Spottisbrough

By K B Ryan Joshua Mahindapala

Spottisbrough Lane is a dark, dirty alley in the city of the fringe district of Morington Estate. Knowing instinctively to avoid it, the locals stay clear. One night, however, Henrietta throws caution to the wind and decides to venture down Spottisbrough Lane. For a woman already embroiled in a dangerous game, could it be one risk too far?

In the same town, in another time, the Wolfe Pack are on the loose; a group of criminals so highly skilled and elusive, they are said to always be ten steps ahead of the cops. Now they are heading for their final pay day: a heist so big it will set them up for life. For this band of brothers, who plan jobs meticulously and never involve outsiders, nothing can possibly go wrong. Or, so they think…

In this stylish pulp noir thriller, money and power mix with drugs and crime, across two generations. At the epicenter of it all lies Spottisbrough Lane. A world perhaps different to ours, but one that we all know exists.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Oct 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781543766813

K B Ryan Joshua Mahindapala

Ryan is a Singaporean writer, author and poet. His work is an expression of his thoughts and opinions on current affairs, globalization and history, contorted into the plots and characters which make up his fictional work. He has been published in numerous digital publications, across various genres, worldwide. Spottisbrough is his first foray into the world of book-length fiction, and signals the beginning of a new chapter in his writing journey. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Law from the University of Liverpool in 2016, and is currently pursuing a master’s in Business Administration at the University of Strathclyde.

Book preview

Copyright © 2021 by K B Ryan Joshua Mahindapala.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

K B Ryan Joshua Mahindapala asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Warning: Explicit content.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore

CONTENTS

Blood

Chapter 1 Henrietta

Chapter 2 Linus

Chapter 3 Mack

Chapter 4 Linus

Chapter 5 Henrietta

Chapter 6 Mack

Heist

Chapter 7 The Wolfe Pack

Chapter 8 Roger

Conspiracy

Chapter 9 Kurt

Chapter 10 Henrietta

Chapter 11 Brenda

Chapter 12 Roger

Chapter 13 Henrietta

For all the independent

creative minds out there.

I know the struggle.

A picture containing text Description automatically generated

The Grind

True passion is the real crime.

Praise for Spottisbrough

Spottisbrough, steeped in shadow and blood, is a place worth multiple visits, and the more time you spend there, the more debut author Ryan Mahindapala drags you, happily screaming, into a twisted web of conspiracy and murder. Ryan’s fluid yet familiar prose allows for a truly immersive reading experience. Not many novels have been quite so able to capture a profound sense of place while maintaining the pacing demands of a good crime novel. A great first entry by an author who has the potential to redefine how crime stories are written in Singapore.

Suffian Hakim, author of The Straits Times

bestselling novel Harris Bin Potter and the Stoned

Philosopher.

Ryan Joshua Mahindapala skilfully blends together several narrative voices that interlink to paint a detailed picture of the power-hungry and perhaps even bloodthirsty world of Spottisbrough. You’ll be left guessing and gobsmacked by this debut novella’s many twists and turns; each corporate conspiracy, drug deal gone wrong and calculated murder interlinking to create a story worthy of any crime reader’s attention.

Rachel Cronin, Culture Editor: Strathclyde Telegraph.

The Writing Cooperative encourages and supports writers. Ryan shared some of his first pieces with us and is now a published author. We’re excited for Ryan and can’t wait for everyone to read Spottisbrough!

Justin Cox, co-founder: The Writing Cooperative,

WritingCooperative.com

image3.jpg

Layers

Part 1

Blood

Chapter 1

Henrietta

10th January 2020.

7:00 p.m.

Spottisbrough Lane is a rarely used back alley, in the city fringe district of Morington Estate. That it is rarely used is perfectly understandable because of its knocked-over rubbish bins, swarms of flies hovering over torn trash bags, and rats searching for half-eaten food left behind by greedy, wasteful humans. Humans so engulfed in life in the urban jungle that they wilfully neglect basic decency. Anybody new to the neighborhood would instinctively take a different route, to avoid the ghastly experience of walking through Spottisbrough Lane.

The lane is lined on both sides by four-story apartment buildings, their fire escapes forming zigzags against the gray evening sky, almost like giant snakes slithering to the ground, down the buildings’ back walls.

Henrietta gets off of bus number 56, just next to the entrance of Spottisbrough Lane, which faces the busy road of Turner Drive. In the past, this was a hotspot for the up and coming; the vibrant and young: ambitious lawyers, bankers and accountants living their life in search of no more than riches, pleasure and power. Now, the entrance to Spottisbrough Lane feels like you are entering a deathly dimension – the stark opposite to what it was back in its heyday.

Henrietta has just finished work. She is eager to get home, eat the leftover shepherd’s pie in the fridge, crawl under the covers with her laptop and watch the next episode of Love Affairs on Netflix, until she dozes off to sleep. And, despite the nauseating experience, she does not mind walking through Spottisbrough Lane as a shortcut, to get to her apartment building; having lived in Morington for the past year, she is now immune to whatever surprises lie on its cobbled pavement. She was reluctant to use it when she moved in, but eventually became more familiar with and comfortable in this part of her neighborhood. This took approximately four months; now the mysterious and unpleasant aura of Spottisbrough Lane does not scare her at all.

Henrietta moved into the middle-class neighborhood of Morington right after graduating from college. It was her ideal apartment: a quaint one-bedder with a kitchenette and bathroom, suited to her taste for living the single life, a mere fifteen-minute bus ride to get into the city. Once off the bus, Henrietta is now just one in the crowd, as she walks over to the Highland Building and takes the lift to the seventh floor. Plying her craft as a data analyst, she has spent the last year or so working in the office of Kurt, Cotz & Company – one of the biggest strategic business consultancy firms in the world – where she is a rising star, slated to take over the management helm of her department within two to