New Story - With new ideas and directions to hand. I'm writing this and posting it straight onto Steemit - You can not get more exclusive than that! 28

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Please remember this story is being written and posted 'live' every day. I am writing today's episode and posting it here without benefit of a read-through, let alone an edit. I don't usually work this way and this experiment is exciting and different for me, not my normal work-ethic at all. To that end, please forgive me any typos, grammar errors and anything that you may think should have been picked up in an edit - it WILL be picked up in the edit.

I've already spoken with a publisher about getting this story published - possibly after Christmas, we'll see how it goes.

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“Where do you live?” the man asked. He leaned on the wheel and glared at Ash.

Ash looked at him and glared back.

“He’s not going to my fucking house. You can fuck right off!” she said. “That useless fucking junkie’s no friend of mine. I only do some running for him, it’s not like he’s blood or nuffin.” She deliberately made her voice more aggressive, and the way she spoke her words sound less intelligent in order to give the man no reason to doubt her story.

The man laughed. It sounded like he was genuinely amused, too. “You’ve got some mouth on you, kid! I should knock you out and dump you both in the fucking dog-pond.”

“Well he’s not going to my house. I’ve got enough shit going on there as it is,” Ash said and she crossed her arms in a defiant gesture of finality. “I’m only sticking around so you don’t set your dog on me.”

“Yeah, I bet you are,” the scrapyard man said. He leaned back in his set and looked at Ash again. “Think then, where are we taking this useless cunt?”

“You know the houses at the bottom of New Street? The ones they’re just knocking down?” she said after a few minutes’ thought.

“Yeah, I gotcha, kid.” He started the truck and drove to the gates.

Ash hopped out without being asked and opened the gates. He drove through and she closed them again. He waited for her to hop back up into the cab and they drove off. The truck belched black smoke as he put his foot down and they were at the bottom of New Street in no time.

He made his way down the lane between the two rows of derelict houses and Ash told him to stop.

She hopped out of the cab again, ran to one end of the lane and then back past the truck to the other end of the lane to check there were no passers-by to witness what they were up to.

She waved at him to stay where he was and ran down between two brick sheds.

When she’d taken a good look at a couple of the abandoned houses and made sure there was somewhere safe to dump Nige while he was in a stupor, she went back to the truck and beckoned the man to follow her.

She took the box of Nigel’s gear and the man dragged the junkie’s body from the back of his truck.

He didn’t lower him gently. Rather, he rolled the junkie’s pliant body out of the back of the truck to drop with a heavy thud onto the lane.

Ash winced as Nigel’s head hit the surface of the lane with a sickening thunk sound.

“Better you than me, Nige, me old mate,” she said and the scrapyard man laughed.

“Compassionate little fucker, ain’t ya?”

“Yeah, if you like,” she said. “What does that mean?”

He laughed again, recognising humour rather than ignorance. He picked up Nigel by his coat and dragged him again, following Ash.

She motioned for him to wait and she hopped up onto the fence, onto the roof of a low extension, and then she disappeared through a small window.

The back door opened and she put her finger to her lips and said, “Shhh!”

“Why? Is someone at home?” the scrapyard man said with another laugh.

“No, but there are still enough nosey-parkers knocking around to make this a bit risky,” she said. “Dump him there.”

She pointed to a pile of rags and bags in the corner, close to the fireplace.

The man dropped Nigel onto the bundle, winked at Ash and said, “Right, seeya kid. Or rather, I’d better not seeya again, kid. OK?”

“Understood.”

He nodded and left.

Ash stood over Nigel and wondered what the actual fuck she was going to do.

He was likely to be out for a good while, so she locked the door with the key she’d found and had kept, blocked the door with a load of junk and old, abandoned furniture and then left the house by the same way she’d got in, through the upstairs bathroom window.

She took a good look around the outside of the house, both front and back, to make certain Nigel couldn’t be seen from the outside and then she legged it to Justin’s.

Ash made sure he was alone and not speaking on the phone before she went in.

“You ok, kid?” Justin asked.

She told him what she’d done and he grinned. You’re a bloody smart kid and no mistake!” he said. “Shall we have something to eat? I seem to have a great appetite for a change.”

She prepared a can of soup and some sandwiches for them to share.

“Right,” Justin said. So, we’re on track for the plan?”

“I don’t even know what the fucking plan is,” she said.

“Well, there’s a reason for that. If you know what the plan is, you could be implicated if it all goes tits up. If you don’t know, then you can’t get in so much trouble. It’s called ‘Plausible deniability’ and we used it all the time when I was a copper.

“Yeah, I bet you did,” Ash said.

“How long is Nigel likely to be out of it?” Justin said.

“I have no idea. I thought he was permanently out of it when I first saw him. He must have been high as a fucking kite! I don’t know how long it’ll take for him to get that lot out of his system but I bet he won’t hang round for long once he comes to… he’ll be wanting his next fix.”

“That’s if he doesn’t have some on him,” Justin said.

“He didn’t have any needles left, the scrapyard guy went through his pockets and checked. I don’t know if he found any ‘brown’.”

Justin looked at Ash and realised she didn’t just wander round in a daze, wherever she was, whatever was going on around her, she was watching and learning.

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