by Wez Wallie
"Oi mother - no prejudice or racism in my car please!"
"I ain't no racialist, darling! Don't you know I sucked off Sammy Davis Jr. one time down the back of W-"
"Woolworths, yeah I know. You told my teacher that at Parent's Evening after she called you out for saying 'only pilgrims need extra time in exams' whilst staring at the Muslim lad who had dyslexia and you got us both suspended for a month."
"Did I? What was I suspended for?"
"Well, not suspended, but you weren't allowed on school grounds to pick me up and they had to create a safe space for the less able before it was cool."
"A safe space for ficko’s? Ain't that just the job centre?"
Later they were walking through the park; sunlight dappled through the trees and the morning dew had only just begun to fade.
"Me fackin' hip's playing up again," she lied. "That's why when Peter takes me walking, he brings me wheelchair..."
"It's not a walk if Peader does the walking and you do the sitting on your arse being wheeled around."
"Well how come me 'ip is fine when I'm sitting and only ‘urts when I'm walking?!"
"It's good, it's exercise."
"Well, I wheel meself sometimes, so that should count for somefing. It's given me super-strong arms, at least! But still, walking ‘urts me piles too."
"Again, exercise is GOOD. It's supposed to hurt at the start - push through the pain as they say!"
"Is this some kind of revenge you're taking on me for something I did in your childhood?!"
"No mother, I just want to see you out and about again. Poor Peader must be so bored just taking you around the town centre for an hour a day and then just sitting with you all afternoon watching the soaps."
Oh, if you only knew! she thought with a smirk.
"Oh, he loves it. Gets paid for watching TV and having a kip, pretty much."
"And stuffing his face I've noticed!" Marion laughed to herself. "He does like to keep his strength up that one."
Dotty stopped at a bench and sat down watching the birds free in the sky and a bunch of teen dossers drinking cider on a swing.
"He thinks the world of you, you know."
Mal blushed. "Really? How do you know? Has he said something?"
"I've been around the block, girl, I can just tell when a buck has a stiffy for a mare."
Marion sat back, flattered.
"You be careful, my Marion, don't want you corrupting his soul now."
"Gosh, mum, I’m retraining to be a youth worker; what do you think is gonna happen? I'm gonna eat him alive or something?"
Dotty just stared. "He's more likely to eat you alive, luv, 'cos he's a lardy chunk, but you make sure you don't lead him astray, morally like."
"I know I'm not as... fundamentalist, as you are, but I like to think I am still... of virtue, in some way."
"Gotta have fundamentals, kiddo. That's fundamental."
"I still follow on the path of the Lord. I may have taken a detour here and there, but He's led me back to the road."
Dotty just looked up and away.
"You know I still think you hold all that stuff against me, mum. I don't think you've really acknowledged how much I've changed over the past few years."
Dotty just stared ahead at the louts on the roundabout now, spinning each other faster, a few on the verge of puking.
"I never thought I'd have children. Then I thought it was too late for me. But Shonny's really put my priorities in perspective. She's taught me a lot you know. Mum? Mum?"
Dotty grabbed her arm and lifted up her sleeves to reveal the puncture scars in the elbow creases: "What are you gonna say when your daughter starts asking you why you've got holes all over your body, eh? Why your skin is so pale, and your hair is so thin? What, you just gonna say you used to handle pet snakes that got loose one day? That you didn't drink enough milk growing up?"
"If that's what it takes."
"So you're going to lie to her, is that it?"
"Look, there's no easy -"
"You either hold deception in your heart or you tell your child the bitter truth. Either way, the past has a hold of you, and that muck isn't done with you yet."
Marion's eyes became rather damp.
"Peader doesn't judge me for my past, mum."
"Why don't you go shag the sod then? I'm sure he'll give you a few bags for the privilege."
"You can be so cruel, you know that!"
"Life's cruel. Fink I'll get the bus back, luv."
Marion stormed off sobbing as Dotty just watched the kids passed out on the gravel, warm cider leaking into the waiting drains.
*
Peader had a white pad taped across his left eye, looking like the pansiest pirate you've ever seen as he received instructions in morse code from Bognor over the cab's telegraph key.
"Deary me, what century you in? I thought I was supposed to be the old fogey in this relationship."
"Dey prefer Morse Code dese days, 'cos ye can nedder tell who's listenin' in, like."
Dotty rolled her eyes as twilight broke. "Well, at least you got this place cleaned up."
"Yep. Had it all hosed down - every nook and cranny! Okey," he said, looking up from his notes and reading the decoded messages, "dey just replenished de gear in de library, so once we grab dat we should be golden fer de job."
"What is the job, Peter?"
"Uh, nice easy jobbie, actually, Ms Walker. No. 6 down de road again wants de cat next door dead."
"Oh. What she want her neighbour dead for?"
"Tink he keeps leaving liddle presents on de door mat an’ doing his bidness in her flowerpots, like."
"Peter. Please tell me the job isn't to kill someone's actual cat. As in moggy, as in an actual fackin’ feline?"
"Uhh," said Peter, studying his notes of dashes and dots, "uh, yes ma'am, I tink it is."
The Hitnan's eyes did cartwheels as her head fell into her hands. "Tilda was right - we're being fobbed off, son!"
"No, we're not, I double checked twice - it's legit from de Agency!"
"No, I mean we're being fed scraps to keep us quiet whilst Tilda coontin' Maffews is out there taking on the big jobs! Tearing shit up! I killed a stinky postman the other day - where's the job satisfaction, Pete?"
"Nonsense - ye got ta take out Michael Fish a few weeks ago! Ye were de only one dey entrusted wit dat jobbie! Wanted only youse fer dat role."
"It's not enough, Peter. I used to be high-flying in the big leagues. Now I have to pork a pussy in the middle of Peckham."
"Peader, ma’am, and look, let's just go and get de new gear before dey close and den we can consider our options, but honestly, Ms Matt'ews was prob'ly pulling yer plonker, dere. Just trying ta get under yer skin, like."
"No. She wasn't lying."
"...Well, I'm gonna get us over to de library den, and ye can have a little tink on de way over."
Peader sparked up the engine and almost crashed instantly on pulling out, yelling "me apologies!" to the cursing van driver, and spending the rest of the short trip with his head facing as far left as he could so his remaining right eye had as big a field of vision as possible. He had a real stiff neck when they arrived, and for the life of him he couldn't uncrick it back to normal.
In the closing time of the library, The Hitnan summoned her alter ego, and was practically begging ponytail Steve behind the counter to let her borrow a quick book to take her mind off the sheer crippling loneliness "now me husband's passed" etc. She was yelling into the wind though as he wasn't stopping her, (the jury was out as to whether he even registered her presence as he simply stared into the distance and dribbled down his chin).
The head librarian was shutting down the computer section whilst chatting inanely to some silver top who seemed to be listing off all the people who she disliked around town and wishing she could "bump them off like Robert Wagner did to that actress bird on a boat back in the early '80s." The librarian just kept checking the wall clock and taking not
es - presumably for the police in case the local vicar ends up poisoned for the crime of missing her out during the Communion - as the old woman continued listing her troubles.
The Hitnan sniggered and went straight over to 'Chucklefission,’ throwing it open to the back page. She dumped them all in her handbag and popped the book back onto the dusty shelf, exiting the library with three lethal poison darts and an interesting fact about what happens when you accidentally get a block of Uranium stuck up Barry Chuckle's arse. (Spoilers: It was no laughing matter. And for future reference, though it eventually melts away, saying "silly me"/"silly you" for five hours straight in an MI5 interview doesn't actually get you off the hook for being so careless in the first place!)
When they eventually got to the target, the pair found themselves staring down at Mrs Palmer's pussy.
"Blimey. I heard it was ginger and hairy, but I didn't realise it was going to be fat and wet 'n all."
"C'mon now, dat's low hanging fruit, Ms Walker."
"Your neck is stuck facing left, Pete; that's an apple tree you're looking at, mate."
Night had fallen between an evening drizzle and they were leaning over the short fence facing No. 7's front garden. The Hitnan adjusted her plastic rain bonnet over her barnet. "What a way to spend a Saturday night, eh?"
Peader, who was still trying to uncrick his neck and could only see out of his right eye, couldn't help but notice the state of the front garden in contempt. "Y'know I could do a number on dese bushes here."
"We're not here for her bush; we're here for her pussy!"
"Well, Ms Walker, ye gonna shoot it, den?"
The tubby ginga just stared up at Peader with his cute wide eyes, like Puss In Boots does to the ogre in the Shrek films. "Aw, he's jus' a wee kitten, Ms Walker!"
"Probably finks you're his mumma. Look Peter, he's eyeing ya tiddies right now! I bet you could squeeze a saucer of curdled dairy from those norks."
"...Oh, I can't do it, Ms Walker! See dis is why I stay in de car fer when ye do de actual jobbies!"
"It's just a cat, ya wet melon."
The Hitnan turned back to her target and looked it in the eyes, raising the poison cane to its face as he sniffed it in curiosity. The cane hovered in her hand, shaking a little in the cold as the cat simply began to purr and lick its nails.
She quickly relented. "Aw, fack it - I've had enuff of this shite. I'm too old to be out here peeking at people's pussies in the middle of the night."
She dragged Peader back to the cab as he popped his boob back in his vest.
"I'm not even gonna ask why you were actually trying to milk yaself. Just get on the blower to Bognor, and get us some real work, will ya?"
Peader fell into the front driver's seat of the cab.
"Wait, talk to dem?! But Ms Walker, we don't talk ta de Agency... I mean, what would we say?"
"Listen, they're treating us both like a pair of mugs. I'm sick of these small fry jobs, now get 'em on."
Peader tried to dial the cab's phone line but was hesitating.
"What's the hold up, son?"
"I'm tryin' Ms Walker, but ye t'rew out de handbook de odder night! I can't remember de number, dere."
Peader began humming the Emmerdale theme and dialled a number. "Oh, here we go. Dey made us put de secret digits to a melody ta remember it back at de Academy - fer emergencies, like. I just hope it's de same number fer dem now."
Dotty groaned and leaned back.
"It's ringing! Oh hello dere, is dis de line fer Bognor at all? Clearance number? Um, uh, ♫ ‘do, do, do, do, dooh...’ ♫"
(He began humming another tune to recall his personal identification code).
"Naw, I'm not watchin' Corrie, I'm just - it's de tactic youse taught us ta remember our codes, remember?! Hang on:
♫ ‘doooh, do, do, do, do, do...doooh-5-do-8-do-3-doo-1-doooh-7-do-do-dooooh-92...’ ♫"
Dotty just shook her head in disbelief.
"Ah, t'ank ye, now sorry fer bodderin' ye at dis late hour like, but all it was was, well we were wonderin' why we were sent ta pop a kitty... yeh we know it was a job like, but at de end of de day yer sendin' us ta kill cats here and - no I know somebody's godda do it an’ all dat but we kinda feel like our level of talent and skill kind of precipitates a bit more dan grunt work, ye know what I mean, like... Yeh we can totally do a fox - no problem!"
Peader got excited and put the receiver to his collar:
"A fox, Ms Walker! I got us a gig ta pop a fox, like - we'd have ta stake it out, den stalk it an’ catch it, but aboy de kid - what a step up!"
His bulging gammy eye was waiting for her response.
"Sorry, am I expected to entertain that notion, Peter? We're not hunting foxes, for gawd's sake."
"Why not, now?"
"'Cos we ain't fackin’ Tories! Now ask 'em why they fink we're mugs."
"Hey dere, me again, my agent here is asking me ta ask youse why ye tink we're mugs, kindly?"
Dotty slapped her hands over her face. Peader put the phone to his chest again:
"Dey sayin' dese are de only jobs going... fer us. Oh... uh huh... it's because yer 'front page famous' now, Ms Walker."
"That's BS, Peter, total scrimmage! You tell those Babylon whores they were doing this before a bunch of silver tops were gassed! I mean, killin' bakers? They're out here treating us like we're fackin' pilgrims!"
"Oh, dey say dey seen ye on de Youtbes again, Ms Walker!! (Dey say dey love yer content though by de way, but it's not technically appropriate if yer an active agent, like.)"
"But most of me fans are American - look, I can see on the statistics page! No-one's gonna recognise me over here!"
Peader listened to the phone for a while. "Dey said between dis and de Bingo massacre incident, dere's just too much heat on us, like... now we're only allowed ta get Level 1 an’ 2 contracts, Ms Walker!"
"Damn that Tilda coontin' Maffews! She deliberately called them paps after the gassing fing! Right, that does it..."
Dotty scrambled over the seats to the front and snatched the phone from his hand, shouting down the blower:
"Listen, you utter ovary, don't fink we don't know your game here! You been hiding all the big jobs whilst giving us gigs that a blind child could do with one arm tied behind his back and another arm tied to his muvver's minge. Now it's time to give me the piece of the pie I deserve, as I was running this game before you lot were even in Huggies. I want Level 4 jobs and above, only!"
Peader couldn't believe the way she was talking to their bosses!
"...No, the cat ain't dead - go send some uvver chump for that shite. ...My clearance code? Fack that -"
"Ms Walker, please be calm! Don't do anyting stupid now!"
"Sod the code! Who am I? DOTTY FACKIN' WALKER - REMEMBER THE NAME!"
She slammed the phone down and gave it the finger. "Bunch of kids whose voices are barely broken. That's who's running it all now. Libby luvvies, I betcha."
Dotty sat and thought.
"Honestly, Ms Walker, what are we gonna do now? Dey hardly gonna give us big stuff now, and we might not even get de kitty-cat jobbies eider. Maybe if I ring 'em back like, I can convince dem ta at least give us de fox gig, y'know?!"
"Sod 'em. That scanner of yours..." she said, eyeing the dashboard of tech.
"De Police scanner, dere? Dat's just in case we ever get spotted, we can get a headstart like, from de Fuzz."
"Yeah, but you can hack it right? Do some technical wizardry to break into the mainframe and let us listen in to the Agency's secret broadcast etc??"
"Oh uh, well I don't really have ta hack inta anyting, Ms Walker. Dere frequency isn't encrypted because as ye know dey transmit instructions via Morse Code, like. And nobody but us trained Handlers know Morse Code anymore. Well, maybe WW2 vets but dey too busy poopin' demselves in Bingo halls dese days."
"Okay, great. You listen in, see what gigs they're puttin' out. I'm gonna have a kip."
Peader hooked up the scanner to the tele
graph key and matched the frequency, (or some BS like that who knows - the plot has to continue somehow).
*
Dotty woke up an hour later, with a silver flask of tea in the footwell beside her.
"Lovely jubbly. Knew there was a reason I keep you around." She took a sip. "Anyfing interesting on the... fing?"
"Yeh. We're not de only ones being screwed over." He looked at his scribblings of dashes and dots; "A few odder operatives are being given low-level gigs too. I tink dey tryin' ta assign all de big stuff ta one person! Someone who doesn't even seem ta have a Handler..."
"Tilda coontin' Maffews! She's done some sort of deal; got the Agency in her pocket... she wants a monopoly on the game!"
"I don't tink she's interested in board games, Ms Walker. I tink she's trying ta be de only one doing de big jobbies!"
She rolled her eyes again. "You found anyfing else?"
"Yeah. I'm reading dere's someting big going down tanight at around 1am at de docks. Dey've assigned it ta someone wit de codename: Widowmaker."
"That'll be her. Hey, why don't we get assigned cool nicknames?"
"Oh, we do. It's jus' us Handlers dat need ta know dem. Coffin Dodger is our one."
"You fackin' what?!"
"Ssh, Ms Walker - de instructions will be sent t'rough any moment now. We can intercept them so we know where dey will be and what dey're planning!"
"Brill. Get ready."
Peader turned back to the telegraph key, and then turned back to Dotty. "Y'know, I had no idea Lee Ryan from Blue is a hitman now, Ms Walker."
"Yeah well, there's only so many seasons of Celebs Go Dating you can do before most of the girls in the country are suing you for infecting them with Super-Gonorrhoea, and you gotta get yaself a new gig fast to pay for the legal fees."
"Huh. I wonder how he deals with doing dis job wit his level of fame, like."
"Could you pick him out of a line-up, Pete?"
"Naw, he is pretty non-de-script now I tink about it."
Suddenly, the telegraph started going off! "It's comin' t'rough now, Ms Walker!"
"Great - concentrate then!"
Peader noted closely all the different dashes and dots and translated them speedily. Dotty was already tooling up in the back seat.