Dirty Deeds

Dirty Deeds Part 1

Dirty Deeds

by

Jamie Buchanan

Published by Fredbird Publishing

Fredbird Publishing
Suite 34, New House
67-68 Hatton Garden
London
EC1N 8JY
England

www.fredbird-publishing.com

This edition first published by Fredbird Publishing 2015

Copyright © Jamie Buchanan 2015

All rights reserved

Paperback edition: ISBN 978-1-910668-00-9
Kindle edition: ISBN 978-1-910668-01-6

Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, events, incidents and historic legal practices are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Fredbird Publishing and its registered trademark have no connection with Fredbird, the magnificent mascot of the St. Louis Cardinals Major League Baseball team of St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Any similarity is an unintended coincidence. The address of the St. Louis Cardinals' website is http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com.

CHAPTER 1: part i

What value do you place on chance? As far as Martin Minchin, Certified Accountant, was concerned, there was no such thing as chance. Two and two always made four, not three, not five, only four. Chance was for dreamers and lottery losers; professional accountants dealt in tangible amounts, certainties, hard facts, assets. To Martin, chance had no value.

It certainly wasn't chance that had led him up the aisle to his disastrous marriage to Beverley: it was an idiotic combination of misunderstandings. He understood exactly how it had happened and accepted that his own gullibility had contributed to one of the twentieth century's most egregious mismatches. The errors were easily identified and filed neatly in his head, readily accessible in the event of another stumble into dangerous territory.

Yet chance had now wrenched Martin from his auditor's comfort zone and plunged him into an alien world of villainy, adventure and real peril. He had done nothing – consciously at least – to influence these events. So, contrary to the principles he had held throughout his adult life, he couldn't deny that his massively changed circumstances were down to nothing more nor less than pure, outrageous luck.

And that was what convinced him that he had taken a huge leap from accountancy to an altogether higher calling: adventurer, entrepreneur, lover, father? Chancer!

~

Wednesday morning

'Socks, hmm... better get about six pairs. Pants, same.' Martin composed the list mumbling aloud, partly because he thought it might lessen the risk of his omitting something crucial and partly because there was nobody else around to hear. Since being compelled to move out of the marital home, occasions when he talked to himself had increased markedly in their frequency. More disturbingly, he had become a compulsive list maker; not just making proper, useful lists, like this shopping list, but also compiling lists in his head of anything at all, usually focused on a random subject. In alphabetical order.

Alone, Bisected, Cast-off, Divorcé-to-be, Estranged, Forlorn, Gutted... Martin Gordon Minchin, the certified accountant, was thirty-three years old and six feet six inches tall. He had become aware of his excessive height at the age of thirteen when the teasing switched emphasis from his initials ('Oi, MGM! Where's yer lion?') to his stature ('Oi, beanpole wanker! What's the weather like up there?'). To disguise his uncommon loftiness during his teens he had affected a round-shouldered stoop that became his natural stance. As a result his jackets and jumpers tended to ride up his back, exacerbating an ungainly bearing.