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  “Just off for a gypsy’s,” I said, and sneaked out of the pub via the fire exit, which was jammed open with a broken fire extinguisher.

  ***

  Keith swerved the ice cream van around the corner of Poundworld and into Coast Road. He was humming along to “The Little Drummer Boy”. The Now That’s What I Call Christmas! cassette had been stuck in the dashboard since God was a lad.

  It was just before noon and the day was as warm and glowing as a glass of Glenfidich. And just as welcoming. I was already getting a thirst up.

  The street looked deserted but, as we got closer to the public toilets, I could see a couple of cars and a truck parked on the piece of waste ground that had been given the nickname, Dogging Lane. Dogging Lane had earned itself a bit of a national reputation recently via the very popular You Tube clip of a couple of well-known kids’ television presenters who were filmed there making a spit roast out of a six-foot-six transvestite known locally as Ella The Fella.

  Keith slowed down the van.

  “Keith, man, what are you doing? I’m not particularly into watching ruddy faced truckers stuffing their Yorkies into corn -beef -legged toms, you know? Especially on an empty stomach.”

  “Don’t you worry, kidder,” he growled, chewing on a pin sized roll up. “This is business.” He started coughing.

  “Were you smoking Big Anne’s cut price wacky-backy last night?” I said.

  “Why do you say that, like?” said Keith, his brow as furrowed as one of Old MacDonald’s fields.

  “You sound like a Shetland pony.”

  “Eh?”

  “A little hoarse.”

  “Eh?”

  “Never mind.”

  * * *

  Stanislaw Bogajski was built like a brick shithouse and smelt like a tart’s handbag. And he was wearing some snazzy clobber, to boot. Stan was minted, having made a fortune in the import export game. His main stock being young Ukrainian and Lithuanian women who he smuggled into England in his truck, with the lure of a glamorous job on the assembly line at Chucky Chicken, his uncle’s frozen food factory.

  “So, in fact, the situation is rather simple,” said Stan, in an accent so sharp it could be used in a slaughter house. “A piece of cake.”

  And maybe it was, but I was having problems concentrating on what he was saying. We were walking along the beach, swigging cans of Warka Strong that Stan had brought back from Poland on his last trip. And the tide was out, revealing hundreds upon hundreds of chicken heads and feet. The Chucky Chicken factory’s waste disposal pipe had broken again.

  Once I gave it my attention, though, what Stan was suggesting was pretty damned appealing. It seemed that his Uncle Bronek had a plan to retire and move back to Poland, living it up in the centre of Krakow.

  Everything had been arranged. An apartment, private car, his pensions sent to his bank account. “Indeed, he would be able spend his dotage living like a king. But the best laid plans of mice and men…” said Stan.

  Unfortunately, as luck would have it, Uncle Bronek had a heart attack and croaked while shagging a young Ukrainian girl that he’d wanted to take back to Poland with him.

  We gave our condolences, which Stan dismissed with a wave of a hand.

  “He was very, very old. No, the real tragedy is that his savings, the business … all of his money will go to his estranged wife. Which seems like such a terrible waste. She is, as you would say, a can short of a six pack. She is obsessed with the reactionary Catholic radio station Radio Maryja. Are you familiar with this phenomenon?”

  Of course, we weren’t but as Keith whistled that song from The Muppet Show, Stan explained that Radio Maryja was run by a Polish priest turned businessman known as Father Director and thousands of batty old bats –nicknamed The Mohair Berets because of the hats they wore- sent tons of money to the radio station to support its fight against Jews, communists, homosexuals and whoever else the station didn’t like. Stan was pretty sure that Mr Bogajski would donate all of her late husband’s dosh to them.

  “And, of course, the real threat is that she would take over Chucky Chicken, which would be an unmitigated disaster.”

  “So, what’s the plan, Stan?” said Keith.

  “We require a doppelganger,” said Stan, jabbing his fingers to accentuate each word, as if he were playing darts.

  “Them German cars are pretty pricey,” said Keith.

  “A ringer, Keith,” I said. “A lookey-likey.”

  Keith still looked nonplussed.

  “Since only a few trusted souls know that Uncle Bronek has expired, it would be expedient to find someone, who can go back to Poland and impersonate my uncle until his financial affairs are transferred into my hands,” said Stan.

  ***

  “I was walking down the street the other day and a saw a man carrying a long metal stick. I said are you a Pole-Vaulter and he said, no I’m a German but how did you know my name was Valter?”

  I grinned but Johnny didn’t seem amused.

  “You are a cunny funt, Browny,” wheezed Johnny Buckley.

  Johnny was a creature of habit and, despite being a bit past his sell by date, every Tuesday and Thursday, come rain or come shine, hell or high water, he did his exercises.

  The routine was that he lay on his back and took a long metal pole to repeatedly lift two red fireman’s buckets that he’d filled with sand. Like makeshift dumbbells. Of course, since he was a pensioner, Johnny could have gone to the local fitness centre and used their equipment for nothing but he preferred his regular routine.

  Keith smoked out of the window, wafting any stray strands of smoke away from the fire alarm. Netherby Court- also known as Neverbeen Caught because of the amount of retired criminals in the place- was a no-smoking sheltered accommodation for the elderly.

  I sipped my glass of rum and waited for Johnny to finish.

  “Well,” I said, as he sat up. “What do you reckon?”

  “So, I get the pension? The full whack?”

  “Aye, as long as you stay put in Poland for six months or so, till all the paper work is done,”

  Johnny was looking at Bronek Bogajski’s passport, examining the picture,

  “I reckon I can do it. I’ll shave the beard and leave the bushy moustache. Should be a doddle, going that way.”

  “I’m sure, and I don’t think faking Bronek Bogajski’s autograph on the pension documents will be too difficult, for a man of your talents.”

  Johnny had been one of the region’s most successful flim-flam men, once upon a time, although he was semi-retired now.

  “Can’t see me mastering Polish any time in the next century, though. That”s a twat of a language, that is.”

  “Don”t need to, JB. Bogajski was living here for nigh on half a century. He’d forgotten more Polish than you need to learn. Just a handful of phrases and a dodgy accent should do the trick.”

  ***

  “He’s going senile,” I said. “He’ s a liability.”

  I was fuming but Keith was still laughing like a drain, jumping a red, as we headed back into town.

  We’d arrived at Teesside Airport just in time to stop Johnny checking in his luggage. Including his buckets. Well, it was a Tuesday, I suppose, but it did make him a bit on the conspicuous side.

  “We’ve done our bit, Browny, man, and Stan’s given us our finder’s fee. If Johnny bollocks it up over there, it’s not our look out, is it?”

  “Yeah but ...”

  “And we’ve got ourselves a little bonus.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Stan gave me a wad of cash to get rid of his Uncle’s body.”

  “Which means?”

  “Which means that “Astros Fun Pub Sunday BBQ” rides again!”

  “I’m lovin’ it, Kenny,” I said, as my stomach rumbled, like a German tank rolling into Poland.

  The end.

  Acknowledgments

  Guns of Brixton (previously appeared in CrimeFactory & The Mammoth Book Of Best Br
itish Crime 8)

  The Sharpest Tools in the Box (previously appeared in Needle)

  Thicker Than Blood (previously appeared at Dirty Noir)

  The Night Watchman (previously appeared in Radgepacket Volume 4)

  Everybody Loves Somebody, Sometime (previously appeared at At The Bijou)

  Things to Do in Deptford When You’re Dead (previously appeared A Twist Of Noir)

  The Gift That Keeps on Giving (previously appeared at Do Some Damage)

  White Ink (previously appeared at Shotgun Honey)

  A Can Short of a Six-Pack (previously unpublished)

  *****

  Thanks for taking the time to read Brit Grit;

  we hope you enjoyed it. Paul D. Brazill is also the

  creator of the Drunk on the Moon Series.