Watch this space for full details of Neil Randall's brand-new novel. Tentatively scheduled for a March 2024 release, here's a teaser from the book:
THREE WHOLE WEEKS, not a bloody word, not a simple phone call telling
us where she were, didn’t know nothing ’bout no static caravan up the coast,
worried sick I was, had no other option than to call the police, even if it
meant getting the social services involved, even if it meant that the baby
might be taken off’a her. I mean, she’d wandered off so many times, said she
were just popping out to the shops, or to visit a friend for a cuppa and a fag,
and I wouldn’t see hide nor hair of her for days, just dumped the baby on me,
see, left me right in the lurch. And when she finally came home, she’d have
great big bags under her eyes, her beautiful hair were all matted and greasy,
stinking to high heaven, smoke, booze, you name it. Then all she’d wanna do was
sleep, go up to her room and not surface till the next day. Only this time it
were different. Bad as Ange had been in the past, she’d never dream of being
away this long. It weren’t right. It didn’t make no sense. And I tried phoning
round her friends, even the rough druggy bastards from town, the two lads she
always used to knock ’bout with, but they swore that they hadn’t seen or heard
from her for a good coupl’a weeks.
In the end, like I said, I had to get on to
the local police, had this horrible smarmy young constable call round to the
house, still in his bloody twenties, still had bum-fluff on his face, knew Ange
of old, see, knew she’d been in trouble in the past, had a bit of a reputation ’round
town, for drugs and what have you, and for that reason, her safety and
well-being weren’t important, like whatever might’ve happened to her, however
horrible, were her own fault, didn’t say as much, but I could tell, by all
these snidey comments like: Did you give your daughter any money, Mrs
Carboni, Did she say who she was going to be seeing? If so, are they also
involved in the local drug scene? And I had to keep on at ’em, the police,
I mean, to make ’em take me seriously, had to call ’em every day, hassle ’em,
tell ’em to get their fingers outt’a their arses, that my girl had a baby
daughter who were missing her something chronic, and that it were a small town,
that she couldn’t have gone very far, but all I kept getting back were: Unfortunately,
we’ve had very few significant leads to follow up on, but rest assured, we’re
doing everything in our power to find your daughter.
If it ain’t have been for Ange’s friend,
Katie I think her name were, remembering her saying something ’bout visiting
that caravan, we wouldn’t have found her for months. Apparently, it belonged to
one of those tossers from town, the ones we spoke to before, shared it with a
cousin or something, had it gifted ’em in their granddad’s will, used it as a
bit of a party place by all accounts, ’specially in the summer months. That’s
when I knew them lads had been lying when we asked ’em if they had any idea
where Ange could be – how else would she have got the keys, eh?
Never forget that awful phone call, when the
police rang to tell me that they’d found Ange’s body, that she’d been dead for
a considerable amount of time. Considerable, I asked ’em, how long is
considerable? It were only later I found out that she’d been lying there,
all on her own, dead, God rest her soul, for the best part of two and a half
weeks, over a bloody fortnight! When he did his autopsy or whatever you call
it, the coroner reckoned that she’d had liver or kidney failure, that her vital
organs ruptured, nigh on exploded, due to chemical excess, that more likely
than not she had a massive seizure, like a stroke, started bleeding from every
orifice in her body. I had to go down to the morgue to identify her, she were
in one helluva state, all bloated and puffy, her skin had turned this horrible
bluey-green colour, half her hair had fallen out at the roots. And I knew that
were the case ’cause I tried to touch her, don’t know why, it were just a
natural kind’a reaction, to reach out and touch her face, the top of her head,
like saying goodbye, knowing that’s the last time I’d ever see her, and a great
big clump of her hair came away in my hand.
Next
day, the police had those evil wankers, those druggies in for questioning, but
they closed ranks, said they didn’t know how Ange had got into the caravan,
that she must’ve climbed in through a window or forced a door, that they had no
idea what drugs she’d been taking or who she’d got ’em from, despite the fact
she had little or no money on her. And ’cause the police couldn’t prove
nothing, that they didn’t have any witnesses or material evidence as they
called it, linking them two lads to any of the drugs found at the scene, they couldn’t
do nothing ’bout it, couldn’t prosecute, they had to let ’em go scot-free.
That’s when I started to hear whispers, you
know, rumours ’round town, ’bout how them two lads had given Ange some dodgy
pills to try, like a bloody guinea pig, how they planned to have a big weekend
up at the caravan, that they’d given her the keys a few days in advance, said they’d
meet up with her on the Friday or Saturday, only when they got round to it they
found her lying there, dead, and didn’t have the decency to call the police,
call me – her mum – so I could come and take her away, give her a respectful
funeral, a proper send-off, ’cause they were scared that they’d find out ’bout
those pills. They just let my little girl, my only daughter rot away in that
caravan, like she were nothing more than a piece of meat, like road kill
splattered at the side of a motorway, that she were dirt, that her life didn’t
mean nothing. And that’s something I can never forgive ’em for, that’s
something those bastards should have pay for for the rest of their lives.
And if you want to learn more about Neil Randall's published work, head over to his Amazon page.
0 comments:
Post a Comment