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  BLAGGER’S CODE

  THE BLACKPOOL SERIES #1

  COPYRIGHT HEATHER ATKINSON SEPTEMBER 2018

  CHAPTER 1

  Three men were hunched together around the table deep in conversation, heads bowed. Cigarette smoke hung thick in the air, wisps floating in the shafts of light managing to sneak through the gap in the curtains, cutting through the gloom.

  “So we hit Liam Ferguson hard and fast,” rumbled Caleb in a deep voice. He was a handsome man with thick dark hair, black tribal tattoos all curves and points snaking around his bare forearms, disappearing up the sleeves of his black t-shirt. At twenty three he was the oldest of the brothers. He took a drag on his cigarette before blowing out the smoke in a messy stream, fixing the other two men with a stern blue gaze. “We snatch his drugs before he knows what’s going on. We wear masks, I don’t want this coming back on us and for Christ’s sake, no names. Any questions?”

  “Yeah,” said the man to his left who had the same dark hair, blue eyes and powerful build. A scar ran from his right eye to the corner of his mouth, cutting through the flesh of his cheek. At nineteen he was the youngest of the three brothers. “Shall we give each other nicknames?”

  Caleb frowned. “Why?”

  “Well, in case we need to ask each other questions during the attack. We can’t use our real names, he’ll know it’s us then.”

  “Why would we need to talk to each other Jason?”

  “In case something goes wrong.”

  “It won’t go wrong if we stick to the plan.”

  “I don’t know Caleb,” said the third man, who was similar in appearance to his brothers, only he was shorter and skinnier, despite the effort he put in weekly at the gym. “We need to have a code as a back-up plan.”

  Caleb scowled. “What do we need a bloody code for Kev? What is this, sodding Mission Impossible? All we’re doing is snatching some weed off a scrawny dingbat so no, codes won’t be needed.”

  “You never know what might happen,” retorted Kevin. “I bet when Jason was tearing open that tin of corned beef he never thought he’d whack himself in the face with the lid and end up with a scar covering half his face.”

  “Oy,” snapped Jason. “I got that in a knife fight and don’t you forget it.”

  Kevin rolled his eyes. “That line might impress the tarts at the boozer but I was there, I saw it happen.”

  “Enough,” said Caleb, pounding his fist off the table when they continued to bicker. “We’re talking about the plan here, not Jason’s scar. Nothing will go wrong if we just stick to the plan. Got it?”

  “Got it,” said Kevin.

  “Got it,” sighed Jason, absently rubbing the scar on his face.

  “Good,” said Caleb. “We leave at ten o’clock and hit Liam on his way home from his girlfriend’s. It’ll be nice and dark then.”

  He jumped when something latched onto his left leg. Glancing under the table he saw a chihuahua, eyes bulging as it frantically humped his leg.

  “Abi,” he bellowed. “Get your arse down here right now. Your little rat’s shagging my leg again.”

  There was the thunder of footsteps on the stairs and a woman stormed into the room wearing a bright pink furry jumper and tight white trousers, black hair held back from her face with a pink headband that matched her garish lipstick.

  “Don’t shout,” she snarled at Caleb. “You’ll upset him.”

  “Upset him? I’m the one being used as his personal sex toy again.”

  “Because he likes you. It’s a sign of affection.”

  “It’s a sign that the little tit hates me. Get him off me right now before I stick a pole up his bum and give him to Mum to use as a feather duster.” He sighed when the dog’s frantic attentions suddenly ceased and it released an agonised squeak. “Oh nice,” he muttered.

  “Come on Monty darling,” cooed Abigail, scooping up the dog. “Let’s get my precious prince away from these nasty men.”

  “Precious prince?” snorted Caleb. “That thing is ruining our reps around here. Everyone else has a rottweiler or an alsatian. What do we have? That shivery turd.”

  “Don’t you dare call him that,” she screeched, making them all wince. “And why have you shut the curtains?” she said, yanking them open with one hand while keeping hold of Monty with the other, whose googly eyes were riveted on Caleb. Light streamed into the small room revealing the flowery carpet, tassled sofa and the tacky flying duck wall ornaments. “I can hardly breathe in here with all the smoke. I don’t get you three, you’re always at the gym because you want to look big and hard but you smoke like sodding chimneys.”

  “Never mind that. We’re discussing that thing,” said Caleb, jabbing a digit at the dog. “It’s embarrassing enough having him in the house but do you have to make it worse by tying pink bows around his ears? No wonder he keeps shagging legs, he needs to keep reminding himself that he’s a boy.”

  “Oh so go on then, you big hard men. What master plan were you discussing now? Breaking into the Tower of London? Or have you just had an important meeting with a Columbian drug cartel?”

  “It’s best you don’t know,” replied Kevin.

  Abigail looked down at Monty in her arms, an amused smile playing on her bright pink lips. “Shall Mummy use her psychic powers to guess what these criminal geniuses are plotting?”

  The dog stared back at her with his huge eyes.

  “Hmm,” she continued. “Could it be something to do with snatching a little scrap of weed off poor Liam Ferguson?”

  “How do you know that?” gasped Jason. “Do you really have powers, like Gran?”

  She rolled her eyes. “The walls in this house are paper thin dickhead. I heard every word you said.”

  “There’s no need to be mean,” he pouted.

  “Why can’t you do a big proper job?” she said. “Something that will put this family on the map and bring in some bloody cash rather than ripping off pathetic little bits of gear here and there. I wish Faith was here, she knows how to organise a real job.”

  There was a beat of silence in the room as they all mourned the absence of their older sister.

  “Well she’s not here,” said Caleb, breaking the silence. “She’s off roaming Christ knows where and I’d like to see you do any better than us.”

  “Maybe I will,” she retorted, tossing back her head.

  “Don’t do that too hard. Your wig might come off.”

  “They’re extensions, not a fucking wig,” she screamed at him. “Oh, my poor baby, I’m so sorry,” she said when Monty whimpered and buried his face in her arm. She glared at her twin brother through the spider’s legs that constituted her eyelashes. “You upset him Caleb.”

  “I’m not the one who screamed like a banshee in his little pink ears.”

  She flicked out the blood red talons of her right hand. “What the fuck did you call me?”

  The brothers looked at each other and swallowed hard. Although they’d die before they admitted it, they were all a bit intimidated by their sister. She’d knocked out many a grown man in the local pubs with a single punch and her nails were lethal weapons. Her favoured mode of attack was ramming them into people’s eyes.

  The brothers sighed with relief when the front door opened and a voice called, “Only me. Is someone going to help me with these bags?”

  All three men shot to their feet while simultaneously calling, “Coming Mum.” They skirted around a glowering Abigail and out the door into the hallway.

  Rose Chambers was a dainty bird-like woman, silver hair a neat bob, an endearing smile on her lips that always made her blue eyes sparkle. The small silver cross that she never took off hung at her throat. Despite her delicate appearance she was as strong as an ox, never having known a day’s illness in her life. She’d kept her big bruiser of a husband in line not with yelling and swearing, like her friends did with their spouses, but with her amazing cooking. Every mealtime she’d taken him to heaven and back with her very tasty but extremely fattening cuisine, ensuring he’d never strayed. He’d ended up with high cholesterol, dying of a heart attack at the age of fifty two. As she’d had her children young they’d all been old enough to earn money to cover what he’d brought in. Some of their crueller neighbours said Rose had intentionally killed her husband with her cooking, a plot she’d formed from the moment she’d said ‘I do’.

  “And what have you been up to while I’ve been out?” Rose asked her boys as they carried the bags of shopping through to the kitchen. Her voice was sweet and musical and her children had never known her to shout.

  “They’re planning to rob Liam Ferguson of a miniscule bit of weed,” said Abigail, following them into the kitchen, Monty still in her arms.

  “Oh boys,” sighed Rose. “What is this now? You’d be better going after Steve Bailey, he’ll have double what Liam has.”

  “Really?” said Caleb.

  Rose nodded as she unpacked the shopping. “I go to bingo with his mum, she was telling me all about it. She’s never learned to keep her mouth shut.”

  “And how did she find out about it?” said Jason, emptying a pack of bananas into the fruit bowl.

  “What have I told you dear?” said Rose with a fond smile, patting her youngest son’s scarred cheek. “Apples on the bottom, so they don’t bruise the bananas.”

  “Sorry Mum,” replied Jason, rearranging the fruit.

  “How does Steve’s mum know how much weed he has?” Caleb asked his mother.

  “She regularly searches his room a
nd she found it.”

  Kevin shifted uncomfortably. “Do you, err, search my room Mum?”

  “Of course not dear.”

  He beamed with relief, Rose’s lips twitching when he turned his back, thinking of the magazines she’d found under his bed just yesterday.

  “So what do you think?” said Caleb, addressing his brothers. “Should we go for Steve Bailey instead?”

  “I think you should,” said Rose in her soft sweet voice as she stacked tins of peas into a cupboard. “It’ll be easy for you and that boy needs a good lesson in manners, he’s so rude. His mother told me he never cleans up at home and the mouthfuls he gives her if he doesn’t like what she makes at mealtimes, well, quite frankly, I was appalled.”

  Caleb stifled a sigh. He had no interest in the Baileys’ household arrangements. “But we can’t break into his house, he has that huge doberman,” he said, throwing an accusing look at Monty, making his sister scowl.

  “You don’t need to dear,” said Rose. “He’ll be at The Red Lion tonight with the drugs.”

  The brothers glanced at each other.

  “Why would he carry that lot around with him in public?” said Kevin.

  “To sell you silly boy.” It was his turn to receive a fond smile and a pat on the cheek. “So you need to get to him before he reaches the pub.”

  “You seem very keen on us doing this,” said Caleb. “I thought you’d be trying to talk us out of it.”

  “I’m just trying to support my children in their business ventures. And Steve Bailey is a horrible boy. It will do him some good to be brought down a peg or two. Just don’t hit him too hard.”

  Jason was unable to repress a snigger.

  “You really think this bunch of idiots is capable of pulling this off?” said Abigail, feeding Monty a dog biscuit from the pack Rose had brought home.

  “Don’t call your brothers names Abigail,” said Rose, her voice gentle even when admonishing. “I don’t like it. We support each other in this family, we don’t drag each other down. There’s plenty around here that already do that.”

  “Sorry Mum,” said Abigail. Rose was the only one she listened to.

  “So,” said Jason, looking to his older brothers. “Are we doing this?”

  “Why not?” replied Caleb. “We know what route Steve has to take to get to the pub.”

  “And he’s a wanker,” said Kevin. “He beat up his last girlfriend and Kelly’s alright.”

  “He deserves this,” said Rose.

  “You do realise nicking drugs off him won’t make him be nicer to his mum?” said Caleb.

  “Of course darling but I see it as justice.”

  He kissed her cheek. “Alright, we’ll do it. For you.”

  She patted his face and smiled up at him. “Thank you. Right, who’s hungry?”

  Rose beamed when they all grinned and nodded.

  CHAPTER 2

  It was the end of September and autumn had arrived but it still wasn’t quite dark enough at eight o’clock in the evening to conceal a robbery, so the brothers had to choose their ambush spot well. Fortunately Steve’s route took him past a derelict pub surrounded by boggy wasteland that even the local druggies avoided because you could end up to your ankles in mud.

  All three Chambers brothers wore black jeans and trainers and black hooded tops. The sky was cloudy so the only light was a weak orange glow from the single streetlight that hadn’t been vandalised, which valiantly continued to struggle on, intermittently cutting out for a few seconds with a mournful buzz before bursting back into life.

  “God this is depressing,” said Kevin as they waited behind the white transit van they’d borrowed from a friend for this venture.

  He stood between his two brothers, looking small and scrawny in comparison. He’d been born premature, indeed the hospital hadn’t expected him to survive but he’d fought hard to live. Although he was now a healthy twenty one year old man he’d always been short and slender, especially in comparison to his large hulking brothers. He’d been mercilessly picked on at school but that had engendered within him a steely determination and he’d fought back, seeing off all his abusers with sheer savagery, ensuring he was left well alone for the remainder of his childhood, earning himself a reputation in the area as someone not to be messed with. His brothers might have been bigger and more physically powerful but he was fast and fought dirty. He had even been known to bite people’s ears and noses.

  “How can it be depressing?” said Jason, blue eyes bright with excitement. “We’re about to kick the shit out of someone.”

  “I mean that’s depressing,” he said, gesturing to the neglected, sagging pub. “Why couldn’t we have been born somewhere hot and exciting, like Monte Carlo or Dubai?”

  “Because they don’t like people called Kevin over there,” retorted Jason.

  Kevin’s eyes narrowed. “Sorry we couldn’t all be given exotic names like him,” he said, jabbing a thumb at Caleb.

  “I only got my name because Mum was going through a strong biblical phase,” he replied, peering around the corner of the van.

  “At least you sound all awesome and cool. I sound like a bloody used car salesman. I don’t know why you’re sniggering Jason, you sound like someone who likes musicals and shopping for antiques.”

  “Oy,” he retorted. “I’m not taking that shit. Let’s me and you go right now.”

  “Shut it the pair of you,” snarled Caleb. “I can hear footsteps, which is a bloody miracle over the racket you’re making.”

  They went silent, glaring at each other while Caleb took another look.

  “Well?” whispered Jason, practically hopping with excitement. “Is it them?”

  Caleb studied the tall thin form approaching who was flanked by two men. “Yeah,” he whispered back. “But he’s got a couple of friends with him.”

  “We can take them,” whispered back Kevin.

  Caleb nodded. “Masks on.”

  Caleb and Kevin pulled on their balaclavas and looked to Jason, recoiling when they were confronted by the orange face of Donald Trump.

  “What the fuck is that?” whispered a wide-eyed Kevin.

  “My mask,” replied Jason. “Why, what’s wrong with it?”

  “I meant these,” hissed Caleb, tugging at his balaclava.

  “You said masks, not balaclavas.”

  Caleb rolled his eyes. “It’ll do I suppose. Actually, you go first. That thing will shit them right up.”

  “Alright,” he grinned.

  Caleb peeked around the van again. “On my signal, one, two, three.”

  Jason leapt out from his hiding place while unleashing a war cry, causing Steve Bailey to cry out and stumble backwards, his two friends releasing girlish screams. Jason was laughing his head off when he drove his fist into Steve’s face, knocking him out.

  Caleb ran at the man on the left, rugby-tackling him to the ground and punching him before he could react. Kevin rushed the remaining man, who looked delighted to be tackling the smallest of the three. He drew back his fist to hit him but Kevin nimbly ducked and punched the man in the gut. As he folded in half Kevin drove his knee into his face. With a groan he toppled to the ground, landing on Steve, all three out cold.

  “Well that was easy,” mumbled Jason through the mask.

  “Quick, search them,” said Caleb, patting down Steve. “Yes,” he grinned when he found the stash of drugs in the pocket of his tracksuit top, which looked to be more than they’d expected him to be carrying. He also took his mobile phone and wallet while he was at it.

  Kevin and Jason searched the other two, the latter frowning at the thick brown jiffy bag he found stuffed into one of the men’s coat pockets. They took their wallets and phones too before racing back to the van and jumping in, Caleb driving, who yanked off the balaclava, all three grinning as they sped off down the street.

  After returning the van to Caleb’s friend and dumping the masks in a skip, the brothers returned home with their booty to find Rose still up, watching television.

  “Hello boys,” she smiled, sipping a cup of tea. “How did it go?”

  “Brilliant,” said Caleb, throwing himself into the armchair. “No problems and we got what we wanted.” He scowled at Monty when he leapt to his feet. “Don’t even think about it.”