Fish, Chips & Lubricating Jelly

By Ian David Noakes

THREE TROUBLED STRANGERS
… find themselves in a dire predicament - drowning in spiraling debt through a succession of poor decisions and rotten judgment.

A BUNGLED SUICIDE ATTEMPT
… unites Harry, Milly and Noah in their time of need. But from the dark emerges a daring solution b

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ian David Noakes
• Release date: Sep 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781684190485

Ian David Noakes

From humble beginnings as a projectionist, Ian David Noakes has taken on several feature film and television options as well as writing commissions since writing full-time in 2009. His big breakthrough came when his erotic murder-mystery, Hourglass Heights, achieved a publishing contract. It was later nominated for both the People's Book Prize as well as the National Book Awards After a wave of overwhelmingly positive reviews, Noakes experimented with many other genres as well. Most recently, he completed a dramedy pilot called Partners in Crime before adapting it into both a novel and completed series under the auspicious title Fish, Chips & Lubricating Jelly. He has also penned a fun-filled horror novella called The Ancient Lawman. Meanwhile a short drama he created, Tables Turned, has begun pre-production while he works on a re-write for his upcoming feature film, More Than Human. A serious case of indecisiveness syndrome has made it impossible to tell you what could be coming next. He is currently juggling a wide range of genres ranging from time traveling serial killer thrillers to dimension-crashing epics to supernatural horrors. When he's not immersed in one of his incredible tales, Noakes enjoys spending time with his wife, five children and a constant supply of Starbucks mochas. Recently, he has become a behavioural therapist as well, because who else would you rather discuss your problems with than a caffeinated, child-rearing, wife-doting, novella-penning, screen-writing, genre-jumper?

Book preview

PART ONE

PARTNERS IN CRIME

CHAPTER 1

13 WESTBERRY ROAD WAS A PLEASANT SEMI-DETACHED RESIDENCE sitting on the outskirts of the Ashton Estate in Walsall. From the outside, it appeared to be in pristine condition, which made it stand out from the rest of the neighbours’ houses with their paint-blistered window frames and jungle-like lawns. Where the lawns hadn’t raped the paths or driveways, stood battered garden gnomes, rusty mailboxes and clapped out bangers without the legal documentation required for anyone to drive them on public highways.

The occupier of number thirteen went by the name of Graham ‘Chunky’ Smith. Not because he had a craving for the Kit Kat chocolate treat, but because he was a big, chunky motherfucker that under no circumstances should be spoken to, looked at the wrong way, or fucked with, unless you were a pretty lady who wouldn’t reject his sexual advances. Rumour had it that Chunky was a person of interest with the police, but it was common knowledge around the estate that interest would be the furthest it would ever go.

Chunky made his living selling poor quality Methamphetamine on the cheap to the local youth (and the occasional middle-aged married man and old age pensioner) to push his weekly income clear of three figures. However, the bulk of his trade was to those who had the majority of their lives ahead of them. If he couldn’t sell them meth, he always had pills, large bags of them.

It wasn’t the appearance of the house that made it stand out on that particular night. It was the torch beam dancing beyond the ground floor curtains as Chunky slept upstairs. The trespasser orchestrating the beam was a local university student who answered to the name Harry Holmes, and he was wearing his headphones and bopping away like a madman to We No Speak Americano by Yolanda Be Cool & DCUP from his iTunes playlist.

Harry sprayed his torch across a wall of books but between the books was one of those tall mirrors that is used to check out a full outfit, head to toe, in all its glory. So, when Harry unwittingly sprayed his beam across it, he naturally jumped out of his skin and snatched off his headphones as he came face to face with his own gangly, gaunt reflection, a balaclava rolled up to his hairline. Fuck a bastard, just me, he gasped.

Harry’s itchy balaclava was uneven and bumpy from random clumps of his crinkled black hair. Patches of long, scratchy stubble ran down the sides of his face. From his bottom lip down to his Adam’s apple, he was clean-shaven. He was a klutz when it came to eating and drinking, so he concluded that if he kept a smooth, slick runway down his chin, everything that missed his mouth would slide straight down into his lap.

You’re fine, Haz, he told himself. For years, Harry had tried to get his friends and family to refer to him as Haz. Like Gaz and Baz, but no matter how often it was explained to him, that Gary was Gary, and that Barry wasn’t short for Barold, he wouldn’t be swayed by the argument.

Harry rolled his black balaclava down his face and slipped his headphones back on so he could resume crazy dance mode. In one hand, he held a hessian sack. Noah, his partner in crime, had made the decision that these were the sacks needed when robbing a property during the night. They were tough, so nothing would split them open and clatter to the ground. Also, when dragged around the property, or when items were dropped inside, you wouldn’t hear a plastic rustle.

In the kitchen stood Noah Smith, and a third partner-in-crime, Milly Cloud. Harry didn’t know them too well as they had only met for the first time a week ago under very strange circumstances. This story was certainly for another day, and not when they were robbing a house belonging to a ruthless drug dealer who once ripped a man’s head off so he could see if it was possible to piss down his throat. Chunky hadn’t taken biology at school, but if he had, he would have known that he could have spent those two bloody minutes more wisely by knocking a round off over one of his reluctant lady friends.

Like Harry, Noah and Milly were also donning balaclavas. They had decided to leave their headphones at home just in case Chunky walked up behind them at some point, advice that Harry had decided to ignore or accidentally on purpose forget. They rummaged through drawers, cupboards, baskets, selected kitchen appliances and even the bread bin, anything that was hollow and big enough to stash drugs or money in.

Noah rolled up his balaclava and used it to wipe beads of sweat from his face. He’d had a few problems at home of late, and his nerves had been troubling him. As with Harry’s, Noah’s story would need to be revealed tomorrow at some point when they were out of harm’s way.

Fuck, fuck, no. Noah, sodden and shaking, struggling to find a kind intake of oxygen to help him manage his panic attack, rushed over to the sink and splashed cold water over his face. When he noticed Milly had stopped searching, he barked, Keep looking, I’m fine. One more splash of water with his eyes closed was enough for him to compose himself and stand up. Maybe he keeps it upstairs? Noah added.

Milly also rolled her balaclava up above her eyes, and then kicked a wooden dining table, not so loud it would wake Chunky, but loud enough to show her frustration. The huge table was more than capable of accommodating Chunky’s fourteen-inch plates and bucket-like bowls. Maybe he's a shit-poor drug dealer, suggested Milly.

Noah wiped sweat from his brow before squirting a golfball-sized glob of antibacterial gel into his hand and rubbing it in vigorously. How shit can you be? You hand over the merchandise, then—

"Merchandise. I can't believe we're robbing a fucking drug dealer and using terms like merchandise," chortled Milly.

Just then, a beam of light flashed across the kitchen cupboards, before jerking up and down and flashing back to where it originated. Noah edged over to the living room door and peeked inside. Milly peeped over his shoulder to steal a look too, before shaking her head and heading back into the kitchen.

Noah just watched on with his head tilted to one side, hoping the tilt could jog his brain into comprehension. Just to summarise, there was a ruthless drug dealer upstairs who liked to rip off the human head and take a piss. Downstairs, stealing Chunky’s personal belongings, were three locals who, combined, weighed less than Chunky. Chunky more than likely had a gun, knife and grenade tucked under his pillow, and one of these locals was casually humming along to a song from The Inbetweeners, oblivious to his surroundings, karate kicking and chopping fresh air as he rocked his head back and forth with enough force to inflict irreversible brain damage. It wouldn’t have been farfetched to predict a wayward chop or kick on something that could produce a very loud noise.

Noah arced his head back towards Milly while keeping his eyes firmly on Harry. "We may need to become familiar with terms like guilty and prison sentence if Harry doesn't—" Noah sucked in a sharp breath, and supported his upper body with his hands on his knees.

Milly didn’t need a minute to realise his panic attack problem had reared its ugly head again, this time intent on bringing him to his knees, which it had half done, technically. She quickly swiped a brown paper bag from the side and emptied its contents before pushing it into Noah’s face. Noah used the bag like a seasoned professional.

Confident Noah was on the mend, Milly turned back to her search. In front of her, emptied from the brown paper bag, was an envelope bulging with cash and a clear bag full of pills of all colours and sizes. Suck it in, honcho, because you're going to want to fuck me stupid.

Noah’s eyes widened and a smile cracked through when he discovered what Milly was talking about. Jesus, trickled through his thin smile.

You want to, don't you? chuckled Milly with a hint of you can if you want in her eyes. She picked up the envelope and handed it to Noah before inspecting the bag of pills. They both stared at it.

There’s an awful lot of potential revenue in that bag, said Milly.

If he makes money, then we can make money, added Noah; and he knew he was right, because as long as Chunky kept making obscene amounts of money, they had a target they could collect on for the foreseeable future. If they didn’t take it all, he may not even notice. There must have been ten-thousand pounds worth in there.

Fuck him, said Milly. We’re not drug dealers.

Suddenly, in the living room, Harry performed a roundhouse kick to finish off his dance routine. Unfortunately, he failed to notice the two-foot crystal vase perched on the side table beside the sofa.

Upstairs, Chunky bolted upright in bed. At first, he wasn’t sure if he had heard a sound. Who on earth would be stupid enough to break into his house, never mind break something whilst down there?

Chunky shuffled off his bed, bullying the boards into creaking loudly beneath his ogre-like feet. He reached underneath and dragged out a sledgehammer with a tree trunk handle and bulky twenty-four pound head on the end.

CHAPTER 2

HARRY HOLMES, ONE WEEK EARLIER

Harry stormed through the sliding glass doors of his local Co-op and grazed the edges as they jerked open just wide enough for his skinny frame to slip through. If he’d have been ten pounds heavier, he’d have either got wedged between them, or suffered raw friction burns on his back and chest.

As he burst into the reception area, he spent the best part of three seconds deciding which aisle he would dash down. He chose the beverage and sweet aisle. He could just have easily hurried down the cereal or magazine aisle. Even a freezer aisle wouldn’t have been a poor choice given the sweltering temperature outside. However, the inviting aura of refreshment swayed his decision so he belted down it without a second guess. And did he belt it; his blistering pace took him down the aisle within a few seconds. As he neared the end, he decided he would dive head first onto his belly so he could slide out of sight quicker than his dangly legs would have carried him.

The one problem with his diving idea was that he was only wearing a skimpy pair of shorts due to the heat outside, so the execution of his slick getaway across the shiny floors was short lived. It left him stranded with sore knees and a pink belly, two feet short of an impressive pyramid of Coca-Cola cans that he had intended to use as a vantage point to give him the upper hand over who or what had been scary enough to force him into a supermarket at breakneck speed.

If Harry had put more importance on protecting his skin from the sun, then he could have had a nice slimy substance over the front of his body to aid a slick voyage down the aisle.

Once he’d wiped off dust, grit and a couple of gooey sweet wrappers that had been discarded by an overeager child or two, he doggie-walked behind Coke Mountain and peeked around the side in the direction of the sliding doors.

The strong sunshine lit up the reception area with ease. It also distorted the people walking in and out of the store, casting erratic silhouettes in the process. However, when the time came, there was no mistaking the reason behind Harry’s dramatic need to escape into a secure mini-market. Sweating, breathless and trembling like a kid who’d mistaken his pogo stick for an industrial jackhammer, he snatched his head back behind the tower of fizzy pop.

The unmistakable source was two goons, one bald and the other ponytailed, both dressed like the Men In Black with matching white pumps. The bald goon (Baldy) was five stone the wrong side of obese. Hands on his knees, he was wheezing, as torrents of sweat gushed downhill from his forehead and dispersed along each and every crease from his eyes to his chin before turning into a salty waterfall down his white shirt and black tie. A spillage cleanup in reception was imminent.

Ponytail goon (Pony) was five stone the wrong side of underweight, but a knobbly stick of energy. Unlike Baldy, he was calm and composed as he scanned the mini-market for erratic movement and heavy breathing. He was fully aware that four aisles led up to the back, so it was imperative that they either chose correctly or kept one behind at the front entrance.

Hiding deeper in the Co-op, Harry peeked around the pyramid. Outside, passing clouds had intercepted the rays of sun that had just been battering the mini-market. As a result, the reception area’s brightness was now in limbo, hovering somewhere between light and dark, similar to when dusk arrives for a driver, and he isn’t quite sure if it’s time to turn on the headlights.

But he couldn’t see Baldy or Pony.

He pulled his head back behind the Coke tower when a provocative can, halfway up the tower, caught his eye. A clear droplet of water punched free of the condensation beneath its rim.

Ice cold on a sunny day? Harry glanced over his shoulder to find an engineer with his head behind an empty fridge-freezer that had an out of order sign on the front.

Harry turned his attention back to the slow trickle, mesmerised. Without taking his eyes off the refreshing culprit, he wiped sweat from his face onto his bare forearm. As the trickle neared the bottom of the can, it stalled and he intercepted it with his fingertip. Cold, he whispered.

He was rubbing his iced fingertip across his tacky forehead when a brisk movement flashed between the cans. He stuck his head out for a better look, then tugged it back in. The goons were deliberating their next move at the end of his aisle.

Another trickle rolled down the red tin. Harry bit his bottom lip and clenched his eyes closed in a feeble attempt to squeeze away the temptation to crack open a cold Coke. Baldy and Pony were nodding and pointing at the different aisles. With only the slightest hesitation, he hooked his fingers gently around the can and tightened his grip.

Other cans were stacked above this one, and he knew that they all had the same liquid inside of them, but this tantalizing drink container was The One. He slowly eased out the Coke until only half of it was supporting the remainder of the tower. Nothing wobbled above, and all looked good. A gentle pull and twist, and the tower was literally sitting on the outer rim of the can. Just micro-millimeters remaining and, with one final tug, he had the cold can safely in his hand.

Harry peeped back down the aisle, and smiled as Baldy and Pony turned around and headed towards the entrance. Maybe they hadn’t even seen him run inside and had just waited to see if he showed himself.

Relieved, he casually swiped another can from the pinnacle of the Coke pyramid and moved away from the tower. He froze as the tower trembled, then tilted to the right, then to the left. But then it stabilised. He sighed, relieved, as he double-checked that the coast was clear between him and the checkout. It was.

He was only a few steps from his hiding place when the inevitable struck; and did it strike! A Coca-Cola avalanche. It was like a skyscraper demolition that required meticulous planning to make sure the collapse didn’t affect any of the surrounding structures. This demolition imploded from the midpoint upwards, before crashing down and spitting ice-cold cans out in all directions, causing a cacophony of metallic clatter as burst, hissing cans crashed into anything sat within ten feet of ground zero.

Harry watched in horror, a can in each hand, dripping in Coke, as the goons stared at him from the once-upon-a-dry aisle, grinning ear-to-ear, waiting for him to move. I’m a dead man, he muttered beneath his rickety breath. He slumped his shoulders, defeated, before resting his chin on his chest in surrender and then starting his walk of doom towards them. Just then, a store assistant approached with a large cage of crisp boxes. The second the cage blocked the line of sight between him and the goons he Usain-bolted back down the aisle and careened into an adjacent freezer aisle.

The big issue with the freezer aisle was that it was lined with chest freezers, and had a clear view of the aisles on each side of it. So, as he bee-lined down the freezer aisle to the entrance, Baldy and Pony ran parallel to him over the sticky flooring. He was halfway down the aisle before he even noticed them, and when he did, he stopped dead on his heel. A frosty standoff, with only an assortment of frozen vegetables sitting between them.

He shouldn’t have wasted a moment given his predicament; he should have been thinking up a plan that would enable him to slip past the goons. Instead, he couldn’t stop thinking about whether there was any truth behind frozen vegetables being much healthier for you than fresh vegetables due to frozen veggies being frozen within minutes of picking. And if they were healthier, how could you know for sure if they were, in fact, frozen in the required timeframe? His reverie was broken by an unexpected offer.

Hello, Harry. Let me buy you a coffee, offered Pony with an I mean business expression. The kind of face that suggested the offer was genuine, but at the same time, a face that you wouldn’t trust in a million years as one nod of his head would lead to broken bones and missing teeth, or even death should an agreement be deemed impossible to reach.

Harry scratched his head in an attempt to convince Pony that he was treating the situation with great respect and seriousness. I can get the money, I just need another week. There was a response but it didn’t come in the form of words, and it only followed a prolonged silence. Pony didn’t scratch his head; he just shook it slowly from side to side.

...Or two? Harry countered.

This time, there was no shake of the head, but there was a nod in the direction of Baldy, whose face creased with an evil grin before he leaped, head first, over the frozen bags of broccoli that formed Harry’s last line of defence.

He considered running for the briefest of moments, but his feet would not move. They weren’t frozen with fear, and there was no trembling or screaming, just utter disbelief as Baldy struggled to clamber over frosted bags of the famous member of the cabbage family. He clawed at the fresh air between him and Harry, but he was so far away that Harry struggled to tickle his fight or flight response due to the lack of threat. Harry even considered extending a hand to help him out of the embarrassing situation, until thinking better of it. It was a fascinating sight, and even Pony was lost for words. Baldy was stuck in the freezer, and the only thing he was in danger of catching was severe frostbite of the testicles.

I’m stuck, Pony, pleaded Baldy.

Pony pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head to try to regain some focus. Convinced that intimidation would now be a stretch, he said, A Latte then, Harry?

With Pony distracted by Baldy’s whimpering and clattering teeth, Harry eyed the sliding doors at the front of the store and considered making his great escape. He sidled a few steps to his left, and he was just about to twist and make the mad dash, when Baldy, from his chilly prone position in the freezer, stuttered in a weakened Dirty Harry voice, I know what you're thinking. Is it twenty-five or thirty feet to freedom? It doesn't really matter... because you'll never be able to outrun a bullet.

Oh, shut the fuck up, Verne. You don't even have a gun, shouted Pony.

He didn't know that, Baldy snapped, before whispering obscenities under his breath. You promised you’d never call me Verne in front of people.

Pony ignored him and pinched the bridge of his nose again. It had been a tough day chasing Harry around in the summer heat wearing a polyester suit. He had even put it in writing that he needed more appropriate attire after suffering throughout the previous summer. He wanted, no, needed, a fabric that would breathe under the hot sun during the inevitable chasing down of non-payers and other riff-raff. He didn’t give a shit what colour it came in, even a girly pink and white polka dot would have worked, but the important detail came down to a fabric that would allow his skin to breath, something lightweight and stylish... linen, maybe?

Don't like coffee? How about tea? Pony finally offered. Final offer.

Then Baldy piped up again, all angry and shit. Why do you always get the fucking cool lines?

"What? You had the timeless classic Travis line from Taxi Driver yesterday afternoon," Pony shouted, before punching him hard on his bum cheek.

Baldy took a moment to think about it, and then a smile crept across his face. Oh, yes, that was a cool line, wasn’t it?

It was only then that they noticed Harry was running full pelt toward the sliding doors. He glanced over his shoulder just as he was about to clear the sparkling glass doors, and... smack! Dazed, he bounced back hard onto the polished floor and was staring at the swirling ceiling as a skinny, ponytailed head hovered into view, smiling.

About that drink, said Pony.

CHAPTER 3

MILLY CLOUD – ALSO, A WEEK EARLIER

Total outstanding: £13,650 blotted beneath Milly’s tears as they fell onto the folded credit card statement on her lap.

She sat in her car across the road from a line of prostitutes, watching as her husband invited into his car a petite young blonde who had been poured into a slinky silver dress before landing into knee-high black boots. There was nothing much to her face other than rich, red lipstick.

Milly glanced down at the statement, which had a dozen dates circled in red. Each of the corresponding items was associated to a transaction labelled Cashback.

Milly drew a sharp breath when the curvy blonde tottered around the car on her high heels toward the passenger door, which had been inched open.

Don't you dare. Don't—, Milly pleaded with a sharp whisper under her breath. But Curvy slinked through the tiny gap and into the passenger seat before tugging the door closed behind her to seal the deal.

Milly sucked in a sharp breath, You fuck. Fuck! How dare you? she seethed as the car peeled away from the line of disgruntled hookers. She slammed the steering wheel with both palms and, with tears streaming, she tossed the incriminating paperwork onto the passenger seat. Without checking her mirrors, she swerved into traffic.

Two streets and three turns later, her husband’s silver Astra pulled into a capacious car park before stopping in a heavily shadowed corner beneath two arcing trees. She killed her lights and idled to a stop three rows back. With no idea about what to do, she decided she would allow her emotions to make the decisions when the time inevitably arrived.

Although she’d found that she didn’t know her husband as well as she had first thought, she was confident he and the hooker hadn’t parked up to play Monopoly. For one, her husband had proven that he was hopeless at the famous property trading board game. Second, he’d parked up in the shadows of a quiet car park with a hooker; there wasn’t a chance they’d be able to read the property details and card information to play it properly. Third, there was no sign of a torch flashing around.

Milly couldn’t help but chuckle at her bizarre analysis of the situation. If she didn’t laugh, she would break down and smash her head against the driver’s window. With the decision firmly left in the hands of her emotions, she glanced down at the statement, eyeing keywords as she sporadically cast an eye over to her husband’s car. Words like Cashback, Restaurant, Clothing and Bed & Breakfast taunted her, casting visual interpretations of her husband enjoying the fruits of each purchase. As the images intensified, her emotions exploded, causing her fists to clench tight, white knuckles ready to punch her husband’s lights out.

She’d never hit anybody in her life (well, adult life at least), but she was ready to thump, kick and bite the man who once promised to love her in sickness and in health until the day they died. She opened her door and clambered out, but made sure she closed it quietly so she didn’t alert her scumbag husband to her presence. She wasn’t going to give him time to think, breath or even react. She was going to catch him in the moment, and kick the shit out of him.

She approached the car, crouched. The car wasn’t bumping, and the windows hadn’t steamed up so she waited. She wasn’t going to have him back in a million years, but she needed him to cross that line so she couldn’t find the tiniest strip of forgiveness and take him back. The sight of him fucking another woman would hurt, but it was necessary.

Inside the Astra, unaware of Milly waiting to pounce with revenge and hate pumping through her veins, was Daniel Cloud. Or as Milly now referred to him: the asshole motherfucker that she pissed away a chunk of her years on Earth with.

Daniel released the lever beneath the driver’s seat and pushed it back as far as he could. With a swirl of his finger, he motioned for Curvy to twist around and sit on his lap with her back to the windscreen. In one swift and impressive manoeuvre, Curvy waltzed onto Daniel’s lap while managing to remove her lacy underwear and poke them down her cleavage midair. Sexy lingerie didn’t come cheap, and she had no intention of losing them.

Curvy chewed on gum, as if waiting for a bus, as she bumped around on Daniel’s lap while he struggled to shift himself into an effective thrusting position. After a series of grunts, huffs and puffs, he stopped still long enough to make Curvy wonder if one of three things had happened: 1) He’d prematurely ejaculated (a common occurrence for a married man with a hot hooker on his lap);