Miss Take

Chapter 11 (4867)

Campbell shouted at his girlfriend, 'you fucking fat cow!' and slammed the door of their grubby flat, then gingerly descended the stairs to the front entrance of the block of flats he lived in. If he wasn't a total wreck, he'd give her another black eye, the bitch.

The block of flats was part of a large U-shape building that centred on a kid's play park. This was where his seven-year-old daughter was playing with some of the other local kids, not that he cared about that. He sat down on a damp bench, cursing as he got his joggers wet. He then pulled out his phone and started browsing through all the timewaster games that were installed on it.

With Lenny in hospital, and Soft Tony fuck-knew where he had nothing to do all day. His girlfriend, and mother of their daughter, had been nipping his head since then. He spent all is time loafing around in the flat and not bring any money in. In just a few days she had lost patience with him.

'Oh, go get a job, you lazy cunt!' she'd shouted at him, coming down in the morning and once again finding him still awake in the living room, hunched over a PlayStation controller, surrounded by empty beer cans and crisp packets. He tried to lamp her one, but even though she was a fat pig, she easily avoided him. He had been hobbling around like an old man since the beating he'd taken from Gavin Newgate and even getting in and out of his armchair was agony. There was a pain somewhere deep inside him that seemed to be getting worse as the days wore on. He was starting to think that he should go see a doctor. He'd been self-medicating with whiskey and beer and that had certainly been taking the edge off, but it was only masking the problem and he still walked everywhere like John Wayne. The kick to the head had made his vision blurry for days, but that had sorted itself out after a while and now the only thing blurring his vision this morning was the drink he'd put away last night.

Eventually he decided he wasn't in the mood for games. He was keeping off of social media, so he turned his phone sideways and started watching an old episode of Buffy. It was a pretty keech show, but it had been a favourite as a kid and he found the nostalgia it brought to him comforting.

He was onto his second episode when someone sat down beside him and said, 'alright Soups?'

'Fuck!' he yelped and stood up when he saw the small hooded figure of the person he knew as Gavin Newgate.

'Don't run,' said Kelly calmly. 'Sit down or I'll knock shite out of you again.'

'Fucking hell,' groaned Campbell, who then looked around and eventually sat down. 'What do you fucking want?'

'Just a chat, man. Relax.'

'Relax? You're a fucking maniac!' snarled Campbell. 'Lenny is still in hospital with a fracture pelvis. He'll be in stooky for months. Fuck knows if his eyebrow will grow back. And Soft Tony has a brain bleed. His eyes are pointing in different directions now thanks to you.'

'I don't care.'

Campbell, full of pent up anger made a half-lunge towards her. Kelly scooted over on the bench and held up her fists. 'Fuck around and see what happens.'

The menace in her tone made Campbell think twice about going another round with her and he sat back down, defeated. 'Ok, ok!'

'Good,' said Kelly in a harsh whisper. 'I know you're a snitch. So, if you can talk to the cops, then you can talk to me. I want to know what you know about Mack's murder.'

'I'm no fucking snitch!' fumed Campbell. 'And what's it to you?'

'None of your business. How about this – was Mack blackmailing anyone?'

'Probably,' Campbell sighed, 'but I didn't get involved in that sort of thing.'

'Come on, Soups. We all want to catch the guy that killed Mack. You can't put any of this together? Someone came to the house and killed Mack. Anyone connected to a blackmail attempt?'