Dirty Dogs

Stephen Parkes

Description

Terry has a lot to lose. A good job, a gorgeous wife, Becca, and a 19-year-old daughter, with a baby of her own. But when he is plunged into financial crisis by his brother Jonny, he urgently needs to find a large sum of money to avoid ruin.One of Terry's drinking buddies, who owns the local tattoo shop, drunkenly reminisces about his youth on the "dog-fight" scene in Glasgow. Equipped with only his wits, the most unpleasant associates, and a family who are a fast-moving comic calamity, Terry attempts to steal a number of fighting dogs from a police compound, where they are waiting to be destroyed: training them, and ultimately taking them out on the seamy dog-fight circuit with disastrous consequences.Meanwhile, Terry's "alternative" sister, Tasmin, discovers that her Tunisian holiday husband has secretly been sending her savings back home to his family, and Mercedes, Terry's daughter, having had her pole-dancing accident go "viral" on YouTube, seeks to pursue exotic-dancing fame and fortune with her perma-tanned chums - down the local pub.Set in the exoticlocations of Peckham, Newcastle and Milton Keynes these are worlds that really exist in the shadows.

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 juillet 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800466500
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2021 Stephen Parkes

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents 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.

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ISBN 9781800466500

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
For animal lovers everywhere


Contents
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1
“DIVE! DIVE! DIVE!” The alarm on Terry’s phone jars him out of deep sleep. He can afford to hit the snooze button once; he turns towards Rebecca, sliding a heavy arm over the duvet across her. She is awake.
“Well done Pet, what time did you finally get back in?”
“About half two; she didn’t come out for another twenty minutes after I got there. Wouldn’t answer her bloody phone. I hate that place, it’s such a shithole.”
Easing his way gently out of bed, Terry pads naked down the landing with the urgency always required for an early morning pee. He shoots an apprehensive look out of the window.
There it is – shit on the fucking car again ! A perfect contrast right in the middle of the sunroof of the Range Rover. Even from here you could tell it was shit, another carefully placed turd, third time this week. Fuckers. Nice start to the day!
Same thing yesterday. He had hosed it off, but the jet of water hitting it just served to spread it out, breaking it up into a spray of “shit confetti” flowing down the sides of his beautiful white car. He had hosed it down the street until it felt sufficiently far away to be able to breathe in without it invading your lungs.
Feels like driving around in a badly cleaned toilet, the scene of a midnight accident. NOT in a fifty-grand car! Tinted windows, go-faster stripes and a turd on the roof, what’s the fucking point?!
Terry’s chest tightens, someone would have to pay. He is pretty sure who it was, his daughter’s arse-piece of a boyfriend. It had been going on ever since Terry told him what he really thought of him, the unpleasant little tosser, but he did need an element of proof before he actually taught him a lesson.
But not now, not today. He will quietly clean it off and get on, because today is special: he is going on holiday.

***

Terry looks down at Rebecca, his Rebecca. She has nodded off again, her mouth hanging slightly open, snoring gently. God, she is beautiful! It makes him tearful just looking at her. He has no idea why she ever let him near her; let alone occasionally allow him to jump all over her…he draws breath.
Time to dress and get going, got to drop little Chloe back to the flat (assuming Mercedes is actually conscious after last night), drop off the cat, drive to Heathrow, glass of champagne in the BA lounge, next stop Paris! Everything nicely planned. Nothing to chance. Their fifteenth anniversary, fabulous hotel, a load of treatments – Becca loves her treatments. While it cost an arm and a leg it would surely be a wall-to-wall naughty-fest for four days. Almost definitely. Fantastic!
Showered and dressed, Terry skips, as much as a seventeen-stone man can skip, down the stairs. A shape at the foot of the stairs makes him pause; something slightly wrong, out of place.
It’s Tiger – but Tiger doesn’t look quite right, in fact, not right at all. He is an awkward, unnatural shape, and as Terry takes another step the truth dawns. Terry knows what a dead cat looks like; it looks like Tiger does now.
No…Please, no…No! It’s our anniversary, a week of massive naughtiness, maybe even the elusive blowjob, and the fucking cat has to die on the way! She’s going to cry all week now; it will all be going up in smoke!
Terry sits halfway down the stairs trying to think. Tiger lies slightly twisted on the floor below him.
He hears movement from the bedroom. “Cup of tea Pet?” he calls, gathering himself.
Terry dashes into the kitchen, flicks the kettle on, cupboard open, black bin bag torn off the roll, waits for the kettle noise to use as a shield, back into the hall, listens carefully. Glancing up to the landing, he bends, gently takes hold of Tiger’s tail and slides him towards him.
Now at speed, less need for silence, into the bag; he’s pretty stiff. Quick knot in the top, and out the back door onto the doorstep. Door shut. Kettle boiling. Step two complete.
Tea, biscuits and newspaper delivered, Terry slips back down the stairs. Tiger’s food bowl lays untouched on the kitchen floor, so he empties it quickly down the waste disposal.
No stone left unturned. He hates the smell of cat food, in fact he has never really liked Tiger, touchy little bastard. He puts on his coat, opens the back door, retrieves the Tiger-parcel and shoves it into the carry case left by the door, and heads for the car, Tiger safely onto the passenger seat…and safe.
Relax, breathe…
Back upstairs, Becca is just leaning over Chloe’s cot cooing her goodbyes: “Say hello to Mummy for me.” She is wearing Terry’s favourite, a short, silky black nightie that he would usually stop to interfere with a little, but not this morning. “Don’t forget to take your key Tel, Mercedes probably won’t be awake to let you in.”
She certainly won’t be awake after the skin-full she had last night.

***

The last month had been pretty painful with Mercedes: first he had had to explain to her why the baby-listening device didn’t work from the pub half a mile down the road, and ever since then he had become her personal chauffeur from anywhere she decided to pass out pissed.
He had started to dread the text messages she sent him – they always spelled bad news – and the fucking klaxon noise she had put on his phone, which he had no idea how to remove, made him physically jump every time it went off, and usually with good reason.
She had found him asleep in front of the TV watching Das Boot – and God only knows where she had downloaded it from, but now his alarm and half his texts came in with Das Boot sound effects. He knew how to use his new iPhone, but had no idea how to use it.
Last night had been typical. He and Becca had climbed into bed around eleven – and at twelve thirty the Klaxon had gone off. Jolted awake, Terry struggled to read:
Cn u gt me – at Bnka – M
Which loosely translated as Mercedes needing to be picked up from The Bunker, the grimmest nightclub in Peckham. It was indeed in an old World War II bunker, and it hadn’t taken much work to turn it into a complete shithole.
He had sat outside in the Rangey for twenty minutes – being sized up by the locals. It was funny how his daughter managed to send texts from down there, but never actually answer the phone, claiming there was no signal. When she had eventually appeared, she could barely walk, feet stuffed into four-inch heels, skirt barely doing its job. Terry had driven all the way home with the seat belt warning beeping furiously because she was too pissed to even try to do it up.

***

Still plenty of time. Flight at 2pm; got to be at Heathrow a couple of hours early and it is now only eight forty-five. Terry picks up the carry cot, Chloe is freshly changed and peaceful.
“Won’t be long Pet, will drop Chloe off first, then take Tiger on to Pussy’s.”
He pecks Becca on the cheek and heads down the stairs.
Pussy Galore , where Tiger was booked in for the week: the only decent cattery in Peckham. He would just have to think of the right tale to spin Becca when they got back about how poor Tiger had “died on the job”, surrounded by his catty harem – not fool proof, but better than crying all the way to Paris!
He lets himself into the little ground-floor flat, sets Chloe’s carry cot down on the sofa – Mercedes is snoring loudly next door. Terry steps into the bedroom; Mercedes has not moved from where he shovelled her onto the bed last night – and apart from some red-wine dribble on the pillow, everything was pretty much as he had left it, still in her party gear, which in total was materially smaller than the average nightie. She stirs and he leans over and kisses her cheek. He calls slowly and clearly:
“CHLOE IS NEXT DOOR, LOVE – SHE’S HAD HER BREAKFAST.”
Terry is rewarded with a grunt as Mercedes rolls herself over in the bed and pulls at the covers. She IS quite a big girl; she always carried her puppy fat a little, but since the baby she had put on a bit more. Ridiculous; bloody eighteen and a mother already. No time for all that though. Terry bends down, gently touches her hair and heads out.
Driving aimlessly, Terry feels a trickle of perspiration making its way from his shaven head, round his