

Hash's face fills with fresh hope, chair creaking – 'Ayaz man' - forward a notch.

'Aye?'

'Aye. I just fuckin told ya,' Hash says, nodding to the door. 'It was rubber. Ask that little prick.'

Mel plops a cream mug with scummed up sides under Hash's nose, steam rising off the barely tanned pool of liquid. Foggy puts his own mug to his mouth and sucks.

She looks at Hash, quizzically. Her nose twitches.

'What?' he says. 'What've I done now?'

'Y'need a bath Billy Brown,' she says. 'Y'bloody stink man.'

By the river, and Ted Berry stands on the concrete floor of the Neptune Yard's Dry Dock number 3 - the name and number stamped into the massive steel gates holding back nature.

For now.

Cold concrete surrounds them, the cavernous hole smells like a blocked sink.

'Man,' Smithy says. 'Are you lucky or what? That must be a hundred foot drop.'

'I know,' Berry says. 'Shit the fuckin bed.'

They stand beside a white fishing boat, propped up against the four storey wall by six wooden stilts. It's like a fairground ride, a pirate ship that pendulums back and forth, only this one white and disconnected.

And belonging for real in the sea.

'Fuck eh?' Wedge says, pushing Berry to the side. 'You should be splatted all over the deck of that boat. SPLAT! Strawberry fuckin jam.'

The flying cable spool snapped the mast and landed on the wheelhouse roof, bounced to the concrete and split into two discs and a barrel. The mast sticks out across the dry dock like a wounded jouster's lance.

The entire boat is painted white, crisp and bright above the waterline, cream and yellowing below; thin diarrhoea stains leak from rusting bolts holding the boat's wooden slats together.

Three old tyres tied to rope hang down the sides along the hull.

'It's a trawler,' Smithy says. 'There's a winch at the back, look.'

A tangle of brown metal is there, sure enough, behind the half crushed wheelhouse.

Smithy points.

'No shit Sherlock,' Wedge says.

'What's it doin here?' Smithy says. 'Gettin fixed?'

'Maybes,' Berry says. 'Aye.'

Wedge looks around the huge dry dock.

'Hole's a bit fuckin big, innit?'

'Short of work, maybes?' Berry says. 'I don't fuckin know, do I?'

'Thought y'knew everythin?'

Berry turns, pain in his hands from the fall.

'I know your head should be in the fuckin circus,' he says.

'Ha ha,' Wedge says, lighting a cigarette. 'Wanker.'

He heads off to investigate the boat like a man buying a big car.

'How'd it get in here?' Smithy says.

Berry looks up to the crane, it's dangling steel cable and fish hook hanging directly over head, white scuff marks up the wall. The pipes looking suspiciously stacked.

'Dunno,' he lies.

He walks to the back of the boat. A draught comes down from the huge gate holding back mother nature. A thin spray of water squirts out and gathers in a green pool at his feet. She'll always win, in the end.

'Man,' he mutters. 'I hope that fuckin thing holds.'

The silver slash of the rudder sticks out from the stern, he moves it with his foot.

Thwop. Thwop. Thwop.

'Cool!'

There's the faint bump of the ship's wheel turning in the wheelhouse overhead as he pushes it back and forth.

Thwop. Thwop. Thwop.

He tries to move the corkscrew propeller but it's stuck fast, jammed and bent – embedded into the concrete.

Berry follows the wood round into the open dry dock.

'How the fuck does wood bend,' he says.

'Eh,' Wedge says, from the other side of the boat.

'Wood,' Berry says. 'It bends here, looker. Why doesn't it just like, y'know, snap?'

'Elves,' Wedge says, without looking. 'The magic fuckin elves bend it. Wi their cocks.'

Berry follows one of the lines under the scum where the boat's waterline would be. The line breaks unnaturally over an improvised bit of amateur woodwork, there's an added lip and a pair of brown hinges.

'Eh?'

He takes three steps back.

A long thin shape is cut into the side like a coffin lid.

'Why the fuck?' he says

It's clearly a door, a door that would be underwater.

'Here,' Berry turns to Smithy, sitting in the sun on the broken spool. 'Seen this?'

'What?' he brings his eyes down from the sky.

'Is that a door?'

'Dunno,' he looks back up at the sky, sighs. He should be in town and then on the beach.

Wedge is on the other side of the boat at the front now, next to the wall, his scuffed Green Flash trainers and pink legs appear under the curve of the bow.

''Playfair,'' he says.

'Eh?'

'Looker.'

Berry walks under the curve of the bow.

'Playfair,' Wedge points at a dark oak plaque screwed to the wood. The letters look burnt into the wood with a hot iron.

'Bad luck that like,' Smithy says.

'Aye? Why?'

'Boats are supposed to have a girl's name.'

'You should have a fuckin girl's name,' invisible Wedge says. 'Wanker.'

Berry runs his hand along her side.

'Ow! Fuckinhell!'

He pulls it away.

'Fuckinhell man!'

He sits next to Smithy on the busted cable spool and examines his wounds; a thick black spelk has been injected into the chicken drumstick flesh beneath his thumb - it's visible under the skin like the inside of a Bic pen.

'Ah man. Y'fuckin bastard!'

Both hands feel as if they've been given a quick blast with an electric sander; flakes are peeling away from his palms and tiny meteorites are embedded in the white flesh.

'That's gonna hurt,' Smithy says.

Berry puts the drumstick to his lips.

'Aaaaaw!'

And pulls the two inch wooden spelk clear of the flesh.

'Aaaagh y'fuckin bastaaaaard!'

The piece of wood sticks in the little gap between his teeth and, for a second, he looks like an inbred Oklahoma farm boy.

'Aaaaggh y'fuckin bastard!' he squeals again, spitting it clear.

He jumps up and shakes his hand through the musty air.

'Shit. Fuck. Wank. Aaaagh!'

He grabs his right hand with his left, hunches forward and stares at it. He puts the wound to his mouth and sucks at the metallic taste of his own flesh.

'Fuckin CUNT! Bastard!'

'Hey cunts,' Wedge says, from up above.

Berry and Smithy look up to the boat's deck.

'What the fuck y'doin up there?' Smithy says.

Berry stops squealing.

'How the fuck did y'get up there?' he asks.

'Piece of piss. There's a fuckin ladder screwed to the wall.'

And there is.

~

Ted Berry pushes Smithy up the first three rungs of the rusted yellow ladder screwed to the brown wall.

Smithy steps aboard the boat.

'Fuckin ow,' Berry says, trying to climb the metal rungs with one hand.

Berry reaches deck level, then heads a few rungs higher so he can jump down without using his hands.

Wedge is in the captain's chair - like a trucker's son sitting in his dad's parked lorry, cigarette at his lips.

'Ship ah-fuckin-hoy Jim Lads,' he shouts, moving the wheel – thwop thwop thwop – to the left and then to the right. 'Ship a fuckin hoy!'

Thwop, thwop, thwop.

A breeze drifts down from the river.

'Man,' Berry says. 'You need a fuckin shower.'

'Wha?' Smithy says.

'Y'stink of B.O,' Berry turns to step aboard from the ladder. 'Y'smelly fuckin gimp, you . . .'

Berry stops, one foot on the boat, one on the ladder and stares over Smithy's shoulder.

'Fuck!' he gasps.

'Wha?' Smithy turns around.

His head is framed by white paint - but he looks like he's just been shot, JFK-style, in the head. Deep red trails dribble down in thick, hardened welts followed by random outward sprays like a psychotic art student's coursework.

'What is it?'

'Ehm?'

Berry steps aboard and stands beside an orange and white lifebuoy hanging on the side of the wheelhouse wall – Playfair stencilled around its circle in black ink.

'Is it blood?' Smithy says. 'Jesus! There's lumps in it, look.'

Wedge gets up from the chair and looks around the door.

'What is it?'

'Dunno.'

'Fuck, I didn't even notice.'

'It's blood,' Smithy says.

'Why the fuck would it be blood, man?' Berry replies. 'It's paint?'

'Reckon?'

'Aye. Ehm? Maybes.'

Berry looks again, down to the door and across the buoy and up in the air where it must have sprayed – it doesn't continue up the brown scum wall.

'At sea?' Berry says. 'Ah, fuckinhell man! Ha heh heh.'

He pushes Smithy.

'Y'twat.'

'What?'

'I know what it is.'

'What?'

'Fish.'

'Eh?'

'It's a fuckin fishin boat.'

'Aye?'

'It'll be fish blood.'

'Reckon?'

'What the fuck else could it be? Fish bleed, don't they?'

'Oh, aye,' Smithy smiles, Berry pushes him up the deck. He turns to have another look at the stain – it's as if someone has taken a bucket of offal from a slaughterhouse and thrown it against the wall.

'Big fuckin fish,' Berry mumbles.

~

Berry walks out to the deck where the bow cuts into the musty air of the concrete canyon.

The very tip, the triangle of deck at the bow is raised about six inches, like a stage. There's a long thin box up there screwed to the deck, like a coffin. Smithy sits on it.

A pink buoy is lying on the deck – Berry boots it into the void.

'Kee-gan!' he screams. 'Ha heh heh.'

He steps up onto the stage and looks out to where the sun now spills over much of the dock.

Cranes cast Jurassic shadows across the brown canvas of the concrete floor.

'It must be fuckin lush to go to sea and that,' Berry says.

'Hello sailor,' Wedge says in a disturbingly realistic gay voice.

The wheelhouse is at the back of the deck in front of the winch. It looks like a little whitewashed garden shed, crushed on one side by the flying cable spool. A window had popped out whole and rests on the thin strip of deck between the polished wood safety rail and the wheelhouse door.

But not for long.

Wedge tips it over the rail and into the void.

It hits the bround, bounces.

'Fuck?'

But doesn't smash.

He disappears back inside the wheelhouse.

Smithy joins Berry on the stage and looks out across the vast empty grave.

'Don't y'think this is a bit dodge, Bez?'

'What?'

'This,' Smithy moves his nose across the open space.

'Maybes?'

'This thing must belong to somebody,' he nods down at the smashed cable spool and the damaged wheelhouse. 'If we get nicked on here, we're fucked.'

'Ah, we'll be alright man.'

'I wanna go get me shoes.'

'I know, I know.'

'I'm meetin up with a lass later.'

'Aye?'

'Aye. She's fit as.'

There's a clatter under ground, behind them – like a wardrobe falling over.

Both their heads jerk.

'Wedge,' Berry says. 'WEDGE?'

There's more disembodied clatter from down below.

Footsteps.

Clatter.

Clatter.

Scrape.

Clatter.

There's a low moan.

Clatter

Clatter.

Scrape.

Scrape.

'Fuck me. What's that?' Smithy says, he looks like he's ready to jump from the bow.

'Dunno.'

'It sounds like? Go. Go look, Bez man.'

'Fuck's sakes man.'

Berry walks to the wheelhouse door, there's nobody there.

'Wedge?' he says, looking tentatively around the door.

A hatch is swung open on the floor. The hole is a deep black.

'Wedge?'

Silence.

There's nobody there, just a dragging sound.

Scrape.

Scrape.

Scrape.

Like a wounded ghost.

Scrape.

Scratch.

Scrape.

Then, silence.

Berry gets to his knees and peers into the black hole, it's like sticking his head in a barrel of oil. There are wooden steps heading down below deck but they disappear as they reach into the darkness.

'Wedge,' he whispers, the cold fear there in his voice.

Silence.

He turns to look up to the sunlight, recalibrating his eyes.

'Fuck's sakes,' he says.

He peers again into the black hole and . .

A white face comes fast from the black.

'RAAAAH!'

'Fuck!' Berry jumps back across the wheelhouse's wooden floor.

'ME!'

Wedge's king-sized cranium pops up from the big hatch in the floor.

'Your fuckin face! Hahaha.'

'Y'fuckin cunt, I nearly shat mesel.'

The head-in-a-hurry disappears.

A shot of light bursts in the cavern, it goes out then fires again.

Wedge's Clipper lighter.

'It's fuckin lush down here man,' says disembodied Wedge. 'Howay man.'

Berry sits with his legs in the trapdoor then heads down, his back to the sinking steps, heels reaching down for the rungs in the dark.

He slips.

'Fuckinhell!'

Bop.

Bop.

Bang.

Bang.

Bop.

There were only only five rungs left to the floor.

Twang! Bang! Twang!

'What the fuck?'

He reaches into the dark and feels the neck of a Spanish acoustic guitar.

'Cool!' he says.

He strums it, it sounds like six cats being castrated.

He heads to Wedge's red arm, lit by the flickering Clipper torch.

'Fuckin stinks,' Berry says, for some reason, in a whisper.

'Aye,' Wedge says, loud. 'Like nettles? Like a greenhouse. Somethin.'

Wedge is up close to a table, the lighter goes out. He rolls the barrel over the flint.

'Ow! Fuck!'

Hot.

Wedge spins the flint wheel again.

There's a thin camp bed on either side of the small cabin, each with a poster above. Wedge points the lighter to the left. A brown sleeping bag is fully open on the bed and tossed haphazardly against the wall, its orange guts slit open, zip broken.

He raises the lighter to the poster above; Bob Marley's English features, a big cloud of smoke coming from his mouth, nipping his gifted black man's eyes closed.

Wedge turns the light to the opposite wall and the second poster; the antithesis of the Rasta - a white man in tight pants with a woman's oversprayed hair masturbating a Flying V guitar.

'Look at this fuckin twat,' Wedge snorts.

'Wanker,' Berry agrees.

There's a pair of leather sandals and a pair of leather boots by the white corner of a fridge.

Berry pulls the door open.

'Fuck me!'

Rotting bacon, a fair pile of it on a plate. Covered in blue fungus. Milk turned to cheese. Cheese turned to mould.

'Man that,' Wedge says, slamming the door, 'fuckin reeks.'

The lighter goes out.

'Pass it here,' Berry says, reaching out for the Clipper.

It burns his hand.

'Fuck's sakes!'

He flicks it to life and points it at the table between the two beds, he hovers the flame over an ashtray and some cigarette papers, the cardboard packs torn at their corners. Then an empty pack of Stuyvesant cigarettes and a magazine, wide open at the centre spread.

The writing is indecipherable, all zs and acks – but the glossy pink photo of a pair of tits makes clear the content.

'Fuckin right man!'

A European wank mag.

Hardcore. Illegal in the UK.

Berry grabs it. His eyes scan down from red pouting lips to the gulley of the girl's neck, down between her oiled breasts and on down, down, past her pierced bellybutton to her wide open vagina.

It has a cock in it.

No messing around with this magazine.

'What's that?' Wedge says, grabbing his lighter.

'Mine! Hah!'

Berry pulls it close.

'Gizza look.'

He tilts it towards the lighter.

'Don't fuckin burn it!' Berry says, pulling it out of harm's way.

'Fuck?'

'Mine,' Berry says.

He heads for the light coming down the white stairs \- drops the guitar - climbs and makes his way to the raised stage at the front of the deck where Smithy sits with his top off - the sun directly over head.

'Thought y'were scared?' Berry says.

'Could hear y'talkin.'

Berry sits beside him, the wank mag on his thighs.

'Looker,' Berry says, opening the centre spread as wide as the legs of the glossy lady who lives there.

'Fuck me!'

'Ha heh heh.'

'She's got black fanny lips,' Smithy says. 'How the? That can't be real?'

'Seen the size of it?' Berry says. 'It's like an old fuckin boot.'

Berry turns the page, it's full of adverts.

'It's foreign,' Smithy says. 'Look. Greek or somethin.'

'Aye. German? Maybes.'

The magazine has page after page of adverts for condoms and sex aids.

'Fuck me,' Berry says. 'Look at this.'

He shows Smithy a picture.

'What?'

'Looks like a peach melba, no?'

It's a photo of what could be a peach melba cake, icing sugar that ripples around in circles up to a point, cream inside, 14p from Greggs the bakers.

But the brand name of the thing is in English - it's a Triple Ripple Butt Plug.

'What's that for?' Smithy asks.

'Work it out.'

'Up the arse? Fuck? Really?'

Smithy takes another look, then looks at Berry.

Confused.

'But? Why?'

'I've nay fuckin idea. Ha heh heh. Ask y'mam.'

Berry's outstretched arms recoil from the sun's rays.

'Fuck man, it's too hot. Y'not burnin?'

'Nah,' Smithy closes his eyes and looks to the sky. 'It's lush man.'

Berry heads back to the shade of the wheelhouse and sits on the step, he flicks the pages, pausing on a young blonde woman staring right at him. She's on all fours, naked, gazing back across her own flesh to the lens. Everything God gave her on studio lit display. The pink lips of her pussy slightly parted by the gentle spread of her legs. The next page shows the photographer taking her picture. He's wearing jeans and is clearly a pro. A porn pro, not a snapper.

Berry gets the message.

It brings a heavenly surge.

Twinge, twinge, twinge.

'Man oh man.'

He'd seen magazines with tits and even open fannies before, but never anything quite this elemental. He maps out two furious-fisted minutes when he gets home, maybe one-and-a-half. His palm wound might mean he'd have to hammer away left handed.

Not a deal breaker.

'Hey Bez?' Wedge says from above deck now, sitting in the captain's chair, shaking his Ventalin inhaler.

'Bez?'

He puffs down a blast of magic gas.

'Bez? Hey Bez man? Bez?'

'What man! Fuck's sakes.'

Berry glances up, a damp ache in his shorts.

His cock wanting to turn the pages and finish the scene itself.

Wedge sniffs at the air.

'This is a fishin boat, right?'

The boat still smells like a greenhouse.

Berry looks back at the girl who's about to get fucked.

'Fuck me,' Berry says, eyes savouring the page. 'Y'worked that out all by y'self?'

Wedge sticks his tongue down between his front lower teeth and the flesh of his chin – the universal sign of mental disability.

'N'rrrr,' he says, flidding his arms away from the wheel, his inhaler in one hand. 'Spastic.'

Wedge shakes his canister, puts it to his lips and inhales like he'd been jabbed in the solar plexus.

Berry turns the page.

Wedge pulls out a cigarette, lights it. The tip flares as he sucks down the smoke.

'Ah fuck me, man,' Berry groans as the girl on the page takes the man into her mouth.

'Dumb arse,' Wedge says, exhaling smoke. 'Think about it. It's a FISHIN boat.'

'What y'fuckin witterin on about man?'

'FISHIN BOAT.'

'And?'

'Why doesn't it smell of fuckin fish?'

Berry looks up.

'Ehm?'

A mile or so up river, and Billy 'Hash' Brown drives with Foggy by his side seeking something herbal to smoke.

They drive parallel with a Lego project called the Byker Wall. A Hadrian's Wall of social housing designed by a toddler with coloured bricks in the 1970s.

'What silly cunt built this fuckin thing?' Hash says.

'What?' Foggy says.

Hash is scrunched up close to the wheel, trying to stop his flayed back touching the car seat.

'This,' he says. 'Someone's takin the piss. Y'never wondered what the fuck they were smokin when they decided to build this fuckin thing?'

Foggy glances out of the window. Shakes his head.

'What the fuck y'goin on about? You a fuckin builder now like?'

They drive through an archway in the housing estate that leads out into a courtyard with a bizarre favella theme. The back of Byker Wall is a clutter of balconies. Somehow in keeping lately, with the tropical weather.

Hash looks up.

'Costa del Tyne,' he says.

He isn't watching the road.

'Fuck!' he shouts.

And jabs hard at the brakes.

'Aaaaagh!'

He jerks forward then smashes back into the car seat.

'Aagh! Aaaaagh! Aaaaaaaagh!'

A 10-year-old boy grabs the football that was dropped from a balcony then, of course, sticks up two fingers.

'Fuck off!' he squeaks, and runs away. 'Wankers.'

'Aaaagh,' Hash sobs. 'Aaagh!'

He throbs with agony as each heart beat pushes more blood through his ruined skin.

'Jesus fuckin Christ Billy man,' Foggy says.

Hash rests his head on the steering wheel.

Paaaaaarp.

'Ayaz man,' he whispers. 'Ayaz man.'

Paaaaaarp

Heads peer over balconies.

Paaaaaarp.

'Fuck me,' Foggy says, pulling hard on Hash's chocolate Kappa zip-up top. 'Get y'fuckin head off the horn.'

Hash gently lifts his head and looks up to the faces, a tattooed man spills lager from a can.

Or was it his mouth?

'We'll get wi fuckin heads kicked in man.'

'I need a fuckin spliff man,' Hash whispers. 'I'm dyin.'

Foggy sighs and pulls the release to the door, pushes it to its hinge and lifts his left leg from the footwell. He gets out, then looks at him from under the door frame.

'We're gonna get fuckin ripped off.'

He slams the door.

Hash looks out over the sunbleached flagstones of a courtyard.

People pass by in Hawaiian beach clothes, it's the first time they've ever taken to these balconies without a bag of washing.

The kid, the kid with no head wore a loud shirt.

Hash thinks for a flash; a flash like a Coastguard-issue distress flare. Just like the one Talbot had in his hands, pointing it at the Dutch stoner.

The door re-opens, and the car rocks as Foggy sits down.

'He pulled the chord.'

'Wha? What chord? Fuck y'talkin about?'

The beating sun. The fizzing, hissing industrial firework smashing the confused kid right in the mouth like a fist on fire.

Smoking it like a comedy cigar.

Bang.

Pink mist.

Hash grabs the memory by the throat and throws it against the back of his skull.

The pink mist.

'Pink Mist?' Foggy asks. 'Is that a horse? What y'talkin about now, man? Fuck's sake.'

'Wha?' Hash says.

'Billy, fuck me. Y'talkin to y'self man. Y'fuckin brain's fried. Can we fuckin leave now please? Y'startin to fuckin scare me.'

Hash puts his fingers up to the ignition.

Even that hurts.

'Ayaz, man,' he whispers. 'Ayaz.'

They're not moving.

Foggy turns to him.

'Hash, for fuck's sake, let's . . . ' Foggy says. 'Are y'cryin?'

Hash's body shakes gently at the wheel, hot tears heading down his cheeks.

'Hash? Billy, howay man,' Foggy reaches out to touch him. Doesn't. He knows it'd sting like buggery.

'Howay Billy man. It's alright, it's alright.'

Hash turns his head.

A tear drips from his chin to his favourite top, now filthy and stinking of fish.

'I'm sorry.'

'Don't be daft Billy man. Y'me best mate. What y'sorry for?'

Hash sniffs.

'I got some, looker,' Foggy reassures him, looks up at the balconies.

'Howay, let's go and have a smoke. Eh? That'll sort y'out.'

He rolls what could be a big black snot wrapped in cellophane between his fingers.

'Y'scored already?'

'Aye Billy, howay man Billy. Offskies.'

Hash turns the key in the ignition.

And the Chevette hops forward like a frog, still in gear.

'Ayaaaaaz man!' whipping them back and forward again. 'Ayaaaaaaaaz! Ayaaaaaaaaaz!'

Paaaaarp.

Hash's head's back on the horn.

Foggy looks up at the car's stained vinyl ceiling then closes his eyes.

'Fuck me, man,' he sighs.

Down between the brown walls, and Skipper Ted Berry sits in the little trawler's worn leather captain's chair, each hand locked on one of the eight knobs that stick out from the rim of the ship's wheel. They feel smooth and firm, fashioned by a lathe and years of pressure from sailors' hands.

Berry glances around the wheelhouse for a spanner. His mother, for some reason, had always fancied one for the living room wall.

A black earth floats in a bowl of liquid on the dashboard, white notches run off right to the east and left to the west, the settled arrow points due north. He taps at the bowl, the earth moves slightly then insists it was right the first time.

'Mental,' Berry says.

There's a cigarette lighter next to the compass bowl, he picks it up. It has a woman upside down on the side in a bikini, he turns it around and her clothes fall away.

'Cool!'

He does it again and again, dressing and undressing her. She looks like Betty Boo.

'Ha heh heh.'

He looks out of the missing window at Smithy, soaking up the last rays of sun to hit the deck as the sun reclines up river, feet resting on his Adidas bag.

He puts the lighter in his pocket.

'Neeeeeeeeeeeeeaaa,' Berry squeals like an overtaking Formula One car, 'yowww.'

He twists the ship's wheel – suddenly a special forces speedboat.

On a secret mission.

He swerves left, then right. Left again.

'Ha heh heh.'

Wedge pushes himself into the wheelhouse.

'Who the fuck y'now then skitzo?'

'Hold on a sec,' Berry replies, leaning with the wheel to one side, '. . . mines.'

'Mines?' Wedge repeats, taking the white ladder down into the boat's belly. 'Righto. Mines.'

The rudder stops bumping underneath as Berry lets go of the wheel - distracted by dials, buttons and electronic equipment.

What could be a car stereo juts out from its housing, part of its plastic front has been smashed off and the whole unit is dislodged from the wood panelling.

'Fuckin cool.'

He pushes a Nike against it and it clicks back into position - he jabs at its buttons then grabs the CB radio's handset, hanging limp from the unit on the end of a coiled wire.

Dead.

He puts it to his mouth and presses the red button on the side – just like he'd seen in so many films.

'Currsucka,' he says.

His mind unzips to;

. . . . a huge wave rolling down the dry dock, his knuckles whiten as Playfair faces it; the bow rises and the boat crawls up to the crest where she dips before tearing downwards.

She bobbles from side to side like a pissed woman on a Buckin Bronco.

If Berry had been looking, he'd have noticed a dim red light start to burn in the re-inserted radio. But he's distracted by;

. . . a surfer's wank fantasy, a massive wave comes curling down from the Roman Empire towards where Samuel Alfonso Smith sunbathes.

'Ah come on girl,' he says. 'Y'can do it.'

Berry spins the wheel from right to left and back again.

'Woo fuckin hoo!'

He spins to the right.

Left.

The rudder wallops about underneath as the boat rubs between the wall and the half dozen stilts keeping it from falling over into the dry dock.

'Currsucka,' Berry says into the handset.'This is Skipper Ted Berry.

'Currsucka!

'This is Ted Berry, Skipper of the Playfair. Do you copy?

'Currrrsucka.

'We need air cover!

'Currrrsucka.

'NOW!

'Currrrrsucka.

'Do you copy?'

He throws the wheel violently to the right, avoiding the grey steel hull of HMS Ark Royal herself.

'Good girl,' he pats the boat on the dashboard. He throws the wheel to the right, leaning out of the door to the dry dock as he heaves.

He presses the button.

'Do you copy?

'Currrsucka.

'We're on the River Tyne.'

'Currssucka.

'The docks.

'Currsucka.

'Currsucka.

'Currsucka.

'Do you read me?

'Currrrrr-sucka-suck-fuckin-sucka-suck-suck.

'Ha heh heh.

'This is Skipper Ted Berry, do you read me? The Argies! The ONION fuckin BARGIES! HELP! Ha heh heh.'

Things are getting out of hand – a squadron of bombers blackens the sky overhead like Dracula's batforce.

'Currrrrsucka,' he screeches.

He jerks the wheel to the right - the boat judders.

'Fuckinhell!' Berry says, his finger still pressed hard against the button on the handset.

Another colossal wave appears high down river, bigger than the shipyard itself - it splits around a crane and breaks.

'Howay! Fuckin. Howay!'

Playfair hits the water wall, her hull bites and she crawls up the sheer face.

'Aaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiieeee. Ha heh heh. Aiiiiiieee!'

Berry yanks the wheel with his full 15-year-old force. He throws up an arm and leans back as the boat hangs upside down, hundreds of feet above the concrete dock, high over the river just like the Pirate Ship at the Town Moor fairground - she clings to the edge, rights herself and pelts down the other side.

He jerks the wheel to the right

The rear wooden stilt ramming the boat up against the dock wall falls away.

And the rudder bites into the concrete.

'FUCK!'

The rudder bends, then snaps.

Playfair spasms.

Berry grabs the wheel as the boat throws him towards the wall.

'Fuck! Fuck!'

A second wooden stabiliser can't take the extra weight.

It snaps, ricochets around the dock.

The boat's hull crunches into the concrete floor and she starts to fall away from the wall.

Smithy flies across the deck.

The boat jerks again, the rest of her hull biting into the concrete as a third stabilising stilt breaks in two.

Only three to go.

'Fuckinhell, fuckinhell, fuckinhell!'

The world shifts on its axis.

Two more stilts simply fall away.

Berry dives to the floor as the bow lifts to the bright sky then jerks to the brown expanse of open dry dock.

She's going over.

Berry's lifted off the floor and thrown out towards the concrete.

'Ooof!'

Saved by the door frame.

The boat spasms as the only surviving stilt, the fattest and thickest, flexes like the headteacher's cane - then exerts its will.

Playfair cracks back into the wall, her bow sticking up towards where the men dig in search for the fall of Rome.

The boat's timbers creak.

'Fuckinhell!'

Berry is on the floor under the instrument panel, still clutching the radio handset, his hand pressed to the red button.

'Fuck,' he says, letting go.

'Me!'

He pulls himself vertical.

Currsucka.

A sound, for real, comes from the radio

Currsucka.

Then a faint, female voice. Sad. Stressed. Frightened.

Hopeful.

'Playfair? Leest u? Waar bent u?'

Berry turns to his shoulder, shaking away the dim sound.

Wedge's head pops up from the hatch.

'What the fuck?'

'Ehm?'

'Is dat onze het missen boot? Playfair?'

Berry grabs the handset and looks up to where it connects, red LCD screen now brightly lit at 808 - the last broadcast frequency before someone had smashed it from its housing.

'Err hullo?' Berry says, like a child answering a phone. 'Hullo?'

'What the fuck y'doin?' Wedge says, pulling himself out from the floor.

'Having fun, Mr Berry,' says the woman, loud and clear. She sounds upset, tearful. Yet harsh.

'Where is my boy, Mr Berry? Where is Fredrik?'

Wedge boots the radio silent.

Less than a minute's drive away, and Billy 'Hash' Brown sits with Foggy by the river's edge.

A wooden cable spool that once fed fat wire into ships floats slowly downstream.

Foggy sticks two Rizla papers end to end and one across the middle. He puts his lighter under the black snot they'd just bought.

'Doesn't look like an eighth to me, like,' Foggy mutters. 'Not even a tenner fuckin deal. Ah, here we fuckin go.'

He crumbles in the resin, then mixes in some of his Golden Virginia tobacco.

'Man, this stuff smells wrong. Plastic.'

The spliff is at Foggy's lips.

He lights it.

'Fuck me,' he says, through caustic black smoke. 'Here.'

He passes it quickly – a very bad sign. Foggy's lungs are normally like two Jack Russells with a cat, once locked on a spliff they can't let go.

He coughs.

Another first.

'Fuckin mingin.'

It crackles in Hash's hand, three Rizla skins filled with something chemical, Middlesbrough's finest.

Hash pulls on it, deep into his lungs; there is a remnant of cannabis resin in there somewhere, but it tastes like a plastic bin liner, on fire in his throat.

He splutters out the chemical discharge.

He yacks and coughs.

'Ayaz, ayaz, ayaz man!'

The car smells like Bonfire Night.

'Fuckin told ya. Didn't ah?'

'Stop fuckin whingein man will ya,' Hash barks. 'Jesus fuckin!'

Silence, between the two car seats.

'Christ,' Foggy mutters.

There's the gentle sploosh of the heavy moving body of water.

'Aaaagh!'

Life has taken just too many shits in Hash's soup.

Time, now, to wrestle back control.

And the thoughts return, crawling up the back of his neck.

Talbot grabbing at the second sailor with the pole and throwing him overboard. 'Billy! Help man! For fuck's sake! Put some fuckin weight on the pole. Hold him under!'

'Cunt! Leave me alone!'

'Eh?' Foggy says. 'Fuck you! It was your fuckin idea to come here, I told ya they'd fuckin ripped . . . '

'Fuck this,' Hash spits.

He turns the key and throws the chemical experiment out the open window.

'We're gettin stoned. I know where there's shitloads. Fuck you! Y'murderin bastard! FUCK YOU!'

He screeches away.

'Fuck you! CUNT!'

Down in the dry dock, and the dirty concrete walls are closing in on three teenaged boys like fat trees in an enchanted forest. The sun has fallen from the sky, but it's still not yet dark.

'Man,' Wedge says. 'Y'really gone and fucked it now like.'

The boat is riding an invisible wave leaning to the side, her bow tipped up to the sky. Long thin cracks run back to the stern. One ship-saving stilt pushes her entire weight to the wall, it throbs out into the dock like a headteacher's cane.

Under a shitload of pressure.

Play Fair complains in wooden creaks and ticks.

Smithy's not happy either.

'You two are fuckin mental,' he says. 'MENTAL! You'll kill somebody oneday.'

Berry shivers.

'Fuck it, howay,' he says, wrapping his spanked arms around his belly. 'Let's go. It's freezin now anyway.'

'Mental cases,' Smithy continues as they turn and walk across the dock floor. 'I'm not knockin round with you two nay more.'

'Promise?' Wedge says.

Smithy is first to the yellow slash of stairs that lead up from the dock to the quayside.

'Fuck off.'

Berry sucks at the flesh of his palm where the spelk had stabbed him what seems like days ago. They rise up the stairs from the dock.

'Howay man Smithy,' he says, softly. 'I didn't do it on purpose. I was only, y'know, playin.'

'Aye, whatever. I'm meetin a lass man.'

'Aye, right. Right.'

Halfway up, Smithy stops.

'Shit?' he says. 'Where's me bag?'

They all turn and look through the failing light to the broken boat.

'Fuckin,' he says. 'Shit.'

He nudges passed them, heads back down the steps and out across the concrete to the big broken cable spool where his red bag sits.

They watch him go.

'Sport fuckin Billy,' Wedge says. 'He's always got that fuckin bag with him.'

The boat's creaking and ticking is louder now, echoing across the empty concrete hole in the ground like an old lift.

Faster.

And faster.

Faster.

'Fuck?' Berry says. 'Is it?'

And faster.

'It's gonna fuckin snap!' Wedge agrees.

The final supporting stilt spoon bends further then.

'FUCK!'

It snaps and ricochets around the dry dock like a fired arrow.

'Smithy!'

He turns.

As the front of the boat crunches into the dock floor.

He dives for the cable spool.

'Smithy!'

They run down the steps and out across the dock floor to where Smithy's motionless legs stick out from the other side of the busted spool.

'Fuck, Smithy!'

Berry rolls him over.

'Smithy?'

He looks back at him, clutching his red Adidas bag to his chest.

'I wanna go home.'

Half a dozen fat spelks have pierced the bag's thick vinyl coating like little nails. But they all missed Smithy.

'Fuck me! Smithy? Y'alright?'

He lifts him to his feet.

'Hey,' Wedge says.

'Fuck's sakes,' Berry says, the tone is familiar. 'What now?'

'That door thing's open. Looker, on the bottom.'

Berry ignores him.

'Howay Smithy, let's fuck off.'

They walk five steps then turn.

The boat has crunched fully into the concrete but remains upright, listing against the dock wall. But Wedge seems to be trying to pull it over onto his head, he's pulling at a gap in the horizontal door Berry had spotted screwed to the ship's keel.

'Fuck's sakes,' Berry says.

The door resists, still locked at one side.

'Fuckin thing,' Wedge grunts, fingers seeking a better grip.

Wedge pulls harder, one foot pressed up against the planks.

'It'll fall on y'fuckin fat head, y'silly cunt!'

'There's a catch, looker, inside,' he says, reaching through a gap between split planks.

'What?'

'Help man. Push the fuckin catch thing while I pull.'

'Fuck's sakes, man,' Berry walks over. 'What?'

'There, looker. Inside. There's a catch.'

And there is.

Berry does as he's told and pulls on the metal latch.

Wedge yanks.

And the door opens easily.

'Fuckinhell!'

There's an avalanche.

Berry gets clattered by brick sized brown blocks falling against him like a toppled wall. A slot machine paying out, but instead of coins the jackpot is blocks of cannabis wrapped in cellophane.

They fall and scatter across the concrete floor.

'What the fuck?'

Still they come, a cannabis coal spill.

Berry catches one.

Wedge is ahead of the game.

His block is already open.

'Smell that,' Wedge says, pushing it under Berry's nose like a sticky finger.

'Fuckinhell?' he sniffs.

'Is it?'

'I think so?'

Berry licks the damp, pot pourri smell from his palette. It sticks sweetly to the flesh between the back of his nose and his throat.

And his fingers.

Smithy picks up a block like a child holding a broken bird.

'Man, oh man,' Berry whispers.

Berry pulls a thin strip from Wedge's block. It's soft, damp almost. It comes off like plasticine - it's black on the outside, khaki inside.

'That'll be the fuckin greenhouse smell.'

'It's like rabbit shit,' Berry says.

Berry moves his feet through the blocks.

'What the fuck wi gonna do now?'

Wedge and Berry's glances meet then turn to Smithy's bag.

~

'First you smash some fucker's boat, now y'nickin their DRUGS?' Smithy says. 'Are you two for fuckin real or what? This has got fuck all to do wi me.'

Wedge clutches the red bag to his chest as they reach the top of the steps.

'Stop bein gay man,' he mutters.

Smithy stops and spins.

'Fuck you!' he jabs his finger. 'Y'coulda fuckin killed me.'

'Me?' Wedge says. 'What the fuck did I do? You went back for y'fuckin handbag.'

'That fuckin boat MUST belong to someone.'

They walk on up the steps.

In silence.

They get to the top.

'We'll just . .'

They face the main gate to the outside world, the official entrance to the drydocks and . . .

'Hey!'

Everything stops.

There's someone there.

And he's seen them.

'Hey!' the man says. 'What the fuck . . . ?'

A sunburnt old man, standing there like a Roman gaoler in a white string vest, a hoop of ancient keys in his hands. Probably a hammer and fat nails in his back pocket, just in case a quick crucifixion needs sorting.

'Uh?' Berry says.

'What the fuck y'doin?' the man shouts.

He starts pacing towards them, too fast for such an old bastard.

Nothing else moves for a full quarter second.

'Shit-the-fuckin-bed!' Berry says.

A sweet adrenaline injection hits his bloodstream.

'Leg it!'

They head for the hills.

Smithy first.

Then Berry.

Wedge is somewhere close behind, over his shoulder.

'Ha ha ha. Wanker!'

Yep, that's him.

Fear rips around Berry's system like a fucked missile.

The man shouts.

'Y'fuckin little bastards!'

He's closer than he should be, he's taken a shortcut behind an old security hut at the bottom of the hill they'd scuffed down to get here from the Roman fort.

'Fuckinhell, fuckinhell, fuckinhell!'

Berry tears up the dusty bank that heads up to the archaelogical dig. Smithy is already through the hole in the fence in front of him.

And away.

Berry hits it.

The sharp edges scratch at his burns.

Wedge is still at the bottom of the hill.

'Get off! Ow y'cunt! Ow! Pack it in man!'

Berry takes off through the earth scratched up by the bearded moles. He follows Smithy's tracks out through the site of the Roman fort and onto the road.

Smithy's up ahead. Arms pumping. Running like Carl Lewis.

'Smi, Smi, Smithy,' Berry heaves. 'Slow the fuck . . slow the fuck fuckin down man. For fuck's sakes!'

Smithy stops under an old lamp, just as its light sensor says it's dark – it clicks into life.

Berry reaches him.

Smithy's chest is heaving like a crazed bellows.

'Whe, where?' he pants. 'Where's Wedge?

Berry stares back through the tents and the gravel. Gulping air into his chest to feed his busy heart. He points, then puts his hands on his knees and leans forward – to pull air into his lungs.

'Man, I think. I think he got caught.'

'What? He's got me bag.'

'The bag, and the . . .'

Real fear hits them now.

'Ah man,' Smithy almost weeps. 'He's fuckin dead!'

Berry turns and heads back to the dust track that leads through Segedenum to where it drops down the bank to the shipyard - it twists away like a dried stream.

Silent.

Empty.

Two hundred yards down the road, and Billy 'Hash' Brown's fingers cramp like talons around the steering wheel. He hunches forward, his forehead a suffering soup of sweat and blisters.

They drive along the road that winds alongside the fat river, her banks flooded with heavy industry. Tangled metal scratches at a bleeding sky, all that remains of a long day

'Man you do fuckin stink,' Foggy says. 'When was the last time you had a bath?'

'Fuck off.'

'Y'haven't changed them clothes for days, have ya? Scruffy cunt.'

The steel divisions in the sky tick by and the lamp posts shwoosh woosh into the car's open windows.

Foggy flicks his fag stub out his side.

'Where the fuck we goin anyway?'

'We're nearly there, round this bend. Better wait til it gets a bit darker tho.'

'Man, we're not goin robbin are we?'

'Nah. Not really.'

Foggy turns back to the open window.

''Not really?' Pinchin's too much like hard work.'

'Nice big spliff, man,' Hash thinks to himself. 'Might even shut this prick up,'

'What?' Foggy says.

'Unlikely.'

'Eh? Y'brain's fucked up since y'got y'tan, y 'fuckin weirdo. Talkin to y'self and that. All the fuckin time.'

'Fat spliff, big fat spliff.'

Hash's grip on the wheel eases a fraction.

'Hey?' Foggy says.

'What?'

'Is that the little gobshite who lives next door to Talbot?'

'What?'

Hash focuses.

A teenage boy is running solo towards them, red faced and frantic on the other side of the road, carrying a bright red Adidas bag. He stops, looks behind him and puts his hand on his thighs. He gasps for air.

'Hey aye. It is. What's his name?'

The boy reaches into his pocket, pulls something out and shakes it, puts it to his mouth. He sucks in some magic gas. Reinvigorated, he darts sharp to the left under the bright yellow cubed M of the Hadrian Park Metro station. They watch him go.

'Dunno, but he's got a weird fuckin heed on him.'

The Chevette passes the station and Hash catches a glimpse of his back running up the station steps, three at a time.

His neck smears.

'Ayaz man!'

'Man,' Foggy says. 'Seen his fuckin sister?'

'What?' Hash moans.

'Fuckin melon heed there's sister. She's fit as.'

'Holly?' Hash mumbles, trying to keep his head from turning.

'Holly! That's her. Man, she's fuckin horny. Whore-knee!'

Foggy spits out of the window.

'Bet she's dirty, she's got that look.'

'What look? She's only a fuckin bairn man,' Hash says. 'Y'seen their mam, Trudi?'

'Aye!'

'She's fit as.'

Foggy bounces up and down.

'Aye, man.'

'She's always in The Club with some bearded prick.'

'Woo hoo! I'd do em both! Smash em all over the gaffe!'

Hash snorts.

'What?' Foggy says.

'As if they'd go for an ugly cunt like you?'

'Listen to fuckin Blister Boy there' Foggy spins. 'Tyneside's answer to Julio fuckin Iglesias.'

Foggy puts his head out of the window.

'Woo hoo! All over the gaffe! Woo hoo!'

In the city, and Rick E. Delaney sits with his Hush Puppies up on the news desk alone in the office, his hands clasped across the crown of his skull.

The telephone screams like a startled bird.

And his eyes pendulum away from the TV screen.

He ignores it.

'Get stuffed,' he says. 'I'm busy.'

His eyeballs return to the screen.

Delaney is totally alone, even the stone sub has gone home. Delaney's job to man the phones and make The Calls every hour or so to the emergency services, to check if anything is happening on The Kernel's patch.

It isn't.

Not yet.

He sighs and reaches for the news desk TV's remote control. He pushes up the volume.

The BBC's dreary dreadful new rival to Coronation Street - grey Cockneys living angry lives - drones on above his head. It seems to have been on for days - and still nothing has happened.

The phone rings.

'Hello, news desk,' he answers, cursing himself - reflex faster than his brain to the draw. The handset is cold against his ear.

'Hullo!' a dusty old voice says - too loud, 'Hullo! Who's that?'

'Oh God,' Delaney sighs. 'Here we go.'

'Hullo!

'Hullo!

'Is that the news pay-pah?'

Delaneys eyes drift to the window, wondering if it's a full moon. All newspaper hacks know the phone nuts come out for a howl on a full moon. Delaney looks out the window, it's hard to tell – the sky still seems to burn like it's midday.

'It is, yes.'

Never engage, never - ever - engage.

'It's Mr Crosby here, Alf Crosby - C. R. O. S. B. Y \- Alfie - from Notts Flats, number four. Y'know me. I get your pay-pah delivered every night. I want to complain.'

The words drop into Delaney's ear like ash from an urn.

'We have one hundred and fifty thousand readers sir, give or take a few, we can't know you all personally, ha ha,' Delaney drips, his eyes fixing themselves back on the relentless misery of Albert Square. 'Now, if it's about your delivery sir, you'll need to call back on Monday and talk to our circulation depar . . .'

'I've got me bloody paypah, I get it every night. I have done since the 'forties. I want y'to do a bloody story for me for a change.'

'What about, sir?' he sighs.

'The telly! The stoopit bloody telly.'

Delaney turns and looks at the old cream, almost worn out news desk phone. He can almost feel the old man inside his Soviet-style concrete eyesore by the river, scrunched up in his easy chair with abrasive doilies on the arms.

'Sorry?'

'I want to complain. I want to complain about the total crap they put inside the telly,' he says, false teeth slapping against his gums like broken old slippers. 'Put me through to the editor. I want him to stop it.'

'Stop it? Sorry? How?'

'The telly! Are y'listenin or what? Crap telly. The telly's crap man. There's bugger all on but these bloody whingein Cockneys. Miserable bastards. It's crap man. I want y'to stop it.'

'We're nothing to do with the television. I suggest . . .'

'I want to speak to the editor.'

'It's late Ralph, the editor is not here.'

'What do you mean 'he's not here?' It's the newspay-pah, isn't it? I want to speak to him. And I want to speak to him, now.'

'I mean 'he's not here'. I'm the only one here.'

'Then why can't y'help me?'

'But? What is it you want me to do, exactly?'

'The telly, it's crap man. I want you to stop it.'

'Ralph.'

'Alf!'

'Oh, I'm sorry, This is a newspaper office. Can I suggest you telephone the BBC and . . .'

'The BBC! The BBC? Don't get me started. The bloody BBC. What a load of old shite. Bloody licence fee. Southern bastards taxin the telly, they don't give a toss about us up here man. Have y'seen it lately? There's nothin on but whingein bloody cockneys, why don't they . . .'

'Look Ralph, I'm sorry. This is a newspaper office and I'm extremely busy, if you would like . . .'

'But there's nothin on the telly. ITV's a load of bloody crap. It's for folk who've had their bloody brains kicked out their heeds. Bloody adverts. There was an advert on before for bloody tampons. TAMPONS! What the hell do I want wi bloody tampons? Eh?'

'Well, Ralph . . .'

'And I can't tune it in to that new Channel Four one and . . .'

'Turn it off.'

'What?'

'Turn the bloody thing off then!'

The line pauses for a beat, a Cockney voice squeaks across the bar in the Queen Vic: 'We need to tawk.'

'Did y'just swear at me sonny?'

'I'm simply telling you that we are not the BBC nor ITV and if you don't like what's on the television then clearly you can . . .'

'Y'swore at me. I'm one of y'readers. Y'supposed to look out for people like me. I pay y'bloody wages. I want to speak to the editor.'

Delaney changes the receiver, warm and damp now, to his other ear.

'I didn't swear at you, you must have misheard me . . .'

'I was in the war y'know and . . .'

'Oh God, here we go.'

'What? What? We died for little bastards like you. Y'little . . .'

The pressure builds up in Delaney's chest.

'Listen. Ralph. Like I say, I'm extremely busy and . . .'

'Y'little bashtad,' the old man's teeth have slipped. 'Whatsh y'name? I? I know the owner. Whatsh y'name?'

Delaney tries to force his lips closed, but:

'Haven't you got a chip pan to leave on or something?'

It sounded like someone else's voice, manic.

Silence.

'I beg y'pardon?'

'Haven't you got anything better to do with your time than phone newspaper offices?' Delaney almost screams, raw nerves spilling into the receiver. 'What's the matter with you old farts?'

'I can phone who the hell I like! I've bought y'pay-pah for forty odd years. And it's crap, mind you, too. But that's another story. The writin in there these days, it's like, it's like – it's like it's written for them bloody morons. And, anyway. And. Y'supposed to watch out for people like me. And. And. The telly. . .'

'What?'

'The telly . . .'

'Yes?'

'. . . it's crap man.'

'For God's . . . Switch the bloody thing off then!' he shouts.

The words run along and leap from his tongue like four brats from a diving board.

'You. Silly. Old. Prick.'

'Right! Right! Right you!' the old man screams like Monty Python. 'Put me through, put me through to y'editor. I'll send me grandson round there, he's the hardest in his school and he'll. He'll. He'll help me! We'll kick y'fuckin heed in. Y'fuckin . . .'

'Just hurry up and die grandad. Your pension costs me money.'

Delaney slams down the receiver.

'Jesus H Christ,' he mutters, smearing his eyes with the palms of his hands.

He looks up at the rota - there it is in red.

Late shift. Late shift. Late shift. Forever, ever more.

Munroe has scrawled 'ad infinitum' next to his name in the final slug. Delaney had looked it up in the dictionary; endlessly, for so long as to seem endless.

Delaney settles in his seat and looks up to the television – Eastenders still bores on, probably for at least another 30-years.

The phone rings.

Again, mindless reflex is first to his wrist.

'Hello, news desk.'

'Y'little bash-tad,' Dusty clicks through his false teeth. 'How DARE you hang up on me, I'll come round there and . . .'

Delaney hangs up.

'Jesus!'

~

The national 9pm news bulletin rolls. Anna Ford. The only female presenter who looks like she might actually know where to find her clitoris.

Sporadic riots across the country. Civil unrest rising with the temperature, a vague variety of causes, says a bore-in-a-beard - unemployment, frustration, a desperate desire for socio-economic re-alignment.

Or something.

Delaney wants to grab this 'expert' by his David Bellamy beard and tear it from its roots.

He points the remote, pulls the trigger: TV drama, women in period costumes, pushing their tits up high as ear muffs.

Four channels to choose from, all of them shite.

The phone rings, he lets it.

It's persistent.

'Jesus.'

Delaney rattles in his chair until it gives off its final shake.

A cheap bagpipe tune played on an organ, probably in a producer's bedroom, announces it's time for the local BBC news.

An obligatory shot of The Tyne Bridge scrolls by.

'Somebody should nuke this hell hole,' Delaney sighs.

The newsreader looks like she's just wandered into the studio on her way home from an amateur dramatics class.

The news is flat, just like her face.

The phone rings.

'Hello, news desk.'

'Y'little bash-tad,' says Dusty.

Slam.

The lead item on the local news is about job losses, the second lead rolls but Delaney isn't staying. He, rightly so, pulls the trigger when she says the immortal words; 'wheelie bins' in a tone of impending doom.

'Wheelie bins!' he shouts. 'Jesus Christ. What time's the next train to London?'

Delaney turns the newdesk Atex screen to the side, the numbers for the emergency service control rooms are on a laminated sheet pasted to the side of the computer. He's not done any check calls since he arrived on shift - a hanging offence.

Just as his fingers reach for the Northumbria Police, the phone rings.

'You dead yet grandad or what?'

'Sorry? Is that The Kernel news desk?'

A younger voice. No accent. Official sounding. In control.

Delaney shuts his eyes.

'Yes. Sorry. Sorry sir. I thought you were someone else.'

'Nice. Is Turner there? Alex Turner.'

The Evening Kernel's crime reporter, best hack on the rag – kept away from the national press by the Geordie homing instinct, one of the few local borns to work on the rag - big fish, very small pond.

'No sir, not until Monday now. Can I take a message?'

'I'm a friend of his, an old friend. I've just come back from Tynemouth Lodge and . .'

He burps.

'. . . sorry.'

Delaney sighs; yet another drunk with a bar stool scoop.

'And a guy I used to work with was telling me a story I think he would be interested in.'

'Oh really?' Delaney says, losing interest. He reaches for the remote.

'I'm retired drug squad . .'

Delaney's finger pauses over the trigger.

'Drug squad?'

' . . . and this guy was told something, ve-very,' the voice belches again. 'Excuse me. Very, very interesting, I'll ring him on Monday.'

A ghost in the back of Delaney's mind whispers; 'bring in a story'.

'Oh, drug squad you say? Wait a second. Why not tell me? I can pass him the message.'

He scrambles for a pen.

'Well, there's a massive drought.'

Delaney's pen relaxes.

'Oh, I think you're mistaken,' he sighs. 'There's no water shortage sir.'

'You what?'

'There is no drought sir, it's hot but there's lots of water. Kielder dam is full and . . '

'Son, do I sound like a bloody weather man?'

'Sorry sir, I mean. . .'

'Dope son. Dope. Drugs. There's no cannabis. A drought in cannabis. There's nothing to smoke and. . .

'Oh? Whacky baccy? Oh sorry sir, I misunderstood. You know . . .'

''Whacky baccy'?'

Silence.

''Whacky backy?'' the ex-cop groans. 'You gonna shut up and listen or will I speak to Turner next week?'

'Erm, go on. Whacky . . . I mean. Erm. Cannabis?'

'There isn't any. There's a drought. A drought in smoke for the stoners. All the way up the east coast of Britain. There's this boat supposed to sail out of Rotterdam, makes drop offs all the way up the east coast of the UK. It seems it must have sunk.'

'Yah, I see, I see. Yah,' Delaney breathes knowingly. 'Yah.'

'You writing this down?'

Delaney bristles and readies himself for offence, then - settles his feathers - pulls Munroe's pad across the desk.

Scratches at it.

Dead pen!

'Gah!'

'The Squad have been looking at North Shields Fish Quay for years. Never got anywhere.'

Delaney scratches hard at the pad, making deep welts in the paper – but no ink trails.

'There's a grass who buys. . .'

Finally the ink flows.

'Grass?'

'A grass. A snout. An informer. And they.'

'Sorry sir, I . . .'

'Jesus son, will you just shut up and listen. The grass buys it from one of the stalls but there was no supply this month, they're thinking maybe this magic boat has sunk.'

'The boat?'

'No, the chicken.'

'Chicken.'

Delaney writes the feathered word down.

'Jesus fuckin Christ. Are you the fucking work experience kid or what?'

'I beg your pardon, I'm . .'

'What's your name?'

'Erm, Ri. . . Erm. Clarke. Kevin. Kevin Clarke.'

'This is a big story Kevin. Could be the scoop of Turner's career.'

The ex-cop takes a sip of his drink.

'Heh heh. Clever bastards. All the best ideas are the simplest. What comes and goes from rivers without ever being checked?'

'Erm?'

'Boats son, fishing boats. Trawlers. Come and go as they please. Wheels of industry, got to keep turning and all that.'

'Oh, oh. Yes. Yes. Of course.'

'Some customers get a 'special box' instead of fish.'

'SPECIAL BOX,' Delaney says as he writes the two words down.

'I once had a girl with a very special box kid, it was a bit fishy too eh? Eh? Heh heh heh.'

'Erm, hah?'

Mal sighs.

'The entire east coast, can you imagine? Heh heh heh. There's not a spliff being smoked anywhere. Heh heh heh. Hilarious. Friday night, can you imagine?'

'Oh, yes?'

'Friday night and half the country is full of stoners gagging for a spliff. How funny is that? All the local late night garages will go bust at this rate – nobody's buying their munchies, their Rizla papers and their fags. Heh heh heh.'

'Ha? Erm. Yes, sir. Erm. Ha ha.'

'You'll let Turner know?'

'Yes, yes of course. I'll pass the message on.'

'They'll never prove anything. They're a tight, slippery fucking lot down there.'

'Yes,' Delaney says. 'There's definitely something fishy going on, by the sounds of it.'

Pause.

Delaney locks his eyes closed.

Grimaces.

'You taking the piss?'

'Erm, sorry sir. I? You know. I? Ha ha.'

'Bit of a fucking comedian eh, Kev? Make sure you tell Turner that Mal called. Mal. He'll know who I am.'

Click.

'But . . . Hello? Erm? Mal? How do I, erm? Mal?'

Seven miles down river, and Ted Berry is trying to fold a shout inside a whisper.

'Wedge?' he coughs, standing at the top of the grass bank that leads down to the ship yard.

'Wedge?'

He takes a few steps down.

'Fuuuck!'

And slips.

He slides down the dust towards the concrete on his backside. His good hand steering his descent like a fin. A forward roll at the bottom and then he falls forward on his hands and knees to the concrete.

'OW!' he puts the spelk wound to his mouth.

'Fuck's sakes!'

The metal dinosaurs keep watch as Berry gathers himself up, heart kicking a tantrum. He waits, listening; a flock of birds flutters far away over the grey expanse, a creature rustles rubbish under a metal tube. He can hear a TV.

He sits there, his palm in his mouth.

Berry gets up and creeps forward in the direction of the shed next to the main gate, he opens his throat, cups his hands and – 'Wedge' - shout whispers again.

Nothing.

'Fuckin melonhead freakboy,' he mutters to himself.

He turns his head to the left until his neck locks, his feet shuffle round to join it and he looks back up the hill he'd just fallen down. His face returns to the stretch of concrete between him and the rotten security shed.

The flashing lights of a TV spill out across the grey plain and there's a muffled cockney squawk; 'We need to tawk.'

BBC One, Eastenders.

'Cockney wankers,' Berry mutters.

He plays at being in the SAS and snipes across no man's land to the shed, he looks round the side and edges forward to the door - he needs to step passed it to get a look in the window. He eases along toward the door's hinge and leans.

He peaks into the scummed-up shed window and . . .

A shape inside comes straight towards him.

'Fuckinhell!'

The door swings open.

Berry dives round the corner, round another - then onto the ground behind the shed, he rolls under it into discarded metal wire, beer cans and cartons.

The man pulls down his zip and starts to mumble.

He smells of vinegar.

'Little cunts. Always fuckin around, I'll . . .'

He strains and rasps out a fart.

Fwump.

Fwump.

Phweeert.

' . . . kill all these little fuckin bastards. Drown the lot of them.'

Piss bursts out of his pants, splashing on the concrete.

Drops splash Berry in the face.

'Fuck's sakes!'

He turns his back and rubs piss from his cheeks with his t-shirt.

The air reaks of ammonia, he looks up; slashes of light shine from nicks in the shed's floor, illuminating the dirty underworld forest beneath the hut.

It stinks.

Something died under here.

'Little fuckers, I, I'd drown the little . . .'

Berry's eyes scan the mess under the shed.

'Wedge, you fuckin fuckin circus freak bastard,' he whispers. 'I'm gonna fuckin . . .'

There's something greasy brown in the darkness, moving along one of the slashes of TV light – it's rumbling towards him like a miniature little storm cloud.

'Rat!' he choaks. 'Uuuuaagh.'

He can feel her four paws tapping the floor, scurrying in time with Berry's manic heartbeat - big as a cat, Queen Rat, whiskers patrolling the air like spears as her nose sniffs out the stranger in her home.

'Aaaggh!'

Too loud, way too fucking loud.

He throws a can and some of the stinking earth in her eyes, she ducks and flattens her ears then twitches, curious - gives him a hurt 'only saying hello' look.

She scurries away.

The piss torrent subsides.

'What the?' the drunk says.

'Fuck, fuck, fuck,' Berry mouths to himself.

He tries to force Jack back into his Box - he leans on the lid.

'Man, oh man.'

And waits.

By the gate, and Hash feeds the key into the car door, turns it then drops it into his deep tracksuit pocket. He aches his way around to the boot and presses the button.

It's locked.

'Fuckin hell man.'

He fumbles for his keys, pushing his arm stiff to the bottom of his stinking pants. They scratch far away next to his inner thigh.

It's a long stretch.

'Ayaz man,' he sighs.

He puts the key in the lock and peers over the opened boot at Foggy, stepping up and down the kerb, rolled cigarette at his lips.

The world's worst burglar.

'Fuckin dick head,' Hash says as he reaches into the boot for a fat yellow torch.

'Here,' he passes it to Foggy then rummages around, gently, inside his tool box.

'What we need this for?' Foggy says, looking to the sky. 'It's still pretty light man.'

Hash passes Foggy a pair of tin snips, like heavy metal scissors.

'Stop whining.'

Hash pauses at the lock, fumbling and jingle jangling keys.

'Fuck's sake,' Foggy twitches. 'Nobody'll pinch that pile of shit man.'

'Have y'locked your side?' Hash snaps.

Foggy steps off the kerb to the passenger door and opens it, pushes down the catch and slams it.

'Locked,' he says, flapping the handle. 'We goin now or what?'

Hash pulls his dirty sahara hat down a little closer to his eyes.

They walk to the gate, then veer off to the left of the fence.

'Bet you've even got blister's on y'fuckin balls,' Foggy mutters, then snorts out a laugh at the image in his head.

They walk along to a bush, standing solo against the fence like a sprig of broccoli.

'Right,' Hash asks. 'Here'll do. C'mon.'

They stand still, Hash stares at Foggy.

'What?' Foggy says.

'Cut a fuckin hole in the wire.'

'Oh fuckin kay,' Foggy answers, passing Hash the torch.

He points the giant scissors at the flimsy fence and unzips it into two unsteady curtains.

'Hold the fuckin thing open.'

Foggy grabs the flaps as Hash eases himself through, then pushes his own gangly frame into the dockyard, snaring himself on a sheered edge.

'Bastard!'

It rips a hole in his shellsuit pants.

'What?'

'I've ripped me new fuckin pants,' Foggy shouts. 'Looker.'

His voice ricochets around the open shipyard and down to the pigeons settled in a ledge carved from the river's concrete wall.

It unsettles them, they fly away.

'Keep the fuckin noise down.'

His voice lowers – 'four fuckin quid' - he pulls at the pants.

They walk out into the industrial wasteland spread out before them.

'Where the fuck we goin?' Foggy says.

Hash fiddles with the torch, whacking it twice – clang clang \- against a metal tube before the connection is made.

A feeble light glows.

'Bollocks,' Hash says, shaking it. 'Needs batteries.'

They walk towards the mammoth shed in the distance, aiming for two rusting cranes locked in a scan of the skyline like frozen lancers of the home guard.

Hash looks around, confused

'Y'fuckin lost, aren't ya?' Foggy says, still playing with the hole in his pants.

They walk towards the bend in the flashing pink, curling river.

'I came here up the river.'

'The river?'

'Aye, by boat.'

'By boat?'

'Aye, the river.'

'The river?'

'Fuck me, are y'just gonna keep repeatin the last words I fuckin say?'

''Fuckin say.''

'Prick.'

'Spastic. Y'fuckin lost.'

'Stop moanin man! Jesus fuckin.'

'Dick.'

They walk around a crane to a yellow fence.

'Here! This is it!'

Hash speeds up, he shuffles up excited to the fence.

He looks down.

'Fuck?'

He sees his face looking back.

The dry dock is filled with black ink. A wooden pallet and a yellow builder's helmet rest motionless on the oil stained water.

'Ah fuck?'

'What?' Foggy says.

'It's not there.'

'What?'

'It's not fuckin there.'

'Aye? What? WHAT's not fuckin there.'

Foggy stares into the black water.

'The boat.'

'WHAT fuckin boat? Jesus fuckin Christ man!'

'The boat. Play Fair. The boat with the fuckin hash inside. We parked it . . .'

He points at himself in the water.

'Down there.'

'Oh.'

'Fuck.'

'Play Fair?' Foggy looks at Hash, confused. 'Did y'say 'Play Fair?''

'Aye.'

Foggy smiles.

Shakes his head.

'Get fucked. Play Fair doesn't exist, that's just a fuckin myth man. Hah.'

'It fuckin DOES, y'wanker. We nicked it. Well, Talbot . . . Anyway.'

'Don't believe ya.'

'I couldn't give a fuck what y'believe. Why the fuck else would we be here, eh?'

'Fuck me,' Foggy looks down at himself in the black water.

'Really?'

'Fuck's sake.'

'Man, I've dreamt of that thing for years. That's where all the dope comes from . . ?'

'No shit Sherlock,' Hash sighs.

Foggy looks at his own reflection and the ever-darkening starry starry night over head.

'Fuck! Maybe it's under water?'

'Boat's float.'

Hash retreats and eases his bony arse into the mouth of a fat metal tube. He glances around.

'I need a fuckin spliff,' he says, his face seems to be curling up into the saggy rim of his filthy hat.

Foggy sits in the next tube and builds himself a smoke. The flick of his lighter fires up the scene.

'Maybes Talbot's been back for it?'

Foggy takes a deep drag.

'He'd tell you though, wouldn't he?'

'Would he bollocks.'

He blinks his eyes and looks up the river, his blistered brow descends. He rises from the tube and steps up to the river's edge and peers down at the gentle water, a silent pink firework display twinkles, reflecting and re-arranging the sky as it twists and laps its heavy way to the city.

'Hang on?'

Something about the angle of the bend resets his mental compass, he looks over to the opposite riverbank – a metal arm sticks out over the water; a conveyor belt that once poured coal onto ships.

''Coals to Newcastle'?'

'What?'

'And them pipes weren't there?' Hash mutters. 'Were they?'

'Fuckin talkin to y'sel again,' Foggy says, shaking his head. He flicks his cigarette and rises. 'May's well fuck off home. This place gives me the fuckin willies. Talbot's a fuckin cu . . .'

'It's the wrong hole.'

'What?'

'It's the wrong fuckin hole.'

'What y'mean 'it's the wrong hole?' You sound like Melanie.'

'It's further up, look. Behind those pipes.'

'Err. Aye?'

'Definitely. Talbot must've stacked these pipes with the crane. Looker.'

He creaks forward at a higher speed than usual of late.

'Get up y'wanker!'

Under the shed, and Ted Berry curls further away from the old drunk's piss puddle as it spreads towards him.

'Fuck's that?' the man says, dick in hand.

Berry nips his eyes tight and puts both hands under his body next to his heart, certain the old fucker can hear the crazed John Bonham in his chest.

'Wedge,' he whispers to himself. 'You. Melon headed. Fuckin. Freakboy.'

The security guard's scuffed brogues crunch the concrete.

Berry looks across the darkness to the other side of the hut and the furthest slash of light coming through the holes in the floor from the TV.

Freedom.

It's a fair crawl all the way to the otherside, and that's where the rat went.

'Fuck that.'

'Cuntin rats,' the old man says.

He resumes hosing the ground.

It takes approximately four hundred and eighty seven years before the piss finally ebbs – the glistening arc losing its power and retreating up the drunk's tube.

'Fuckin hurry up man,' Berry mutters. 'Y'silly old cunt.'

It starts again; Rainy Season - it might only rain once a day, but boy does it rain.

'For fuck's sakes!'

Berry can't be sure he hasn't said that out loud.

Another few seconds pass.

Phreeert.

He rasps out a fart, Berry's lungs pull the brown mist down the side of the hut and into his chest. The drunk's most recent meal; pickled eggs from a jar sitting, untouched by any other hand, on the corner of a bar.

Phreeerrrrrt.

He drops another.

'They n'er fuckin listen, man,' he says. 'Ne'er fuckin listen. Cunts. The lot of em.'

He shakes his dick and opens the door to - 'Ricky!' \- the TV's dreary dialogue.

The door closes.

'Thank fuck!'

Berry scuffs his way to freedom, out from under the hut and gets to his feet. His eyes adjust to the diminished day behind the back of the shed.

He steps out behind the shed and looks around.

'Wedge?'

He turns to run across the concrete and up the grass bank.

'Fuck him.'

But the stale vinegar of an alcoholic's breath still colours the air.

A light blinds him like the final judgement, up close – right in his face.

An industrial strength torch.

'Shit the fuckin bed!'

The old man's pissy fist flies through its flame.

'Little fuckin cunt!'

Less than sixty feet away, and Foggy is sampling some suffering of his own.

'Ow, fuck!' he squeals as he cracks a kneecap into the corner of an industrial pyramid of massive metal pipes.

'Bastard!'

'Shhh man,' Hash replies. 'Fuck!'

The injured soldiers hobble together across no man's land, Hash following the line of the river, cross referencing it with his blistered memory.

A huge set of gates hold back the river from a cavernous hole in the ground.

'This is it!' Hash says.

Hash steps up to the yellow railings like a child on his first trip to the seaside.

He points the dying torch down.

There's nothing there.

'Fuck?'

He follows the wall deeper and closer to the gate.

'Yes!'

The shattered white slats of a white boat.

'Fuckin right man! It's here! It's fuckin here! I told ya.'

Foggy joins him at the rail.

'Mint! Ehm? What am I lookin at?'

'There man,' Hash nods down. 'Y'dick head.'

'The boat?'

Foggy isn't impressed.

'That's it?'

'Aye.'

'It's a bit fucked innit? Did y'drop it?'

Hash again points the limp torch.

'Hey, aye? I? I dunno. I was on Talbot's boat by then, I was a bit,' he gestures at his complection, 'Y'know.'

'Fucked,' Foggy snorts.

'And stoned. There's more hash on that fuckin boat than even a cunt like you could ever smoke.'

'Wanna bet?'

'Howay. And keep y'fuckin voice down.'

They head off between the rail and pipes towards the red crane where the steps slash down the concrete wall to the dock floor.

'How much hash, Hash?' Foggy laughs. 'Hah, I'm a fuckin poet and I didn't even know it. Ha ha.'

'What?'

'Poet and didn't know it.'

'Y're a knob wi nay fuckin job.'

'Get fucked Blister Boy. Howay man, seriously - how much? Y'probably talkin out y'fuckin arse anyways. 'Play Fair' - bollocks.'

Foggy twirls a finger at his temple.

'The sun's fucked y'brain.'

'Ever seen a bin lorry when bags are packed so tight they look like they're gonna fall off the back?'

'Fuck off? Seriously?'

Hash looks at him.

Smiles.

'Seriously.'

Foggy's face ignites like a true believer shaking Gabriel's hand at the Pearly Gates, finding it wasn't the ancient mass-control scam he feared - and all those years spent kneeling instead of living had been rewarded in spades.

'Fuck's sakes!'

A young voice in the darkening dockyard over by the shed, next to where the dry dock nips into a point.

Foggy spins like a dog to a whistle.

'What was that?'

They stop.

'Jesus!' Foggy says. 'There's somebody there man! Looker!'

Over between the big red crane and the green bank, there's an old Portabakin shed – the blue lights of a television flickering against its window. An old man stands in a string vest, one hand against the shed wall in a nazi salute. He's holding something in the other.

His cock.

'Tully,' Hash says.

Tully's piss flows.

'Cunting rats.'

The shrunken drunk looks like Piltdown Man. Pickled. His organs destined for dissection by trainee doctors up at Newcastle University's medical school. It's a good one, one of the best in the country.

Phreeeeert!

'Tully,' Hash repeats. 'He's just an old fuckin drunk.'

'What?'

Phreeeert.

The piss starts to lose its urgency.

'Ne'er fuckin listen, man. Ne'er fuckin listen.'

Phreert.

'Cunts. The lot of em.'

Tully moves across the front of the hut and opens the door to squawking Cockneys on the TV.

'Quick,' Hash takes the first two steps down into the dry dock.

'Howay man!'

Tully closes the door, reaches inside for something but doesn't enter – he edges around the side of the hut like a grandad playing Santa, a present in his hands.

'Fuck's the silly old cunt doin?' Foggy says.

'Eh?' Hash replies. 'Dunno. Howay man, he'll be asleep in a minute.'

They descend the steps to the dry dock floor.

'Who the fuck's Tully?'

'A tramp. Just an old fuckin tramp, I think he used to work here years ago, was a shop steward or somethin. Alcoholic. Lives here now, sort of.'

'Little fuckin cunt!'

'Shit the fuckin bed!'

They continue down the steps.

'Aaow!'

Foggy grabs Hash's tracksuit top.

'Y'little bastard!'

'Aaaow!'

'Listen.'

'What man?'

'What's that?'

'Aaaooooow.'

'That!'

'Eh?'

'Sounds like some kid's gettin fuckin murdered.'

'What y'think y'doin, eh?'

'It's two different voices man. It must be the telly. Howay man.'

'Aaaaooow.'

Foggy shivers like a cat throwing off water and wraps his arms around his sides.

He steps down into his grave.

Behind the shed, and Berry throws up his hand, eyes scalded by an industrial torch.

'Y'little bastard!'

He tries to launch himself across the concrete to the grass bank.

'Fuckinhell!'

But that's where the Portakabin is, the sharp artex splashed against the hut scrapes his back like jagged rock.

'Aaaaow!'

A hand flies through the flame of the thing and grabs hold of his favourite t-shirt, the threads stretch and complain.

Berry grabs the old aged pisshead; he's tight and lithe like a featherweight, suprisingly hard bodied and bizarrely cold, like a fish.

'What y'think y'fuckin doin?' the drunk shouts. 'Eh?'

His methylated breath burns at Berry's nose.

'I said 'what the fuck y'think y'doin'?'

'Just messin mister! Just playin!'

Berry raises his hands, palms up and outstretched in submission.

The drunk's fist crashes into Berry's cheek, raising hot blood to the surface.

'Aaow.'

'Just fuckin playin?'

Clout.

Berry's brain chimes against his inner ear.

He throws his arms up for cover like a boxer.

'I'll 'just fuckin playin' ya, y'little cunt.'

There's a pause, Berry drops his guard a touch.

'Little cunt.'

Clout.

Perfect timing.

Clout.

The drunk leaves a vapour-trail through the air like sprayed sewage.

'Aaaooow! Fuck!'

Clout.

He strikes an underhand note from the other ear - Berry's brain bell swings wildly from side to side, chiming where it meets the skull.

'Eh? Eh?' the drunk dances, tightening his fist so his oversized middle knuckle sticks out. 'Just fuckin playin?'

Whack.

Top of the head.

A knuckleduster.

To the very spot where you're never to touch babies.

The fontanelle.

The bell cracks and falls, Berry's legs fall away and his knees meet the concrete.

'Aaaaaaaaow!

The drunk drags him along the concrete, stretching the neck of his t-shirt down to the nipple, just like the old man's vest.

'Ah'll fuckin 'just messin' ya, y'little cunt. Little bastards tormentin me, always throwin stones at me roof.'

Clout.

'Y'fuckin think ya . . .

Clout.

'. . fuckin . . .

Clout.

'. . funny, don't ya?'

Clout.

Berry curls up on the concrete and wraps his arms around his head, brain rotating like a lost space probe.

'Where's ya mates now when y'need them then eh?' the drunk pants. 'Y'little cunt? Eh?'

He leans forward, one hand steadying himself against the wall, to make sure he gets it just right.

'Aaaaooowwwww!'

He knuckle dusts Berry again on the crown of his head.

'Aaaaooooow!'

Now the tears come.

The pain is sharp, long and thin, burning down through his scalp like an ice pick to the very seed of his brain.

'Aaaaooooow.'

The old pisshead straightens up, rasping air.

'Cunts need taught a fuckin lesson.'

He grabs at Berry's t-shirt and tries to pulls him along the side of the shed, scratching his shoulder as he goes.

'Right,' the drunk says. 'I'm gonna throw you in the fuckin dock. Y'little cunt. Howay! Y'gonna have a fall. How'd y'fancy havin a nice little accident, eh?'

He pulls him two feet towards the drop, like a resisting prisoner on his way to the hangman.

'No mister, please mister. Don't!'

Berry reaches out to grab one of the hut's legs. His eyes twisting in salty pools - overawed and overpowered.

'Little cunts like you,' the drunk pushes a foot down on Berry's arm, the one locking him to the hut. A damp sock pokes through a hole in the smooth sole of his shoe.

'Y'should be fuckin drowned at birth. Ah'd do it, ah would. Nay bother. Drownin little tormentin cunts like you at birth \- do the world a favour. It should be me job.'

Berry opens his eyes and tightens them into focus, chest blowing oxygen into the torrential blood storm.

'Eh, wha y'reckon?'

He pulls him a few more inches towards the void.

'That should be me job, drownin little cunts like you at birth. Eh? Eh?'

Clout.

'Good job for me that eh? Eh? Everybody'll think y'fell. Y'shouldn't be pissin around in the docks. It's dangerous.'

Drag drag.

'Do y'fuckin mother a favour. She'd thank me for it, wouldn't she, eh? Wouldn't she?'

Berry is stretched out like a man on a rack, his fingers still gripping the hut leg.

The old drunk takes a rest.

Berry inches under the shed – hand outstretched seeking a better grip.

'Keep still y'little cunt.'

The old pisshead stands on Berry's back. He isn't heavy.

Berry focuses under the hut looking for escape.

Something scurries across a flash of light from the TV then off into the dark.

Berry sharpens his eyes.

'She'd thank me for it, y'mam, wouldn't she, eh? Havin a little bastard like you, eh? Poor cunt.'

It's not over.

Clout.

Drag, drag.

'Aaaaow!'

The man fades and Berry tries to see through the blackness, his face lit by one of the slashes above his head. He looks up through it, there's a fan he hadn't noticed spinning on the roof of the Portakabin blowing a slight breeze through the floor and onto his face.

Berry looks into the darkness under the hut.

Light from the TV flashes between the wooden slats and dances along the edges of two clasped bunches of silver thread, tickling his nose.

Right in front of his face.

Nose to nose.

Two tiny black eyes.

Berry stares into an untidy, easygoing place – Queen Rat's friendly, curious soul.

'Hello, can I help?'

But the boy sees MURDER.

'Raaaat!' he jerks back. 'Uuuuuuuuuaaaagh!'

Ancient strength in his bones, like a woman lifting a truck off her baby.

'Uuuuuuuuuaaaagh!'

The old drunk tips backwards and lands hard on the bones of his arse, his legs and arms kick at the air like a tipped cockroach.

'Ah'll kill ya, y'little fucker.'

Berry's feet scrabble at the grit.

'Uuuuaaaaagh.'

The souls of his worn out trainers grip and launch him.

A crane passes by, the tube pyramid, then the dry dock to his right, another crane.

The black serpent Tyne blocks his escape, he turns to look back over the 100 metres he'd covered in four seconds – the wrong direction. He looks at his feet for Queen Rat - a black bin liner moves, pushed by a gentle river breeze.

'Uuuuuaaah!'

It wraps itself around his leg.

'Uuuuaaah!'

His legs rotate, setting their own course along the riverside, away from the rat, away from the old pisshead still on his back like a dog rolling in shit for scent.

'Uuuuuaaaah!'

Anywhere.

Saturday

Metal face to metal face
Thirty-seven minutes into the new day, and Billy 'Hash' Brown moves his limbs around Foggy's living room floor with a conductor's joy, a burning joint hanging from his bottom lip.

'Cured!' he says. 'I am! I'm fuckin cured man!'

He sucks hard on the spliff.

Liberated by tetrahydro-cannabinol.

'Looker, man!' Hash says. 'I am! I'm fuckin cured.'

He lifts the joint away from his mouth and beams like a ventriloquist's dummy - all teeth and eyes.

Foggy is slowly sinking into the folds of the sofa.

'Aye, class man,' Foggy says, eyes nipped half-closed by the same herbal tweezers.

He tries to look through Hash to the TV screen.

Hash moves like a Sixties hippy in a field, all he needs are a few flowers painted on his filthy white hat, Jimi Hendrix up on stage - and he's there. He weaves around the carpet's stains then sits back down in the easy chair by the window.

He passes Foggy the joint, who reaches for it with nicotine fingers that could have been pulled fresh from his anus. Hash puts his feet up on the coffee table, blocking Foggy's view as an advert for dead turkeys roles by.

"Bootiful," Hash says to the TV screen.

Foggy squints his eyes to try and focus around Hash's white Converse All Stars.

"Hey," he says.

"Wha?"

"Is that blood on your shoes?"

Hash looks at him, pulls his trainers down from the table.

"Silly cunt," he says.

"I dunno how you can work in that fuckin fish market. It's mingin."

"Aye."

Images flick across the state-of-the-stolen-art TV screen. The first few hours of a new day - Saturday – video tapes found on dusty shelves in a BBC cupboard, rammed into the broadcast machinery and the 'play' button pressed, the technician goes back to sleep on a sofa.

Foggy changes channels.

An advert rolls by - a spy on skis desperate to deliver a box of chocolates, putting an unreasonable amount of effort into getting a shag off some horsey-looking posh bird in a pearl necklace.

''All because the lady loves,'' Foggy mimicks the voice over, tapping the joint into the ash tray in his lap. '. . . it right up the fuckin jacksy. Why doesn't this bloke just stay home and have a wank, scran the chocolates himself?'

The spy ski-jumps over a white mountain.

'I wish it'd fuckin snow here,' Hash sighs. 'It's like Tener-fuckin-rife out there. We're not built for it man.'

'Aye, we're honkies mate,' Foggy says, sucking hard on the spliff.

'Sun's for the darkies like Jackson next door,' he continues, pointing the spliff at the wall. 'Y'met Jackson?'

'Nah.'

'Good lad, buys spliff off me. He's been sprawled out in his back yard all week, like the cunt's back in the jungle.'

'He was a bouncer at The Jungle?'

'Nah man, not The Jungle pub. The real jungle - Africa, or wherever the fuck the place is. Lions and gorillas and that.'

A woman on the TV seems to be having a shower wank, lubricating her hair with the latest generation of magical shampoo with some brand new just-this-very-second discovered extra-potent hair-rejuvenating magic ingredient scraped from a Martian's testicles, probably - follicle re-animating, life-giving meadow-down-smelling . . .

'It's just fuckin soap,' Hash says.

'Y'could use some soap, y'cunt,' Foggy says. 'Y'fuckin stink man.'

Bong.

It's time for the news: Sporadic riots across eastern Britain.

Bong.

Small pockets of people loot and burn.

Bong.

'Bong?' Hash says. 'Bong! Man, we should have a bong?'

'Aye? Dunno where it is though.'

A talking beard starts to say something, Foggy pulls the trigger – Channel Four.

Never listen to The Beards. It's the law.

Yet more televisual turd dribbles down the screen; some crap, pretentious French film.

But there might be tits in it, maybe even a fanny - so it stays.

'Your turn to make the tea,' Foggy says.

'Is it fuck?'

'Ah go on Julio, y'make the best tea in the world.'

It's true, Billy 'Hash' Brown makes a damn fine brew.

'Just coz y'bird's out suckin cocks doesn't make me y'skivvy.'

'Just think of it man, mmmm,' Foggy says, miming the holding of a mug of tea.

He's almost horizontal on the sofa now – sinking - head tilted just enough to watch the TV and suck on a spliff.

'A nice cuppa. That lovely taste across y'tongue and that. Mmmmm.'

He turns to look at Hash.

'And y'can try out y'new improved skin like, on the way.'

Hash looks at him, red eyed.

'Go on man,' Foggy continues. 'I made the last one.'

True.

Two scuffed mugs sit on the coffee table, right enough. It was piss weak and milky, Hash's mug untouched.

'That was yesterday, y'wanker,' Hash says.

'Looker!' Foggy says, pointing the joint at the TV screen. 'Looker!'

Two PG Tips monkeys drive a classic car, dressed like blue rinse old women.

'Howay man,' Foggy says. 'That's a fuckin message from 'above' that like. 'Billy Brown make the tea, make the tea Billy Brown. Make the fuckin tea, Bill-lee.''

A chimp dressed as a granny takes a sip.

'Fuck it,' Hash says, leaning forward. He reaches for the mugs, tightens the required muscles in his lower back and rises. 'Y'lazy bastard.'

'Good lad.'

Hash exhales and heads painlessly out of the door to the kitchen.

'Fuckin cured.'

He moves the top layer of rancid dishes piled high in the sink to make room. Fills the old metal kettle. Then returns it to its cable. He grabs both mugs and lifts his arms like a kid pretending to be an aeroplane. He flies the mugs into the sink.

'Nyeeeow. Fuckin cured!'

Hash turns on the tap to rinse the mugs, deciding against using the 15-year-old dishcloth festering beside a dirty frying pan, a hardened crust of lard sealing in stagnant water. He waits for the kettle to boil, leaning against the bench. He reaches over to a black plastic radio, flicks the 'on' switch.

Metro Radio, the local station.

'Alan, me name's Julie,' a woman crackles.

It's the Night Owls programme.

'Am a forst time caller and I'm a little bit norvus.'

'Don't be nervous Julie, we're all friends here,' the presenter says.

She yabbers on about how she'd been in hospital to have her tubes tied but still managed to get pregnant.

'Fuck me,' Hash mumbles. 'Why y'tellin people this grim shit?'

He turns to the whistling kettle.

''Get to those phones,'' he says, just like Alan Robson, the presenter. Last month, the local hero had opened the new Prestos supermarket down the road – finally putting a face to a voice.

'Fuckin ginga, ageing soft rocker in tight jeans.'

Hash opens the fridge and drips a little milk in each mug then puts in a tea bag. He fills them with boiling water. Stirs. Crushes the bags against the side, stirs again then waits for the liquid to turn the correct shade of beige.

He stirs again.

Waits.

The stoner's perfect cup of tea requires patience.

'Alan, me name's Harold and I'm a first time caller,' says a new radio voice \- trying to sound old.

Hash squeezes the tea bags against the inside wall of their respective mugs with the back of a spoon, then puts both bags into his own mug, stirring, listening.

'Hi Harold, don't be nervous. What would you like to talk to Night Owls about?'

'Well, Alan. It's a little bit embarassin.'

'Don't worry Harold,' Alan - I'm-Your-Pal-Honest - says. 'The Night Owls will understand.'

Hash moves both teabags into the other mug – gives them a squeeze against the side.

'Well Alan, it's about me piles. . .'

Hash snorts at the radio.

'. . . they're really raggin me arse man.'

'Harold' sounds heavy and amused - getting higher then lower, obviously a kid faking it as a grown-up.

There's a giggle, far in the background.

'Errm, ok? Yes. Harold, well. Lots of our listeners suffer hemorrhoids from time to time Harold. They're very common. Especially during pregnancy and . . .'

'But, but, Alan man, listen.'

'Yes?'

'They're hangin out of me backside Alan like, I dunno, like a bush full of bloody plums. Big purple PLUMS. Not even grapes man. PLUMS! D'y'know what I'm sayin? They're gonna burst. I daren't sit down. I daren't go to work.'

'Oh dear Harold, sounds very painful.'

'Painful? Painful . . . ?'

'Well Harold they'll . . . '

'I'm a bloody bus driver.'

Hash erupts.

'Ha ha ha ha.'

Alan, an old pro, fishes his own laugh from the back of his throat, clears it.

'What am I gonna do?' says the sore-arsed bus driver.

'Well, have you been to see a doctor?'

'A doctor? Alan, a bloody doctor? I can't be bendin over and stickin me anus hole in a quack's face Alan. What if I, y'know, pump?'

There's loud, childish sniggering behind the caller now, as the caller catches a note an octave higher - stifles it.

'Well Harold, there's really no need to worry. That's what doctors' are paid for and . . .'

There's a splutter down the line.

'Alan?'

'Yes Harold?'

'Ah think you're lovely.'

'Sorry?'

'I says, 'ah think you're lov-er-ly' Alan. I saw y'openin the new supermarket the other day. You're loverly. Fancy poppin round to my place later?'

There's a sound in the background like monkeys falling from a cage.

'Right, thanks for calling.'

'Y'should come round here Alan, y'should come round here now and show me your lovely little ginga haired co . . .'

The producer cuts the line.

'Well, very mature. You know, in all my years at Night Owls, I don't know why these people ring up and . . .'

Hash hits the 'off' button and reverses out the door, turns and pushes open the living room door with his foot, holding the two steaming mugs.

The perfect cup of tea.

Shame there's no digestives.

'What y'laughin at?' Foggy asks, a Stranglers LP cover on his lap, assembling a spliff. Skins in hand. He licks one.

'Some little fucker on Night Owls.'

Foggy smirks.

'Had that presenter bloke from Presto's fucked.'

'Aye?'

'Aye, kid sounded as fuckin stoned as us.'

'Doubt it mate,' Foggy says. 'We're the only ones with any blow in a hundred fuckin miles.'

≈

The hours and the spliffs roll by, the clock's minute hand spinning north, east, south and west like a fucked compass.

Foggy's fingers keep on rolling.

'Man, I'm fuckin baked,' Hash says.

A slice of light spills through the curtains over his shoulder, hot and white.

'Fuck, is it gettin light?' Hash's skin tries to roll away like a rug, all the way up into his slightly loosened hat.

Hash nods at the thick old curtains.

'Ugh, aye,' Foggy says, curled up on the sofa, one hand holding a spliff. Black discs forming around his eyes like the kohl on an Afghani fuck boy.

'Fuck, we've been smokin for hours.'

'Aye,' Foggy smiles.

'It's Saturday?' Hash says.

'Dunno? Is it?'

'Aye, fuckin hell eh?'

Hash moves his arms around.

'I'm still fuckin cured mate.'

'Aye?'

Hash sits way back, deep in the easy chair in his chocolate brown Kappa tracksuit.

'Bedtime for Bonzo. I might head home, have a bath and a kip.'

'Aye?'

Foggy scowls, he looks up at the clock.

'Hey?'

6.47am.

'What?' Hash says.

'It's Saturday?'

'Aye. It is.'

Hash's face stretches open, on its way to a fat yawn.

'Don't y'work down the fish quay with Talbot on Saturdays?'

Hash freezes in his pose, relaxed in the back of the sofa - deep and cosy - mouth halfway en route to a lovely yawn.

'Fuck!'

He erupts from the chair, reaching into his deep tracksuit trousers for his car keys. He pauses and looks, aghast, at Foggy.

'Fuck!'

Then makes for the door.

'Fuck!'

Down by the river's edge, and Rick E. Delaney sits watching the Tyne's fishing fleet gather in the dock like a postcard picture.

'Ye shall have a fishy on a little dishy,' Delaney sings the famous local folk song in a crap attempt at a Geordie accent, sounding more Welsh - most do. 'Ye shall have a fishy – when the boat comes in.'

He taps his splayed fingers on the steering wheel.

'Northern gimps.'

He sits in the staff car he'd taken from The Kernel's garage last night, he'd simply reached behind the security guard's desk for the keys while Norman the security guard had sneaked off to the bar.

A standard-issue white Ford Escort driven by every salesman and civil servant up and down the land.

And the police.

A kid carrying a fishing rod walks passed. He turns and looks at Delaney, makes the universal wanker gesture with his right hand.

'Copper wanker,' he squeaks. 'Fuck off!'

Delaney tries to smile at him, can't meet his eye - looks away.

'Spotty little oik,' Delaney mutters as the boy saunters off along the river's edge and sits on a stool.

'These bloody people,' he sighs. 'No respect for anything.'

The sun drifts her vaporising way in from the east, as is her wont, and Delaney moves his flour white arms away from the steering wheel as her veil edges up the bonnet to the windscreen.

He rolls down his sleeves and buttons the cuffs.

Demented seagulls form a screaming white cloud over a boat called Kirrin as she shunts her bulging way into The Gut, bowels swollen with cod dragged choking from the Dogger Bank fishing grounds. Her wake bobbles smaller boats tied to the dock like rowing boats on a municipal lake.

She arrives at her guaranteed berth with an angry reverse of her engines.

Delaney glances at the blue digits of the dashboard clock.

'0737 on a Saturday,' he says. 'I should be in bed. This better be worth it.'

He flicks his hair curtains away from his eyes and steps out of the car and scuttles straight into the shade.

The smell licks him. And the sweat from his armpits spills down his sides and into his beige chinos and, as he walks to the fish market's entrance, a cold stream flows to his anus.

Two smeared sentries stand at the entrance in orange rubber dungarees.

'Excuse me,' he says to either.

No response.

'Erm, excuse me?'

The man on the left, hair greased down to his eyebrows like spilled tar, turns his sunburnt face.

'Aye?'

'Is this the fish market?

'Eh?'

'Erm, you know, the market. The fish market?'

The man turns his head and looks up the strip of concrete that runs under a corrugated iron roof.

Cluttered masts rock in the water. Seagulls squeal overhead.

A squall of civilians stare into stacked boxes guarded by men in dirty rubber clothes, picking up fish and holding them close to their faces, turning them this way and that. Prices are scrawled on boards in chalk.

'Nah mate,' he says. 'It's a fashion shoot.

'Estee fuckin Lauder,' says the other.

Delaney looks up as a sunburnt gorilla of a man steps from the big boat called Kirrin and lands on the dock, two fish boxes balanced on each shoulder.

'Fashion shoot?' says Delaney, turning to face them.

The man gives him a 'you still fuckin here?' stare then resumes talking to his twin.

'Thanks, thank you. Erm. Thanks.'

Delaney walks ten yards and looks into the first stack of fish.

He braces himself then reaches into one of the plastic crates and pulls out a fine silver cod.

Dead.

It's ice cold with a suprisingly hard body beneath the oily skin. He holds it up by its tail, copying another man further up the dock - it starts to slip from his grasp.

He squeezes.

'Oh!'

It flies out of his hands.

'Oh!'

He tries to catch it. Reconnects, squeezes and launches it again.

'Jesus!'

It slaps onto the seething floor by the feet of a man sitting in the shade inside a dark iglu made from two stacks of iced fish.

'Oh sorry, sorry about that.'

Delaney picks up the fish.

The man moves his head back on his neck so he can see from under the dirty rim of his once-white jungle hat.

'Ayaz man,' the man whispers slowly, closing his eyes.

Delaney stares at the biblical figure below.

'Jesus Christ!' he squeaks.

The blistered young man stares back through sleepy, blood basted eyes.

'Sorry, I didn't, erm. Jesus!'

He holds the fish at his face.

'Erm?' Delaney asks, his face a painful question mark.

'One pound fifty.'

'One pound fifty!' he says. 'For one fish?

The leper says nothing.

'Oh yes, yes,' Delaney says. 'Okay. Fine, fine.'

He places a green note and a seven sided coin in the outstretched palm. It's pink and healthy but Delaney still tries not to touch it.

It closes around the money.

'Jesus!'

The back of the hand looks like a seared trotter.

'Erm thanks. Thanks. Thank you.'

Delaney carries his new friend to the water's edge.

He turns to look back at the young man in the hat. Only his feet and filthy tracksuit pants stick out from the side of the stacked crate.

'Leprosy? Scabies? Sailors get scabies, don't they? Jesus Christ – what's wrong with these people? Don't they wash? Don't they have doctors?'

He stares at his fish.

Its eye seems to follow his then - winks.

'Jesus!'

He drops it.

Slap.

To the floor.

'For God's sake!'

He bends to retrieve it, gripping the body.

'What y'after son?' a voice barks, hoarse and loud.

Heavy rubber boots step in front of his eyes.

Delaney rises and reassembles his face.

It's the fisher-ape from the big boat Kirrin.

Delaney throws the switch in his brain marked 'charm'.

'Hi,' he says, holding out his hand. 'I'm Rick, Rick E. Delaney.'

The sailor grabs hold of it with his slimy, sand-papered paw – pauses - then crushes it.

Slowly, looking Delaney in the eye.

'Talbot,' the man says. 'Wade Talbot.'

Delaney rescues the limb, massaging it gently with his other hand while trying not to drop the fish again.

'Nice fish,' he says.

Talbot turns his head and squints into the top box of the stack, he pulls his hand up and flattens his moustache against his top lip.

'Fresh as it gets.'

Fish sequins glitter in the grey hair.

'How much?'

'Twelve knicker.'

'Twelve pounds? Really? That seems an awful lot.'

'Aye? Y'reckon?'

'If you don't mind me asking. Fish and chips is only 80 pence. How can you charge £12 for a fish?'

'The box son, the fuckin box. There's two dozen cod in there.'

Hot blood races up Delaney's chest and squirts into his face.

'Hah,' Delaney says. 'Only joking.'

A man walking up the dock slaps Talbot on the back.

'Alreet big fella?' he says.

'Hallo John son,' Talbot roars after him.

He turns his head back to Delaney – his face says 'well?'

Delaney looks up the dock passed the sentry twins, the boy sits with his rod tipped in hope towards the river. And there's an old man with a rod further up. Another picture postcard.

'Actually,' he mutters. 'I was wondering if you could help me.'

'Aye?'

'Does anybody sell anything else down here?'

Delaney winks, slow and deliberate.

The stoned-leper-on-the-stool shakes his head and mutters; 'Who the fuck IS this twat?'

'Somethin wrong with y'eye son?' Talbot replies.

'Erm, ha ha.'

Talbot stares at him.

Delaney looks up and down the quay.

'Y'know. Something 'special'? A 'special' box.'

'Prawns?'

'No, no,' Delaney conspires. 'I'm after a 'special' box. I've been told to look for 'special boxes.''

Delaney's eyebrows are entirely out-of-control, the right one is currently somewhere in his hair.

He winks again.

'A 'special' box? Y'need to get yersel to The Jungle tonight for one of them kidda, and she'll charge ya more than twelve quid,' Talbot replies in equal tones.

'Sorry?'

'There's only blue or fuckin white man. Haven't got any fuckin solid gold or silver ones kidda, blue or white. Plastic. Them's y'choices. Not even got a pink one like, for southern poofs . . . like you.'

Delaney feels like a three-year-old determined to cross the English Channel in his armbands, drowning in all of three inches of water.

He keeps paddling.

'I mean, you know. I hear there's somewhere you can buy – you know - down here. I'm after some, you know, 'stuff'.'

A membrane flicks over Talbot's eyes then retreats into his forehead.

'Stuff'? Twelve quid for a box son, that's the price.'

Something dawns on Rick E. Delaney.

'Oh right! Right! I get you! Hah!'

Delaney's face opens into a smile, he lifts a hip and reaches down for his wallet.

'A box it is then,' he almost adds 'my good man.'

Delaney gives Talbot a brown note and two greens.

'Doddsy,' Talbot shouts to a YTS trainee teenager on Kirrin's deck. 'Box of cod for the gay lad here.'

The youngster steps forward in ubiquitous tracksuit bottoms.

'What?'

'Crate for the lad here.'

Doddsy takes a good second longer than the average human being to register the instruction.

'What?'

'Crate. Fuckin fish man, Doddsy. Jesus Christ. This is the fish quay man kidda. Fish.'

'Oh, oh. Aye.'

He lifts a blue crate from one of the stacks.

'Hurry up y'dumb cunt,' Talbot shouts, walloping Doddsy across the ear, sending him off at an angle like he's being pushed by a strong wind.

'Ouch! That'll rattle his brain cell,' Delaney says. 'Ha ha.'

Red eared Doddsy heads to Delaney with the box in the crux of his arms.

Delaney puts his single fish on top of the box then hold out his arms in the same pose, the boy drops it down.

The crate smells like an abandoned sperm bank.

'Right, right. Thank you,' Delaney says, but Talbot has dropped over the side onto his boat.

'Right,' he says again to no one, and walks up the dock with his stinking dripping box, through the gate, passed the sentries and out to his car, making the extra effort to keep himsef in the shade. He puts the box on the roof and fiddles with the key until the boot opens. He lifts the box from the roof and places it next to the spare wheel.

His Marks and Spencer shirt is licked and slapped to his back like an oversized stamp.

'That was EASY!' Delaney says. 'Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Investigative journalist, that's me.'

Delaney looks up and down the quayside over the raised boot, people are milling around, the old man and the boy have their rods tipped towards the Tyne in their garden gnome poses.

He lifts the lid, moves the top layer of fish around the white ice, they slip about on top of each other, one slips out and onto the dirty carpet in the boot. He shuffles around in the box, looking for the drugs package he knows he just bought, tipping more fish into the boot.

'What the?'

He spills them all and moves the frozen shoal around.

Nothing.

No drugs.

Just the dead fish.

High above the fish quay in the middle house in a row of five, and a teenage girl throws open heavy curtains to the rude late-morning sun.

Spilling hot gold over Ted Berry's face.

'Uh? Guh? Uh?'

Wrenching him up, up and away like a hooked fish from his dark comfortable place on Wedge's living room floor, asleep on the Afghan rug.

'Uh?'

A burning angel stands at the window. She peels aside the second maroon stage curtain that had, until just now, been holding back the day.

'Wakey wakey,' the angel sings. 'Rise and shine.'

'Holly!' Wedge croaks from the sofa. 'Shut the fuckin curtains.'

Weasel, the Wujkowski family's chilled-out jazz cat, isn't happy either, he buries his black head under a cushion.

'You two are mingin,' she says. 'Y'been smokin joints? Y'shouldn't smoke in here. Even Trudi doesn't smoke her spliffs in here.'

She pushes the middle sash window up its frame. The manic preaching of seagulls drifts up from the river below.

Holly rolls up the two remaining windows on either side of the living room's bay.

There is no escape.

'Hiya Ted,' she says.

'Holly,' Berry croaks, burying his vibrating head into the fold of his arm curled on the floor, his elbow knocks the phone.

'Aw? Bad head, handsome?'

'Uh? Nah. Eh? Aye. Ha heh heh.'

He lifts his arm away from his eyes.

And sees a black shadow cut into a yellow world - Holly at the window.

'Shit!' she says - hands on those hips – and turns her head back to the room. 'What y'done now? It's the POLICE! Looker!'

Berry jerks alive.

'Looker,' she says.

Wedge leans forward and rises then pauses - he stares, blinking his eyes, his sun-slapped face marked with white ruts from lying all night on one of the sofa's many zips.

He stumbles to her side, one hand held out to guide the way.

Berry stares at the red Adidas bag, open by the fireplace next to three empty brown plastic two-litre bottles, all of which once contained Olde English Cider. He sits up sharply from the floor to grab the bag, but it's way too much for his mashed brains to cope with.

'Oh. Fuck me. Man.'

He grips his head with both hands.

'Slag!' Wedge says pushing his fraternal twin sister to the side. 'I nearly shat meself.'

False alarm.

There's nothing there but parked cars.

'Ha!' she says. 'Made y'look! Made y'stare! Made y'shit y'underwear.'

'Slut'

Berry falls back to the cushions.

'Fuckinhell man.'

'It's a lovely day,' Holly says. 'Shouldn't you two be out, y'know, playin?'

'Shouldn't you be out suckin cocks?' Wedge says, miming a blow job with his tongue against a cheek.

'Jay!' she jabs her brother in the ribs. 'Y'horrible little prick.'

Her feet squeak away from the window.

'Need a piss,' Wedge grunts.

He follows Holly, scratching his balls.

Berry gathers his legs and rises. He staggers to the Adidas bag and tucks it behind the curtain then looks out of the window.

It's bright outside.

'Fuck's sakes.'

Too bright.

He closes his eyes, and can feel the route the wires take as they curl their way into his brain.

He squints blind across the roofs of the fish quay's buildings and the parked masts of two dozen or more fishing boats, gathered in The Gut like pencils in a jar.

The fat river glides towards the city like spilled gold.

Holly patters along the hallway on the otherside of the plasterboard and out into the sunshine, she turns and looks up at the sky.

She's in her shorts, tight jeans she'd cut the legs off. They grip her flesh, slashing out the Beetle bonnet shape of her fanny in definite brush strokes.

'Ai yai yai.'

The soldier in Berry's trousers starts his slow salute.

A silver Mercedes purrs up to the pavement behind her, the engine dies. The springs relax and out comes Wedge's neighbour of two doors separation.

The one, the only - the living legend.

Wade Talbot.

'Shit the fuckin bed,' Berry says.

Talbot has the face of a thousand photofits: a rag of greying hair covers his head, a nose battered flat by fists, steel moustache rusting at frayed ends. Two oily black eyebrows – oddly unfaded with age. It's a face that would scream 'Guilty!' to any jury in the land.

No matter the offence.

Holly turns her face from the sky to greet him.

'Hey pet,' Talbot shouts. 'Bloody hot again innit?'

'Aye Wade,' she says. 'It's lush.'

'Phew, dunno bout that like pet,' Talbot says. 'Say hiya to ya mam for iz.'

Talbot walks up two doors and into his house.

Slam.

He closes the door.

Berry needs to sit down, the cider drank and the dope smoked last night have left dirty boot prints inside his head.

'Fuckinhell,' he sighs.

The Wujkowski living room has a middle eastern feel, rugs and cushions for the floor, throws and cushions for the huge sofa and cushions and cushions and more fucking cushions - plus a live cat - for the armchair. Berry sits in it, next to Weasel, to spread the load that has been shed inside his skull.

He plays with the lumps and contours of the cat's chewed ear. Weasel looks up in appreciation, stretches his paws so his claws extend like talons.

Berry presses the remote's little red button.

A bland TV presenter is in his 'broom cupboard' talking to a young girl on a telephone. She gets some retard-grade questions right and wins a 'radio-in-a-bag' and some other cheap useless crap for the bottom of her wardrobe.

The presenter drips pure cheese.

'Wanker,' Berry mutters.

His thumb hovers over the trigger as Mr Cheese's sidekick appears on the desk, a yellow puppet called Gordon who is, apparently, a gopher.

'Fuck's a gopher anyway?'

The gopher creases, squeaks cheaply, turns then looks at the camera with its sewn on button eyes.

'What a fuckin shit job,' Berry says.

'What?' Wedge says, returning to the imprint his supersized skull had left in the monster couch.

'Fuckin Sock Bloke,' he says, pointing at the television with the remote.

'What?'

'Some silly prick's crouched on the floor there, under that desk - with their hand inside a fuckin sock.'

'Aye? So?'

Mr Cheese raises up slightly on one arse cheek and a guilty smile slides across his face, which briefly flushes pink. Then he chuckles – for no apparent reason.

'Did he just . . .' Berry coughs, pointing the remote at the screen. '. . . fart?'

The presenter grabs a sheath of papers, taps them on his desk, then turns them to the side.

He gives the air a gentle - but most definitely deliberate - waft.

'He did!' Wedge says. 'He fuckin guffed!'

Even the puppet looks shocked, it disappears under the Formica. There's the sound of a man on his knees scrambling away, holding his nose with a fucking gopher sock/puppet.

The screen turns to a Bananaman cartoon.

Berry rises from the chair.

'My turn,' he says. 'Oh . . . fuckinhell man.'

He steadies himself and then walks out the door and down the corridor to the toilet where his stretched bladder begins to empty like a fire hose, he puts his hand against the wall. Then his forehead.

Still the piss flows.

It stops, spits - 'Fuck's sakes man' - spurts again.

He draws out the last few drops manually, pulling two fingers along the tube behind his nutsack before shaking and tucking. He pulls the chain.

His mouth feels like a tramp's blanket.

He heads through the compressed shade of the hall to the white light of the kitchen for a drink of water.

The pipes in the wall rattle and scream as he opens the stiff tap into a glass. He pours the whole thing down his throat.

He fills the pint glass again, drinks half of it.

'Ah man.'

And suddenly life feels a whole lot better.

He finishes the water, opens the tap and swallows a third of the new glass before turning and heading back to the living room.

Wedge is back at the window.

Berry hands him the glass.

'Cheers.'

Berry looks up the street.

'Here's y'mam.'

Trudi Wujkowski is walking down the road like she'd just found her way home from a Happening that finished sometime around 1970. She's dressed in a short, tight Paisley dress. She was 17 when the 60s ended, but she can still pull it off.

Sort of.

An earlier draft of perfection.

She stands next to her daughter.

Neither has a supersized skull.

'Fuckinhell?' Berry says.

'What?'

Berry smiles.

'Y'take after y'dad then eh?'

'Dunno. Never met the prick. Why?'

Berry snorts.

'Ha heh heh.'

Wedge looks at him confused, his nose and cheeks sprayed with a fresh crop of freckles.

'Fuck y'witterin on about now?'

'Nothin, nothin,' Berry says. 'Ha heh heh.'

Trudi walks up the path and into the house. Her heeled shoes tap down the hall and the toilet door opens.

'Where's the bag?' Wedge says.

'Behind the curtain.'

Wedge reaches for Smithy's bag and walks to the kitchen, Berry follows.

Berry sits at the big round table while Wedge unlocks the back door and steps out into the yard with the bag.

'Fuck's he doin?'

He listens to the piss fountain as Wedge's mother squats on the toilet on the other side of the thin wall behind the table.

He cringes.

It seems like just too much of an intrusion.

It slows.

Speeds up again.

There's just the faintest sound of a thin, drawn out fart.

The toilet flushes.

Trudi arrives, smelling of cigarette smoke and spilled wine.

Back from her Friday night out.

'Hi Bez,' she ruffles his short black hair and sits in a chair.

She sighs.

'Have a good night?' she says, reaching for the pack of menthol cigarettes on the table.

'Aye, good laugh.'

'What y'do?'

She has the cigarette at her mouth, lights it.

Trudi Wujkowski looks exactly like an art teacher at a sixth form college - because that's what she is.

'Just stayed in. Here. With Wedge - I mean Jason. Runt and KP came round too. Watched telly, drank cider, listened to Night Owls and that.'

'That's nice.'

Silence.

She exhales mint tobacco and stares vacantly out across her kitchen. Her feather earrings look like pheasants shot from the sky.

Berry realises, she's probably feeling even worse than he is.

A conversation is in order.

'I just saw Talbot,' he says.

'Wade?'

'Aye. Is it true what they say about him like, that he's a nutter and that?'

'What?'

'Wedge says he got done for killing someone, in the '60s.'

'1976. It was hot.'

'Hot?'

'He had a fight with a bouncer outside The Jungle, that's all. He only got three years. The bloke was bigger than Wade. And, anyway, he started it.'

'Didn't he cut the bloke's head off with a shovel?'

'Spade,' she exhales. 'A spade.'

Berry's eyes light up with fear.

True awe.

Missplaced, Trudi thinks.

'Wade's a lovely man,' she says. 'Don't listen to Jay. Wade just overheats sometimes, that's all. He'd do anything for you, give you the shirt off his back he would. Honest.'

She looks up to where the sun shines in the back window.

'I'm glad he's me neighbour, he makes me feel safe. He's not someone you wanna be scared of Ted. There's worse blokes out there than Wade Talbot, believe me.'

Wedge returns from the back yard with a badly rolled spliff at his lips.

Trudi crushes her menthol cigarette into the soil of the plant pot that sits on the cheap plastic table. Two dozen other butts lie curled up in the family graveyard.

This is a smokers household.

'Cuppa?' Wedge says, kettle poised over the sink.

'Yes please?' she says, face suspicious.

Wedge fills the kettle from the tap.

'What y'done now Jay?' she sighs.

Wedge turns at the sink, innocent, the spliff still at his lips.

'Nothin. Nothin.'

Mock hurt in his voice.

He wanders off for his lighter.

The kettle boils.

Wedge returns, splashes water over the tea bag, removes it and then glugs in some milk.

He hands it to her.

She takes a sip.

Winces.

'Mmm,' she says. 'Thank you son.'

She pushes it to the side, waiting for him to talk. She puts a stray strand of hair behind her ear, brushing away approximately 20-years.

'Mam?'

'Yes,' she smiles - big as Texas - full of wisdom and mischief. 'Dear?'

Berry smiles with her, resistence is futile.

'Ehm?'

'What Jason? What y'done?'

Her eyes sharpen.

'Is that a?'

She smells the air.

'Are you smokin a joint?'

He passes it to her. She looks at it, it's a mess - she'll have to give him a spliff-rolling lesson.

'Where'd you get this from? There's a drought on.'

She puts it to her lips and inhales.

'Nice,' she exhales. 'Oooh, really nice.'

Wedge looks at Berry then back to his mother.

'Do y'wanna buy some, mam?'

She stops, turns her eyes to him - a second toke of smoke still inside her lungs.

Berry's head falls off his shoulders, bounces out the back door, up and over the wall and rolls away to safety up the street.

'What?' she says, exhaling.

Berry nips his eyes closed.

'Fuckinhell,' he whispers.

'A mate's got some to sell, that's all.'

Wedge pulls out a fat brick of brown gold.

'Can you help us – him - sell it?'

'Jesus Christ!' Trudi says. 'Where the hell did you get ALL that from?'

Trudi grabs hold of the block, the corner peeled off – smoked last night on Wedge's living room floor by Berry and Wedge, plus the departed Runt and KP, now out spreading the good word around town.

'Is that a lot?' Wedge says.

'You fuckin what? Where the hell did you get this from?'

'From a mate!' Wedge says.

'What 'mate?' Who?'

'Just a bloke.'

'A bloke?'

She eyes him up and down.

He's panicking, she knows her son, he's panicking.

'Bez's mate, Berry knows him.'

She turns her body and looks into Berry's eyes and straight out his anus.

He fixes his face in time.

'Aye, ehm. Jerry.'

'Jerry?'

'Aye, ehm. He's a mate of me brother. Will. Mate of Will's like. Brought some back from abroad, like. Abroad.'

'Abroad?'

'Will's in the navy,' Wedge says.

'Merchant.'

'The navy?'

'Aye. They were in, ehm, some Arab place.'

'Some Arab place?'

'Ehm, aye. In Arabia. Camels and that.'

'Camels, Bez?'

'Ehm, aye. Camels.'

She turns the block around in her hands.

'You sure?'

'Aye. I swear,' he looks at Wedge. 'On Jason's life.'

'Jerry?'

'Aye, that's his name,' Wedge chips in.

She rolls the block in her hands, bouncing it up and down in her hand, testing the weight.

'Must be about four or five ounces.'

She smells it. Takes a draw on the spliff.

'This is probably worth about four hundred quid.'

Berry and Wedge's eyes meet.

'Shit the fuckin bed!' Berry says.

'Four HUNDRED quid?' Wedge agrees.

'Maybe more. Foggy, do you know Foggy?' she says. 'Y'know? Mark Fogarty?'

'Skinny bloke?' Wedge says. 'Looks like a fuckin refugee?'

'That's him.'

'Know who he is, like. But don't really 'know' him.''

'Same,' Berry says.

'He's a nice lad, he might buy it off you.'

Wedge and Berry smile.

'Four HUNDRED quid! For just ONE block?'

She sniffs it again, with real pleasure.

Then scowls, tuning in to what her son just said.

''Just ONE block'? You mean there's MORE than one? How much has this bloody Jerry bloke got like?'

Wedge flicks his eyes to Berry.

'Ah, dunno, ehm. A few.'

In the social club at the bottom of Wedge's street, and Wade Talbot stands at the bar.

'Bottle of Dog please Marion,' he says.

Saturday afternoon on the piss, a Talbot family ritual.

Marion the landlady lifts her peroxide-scorched hair up from under the illuminated gravestones screwed to the bar, wet beer towel in hand.

'Hiya Wade,' she replies, reaching behind to the row of Brown Ale bottles, standing proud with their chests puffed out. She pulls a steaming glass from the white plastic wash tray.

Talbot turns.

'Lager?'

'Aye,' Billy 'Hash' Brown replies, scanning the McEwans, Guinness and guest ales.

He nods at the blue pump.

'Fosters.'

His skin nips and tweaks.

'Ayaz,' Hash catches his breath. 'Man.'

Marion tilts the glass under the tap and presses the button.

'Y'gonna take that stupid fuckin hat off kidda or what?' Talbot asks.

Hash reaches up.

Stops.

'Nah, I can't man.'

'Y'could have had a fuckin shower at least,' Talbot grunts. 'Y'fuckin stink man. You've been in them clothes since Wednesday.'

Talbot turns.

'Ladies?'

Kathleen – Hash's wife - turns to her father. Her carefully exploded hair is spray-locked into position with enough CFCs to rip the ozone off the top of a small Australian town.

'Gee and tee,' she says, turning to a squat, Weeble-of-a-woman – Wilma'll wobble but she won't fall down, no matter how many gin and tonics she downs. 'Mam?'

'Aye pet,' answers Mrs Talbot. 'The usual.'

'Two gee and tees please dad.'

'Okay pet,' he turns to the bar.

'Two gin and tonics pet.'

Hash lifts his frothing, over-gassed pint from the lager spill it sits in. He wipes the bottom on a blue beer towel.

'Cheers.'

Clink.

'No bother son.'

Hash turns to the door and the flashing fairground of a one-armed bandit. He glides towards it, locked on to the bright lights like an epileptic rabbit. He looks into the reflection of the machine's black glass and watches the female Talbots head to the torn bench beneath the bay window.

The same bar, the same drinks, same seat even - every single Saturday of the year, aside from their week in Lloret-de-Mar. No need for that this year, with all this 'nice' weather.

They sit, fussing with their hair.

'One pint and then I'm fuckin off to Foggy's for a spliff,' Hash mutters to the reflected leper, now caked in suntan lotion from a bottle in Kathleen's bag.

Way too late.

'Maybe two, tops.'

Coins fall down its throat and onto the landlord's pile, he pushes the fat red button and fruit flash by, settling on two cherries and a slice of melon.

Nudge.

Bonus.

The excited machine lights up a red herring.

He ignores the offered nudge and spins the wheel.

Loses.

Spins the wheel again.

Loses.

Making the machine think it's got the better of him.

Two melons and a jack fill the line and he's offered six nudges, he squats down.

'Ayaz man!'

And looks around the rim to the top of the wheel. He senses another jack and pushes the middle yellow button twice, nudging the jack into line. He jabs at the left button and a lemon appears at the top of the reel - he presses again - a jack.

'You fuckin beauty!'

Two nudges and it falls into place – jackpot.

Ten pounds.

'Cher-fuckin-ching!'

Chucker, chucker, chucker.

The machine spills its worthless beans.

Hash's skin cracks over the back of his neck like the label on a plastic bottle as he bends to the tray to shovel out his winnings.

'Fuck AYAZ man!'

Hash looks in his hand.

'Fuckin tokens? TOKENS? For fuck's sake.'

Currency accepted only by this machine, refused even at the bar.

Hash feeds the thieving bandit.

Talbot's face appears in the black screen. His moustache smoothed and an effort made with a comb through the greasy tangle of hair for the most important social engagement on the Talbot calendar.

'Y'luck's changin kidda, looker,' Talbot says.

He sips at his Brown Ale, poured into a half pint glass being held in the fist marked MASH.

Hash had never taken to the national drink of Geordieland, the city's most famous export.

Rightly so, it tastes like farts.

'Aye,' Hash replies, looking at his scorched hand. 'Maybes.'

Click, roll, click.

Click, roll, click.

He ignores its excited lights and noises. The tokens are sent back where they came from. He pushes the button.

'How's y'burns? Look much better.'

'Better. Aye. Much better. Kathleen's an angel,' Hash says. 'She should have been a nurse. That cream worked wonders.'

'Ah that's good, good, kidda,' he says, putting a paw on top of the machine. 'She loved playin nursies when she was a bairn and that.'

The screen lights up and Hash winds the wheels round as he gets his required nudges.

'She says y'didn't come home last night,' Talbot says.

Hash nudges a watermelon - too far - it sits at the base of the screen, missing, this time, a cash pay out.

'Jesus Fuckin,' he says.

He spins another token.

'It's just me skin y'know. It keeps me awake. So I just stayed up watchin telly at a mate's.'

'Who?'

'Foggy. Y'know Foggy.'

'Aye. Bloody waster. Half asleep all the time. Smokes too much dope. Kid should get himself a job.'

The public phone nailed to the wall next to the bar rings out across the saloon, Marion lifts the black handset from its housing.

'Hello,' she sings. 'Queen Street Club.'

'Anyway,' Talbot continues. 'I thought y'skin was alright now?'

'Aye, but it's still, y'know. A bit sore at night and that.'

Even through the active fairground of a screen, Talbot still meets his reflected stare.

'Don't you go playin away from home son, y'hear?' he says, nodding to his wife and daughter. 'That girl's seven months pregnant.'

'Wade,' the barmaid shouts.

'Aye?'

'Phone.'

Talbot's steps away from the bandit.

Hash edges back an inch to see Marion in the machine, holding the handset out across the bar. Talbot puts it to his ear.

'Hullo?'

'Maybes I should have a cold shower?' Hash sighs. 'Get the fuck outta here.'

Hash calms the bandit, hand poised over the red button, and watches his father-in-law turn and look at his back and then to the two women sitting at the window table.

'Just messin?' Talbot mutters.

Talbot's sunburnt face tightens into a scowl, an eyebrow creasing up in the middle like a sliced centipede.

'Aye? Right, right. Aye. Bye.'

Hash re-ignites the machine as Talbot hands the receiver - 'Thanks Marion' – back across the bar. He watches him arrive, the paw marked PIES reaches over his shoulder and up to his drink on top of the machine and his eyes settle in the same position, ignoring the fruit - staring at his son-in-law.

The glass heads to his mouth, foam bubbles settle on his moustache. His chest lifts and he burps; pure hops and barley, same as a good fat fart.

'Everythin alright?' Hash asks, as he scans the lower line of fruit.

He presses the middle button.

A fruit mixture falls on the line and sends the machine bat shit with excitment, Hash moves his eyes to make sense of it all.

'What?' Talbot replies.

'Y'know. Phone.'

'Nothin for you to worry about, kidda,' he turns and heads over to his family, pulls out a stool and squats with the two wittering women.

'Gotta go girls,' he says.

He necks his drink.

'Aw dad, it's Saturday,' she says, like it's Halley's Comet.

'I know, I know petal,' he soothes her. 'Just a bit of business. I've got to go check on a boat. I'll be back in a bit.'

He rises, rattling his car keys.

Hash looks at himself in the machine, sun cream clotted around the wounds on his cheeks.

'Thank fuck,' he sighs. 'For that.'

He drops in the final few tokens.

'It's spliff o'clock for Billy Brown!'

And spins the wheels.

'Lose y'bastard, lose.'

Up in the park, and an excitable ginger-haired 15-year-old boy called Runt races down the curling path of scattered stones that leads under the road on his BMX bike, yellow plastic wheels flashing beneath him as he goes.

'Bez!' he shouts.

Ted Berry stands in the tiled mouth of the subway, Wedge is out on the grass - burning stuff.

As usual.

'Bez!' Runt pants. 'Wedge!'

Cars flit flit along the deadly dual carriageway overhead.

'Aye?'

'Crosby wants some. He says he's gonna meet y'down here.'

'Crosby?' Wedge says.

He looks at Berry.

'Crosby?' Berry says. 'Fuckinhell man!'

'What?' Runt says, defensively. In answer to the look on Berry's face.

Runt - Neil Donnelly - is a sickly gingerbread of a boy, the runt of the litter, his two older brothers both rugby playing thugs.

'What y'tell that wanker for?'

'Y'know, I just? I dunno, man. Wedge said, y'know, to try sell the stuff.'

Runt parks his bike behind the bench, walks to the front of it and sits down.

Quietly.

Berry turns to look at the red Adidas bag, stashed under the other park bench on the opposite side of the thin path.

'Fuck's sakes man,' he sighs.

Wedge fumbles into the weeds that run up the hill on either side of the path down to the subway and pulls out a Presto's shopping trolley.

'Let's take his money?' he says as he pushes the trolley's limping wheels towards the tunnel under the road. He turns it on its side. 'Y'could take that fucker anyway Bez, I reckon. He's not that hard. He's just a fuckin pikey.'

Wedge has an empty Tizer can at his toes.

Game on.

'But?' Berry says.

'What?'

Berry looks at him.

Then at Runt.

'Wedge man? We can't?' he looks at Smithy's red Adidas bag. 'Fuck's sakes.'

Sighs.

'Fuck it. Nothin, nothin.'

Wedge boots the can, it skims over the bar of the trolley goal and down towards the subway.

Berry fetches it, heads up the hill and kicks it, it spins on its axis and clatters into the back of the metal net.

'Kee-gan!'

Wedge has another go – but boots the Tizer can well wide.

Berry takes the can, lines her up.

Smashes her into the goal.

Wedge fetches the can from the goal, boots it – way too hard. It flies over the trolley and deep into the ceramic tiled subway.

'Ah bollocks.'

There's a flash inside the cave, someone lighting a cigarette.

Watching them.

'Ah man,' Berry mutters. 'Crosby already?'

It isn't.

A man saunters from the bunker dressed in faded black jeans, turned up at the bottom - white socks stuffed into black boots. White t-shirt. He's thin, skin and bone, and has a truly dreadful haircut - combed to the left. Greasy. The back of his head a long perm.

A mistake, surely?

He walks up the stones, a rolled cigarette hanging out of the side of his mouth.

'Nice shot, bru,' he says, the tin can in his hand. He straightens up, drops it and kicks it up the ramp to Wedge's feet.

'It is very hot today, no?' says the man. 'The forecast says today is the hottest day in so many years.'

'Aye?' Wedge says, warily. 'Bastard hot mister.'

'Is there somewhere to eat around here?' he asks.

He has a weird accent.

The word 'Scorpions' is written in fat red letters across his chest.

'Aye,' Wedge says, foot on the can like a hunter with a shot rabbit.

'Gunslinger's.'

He nods up the hill.

'Chippy. Up there. Through the park. In the precinct.'

The man's smile raises the pockmarked skin below his eyes like a stage curtain.

But there's no light in those smeared black eyes.

'Get a chip stottie wi gravy,' Berry adds. 'That'll sort y'right out.'

'A chip stottie with gravy? Ah fosure. I will do that. Thank you.'

He steps up the ramp.

'Tell them to go easy on the hair tho,' Berry says, grabbing the can with his right foot.

The foreigner's smile collapses, cheeks falling down the sides of his face like a Basset Hound's jowls.

'I am sorry?'

He stares, too long.

Way too long.

Berry feels like blinking for him, to wet his eyeballs.

'Easy on the hair,' Berry blinks. 'Chips. They always come with hair.'

'Pubes,' Wedge says. 'Probably.'

The foreigner's face lifts again like a window blind.

'Uzut? Ha ha ha. Easy on the hair,' he says. 'I shall remember that.'

He comes up parallel with Berry and his foot darts out, quickly stealing the can. He twists, rolls it under his body, deft as Johan Cruyff, and kicks.

It ricochets around the inside of the goal.

'Have a nice day boys.'

He heads up the curling strip, the crap Euro-metal band's tour dates written in blood red on his back.

KP passes him on the path.

'Hallo mister,' he says.

The foreigner ignores him.

Berry gets up and collects the can.

'Man,' he says. 'I know that bloke from some-fuckin-where.'

He kicks the can, it skims the trolley cross bar and skids down deep into the subway.

'Ah bollocks.'

Tyres whoosh whoosh on the road overhead.

Berry can't be arsed to go fetch the can. He sits on the bench.

'Alreet fuckstick,' KP greets him.

'Knob jockey.'

He sits next to him on the bench.

'Bell end.'

'Cock shopper.'

'Arse face.'

'Wank pilot,' Berry smiles.

'Piss flaps.'

'Bum boy.'

'What's this like?' Wedge says. 'A fuckin swear-off?'

KP and Berry turn on Wedge.

'Cunt features.'

'Piss bucket.'

'Fucksucker.'

'Fucksucker?' KP nods in appreciation. 'Nice one. That's just what the cunt looks like.'

Wedge sits with silent Runt on the bench on the other side of the skinny path.

'Reckon that bloke was a copper?' Wedge says.

'With that fuckin hair?'

'Miserable cunt looks like Droopy,' KP says, looking up the hill.

Wedge pulls his Ventalin inhaler from his pocket, takes a dose.

A cigarette takes its place at his lips.

~

KP heads back up from the subway black hole with the retrieved Tizer can in hand.

'Droopy's comin back,' he says. 'Looker'

The foreigner ambles down the grey stone chips with a grey paper parcel and a bottle of Thunderbird wine in his hands. Red label, the mean stuff. The blue label version is for pussies.

He arrives.

'Do you mind if I sit here?' he asks.

Berry does, but moves along the seat anyway - gripping the Adidas bag between his ankles as he goes.

KP takes a shot at goal.

'Aw fuck,' he says, as the can spins up onto the busy road.

Vwoosh.

Vwoosh.

Crunch.

Game over.

'Your friends are not so good at football, no?' the foreigner says, unwrapping the package. The bottom of the chip parcel is turning beige as the fat, gravy and vinegar fuse with the paper.

'Seen the fuckin clip of them? Cunts should be in a circus.'

Then nods at Runt.

'Mute boy over there,' Berry says. 'He can be the fuckin ringmaster.'

Steam bursts out from the package.

'Uzut? I asked him to go easy on the hair, Mr Berry,' he says, tilting the paper in his direction. 'I can't see any, can you?'

KP looks confused.

The stottie sits like a round cushion made from bread - cut in half, filled with chips then soaked in diarrhoea.

'Y'need to have a rummage about a bit.'

'Aye mister,' KP says. 'Have a look under the lid.'

The man lifts the top layer of bread and stares at the chips and gravy below. He scowls, jowls collapsing.

'Well, I?'

He nips finger to thumb, moves a chip and lifts up a tiny, almost manicured hand.

'Is this?'

He'd never make it as a guitarist.

'A red head? Ah fosure.'

He holds a long ginger hair, a flake of batter clings to it like an abseilor.

'Aw, aye,' Berry says. 'That'll be Gordon.'

'I am sorry?'

'Gordon must be on the fryer, he's a ginga.'

'Probably plucked fresh from his fat ginga ring,' KP adds.

'Or his bollocks. Ha heh heh.'

'What is this word 'ginga'?'

He opens the bottle of Thunderbird and takes a long, long but careful sip.

His eyes never move from Berry.

'Like fuckin Runt boy there,' Berry nods across the gap.

'Fuck off,' Runt awakens with a squeak. 'I'm not a ginga. Me mam says I'm strawberry blonde.'

The man offers the bottle to Berry.

'Nah thanks.'

Berry stands up onto the path.

Wedge takes his place on the bench, locking the bag between his ankles.

'Would you like,' the foreigner compresses a burp. 'Excuse me. Would you like some alcohol?'

'Aye, go on,' Wedge says. 'Ta.'

He tilts the bottle of hooch.

'Baaaarp,' Wedge passes it back. 'Ta.'

'They safe to eat now?' says the foreigner.

'Aye, y'only get one pube per order,' Berry says. 'They gotta make sure there's nuf to go round.'

Wedge puts his hand in the pack and pulls out three gravy-soaked chips.

'Fuck! Shit! Wank!'

He blows on his fingers.

'Hot.'

'You boys swear a lot,' Kristiaan says. 'Ah fosure. It is very cool, no?'

Berry's even cooler spit – thwock \- is on its way towards the wire goal. It hits then hangs from the Prestos trolley handle, it drips down to the ground like an ever-thinning goalkeeper.

The foreigner pulls out a chip, splits it in half, blows then puts it gently on his tongue. He chews about a thousand billion times before his Adam's Apple finally pistons it away. The stottie will take a week to eat, at this rate.

He wipes his hand clean on the dry part of the wrapper.

'I am Kristiaan.'

Wedge shakes it.

'You're a christian?' Wedge says.

Berry turns to KP.

'Fuck me,' he whispers. 'Fuckin God botherer. I knew he was sellin somethin.'

His curtain face falls down around those black eyes. He still has hold of Wedge's hand.

'A christian? Me? No. I am circumcised. It is my name. My name is Kristiaan. Krist-ee-aan. With two As.'

'Ah,' Berry says embarrassed. 'Right.'

'And your name?' he turns to Wedge.

'Jason. Jason Wujkowski.'

'Ah, Wujkowski,' he pronounces it perfectly. 'Uzut. You are Polish?'

Wedge smiles.

'Grandad.'

'Ah the war. The war. Yes, yes. I see.'

Kristiaan lets go of Wedge's hand.

'Polish?' KP says.

He makes the Universal Wanker gesture with his right hand.

'Leave him alone two minutes and he'll give himself a polish, that's for sure.'

'I am sorry?'

'Thirty seconds, more like,' Berry adds. 'He's called Wedge.'

'Veg?' Kristiaan says, wiping his hand clean of Wedge's gravy stained handshake. 'Nice to meet you Veg.'

'Veg!' Berry and KP snort in tandem. 'Veg!'

'I am sorry?' says Kristiaan.

'Ha fuckin ha,' Wedge sighs. 'Cheers mister.'

'I think they are ripping you?' Kristiaan says to Wedge. 'They are not so nice. Uzut? You are not nice to your strange little friend here. Why do you laugh at him?'

'Y'seen his fuckin head?' KP says.

'Masseev,' Berry says. 'Napper!'

''Massive napper'? What does this mean?'

'His head,' Berry points. 'Sniper's fuckin dream.'

Kristiaan sharpens his eyes on Wedge.

'Oh, I see. It is very large, yes?'

'For fuck's sake,' Wedge says.

'Ah, do not worry. It is a fine head. You are very handsome.'

'Y'speak funny mister.'

Kristiaan pulls off a piece of gravy-soaked bread and the piston in his throat bounces.

'I am from the Netherlands,' he answers. 'Holland, as you call it. I am here to train.'

'On the train?'

'To train,' Kristiaan rolls out the syllables, nods up to the cars flashing along the dual carriageway. 'At the fire station.'

'Ah, cool!'

Berry looks up to the fire station's five storey practise tower on the other side of the dual carriageway, a much climbed thing.

'At home, I am a fireman. I am here to learn about a new machine.'

'A fireman?' Wedge says. 'Cool. I wouldn't mind bein a fireman.'

'It is a very rewarding profession.'

'Seen many dead people?' he asks, reaching again into the chip wrapper.

'Many. Many.'

'Bet they stink.'

The switch in Kristiaan's face flicks off and the flesh falls down – it's as if his face muscles need to disengage, like a clutch, while his mind changes gear. But the black eyes never change.

'Yes. Very much. Like roasting bacon.'

He puts a brown chip into his mouth and chews.

Slowly.

He takes another long slow drink from the bottle.

'Okay, bru,' he says, he puts his hand on Wedge's thigh and uses it to stand up. 'I must go, it is the end of my lunch break.'

'Dodgy fuckin t-shirt mister,' KP says.

Kristiaan looks down at it.

'My t-shirt?'

'Who the fuck are The Scorpions?'

'The Scorps? They are the greatest rock band in the world, ever,' he smiles like a teenager, a smile that includes his eyes this time. 'Ah fosure. This is one of their concert t-shirts. I saw them in Rotterdam recently. Five times. I have seen them many, many times. Perhaps one hundred.'

His fingers spread out from his chest – he gives a quick burst of air guitar, rocks his perm back and forward.

'Fuckinhell,' Berry snorts. 'Ha heh heh.'

Kristiaan turns around to show a long list on his back like the end credits of a film. Little red ice-pop dots head up in the white space between the opening dates and his stupid fucking haircut.

'I hope to catch them in England.'

A Sony Walkman is clipped to his belt, a wire heads up under his t-shirt, the headphone halo grips his throat like a necklace.

'Shit the fuckin bed!' Berry turns away – it's the bloke from the fuckin supermarket.

'What's with the perm?' Wedge says. 'Did y'do it y'self like, at home? You look like Chrissy Waddle.'

Kristiaan laughs.

'Who?'

'Footballer.'

'I think you boys are needling me, yes? Why are you not at school?'

'It's Saturday mister and anyway,' Wedge says grabbing another chip. 'It's the summer holidays.'

'Ah fosure,' says Kristiaan. 'I see. You must enjoy yourselves. Enjoy the sunshine, it is not often sunny here, no?'

He passes the remains of his barely touched chip stottie to Wedge.

'For you.'

KP sits in his place on the bench.

'Have a nice day.'

He puts his earphones back over his ears, presses 'play' on a guitar solo, and crunches down the stone path and into the black tunnnel.

'Cock,' KP says.

Berry lines up the Thunderbird bottle on the path.

'Bez?' KP says, face returned to its state of perpetual confusion.

'Aye?'

'I might be goin mental, hearing things but?'

Berry boots the bottle at the goal, it hits the back of the trolley.

Smashes.

'How did that bloke know ya name?'

Up on the crumbling housing estate, and Billy 'Hash' Brown bangs on Foggy's door.

'Arf, Arf, Arf!'

The dog Nigel's awake, somewhere in the back of the house.

'Foggy?' he shouts. 'Foggy? Wake up y'cunt.'

'Arf, Arf, Arf.'

He peers through the window, there's a Foggy shape still embedded in the sofa, but there's no sign of him.

'Jesus fuckin Christ.

'Foggy!'

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

He attacks the door.

'Howay man, y'lanky streak o piss. I need a fuckin spliff.'

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

His skin throbs now, two pints of lager a poor substitute for a half-dozen spliffs.

'Arf, Arf, Arf!'

Hash kicks the door twice.

BANG.

BANG.

'Fuckin FOGGY!'

It's all he has left.

The floppy rim of his hat bends into the door as he parks his forehead against the wood.

Three blisters burst.

'Spliff.'

Then good news, sort of.

Nigel comes racing towards the door.

'Arf! Arf!'

Bang.

The pitbull hits the door.

'Arf! Arf! Arf!'

'Nigel! Arf, calm down boy. Calm down!'

He leaps.

Bang bang.

'Arf! Arf!'

Bang.

Scratch.

Bang.

'Arf!'

'Billy?' says a severely stoned Mark Fogarty.

'Fuck. Foggy. Put Nigel out in the yard man. Foggy!'

Bang.

Scratch.

Bang.

'Arf! Arf! Arf!'

The chain is pulled back from the door, the Yale lock released.

Hash turns and tries to hobble back to his car.

He gets two steps up the path.

'Arf! Arf!'

Scratch.

Scratch.

Bang.

The door opens.

Scratch.

'Jesus! Fuckin!'

'I'm comin man, fuckin calm down.'

Nigel launches himself skyward – claws harvesting the empty air.

'Arf! Arf! Arf!'

'Huh huh huh!'

'Aaaayaz man!'

A big black fist catches Nigel by the collar.

'Huh huh huh!' the fist laughs, wide and deep like Darth Vadar – were there any jokes on the Dark Side.

Hash cowers but the flaying paws don't land.

'Arf! Arf! Arf!'

'Aleet Billy,' Foggy says. 'This is Jackson. Y'met Jackson?'

'Huh huh huh. Don't y'like Nigel then? He's a lush little doggy man. Huh huh huh.'

Hash turns to the doorway.

A big black man, his face cut in half beneath the nose by a joyous smile, holds the dog by the collar. Nigel's equally happy paws and slobbering tongue reaching out for his best mate - Billy 'Hash' Brown.

Jackson holds out his other hand.

Hash shakes it. His hand is soft and cold, gentle.

'Alreet Jackson,' Hash says.

'Hullo.'

Jackson puts Nigel on the path, he makes a lunge for Hash, Foggy grabs his collar.

'Billy's a bit disabled and that,' Foggy snorts.

'Huh huh huh,' Jackson says. 'Sunbathin?'

'Aye,' Hash says. 'Sort of.'

'Anyway,' Jackson says. 'I have to go. Nightshift. A nice reefer will help me through. Huh huh huh.'

'Aye, does the trick mate,' Foggy says. 'Always does the fuckin trick for me any rate.'

Jackson steps over the front yard fence towards his own door.

'See you later. Huh huh huh.'

'Aye, siya Jackson,' Foggy says.

'Fuck's sake,' Hash says, pushing Foggy and Nigel's licking tongue out of the way.

'I need a fuckin spliff.'

Foggy pushes Nigel into the front room as Hash walks through the peeling forest towards the kitchen table, the ash tray is piled high like Indira Gandhi's funeral pyre.

'Where?' Hash asks.

Foggy walks into the kitchen.

'Been busy as fuck all day mate.'

He has a big stupid grin on his stoned face – no trace of guilt.

'Busy? What y'mean 'busy'?'

Foggy looks at him, walks over to the cupboard and pulls down the embossed BISCUIT jar.

'People been comin back and forward all day. Jackson there was the last one.'

Hash sits down on the nearest chair and stares up like a slapped child.

He knows what's coming.

'Don't tell me?'

Foggy pulls out a sheath of notes.

'Fifteen hundred fuckin quid mate. In one day.'

He tips the money towards Hash.

'Ehm?' Foggy says. 'Halfies?'

'Halfies? Are you fucked in the head or what? You've sold ALL the fuckin gear haven't ya?'

'Ehm?'

'Are y'fuckin mental or what!'

Hash knocks the money out of Foggy's hand, it flutters to the lino.

'Now every cunt knows you've got gear?'

'Ehm?'

'Where the FUCK did y'get it from, eh?'

'Ehm?'

'Who d'y'always get y'fuckin gear from, eh? Who KNOWS where y'supply comes from? Me, you, and . . .?

'Talbot. Fuck!'

'Jesus fuckin Christ,' Hash puts his fucked face in his hands. Half a dozen blisters burst, dampening his palms with warm goo.

Hash takes in a deep breath of broiled, fetid air from the festering bins outside the open back door.

'I need a fuckin spliff,' he lifts his ruined head and wipes his hands on the sides of his hat.

'I NEED a fuckin spliff.'

Down in the subway, and the trainee drug barons negotiate their first deal.

'I hear y'got some gear?' Crosby says to Wedge through his nostrils, gold curtain rings shining against the erupting flesh of his cheeks.

When their final year starts in September, Sean Crosby will officially be the hardest in the school.

Berry sits beside KP on the park bench.

'Open y'mouth properly,' Berry mutters, clutching the red Adidas bag between his ankles. 'Y'fuckin spastic.'

'Look at his stupid fuckin tash,' KP whispers. 'What a twat.'

Wedge stands beside the trolley, facing his first customers.

He lights a cigarette.

'How much y'after?' he asks, breathing the smoke out his nose.

'Fuckinhell,' Berry sighs, trying to catch Wedge by the eye - but he's avoiding the hook.

He knows it's there.

Mason stands at Crosby's side like a good dog, orange hearing aid smeared into the conch of his ear.

'We'll take it ALL off ya, reet!' Mason commands.

His tongue is just too fat for his mouth as if he'd been caught licking a rat trap. It takes an extra fraction of a second to make sense of the spongey syllables.

'How much y'got?' Crosby says.

Thwock.

He spits out across the path.

Runt's right arse cheek hangs over the side of his BMX seat as he watches, right foot on his pedal, poised at the tip of its arc for a full throttle getaway.

Berry glares at him.

Wedge smiles.

'Enough. How much y'want?'

'This little cunt said you've got loads,' Crosby nods to Runt. 'It's probably fuckin rubber.'

'Aye!' Mason, of course, agrees.

'Rubber? What? Why'd it be rubber?'

'Some cunt sold me a bit of rubber the other day.'

Everyone looks at him, his mythical hardest-fucker-in-the-world status slipping a notch.

Crosby puts his cigarette to his mouth and pulls hard - through his teeth.

Hiss.

His Indian woman's moustache twitches down to the cigarette's white paper barrel.

'Don't worry. I'll get the cunt.'

Exhales.

'Aye!' Mason adds. 'He's fuckin dead, reet!'

Crosby pulls hard again on the cigarette.

'I wanna start dealin mesel like.'

Finally Wedge looks towards Berry on the seat.

And so does Runt.

Everybodys' eyes – even Mason's – follow their trajectory.

'Fuck's sakes.'

To the red bag between Berry's legs.

His ankles lock.

'Aye, we'll take the lot.' Masons says. His eyes dart down between Berry's legs. Then across to Crosby.

Message received and understood – even plankton brain got it.

Berry closes his knees like a girl with her first pubes.

'Two heads,' KP whispers. 'One brain cell.'

'What y'fuckin say?' Crosby says.

'Nothin, nothin.'

'Nothin? Think y'fuckin funny Donnelly, don't ya?'

'Aye. Hilarious.'

Crosby looks down at Berry.

'Alreet Bez? Why so quiet?'

'Quiet? Nothin to do with me mate. I'm just a spectator.'

'Spectator? Why don't you two fuck off somewhere else then? Me and Wedge have got business.'

Berry snorts.

'Business?'

'Aye, okay then,' KP says, standing. 'Let's go to Prestos Bez. I'll buy y'a Mars bar.'

Berry stares for a second at the ugly half-man.

'Fair nuf,' he sighs. 'Don't wanna be messin with these fuckin gangsters.'

He steps up from the bench and reaches underneath for the bag.

'See y'later then lads,' he says.

'What's in the bag,' says the retard with the fat tongue.

'Bag?'

'Fuckin bag, there man,' he points.

'It's me swimmin stuff. I'm goin swimmin.'

He picks up Adidas.

'Towel and that,' he says, turning his back. 'I'll see you fuckin young entrepreneurs later.'

Wallop.

Stars light up a rotating sky.

'How man!' KP shouts.'What the fuck y'doin?'

Crosby punches Berry again.

Wallop.

Gold sovereign rings crack into the side of his head.

Mason grabs at the bag.

Berry twists low to the side, anger flaring through him like an orgasm, full flame.

'Y'fuckin!'

He swings his left fist - his weakest - and cracks it into Mason's fucked ear.

It catches him sweet.

Burying his hearing aid way beyond the depth of its design.

'Aaaaieee.'

Nostra Dam's bells toll inside the retard's head.

'Aaaiieeee!'

Another punch comes in from Crosby.

Berry falls.

His back smashes into the rungs of the park bench.

Winding him.

'Uaggh. Fuck me.'

'Aiiiieee!' Mason keeps trying to pull the hearing aid out of his brain.

Crosby reaches behind his back.

'Bez! He's got a fuckin knife!'

The flash is nearby, it whips through his peripheral vision splitting the air around it like a fighter jet.

'Fuck me!'

It whips by again, closer.

It's long and thick.

Military.

A Bowie knife.

Berry rolls backwards, his head and vital organs under the wooden sanctuary of the park bench.

'Aiiiiee!'

Crosby is above him, he can see him through the slats as if from inside a wooden jail.

He grabs the bag.

'Mine,' he smiles.

Crosby puts the knife back in its brown leather sheath and tucks it into the back of his pants. He opens the bag and pulls out a brown block, and smiles.

Mason has finally freed the hearing aid from his ear.

'Nice doin business with ya,' he says and turns and walks up the hill, Mason following like a kicked dog.

Berry looks up, he can see Wedge through the slats of the chair.

'Fuck him,' Wedge says. 'There's loads more where that came from.'

Berry lies his head on the ground.

'Fuckinhell man,' he sighs.

Up in a city centre office, and the best-reporter-in-the-world - ever - arrives early afternoon for yet another Shit Shift.

'Poo,' Ellen Carter says as she types LO – log off – on her keyboard then switches off the terminal.

'What's that smell?'

Rick E. Delaney sits, switches on and logs in.

Password; GENIUS.

'It's not me,' he replies.

The late weekend reporter shift on The Evening Kernel is completely pointless. By early afternoon the paper is already in bed and there's no other edition until Monday.

If a story breaks, there's nowhere to put it.

But a reporter and photographer remain on duty.

Always.

'Bloody reeks,' Ellen says, sniffing at the air, as she approaches his desk with a sheath of fax paper.

Even the crap 'Sunday for Monday' stories that aren't really stories at all have already been turned into plates for Monday's first edition.

The office is surprisingly busy - the Sports Editor and all the sport reporters are at their desks. And they're all on the phone, their mutterings in competition with the screams of Formula One engines on all the TV screens.

'What they doing here?' Delaney asks.

It's mid-July.

A ball won't be kicked in anger for weeks. And only about 14 people in the entire north east give half-a-fuck about cricket or motor racing. The Evening Kernel newspaper may as well keep the same holidays as the football team. Its sales only kept solvent by those who have it delivered to the door every afternoon. Most kick it away, unread.

'Haven't you seen the first edition?' she asks.

'Erm, not yet no.'

All this activity can mean only one thing - a footballer has been bought or, more likely with Newcastle United, sold.

'Chris Waddle's leaving,' Ellen says. 'Well, it's not 100 per cent yet but Munroe went with it anyway. It's the splash.'

Delaney's eyes are on fast cars.

'Chris who?' Delaney says. 'Is he a sub-editor?'

'Rick, for God's sake. Waddle. Chris Waddle. The footballer. Plays on the left wing? Just started playing for England?'

She drops a still wet and warm copy of the final edition on his desk.

'Oh, right? Right. Ugly bloke with the stupid haircut?'

'Mullet. It's called a mullet. Yes, that's him.'

'Oh, right. And that's good is it?'

'No Rick. It's bad. For Newcastle fans. Very bad. It seems he's signed for Tottenham.'

'Ah, MY team! In London?'

'Yes.'

'Oh cool. London. Right. Cool.'

Ellen sighs.

'Yes, well. Maybe you can look him up when you get there. Take him to the barbers.'

She offers him a pile of fax paper, press releases.

'We need a couple of fillers. A three par and a six par. Have a shuffle through these and knock something out.'

Delaney ignores her.

She's been helping run the newsdesk today, she's on her way, Ellen Carter - ten years time, she'll be editor for sure.

Munroe steps out of the Editor's office and turns to look at the name on the door. A stand in for the day, getting a lucky big story – from such good fortune careers are made.

'Dream on fat boy,' Delaney mutters. 'Dream on.'

Munroe looks over, Delaney grabs the offered faxes.

Gareth Long, fresh meat from the graduate journalism course and Delaney's rival in the foppish hair stakes, hovers behind Ellen.

'What you smirking at?' Delaney asks him. 'You little turd.'

Long's name is the one crossed out on Munroe's Cunts Rota - freeing him for the rest of the weekend. Delaney's name now in poll position on the starting grid – probably forever. The baby reporter turns his hair curtains, flicks his computer off and stands behind Ellen.

'Ready?' he asks her.

'Where you off to then?' Delaney asks, the news desk phone singing at his feet – he turns to watch Munroe pick it up.

Technically, answering the phone is now Delaney's job.

'News desk,' the editor-for-the-day says, picking up one of his squeezy stress balls.

'Down the Pie for a quickie,' she looks at the office junior, he smiles. 'Then I'm off home to Derby for the weekend. Well, for what's left of it.'

'Off home for a quickie?' Delaney winks at Long.

Ellen stares at him, neutral.

'What about you, Rick?' she smiles. 'What are you doing this weekend?'

Ellen looks around.

'Oh, yes. Sorry. You're busy.'

The trainee smiles.

'Shall we go?' he says, sniffing the air. 'Man, it really does stink round here.'

'Yes,' Ellen says. 'It always does. Okay, good luck with it Rick. See you Monday. Don't forget those fillers.'

'Yeah, see you lay . . .'

'Delaney!'

Delaney's hands come down from the crown of his head and he turns on his swivel chair to face the brittle scream. Munroe holds the phone's two craters towards him in accusation.

'The garage is on the line. You been using the fuckin pool car again? Eh?'

Ellen raises her shoulders in an 'ouch' and steps away from the condemned man.

'There's a crate of fish in the fuckin boot!'

Delaney catches the duet burst of laughter in the corridor as the office door swishes through its hinge.

'Fuckin FISH! Fish? What the fuck . . ?'

By the river, and two teenage boys scuff down the bank and out onto the concrete prairie of the Neptune dry dock yard.

They stop behind Tully the drunk's shed like toy soldiers, a roll of black plastic bin liners under their arms instead of rifles.

'He there?' Wedge hisses.

'How the fuck do I know?' Berry replies.

'Have a look then!'

'You have a fuckin look!'

'I didn't see him y'know, properly and that. Not up close like you did.'

Berry stares into Wedge's blue pools.

'Fuck's sakes.'

He edges around the side to the door.

'We must be mental,' he says to no one. 'Radio fuckin Rental.'

Berry jabs his head in front of the scummed up window - too fast for his eyes to even focus.

'Fuck's sakes.'

He does it again, keeping it there a beat longer.

There's nobody around.

He puts his hand to the glass, rubs and looks in.

The pubs are open, the shed is empty.

'He there?' Wedge hisses.

'Nah. Nobody's here.'

'Cool!' Wedge says, standing up tall – he strolls out towards the stack of pipes over by the red crane.

They take the steps down the dry dock wall to the vast hole in the ground.

'Me uncle used to work here,' Berry says.

'Fat Mick?' Wedge snorts.

'Aye.'

'No wonder this place is fucked.'

'What?'

'Y'seen the cunt?'

Wedge nods to the crane, overhead now as they walk down the steps.

'That thing couldn't lift him.'

'He's got a problem wi his glands.'

'He's got a problem wi fuckin pies.'

Berry coughs and his face opens.

'And beer. Ha heh heh.'

'And chips.'

Wedge reaches over and pats Berry's gut.

'Y'wanna watch y'self son,' he says. 'It's in the genes.'

They come to the bottom of the concrete stairs, the sun beaming down on them like an oversized searchlight.

'Genes?' Berry stops at the concrete floor and examines Wedge's head like a granny in a grocer's – trying to work out the weight, after a good price.

'What?'

'Holly hasn't got a massive swede, has she?'

'Eh?'

Berry leaps and grabs Wedge's head like a medicine ball.

'Veg!'

Berry starts to rub heat into his ears.

'Mr fuckin Veg!'

'Ah man! Get off! Y'prick.'

Berry's boosters fire.

'Woo hoo!'

He sprints across the open dock to the little wooden trawler.

'Woo . . . ?'

He slows, halfway. Walks a little then stops, confused.

'Maybes we should torch the bastard?' Wedge says when he arrives.

'What?'

'Y'know. Nick all the hash. Set light to it, nobody'll even know.'

'What hash?'

Berry points.

The place has been tidied up.

'Eh?'

The herbal coal spill has gone and the door screwed sideways to the hull is closed. Even the bobbin fragments have been neatly stacked like kindling up close to the boat.

'What?' Wedge says. 'Oh aye? It must be inside man.'

He walks forward and pushes his hand through a busted slat and releases the latch.

The door falls open like a heavy letterbox.

They both stick their heads in, up to the shoulders.

Slashes of light burn like lasers through the darkness, picking out the pink spawn of some kind of alien creature, stacked in a pile against the stern.

'What the fuck are they?' Wedge says.

Dozens of baby monsters, waiting to hatch.

'They're just buoys,' Berry says. 'Bunk me up.'

Wedge pushes him inside.

The inside of Play Fair's broken hull curves forward to a wooden ladder screwed to the wall. The ladder leads up to the hatch on the deck floor where Berry and Smithy read the wank mag yesterday.

'Fuck me, it's bigger than y'think.'

A long cable runs down from the wheelhouse floor and across half-a-dozen pulleys to a thick wooden tray, hinged at the base. Fat springs nicked from a truck's suspension are coiled underneath the tray.

When the clasps are set, the pressure keeps the underwater door closed.

Until the lever is pulled.

Then the plinth's compressed springs release, the door opens – everything goes for a swim like a fat man on a diving board. The natural pressure of the water then closes the door.

Simple.

All the weighted evidence gone, floating down to the bottom of the North Sea.

'Clever bastards,' Berry says.

'Eh?' Wedge says, his head peering through the door.

'Pulley thing here,' Berry says. 'If they got nicked out to sea, they'd just pull the fuckin cord, shed the load. No proof or fuck all.'

'Fascinatin. Any fuckin hash or what?'

Berry looks around.

'Nah, fuck all.'

'There MUST be some man. There was shit loads.'

'Not any more. Looker.'

'I can smell it!'

'There's fuckin none here man, have a look for y'self.'

Wedge jumps up, Berry pulls him aboard.

'Where the fuck'd it go?'

'Dunno.'

'This is well fuckin dodgy man.'

Fear, finally, grips them.

'Fuck?'

'Fuck!'

'We should fuck off?'

'Aye.'

Berry bends and jumps out of the hole.

Wedge follows.

'We should definitely fuckin torch it.'

'What?'

'Y'know, set fire to the bastard.'

'Why?'

'Dunno. Why not?'

Something catches Berry's eye.

A shadow.

A movement between the gaps between the trellis metal of the red crane – high above Wedge's head on the outer rim of the dry dock.

'What is it with you and fuckin fires?'

Berry cups his hand to make shade over his eyes.

Wedge flicks his lighter, puts a cigarette to his lips.

'Dunno. Maybes I'm one of them fire-oh-maniacs.'

He rolls the barrel again over the flint.

Wedge turns to look.

'What's wrong?'

'Dunno.'

He follows the trajectory of Berry's eyes up the steps and copies him, cupping his hand over his eyes.

Two human figures emerge from behind the crane and cast massive shadows down into the dock.

'Fuckinhell!'

'Fuck!'

Berry pulls Wedge hard by his threads and down to his knees, into the shadow of the boat's keel.

'Shit the fuckin bed!'

Berry nips his eyes closed then looks up again.

A tall gangly bloke in a white shellsuit strides along smoking a cigarette, followed by a shorter bloke, overdressed for the weather in a white hat and brown tracksuit top.

'Fuckinhell!' Berry says. 'Quick.'

He pushes Wedge into the boat's open door.

The shadows keep moving.

'Maybes they're just workers or somethin?' Berry says. 'They might walk passed . . .'

The taller lad takes the first step down and turns to his shuffling, shambling friend.

'Fuckinhell!'

Berry dives into the boat.

'Maybes not.'

Billy 'Hash' Brown steps out with Foggy across the smooth concrete floor of the dry dock.

'Man,' Foggy says, a roll of black bin liners under an armpit. 'It looks different in the daytime. It's totally fucked.'

A shadow cast by the king crane reaches out across the concrete to the tip of the little boat's bow, as if pointing the way.

'Aye,' Hash says. 'It's fucked.'

'Silly fucker must've dropped it from a canny height eh?'

The boat's bow is sniffing the air and, no longer structurally sound, the strain of bearing her own cracked weight is opening dark joins between the whitewashed slats.

'It's fallen off the wood thing it was balanced on at the back, looker,' Foggy continues, pointing to where the corkscrew has ground a deep grey gash into the brown concrete.

'Let's just get all the gear off the bastard,' Hash says. 'And fuck off home.'

'Aye.'

'Then torch the fuckin thing.'

'Really?'

'Aye. Good fuckin riddance.'

'Fair enough,' Foggy says. 'Man, we're gonna be stoned for fuckin months! Years! Woo hoo!'

Hash locks his eyes on him.

'You? You're getting fuck all, y'fuckin idiot.'

'What?

'You. Y'silly cunt. Sellin all the gear and that.'

'What?'

'What the fuck's gonna happen when Talbot finds out you're the only cunt in town with gear?'

'He can kiss me fuckin arse.'

'Aye? Cool. Good idea. He'll just think it was you that nicked it.'

'Eh?' Foggy's face collapses. 'Fuck that!'

'And I'll have enough blow to keep ME stoned for the rest of me life,' Hash says.

'Get it y'fuckin self then?' Foggy mutters.

Hash smiles.

'Y'wanker,' he says.

'Dick.'

They reach the boat.

Hash shivers like a cat throwing off water.

'Someone step on y'grave?' Foggy says.

'Place gives me the fuckin willies.'

Hash stops ten feet from the boat.

'Fuck?' he says. 'Where's the pile gone?'

He almost leaps the last few steps.

'The trapdoor thingy is shut, looker,' Foggy says.

He steps forward to try and open the door, but it's locked tight. There's no handle or even anywhere to grip.

They both turn sharply to the yellow slash of steps.

'Talbot!'

'Fuck,' Foggy says, wilting. 'What?'

Dark shapes play out scenes across the perfectly sunlit concrete stage, two beasts at opposite ends, edging closer.

Metal face to metal face.

But there's no sign of Talbot.

'What we gonna do?' Foggy says.

'Fuck? I dunno?'

'What?'

'Man? Fuck. I dunno. We're here now, I'm not fuckin comin back down here again.

'Are you?'

'No fuckin way mate.'

'It'll be inside?'

'Maybes?'

'We'll fill the fuckin car and torch the bastard?'

'Aye?'

'He'll never know.'

'Aye? Fuck. Right. Okay, okay. How do we get in?'

'The hatch on the deck, I broke the lock,' Hash says, walking to the ladder screwed to the dock wall. 'Gizza bunk up.

'And be fuckin careful.'

Inside the boat, and Ted Berry feels like a powder monkey aboard HMS Victory, waiting for the first cannon ball to strike.

'Shit the fuckin bed.'

He grips the chain that holds the door closed.

'The trapdoor thingy is shut, looker,' says a voice outside.

Berry grips the chain harder as the man's brown stained fingers come through a gap in the wood.

The voices muffle.

'Fuckinhell, fuckinhell, fuckinhell!' Berry grips the chain. 'Fuckinhell!'

Slashes of light beam through the cracked hull, drawing shapes on the far wall.

Berry's chest inflates to its furthest extent, his lungs seeking clean air in the confined space.

'Aye? Fuck. Right. Aye. Okay, okay. How do we get in?'

'The hatch on the deck,' the second man sounds like he's swallowed sand. 'Gizza bunk up. And be fuckin careful.'

The boat moves off the wall a little as the two men squeeze between it and the concrete dock.

'Wedge,' Berry whispers. 'When they get on the deck, I'll open this door and we fuckin leg it. Right?'

No answer.

'Wedge?'

'Oh, oh kay.'

Wedge's voice is nipped tight like a kid slowly letting the air out of a balloon.

Footsteps shuffle on the other side of the strips of wood.

The boat jerks again, further from the wall.

'Ayaz man,' croaks the man. 'For fuck's sake Foggy! Be fuckin careful.'

'Foggy?'

'Get y'fuckin foot off me head!'

'Ayaz, ayaz, ayaz man!'

'What's he fuckin whingein on about?' Berry mutters.

'Careful man. You'll tip the cunt over.'

The boat moves again as the whining man lands on the deck.

Wedge's breaths are fracturing, going in an out in pieces.

'Fuck, y'alright?' Berry says.

He can hear the mucus flying in from all four corners of his chest like a plague of locusts from the African plains.

They gather in his windpipe.

'Wedge?'

He can see him in one of the shafts of light, he looks like someone has a hand at his throat pinning him to the wall.

'Fuck! Where's y'hooter?'

Wedge shuffles through his pockets and pulls out the blue grey ventalin inhaler.

He drops it.

'Fuck's sakes,' Berry says.

He lets go of the chain and fishes around on the floor, finds it.

Shakes it.

Berry steps across the deck to him, it moves slightly.

'Fuckin breathe.'

Wedge sucks the medication down into his constricting chest.

'I'm all, I'm all,' he wheezes through the roasted air. 'I'm alright man.'

'Fuck off,' Berry says. 'Even I can't breathe in here man.'

Berry shakes the hooter.

'Again,' he puts it up to his friend's mouth.

Drops it.

'Fuck!'

He watches it go – it bounces on one side of a sunlit crack on the side of the boat, bounces to the other side then falls out of the slit.

And onto the concrete floor below.

'Fuckinhell!'

Out of reach.

'What's that?'

'What?'

'Big red fuckin splat on the wall there. It looks like somebody's had their head blown off.'

Shoes are coming heavily up the deck.

One of the men falls up the slope.

'Ayaz man!'

'Howay Hash man.'

'Fuck off!'

The steps come almost over head, creaking the wooden slats.

'We'll get it and go. Piece of piss.'

Now they're right overhead where the metal box is nailed to the deck, the boat leans forward slightly.

Wedge wheezes, shooing at the locusts.

'Fuck this,' Berry says. 'Let's go.'

Berry yanks the chain.

Nothing happens.

The door stays closed.

'Fuckin thing!'

Berry yanks the chain as hard as he can, the boat jerks away from the dock wall.

Nothing.

Wedge is sliding down the opposite wall, his lungs collapsing in on themselves like two smokey bacon crisp packets plumbed to a tube.

The trapdoor remains firmly closed.

'Wedge! Fuck?'

Berry yanks the chain.

Yanks the chain.

Nothing.

Yanks the chain.

The boat rocks to the side but the door is jammed closed – Wedge's misplaced foot locking one of the pulleys.

'It's not locked man,' says the voice, right overhead now. 'I bust it. It's open.'

'Ah, aye.'

The hatch rattles as the man overhead lifts off the metal lid, spears of light jab into the bulkhead – through the gaps in the wood that make up the false bottom of the box.

'The wood underneath isn't real. It isn't nailed down, pull it.'

A hand starts fussing at the planks, trying to peel them away.

Berry yanks the chain.

'Come on . .

Yanks the chain.

' . . . you . .

Yanks the chain.

' . . fuckin . .

Yanks the chain.

' . . CUNT!'

Then all the world's ablaze, light bursting into their cell.

From overhead.

A hand fishes around.

A tuft of blonde hair then a long, thin face like a friendly white horse peers into the dark.

His hand swims around.

Right in front of Berry's face.

'Man, oh man . . .'

The man's eyes are like piss holes in the snow - the deep black marks of the Olympic-standard stoner.

'What the fuck?' the face disappears. 'Hash! Hash man! Looker! It's fuckin empty.'

A scabby hand attached to a brown sleeve swims around in the gap, and then a blistered, sweating face peers down inside. He stares straight at the two boys - but can't see yet, his eyes still switched to 'light' instead of 'dark.'

He looks like an inept foreign legionnaire lost somewhere in the Sahara, a manky hat stuck to his head.

Berry yanks the chain with his full fifteen-year-old force, feet high in the air.

The boat jerks from the wall.

'Stop movin the fuckin boat!' says the first man.

'Eh?' says scabby hands. 'Where the fuck is it?'

Wedge starts to make heaving noises – his chest convulsing.

A death rattle.

'Bez,' he wheezes, 'Fuck, Bez.'

Berry gives up on the chain, catches him as he falls.

'Help!' he shouts up at the sky.

The scabby man peers back inside.

'Help! Y'stupid fuckin wanker!' Berry commands. 'He's dyin!'

'What. The. Fuck?'

Chained to a city centre desk, Rick E. Delaney watches Munroe stand and stretch his arms an inch short of the ceiling tiles then gather his jacket from the back of his chair. He brushes Tudor crisp crumbs from his pants.

'Go on fatboy,' Delaney mumbles. 'Go home. I won't be far behind.'

Delaney has his Saturday night all mapped out – he rips the TV listings out of today's paper and sticks it in his pocket.

Sorted.

Munroe tinkers with his keyboard, checking the wires and copy baskets a final time then types LO - log off.

A good day at the office.

Time for a drink.

'Fuck it,' he throws the jacket over his shoulder, a finger through the loop hole.

'Offskies.'

He steps away from his desk, ready now to join Evans and Lee at The Printer's Pie pub.

But?

He can't, not just yet.

Munroe leans forward and logs back in – LO, password; STALAGMITE - keen to chase a doubt, unable to shake the leash that comes with the job. It's tied there around the leg of the Editor's desk.

He glances over to the door.

Delaney forces his eyes through a press release about a Boy Scout trip up a mountain.

'Middle aged men in tents with pre-pubescent boys in shorts,' he says. 'Sounds like a formative experience.'

He can't do it, he just can't even try to turn this into a story – not even three paragraphs for the kids' mothers.

'Oh God,' he sighs, dropping the faxes into the bin.

The church bells in the alley chime six times.

Munroe turns and looks over at his reporter then up at the rota.

He sighs, shakes his head.

'Cunt,' he mutters.

Delaney needs something to do.

Quick.

His eyes snag on telephone numbers; The Calls, the photocopied sheet of paper Sellotaped to the side of every terminal.

'Eek!'

Delaney has been in the office four hours, and has yet to make any.

Not good.

First, he dials the police. The press information line - The Voicebank. A Dalek drones a recorded message, '1735 hours and two units responded to' \- the details of a minor road traffic accident follow.

'Boring.'

Delaney clicks down the button on top of the phone then dials the fire service control room, tapping the digits hard for Munroe's ears.

It rings twice in his ear.

'Control,' a woman answers.

Always a human being, the fire service people not sharing the same rigid need for absolute control as the freemasons over at Northumbria Constabulary.

A different gene pool.

'Hello, Rick E. Delaney here from The Evening Kernel,' he says. 'How are you this fine evening?'

'What?'

Delaney clears his throat.

'Anything appertaining?'

'Apper-whatty?' she says, clearing her ear of camembert.

'Oh yes,' Delaney projects. 'Very interesting.'

'What?'

'Yes, yes. Uhum. I see.'

'What?

'Uhum?'

She sighs.

'We have two appliances and a turntable ladder at The Neptune yard, next to Swan Hunters. If you're interested.'

'Uhum, yes,' Delaney says, his eyes on Munroe, striding towards him en route to the door, the jacket over his shoulder.

He rolls passed him, five steps closer to his heart attack. Soon he's out the door.

Gone.

'Phew!'

Delaney relaxes.

'Home time,' he says.

'Sorry?'

'Okay, thank you.'

'Okay.'

'Oh, what were you saying?'

'A fishing boat has been found, looks like arson,' the girl on the phone continues. 'The Star has got somebody there . . .'

The Enemy – the Star, the Sunday flagship of the city's other newspaper group - finally tunes Delaney's attention.

'Sorry?'

'What?'

'Sorry, sorry. Did you say fire?'

'Yes. This is the fire service, son. It's what we do.'

'Oh, and?'

'Have you been listenin?' she sighs, familiar with the idiocies of young journalists. 'There's a fire at Neptune dry docks. Know it?'

'Erm? And?'

'It's derelict, pretty much. At the far end of Swan Hunters.

'Yes, yes. A boat you say?'

'Aye, son. Suspected arson. A boat. A trawler.'

'Fishing boat?'

'Kennedy from the Star is there. Oh, that boy knows what he's doin. He's been there ages. He came to our Christmas do, lovely boy. Paul Kennedy. Brought us a big box of biscuits. Expensive ones too. Belgian, first time I ever . . .'

Delaney jerks upright.

'Suspected arson? Trawler? Fishing boat? Did you say fishing boat?'

'Yes. A fishing boat. A trawler. It's still burning. Lots of fuel. It's a little odd. It's an odd place for a little fishing boat. That's where they make ships. Well, they used to.'

Delaney hangs up the phone and stares into his eyes, reflected in the green Atex screen. Not a good place to find inspiration.

He turns and looks out across the news room.

The door to the photographers' dark room is open. A big man has his back to him, holding a long strip of negatives up to a light. He disappears behind the door.

Delaney launches himself towards him.

'Daz?' Delaney says. 'Dazza?'

Darren James – DJ - is hunched over a light table, looking at photographs. Beautiful shots of a shit story. A star footballer squats down beside a kid in a wheechair, signed football on his lap.

''Dazza'? Who the fuck's 'Dazza'?'

DJ clips the strip of film to the wall above a metal set of drawers.

'What?'

'Fuckin 'Dazza'. Dickie. Who's 'Dazza'?'

'Erm? Are you on weekend shift?'

DJ had fallen out with the Picture Editor at the Christmas party, both had hit - and missed – on the work experience girl.

Delaney had taken her home.

'It's a sunny Sat'day fuckin night, Dickie,' DJ says, attaching another strip of negatives to the clip. 'Pissed up fanny fallin out every doorway in town. Short skirts and no fuckin knickers.'

'And?'

DJ pauses, looks at Delaney then nods at the hanging strip.

'I like to spend every Sat'day night with me fuckin first love,' he sighs and hangs another strip of negs. 'Spastic kids and dumb fuckin footballers.'

The small, windowless room fumes with chemicals. But DJ's nose twitches at a new smell.

'Man?' he says. 'What's that fuckin stink? Y'pissed y'self?'

DJ looks around the film strip.

Smiles.

'Y'wanna give y'bell end a scrape mate.'

A nerve twitches in Delaney's left eye.

'You made The Calls lately?' he asks.

'The Calls?' the snapper coughs. 'Fuck off. You're the reporter, Dickie. That's your job.'

Delaney looks back through the open door and the empty open plan newsroom.

'We're going out.'

Before Playfair burns.

And Wedge is lying across the deck with his head tilted back over Berry's knee, airway wide open to the sky like some sort of damsel in distress.

'Fuck me,' Foggy says. 'He dyin?'

Since nature first choked him as a small child, Jason Wujkowski had grasped the true value of air.

His bruised lungs grab at it like surfacing baby whales.

Air is life.

'He's got asthma.'

Foggy looks across to Hash.

'Asthma? That bad then?'

'Dunno?' Hash says.

There's a noise coming up the Tyne on the other side of the gate, a low engine rumble.

Out of place - too far from the mouth of the Tyne for a fishing boat . . .

The engines relax to a hum.

Very close by, now.

A mast rocks above the dock gate over their heads, ticking a thin strip of shade back and forth across the sunlit dry dock's floor like a pendulum.

Kirrin.

Talbot.

Nobody notices.

Hash stares down on the two boys.

'Where's the fuckin gear?'

He lifts a foot and pushes Berry's shoulder.

'Eh?' he says. 'Where's me fuckin gear?'

'Me mate needs help. He needs a doctor.'

The air down here is cooler, chilled by the mighty river on the other side of the metal gate.

Berry can hear the locusts leaving Wedge's chest, flying back to their dark corners.

To wait.

'Fuck y'mate,' Hash says. 'Where's me gear?'

'Hash man,' Foggy says. 'The lad's not well.'

'What?' Hash turns on him. 'The fuckin gear's gone man, these little cunts took it.'

'Honest, honest mister,' Wedge rasps. 'We were just, we were just playin. We haven't pinched any clothes.'

'Clothes?' Hash says, his crinkle-cut face curling. 'What y'fuckin talkin about, 'clothes'?'

'Y'said we'd pinched y'gear?' Wedge continues. 'What would we be wantin with y'clothes? They'd not even fit man.'

'Gear!' y'little cunt,' Hash shouts, losing it. 'GEAR!'

He makes to kick out at Nurse Berry, a childish tantrum.

It doesn't do him any good.

'Ayaaaaz! Man!' he seethes. 'For fuck's sake!'

'Jesus mister,' Wedge says. 'It's not me needs the doctor.'

Hash's eyes sharpen.

There's a tear there among the cream and blisters.

The sun inches over the lip of the dock and spills over the broken boat.

It sucks the spirit from the man.

'Honest mister,' Berry says, he reaches out his hand but stops before it connects with damaged skin. 'We didn't take it. It must've been someone else.'

'Who? Eh?'

Hash shuffles across the deck to the shade.

He stops, stands, like a Roman orator.

'I need a fuckin spliff!' he shouts.

He's no Cicero.

'I NEED a fuckin spliff!'

'Maybe that cunt Talbot's been back for it?' Foggy says.

Everyone looks over to the yellow slash of stairs running up the far dock wall.

Nobody sees Kirrin's mast overhead, out there on the river.

Silence.

Berry breaks it.

'Talbot? This is Wade fuckin TALBOT's boat?'

Hash and Foggy look at their new shipmates.

Silence.

'Crosby,' Wedge heaves.

Pink blood in his face now.

His chest spasms and he coughs up a heavy green mess, he fires it towards the open dock; it clips the boat's top handrail, spins once around like a mucus gymnast then hangs there – stretching out for the ground but never letting go.

'What?' Foggy says.

'Crosby,' Wedge repeats, shuffling his back up into a sitting position.

'Crosby?' a chorus.

'Sean Crosby. He's runnin around sellin drugs. Bez?'

Berry smiles.

'Fuck, aye,' he says. 'He is. Big red Adidas bag. Full of the stuff.'

'Crosby?' Hash turns to Foggy.

'Ugly little prick with spots and a crap tash?' Foggy asks. 'Stupid fuckin earrings? Reckons he's rock?'

'That's him,' Wedge says.

'Cunt,' Berry adds.

'Total cunt,' Foggy nods in agreement, turns to Hash. 'Aye, I know him. I sold him that shit weed the other day, remember? When y'were at mine.'

Hash takes cover against the far wall.

He sighs.

'Either of you little bastards got a tab?'

Wedge pulls his Regal Kingsize from his pocket, he takes one himself then throws the pack across the deck. Wedge lights up first and drags down the smoke.

'Should you be smokin?' Hash asks, pulling a cigarette out of the packet.

'Nah,' Wedge shrugs, looking at the fag in his hand.

Hash lights his cigarette.

'So?'

'So?'

'How come you two found this thing, then?'

He gestures across the boat's deck.

'Just happened to be fuckin passin?'

'We were just playin,' Berry says.

''Just playin?''

'Aye, y'know. Just messin.'

''Messin?''

'Aye. We were fuckin around up there in Rome, like, first,' Berry nods up the hill at the sharp end of the dock. 'Came down and climbed one of those cranes and just, y'know, saw it.'

Hash looks up to the crane, raised overhead like a rusted sword.

'Aaayaz, man,' he whispers. 'Aaaayaz.'

'Mister,' Berry asks. 'What happened to you?'

'Sunburn kid,' he sighs and then - almost silently - 'Fell asleep in the sun.'

'What we gonna do?' Foggy says.

Hash sits like a sunburnt swami, his eyes narrowing on the two boys. Fag hanging from the side of his mouth.

'We'll stick these two cunts in the hold.'

Hash pauses for effect, drags on his cigarette.

'Then torch the bastard.'

'What?' Foggy says.

Berry loads his right fist, reckoning they've got a more than fair chance against Foggy the emaciated stoner and the cripple with the skin complaint.

The other trawler's pendulum continues to tick tock across the dock floor.

'Or we could make them walk the plank,' he sighs. 'Little fuckin wankers.'

'Y'dickhead,' Foggy breathes. 'I thought y'were serious there, for a second.'

Hash sucks hard on the cigarette – it's down to the cork. He flicks the butt across the deck then closes his eyes. He doesn't believe a word of this shit, but he's not built for an alternative.

'Fuck me,' he says. 'I need a spliff.'

Hash looks destroyed.

All hope gone.

'Crosby,' Berry says.

Hash looks at him.

'Aye?'

'Crosby mate, Crosby's got shitloads.'

'Crosby?' Hash says, eyes suddenly aflame.

Hope making a comeback.

'Aye.'

'Y'know where this little prick is?'

Berry looks out across the expanse of dock and up the yellow slash rising to the sky, he follows it to the lip and squints his eyes.

Nothing.

Safe exit.

'Aye. The subway.'

'Subway?'

The dark shadow of a big man drifts across the bright open dock floor like a kid making shapes with his hands.

But nobody's looking at the screen.

'Aye. Y'know, the subway. Next to Norther Park.'

Hash grabs the rail and – 'Ayaz man' - rises to his feet.

'Offskies?' Foggy says.

'Aye, fuck it. Howay. Let's find this Crosby prick.'

'Mint. I fuckin hate it down here, place gives me the fuckin willies.'

'We'll give y'a lift,' Hash says. 'You two cunts wanna get stoned with the big boys?'

They all turn towards the ladder that runs down the wall from the busted little boat.

'Me first,' Foggy says, grabbing the rail. 'Y'trampled all over me fuckin heed on the way up.'

He steps up the rail to grab the ladder.

Berry turns for a last look out across the dock. He puts his hand to his brow.

'Fuckinhell!' he says 'Somebody's comin!'

Hash turns and smiles from the rail.

'Not that old chestnut,' he says.

Foggy turns his head and repeats Berry's hail to the sky, hanging above the deck from the dock wall ladder like a lookout.

'Jesus Christ!' he hisses. 'It's Talbot!'

Wedge jumps to his feet.

Fully recovered.

'Fuckin TALBOT?'

He looks.

Hash is the last to salute, casting darkness over his ravaged face.

Sure enough, there he is – Wade Talbot - shuffling along the lip of the dry dock carrying something square, red and heavy in his right hand.

'Leg it!' Wedge shouts.

Foggy is first to take to toes.

He leaps from the ladder and runs to the wheelhouse door like a startled gazelle.

Hash isnt far behind, his skin problems trumped by more pressing concerns.

They shuffle around inside the broken wheelhouse above the trapdoor.

'Ayaz man. Y'fuckin dickhead.'

Berry and Wedge follow, for want of a better idea.

Hash - 'Ayaz man' - heads down the ladder to the living quarters.

Twong!

Foggy is already down there, playing the dead hippy's guitar with his feet.

'Hurry the fuck up man!' Wedge says to Hash, glancing up the dock to the figure at the top of the steps.

'Piss off,' Hash says. 'You can fuckin deal with him.'

He pulls the trapdoor closed.

Shards of light slice through the darkness in the boat's living quarters as Hash and Foggy look for a place to hide.

Twong!

Twong!

'What the fuck?'

Twang!

Brrrrang. Trang.

Hash kicks the guitar out of the way.

'Fuckin hippies.'

He heads to where Foggy stands next to the fridge at the back of the cramped little cabin, listing heavily to starboard.

'Where is he?'

'I don't fuckin know, do I?'

Dust universes float from one slash of light to the next. One of the light beams picks out a hair-rock star on the far wall masturbating a V shaped piece of wood.

Hash looks out of a wide crack in the hull.

'Is he there?'

He can see the yellow concrete stage pretty well from behind this wooden curtain.

There's nobody there.

Yet.

'Nah.'

'He's comin though, isn't he?'

Hash turns.

'Nah, he's gone fuckin shoppin.'

'Fuck!'

Foggy freaks, needs a good place to hide.

He lifts one of the two dead men's sleeping bags, but he's too big to lie on the cot and cover himself.

'Fuck!'

And, anyway - it wouldn't do any good.

'Fuck? Maybes we should, y'know, just give ourselves up?'

'Stop fuckin panickin man, for fuck's sake. He'll blame them little fuckers. He doesn't even know we're here, does he?'

'S'pose?'

Hash eases himself up to a thinner crack further up the hull, he puts his eye to it. All he can see is the brown concrete.

'He there?' Foggy asks.

'Nah.'

'Where is he?'

'How the fuck do I know? Jesus fuckin Christ, man.'

'Where'd them little cunts go?'

'Must still be on the deck.'

'Fuck! What y'think he'll do to them?'

Hash turns to look at him.

The masturbator continues his silent solo behind him against the wall.

'They're fucked.'

'Man, why the fuck did y'get involved with that psycho?'

The back of the boat jerks to the side.

'Ooof!'

Something hits the ground.

'Jump, I'll catch ya!' says a young voice on the other side of the wooden wall.

Even from here, Hash can tell he's lying.

'Sounds like they're makin a run for it?'

Foggy walks across towards the exit.

'Fuck this.'

Hash watches Foggy pass from one slash to the next, to the next – heading towards the ladder.

'What y'doin?'

'Let's just give ourselves up man. How fuckin bad can it be?'

'How bad? Y'really wanna know?'

'Aye?'

'This boat belongs to the Steyns.'

'The fuckin STEYNS? They're not real.'

'Aye? Just like this boat isn't real then, eh?'

'Fuck?'

'Aye, 'fuck'. They're fuckin real mate, believe me.'

'Fuck!'

'Their mam even does the radio bit.'

'Their mam?' Foggy says. 'Get fucked.'

'The main man nowadays is Mordechai, Mordechai Steyn. The eldest son.'

'Sounds like a devil worshipper.'

'May as well be mate, may as fuckin well be.'

Hash has another look through the slash.

Nothing.

'Old man Steyn started it all in the '70s.'

'And Talbot?'

'Talbot was in the Marines, did y'know that?'

'Nah?'

'Aye. For years. He started fishing on his old man's boat when he was a bairn then joined the Marines, cunt's been at sea his whole life, pretty much. He was in Oman.'

'Oh man? What y'mean? 'Oh man'?'

'It's a place y'fuckin numpty. Arab place, desert shit hole. We were fightin over there in the 70s, fuck knows why. Hot as fuck. Talbot met Steyn out there. He was in Mossad.'

'Mossad?'

'Fuck me, do you know anthin? Secret service? Israeli?'

'Sounds like bollocks to me.'

'Aye, well. Steyn and Talbot were mates and came up with a plan like, after they fucked off out of it.'

'Aye?'

'Float out to the North Sea some-fuckin-where. Co-ordinates and all that bollocks. Pick up a buoy. Special delivery!'

'Loaded with hash?' Foggy asks.

'Aye,' Hash says. 'Tied on the line to the buoy. Just bobbin around. All he had to do was fish it out. Haul the gear onboard, leave the cash attached to the buoy and fuck off. Watertight mate.'

'Watertight?'

'Aye, fool proof.'

Foggy has another look through the slash.

'Not cunt proof though, eh?'

They both look out through their own cracks in the shattered little boat's hull.

'Nah. Nothin's cunt proof.'

Still nothing.

He has another glance.

'Piece of piss man. And when does the law ever check fishing boats? Fuckin never mate, that's when. Can't keep stoppin boats can ya? And even if they did, you can see them comin for fuckin miles.'

'Good idea,' Foggy snorts. 'Apart from your fuckin sea legs.'

'Ah mate,' Hash says. 'You've no fuckin idea. We couldn't take any crew. Just me and Talbot. Two or three days at sea. No spliffs allowed. I had to fuckin work!'

'You? A fuckin fisherman?' Foggy snorts. 'Y'don't even eat fuckin fish.'

'He'd never take his full crew with him, he didn't trust them. Just Robbo. Remember Robbo?'

'Aye, the old bloke who died. Heart attack?'

'Aye. Robbo's the one told me all this shit.'

'He was a good lad.'

'So, Robbo croaks – and Talbot fuckin asked me along instead. He needed a helper. Chose me coz of Kath like, keep it in the family and that. I've been around there since I was 13.'

'Aye, yous were courtin a long time before yous got married like, right enough.'

'We had to catch fuckin fish on the way back to dump on top like, for the market. I've never worked so hard in me fuckin life.'

Foggy has a look out of a cracked slat, then looks at the poster on the wall and the ruffled bunk bed.

'What happened to the, the y'know. The drivers.'

Hash nods to the open concrete on the other side of the slice in the hull.

'He killed them,' he whispers.

'Did he fuck!' Foggy snorts. 'Hah. Y'fuckin idiot.'

Hash looks at him.

And Foggy shuffles two cracked slats back from his exit plan.

'There was a boat there already. When we got there. This fuckin thing. Talbot fuckin flipped. FLIPPED mate. He thought they were nickin the gear.'

'Why?'

'Fuck knows.'

'What were they doin?'

'Fuckin stoners mate.'

'Ah, right.'

'The sun came up, slowed everythin the fuck down. Sea was calm, I wasn't even pukin. I'd even started to enjoy the fuckin ride.'

'And then?'

'It took a while to get to them y'know, even fast boats like Talbot's are fuckin slow like, compared to cars and that. You see things miles ahead before you even get there. Talbot's fuckin head just overheated. Never seen anythin like it. He fucked off to get his box of Coastguard fireworks, for when boats sink. Know what I mean?'

'Ah man. I think I know what happens!'

'We pulled up alongside.'

'Aye?'

'Bloke came on the deck. Stoned as fuck. Battered. I didn't have a chance to tell Talbot I knew why the boat was there. I didn't know what the fuck he was plannin, did I? Why would I? Eh? It's not fuckin normal behaviour, is it? It's not what you, y'know, expect in the normal course of y'fuckin day like, is it?'

Foggy looks at Hash, nailed to the slats.

'Normal?'

'He shot him with the distress flare. It hit him in the mouth.'

'Fuck me. Aye, I guessed.'

'Y'know what I mean don't ya? One of them big fuckin fireworks fishermen have to catch the eye of the Coastguard 200 fuckin miles away or whatever.'

Hash nods his head up towards the steps.

'On the deck there, next to the lifebuoy.'

'Jesus. The splat? I knew it was blood.'

'Aye. Poor cunt's head fuckin exploded. I had to hose his brains off the deck.'

'Ah man! That's fuckin sick.'

'The sound of it mate. The fuckin sound of it. It was sort of muffled like y'know, I dunno. By his skull and fuckin brains and that.'

'Ah mate, man, fuckin stop.'

Foggy has a glance at the open dock.

'And?' Foggy sighs. 'The other lad?'

'Talbot threw him overboard.'

'Fuckin hell.'

'The lad kept tryin to grab hold of the side of the boat and that.'

'Aye,' Foggy winces.

'But Talbot just hit him with a big stick, the thing with a hook on the end they use to grab the buoys and nets and that out of the water.'

'Shit.'

'Eventually got hold of him with the hook.'

Silence.

'Held him under.'

'And you?'

'Me?'

They both look through the gap at the dry dock shadows.

'Best not give ourselves up then eh?'

'I'm stayin right fuckin here, mate,' Foggy replies. 'I'm with y'on that one.'

They stare at the slash.

Hoping.

'Somebody should put the cunt down,' Foggy says.

Hash sighs.

'How long have I been goin out with Kath?'

'Dunno mate, years. Since school and that.'

'Man, I know y'gonna think I'm fucked in the head. But Talbot's not that bad y'know? He just fuckin flipped.'

'Just fuckin flipped? He blew some cunt's head off and drowned another bloke! Just fuckin flipped?'

'But he's alright when it's cold. It's somethin about the sun. He can't handle it. Sends him fuckin loopy.'

'Fuckin sun? Bollocks. He should be put to sleep.'

'Man. I like the bloke, y'know. I can't help it. He's not a bad fella man, not really.'

Foggy shakes his head through the slash of sunlight.

'You're right, you are.'

'What?'

He twiddles a finger at his temple.

'Fucked in the head.'

'Aye. Probably.'

'And that's how y'burnt y'self? On the way back? Y'had to drive?'

'Aye.'

Foggy touches his arm, gently.

They look together through the slash.

'Fuck me. That's a proper real life fuckin horror story.'

And now, the monster's outside.

On deck, and Berry pulls Wedge into the tangle of brown metal at the stern. The winch and its steel ropes seized up from too much salt water, too little work.

'We can jump off here, looker,' he says. 'It's not that high.'

'Y'fuckin jokin.'

Berry looks over to the yellow slash that leads up to the descending apeman, struggling down the steps with a big red jerry can.

'Fuck it,' Berry says.

He leaps.

'Fuuuck!'

The ground races to meet him.

Wallop.

'Ooof!'

He stumbles forward like a clown tripping onto a stage.

'Fuckinhell!'

And out into the sunlight - the open dry dock.

'Fuckinhell!'

He brakes and falls to his hands and knees, three metres clear of the boat's stern.

Out in the open.

He looks up to where Talbot labours down the steps with the industrial petrol canister, the kind you only ever find on trucks and boats.

'Fuck!'

He scuffles into the shade between the boat's stern and the dock gate.

'Fuckinhell!'

He looks out from the side of the hull.

If Talbot saw his performance, he's not applauding.

Still he comes.

'Fuckin come on!' he hisses up to Wedge.

'Piece of piss. Come on! NOW! Before he fuckin sees ya!'

Wedge teeters at the edge, thinking himself out of it.

Berry stands up.

'JUMP!' he says, holding out his arms. 'I'll catch ya.'

Wedge turns and looks over to Talbot – motivation.

'Fuck!' he steps out into the void.

Berry moves out of his way.

Wedge lands and falls forward, stumbles and scuffs a shoulder along the gate and out into the open dry dock. Exactly the same as Berry just did. He falls onto palms and knees in the dust.

'Aaagh. Y'fuckin bastard.'

Talbot isn't looking.

Berry pulls him back behind the boat.

'He'll fuckin see ya man.'

They squeeze into the triangle tunnel between the barnacled wood and the stained dock wall, kept green and moist by the leaking dock gates.

'What we gonna do?' Wedge says.

The dock floor beneath their hands and knees smells and feels like a festering sink as they crawl between the boat and the wall.

'Fuck knows.'

They edge forward until they almost reach Play Fair's bow, still raised in the air from her fall.

Berry sticks his head in the gap between the hull and the ground.

Talbot casts a black stain across the concrete ocean.

'Fuckinhell!'

Berry jerks his head back to shade, slapped about the face by this man's fearsome reputation.

'I think he seen me.'

'Fuck off?'

Berry lies his head on the floor again.

He hears Talbot grunt right in front of his face and the black heal of a heavy brown boot nearly tramples on his nose. Berry pulls his head into his body like a tortoise.

'Where the fuck is he?' Wedge says, way too loud for Berry's liking.

Berry turns and put his index finger to his lips.

'He's right,' he mouths, and points out to the light. 'Fuckin there.'

They can smell him.

Fish.

Fish of every description.

'Leg it,' Wedge hisses, pushing at Berry's feet and panting like a dog on a leash.

'Wait!'

Berry turns his head, putting his ear to the space.

'This'll sort the bastard,' Talbot says. 'Nothin but fuckin trouble.'

Talbot's feet crunch up the concrete.

Wedge's panic is contagious, a wet lick travels from Berry's anus to the nape of his neck and around both ears.

'Man, oh man.'

Talbot's feet crunch closer.

'Fuck,' Wedge hisses. 'What's that smell?'

Petrol.

It couldn't be anything else.

They can hear it splashing against the hull and dripping down to the concrete.

'This'll sort it,' Talbot says. 'Problem fuckin solved.'

Talbot's boot reaches Berry's nose again as he throws the last of the fuel, it splashes into Berry's face, filling his bottom lip and seaping into his mouth.

'Fuck!' he spits. 'Fuck! Fuckinhell!'

Berry spits, wipes his face on his shirt

'I'm fuckin goin!' Wedge says.

Berry's inclined to agree.

Wedge darts out of the gap then jerks back like a rubber band.

'Fuck?'

'What?'

'He's fuckin off!'

'What?'

Berry looks.

And there he is, the legendary Wade Talbot walking back across the dry dock towards the stairs like a lost troll, carrying the petrol canister.

'Fuck! Me!'

They watch him rise up the steps and along the concrete nip of the dry dock until he disappears.

He's soon replaced by his long thin shadow as he walks through the sun above their heads.

'NOW!'

'Aaaaah haaa!'

Four trainers reaching for warp speed – out across the open ground.

But.

'Fuck?'

Berry brakes hard and turns.

He runs back to the shattered white boat.

Bang!

He hits the hull with his fist, as hard as he can.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

'Quick!' he hiss-shouts. 'He's gone. Fuckin LEG IT! QUICK!'

He turns and follows the marks Wedge's burning rubber left on the concrete. He soon hits the stairs and jumps three at a time, settling into a violent jerking rhythm as he rises out of the dock.

'Fuckinhell, fuckinhell, fuckinhell!' he says, as he goes.

Wedge is way way ahead, alongside the Portakabin. He burns up the bank and over the Roman wall.

And he's gone.

History.

Berry looks over to the river.

Talbot's boat Kirrin is out there beyond the dry dock's gate, sitting low in the water – only her mast visible, ticking across the falling sun.

'Fuckinhell, fuckinhell, fuckinhell!'

He looks down to the little white boat in the far corner.

Two figures are on the deck.

'Thank fuck!'

Berry pushes the turbo switch on his trainers and skids up the dirt path.

And away.

Hash peaks out of the slash, and there's the sound of liquid splashing around inside a tank. A shadow passes.

'What's he doin?' Foggy says. 'What's he doin?'

'Shhh man,' Hash turns on him. 'Fuck's sake!'

He turns back to the light.

A big breasted mermaid scratched into Talbot's sunburnt arm briefly fills the the split in the boat's hull.

'What's he doin?' Foggy hisses. 'Can y'see him? Can y'see him? What's he doin?'

Talbot disappears.

'Walkin around the boat, he's walkin around the boat.'

One of the shards of light at the back darkens as Talbot passes.

It goes quiet.

'Where'd he go?'

Hash peers through the crack. There's nothing but the open expanse of concrete.

Time passes.

Silence.

'What we gonna do?'

'I dunno. Maybes we should . . .'

Bang!

Hash and Foggy leap with fright.

Bang!

'Aah!' Foggy squeals. 'What's that?'

Bang!

Bang!

'Quick! He's gone. Fuckin LEG IT! QUICK!'

Hash watches the young dark haired lad race across the concrete in the direction of the steps.

He disappears from view.

They look at each other.

'He lyin?' Foggy almost cries.

'Why would he lie?'

They scramble for the exit.

Foggy first.

Twong, twang.

'Fuck off!'

CLANG.

He boots the guitar hard against the wall.

Hash's hands and feet make the necessary movements and he's soon in the wheelhouse.

His skin throbs but the pain has lost its priority.

'I wanna go home,' Foggy says. 'I wanna go home.'

They head out onto the deck.

'Which way?'

'Up the ladder?'

Hash looks up – he sees Kirrin's mast high over the dock gate.

Right over head.

'Fuck?'

Foggy looks too.

'Ah, man?'

A shadow is cast across the far concrete wall and sinks slowly to the floor.

'Ah man!' Foggy sobs. 'He's comin back!'

Talbot appears at the tip of the dry dock in place of his shadow.

Hash leans against the rail.

'Jesus fuckin Christ.'

'What we gonna do?' Foggy says.

Talbot is down the first half dozen stairs, carrying the big red can.

Frying pan or fire, frying pan or fire?

You choose.

'Hide. Just fuckin hide.'

Pan.

They run into the wheelhouse and back down the way they came. Hash returns to his post looking through the crack in the hull.

'Fuck me,' Foggy says. 'Where is he?'

'Dunno, the front somewhere.'

A shard of light from one of the cracks near the bow darkens, then clears. A second – closer - ray of light darkens.

Then clears.

A third.

Right next to where they cower.

Hash turns to Foggy with his finger at his lips.

'He's right fuckin outside,' he mouths.

Hash can see him now, Wade Talbot in all his glory standing on the dock floor - man of a thousand photofits.

Talbot steps forward.

'Fuck, he's comin this way.'

He's right next to their heads, separated only by a half inch thick bit of kindling.

Play Fair herself.

'What's that wet noise?' Foggy whispers.

A splash of liquid comes through the slash and onto Hash's ravaged face and into his eye.

'Ah! Fuck, that burns!' Hash wipes at his eye. 'Ayaaaz man!'

He smells it.

'Aw, fuck?'

Serious.

'Petrol!' they both say.

'Fuck!'

They dive for the steps out of the boat's living quarters.

'Fuck!'

This time Hash makes it first, his trainers clambering at the rungs before he rises.

'Fuck!'

He makes it to the wheelhouse.

'Nothin but fuckin grief. Get rid of the fuckin cunt,' Talbot mutters below. 'Aye, aye. Bye bye.'

'I don't wanna die,' Hash says. 'I don't wanna die.'

'What?' Foggy says.

'I don't wanna die!'

Hash stands in the wheelhouse, he looks left. He steps right. He looks out across the deck and up to the sky.

'I'm gonna be a dad.

'I don't!

'Want!

'To fuckin!

'DIE!'

'Shut up man!' Foggy cries. 'Mammy!'

Foggy loses his grip, slips down the ladder into the cabin.

Hash flaps his hands at his petrol soaked head.

'Aye aye, bye bye . . .'

The lit match hits the wet concrete.

Hash looks up, for the last time.

'I'm not . . .'

Vrrrrr-whoosh.

Oxygen races to the little white boat from all four corners of the vast grave, turning the space into a vacuum.

And the world is a red place.

No air.

No pain.

Billy 'Hash' Brown is a candle – his desert hat the first to welcome the flame.

He pushes his hands through hell's walls and falls out into the world.

It's still this one.

The dock meets his face.

Talbot leaps back and falls onto his arse.

'Jesus fuckin Christ!'

He blinks, trying to work out what the fuck just happened.

'Agh! Ayaz man! Agh! Wade! Uh-agh! Uh-agh! Uh-agh!'

'Billy?

'BILLY!'

He leaps to his feet.

'What the fuck! Billy? NO!'

Talbot dives into the bonfire, flames licking at his face and hands.

He drags Billy 'Hash' Brown free of the fire.

'BILLY!'

They fall to the floor.

He hugs his son-in-law's head against his chest.

'Aaaagh!'

Using his own flesh to quench the flames.

'Aaaaagh!'

He turns his head to the sun and howls.

'NO!'

He looks down at the scorched, broken boy.

Dead now, in his arms.

'Fuck, Billy?' he whispers to him, rocking him like his own child as the fire rages against the wall. 'No?'

And Wade Talbot starts to cry.

'NO! NO!'

The sobs fall through him like an axe splitting an old oak tree.

'Kidda? Kidda?'

Heavy it falls.

Heavy it falls.

Heavy it falls.

'NO!'

Chopping the old fisherman in two.

A little later, and Rick E. Delaney watches DJ bend to a knee and point his lens at the smoking white ash, top lip curled in concentration.

The trawler no longer exists.

A scorched white spine runs through the centre, passing an occasional black rib curling up to Valhalla. Delaney taps a cigarette on his silver box and puts it to his lips, pulls out the Zippo and lights up.

A man in white overalls stands in the mess, sifting.

'How do they even know it was a boat?' Delaney says.

DJ grunts.

Thin ghosts rise from the boat's ashes, gathering in wisps above the wreck and wafting up the sniffing nose of the rigid metal dinosaur over head.

'Burn baby burn,' Delaney says.

DJ grunts again, focusing on an ember glowing in the middle like a lava flow. The crease of his sweaty builder's arse peaks out of his jeans. It's dead white, a damp lining of hair heading up and under his t-shirt.

The forensic scientist bends into his frame.

Click, click, click.

The man in the white suit walks through the dust like a spaceman who's lost his helmet.

Delaney approaches him, pen and pad in hand.

'Amateur,' DJ sighs. 'Rank fuckin amateur.'

'Excuse me officer?' Delaney says. 'I'm Rick. Rick E. Delaney, I'm a reporter for The Evening Kernel. Could I have a quick word?'

The man reverses out of the white pile.

'Oh, I'm not a policeman,' he answers, long eye lashes swotting smoke.

'Can you tell me what happened?'

The man's eyebrows are suspiciously tidied with tweezers, he pushes a strip of blonde hair behind an ear.

'Fire.'

Delaney scribbles a Teeline shorthand bubble f, then the upward slash of an r.

'Fire. Erm?'

'Have you spoken to DCI Vickers?' he says, crushing the C into a THEE.

'Erm, no not yet. Is he still here?'

'Oh, I'm sorry. I think he might have gone,' he smiles. 'It's Saturday night you know boys. Can't you come back on Monday?'

Delaney drops his pen and pad to his side, opening his personal space like splayed buttocks.

'Sorry but. We've really messed up. We missed all this,' he glances over to the squatting photographer, posting him the blame. 'Because of a mistake.'

He steps towards the white coat.

'We'll be in the dog-do with our boss if we don't get something. Anything. Can't you just help with a few details? I don't expect you to tell me any, you know, any secrets.'

Delaney tilts his head to one side and smiles at the guy, the white shapes of the police lights dancing on his damp eyes.

The scientist pulls off his rubber gloves like a proctologyst.

'When did you get here?' Delaney bowls his innocuous opener.

He lifts his pad.

'Oh, 4.30 or so. I work for forensics. Took the fire service ages to get here.'

'Oh, why?'

'The security guard is an old drunk. Not a guard at all really. What's there to guard?'

'And?'

'He dialled 999. But they just thought he was, you know, drunk.'

'Do you know what he said?'

'Just that there was a fire. Refused to give his name and told an operator to 'fuck off'. Charming.'

'Interesting.'

'Oh. And there's a crappy old car parked at the top near the gate, a light blue Chevette. And, well . . .'

'Yes?'

'Well, D-Thee-I Vickers thinks maybe a boy is involved.'

'A boy?'

'Uhum. The drunk said there'd been a boy hanging around the place. Saw him running away. Twice!'

'Running away? Twice? A teenager? Gosh.'

'Gosh indeed.'

'Arson?'

'Well, there's petrol been thrown all over the place. Maybe the boy set light to the thing.'

The smell of petrol and burnt wood is somehow natural in this industrial space.

The man shrugs.

'I heard D-Thee-I Vickers tell the TV people that he wanted to appeal for a young man to come forward,' the man from forensics smiles, flicks his eyelashs and puts the stray band of hair behind his ear. 'I know the feeling.'

DJ snorts.

'TV?' Delaney winces.

'Uhum.'

'So, there'll be an interview with the policeman?'

'Yes.'

'On the TV?'

'Yes, is that bad?'

Delaney glances to DJ.

'Don't look at me mate,' he replies. 'Y'should have made The Calls like a good boy.'

The man smiles.

'Oh dear,' he sighs. 'You really are in trouble? But, look, you did very well. Nobody else was allowed down here. You're very clever.'

DJ had steered them away from the security guard hut's police officialdom and towards the smoke rising from the abyss.

Despite Delaney's complaints.

To get his picture.

Snappers are always on the frontline – they have no choice.

'Oh? Cool!' Delaney winks. 'It's part of the job.'

'So?' DJ says. 'Nobody else got any shots of this mess then?'

'Not that I know of. And, I really shouldn't but . . .'

The man in the white coat bends to his knees and opens his black case, he pulls out a small plastic bag and holds it like a purse.

'I think this is human,' he says proudly, pushing the straggling length of hair back behind his ear. 'I need to have it checked, but I've done a few of these now. I found it right in the middle of this thing. There's a bit of meat left, look.'

He shakes the bag, to move the flesh around.

Click, click, click.

'It's been well cooked.'

Click, click, click.

'Looks like a pork scratchin,' DJ says.

'Eugh,' Delaney turns away.

'Scary isn't it?' the scientist says. 'We're just vertical pigs you know. That's all we are. Pigs standing.'

'What was the boat doing here?' Delaneys asks.

'I really don't know,' he says, tilting his head to scan the scene. 'But, it's an important case. Interpol's involved.'

'Yes?'

'Uhum. The locals are worried. They're on show, you know. Got to look good to the foreigners, haven't you?'

'What do you mean?'

'Well,' he whispers, glancing up to the steps. 'Vickers is their 'best' man, a rising star. You know the type, ladder climber. Spends his life going from one meeting to the next, making sure he sounds good. If you want promotion. Delegate. Go to meetings. If you don't get your hands dirty, you can't get the blame.'

'I see.'

'First time I've even met the man and I've been doing this job for eight years. He's never left the office, by the looks of him.'

'Yes?'

'Bloody vampire. Looks like he's never seen daylight,' the man smiles. 'A bit like you Ricky. How do you manage to avoid the sun?'

'Oh, I?'

Delaney pauses his pen and looks at the gay man, disturbed at a new sexual tickle in his prostate.

'You'd never get someone like him down here on a Saturday night. Never. And me, I mean,' he sighs and looks at his watch. 'I'm supposed to be meeting a friend in Rockshots.'

'Oh, sorry. Sorry. We won't keep you much longer. So, so? What's so important about this boat then?'

'I really don't know.'

The man smiles and turns to the ashes of Play Fair, smouldering quietly.

'But I've been told to look out for any signs of drugs.'

'Drugs?'

'Yes.'

'Found any?'

'No, not yet. But,' he looks again to the yellow slash of steps. 'I shouldn't really be telling you any of this, you know.'

'Off the record, off the record,' Delaney says, relaxing his pen, sending extra blood to memory cells. 'So, so? This is a murder enquiry then?'

He holds up the pork scratching.

'It is now.'

'Great. I mean, erm. Y'know.'

'Yes. A teenage boy murderer, maybe. How bad is that? What's the bloody world coming to. Good story?'

'Could I get your name?' Delaney says. 'I'll quote you as a police source or something.'

'Well, then,' he smiles, tilts his head to one side and pushes the hair behind his ear. 'What do you need my name for?'

DJ looks at them both, shakes his head.

'It's David, Davey. Davey Armstrong.'

'Delaney. Rick E. Delaney, from The Evening Kernel,' he holds out his hand, Davey takes it and gives it a little squeeze.

'I know. You told me. And what's the 'E' for?'

'Oh, erm, erm?'

'Erm? Nice name. Can I call you Ermie?'

''Ermie'' DJ snorts. 'Nice. Suits ya.'

Delaney fishes around in his pocket and pulls out a generic Evening Kernel business card – he'd carefully written his name and extension number across a dozen over a year ago.

This the first to leave the nest.

He hands him it.

Davey's card heads in the other direction.

'You've saved our bacon,' Delaney says. 'Seriously,'

'Bacon, ha ha,' Davey says. 'Yes, well.'

'Oh sorry, I didn't mean. You know. Ha ha.'

'Must be great fun. Being a reporter.'

'Not bad, not bad,' Delaney agrees, forgetting an office seat perfectly shaped to his arse, a flickering green screen and a never ending pile of shite press releases and local council bilge to rewrite. Only the truly terrible none-story stories ever impaled on the local newspaper's spike.

He looks around.

'It certainly has its moments.'

DJ is putting his camera away in his bag.

'Right, right. Ok. We'll get out of your hair now Mr, erm, I mean Davey.'

'Any time, Ermie,' Davey smiles, packing the stray curl away behind his ear. 'Any time. You've got my number.'

'Yes, yes. Okay. See you again sometime hopefully, erm, Davey.'

Delaney turns to catch up DJ.

'Ermie?' the gay says.

He turns back.

'Yes?'

'What time do you finish work. Can I buy you a drink?'

'Not until I've written this up, I'm afraid.'

'Oh, okay. Maybe see you in Rockshots later?'

'Yes,' Delaney smiles. 'Maybe.'

He joins DJ.

'You're fuckin in there Ermie mate,' DJ says, bag slung over his shoulder. 'Want me to get the Metro back? Eh? While you and y'little fella there do a bit more 'investigatin' and that? Ermie! Ha ha ha.'

'Get lost.'

'It's 1985 mate y'know, if y'wanna stick y'little knob up a bloke's jacksy, y'know. Feel free. It's perfectly normal and that these days. Don't mind me. Ha ha ha.'

'Shut up,' Delaney says, taking an uneasy look at the man back in the embers, having a final sift.

'Why is it, Ermie, right?' DJ continues as they walk to the steps. 'Why is it that benders even have them gender roles?'

'You what?'

'Y'know. There's always a girlie poof like y'mate there. A man that really just wants to be a woman. Y'know. Likes make-up and dresses and that. Speaks like a proper homo, like he's got a finger up the shitter like. And then there's always the manly poof. A Judas Priest type y'know, likes fuckin motorbikes.'

'What?'

'Well, if y'wanna fuck a man. Right. Why would y'wanna fuck a girlie man? Why not just fuck a girl? The real thing like? With her own lubrication.'

'I can't say I've given it much thought.'

'Liar,' DJ smiles. 'Bet it keeps you awake at night. Y'little todger in y'hand and that Ermie, eh. Ha ha ha.'

'Shut up, Dazza.'

'It's the same with the lezzies, 'cept the other way round like. There's always like, a fuckin dog rough dyke, a hairy one in dungarees with a bad attitude who no bloke would wanna fuckin shag anyway. And then a normal, prettier one. Why doesn't the fit one get fucked by a proper bloke, instead of a minger with a bad attitude and a strap on?'

Delaney looks at the photo-philosopher, opens his mouth, closes it.

Two more white jump suits come towards them down the stairs alongside a tall man, suffering in a suit in the heat; Mr I'm-In-Charge-Here - this bloke learnt everything he needed to know right there at his desk.

The tide has gone out on his hair, now just a carefully trimmed ring of fluff around the back of his head and above his ears.

He's very pale.

The two white jump suits - 'Excuse me fellas' - push passed and head down the stairs.

'Hello there,' Delaney says.

'Who are you?'

'Oh, we're from The Evening Kernel.'

'You need authorisation to visit a crime scene.'

'Who from?' DJ snaps at the suit.

'Me.'

'Well, y'weren't fuckin here were ya?'

'Sorry, we're just, you know - doing our job,' Delaney interrupts with his camembert smile.

He holds out his hand.

'Delaney. Rick E. Delaney.'

'The E stands for Ermie,' DJ says.

The officer grabs it and squeezes, a real pent-up-aggression, bone creaking bastard of a handshake.

'Could I ask you a few questions?' Delaney says.

'Look, I've already spoken to the press. You've missed your chance. I'm very busy.'

'I'm sorry. It'll only take a second.'

The policeman reverses three steps to the top of the dock.

A bad day, out of the office.

His jacket sits heavy and uncomfortable across his shoulders.

DJ fiddles around in his bag, pulling out his camera, attaching a lens.

'Can you tell me what happened?'

'We received a call at 1530 hours from a member of the public. That's it.'

'Why's a boat in here, I thought this was all closed?'

'It is,' he says. 'We don't know why the boat is here, we're working on our inquiries.'

'Is this a murder enquiry?'

'What?'

'I understand you've found a dead body.'

'Who told you that?'

Delaney looks down at the man in the white suit.

The policeman turns back to DJ after the camera flash fires, the second frame captures the emotion.

Anger.

Pure, devilish anger.

Davey Armstrong the forensics man is in for a real bollocking - the kind he doesn't enjoy.

'No comment. If you'd please include the incident room telephone number in your piece, I'd be grateful. Now if you'd excuse me.'

'And you are?'

'Vickers. DCI Paul Vickers.'

'D Thee I,' Delaney scribbles. 'Paul Vickers

'Now, if you'll excuse me,' the officer walks down the steps. 'I'm very busy.'

Sunday

A cluster of receding stars
This is the closest thing to an actual cerebral orgasm Rick Delaney will ever feel.

It's as if a celestial being has punched a fist hole through the keg of his skull and is now giving his brain stem a silky-handed wank.

Four little words, four little words to have him blow his mental load all over the newsagent's floor.

EXCLUSIVE

by Rick Delaney.

'Exclusive!' Delaney says. 'Yes! Ha ha ha!'

He stands next to the rack of packet peanuts of different roastings, a copy of The Sunday Sorted in his hands. And there it is in black, white and red - his first ever byline in a national newspaper.

EXCLUSIVE

By Rick Delaney.

No matter that The SS sub-editor had deleted the E. between his names.

'I never even had a middle name! I made it up! Ha ha ha.'

Funniest joke in the world.

'Ha ha ha.'

Ever.

'Ha ha.'

No matter that he has betrayed his own employer with a story they'll be following up – without him, now – for weeks, months even.

'Ha. There you go Munroe, I resign.'

He looks up for someone to share his victory.

'Exclusive! By RICK DELANEY! Ha ha ha!'

A man straight up off a friend's floor stands red eyed in last night's clothes, his Number Ones. He pulls a bottle of Lucozade from the fridge.

An old woman looks at birthday cards.

Neither cares.

'Ha ha ha!'

Page seven lead, front of the book and a right hander – a good page; readers don't like to look left.

He reads the headline.

DRUG GANG SUNK.

Followed by the strapline:

'Crime Boss Dead. Massive Blow To International Dealers As Cannabis Cargo Goes Up In Smoke.'

It howls over a photograph that could be the the burnt corpse of a whale - scorched ribs twisting up to the sky. The gay forensic scientist Armstrong sifting Play Fair's dust in his white suit.

'Nice pic DJ.'

Delaney had unclipped the negative from the snapper's rack and handed it to an SS agent in the back alley for wiring immediately to London.

The actual text itself is a distant cousin to the limp copy Delaney had filed last night just before The Sunday Sorted's deadline.

Even the bored Cockney copy taker on the other side of the line had done what she could to spice it up.

'This fella, burnt alive, was he? Boat full of drugs, was it?'

He could hear her adjusting it as she went.

Now on the page, Delaney's trembling fawn has been transformed into a turbo-charged Pegasus.

He's quick to adopt the bastard child.

'Ha ha ha,' he says to the peanuts. 'Ha ha ha.'

The SS's sub-editors had dismantled his copy and customised it like a wealthy teenager with his first car. All chrome wheels, body kits and furry dice.

Not lying exactly.

But where Delaney had been cautious with uncertainties, this new copy is muscular and assured of the 'facts'.

It's like they'd injected it with steroids.

A European drug overlord is dead.

A teenage boy is being sought as the key suspect.

Even Armstrong the gay forensic scientist's quotes read like nobody actually speaks – assigned an off-the-peg identity; Boffin.

But?

'What the?'

Delaney's eyes twist to a story in a long thin box, a sidebar which runs on the right side of the same page, HIS page:

BRITAIN'S YOUNGEST GANGSTER?

He crumples the newspaper around this intruder.

'By Frank Carrick, Crime Reporter'

Frank Carrick, an SS legend. Press awards hanging from his belt like scalps.

'Frank Carrick? But? But this is MY story!'

Carrick's story is news to Delaney.

'Eh?'

It explains how this is a drug boat police forces all the way up the British and mainland Europe sides of the North Sea had heard of - but never seen.

Play Fair had been stopped from time to time, for sure - a bit like Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper. But nothing had ever been found aboard except for, recently, a pair of young vegetarian hippies who never seemed to catch any fish.

BRAZEN.

An 'Interpol source' says the fire was 'the biggest hash bong in history.'

'How did Carrick get all this?' Delaney says.

'This isn't over. Expect repurcussions.'

NEXT GENERATION?

A teenager seen twice at the scene, could he be Britain's Youngest Gangster?

'Really?'

The only identifying factor they have is that he was carrying a bright red Adidas bag.

The bald newsagent clears his throat.

'Alright, alright,' Delaney says. 'Keep your hair on.'

He drops the copy he'd been reading and pulls two fresh copies from the wrack, takes a step towards the till.

Pauses.

He steps back and empties the rack, ten copies balanced over his right arm.

'Two pounds fifty.'

Delaney steps out into the spotlight and stops. He turns the top copy to page seven.

'Ha ha ha!'

'EXCLUSIVE! By Rick Delaney! RICK DELANEY!'

He marches forward into the blazing morning sun, his news blanket over his arm. He pauses to read his name.

It's still there.

EXCLUSIVE

By Rick Delaney.

'Ha ha ha!'

He walks.

Stops again.

Reads.

'Rick Delaney! Ha ha ha!'

A young lad walks a fat lass in a gold party dress to the Metro station – looking shifty, hoping none of his friends or family are up this early on a Sunday to see him with quite this grade of minger.

'Rick Delaney!' he shouts to the happy couple, tipping the open newspaper in their direction. 'Page seven! Ha ha ha. Page seven!'

A man comes out of the station, newspaper in hand.

A red top with a Nazi typeface – The Sunday Sorted.

'Yes! Good man!'

The startled man turns.

'What the fuck?'

Delaney salutes.

'Page seven!'

The man hurries away.

'Page seven!' Delaney shouts after him. 'Ha ha ha.'

Delaney turns up the path of a Victorian terrace and puts his key in the door.

He pushes.

His three flatmates are either sleeping off hangovers or away home to southern towns for the weekend.

The red lights flash 02 on the answerphone.

Beep.

He presses the LISTEN button.

'Cunt,' says the message. 'You dirty little fuckin, two faced cunt.'

'Munroe!'

'You're a fuckin cunt Delaney. You're fucked. I'll be round there later to kick your fuckin . . .'

Delaney presses the NEXT MESSAGE button.

'Eff off, Fat Boy,' he says. 'I resign.'

Beep.

'Hi, this is a message for err,' he can hear the caller flicking a notepad. 'Dick, Dick Delaney.

'It's Frank Carrick from The Sunday Sorted. Great tale mate. Well done. I'm on my way up. The editor's mad keen on finding this Gangster Junior kid. His name is Berry, Edward Berry. Lives in a place called North Shields. Silly little prick broadcast his name out of the fuckin radio! Anyway mate, we need to get to him before the dailies. I'm on the 5.30 from Kings Cross. I'm staying at The Grand Hotel at a place called Tynemouth. If you could meet me there, that'd be ace.

There's a pause, as Carrick seems to hang up.

But.

'Oh, and don't do anything til I get there.'

Beep. Beep.

The tape rewinds.

'What the?'

Delaney feels like he's been anally violated.

'This is MY story!' he says to the phone. 'I don't need your sodding help.'

He sits down with his newspaper banket.

''Don't do anything til I get there,'?' he says, stroking the top copy open at page seven. 'Frank bloody Carrick. Who the hell does he think he is?'

He looks down at his name, wondering if he can buy a picture frame at this time on a Sunday morning.

'By Rick Delaney,' he mutters, punctured, but only slightly.

'By Rick Delaney.'

Midday down by a row of five houses high over the Fish Quay, and Ted Berry peers around a little lighthouse that helps guide sailors away from the treacherous black midden rocks that guard the Tyne.

The river fleks and flashes her golden way out of the land down below like a fat dancer in a sequin dress, splaying herself between the piers.

'Fuckinhell.'

Berry scans the parked cars.

Three Fords, two Vauxhalls and a Metro.

No silver Mercedes.

No sign of Talbot.

He checks again.

Then makes his break for the middle house across the road from the lighthouse, number 3 Tyne Street - the Wujkowskis' residence.

He steps through Wedge's open front door and raps his knuckles - one pint of Samson - fast and hard on the frosted glass.

'Hurry the fuck up!' he fidgets.

Two newspapers sit on the mat at Berry's feet, a dull but worthy broadsheet and a tabloid; The Sunday Sorted \- Trudi's little illiberal vice for the weekend.

A pair of black Adidas Samba trainers sit carefully placed side by side on the doormat. They're brand spanking new – in need of a good scuffing, christening with dog shit.

'Nice.'

He puts his foot next to them, checking the size.

Size 11 – three sizes too big.

'Trudi's gettin knobbed, again.'

Socks tap the laminate flooring on their way to the passage door and a white shape assembles on the other side of the pane.

'Holly?'

Berry pulls his sticking lemon Ocean Pacific away from his skin. He primes his face muscles for a winning smile.

The door swings open and snags on the tabloid.

'Alright fuck hole?'

Wedge pushes the door harder, shredding the first six pages.

Berry stands down the carefully briefed muscles in his face.

'Spunk breath.'

'Why don't y'just fuckin walk in?' Wedge says.

'Y'feet grown?' Berry asks.

'What?'

He follows Wedge, blinded by the violent shift from light to shade, like a scuba diver down a shotline from the front door to the kitchen, heading towards the light and the muddy sound of a mono radio; 'Frankie, do you remember me. Wow Frankie, do you re-mem-ber. Oh how you . . .'

The kitchen smells of burnt toast.

'Hi Ted.'

Berry's eyes try to flick away their cataracts.

Trudi is sitting at the table, a menthol cigarette sticking out of the ashtray. A half eaten slice of burnt toast sits at her wrist, smeared with butter.

'Hallo Mrs Wuj . . . Trudi.'

Trudi's eyes are tired and raw in their leather sockets – then, magic; arrows fire out east and west, wrap around her eyes and fly out to her ears, lifting her face.

And she smiles.

'How y'doin today handsome?'

'Sound, sound' Berry beams back his reply. 'Ha heh heh.'

'Oh Bez, Bez,' Trudi sighs. 'Bez Berry. That dirty laugh of yours is gonna get you in trouble one day.'

She said it almost like she wished that were now.

'Ha heh heh.'

Wedge pulls an industrial size box of Kelloggs Cornflakes from a cupboard.

'Get your friend some coffee Jay.'

'What?' he knees the broken door closed. 'D.I.Y.'

'Jay-son!' she scolds, sighs. 'Little turd.'

She gets up, ruffles Berry's hair.

'I'll make you some, petal.'

She pulls out a silver foil sack of Unexploited Beans from an earthenware jar and pours them into a tall chrome and glass jar.

'None of that instant shite in this house Bez.'

Berry smiles.

He reverses onto the edge of a chair.

Tobacco smoke breezes up and tangles in the air over the ashtray like ghosts doing the tango.

Trudi lifts two mugs from the drainer and sits down.

'I haven't managed to speak to Foggy,' she says. 'He wasn't in when I knocked.'

Berry and Wedge lock eyes.

'None left,' Wedge says.

'What?'

'Sold it.'

She pushes down the plunger, forcing the Colombian beans to the bottom of the glass jug.

'Who to?'

'Crosby. Sean Crosby. Kid from school.'

'Oh. None left? Really?'

'None.'

'Oh.'

'Hiya,' another female awaking late on a Sunday, at the doorway.

Berry turns.

'Hi gorgeous,' Holly says.

The two sleepy words feel like tongues in his ears.

'Oh, hiya. Ha heh heh, Holly.'

His eyes fill with peach, the mound of her naked belly, a thin downy fluff has grown in the twist of her belly button pointing down to her fanny, ever cleft into camel toes by tight denim shorts.

He could lick her from here.

'Ha heh heh.'

The tiniest nick in Berry's cock, it'd burst all over the kitchen table.

Old woman's tits . . .

He performs an exercise in mind control.

Old woman's snatch . .

Old woman's tits!

Fuck's sakes man.

It doesn't work.

'Slut,' Wedge says.

'Jay-son! Don't call Holly that, she's your sister.'

'Little dick.'

Trudi places his mug on the table, a smell direct from Cartagena wafts up his nose.

'Tah.'

She sits down.

'What you two up to today?' Trudi asks.

She looks like an expensive old chair, worn by experience but the quality craftsmanship retains its shape. Will, Berry's brother, is obsessed with her, 'she'd teach you a few fuckin things Teddy boy.'

Milfs, he calls them.

Berry just gives in, allows his erection to take the controls.

'Dunno,' Berry sighs. 'Ha heh heh.'

'Smashin somethin,' Holly says, pulling open the Smeg fridge; light blue, full of inedible absurdities. 'Or pinchin.'

She turns and glides towards Berry, each step powering an erotic battering ram - he puts a spoon in his coffee and starts to stir, concentrating on the spinning black liquid with absolute intent.

Granny tits!

Granny snatch!

His idiotic cock pushes at his shorts.

Fuck's sakes . . .

Granny tits?

He puts the coffee to his mouth; it's dark, harsh and strong, varnishing the back of his mouth and tongue.

'Ack?'

He gags and looks into the blackness, he reaches for the milk and tips in a heavy splash, he follows up with four scoops from the sugar bowl.

Wedge screeches a chair on the tiles and sits. He starts to shovel soggy cornflakes into his mouth. A slither of milk drips down his chin. He catches it with his spoon and puts it back in the mixer.

'Pig,' Holly says.

'Cock sucker,' he replies, the orange mush churning around in his mouth.

'Jay-son!' Trudi says.

Wedge looks up to Berry.

'We waitin for Sam?'

'Sam?' Trudi breathes, fresh cigarette at lips.

She lights it.

'He's such a good looking lad, all grown up already.'

'Uh hum,' Holly agrees, looks up to the door.

'He's a fag,' Wedge slurps, nods at Berry. 'He wants to bum Bez. Always has.'

'Gay?' Trudi says. 'I don't think so. And, anyway, so what if he was?'

Wedge lets out a rapturous burp.

Berry resists the urge to applaud.

'Jay-son!'

An encore breaks in his throat.

'Boll . . .

It briefly inflates his clamped lips.

'. . .ocks.'

Resistance is futile.

'Ha heh heh.'

'Bollocks the fuckin homo,' Wedge says. 'Should've been here by now.'

The stairs creak behind Berry's head and there's footfalls on the old floorboards.

Holly beams a smile towards where Berry sits by the door.

'Y'gonna say hello?' she says.

'Eh?' Berry asks 'What? Sorry?'

He feels a figure hovering behind him – something tells him it's the owner of the trainers.

He turns.

'Err, hello Mrs Wujkowski . . .'

And Samba-man Sam 'Smithy' Smith, the sun tanned, sleepy-eyed sleepover adonis, walks into the kitchen.

'Lads,' he nods.

Heading east from the City in the newspaper's pool car, and the sun has finally found Rick minus-the-E Delaney.

'Ouch?' he groans. 'What the hell?'

He tips the rear view mirror down through its axis. The white line that runs up his scalp is now a burning red stream.

'Ouch!'

And his entire face is sunburnt.He lifts the two hair curtains that flop down to either side of his forehead, a red arrow flies up through two white clouds of skin.

Gotcha.

'Bloody sun.'

He knocks the mirror up.

Sighs.

He looks down at the newspaper, open on the passenger seat; page seven.

He strokes it.

Smiles.

'By Rick Delaney,' he mumbles, banging both hands on the steering wheel. 'EXCLUSIVE! By RICK DELANEY! Ha ha ha.'

He hits the radio's 'on' button.

An American woman is singing; 'Walkin on Sunshine, whoa, whoa, walkin on sunshine – whoa oh oh. And don't it feel good . . .'

Delaney sings along in tune, tapping his fingers on the wheel.

'Oh whoa, yeah. Whoah, whoah. Don't it feel good, hey. Ooh, alright now.'

He smiles.

'I'll need a new suit for London,' he says. 'Armani? Boss?'

He turns right off the dual carriageway at the sign for North Shields, heading towards the river.

'Where will I live? Hammersmith? Fulham? Clapham? Kensington, maybe?'

The car tips down the steep bank to the fish quay, in front of him the little yellow ferry heads out across to the south side of the river like a little bath toy.

He takes a left and passes a pub with a mast head ripped off a ship planted outside, then on passed the ice factory. He heads along the river bank towards the gathered masts, indicates, and parks.

The same spot as yesterday.

Now what?

The old man is there, rod tipped to the water.

He could have been there all day and night, his wife avoidance strategy. Platinum wedding, still married after all these years.

'Excuse me sir?'

The man turns.

'I'm looking for a young boy?'

The man's face is like an old leather briefcase.

'Oh, I mean,' Delaney looks down to the name he'd scrawled on the edge of the newspaper. 'I'm trying to find a boy called . . . Berry? Yes. Berry. Edward Berry.'

'Never heard of him.'

'Oh.'

The man follows the line from the tip of his rod, it twitches. He gently puts his hand to the line, to test for a bite.

False alarm.

'Ok, well. Erm?'

'Try the park son. Hundreds of little bastards up the park.'

'Where?'

'The park son, top of Tanners Bank,' he points. 'The big fuckin hill.'

In the park, and Ted Berry sits on the back of a park bench licking his wounds.

'Man,' Wedge says. 'What time do y'reckon Hash and Foggy'll show?'

Berry's thoughts are on Smithy and four naked breasts.

'Hairy arsed bastard,' Berry mumbles 'Victor fuckin Mature prick.'

Smithy had decided to stay behind drinking coffee with the women – have them admire his pubes, probably.

'Bez?'

'Aye?'

'Hash and Foggy?'

'What?'

'What time do y'reckon they'll be here?'

'I don't fuckin know, do I?'

'Reckon they'll show?'

'Aye. Course. For sure.'

'Aye?'

'They were fuckin gaggin for a spliff. Crosby's got their stuff. He's fucked.'

'I hope they kick his fuckin head in.'

An image flashes into Berry's mind - the roasted stoner and his skinny sidekick flying up the deck like two startled birds as Talbot returned to Kirrin for the second can of fuel.

Stoners, never fighters.

He shakes his head.

'Doubt it,' he sighs.

Berry spits out across the subway, but there's no fire in it. It falls limp to the path.

He wipes his chin.

KP ambles down the path.

'Turd burglars?' he greets them.

No reply.

He sits on the back of the chair beside Berry.

'Alright, fuckstick?'

Berry grunts.

'Fuck's wrong wi you?'

Cars skim between the railings above the subway.

'He's in a mood,' Wedge says.

'Why?'

'He's fucked off coz Smithy's nobbin me sister,' Wedge says.

'Fuck, really?'

Wedge sits on the bench opposite Berry, bored. Cigarette at his lips.

'Lucky bastard!' KP says, then KP across the path at Wedge, confused.

'And y'not arsed?'

'Me?'

'Y'know, Smithy, y'sister and that?'

'Why'd I be bothered?'

'Dunno. She's y'sister. Y'fuckin twin sister.'

'She's a slag.'

'Man, all the fanny love that snake hipped fuckin dago don't they, eh?' KP witters on.

Berry stares at him.

'Though, hey?' KP continues, thoughtfully. 'I always thought Smithy was a bender.'

'So did I,' Wedge says.

They both look at Berry.

'What?' Berry says. 'What the fuck y'lookin at me for?'

KP smirks, turns to Wedge.

'Hey, Wedge,' he says. 'Bez is only y'fuckin best mate coz he wanted to knob y'sister. He'll fuck y'off now, for sure. Ha ha . . . Ha.'

Berry looks over to the bench across the thin path, Wedge is sitting on the back of the seat's upright his feet on the planks – a mirror image, albeit with blonde hair and a fat head.

A negative charge fires across the two points of the circuit.

'Ah, I mean,' KP says, feeling it. 'I'm only jokin. And that.'

Wedge looks like the man at the Oscars, the favourite who didn't win in close up – hand in a pocket crumpling up a finely tuned acceptance speech.

Berry outstretches his leg, an involuntary act of his tendons.

KP looks around for distraction.

Finds it.

'Aw fuck,' he says. 'Look who's here.'

A gaggling teenage puss wave seeps down the hill. Loads of kids, maybe 20.

Smoking.

Stoned.

Sean Crosby and Mason lead the way. They settle amongst the swings at the top curl of the grey stone chip path.

'Someone'll stab that prick oneday,' KP says.

'I'm goin up there and gettin our fuckin gear back,' Wedge says.

He steps off the seat.

Wedge walks three feet.

Stops.

'Go on then,' KP says. 'We're watchin.'

Wedge pulls out his Regals, lights a fresh one.

'Maybes later.'

He turns and looks down to the hole under the road.

No sign of Hash and Foggy, the dynamic duo.

'Where the fucks Scabman and Dobbin?' he sighs.

Yellow plastic wheels flash through the subway railings and around the top of the park. They turn down the black path towards them.

'Here's Runty-bollocks,' KP says.

They watch his trajectory, for want of something better to do.

Runt overtakes a lone man in a suit walking down the path – a rare sight in Norther Park. Only ever tools of the state – usually the wag man or the CID, except they always travel in pairs.

'Copper!' Runt shouts at the world's newest, most important investigative reporter - Rick Delaney, minus the E.

'Fuck off copper!'

Three minutes earlier, and Rick Delaney drives up the steep hill that leads away from the fish quay, as instructed.

A swarm of teenagers heads up the street on the opposite side of the road spilling acne puss on the flagstone path as they go.

They turn right and walk through gates to green trees that must be a park.

'Kids?' Delaney says. 'Spotty kids! That'll be him!'

He does a U-turn and pulls up to the kerb a third of the way down the hill that's as near as vertical as it's possible to get and still build a road and not a lift. He switches off the engine.

'Right? Right then.'

He looks in the mirror.

'Come on Rick,' he says to the red face. 'Come on.'

He gets out of the car, then reaches back in for his suit jacket from where it hangs next to the rear passenger window, locks the car and follows the spoor of cheap perfume through the park gates.

The kids are sprawled out amongst the swings like a Fifties film. Except there's no James Dean or Marlon Brando, Natalie Wood or even Jayne Mansfield anywhere nearby.

Just teenage kids like teenage kids everywhere.

All puss and pubic hair.

'Little mutants,' Delaney mutters. 'Oh God, please. I hope this Berry boy is there.'

The ugliest kid of all, King Zit, sits on a swing, another lad sits next to him like a faithful hound. Maybe two dozen other kids lounge on the roundabout, or sit near his feet on the grass.

All of them are smoking.

He looks up to the road, his car isn't far away – a 30 second sprint down hill, maybe less.

'Come on Rick, how hard can it be?'

He forces his feet down the path towards the swings and sees the red Adidas bag at King Zit's feet.

'Is it?'

He pauses.

'Jesus!'

A wet towel flits up inside his chest.

'It is! It's him!'

He turns his head to look back from where he came, contemplating retreat, then looks again at the swings.

King Zit has something at his fingers, he sticks his tongue out over his lips in deep concentration. His French waiter's moustache quivers as he licks the spliff papers together.

'God, Edward Berry,' he mumbles. 'You're an ugly boy.'

The boy looks the part - Gangster Junior.

Delaney covers the final few feet.

And joins them.

'Hi,' he says.

Face to face with Britain's Youngest Gangster.

The kid jerks his head up, rocking gold curtain hoops in each ear, he pulls a sunburnt arm over his handiwork.

Lighter in his hand.

'What?' he says.

He locks both ankles around the bag.

Delaney pulls his silver cigarette case from his pocket.

'Got a light?' he says making a light-me-up sign with his thumb.

'Nah,' King Zit replies. 'Fuck off.'

The assembled youth of today snigger.

'What?' says the boy on the next swing, his tongue too fat for his mouth. He talks just like a dog would, if you could train him.

'Hi,' Delaney says to him.

'What y'want?' says Dogboy.

Dogboy has a cream hearing aid in the centre of a badly swollen ear.

'Light?'

'Don't smoke.'

Delaney wipes his wrist against his scorched brow.

'Ouch!'

The trainee thugs snigger.

'Ha ha ha. Hot still chaps, erm, eh?'

Delaney looks at his watch.

'And it's after seven o'clock already,' he dribbles. 'Where does time go when you're young, eh?'

He fiddles with his silver cigarette case, pulls out a Gauloise.

'What's with the gay fuckin box?' says the kid with the fat tongue.

'What? Oh, it's . . .'

A sickly looking kid on a BMX with bright yellow wheels zips past them down the path.

'Copper!' he shouts. 'Fuck off copper!'

He watches the kid go down the curling path to the hole under the main road and join another, smaller group of kids by the subway.

A gaggle of the girls titter at Runt's cheek as he flings by.

'We've not done anythin,' King Zit says.

'Sorry?' Delaney says.

'We gettin nicked or what?' says Dogboy.

'What?' Delaney says. 'Oh, ha ha. I'm not a policeman. I'm a reporter. Ha ha ha.'

'A reporter?' King Zit snorts. 'Professional fuckin grass.'

'A what?'

The teenager pulls out the spliff, it's long and thin – clumsily made.

He lights it.

'I'm looking for someone,' Delaney smiles, trying to send messages to the boy through his eyes.

'Who you a reporter for?' asks Dogboy.

Delaney drags on his posh cigarette.

Coughs, mechanically.

Stupid, really – seeing as it's not lit.

'The Kernel, well. I mean. The Sunday Sorted. Now.'

And it's true, sort of.

'Ah, right,' King Zit nods his approval. 'Me mam reads The SS.'

'Anyway, can I have a word with you in private - Edward Berry?'

He said the name with a flourish, like a trickster pulling a rabbit fresh from the folds of a fat arse.

'What?'

Delaney smiles, almost winks. Looks down at the red bag the ugly kid is protecting with his legs.

'Oh come on Teddy. May I call you Teddy? Come on. I know who you are,' he nods at the glowing spliff hanging beneath the ugly boy's stupid moustache. 'I know that's whacky baccy you're smoking.'

There's a choir of laughter amongst the teens.

''Whacky baccy!' Did he just say 'whacky baccy'?'

The two butt ugly boys look at each other.

'Who the fuck's 'Edward Berry?''

'Bez,' says one of the females sitting on the grass. 'Edward Berry. That's Bez's real name.'

King Zit smiles, teeth already an unhealthy yellow.

'Ah Bez? Y'want Bez mister.'

'Bez?'

King Zit rises from his swing, it rocks back and forth.

'Wow!' Delaney steps back, holding out his hands. 'Come on now, Teddy. Don't do anything you'll regr . . .'

'I'm not Bez, y'dick head,' King Zit says. 'Looker.'

He points down the hill to the subway hole.

'That's the wanker there. The prick with the black hair, sittin on the back of the bench. Tell him Crosby said hello.'

Down the track, and the dominoes keep tumbling towards Edward James Berry.

'Man,' KP says, eyes locked on the gang up the path.

He holds a hand over his eyes to protect them from the falling sun.

'Is he?'

'What?' Wedge says, following his eyes.

'He is. That cunt Crosby's sendin that copper down here!'

The man winds himself down the curling black path to the subway.

Berry turns his head.

'Looker.'

The Suit reaches the end of the path, a plastic 'I'm your pal, honest' smile stapled to his cheesey, sun-slapped face.

'Hi, I'm Rick.'

Silence.

Glances exchange.

The man puts his right hand in his pocket and pulls out a silver cigarette case. Selects a fag then makes a slow job of putting it to his mouth.

But there's already one there.

Unlit at his lips.

'Oh.'

It takes him a second or so to decide what to do, he puts the new one back in the gay silver box.

'What a fuckin tool,' KP mutters.

'Light?' he asks, flicking his thumb.

He smiles and flicks his hair to the side.

The skin is pasty white under where the hair had just been. The rest of his face is an uncomfortable looking red.

'Yup,' KP says, louder. 'Prize fuckin bell end.'

Wedge pulls out his green Clipper. Lights it for him.

'Thanks.'

A wisp of smoke waters his eye.

Coughs.

'Man,' Wedge snorts, pulling out a cigarette from his pack of Regal Kingsize. 'You're a shit fuckin copper.'

He lights it.

Inhales, deeply.

'What?' Delaney glances down at Runt, the now silent boy who'd screamed 'fuck off copper' at him up the hill. 'Ha ha. Don't be silly, I'm not a policeman.'

The teenagers look at him.

'My name is Rick E, erm Rick, Rick Delaney – I, I work for The Kernel . . .'

' . . well, I mean. I'm really working for The Sunday Sorted. Well, erm.'

His eyes shine like a martyr.

'I bet this bloke fingers his own anus.'

'Sorry?' the man turns to KP.

KP lifts an arse cheek off the back of the chair and pretends to prod his arsehole. He sniffs his fingers and smiles.

The reporter shakes his head and stares, instead, at Edward Berry - like a ditched lover, pleading.

'The SS?' Wedge says. 'You a fuckin Nazi?'

'Sorry?' Delaney turns to Wedge.

Coughs again.

'Me mam says you're all Nazis,' Wedge says, exhaling.

'Sorry?'

'Live in a 1930s world that never existed - even in the '30s. Fred Basset. It's all a myth. Middle class mythical bullshit.'

'It's 1985. Don't be silly.'

'Wife beaters and fuckin Wimbledon,' Wedge is on a roll – Trudi-style. 'Bank managers, hiding kiddie porn in their potting sheds.'

'Anyway,' Delaney shakes his head, re-focuses on Berry.

'Fuck's sakes,' Berry breathes.

'Which one of you chaps is Edward Berry?'

'Chaps?' KP says. 'Did he just say fuckin 'chaps'!'

Delaney looks around, then stares at Berry.

'Teddy,' he smiles. 'May I call you Teddy?'

KP and Wedge look at each other.

'Teddy!'

'Fuck,' KP says. 'Don't call him Teddy mister.'

'What did that cunt Crosby say?' Berry snaps, nods up the bank.

'Sorry?'

Delaney turns up the hill, where Crosby and gang all stand or slouch, watching.

'Oh, him? Well, is he one of your, erm, dealers . . . Edward Berry?'

This time the reporter lays the two words of the name like a winning hand; Blackjack.

'My fuckin what? Dealers? What the fuck y'talkin about?'

'Hey Bez,' KP says. 'This silly prick thinks you're a fuckin gangster? Or somethin?'

'Man oh man.'

Delaney's looks lost, unsure of 'the facts'.

But the treacle soon returns to his face.

'Oh come on. Teddy.'

Berry's legs jerk out in spasm, he slips off the chair to his feet on the path.

'Stop callin me fuckin TEDDY!'

Delaney steps back.

'Wow! I know about you Teddy, erm, Edward.'

'Y'know about me what?'

'Oh? Ha ha. Do you want me to call you 'Sir'?'

Berry closes his eyes.

'Jesus Fuckin Christ. What y'fuckin talkin about, man?'

'Come now, Teddy. Why don't we do a deal? My newspaper has lots of money. And a story like this, well . . . Come on, Teddy. Tell me all about your operation. The North Sea? You must have some big connections and . . '

'My oper-fuckin-ration? What the fuck?'

Delaney decides to turn middle class preacher of the moral standards, SS style.

'Those poor young children up there are all smoking YOUR drugs, Teddy and a man is dead and . . .'

'Crosby told you I SOLD him drugs?'

'Yes, he did. He did. And. . .'

Berry snaps.

His legs jerk forward and, before he can apply the brakes, he's accelerating up the path.

'CUNT!'

Towards Sean Crosby, the hardest boy in the school.

Rick Delaney steps away from the flying boy.

'Excuse me Teddy but . . . Teddy?'

The teenager is running up the hill.

'Jesus! What's he doing? That spotty boy will bloody murder him.'

'Bez!' the three other members of The Berry Gang pursue him up the path to the knot of swings.

King Zit and Dogboy stand up, smiling - ready.

King Zit even has time for a final pull on his spliff. He hands it to a girl, readies himself.

'Bez man!'

All the kids rise from the grass.

Delaney pauses.

Takes a step north.

Reconsiders.

'Shall I?' he says.

He looks to the cave under the road not expecting inspiration.

But it's there, nonetheless.

A man patters out of the subway tunnel, like a panther.

'What the?'

A panther with a really bad haircut in a Scorpions concert t-shirt.

He ignores Delaney as he goes.

'Waddle? Was that Chris Waddle? Surely not?'

Delaney can just make out the tour dates written in red ink on the back of his t-shirt.

Trondheim.

Zeebrugge.

Hull.

'What the hell is going on here?'

Delaney stays where he is.

A wise move.

Up the hill, and Ted Berry is in trouble.

'Fight!'

'Fight!'

Big fucking trouble.

'Fight!'

It's called Crosby. Sean Crosby.

The Hardest In The School.

And Berry is finding the boy is worthy of the title.

'Cunt!' Crosby says. 'I'll fuckin kill ya!'

Berry hangs onto Crosby's back like a jockey breaking in a horse.

But the blows just keep on landing, across Berry's back, his head, even his legs.

Each hoove shod with a gold sovereign ring.

'Fight!'

'Fight!'

'Fight!'

'Fuck him Crosby! Fuckin kill him!'

And that's a female voice.

'Kick his fuckin head in!'

Then a friend, solitary.

'Bez, bite the cunt. Bite the cunt.'

It's KP.

One pair of testicles, at least, in Berry's corner.

He sinks his teeth into Crosby's flesh, as instructed.

It could be the inside of an arm.

'Aaagh!'

Wallop.

The blows still seem to fly in from all sides, he grabs Crosby's skull in his armpit, the kid is some sort of octopus.

A blow rings his right ear.

Then the left.

Then the back of his head.

'Keep out of it Mason,' KP shouts. 'Y'fuckin spastic!'

And then the octupus loses half its limbs.

'Who y'callin a fuckin spastic?' says Crosby's dog.

And KP is now losing a fight of his own - with Mason.

'Aaagh!' Crosby squeals as Berry bites again. 'I'll fuckin . .'

He swings him around.

'Kill ya . .'

Berry's teeth lose their hold. He grabs Crosby's face as best he can, fingers gripping around his ridiculous moustache.

It's not enough.

He's gone.

Off into space.

'Fuck! Me!'

His shoulder hits the stone chip path.

'Cunt,' Crosby says, reaching behind his back. 'Think y'fuckin hard, do ya?'

He pulls out the Bowie knife, draws it from its leather sheath.

Sunlight trickles down the blade like water.

It zips through the air.

'Shit the fuckin bed.'

Too close.

Berry turns his head and the blade jabs into his flesh – somewhere in his hairline.

He feels it drag, opening the meat above his left ear.

'Fuckin leg it Bez. Run!'

The killer blow to the throat is imminent, the beat of it taps through Berry's brain.

One. . .

Two . . .

Three . . ?

. . he's late.

Crosby has lost the beat.

Unlikely.

'Mr Berry?'

Berry looks up to see the skinny rocker holding out a hand, his earphones hanging around his throat like a necklace. Shit Euro-metal music plays away to itself.

'What? Fuck?'

He takes Kristiaan's hand and is yanked fast to his feet.

'Who the fuck are you?' Crosby says, moving the blade to his other hand.

Mason steps to Crosby's side.

'Me?' Kristiaan says. 'I am a friend of Mr Berry's here. Ah fosure. And who are you?'

'Come on then y'cunt,' Mason shouts.

He throws his hands down to his side and pushes out his idiot's chin.

'Fuckin COME ON!'

Mason's hands are palms out and wide to his sides, open in invitation. Locking and unlocking like a Manchester singer \- the classic fuckwit behaviour of someone who thinks a fat mouth and his friends can do the fighting for him.

'Okay,' Kristiaan says, stepping forward.

His fist crunches straight into Mason's throat, a direct blow to the Adam's apple.

Efficient brutality.

The crowd winces.

'Ohhhhh!'

'Fuckinhell!' Berry turns his head.

Mason gasps for air, hands clawing at his neck.

And falls to the ground.

'He's killed him!' a girl screams.

Kristiaan steps forward and brings a black boot.

Stomp.

Stomp.

Stomp.

Down three times on Mason's nose.

Crosby steps back, flashes his knife through the air.

'Come on then CUNT!'

He slashes out at the foreigner.

'Waarom wilt u mijn vriend kwetsen?' Kristiaan says, waiting for the blade to reach the end of its arc.

Crosby turns to throw the next blow.

But.

Crunch!

Kristiaan volleys Crosby in the testicles with his steel toecap boot.

Crisp.

Perfect.

'Fuck me!'

Instantly saving the State thousands in child benefits.

A girl screams.

'SEAN!'

Perhaps sensing her council house application turning to paste alongwith her boyfriend's nuts.

Two dozen teenagers fall silent for the first time ever on this patch of council land.

The cars whizz whizz over the subway hole.

Crosby falls, curling up into a ball even before he hits the floor.

'Gah!'

Kristiaan is stone silent.

Calm.

Every kid now thinks this bloke's haircut isn't quite so bad afterall.

Berry isn't one of them.

He can feel hot blood trickling down from behind his ear.

'Man, oh fuckin man.'

He puts his fingers to it. He looks down on Crosby, curled up with both hands clutching a hairy bag of testicle puree.

'Now, young man,' Kristiaan says. 'I am going to damage you for hurting my friend.'

Kristiaan picks up the Bowie knife from the floor.

The crowd groans.

'Man,' Wedge says. 'He's gonna fuckin kill him!'

But Kristiaan picks up its leather sheath, slips the knife into it and throws it.

'Mr Veg. A souvenir.'

Wedge catches it.

Mason is breathing - air has found a route through crushed cartillage to his lungs. He spits mucus and blood – acutely aware now that his windpipe not only exists but is a vital part of his anatomy.

'Now,' Kristiaan says to Crosby. 'I hope you do not want to be a model.'

Kristiaan hunches down, grabs him by the collar, looks at him.

'No. You are much too ugly.'

The teenage boy prostrate before the man – some kind of universe between them.

'Mister,' Berry says.

'Don't. Please, don't.'

Too late.

A blow has been struck.

And Crosby's nose no longer has any form.

Berry turns away.

'Ah, fuckinhell man!'

The cartilage has met the bone and detonated.

Flattened.

Kristiaan bends down to Crosby's ear.

'You will remember this day. Ah fosure. Nobody fucks with my friends. Uzut.'

He lets go of his collar, Crosby's head falls to the ground.

Unconcious.

Kristiaan stands.

'Bastaard,' he says.

Wedge picks up the red bag.

Kristiaan walks over and pulls Berry's hand away from the side of his head.

'U bent zeer mooie M. Berry.'

Berry looks up at him.

'What?' he says.

'Ai yai yai,' Kristiaan sighs. 'I am sorry. I should have got here earlier. Are you okay?'

Kristiaan's eyes are like wet stones.

'It's alright. Come with me,' he says. 'I have thread in my car.'

Berry leans his head to the right as Kristiaan spreads the carpet of black hair.

'Ow! Man! Fuck's sakes!'

'Droevig.'

'Man,' Wedge says from the back seat. 'That's a canny gash Bez.'

'Fuck!' Berry squeals. 'ME!'

'Does he need to go to the hospital?'

'No. It is only small. Two or three stitches. Now hold still.'

Wedge bounces around in the back, playing with the electric windows.

KP and Runt weren't invited.

And, anyway, they've news to spread.

'Canny motor Kristiaan, where'd y'get it?'

'It is a hire car.'

'Ah, right. Cool,' Wedge says. 'Your work is cool. They pay for everything?'

'Yes. I have a great job. I like it very much. And you? What do you want to do when you grow up, Mr Veg?'

'Me?' the finger pauses on the electric window.

'I want your fuckin job.'

He pushes the button.

The window whirrs closed.

'No need to swear Mr Veg. It is not pleasant.'

'Ah bollocks.'

He opens it again.

It whirrs closed.

'Fuck. Cunt,' Wedge says, playing with the window. 'Cunty cocks. Bollocks.'

Kristiaan smiles at Berry.

'I was thinking you could maybe join the circus Mr Veg. Mr Veg and his amazingly big head. They could sell souvenir melons – with your face on them.'

Berry snorts.

'Ha fuckin ha,' Wedge says.

'That's it Mr Berry. Finished. Your mother need never know.'

Berry pulls down the sunshade and looks in the vanity mirror.

A pair of stitches hide like a spider in his hairline.

Wedge's head appears between the upholstery.

'Kristiaan saved y'fuckin arse.'

'Aye, thanks for y'help, fuckin Melonhead.'

Wedge bounces forward.

'What y'mean? I was there!'

'Get fucked. Y'fuckin homo.'

Wedge changes the subject.

'Man, you're a hard cunt Kris. Where'd you learn to fight like that.'

'In the army.'

'They got an fuckin army in Holland? Aren't you the fuckers with little pen knives?'

'That is the Swiss, Mr Veg. Ah fosure, the Netherlands has an army. Stop swearing so much, please. Uzut. I do not like it.'

Wedge bops up and down against the back of Berry's seat.

'Fuck's sake. Wanna sit in the front?'

'Can I?'

'Of course,' Kristiaan says.

Berry opens the door.

They change positions.

Berry pushes the Adidas bag onto the floor.

'Fuckin thing.'

He leans his head back and looks at the roof.

Closes his eyes.

Sighs.

'What a shit fuckin day.'

'Mr Berry, you also swear too much.'

Berry shakes his head, looks up at the vinyl roof.

'Shit the fuckin bed man,' he says, softly. 'Shit the fuckin bed.'

'Hey Kris,' Wedge says. 'Can I have a drive?'

'A drive?'

'Aye, I know all the gears and that.'

'Maybe later.'

Wedge plays with the front electric window.

'Here Bez?' Wedge says over his shoulder. 'Bez?'

'Fuckinhell man,' Berry turns his face down from the ceiling. 'What!'

'Mason was hittin you and that. It wasn't just Crosby.'

'No shit, Sherlock.'

'Man, that was mental. MENTAL! Here, Kris . . .'

'You two boys like a smoke yes?'

That shut him up.

'What?'

'A smoke? I like to have a smoke. It calms me down. I have some here, if you like? We are all very stressed.'

Kristiaan turns to look through the gap at Berry.

'It will help numb the pain.'

'Excuse me,' he strokes Wedge's leg, exhales heavily. 'Mr Veg.'

He opens the glovebox by Wedge's knees. He pulls out a glass pipe.

'I like it in a pipe. I have one prepared already. It will cheer us all up eh, Mr Veg? I do not like violence. Ah fosure. It upsets me.'

'Do you have a light?'

Wedge fidgets through his pockets.

'Fuck? I can't find it.'

'Here,' Berry says, and he hands the lighter he'd found on Play Fair, the one with the lady in the swimsuit.

Kristiaan takes it, looks at it. He gently turns it upside down to strip the lady in the bowl.

'Thank you.'

He does it again. Then rolls the flint and lights the pipe.

He sucks hard, the flame from the lighter leans forward into the bowl.

Coughs.

He offers it to Wedge, keeping the smoke in his chest.

Wedge takes hold of it and puts it to his lips.

Kristiaan rolls the flint.

Once.

'Suck hard!' he commands, breathing out his own dose.

Twice.

'Harder!'

Three times.

Wedge sucks the flame down, pulling so hard that smoke exits his anus.

Kristiaan takes it from him and passes it between the two front seats to Berry.

'Your turn.'

It's an order.

Wedge is silent, out of sight.

Berry's lungs gently pull on the barrel.

Once.

'Not like that Mr Berry. Properly. Suck. Hard!'

Twice.

'And again, Mr Berry.'

Third time lucky.

'HARDER!'

It's a harsh, chemical hit - not at all herbal.

'Jesus!' he coughs.

'Fuckin!

Cough.

'Christ!'

Berry falls back against the upholstery – but then he just keeps falling, through soft clouds, waiting for the bottom.

For the bounce.

It doesn't come.

Yet.

The dial that keeps the door to Ted Berry's mind safely contained is spinning, its secret codes clicking and flashing by like a lock in a safe cracker's hand.

'Man, oh man.'

It spills open.

Wedge turns and looks through the gap between the front seats.

They look each other in the eye – waving each other off at the port, sailing off this time to different destinations.

Berry's anchor trails behind him in the water.

'Man, oh man.'

His conciousness and unconciousness free now to mix and meld, float and intertwine like smoke rings - to find their own level – never to return to the same spot where they'd been moored all these short years.

Not quite.

He tries to steer as best he can, but the controls are slippery and unfamiliar – up is down, left is right. He looks at the back of Wedge's head, framed by the glass windscreen.

Familiarity.

'Ha heh heh,' he laughs. 'Massive . . .'

Just as he gets to the end of one thought, he finds he's forgotten the start.

'Napper?'

He lets them dissolve into each other – I mean, who the fuck cares, anyway? It doesn't matter. The tracks slip off unto the horizon in elaborate, coloured shapes. Sometimes side by side but never quite together.

'Happy boys?' Kristiaan shouts. 'Hoo hoo hoo!'

He beeps his horn, the pipe at his lips.

Hoot.

Hoot.

Hoot.

'I played a little trick on you,' Kristiaan says. 'Do you know what this is?'

Silence.

'Heroin, boys. Heroin! Welcome to Rotterdam. Hoo hoo hoo!'

Hoot.

Hoot.

Hoot.

There's interference on the line.

'Heroin?'

Collapsed veins.

White, emaciated corpses in the stairwells of derelict housing blocks.

Berry shuts his eyes.

'Fuckinhell, heroin,' he says. 'So this is it.'

There's a reason people spend money they don't have on it.

Kristiaan pulls again on the pipe.

'Well,' he continues. 'Not only heroin. MDMA too, but it doesn't burn so well. I find it helps the journey. I am like a chef, you could say. Hoo hoo hoo. Uzut, Veg? Like a chef?'

He makes chop, chop signs with his open right hand.

'I should chop you up into little pieces, my little vegetable. Hoo hoo hoo. Do you want some more?'

The pipe passes between the front seats.

'Mr Berry?'

Berry holds up his hands in protest.

'Nah, man. Nah.'

'Ah fosure!'

Kristiaan sucks on the pipe until it burns itself out.

Empty.

'Ah?' Kristiaan says, shuffling around at his feet. 'I nearly forgot. I wanted to show you two something.'

Kristiaan rustles something at Berry between the seats.

It's a newspaper.

Berry looks at it, it's turned to an inside page.

Page seven.

There's a photograph of what could be a burnt whale.

Kristiaan is smiling.

'Did you kill him?'

'What?'

The scratches on the page won't form.

'Who?'

'I don't know who. But someone died on a boat. Look.'

'Boat?'

'They died?'

'Died?'

'Dead, yes. Boat, yes. MY boat. YES! Now, I like you boys,' he looks at Berry then Wedge. 'You two are my friends, yes?'

'Aye mister,' Wedge mumbles. 'We're mates.'

'I must ask you a question.'

He looks again at them both.

Then turns and looks between the seats at Berry for what feels like about 15 years.

'Mr Berry, Ted Berry, Skipper of the Play Fair – do you copy? Do you copy, now? Where is my cannabis?'

'What?'

'VORDERT!' he slams both hands against the steering wheel. 'You spoke to my mother, my FUCKING mother. Where are MY drugs?'

'Shit the fuckin bed!'

'Calm the fuck down!' Wedge says.

Kristiaan turns to him.

'My neighbour's got it.'

'Wat?'

'My neighbour.'

'Your neighbour?'

'Talbot. Wade Talbot.'

Kristiaan's face lights up and mouth opens on a dentist's wank fantasy – three teeth are missing from the left hand side of his mouth, the rest look like they could soon follow.

'Ah my father's friend, Mr Talbot!' he beams. 'The little fishing fisherman! I knew this, but where?'

'On his boat,' Wedge says. 'Maybes.'

He turns and looks at Berry.

'Zeer goed.'

He grabs the steering wheel.

'That is alright then. Yes? Very good. Very very good. Ah fosure. We can still be friends. And we shall find out what happened to Fredrik. Yes yes.'

He turns the key in the ignition.

'We will have some fun yes?' Kristiaan says. 'You are my friends. Yes?'

Electricity hits the stereo, turning the tape in the deck.

A guitar solo.

A screaming, squealing masturbation – like a pterodactyl wanking itself on a rock.

Right behind Berry's head, the speakers cranked up to max.

'Oh! Fuck! Me!'

'Woo hoo hoo!' Kristian screams.

And the Vauxhall Cavalier jerks away from the kerb and up the street.

Ted Berry feels like a small boy, skimming like a pebble across a flat lake. His mind touching reality occasionally, before bouncing back up again – into an endlessly changing place.

The screaming guitar pumps into either ear, compressing his brain down to the size of a walnut.

'Woo hoo hoo!' Kristiaan screams.

He bangs his head back and forth, apparently in time to the music.

'It is good feeling Mr Berry, hey?' Kristiaan shouts into the mirror. 'Do you like it?'

Berry closes his eyes and smiles.

'Woo hoo!' Wedge shouts from the front seat.

Kristiaan presses rewind on the stereo.

'I must hear that bit again!' he says.

Zip zip.

Trees and concrete flit by the open windows.

Zip zip.

'Man, oh man,' Berry says.

Berry feels six years old, on a road trip, his long dead dad smiling at him from the rearview mirror.

Kristiaan winks.

Zip zip.

Berry sticks a hand out of the window, it sores up like a bird. He tips his fingers and the hand swoops down.

'Ha heh heh.'

'Do you like my music?' Kristiaan says.

'Nah,' Wedge says. 'It's shit.'

'Aye,' Berry agrees. 'Fuckinawful. Total. And. Utter. Shite.'

'You are needling me, yes? Ah fosure. Hoo hoo hoo.'

'Nah mate, for real,' Wedge smiles. 'It's shit. Total shit.'

Krsitiaan presses 'play', let's go of the wheel and does a little air guitar solo.

Rocking his bad haircut back and forward.

Wedge bursts.

'Gah!'

He points at the rock buffoon with bad hair at the wheel.

He's laughing so hard, his lungs lock high in his chest and he makes no sound at all.

It's the funniest thing.

Ever.

And Ted Berry agrees.

'Ha heh heh.'

Kristiaan continues to play air guitar as the car heads down the street.

'Heh heh heh. Ha heh heh.'

The phrase in the music passes.

He brings down his hand and presses rewind.

'I don't go anywhere without my tapes,' he shouts over the din. 'I will play that guitar solo again.'

Tears of insane laughter stream down Berry's face, he rolls to the side.

He can't breathe. It's like a bear is sitting on his chest.

The tape whirrs.

Kristiaan looks in the mirror.

'You two boys are crazier even than me? Hoo hoo hoo. We will have some fun tonight, yes? We are on the rampage. It is a good word, yes - 'rampage'. It is a great name for a rock band, no? Shall we form a group? I will play lead guitar. Wij zouden een rotsgroep moeten beginnen.'

He does another little burst of air guitar, rocks his head back and forth.

'The Rampage. Yeaaah!'

'Fuck! Ha ha ha. Me!'

'Ha heh heh.'

'Hoo hoo hoo.'

The tape ejects.

Kristiaan pushes in the tape, it clicks.

But there's no sound.

He hits it.

'Stomme vloekmachine!'

Heavy rock.

Loud.

Wedge is saying something.

'Bez. We . . bloke . . reporter . . ?'

He turns and says it again.

'That . . bloke . . reporter?'

Berry can't make out what Wedge is saying, the music is too loud.

Kristiaan presses the rewind button.

'That is the wrong bit. I must find that solo AGAIN! Hoo hoo hoo!'

'Isn't it Bez?'

'What?'

A white Ford Escort is parked on the bank, a neat man in a light blue shirt is leaning on the roof, his back exposed to the road.

'That prick reporter. Looker.'

'Is it?'

Berry turns his head.

Kristiaan presses play on the tape deck – the solo, halfway through.

Wedge sticks his head out of the window.

'Wanker!' he shouts. 'Ha ha ha.'

Kristiaan presses rewind.

'Uzut?' Kristiaan asks.

'Reporter,' Wedge replies, his head back indoors now. 'Fuckin prick. It was his fault Bez had a fight with Crosby.'

'Crosby?'

'The kid whose nuts y'crushed.'

'Uzut? Ah, I see?'

Kristiaan takes the next left and pulls up in front of a fish smoking factory.

He reaches for the newspaper.

'Is this his name?'

Wedge reads.

'Rick Delaney?'

He leans between the seat gap.

'Rick Delaney?' he asks Berry.

'Man,' Berry says. 'I don't fuckin know, do I? Probably.'

It's enough.

'Well,' Kristiaan says. 'Let's give him something to write about.'

He presses play on the tape deck.

The guitar solo, from the beginning this time.

'Not a-fuckin-gain,' Berry falls back into the upholstery.

Halfway up the steep road down to the fish quay, and Rick Delaney stops at the white Ford Escort he'd borrowed last night from the Evening Kernel's garage.

Now reported stolen to the police by Munroe.

He turns the key in the door.

It resists.

'Stupid thing.'

He fiddles until the door opens.

'Ooof,' he says. 'That bloody stinks.'

Rancid fish, still cooking in the boot.

He takes off his linen jacket and hangs it on the plastic coat hanger glued above the rear passenger seat then shuffles through the inside pocket.

He pulls out his notepad.

'Oh? Photo?' he looks up the steep Tarmac hill to the park gates.

'They'll need a photo?'

The letters ACAB – All Coppers Are Bastards – are sprayed on the wall next to the car.

The paint could be fresh.

'I'm not going back up there. Jesus, no. No chance!'

He stands with the pad on top of the car, using its roof as his desk. He smiles and puts the pen to his mouth.

'EXCLUSIVE,' he says, writing down his favourite word. 'Ha ha.'

'By Rick E,' – he scribbles out the now redundant E.

''Rick Delaney.''

'GANG warfare broke out,' he reads as he writes, constructing the first paragraph to his masterpiece.

He chews the blue Bic.

'Gang warfare? Is it? What's gang warfare if not that? Jesus! How can a fifteen-year-old boy have his own enforcer? Hitman? Fifteen!'

His eyes follow the white footprints up the centre of the road to the top of the hill.

It's empty.

'Right, come on Rickster.'

He focuses on the task at hand.

'Right. GANG warfare broke out. Erm? The young face of an international drug ring? Cartel? Cartel! Nice. Nice,'

The pen goes back to his lips in search for some more overwritten inspiration. He tries to summon The SS's vocabulary.

'In a shocking indictment of the youth of today . . .'

The sound of a loud guitar solo gets closer then passes by behind, breaking his spell.

'Wanker!' a high voice shouts from the car.

He watches the black Cavalier take the next left.

'Scumbags,' he sighs.

'Someone should drop a bloody bomb on this place.'

He puts his mind back in gear.

'The gang leader a mere fifteen-year-old boy by the name of Edward Berry. A good looking teenage boy with the world at his feet. But the young Berry has taken an evil route to easy money, keeping the kids in his home town high on lethal – evil? - drugs. In a teenage turf war . . .'

Delaney pauses.

''Teenage turf war!' Ha ha ha. Great stuff, Rickster!'

A sweat patch gathers under Delaney's armpits as he leans over the roof.

'Oh?' he says, puts the pen to his lips. 'Hang on. Can I name a fifteen-year-old in this story?'

He tries to remember his media law course. English law protects minors from the press.

Sometimes.

He just can't remember when.

'You can't name them in a court case? This isn't a court case. Yet.'

He looks up to the park gates for inspiration.

'Sod it,' Delaney says. 'Kid is a bloody gangster, isn't he? He has no rights.'

Delaney scribbles 'please legal' at the top of the pad – a note for the newspaper's lawyers. Every newspaper reporter's 'get out of jail free' card.

There's the distant sound of a guitar solo, getting closer.

'God,' Delaney says. 'Could that have been the footballer bloke? What's his name again.'

He looks over into the back seat and the front page of yesterday's Evening Kernel – WADDLE SIGNS FOR TOTTENHAM.

There's a picture of a footballer in a brand new white strip with a really bad haircut.

'Can't be him. Can it? Oh, hang on. No it isn't. He's down in London,'

The guitar solo.

Delaney looks at the car radio then up the hill to the park gates, the road is empty.

'For God's . . .'

The guitar is accelerating in volume.

Loud.

Fast.

Louder.

Faster . . .

. . . it's behind him.

'Wanker!'

Delaney turns and, the film in his head slows down.

He holds his hands out against the approaching heavy metal.

'FUCK! NO!'

A few seconds earlier, back in the car, and Ted Berry is vaguely aware that they're heading back up the hill.

'It IS him!' Wedge shouts, he leans out of the window. 'Wanker!'

The guitarist's fingers reach high up his fretboard penis and he hits the strings, volume cranked to 11.

Berry pulls himself up from the upholstery.

'Is it hi. . .' he says. 'FUCKINHELL!'

The reporter's head smashes into the windscreen.

'AAAAGH! What the fuck? AAAAGH!'

It cracks.

The head.

And the windscreen.

Kristiaan crunches the gearbox into reverse.

'Bastaard!'

It takes a second or two to find the gear.

Crunch.

Grind.

Crunch.

He puts his arm around the back Wedge's seat and looks through the back window.

He smiles at Berry.

An aggressive parker

The back wheels lift up on their springs.

Then drop.

He revs hard, twice.

Vroom.

Vroom.

He looks at Berry with his wet pebble eyes.

'Hoo hoo hoo!'

He releases the clutch.

'CARNAGE!'

Fragments of a second pass like seeds blown from a dandelion, floating gently one by one to the ground.

'Heroin?' Berry says into the barrage of high notes. 'Overdose? FUCK!'

Kristiaan presses the stop button, pausing the guitarist's wanking wrists.

For now.

'Man, I don't feel too fuckin good,' Berry says.

'Ah, why do you need to punctuate every sentence with a swear word. It annoys me. You will be fine Mr Berry, do not worry.'

'Kristiaan?' Wedge says. 'Did you just run over that fuckin reporter bloke?'

'Reporter?' Kristiaan says, smiling in the mirror. 'What reporter?'

Berry smiles back like a kicked dog currying favour.

'What reporter?' he repeats. 'You are very high Mr Veg.'

'But?' Wedge starts.

'Man,' Berry says. 'What the fuck's happened to me head?'

It's as if Kristiaan has stabbed an egg whisk through an eye and is giving his grey matter a damn good scramble.

The business of the fish industry passes by.

'Do not worry boys, you must trust me. The drugs. They will wear off.'

'Aye?' Wedge says.

'Of course, unless you want some more? Hoo hoo hoo!'

'More?' Wedge looks through the gap at Berry then across to Kristiaan. 'Yeah man, fuckin right!'

'Ah man,' Berry says. 'I'm gonna fuckin puke.'

'We are nearly there Mr Berry. Mr Veg here is navigating. Yes?'

They pass a fish and chip shop, there's a long queue out the door.

Kristiaan turns down to the corrugated iron shed and the clutter of masts overhead that mark The Gut and the closed fish market.

They drive slowly along the thin strip of concrete. Tyres split splatting over the dock's final hosing as they go.

'There it is,' Wedge shouts. 'That's Talbot's boat.'

Kirrin - the flagship of the Tyneside trawling fleet is moored away from The Gut on its own, up beside the ice factory.

Kristiaan punches Wedge on the arm.

'Good boy. You're a very good boy. You will get your reward. Eh? You will get your reward later. Hoo hoo hoo.'

He turns off the engine and gets out of the car.

He leaves no instructions.

A thin film of fish mist coats Berry's mouth and tongue.

'I'm gonna fuckin puke.'

He opens the door.

'Oh, fuck me.'

Reeeugh!

He barfs all over the dock.

Reeeugh!

'Where's he gone?' Wedge says.

Reeeugh!

Berry sits back in the car seat, breathing heavily. Trying to reassemble his brain.

Time is without structure, the links in the chain have expanded to variable lengths.

Minutes pass.

Some like hours, others like seconds.

'Bez?'

Maybe not even in sequence.

'Aye?'

'Bez? I'm fuckin monged. Did he just kill that reporter?'

Berry looks at the cracked windscreen.

He opens the door.

Reeugh!

It's dry, there's nothing left to throw onto the road. Berry looks up the river, the metal dinosaurs tear at the sky, whipping the sunsetting sky into a pink disarray. The river Tyne spills out into the North Sea like a vast sheet of metal, hammered into position by northern hands.

'Maybes we should get out the car?'

'Car? Oh, aye?'

Click.

The door opens.

'Vorder, gaan wij varend. Ai yai, sorry, English. Come on, I want to show you something.'

Berry and Wedge stand on Kirrin's deck looking out over the fish quay

'Man,' Berry says, impressed. 'This is a proper fuckin ship.'

The stern is cleft open, framed by a wrought iron gibbets for the pulling in of nets full of writhing life.

Squealing seagulls bother the mast.

This is an entirely different beast from Playfair – this boat works for a living. Everything, every square inch of the boat smells of fish and industry.

Wedge leans against the rail, smoking a cigarette.

He looks fucked.

Happily fucked, like he's found the answer to a question he'd yet to ask.

There's a roar, the whole world shakes, vibrates - then settles.

'Fuckinhell?'

Fifteen hundred horses chomping at the bit, Kirrin's engines.

Kristiaan comes out of the wheelhouse.

'Wij betaalden u te goed M. Talbot. She sounds powerful no? We will get there in no time at all.'

He points to the rope looped around a gun metal ballard sticking up from the quay.

'Mr Berry, can you go and untie the rope there for me please?'

'Eh?' Berry looks at the rope looped round the metal erection. 'Oh, aye.'

He jumps over the side of the boat and onto the quay.

'Where the fuck y'goin?' Wedge says.

Berry grips the fat rope.

He pulls.

The ship comes closer - amazing - loosening the rope's grip on the ballard.

Berry unties it and the coils unfurl, Kirrin edges away from the dockside.

She slides out into the river.

A foot.

Two feet.

Three.

'Woo hoo!' Wedge says. 'Ha ha ha. Ship a-fuckin-hoy Jim lad.'

Berry looks to where Kristiaan stands at the wheelhouse, he looks like he's trying to tell him something.

'Ha heh heh.'

'Y'fuckin comin or what?' Wedge says from the deck.

Berry looks down at the expanding water.

'What? Ah fuck!'

'Jump y'fuckin idiot!'

Berry inches his right foot out over the water.

Reconsiders.

The ship is about five feet now from the riverbank.

'Fuckinhell!'

He turns to get a run.

Sprints, and leaps.

He lands on the deck.

Kristiaan hoots the horn.

Parp.

Parp.

Parp.

Berry stands at the stern as Kristiaan points the ship's bow towards the open sea. The world has turned to sepia over the river, scratches of cloud line the sky like chopped cocaine on a smoke glass table.

'Ha heh heh.'

Kirrin growls out between the piers.

Headed East.

Two dozen miles into the North Sea, and Skipper Ted Berry stands tall in Kirrin's wheelhouse, both hands at the wheel.

Except this is no wheelhouse.

It really is a bridge.

There's room enough up here for a bar.

'Ha heh heh!'

And down below, the expanse of wooden deck getting dark, that could be the dancefloor.

'Pull this Mr Berry.'

Kristiaan points at a toilet chain, hanging from the ceiling.

He pulls it.

Parp.

'Ha heh heh.'

Parp.

'Ha heh heh. Ha heh heh.'

Parp.

Parp.

Parp.

'Hoo hoo hoo, look at you Mr Berry. You really are a skipper now. Skipper Ted Berry.'

'Man, this is cool!'

'She is a beauty. Een zeer sterk schip, u deed voor zich goed M. Talbot. She is a very fast boat, we will get there in no time at all. Ah fosure.'

Parp.

Parp.

Parp.

'Fuckin right man!'

Berry moves the wheel off to the right.

'Look at the compass, Mr Berry. And keep her pointed East. I have something downstairs I need to take care of. I need to find my brother.'

The turn isn't instant, but Kirrin begins to bite into the sea and lean to the south.

Berry turns and looks out of the open wheelhouse door behind him.

'Ha heh heh.'

Someone has switched the lights on over his hometown far behind in the distance. The lights like a cluster of stars, receding.

'WOO HOO! Ha heh heh.'

The lighthouses on the north and south piers spin their white lances across the black sea.

He points the ship to the East.

Parp.

Parp.

Parp.

One hundred and seventeen nautical miles later over an empty patch of water called Cleaver Bank, and Kirrin cuts her way through the black night, Skipper Ted Berry still at the wheel.

Only stars over head, billions of pinpricks in a black stage curtain.

No moon.

The black glass of the bridge is like a mirror. Berry watches Kristiaan come in through the door, his glass pipe in his hand.

He's taken his top off.

Wedge is sitting by the window, a smile on his face.

'He likes his drugs, no?' Kristiaan says.

'Aye. He takes after his mam.'

'And you, Mr Berry? You are not so keen, no?'

'Me?'

'Drugs don't suit you. It is too much for your brain, yes?'

'S'pose, aye. Sort of. I'm a fuckin space cadet already.'

He can see Kristiaan sidling up behind him in the glass.

Then his skin recoils.

Kristiaan's hands are running down the sides of each arm, one holding the glass pipe.

Berry freezes.

He smells of cheap aftershave and hot sweat.

'Here, Ted. Let me show you.'

He's up close, his naked chest touches.

He's staring at his neck like a vampire.

'We need to turn slightly south.'

And there it is, there's no denying it – an erection on the other side of the tight rocker jeans.

He can feel his breath on his neck, a kiss sure to follow.

Berry rolls to the right.

'What the fuck y'doin?'

Kristiaan holds up his hands.

'I was just trying to teach you something,' he says.

He turns to Wedge, sitting – happy-as-a-pig-in-shit, looking out of the window.

Far, far away.

'Hoo hoo hoo.'

'What?' Wedge turns his face indoors. 'What? I wasn't listenin.'

'Mr Berry here is uptight, no? Mr Veg? We should do something to calm him down.'

Kristiaan lifts up his glass pipe.

'Are you ready for more, boys?' he says, filling it from a small green tin. 'We must relax and enjoy the journey, no?'

Wedge smiles.

'Fuckin right!'

Kristiaan lights the pipe with his brother's tit lighter, the end glows.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

He passes it to Wedge.

He follows suit.

Berry looks out of the window, the North Sea – black and infinite, like space.

'Fuckinhell?'

Kristiaan puts the pipe under his nose.

'Nah,' Berry says, he nods at the blackness. 'No more, I'm drivin.'

Kristiaan grabs his shoulder and turns him, the bit of the glass pipe bangs into his teeth – catching Berry's gum.

There's the faint taste of blood.

'Smoke. NOW.'

Once.

'HARDER!'

Twice.

'Very good. And again.'

Three times.

The turn from the blackness has messed up Berry's internal compass, inside the bridge - everything is moving. There are no fixed reference points. Nothing is solid, nothing can be relied upon – least of all thought.

The wind is picking up now, from the North.

Berry turns back to the blackness out front, gripping the wheel - waiting for his brain to anchor itself, looking for something to focus on as the ship powers forward, full speed ahead. Chewing away nautical miles like black carpet.

But the black window just pulls at him.

'Man, oh man.'

His mind again relaunches, skimming reality's surface, disturbing the sendiment below.

The world is not solid.

And it's not safe.

He looks down at the glass earth sitting in a bowl now pointing South East, it doesn't help, it wobbles around like a boiling kettle.

'Ah, man,' he says. 'I'm gonna fuckin puke!'

The compass inside his head splashes against the inside of his skull.

He staggers to the door.

'Hoo hoo hoo.'

'Ha ha ha,' Wedge says. 'Baby lungs. Ha ha ha.'

'Baby lungs! Very good Mr Veg. Baby lungs. U zult eerste zijn.'

Berry reaches the ship's rail and barfs into oblivion.

Once.

Blurrrr!

Twice.

Blaaaaaaaaaarr!

Three times.

Rurrrrrrrrrr!

All of them dry.

The black sea pulls at him.

He closes his eyes.

And he lets go.

Monday

The Rampage
Maybe it's the sudden bright light or the loud guitar solo that did it, either way Berry's awake now on the deck where he blacked out.

There's a jab between his temples, as if someone just stabbed him through the brain with a sharp stick.

'Ah, fuckinhell man.'

The North Sea is now a stage, cooking under bright electric lobster lights, heavy metal music blaring out from the ship's PA system.

Her engines die and Kirrin stops cutting her way through the waves, she rocks from side to side in a heavy swell.

Berry pushes himself to his feet.

Wipes his mouth.

'Water.'

The North Sea is rocking now, no longer asleep. The wind scuffs over the deck.

He grips the rail, heads alongside the bridge and takes the steps down and enters the trawler's living quarters.

A thin wood panelled corridor.

The smell of fish is intense, an almost physical force.

'Mingin!'

A nose, throat and mouth doctor would take an hour to scrape him clean. He puts his nose into the crux of his arm and pushes a door. Bile is rising, stopping for a temporary rest somewhere halfway up the tube.

He pushes open a door.

First time lucky.

There's a toilet. Suprisingly clean, Talbot runs a tight ship.

Blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

'Man, oh . . .'

Blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-rurr-rurrr!

And again.

Blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Once more.

'Fuckin,' he heaves. 'Hell, man.'

Brief respite.

Another wave comes.

Blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrr burrr b'buh huh.

'Fuck . .' he breathes. ' . . me.'

Grrrr-aaaagh.

He yacks into the toilet, dragging up only bile.

Tears in his eyes.

He rests his soaked forehead against the cold bowl.

The ship rocks, out of time, to shit Euro-heavy metal.

'Same fuckin solo!'

He keeps his head against the pissed on porcelain.

'Fuckin pervert.'

He turns and sits on the floor, looking straight ahead through the open toilet door, hoping somehow his eyes can balance the boat.

'Water.'

There's no tap in the toilet.

There's a closed wooden door with a porthole across the thin wooden corridor.

He steadies himself then rises.

Wiping his lips.

He steps across the corridor and pushes the door, staggering to one side as he goes.

He opens the door, stumbles in with a roll of the boat.

'Uuuuaaagh! Fuck!'

Something fat and hot peeps its head out from Ted Berry's anus.

'Aagh!'

The turtle retreats before birth.

And the guitar solo reverberates on through the boat.

'Aaaagh! Aaaaagh! Aaaaagh!'

And there it is, the monster that came down from the mountain and ate a baby.

Wade Talbot.

'Aaaagh! Agh!'

Lying on the bunk.

Naked.

An unsavoury Popeye, tattooed forearms blistered and badly burnt.

But not by the sun.

'Aaagh!'

Berry can smell the singed hair of his head and moustache, even over the rancid fish.

Two empty bottles of Jamesons whiskey are on the bedside table, a third bottle within easy reach of PIES and MASH – were they not bound together with green washing line.

The hands in turn joined by a line to his feet. His hairy naked arse faces the door, like somebody had positioned him just so for reasons only known to those in the know. There's a tub of Vaseline on the floor.

'Fuck! FUCK! FUCK!'

And his nose has been burst.

Kristiaan Style.

'Fuckinhell!

'Fuckinhell!

'Fuckinhell'

Berry turns to the door.

'AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!'

He falls backwards into the room, slap bang onto the bones of his arse.

'AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!'

He scoots backwards until he hits the hull.

'FUCK ME!!'

There, on a wooden chair, is the scorched remains of a man. Sitting by the door like a prison guard.

His face has totally gone.

Replaced by soot and bone.

'AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!'

The sockets of both eyes are empty and the tendons that once moved his jaw are exposed like blackened straw.

Berry closes his eyes.

'It's not real! It's the drugs. It's the drugs. It's not real! It's NOT fuckin real!'

He opens his eyes.

'Aaaaaaaagh!'

Berry's guts begin to move.

There's no time to reach the toilet.

Ruuuuagh!

He dry wretches.

Then has another go.

Uaaagh!

There must have been some puke spare, for special occasions like.

It splashes on the floor.

He turns his head.

Talbot's awake.

'Billy?' he says. 'What? Billy? I'll get water, Billy.'

Berry grips his eyes shut and sits on the lids.

'Not real, not real,' he mutters like a mantra. 'It's the drugs. It's the drugs. Calm down. It's not real.'

'Y'alright son? Y'alright?' Talbot slurs. 'You're a good lad Billy, a good lad. I always liked y'Billy Brown. Y'like my own little boy. I never let any other lads near Kathleen, nobody got through me door. You're a good lad Billy. A good lad. Special. Special. Aye. Special.'

Berry opens his eyes.

Talbot is looking straight at him.

'Billy?' Talbot grunts. 'What? The? Fuck?'

He tries to sit up but falls off the bed and flat onto his busted face, next to the corpse's melted Converse All Stars.

Talbot lies face down on the floor – his wrists joined to his ankles by the green nylon rope.

'AAAAGH!' Berry screams.

Talbot's nose pumps blood and he spits some from his mouth.

They look at each other, the side of Talbot's scorched face stuck to the floor, looking up.

He tries to rise.

But crunches hard into the slats.

He tries to pull his fists apart behind his back, just like the Incredible Hulk.

'Nyeeeeagh!'

At the same time, he tries to straighten his legs so hard his chest raises off the floor in a brand new yoga position.

The plastic rope holds firm and cuts deep, blood trickles down his wrists and ankles.

He breathes heavily.

Sighs.

Relaxes.

Defeated.

He looks up at Berry.

'Kidda, why y'doin this to me?'

'Me?'

'Who are you?'

'Ber? The? Ted Berry sir.'

'Sir?' Talbot spits blood onto the floor. 'What y'doin on me boat?'

He again tries the Hulk trick on the washing line.

'Nyeeeagh!'

He ends up in the same yoga pose.

He lies his head back on the floor.

Sighs.

Breathes, heavily.

'Ted Berry?'

'I'm Wedge's mate.'

'Wedge?'

'He's upstairs,' Berry nods at the roof. 'Jay. Jason. Jason Wujkowski.'

'Wujkowski?'

Talbot's face says he's searching his mental databank.

'Trudi's boy?'

'Aye. That's him.'

'Wedge?' Talbot smiles, there's blood on his teeth. 'Good name. Suits him.'

'He's upstairs.'

'Why did you hit me Ted? What I ever do to you?'

'Eh? Why would I hit you?'

'You tied me up.'

Talbot again strains hard against his chains as if to make the point.

'Nyeeeeagh!'

'It must have been Kristiaan.'

He collapses back on the floor.

'Who?'

'Kristiaan must have done it, he's upstairs?'

'Who's Kristiaan?'

'Kristiaan? With two As. Didn't y'let him borrow y'boat?'

Talbot's face ignites.

'Has he got a stupid accent?'

Berry nods.

'He's from Holland. A fireman.'

Talbot stares hard at Berry.

'Stupid hair? Thinks he's Keith fuckin Richards?'

'Who?'

'A rock star.'

'That's him!'

Talbot closes his eyes.

'Jesus fuckin Christ, kidda,' he opens his eyes. 'How the fuck did y'end up wi that cunt?'

'Ehm? He's a mate? Well?'

He looks out the door.

'I don't know!'

'A fuckin 'mate'? You off y'fuckin head kidda?'

Talbot rolls onto his side, facing Berry. He sharpens his focus.

Berry tries really hard not to look at his balls and oversized penis, like an old rope with a knot in the end.

'Man, you are – aren't ya? Your eyes are all over the fuckin shop.'

Talbot lays his head back on the floor.

'Jesus fuckin Christ. What's he done to you kidda?'

The little boy stands stunned.

Then starts to cry, like he's just fallen off his bike.

'Listen Ted, listen to me. Where we goin? Eh? He's not a fuckin fireman son. And he's not from Holland either – he's South African. A fuckin Boer. A fuck jew Boer, at that.'

Tears stream down Berry's face.

'He's a bore?' he sniffles. 'What?'

'A Boer – b o e r. A fuckin jew boer. Don't y'do history at school? South Africa, apartheid and all that? They were originally from Holland.'

Talbot spits some blood to the floor.

'We kicked their fuckin arses a hundred years ago, the Boer War?'

'Y'know him?' Berry asks.

'Aye. And his name's not Kristiaan with two fuckin 'As' either, that's the fuckin fish and chip shop on the fish quay man.'

He shakes his head, closes his eyes.

'Jesus Fuckin Christ.'

'Oh?' Berry says, remembering the queue of people they'd passed hours and hours ago on the fish quay outside 'Kristiaan's' with two 'As' - the fish and chip shop.

'His name's Steyn. Mordechai Steyn.'

'Why'd? Why'd he tie you up then? If you're his mate?'

'He's not me mate. I deal with his mother.'

'His mother?'

'Aye. Ma Steyn. She's in charge. Mordechai's just a fuckin smack head pervert.'

Talbot stares at the corpse on corner.

'Jesus! What am I gonna tell Kathleen? She's gonna be a mammy soon. Me first grandkid.'

Talbot strains against his bindings, kicks his feet.

'Billy!'

'Billy? No, it's Berry.'

Talbot gathers himself. Grits his teeth under his flattened nose in determination.

He strains against his bindings.

'Nyeeeeeeagh!'

Collapses.

He lays his head back and sighs.

'That's me son-in-law,' Talbot says, raising his head. 'Jesus, Billy. I'm so fuckin sorry.'

Berry turns to look, for only the second time, at the roasted man.

'It's Hash?' he shouts. 'Hash Brown! Aaagh!'

'Berry? Ted?'

'Aaaaaaaaaaagh!'

'BERRY!' Talbot commands. 'BERRY!'

It's loud, it quells the panic.

The relentless heavy rock music continues overhead.

'Listen. Listen to me. That bloke's a psycho! A PROPER psycho!'

'But? But?' Berry points. 'YOU'RE THE PSYCHO!'

Talbot sighs, weighed down by his reputation.

'I'm not a psycho. They're just stories son. I'm just a fisherman.'

'But?'

'Why do y'think he wants two kids alone on a boat? Eh? Think about it. He's a fuckin pervert, he likes teenage boys. He's the bloke y'mother always warned you about.'

'He says you've got his drugs.'

'I HAVE got his fuckin drugs. They're in the hold. They're MY fuckin drugs now. He can fuck off.'

'And. . And. . And. It's in the paper,' Berry reaches out – like he's got a copy handy. 'That boat burnt. I saw you goin down the stairs with a petrol can.'

They both look at Billy the Corpse.

Talbots eyes close.

'Billy.'

The myth implodes.

And the Hulk starts to cry.

Big and heavy.

Mansized sobs, dripping onto the floor.

The axe dropping through him.

Chop.

Chop.

Chop.

Heavy it falls.

Again and again and again.

Splitting him at the place where he begins and ends.

'Please don't cry,' Berry reaches out.

'I didn't know he was on the fuckin boat! DID I!'

'And Foggy,' Berry whispers.

Talbot's sob catches in his throat.

'What? Foggy? Mark was there too? Oh Jesus fuckin Christ, I know the boy's mother. I'm so fuckin sorry!'

'You killed them.'

'How the fuck would I know they were on the boat? I was tryin to get rid of the fuckin thing before that copper found it.'

'Copper?'

'Stupid cunt-of-a-kid in a suit. Southern ponce, thought he was Elvis.'

'Southern ponce? Oh, the reporter.'

'Eh?'

'He was a reporter? Sounds like a bloke we spoke to today.'

A flash of a head hitting a windscreen.

'Kristiaan ran him over . . .' Berry whispers, shakes his head. '. . . I think.'

'Ran him over?'

Talbot wriggles hard against his bindings.

'Ruuuaaagh!'

The yoga position.

His head falls hard to the floor.

Talbot pants. Closes his eyes.

'Berry?'

'Aye?'

'You've got to untie me kidda. That sicko cunt will hurt you.'

Berry can feel the tingle of Kristiaan's hands up his arms, the breath on his neck.

'Untie?'

The erection against his leg.

'Berry, you've got to untie me. I won't hurt you.'

'But?'

'I promise.'

Soft metal music punctuates the silence, plodding rock. A couple of staccato guitar riffs. Then some bloke whistling. A pretentious ballad.

Kristiaan's loosening up - for something.

Talbot really makes an effort this time, straining hard against the washing line.

It gives, a little.

But not enough.

'Ted. My daughter is having my first . . .'

A blow from the axe all but rips him in two.

'. . . grandkid.'

They look at the cooked father.

Talbot sobs.

'I killed the bairn's fuckin dad! It's that cunt's fault, I'll pull his fuckin head off!'

He strains again.

This time almost snapping his spine.

But not the nylone washing line.

That stuff is built to last, clothes can hang in peace forever.

Talbot collapses into the slats.

He sobs, quietly.

Tears dilute the pool of blood on the floor.

'I wanna hold me grandkid,' he whispers. 'I'll make things right. I'll make things right.'

Talbot's eyes, in that cliff of a face, are blue like a new sky.

Pleading.

Gentle.

Berry looks to the stairs.

There's a clump overhead.

Wedge shouts.

'Bez? What the fuck y'doin?'

'Comin,' Berry shouts.

'Please kidda, please help me.'

'And you'll turn us round and go back?'

'Course, where the fuck else we gonna go?'

'Fuck it!'

Berry reaches for the plastic knots at Talbot's feet.

They can't be untied.

'Fuck?' he looks at the big man, for an answer.

There's more noise upstairs.

'Mr Berry?'

Activity.

Berry looks around.

'Hurry up son.'

'Fuck?'

'The bottle!'

Berry grabs the nearest bottle of whiskey. It's full.

'Not that one,' Talbot says. 'One of the fuckin empty ones – on the table.'

'Oh, right.'

He grabs it.

'Smash it.'

Berry whacks it against the side of the steel framed bed cot.

It bounces off and spins through the air – cracks Talbot across the side of his head then hits the floor.

Intact.

'Jesus fuckin Christ son.'

'Fuck's sakes!'

He grabs the other empty one, stands up and whacks it as hard as he can against the metal headboard.

It ricochets off, across the room – and smashes into a mirror.

The bottle lands, again intact, by the door.

'BERRY! Grab a bit of the fuckin mirror!'

Berry saws at the nylon joining Talbot's hands to his feet.

It's easy.

They click free.

'Quick!'

Talbot stretches his legs, spins round and holds out his wrists over the pearly white, hairy cheeks of his arse.

'Man, oh man!'

Berry saws through the nylon as Talbot strains against the rope.

It snaps.

Berry falls backwards.

Talbot leaps to his feet like a freed slave.

'Fuckin CUNT!' he shouts. 'Fuckin cunt! BASTARD!'

Naked.

Heavy sagging balls, hanging either side of a long wrinkled piece of old rope.

Berry cowers into the doorway next to Billy The Corpse.

Talbot's hands are two heavy blocks of meat and bone.

'Aaaagh! Don't mister! DON'T! I'm sorry!'

Berry pulls his hands over his head in pointless resistance to the incoming blows.

Talbot's MASH hand is in the air next to Berry's face and then – in his hair.

Gentle and soothing.

Fatherly.

Talbot gently pulls Berry's arms down from his face.

'Don't be daft son. I'd never hurt ya. I'm gonna get y'home. Come on. Help me.'

Foot falls come down the corridor.

'Mr Berry? Where are you?' Kristiaan says as he comes through the door. 'Are you coming for a swim?'

He's stark bollock naked. Skinny and ashen skinned, like the dead man in the doorway in the anti-heroin adverts.

A sprig of hair in the centre of his almost blue chest.

The sun seems to have looked the other way.

He has the pipe in his hand.

Talbot is fast for a big old man, he's already back on the bed, hands behind his back.

'I?' Berry says.

Kristiaan laughs.

'Hoo hoo hoo! Ah, you've found our little fisher man friend I see? Hoo hoo hoo. Mr Talbot, you're awake at last? I tried to, well, rouse you. Hoo hoo hoo. How are you? I have taken your boat. I hope you don't mind.'

Kristiaan smiles at Berry, hands him the pipe.

'You will smoke some more.'

It's an order.

Berry looks forlornly down at Talbot on the bed.

Kristiaan hits him on the back.

'Now,' he commands.

He sucks on the glass tube as Kristiaan holds the naked woman lighter over the bowl.

'AGAIN!'

He sucks.

'HARDER.'

Berry starts to cough.

'Hoo hoo hoo. Good boy.'

Kristiaan sucks on the pipe.

Wedge comes down the stairs.

'Bez, y'comin for a . . ?'

He's dressed only in yellow y-fronts.

'Hullo Wuj,' Talbot says.

'Wedge,' Berry corrects him.

'Aaaagh!' Wedge says to Berry, then looks at Kristiaan.

'Aaaagh?'

'This is turning into a nice little party hoo hoo hoo,' Kristiaan says, clapping his hands together. 'Hoo hoo hoo.'

'You're off y'fuckin face too,' Talbot says. 'What y'doin with these kids, you pervy fuckin CUNT?'

'These children are my friends. Isn't that right Mr Veg?'

Wedge points at Talbot, struck dumb.

Kristiaan puts his arm around Wedge's naked shoulders and pulls him close.

Wedge has almost the same emptyness in his eye sockets as the corpse in the corner.

Much too much, much too young.

'Jesus Fuck Wedge,' Berry says. 'Y'alright?'

Wedge tries to smile.

'Kristiaan's gonna give us jobs Bez, reckons we can earn a hundred quid a day! A fuckin day!'

'Tsk, language.'

Berry's sinking fast, the fresh chemical wave pulling at his toes.

'Man, I'm fuckin spangled.'

He sits down next to the corpse behind the door.

'Shift over,' he says.

'Aaaagh!'

Wedge spots Billy 'Hash' Brown and his new, permanent, tan.

'What the? Who the fuck's that?'

'Wedge, Billy,' Berry does the introductions. 'Billy, Wedge . . .'

He looks at Wedge.

'Oh, hang on. You've already met. Ha heh heh.'

'What?' Wedge says.

'It's the twat-in-the-hat off the boat,' Berry turns to the body. 'Isn't that right mate? Ha heh heh.'

'Hash?'

'Aye.'

'Fuck! He's dead?'

'Nah, he's just pretendin. Aren't y'Billy? Ha heh heh.'

Wedge steps back in further awe at the legend that is Wade Talbot.

Pure fear.

'You killed him! FUCK ME!'

He hides behind his naked protector.

'So,' Talbot says. 'Y'run a fuckin fish and chip shop now then Mordechai eh?'

'Mr Talbot. Mr Talbot. I didn't credit you with such intelligence.'

They stare at each other like two bull terriers being lined up to fight in a pit.

Not a fair fight.

One prowling, the other tied to a post.

'I have not introduced myself properly, have I?' Kristiaan says. He holds his hand out to offer a mock shake.

A performance for his boys.

'I am Mordechai Steyn, I think you must have heard of me, no? You met my stupid brother. My mother is very worried about him Mr Talbot. Where is he? Where is Fredrik?'

Talbot sits up, feet clutched tight together.

Hands clasped behind his back.

He should have been an actor.

'Who?'

Blood drips off the end of his moustache and falls slowly to the ground.

Berry sits smiling, like a kid in front of the TV.

'Sorry about the nose,' Steyn says. 'We had fun while you were 'sleeping', well, I did - you drink too much whiskey.'

He turns to smile at Wedge, hand still outstretched in a fake handshake.

'It was probably unnecessary. Too much whiskey, I think. Isn't that right Mr Ta . . .'

Talbot grabs the hand.

He pulls himself up and beyond, using the South African's body as a counterweight. His bull head cracks Steyn on the bridge of his nose.

Bosh.

'Fuckinhell!'

He drops like a cow hit by the slaughterman's bolt.

Talbot is vertical, unsteady.

'Fuckinhell, Billy,' Berry nudges the corpse, 'Did y'see that? Ha heh heh.'

But Steyn is younger, lithe and dirty – his foot jabs up hard and bats Talbot's naked testicles twice like a boxing bag.

He falls back towards the door.

'Uugh!'

Steyn attacks.

Just as Berry kicks Hash's dead leg into his path.

'Billy!' he tutts. 'Keep out of it man!'

Steyn trips perfectly – for Talbot to knee him full in the face.

'Aaagh!' Wedge screams.

He's holding the final whiskey bottle, the full one.

'Jason,' Steyn yelps. 'Help me.'

'Aaaa . . .'

Wedge cracks Talbot on the top of the skull with the blunt end of the bottle.

'. . . aaaah!'

It doesn't smash.

But Talbot does, he drops to the floor.

Steyn attacks like a demon ape, pummelling and pounding.

Pummelling and pounding.

Kirrin chop chops from side to side in the infinite blackness, her deck ablaze with artificial light. Heavy metal blasting out into the Cleaver Bank night, for the fishies.

And Ted Berry can't help but laugh his dirty laugh.

'Ha heh heh.'

His mental pebble skims the water – and flies off far into the dark.

Talbot is in the air, hanging over the deck in a fishing net, his son-in-law at his side, empty eye sockets staring between the squares of thin orange nylon.

'Ha heh heh.'

Steyn is still naked, blood splattered across his otherwise dead torso. He has a bright yellow box in his hand attached to a cable that reaches up to the sky – it's the controls for the winch and fishing nets.

He turns to Berry.

Heavy metal grinds, thuds and roars out over the deck.

It's harder than before.

A fresh tape.

A different, darker band.

'CARNAGE!' Steyn rocks his head. 'CARNAGE! Hoo hoo hoo.'

He presses a button and the winch jerks out towards the blackness.

'Here Wedge?' Berry points. 'Wedge man! Looker!'

Berry turns to make sure he is, indeed, looking.

'There's a bloke in the net thing there, man. It's y'neighbour. Talbot. What the fuck you doin up there man? Ha heh heh.'

Talbot wriggles, his tattooed fingers reaching through the gaps.

The old fisherman, trapped and naked.

Wedge stands beside Steyn, in his Y-fronts

Utterly wasted.

Fucked out of his head.

Berry checks his own reflection in the wheelhouse window.

'Fuckinhell?'

And finds he's naked too – and fucked out of his head, just the same.

It's just the slap across the face he needed.

He covers his balls.

'Eh? What the?'

Sense starts to re-assemble – EMERGENCY! - tearing at the net the pervert has thrown over his brain.

Talbot bites at the orange nylon as the winch jerks out further into the void.

'Ah Mr Talbot, now you know how all those little fishies felt, it is a lesson no? A good way for you to go, I think – ah fosure. We will watch you drown slowly, in the cold sea. It is Karma, no?'

Billy the Corpse isn't watching the show, his head has tilted down in disinterest, something oozes from his dead mouth, over the crusty black flesh where his lips should be.

'Y'fuckin SICK BENT CUNT!' Talbot shouts. 'Don't touch them kids y'fuckin pervert.'

He scrabbles around in the net, the orange nylon leaving red welts in white flesh.

'Are you my friend Veg?' Steyn says.

Wedge looks like he's been kicked in the head by a horse.

He says nothing.

'Fuckin CUNT!' Talbot wriggles, a bread white arse cheek sliced into five equal squares.

Steyn moves them out over the water.

He passes the control to Wedge.

'Press the red button,' he says.

Wedge awakens.

He steps back.

'Ah no, Kris. I don't want to.'

'Press the fucking button!' Steyn commands. 'NOW!'

'Nonce cunt!' Talbot spits out a good one from his net.

It lands on Steyn's chest and crawls south, reddening as it goes.

Steyn watches it slip down and, it seems, quite likes the way it feels.

'Hoo hoo hoo!'

'Listen, y'fuckin cunt,' Talbot says, blood bubbles hanging from his steel moustache. 'Listen, I killed y'fuckin brother. I blew his fuckin head apart, then I drowned his mate. Ha ha ha.'

Berry looks at Talbot – and knows he's telling the truth.

'Man, oh man.'

'I know this,' Steyn says. 'He was only my stepbrother.'

Talbot looks down at the water, then up.

He spits again.

This time hitting Steyn on the cheek.

'Press the button,' Steyn says.

Tears are at Wedge's eyes.

'I don't want to.'

Steyn has his back to Berry.

'Press the button. If you don't press the button, I will make you suck my cock and put you in the net with him. Hoo hoo hoo.'

Talbot's voice softens.

'Don't worry son, it's not you fault.'

'Press the button and I won't make you play with me again. Mr Berry can do it instead. Hoo hoo hoo. You can watch.'

Cogs turn.

Fast.

The net falls into the abyss

The winch whirrs.

One.

And.

Two.

And.

Kerrsploosh.

'Hoo hoo hoo. Well done Mr Veg. That was fun, no?'

Steyn turns to look over the side.

Wedge stumbles over to the pile of clothes on the floor, he bends down.

Arse in the air.

A dangerously exposed position, with Steyn around.

'Hoo hoo hoo!'

The cogs still whirr.

Steyn waves at the black sea.

'With the fishies little fisher man. With the fishies. Hoo hoo hoo.'

Steyn turns.

'I lied about you not sucking my cock Mr Veg, where's the fun in that? Hoo hoo hoo.'

'Bastard!'

Wedge is in close, his big head cracks into Steyn's rib cage and he falls back towards the edge of the boat.

Not enough.

'Hoo hoo hoo.'

Steyn's hands are up in the air, like an impression of an attacking bear.

With a big fat hard on.

'Rrrrraaaaar! I am coming to get you! Rrrrrrraaaaar! Hoo hoo hoo.'

He walks forward pretending he's Frankenstein. His cock rock hard. It sticks up from his waist like a baby's arm holding an apple.

He bounces it up and down like a sick wand.

'Rrrrraaaarr! Hoo hoo hoo. Bite me, little doggy. Hoo hoo hoo.'

Wedge's hand is behind his back.

The blade of Crosby's Bowie knife catches the shiplights.

'Nyaaaagh!'

Wedge arcs his fist round in a ninja circle, spinning round and back onto himself. He falls to the deck, the knife still in his hand.

He lies on the deck, sobbing.

Berry slaps himself up the side of the head.

'He fuckin MISSED!'

Steyn's hands are still in the air.

'Woof woof little doggy. Woof. Woof. Grrr. Hoo hoo hoo.'

Wedge had missed the pervert's cock, but sliced his naked belly.

'Hoo hoo hoo!'

It's zipped open like an over stuffed cushion.

Blood spills over the long lip of it and down into his pubes.

It's pink-ish white in there.

Steyn's face curtains fall and he looks down at the damage.

'Ik zal u, u weinig doden!'

He looks up, then down again at his wound – numbed by the drugs he's taken.

'Bastaard!'

He kicks Wedge in his ample head.

'Aaaagh!' Berry screams. 'Leave him, y'sick cunt!'

Steyn aims another kick at Wedge's head.

This time to kill.

He rolls out of its way - and falls into the hole in the deck where the nets and ropes are stowed.

'U zult weinig hond sterven!'

Steyn flips the coffin lid closed with a foot.

'Wedge!' Berry screams. 'Wedge! Y'alright?'

Steyn is standing, naked, on top of the lid.

Blood oozing down from his belly and into the hair of his thighs.

'Bez! Bez! I can't fuckin breathe.'

The winch is still whirring, heading for the bottom of the sea.

'I think the little doggy wants out of his kennel, no?'

Wedge bangs on the inside of the coffin lid.

'Get off y'cunt!' Berry screams.

'Language. I will have to wash your mouth out with soap, or something,' Steyn smiles. 'Ah fosure. Later.'

Steyn's jowls hang down towards his neck as he inspects his wound. He opens it like a curious kid dismantling a teddy bear.

Anaesthetised by hard drugs.

He looks up at Berry.

'Did you know that David Bowie took his name from the man who invented this knife? Bowie's real name is much less interesting, it is David Jones.'

He's not losing pressure, his cock remains engorged.

'Ik kan geloven niet weinig shit me kreeg. Hoo hoo hoo.'

Wedge is kicking and punching the lid.

'It is like a vagina Mr Berry. No?' he shows his new orifice to Berry. 'Hoo hoo hoo. Don't worry. It is a flesh wound. It will sew very easily.'

He smiles at Berry, then shakes his hair like he thinks he's a sexy young girl.

'U bent mooie M. Berry. Misschien zal ik u voor een tijdje houden. Als de moeder niet het weet.'

'I can't breathe, Bez. Bez. I can't fuckin breathe! I can't b-breathe Bez! Ted. Me inhaler, Ted. I've not got a fuckin inhaler.'

Steyn laughs, shoulders vibrating up and down.

'What is this word 'inhaler'?'

He looks down.

'Bark little doggy. Woof woof. Little doggy. Woof. Hoo hoo hoo.'

The music is interrupted.

By a bell ringing in the bridge.

Kirrin has all the best gadgets.

Someone is calling Kirrin over the radio.

Steyn turns his head, distracted.

'Moeder?'

Ted Berry ignites.

'Y'fuckin!'

Attacks.

Steyn clouts his head hard with the side of his fist.

'Hoo hoo hoo. What took you so long?'

Berry feels something big damp and warm against his naked shoulder.

The wet tip of the pervert's erect penis.

'Ah, fuckinhell! Fuckinell!'

He slaps away at the slimey wet mark it left behind.

'Ah, this little doggy bites. Bite me little doggy. Bite me. Hoo hoo hoo.'

He wobbles his cock up and down like a porn star.

'Bez,' Wedge's voice sounds strangled and weak like a long balloon fading after Christmas. 'Bez.'

Berry is on the deck, rubbing what feels like spit off his skin.

'Y'fuckin cunt. He'll die! Let him go. Let him go. I'll do what you want.'

The cock moves up and down like a weighlifter's arm.

'Anything?'

He looks out across the deck, in search of a witness.

'But Mr Berry, you are already doing – everything – that I want.'

The bell keeps ringing in the bridge.

'Come on little doggy. Bark little doggy. Save your friend. Woof woof. Woof.'

Berry gets up on his feet and flies at him, screaming – heading for his only weakness, the slice Wedge made across his belly.

'CUNT!'

Steyn effortlessly whacks him hard against the side of his head. He flies off up against the wheelhouse stairs.

And onto his side.

Wedge has stopped calling out.

Berry starts to sob.

'Fuck, Wedge. Jay. I'm so fuckin sorry. BASTARD, let him go, y'fuckin BASTARD!'

Berry sobs.

He rolls his arms around his head.

Slaps a hand against the deck.

'Play fair mister!' he whispers. 'Play fair.'

He lifts his head and shouts at Steyn.

'PLAY FAIR!'

'Ah don't worry little doggy. Stop crying little doggy. Woof woof.'

He steps off the lid and walks away to the bridge to answer the radio's demands.

'Moeder.'

The ship's mighty engines fire into life, and all those horses head East through the night.

Full throttle.

Berry's inside the net store with his best friend.

'Wedge! Wake up!' Berry grabs hold of his listless head. 'Jay. Come on mate, please. Please wake up.'

Wedge's eyes are open.

His lips are grey.

'Jay. Come on mate. Y'can stop playin now. It's alright. He's gone. I'll look after you.'

Berry smoothes Wedge's hair away from his eyes.

'Come on Jay,' he whispers. 'Come on mate.'

The engine's rumble to a halt, then idle.

Kirrin lists in the now turbulent water, a brand new skipper at the wheel.

Berry looks up

Steyn steps out of the doorway and into the light blasting down from the bridge.

The music has stopped.

Mummy has taken control.

His cock has gone soft.

'I think he is dead, no?'

His hands reach down, he yanks Berry up from the shallow hold.

'Never mind.'

Steyn grabs the control for the winch.

'I am sorry Mr Berry, there is news from the radio, the police are looking for this boat,' he says. 'We can't have any more fun. Business now. It is time to go.'

The blood has stopped oozing from his belly, but the wound remains open.

It's not as big as Berry had hoped.

'Fuckin CUNT!'

Berry explodes at him anyway, heading for the wound.

Steyn grabs him briefly around the neck and throws him to the deck.

'Stop this now. Enough.'

Berry kicks up at him.

'Fuckin cunt!

He palm heals Berry in the face.

Crack.

He falls to the side by the winch mechanism that dropped Talbot and Hash to the void.

'Shut up little boy. You and your friend are going for a swim.'

Steyn is hauling the net.

Ting ting.

Ting ting.

Ting ting.

The mechanism pulls the rope up from the water with the orange tangle of nylon attached.

No fish.

The catch of the day is human.

Tattoos on washed out white skin. Salt water runs out of Billy 'Hash' Brown's eye sockets.

'Oh, I forgot about you two,' Steyn says, he turns. 'Mr Berry, you and your friend will have company. Hoo hoo hoo.'

He releases the winch and the net with the bodies falls to the deck.

'I am a funny man, no?'

He turns to Berry.

He unclips the net, it drops to the deck with its catch.

And the winch's released claw swings in front of Steyn's open guts.

'Fuck?'

Berry spots it.

He has one go left.

Just the one.

Or they're fucked.

This time with his brain fully engaged for survival.

He accelerates towards Steyn's belly like a human cannonball - with a letter to post.

Instead of grabbing the paedophile, he grabs the hook on his way and rams it forward – 'Y'fuckin CUNT!' - as hard as he can.

The hook embeds into Steyn's zipped guts.

'Ugh!'

The pervert falls back with the hook pushed deep inside his abdomen.

A metre of entrails exits the wound as he goes.

'AAAAAAGH!'

Like Surtees the butcher's Special Sausages.

Steyn grabs them like an organic rope, trying to stop any more leaving his torso.

The yellow winch control swings out of his hand on its long wire and into Ted Berry's open hand.

Like a gift.

He looks over at Steyn.

'Fuckin pervert,' he says.

And presses the green button.

The winch jerks up to the black sky.

Steyn is lifted in the air hanging onto his guts from the hook like a man on an unholy trapeze.

His feet leave the ground and he swings fast towards Berry just as the control had done.

Bang.

He volleys Berry in the chin before the winch throws him to the back of the deck as the machinery settles in its locked state.

Berry leaves the ground and flies up towards the bow.

Starry starry night.

And it's over.

Welcome to Rotterdam
Out-riders from the coming storm wince Ted Berry's skin.

'Man, oh man?'

And he wakes.

As dawn slowly begins to peel back her veil from mainland Europe.

'What? Eh?'

He's a long way from home.

The damp smell of water meeting water colours the air and, as the cold drips of rain kiss the small of his back and slip between his buttocks, tickling his anus, he realises . . .

'Fuckinhell?'

. . he's naked.

He reaches behind to his arse cheeks.

'Fuckinhell! Fuckinhell! Fuckinhell!'

Smooth soft skin, downy hair.

But no pain and no stretching.

No sign of illegal entry.

He rolls over onto his back but his turn is stopped halfway by the boat's rail.

'Where the fuck?'

He watches the sky.

And awaits Clarity.

'Man, oh man.'

She's taking her time.

Berry watches twisting wisps of black vapour curling away from the approaching beard of a cloud. They close in - a posse of rabbi chins rumbling and ah-mumbling across the sky, shuffling, bumping-and-ah-bumbling.

Spitting with grim purpose.

Towards the end of the world.

Berry closes his eyes.

There's an ache in the yolk.

Chemical.

The whole world is throbbing and vibrating.

He looks over the side of the boat.

'Shit the fuckin BED!'

And Clarity arrives on horseback - white stallions race along the side of the boat's hull then drown in the ocean expanse behind.

'FUCK!'

The throbbing is the full throttle rattle of the trawler's massive engines, pistons big as buckets, slapping up and down.

At some point during the night, he'd crawled the last few feet to the very tip of the bow, and locked his arms around the rail.

He jerks up onto his palms and slips across the deck.

'Agh?'

He jerks his hands up to his face – they're dripping red, as if he'd just harpooned a whale.

Blood.

Cold blood drips into the downy knot of his pubic hair.

Breath leaves him, locking out sound.

But inside, he screams.

There's blood across his chest and belly, at his feet and between his legs and up his back and arms and across his shoulders and in his hair, a pool, all around.

A bloodbath.

But cold now.

Coagulating.

The rain showering him clean.

He rises, slips in blood and falls back against the rail – he cracks the crown of his head.

Just what he needed.

'Owwwwww! Man! Fuck's sakes!'

He rubs the wound.

'Fuck's sakes!' he shouts.

He grabs at the vibrating rail.

The staccato rain drops are fattening out into a death metal storm, stinging his skin.

He rubs his jaw.

It's not broken.

Tears scratch at his eyes.

'Fuck!' he sobs. 'Me!'

He leans against the rail and looks up to the wheelhouse.

'Ah Mr Berry, you are awake.'

'Aaaagh!'

Berry trips back into the vaginal safety of the V point of the rail as Kirrin slices her way through the North Sea.

'AAAAGH!'

'I have been waiting for you.'

The storm drummer is up on his stool, hammering away against the heavens.

'Gaah?'

Ladies and gentleman, put your hands together for . . . The Bloodbath.

But it's not his blood.

'How do I look?'

It's Steyn's.

'What?'

The boat's jib hangs seven feet above the South African like a meat hook in an abattoir, guts hang down across his chest and curl in his lap like fresh sausages.

But he'd been on his travels.

The human small intestine is 21 feet long.

Enough for him to get from where the winch dropped him, up to the wheelhouse to fire the engine - and back.

Almost.

But he'd ran out of guts five feet short of his goal \- an unconcious Ted Berry.

'How do I look?' he asks again.

His face is dead.

'Not good.'

Steyn's mouth aches into what might be a smile.

But there's not enough energy left for the nerves.

He looks pleased with himself.

'They teach you in The Army, they teach you that a gut wound hurts the most.'

He looks down at his meat.

'Onthaal aan Rotterdam. You killed me Mr Berry. You killed me.'

'Kristia? St? I...? Ehm? I?'

Berry looks into Steyn's white face.

'I didn't mean it!'

Steyn's eyes are open, but there's nothing there.

The rain runs into them.

'Kristiaan?'

Berry inhales.

Maybe he was dead already.

The rain is furious now, the death metal drummer about to kick his kit off the stage and dive into the crowd.

'Wedge!'

Berry rises up firmly to his feet, fighting the forward thrust of the boat.

He leans up the deck and grabs the rail and pulls himself towards the relative sanctuary of the wheelhouse.

Berry passes the pervert's corpse sitting beneath the wheelhouse window and unconciously follows where his stare leads.

Steyn's eyes are amused, locked on some joke on the horizon.

'FUCKINHELL!!'

Land is speeding up towards the bow.

Hard, crusty land.

Fast.

Too fast to do anything about.

A stretch of beige capped by green.

Welcome to Rotterdam.

Berry falls into the wheelhouse just as the bow bites into the sand and Mother Nature applies her laws.

He's thrown hard into the ship's wheel and onto the floor as Kirrin's keel argues with solid earth.

Grinding.

Splintering.

Tearing.

Her engine sounds like a team of drunken workmen digging up a road, wild and free.

Free from the water.

The boat smashes forward.

Into the dry land.

She grinds up a thin strip of sand, a gap in the sea of rocks – the only stretch of sand anywhere nearby.

The ocean's equivalent of a safety net.

Thwop-thwop.

Crunch

The propellor finds something solid and the blades smash and shear themselves off into shrapnel.

Kirrin's engine still turns.

Screams in mindless anger.

Against no resistance.

The boat tilts to the left before becoming embedded in the sand.

Her engines howl on.

Ted Berry is curled up in a naked bloody ball under the ship's wheel. The rain still raking down hard on the wooden roof like ball bearings. The crazed drummer banging on his cymbals – settling now into a violent consistent rhythm, the rest of his kit toppled across the stage.

Berry raises his head and does his second inventory of this new day.

Everything is in order.

'Wedge?' he screams over the din of the engine and the rain.

'Wedge?'

He pulls down on the bloodstained chrome lever above his head and the boat is put out of her misery.

'Dumb fuck,' he whispers. 'Coulda done that earlier.'

He stands up and heads out of the wheelhouse.

There's a length of Steyn's gut curled out of the wheelhouse like a hose.

The front of the boat has ripped open, spilling brown lumps of cannabis resin into the North Sea.

Four hundred quid a go.

They float in the water.

Kirrin remains upright but lists badly to starboard.

Steyn has detached from his guts and floats face down in the sea.

'Wedge?'

Berry heads to the net store, the rip in the boat hasn't quite reached that far.

'Oh fuck mate, no, no,' he whispers. 'Jay?'

He puts his hands to the rim of the lid.

And heaves.

He peers in.

Winces.

Expecting to find nothing but paste, human paste. Pâté – a word always dressed for a party - that was his best friend.

There's a shape in the corner.

It could just be meat.

He reaches in and pulls on it.

'Man, oh man.'

It's not wet.

'Wedge?'

And it's firmly human, seemingly intact.

Berry pulls it towards him, the list in the boat working in his favour.

He heaves.

'Wedge?'

The top half of the boy is on the deck in the rain.

Berry closes his eyes and pulls, convinced Wedge at least hasn't got any legs.

'FUCKINHELL!'

He pulls his best friend onto the deck.

Opens his eyes.

Wedge stares back at him, eyes open like spinning plates – the rain running into them.

Spaced.

He blinks.

Alive.

'Y'fuckin cunt! I thought y'were dead!'

'Dead?' he whispers, he points up - at nothing. 'Was just playin.'

Berry resists the urge to punch him to death.

'Playin? Fuckin PLAYIN?'

A bored couple in their mid-forties sip coffee at a seaside cafe.

'What time do we have to be there?' she asks.

'Margaret, you keep bloody askin. Just relax.'

'I don't want to be late.'

'We won't be late!'

He checks his watch – 8.30.

'The ferry's not til ten.'

Margaret fishes through her handbag and pulls out a handkerchief.

The rain harangues the window pane.

'Bucketing down still. It's a bloody heatwave at home.'

The swingers party in the small town last night had been a bit of a let down. Everyone had been even older than they were – where was the younger crowd they'd been promised?

They don't exist. It's a game for bored, wrinkly old fucks.

Outside, a teenage boy leads his mentally disabled friend through the driving rain – both dressed in oversized fisherman's illuminous orange overalls.

They'd be an odd sight in the Dutch town of Ouddorp – were anyone looking.

Wedge mutters away like an old man in an institution.

'Fuck me,' Berry holds Wedge's massive napper in his hands and looks into his eyes.

'Are y'alright?'

Wedge starts to sob.

'Come on Jay, we've got to get home.'

He puts his arm around him and pulls him towards the car park at the side of the café.

The rain patters against their waterproof suits as they go.

There are four cars parked – one with a yellow reg – P101 FRT. And a white circle with the letters GB written in black, pasted to the boot.

'English! Fuckin right!'

There's a small strip of public park beside the Tarmac, Berry stops near a bench.

'Wedge? Wedge? Jay mate?' Berry says. 'I'm gonna leave y'here for a sec. Okay?'

Wedge's eyes are open, tears running down his face joining the rain.

Something's broken.

'Jesus fuckin Christ Jay. Are you ok?'

Wedge focuses.

Berry wrestles back tears of his own.

He moves the hair away from Wedge's forehead.

'You're gonna be fine. I won't let anybody hurt ya. Never. Y'me best mate. Sit down here.'

Wedge sits like an old woman, moving the Bowie knife around in his hands.

Berry tries to take it away.

Wedge panics.

'Okay, okay. Just wait here. Okay?'

Berry slips behind the car and presses the button on the boot.

'Fuck.'

It's locked.

He goes back to the bench.

'Jay. Listen to me. I need the knife.'

Vacancy.

'Fuck's sakes.'

Berry looks around.

And tears a twig from a bush.

He pushes it into Wedge's hand and pulls out the knife.

'Good lad.'

Berry looks down at his friend.

'Jesus fuckin Christ.'

He walks back to the car boot and puts the knife into the lock.

Whacks it with the heel of his hand.

Nothing.

'Fuck's sakes!'

He kicks at the shaft. It snaps off, embedding the blade in the lock. He twists it.

Presses it.

Pop.

'Yes!'

The boot opens.

He looks inside.

There are two bags, one open.

A rubber gimp mask stares up at him like a black Zippy off Rainbow.

'What the fuck?'

Berry looks around, against the heavy rain.

He reaches inside and pulls it out.

'Fuck,' he says, throwing it under the front of the car parked behind.

'Off!'

The other bag is open too.

More rubber.

A blue and white fetish stewardess outfit.

It needs a wash.

There's man stains all over it.

Maybe the swingers' evening hadn't been such a waste afterall.

'Sick fucks.'

He throws it under the car.

And crosses the road.

'Quick. Come on Jay.'

They head back across the road, rain whacking hard against their oversized fisherman's outfits.

He lifts Wedge's leg and guides him into the boot.

'Lie down mate.'

Berry looks up.

The man and woman are rising from their table.

Wedge is still sitting up, like a man road testing his coffin.

Berry pushes his head down and jumps in after him, closes the lid.

Wedge reaches out.

Starts to sob, gently.

And Berry gathers him in his arms.

Hugs him.

'It's alright Jay, it's alright,' he whispers. 'Everything's gonna be alright.'

Wedge's tears stream across Berry's wrist.

'Shh Jay. Shh.'

He rocks him.

'Shhh.'

The door opens and the car's springs bounce, the other door rocks and closes.

The engine starts.

'Bez? Where we goin Bez?'

Too loud.

Berry puts his hand over his mouth.

'What time's it?' says a woman, muffled through the back seat.

'For God's sake Margaret, I told you! The ferry port's only ten minutes away!'

Wedge's breath is hardening, lungs like fossils.

'Jay,' Berry whispers. 'It won't be long. Just breathe. Breathe.'

There's the sound of traffic and a horn.

Slow moving.

A queue.

Bdumf.

The front wheels rumble onto metal.

'What's that smell?' the woman says.

'What smell?'

'Stinks of bloody fish.'

Metal grinds against concrete as the car rises up the ferry's heavy steel ramp.

'Man, oh man.'

Berry nips his eyes shut.

'Please don't check the boot. Please don't check the fuckin boot.'

Some time later
All the best stories have legs, some just run and run and run.

For decades, the best of them.

Just think JFK.

The paper's newest staff reporter hobbles down the steps to the pavement on his crutches and pauses under the heavy Sunday Sorted clock.

He rests, out of breath, in his brand sparkling new suit.

Hugo Boss.

The best on the shelf.

He balances on a crutch, pulls out his silver box, selects a cigarette and lights it.

An SS billboard promotes a 'colour special' about the newspaper's near neighbours - Prince Charles and Princess Diana - celebrating their second son's first birthday.

'Happy Birthday Harry,' Rick Delaney says. 'Old bean.'

Princess Diana, the longest running story of them all.

Death, even, couldn't stop her.

Delaney starts to move his bolted-together body.

A gang of women protest outside.

The building could be a public school, or a concentration camp.

Misogynist bastards \- screams a placard.

Nazis \- reads another.

'Lesbians,' Delaney says. 'Thank God nobody listens to you.'

Delaney lights his cigarette, moving his head just an inch too far.

'Ooo-yah!'

He sighs, sets off up the road, towards the dying embers of Fleet Street - almost snuffed out by the dullards; bankers and lawyers.

His head remains attached to his neck with the help of a black metal brace. Only a few more weeks, the doctor tells him, and the torn muscles and tendons will fuse into place and his head and body will, again, become one.

'Ooo-yah!'

The news desk secretary comes out of the lobby and wiggles her arse up the path to the wine bar, Delaney pursues as best he can – limping up the road towards a pub called The Progress.

Copyright © <2001> <James Tuck>

All rights reserved.

ISBN:

ISBN-13:
