A start to a story ...

“never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn”
- Mark (chopper) Read

1

It was cold, really cold. Actually it was fucking freezing!

“Stood out here on the bloody deck for 4 hours – should have brought my bloody jacket”

Then it started to rain …

“Bollocks!” Cooper said, pulling his loosely knitted jumper tighter around him and burying his hands into his armpits.

“Why is it always on my watch”

He huddled closer to the wall of the cabin, shivering.

As he stared, bored, out into the gloom of the night, it caught his eye.

A shape gliding slowly, just above the waterline some way off from the Salvage boat “Christina”.

He peered harder into the darkness, cold rain spitting on his already frozen cheeks, what little light there was radiating from the wheelhouse window, wasn’t offering any assistance.
‘Probably just my eyes’, he thought, stamping his feet to try and fend off the bitter cold.
It didn’t work.

Reaching into his back pocket and pulling out the slightly squashed and now rather damp packet of Marlboro’s, he withdrew one, popped it in his mouth and fished around amongst the keys in his pocket for his lighter.
Irritatedly trying to dry, at least his thumb, before turning his back to the wind, pulling his jumper neck over his head, he slid his arm up inside the jumper and tried, many times to coax out a flame.

His thumb got sorer on the flint wheel and his muttered curses became slowly louder and more profane.

Suddenly, the inside of his jumper grew startlingly bright, his eyes pained, he tried to light his cigarette without singing any hair …unsuccessfully. He took a long slow pull, to make sure it was properly lit and returned his lighter to his pocket.


It took Cooper about three seconds to realise that the light was not coming from inside his jumper.


It was outside!


“What the …”, Cooper cried as he, not unwelcomely, felt a surge of intense heat pass over him and heard a strange, faintly mettallic noise over the gusting wind.
A few moments after he had pulled his head out of his jumper AND after he’d wriggled and sworn while to retrieve the cigarette which he had unfortunately left inside …he noticed he was steaming?

Even with the wind gusting a healthy 35 knots, there was steam noticeably coming from his jumper, his jeans and, although he couldn’t see it at the time, from the back of his head.
From this angle his hair looked shorter too. The wind blew away the singeing hair smell before it reached his nostrils, he wouldn’t find out until sometime later.

Blank took a few steps forward, then crossed the deck in front of the main cabin, took a few puffs on his cigarette and glared into the darkness, possibly in the same direction the noise had gone. He wasn’t sure, it had been an odd noise, maybe just the wind. But that heat and even more so, the steam told his brain that something had happened …something?


Seeing nothing out in the darkness, Blank looked for one more minute then retreated back to the ‘sheltered side’. “Sheltered my arse!”, they were steaming straight into the icy Northerly wind.


When Cooper came to …all hell was breaking loose, struggling to open then focus his bleary eyes, he manged to prop himself up, with no little effort, onto one elbow. He saw orange, then yellow and as the ringing in his ears subsided, he heard shouts and heavy footsteps running all around him.

2

It was quite a nice day really, considering. There was a light breeze coming across the meadow. The smell of fresh grass floating around in the sunshine. Roger rolled up his shirt sleeves, stubbed his cigarette out on the warm tarmac and walked back to his Mercedes. The window had been down, but it was still hot in the car, he felt a little trickle of sweat run down his back between his shoulder blades.

He lit another cigarette and started the car. The smooth purr of the engine mixed with the noise of the tractor still cutting the grass, making an unsettleing noise which prompted Roger to hit play, roll up the window and put his foot down. The tyres sent some small bits of gravel spinning through the air into the hedge, Roger didn’t hear some land in the stream as the bass had already kicked in.


Hurtling through the narrow, winding lanes in his canary yellow, 84 Merc, with the whitewalled tyres and the ‘friendly’ round headlights, he mused on the days events. He’d nearly found it, at least he thought so. As he hadn’t actually managed to find it today, he could only presume that he was close.

As he rounded the corner, at least 30mph too fast, he saw the screen flashing on his phone –“fuck, what now!”

“Roger!” he barked, a little to loudly, into his mobile.

“Tasha, sorry …bad day!” he said, by way of an apology, “what can I do for you?”

“I think you’d better come round, there’s someone who wants to see you”, the public school voice said.

“Anything interesting?”

“Well”,she said matter of factly. ”He won’t say, but he certainly looks serious”

“Ok, I’m not far away, I’ll shouldn’t be more than an hour”

3

Quietly putting down the phone, before folding her hands gracefully on the leather trimmed desk, Tasha looked a little more closely at the slightly dishevelled but rather handsome, she thought, Gentlemen, sat in the large, rather old and slighty stained, loungechair by the window. He’d looked about 6’, he had a good sturdy build and that odd ruggedness about him. It was funny,she mused, some men could spend all day, showering and shaving, you could dress them in a 1000 pound suit from Saville Row and they still looked …well, Grubby! Maybe it was the hat, a long knitted ‘rasta’ type hat the sat just back off his hairline but draped itself down the back of his head.

Could she smell …burning hair?


Before she’d had time to reflect any further, there was an incredibly loud noise, the noise of someone rather large, probably a little overweight and definitely carrying more things than they ought to, charging smack bang into the front door of the office. It was followed, almost immediately, by other noises associated with the same rather large and slightly overweight man, not quite managing to get up the first time …or the second.


“Won’t be a moment” Tasha said, offering the gentleman one of her smiles before dashing elegantly but urgently, out to the front door.

Lucky bastard, she had an amazing, defence breaking, argument stopping sort of …”drop to your knees and offer her the world” kind of smile.


Brushing down his, now, dusty suit trousers, Roger stood, as proudly as he could muster in the circumstances, trying not to drop the few things he’d been able to pick up. As the door opened and Tasha’s concerned face appeared, he realised he was still bleeding. It had come from no-where, he may have been on the phone, but he never took his eyes off the road …often.


The cow had actually cleared the hedge by a good few inches, it probably wouldn’t make it. All those brains that were cooking on his radiator just down the street had filled his car with a terrible stench all the way back, must have been important to the cow, so he didn’t hold out much hope.

He hadn’t checked, but as he rationalised to himself at the time, he was bleeding and the probability of bleeding even more when the angry farmer came stalking out of the fields with his shotgun, had convinced him, that although morally wrong, in the interests of self preservation, he had really better leave.

He didn’t stop all the way home.


“Is he still here?”

Tasha, was busily picking up the rest of the contents of his briefcase, while trying to help him through the door. “Yes” she said, “but you need to clean up first , don’t you think”. Still with that slight look of concern twinkling in her eyes. It had happened often enough that she knew that he was OK this time …this time. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and ushered him inside.

“Right”, was all Roger managed.


As he determinedly tried to ignore the pain of the (stingy antiseptic) that he had foolishly believed was suppose to help cuts, he changed his shirt and trousers and neatly did up his tie. One last check in the mirror – presentable, “OK, “he said to himself “what now?” and he walked slowly down to meet his latest client.



Four hours later, sitting opposite a very wide eyed Tasha, he stubbed out his cigarette in the alredy overflowing ashtray, sighed and read again the notes Tasha had taken during the meeting. She still didn’t have anything to say, so walking slowly over to the Chiffonier, he poured two small nips of Captain Morgan, finishing his there and then, he passed the other to Tasha.

“ …”

“I know” he said, “he was convincing though”.

4

The following morning, after spending an hours, pressure hosing cow out from his radiator grill and affixing a very large piece of gaffa tap from bumper to bonnet, he made his way across town. He was already late, so he just picked off the little bits that had splashed up from the radiator grill before he went in.