Bubblegum Smoothie (2 page)

I thought about that sum of money. One million quid. Thought of all the things I could do with it. All the places I could go, and all the gadgets I could buy.

A smoothie carton slammed against the metal counter in front of me, whisking me out of my fantasy.

Angry fat guy. Only close up, I could see his lips and tongue were a nasty shade of blue. Shit—they even looked
swollen
.

“Alright, alright,” I said, grabbing the unfinished Bubblegum Smoothie and pouring it down the sink. “Refund coming your way—”

“Forget the refun-g,” he said, struggling to speak. “Twading Stan-gards. You’re officially cwosed as of now.”

All of a sudden, the idea of a million quid didn’t seem too unappealing after all.

TWO

I wasn’t too pissed about the interfering shites from Trading Standards clamping down on Groovy Smoothie. They were inept as it was. All it took was a new name and a new location and I’d be back in business again in a month.

No. I was more pissed off that I’d have to dip into my Fun Fund to pay my bills if I didn’t get opened up again soon.

I leaned back against the sofa. Felt the softness of the brown suede against my skin, against my legs as I lay on it. This was the best part of the day, the best part of any day—the pay-off for a day of serving people too lazy to chew a piece of fruit. The reward for spending hours upon hours serving liquid gimmick-fruit and whacking extortionate price tags on it for the satisfaction of the moronic general public.

I looked at the television and crunched on some popcorn. “Breaking Bad,” one of my favourite shows at the moment. Except it looked blurry. One thousand pounds on a SMART TV and six quid a month on Netflix and still, it looked blurry. If I could pay for non-blurry, I would, believe me, but technology had a way of kicking my ass, as much as I loved it.

I paused the episode and reached onto the carpet for my iPad Air. Booted up Safari. Might as well have a look around at some Amazon deals. Amazon was the life and death of me. Amazon, Apple—you name it, I bought from there.

And just think what a million quid could buy…

No. I sent that thought right out of my head and typed in “Curved TVs.” I wasn’t getting a million quid because I wasn’t involving myself in a murder investigation. Not after last time. Only problem was that with Groovy Smoothie out of action for at least a month, I wasn’t in the healthiest financial state. And I wouldn’t be receiving any police bounties any time soon. Lenny was predictable like that.

Really, I should be pretty well off. I looked around the lounge. Looked at the pristine Bose surround sound system, 12.1. I didn’t even know they frigging
made
12.1 surround sound until I added it to my Wishlist and Primed it straight to my door the following day. Could I tell the difference between this and my old 7.1 system? Could I hell. But it was better. It said on the Internet that it was better. Barry from Wales had given it five stars. A “cracking set,” he’d said.

Trust in Barry from Wales. Trust in 12.1 surround sound.

I tapped at the iPad screen, which was taking too long to load for my liking. I could hear rain splattering against my window outside, smell the distant fumes of a pizza place from the city centre. Maybe I’d order in. Maybe I’d treat myself to a takeaway.

I treated myself to a takeaway most nights. High metabolism; eat your heart out.

But then I remembered I was technically unemployed and I’d spent the bulk of the last bounty on takeaways, and 12.1 surround sound systems, and various earphones and video games and CDs that I couldn’t for the life of me name now. I thought about the rent of this place. £3,000 per month, give or take. Fine, but then you add in the Netflix subscription, the Prime subscription, the Spotify, Deezer, Kindle Unlimited, Graze, Sky Sports Plus Extra Movies Infinite whatever subscriptions.

It adds up.

I put my iPad down. I hated having to delve into my Fun Funds for bills. Fun Funds, the payments from my successful bounty hunts, were what kept me going in life. Some people wanted women, some people wanted marriage, and all that shit. And being in my thirties, maybe I should want those things too.

But the thought of a woman watching frigging “Hollyoaks” on my SMART TV… Nah. A few more years of fun. A few more years of being technically retired until I needed some cash.

I’d been saying “a few more years” since I was in my early twenties.

I felt a tightness in my chest. A burning in my throat. Fuck—how long had it been since I’d had some? My mind would be going fuzzy soon. I’d be biting my nails, feeling even more hot and bothered than I already was.

I shot up. Skipped across the carpet towards my kitchen, which was just off the lounge area. I liked space like that.

I headed towards the fridge. Headed towards the place where I kept my beer, all my delicious beer.

And then I walked past the fridge, grabbed a pack of Lockets and emptied half of them into my mouth before I could even get the wrappers off some of them.

I sucked at the lozenges. Crunched down on them, let the menthol seep through my chest and set my body on fire. I felt better. I licked the honey goo from my lips. Delicious processed honey goo.

Sure, I’d have the shits later, but that’s how it’d been for years. Life was all about learning to adapt.

I placed half the packet of Lockets on the kitchen counter and headed back towards my lounge. See, some people had addictions to alcohol. Others had drug addictions, and women addictions, and spending addictions. Some were lonely. Some were too un-lonely for their own good.

I kind of like spending, and I kind of like spending some time on my own, but if I have an addiction, it’s lozenges. Or specifically, menthol. Don’t ask me where it came from, or why it happened—it just did. Probably stemmed from my youth. My nan used to put three Tunes on my bedside table to “ease my sleep” every night. And then four, and five. It got to the stage where I was pinching her packets and chewing down on every one of them before my head had even hit the pillow.

So yeah. It probably stemmed from there. There were worse addictions.

Feeling a lot more at ease, a lot more awake, I headed back to my sofa. Picked up the remote and hovered over the play button. Maybe I would watch some more “Breaking Bad” after all. And hey—I’d have the Groovy Smoothie stand up and running again in a month. Until then, I could sell a few things on eBay. I had some crap under my bed. They could get me by.

They could pay the bills, God dammit.

I was just about to hit the play button when I heard the doorbell chime.

I looked over at the door of my first-floor apartment. Weird. It was… ten o’clock. Who’d visit at ten o’clock? Stu? Sally? The landlord? No. Why would they visit at this time? Why would they visit at all?

I crept over to the door. Tried to peek outside the window just above it, but unless the person at the door was seven foot five or a serial stilt-wearer, I was wasting my time. I put my hand on the handle. Checked to the left to see that my fire poker was there. I didn’t have a fire, but I figured I’d whack a scrote over the head with it someday. Yes, it had probably cost too much at £400.

I lowered the handle. Opened the door.

“Blake!”

“Lenny?”

Lenny was standing outside my door. He was still wearing his sunglasses even though it was dark outside. He wasn’t dressed in his suit and baggy trousers anymore though.

He was in his dark police uniform.

There were two other people behind him. A woman with an unusually round head, and a fat bloke who looked like he’d never shaved the bumfluff off his top lip in his entire life. Both of them were wearing black police colours too.

“What is this?” I asked.

Lenny grinned. Grinned with his beaming white teeth, chewing on some gum with his molars.

“Nice place you’ve got here. Nice place from the earnings of a smoothie stall. I heard about Trading Standards. How’d that go?”

I couldn’t answer. “Why are you here?”

“Oh, that’s right.” Lenny reached into his back pocket, squinted at a note in his hand. “Blake Dent, I am arresting you on the suspicion of murder. You do not have to say… God, I prefer the American version of this. The whole ‘right to remain silent’ thing. We’re lame compared to that.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence…”

Lenny read out my rights, and then the two officers behind him came into my doorway. They put their mucky shoes all over my expensive cream carpet, and snapped some cuffs on my wrists.

“You’re a shit, Lenny,” I said, as the police dragged me into the warm night air and towards the car. “A double-crossing little toe-rag.”

Lenny pretended to jot down on his pad. “Double… crossing… toe… was that ‘wag’ or ‘rag’? Anyway, cheers, Blake. I’ll remember to ‘use that one against you’ in court.”

I bit my tongue. Tried my best not to say anything else.

All this time I’d spent kidding myself that my past wouldn’t catch up with me some day.

Looked like “Breaking Bad” might have to wait after all.

THREE

“You’d better have a bloody good reason for this, Lenny. A
bloody
good reason.”

Lenny sat at the opposite side of the interview room table filing his nails. I wanted to tell him that filing nails was what women and pansies did. I also wanted to get up and throttle him.

But I was the one in the handcuffs. And there was a very bulky chap standing by the door who I wasn’t too keen on getting the shit kicked out of by any time soon.

“I told you,” Lenny said. He wasn’t wearing his sunglasses anymore, so his bright green eyes were on show. “Suspicion of murder. Something like that, anyway.”

I swallowed the phlegmy-tasting lump in my throat. Did all I could to push the memory aside. “We’ve discussed this before.”

“Oh, we have?” Lenny asked. He stopped filing his nails, stuffed the file into his pocket and leaned across the table. “Remind me. What was it we discussed?”

I wasn’t sure how much longer I could sit here and take this shit.

“Because, as I recall, you killed somebody. Yes, that’s it.” He tapped his fingers against a document. Lenny and his pissing documents. “Blake Dent. Accused of—”

“Is this to do with your offer?”

Lenny stopped right away. He pushed the envelope aside. I tried to breathe in to keep myself cool, but the stench of sweat and ass from a multitude of scrotes who’d sat in here was just too strong.

“What do
you
think it’s to do with?” Lenny asked.

“Lenny, I’m not here to play games. Is it about what I think it’s about?”

Lenny shrugged. “What do you think it’s about?”

“The one million.”

“One million? Two million?”

I went to punch the desk then thought better of it. Big chap with the dead eyes outside the door was getting pretty twitchy. “The murder. This ‘homicide’ you came to me about. Is that what this is about?”

Lenny’s sparkling white gnashers revealed themselves. He interlocked his fingers, leaned so far across the table that I could smell the garlic on his breath, and a bad attempt to disguise it with some cheap smelling mouthwash. “Now we’re talking. We need your help, Blake.”

I sighed. I wanted to shift the collar of my blue-and-white checkered shirt but I couldn’t because of my cuffs. “So you’re blackmailing me?”

“Not blackmailing,” Lenny said. “Just… giving you an opportunity to help.”

“So if I refuse?”

“You’ll most likely be arrested and charged for the murder of—”

“So it is blackmail?”

“Not blackmail, exactly.”

I shook my head. “Okay. So you offer me a million pounds. I refuse, and you go on to say that if I don’t help you catch this criminal, I’ll be charged for something that was cleared up long ago. If I accept, I get the million, and I don’t get charged.”

Lenny clapped. “Spot on. Jesus, Blake, you’re learning. I swear you get more intelligent every time I see you. They’ll be teaching monkeys how to speak soon. That was a joke, of course. Just a joke.”

He smiled his trademark smile and I wanted to knock it into the back of his throat.

“Oh, er, one little thing though. You said if you
accept
, you get the million and your freedom. It doesn’t really work like that, I’m afraid. You’re a businessman. You know how business works—we pay you a little deposit, but if the transaction falls through…” He stuffed his fist into his hand and puffed his lips out. “Poof!”

“You are.”

“What?”

“Nothing. So this deposit. This deposit for the… for the thing that isn’t blackmail.”

“Definitely not blackmail.”

“How much of a deposit do I get?” I thought about paying off my bills with what I had left in the Fun Funds and using the deposit to invest in a curved TV. Damn. I hadn’t even had a proper chance to look into curved TVs before Lenny and his band of inept shits stormed into my apartment.

“Well, you get your temporary freedom until you catch the criminal, of course.”

I paused. Waited for him to continue.

“And?”

Lenny frowned. Stuck out his bottom lip. “I’m sorry, Blake, but I hardly think you’re in a prime position to be bargaining for better terms.”

He had a point. The gobshite had a point.

“So this criminal,” I said. I knew I’d have to at least show an interest. Show an interest, then get the shitting hell out of the country rather than get myself involved in this mess. I could hide in Mexico. Sip tequilas and knock back Soothers and Lockets to my heart’s content, never looking at a smoothie bar again.

Oh yeah. I had no cash. That was a stumbling block.

“I wondered when you were going to ask,” Lenny said. He planted a huge photograph onto the table. Hell knew where he got all these photographs and papers. I swore he had a hidden TARDIS pocket.

I leaned over the table and I almost spewed my menthol-laced guts up when I saw what it was.

It was a blown-up photograph of a woman. A naked woman.

“She was found like this by a dog walker in a stream by Moor Park,” Lenny said, his voice turning serious.