In Cold Blood: A Brother’s Sworn Vengeance. Julie Shaw

fucking shopping, is it?’

      That shut him up for a bit. Good. Robbo thought he was still a fucking hard man but Vinnie knew the truth. He might have been a fighter 10 years ago, back when he was dealing, but as soon as he started getting a taste for it himself he had gone downhill fast, just like they all did. Now he was just a run-of-the-mill junkie who had no respect. It made Vinnie sick when he saw him queuing outside the post office with the family allowance book on Monday mornings. Using the money meant for food to buy a bit of red or black, or if they really did have to buy food, he would resort to a couple of bottles of Actifed. Fucking joke, Robbo was. Fucking cough medicine!

      No matter what happened the rest of the week, the kids always got took to school on Mondays. Mondays, and every other Thursday as well, because every second Thursdays were pan crack days. The days when the big money came – the dole, the big green drug token. Vinnie knew enough to know the score there. And the score was that Robbo had soon got his sister round to the junkie way of thinking. He also knew – though he wouldn’t dare mention it – that Lyndsey was on the game as well. He looked at his older sister with disgust now. The slag was all over the estate with Robbo’s two sisters, fucking giving it up all week for the price of an ounce.

      Vinnie noticed Lyndsey and the idiot had fallen asleep now, so he turned up the portable TV. He settled back onto the couch, resting his head on the arm and his legs, for want of anywhere else to put them, spread out across his inert sister’s lap. The room felt fuggy: it had taken on the familiar sickly-sweet smell of dope and in the thick lingering smoke that had settled all around him, Vinnie could barely keep his eyes open. Though he could still make out the giant picture that took pride of place above the fireplace. It was a picture of a lad – around three was his guess – whose grizzling face stared mournfully down. It was called ‘The Crying Boy’, or so his mam had told him years back. And seeing what he was looking down on here, it wasn’t fucking surprising.

      The late night news was on – more grizzling, as far as he could tell – but he wasn’t listening. His head was too full of thoughts about his impending incarceration, and what it might be like. His Uncle Charlie had once told him about the time he had gone to jail. How loads of the blokes were arse bandits and you couldn’t bend over to pick up the soap if you dropped it in the shower. Charlie was hard though, a big mean bastard with hands like coal shovels. No one messed with his uncle. He didn’t even live in a house. Throughout the day he was usually found outside the Boy and Barrel or the Old Crown, but at nights, unless it was proper freezing, at least, he slept on a bench in the town centre. If it was cold, though, he’d simply smash a window or start a fight so that he had a nice warm cell for the night. Trouble was though, Uncle Charlie and the rest of his uncles hated thieves. It was all right to rob a business or a bank or run some crooked gambling, but the youthy – Vinnie knew his Uncle Charlie would see that as shitting on your own doorstep. And shitting on your own doorstep was the lowest of the low. He wasn’t stupid; he knew that. Just like he knew Charlie and his lot slagged him off to his mam. Fuck that, then, he wouldn’t be going to Charlie for advice.

      Vinnie had drifted off to sleep at last, dreaming about fighting off giant arse bandits and sharing a cell with his Uncle Charlie.

      He woke up with a start some time later, unclear where he was, to feel Lou and Sammy jumping on him and laughing. ‘Come on, Uncle Vin,’ they trilled. ‘Come on, let’s play out!’

      Vinnie yawned and rubbed his eyes. He got up to open the window to get rid of the smoke and the stench of weed. ‘Gimme a chance, kids. I’ve only just woke up. Go get dressed and get your brother up. We’ll go down to Nan’s and get some brekkie, okay?’

      ‘Yay, Nanny’s! Nanny, Nanny, Nanny’s!’ sang the girls as they ran back upstairs.

      Vinnie glanced around him at the filthy, stinking living room. His sister and the idiot must have somehow got themselves to bed because there was no sign of them now. He went into the kitchen and opened the fridge and the grease-coated food cupboard, just to check if there was any food in. Not that he held out much hope. Lyndsey went shoplifting at the Co-op every other day, but yesterday she had been in too much of a state. Which was a shame. Least when she went lifting she brought back proper good stuff. ‘Only the best for my kids!’ she would say as she brought out packs of bacon and joints of meat from up her skirt. Vinnie knew she would fill up her knickers with stuff too, but he didn’t like to dwell on it – not if he was going to be sharing the spoils, anyway.

      It was only eight o’clock but the kids were chomping at the bit to get out of the shit-hole. But Vinnie knew his mam and dad wouldn’t be up yet and, given what had gone down with Saggy Tits Sally, he was reluctant to wake them this early. He decided to walk about with the kids for half an hour first, and then hopefully his little sister would be up for school, at least. Little Josie, or ‘Titch’, as she was known to almost everybody, was alright. She was only 10, but she adored her big brother and would try to kick the shit out of anybody who called him ginger nut, no matter how big they were.

      The kids dressed and ready, they headed straight out. There was no point in saying goodbye to his sister and the idiot. They’d be comatose for hours yet, knowing he was there to see to the kids. Which would have to change, he thought, feeling a sudden pang of nerves. And fear – fear of being so far away from everyone and everything he knew. He had to stop that in its tracks. Snuff it out.

      He vaulted the fence into the next door back garden, heading back the same way as he’d come the night before. It was the route he always used to get from Lyndsey’s house to home and back. Same as everyone. Everyone fit enough to jump fences and crawl through holes, anyway. It was their private route around the place and he didn’t know any different way to travel. Much less why. He thought seriously about this as he lifted the kids over Mrs Elliot’s fence. Probably to make it easier running from the pigs, he decided. But he wasn’t alone in Mrs Elliot’s garden. As he lifted over little Robbie, he was immediately attacked by a huge, angry black-and-white cat. Which clearly had no truck with what he’d been up to either. It wasted no time in scratching him, badly.

      ‘Fuck!’ he yelled, bringing a hand up to his stinging cheek. He was bleeding. Proper bleeding. The little shit. With the kids laughing hysterically, he leapt around the garden then, trying to catch the mangy moggy who’d taken him on.

      At last he managed to grab it and held it in a headlock with one arm, clamping its body under his arm, safely out of scratching distance. It squirmed and spat, but he held on tight. It was going nowhere. It had to pay for what it did.

      ‘Robbie, quick,’ he said to his nephew, ‘find me some rope or string or summat!’

      The kids stared at Vinnie, puzzled. ‘Why?’ Sammy and Lou wanted to know.

      ‘Hurry up,’ he said. ‘If I let it go it will attack us all, won’t it!’

      Robbie, Lou and Sammy dutifully scoured the back garden, ignoring the syringes and old car tyres and crap. Eventually, four-year-old Lou held up a length of aerial cable. ‘Uncle Vinnie, look!’ she said proudly.

      ‘Ssssh!’ he said, conscious that Mrs Elliot might hear them. ‘C’mon,’ he gestured, ‘Good girl, Lou … fetch it over!’

      They all watched mesmerised as Vinnie fought the now writhing cat, to get the cable around its front legs. It was hissing and putting up a valiant fight, but was no match for its human tormentor. Grabbing Mrs Elliot’s washing line, he flipped the end of the cable over it a couple of times, letting the cat fall – the cable straining now – strung up by its front legs.

      He turned to the little ones, who were looking up at him, wide-eyed with shock. ‘See, this cat’s not really a cat, kids,’ he explained, tying the cable off. ‘It’s a piece of wet washing.’ He pointed to the terrified animal. ‘And it can stay the fuck there all day now, till it dries.’

      ‘It’s just a big old kitty, Uncle Vinnie,’ said Sammy nervously, not at all convinced.

      Vinnie smiled softly and bent down to tickle beneath his niece’s chin. He felt better now he could see the shock and awe in the children’s eyes. ‘No, Sam. It just looks like a kitty,