New Story - With new ideas and directions to hand. I'm writing this and posting it straight onto Steemit - You can not get more exclusive than that! 44

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Please remember this story is being written and posted 'live' every day. I am writing today's episode and posting it here without benefit of a read-through, let alone an edit. I don't usually work this way and this experiment is exciting and different for me, not my normal work-ethic at all. To that end, please forgive me any typos, grammar errors and anything that you may think should have been picked up in an edit - it WILL be picked up in the edit.

I've already spoken with a publisher about getting this story published - possibly after Christmas, we'll see how it goes.

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Images from Google (licenced for reuse) and Pixabay

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“So I made it back here and I knew your plan wasn’t big enough,” she said. Ash leaned forward, elbows on her knees, hands clasped before her, and she stared at Justin until the experienced ex-copper dropped his gaze.

“Ash,” he said.

She shook her head. “Don’t… I need to finish this otherwise I’ll lock it all away and you’ll never know what I did. And I want you to know because I need to know what I should do now.”

“Your plan wasn’t big enough because I wanted two bastards to get theirs, and I knew I couldn’t do it on my own.”

Ash looked at Robin and she jumped a little as though she’d forgotten he was there and his sudden presence shocked her.

“Rob, you need to go. I can’t tell you this, you don’t want all the shit that comes with knowing,” she said.

Robin shook his head slowly and deliberately. “No, we’re all in this together, start to finish.”

Justin looked at Robin then. “Are you sure? She’s giving you a ‘out’. Take it.”

“No. I’m not taking it. I got her into this shit. Fuck! She almost died.”

Ash looked to the floor and then lifted her gaze to her friends. “OK then. I warned you,” she said in a solemn tone, but she had a little smile of gratitude on her lips.

Ash sighed. “I figured out what I had to do when you told me the bloke was coming ‘round before Mr Fitz-Stanley. I knew I had a few minutes to get everything in place. The junkie took another hit and he was going downhill fast. When Mike went up to see him, he was covered in shit. Or at least a shit-caked towel. I figured he’d leave him alone if he was caked in shit and he’d make me clean it up.”

“Clever,” Robin whispered. “But whose shit did you…”

Ash looked at Robin and raised her eyebrows. “That’s the question you want to ask?” she said and despite the serious mood, Justin couldn’t help laughing.

“It all depended on split-second timing. Mike came down and said the Junkie wasn’t fit to take out. I ran upstairs, put the towel in a bag and hid it. If the junkie’s dad or his goons had found it, I’d have been fucked – again.” She tried to smile but couldn’t quite pull it off.

“I’d left the needle in the junkie’s arm and I had a syringe prepped for this. I shot him with two baggies-worth of that contaminated shit and some air, and came down to blame Mike. You know the rest.”

Robin blinked rapidly as he tried to take in all the information Ash had just dropped on them.

Justin sat open-mouthed and couldn’t speak either.

Ash watched them both trying to process the information.

“I’m sorry…” she said.

“What for?” Robin asked.

Ash looked up at Robin. He stood up straight, shoulders back, fists clenched. “I wish I had half the guts you do. Fucking hell, Ash. You’re… you’re…”

“She’s a fucking hero. That’s what she is,” Justin said. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

“Yeah, I murdered a lad not much older than me,” she said. Tears prickled at her eyes and over-spilled her lashes.

“No, you cleaned up a predator-nonce and a junkie-rapist in one go. And the best part about it is you got one of the most powerful and influential men in the country to be fucking grateful to you for it!” Justin said.

Ash shook her head, trying to think of something to say.

“I should be feeling guilty about this. I killed a lad.”

“Technically true,” Justin said. “The thing is, if this was ever discovered…”

“I’d go to jail?” Ash whispered, real terror in her voice.

“Justin,” Ash said in a quiet, nine-year-old-girl voice.

“What, kid?”

“What’s going to happen to Mike?”

Justin looked at her and weighed-up whether she’d handle that information.

“He’s going to get the shit kicked out of him. He’ll be tortured too, if I know Mr Fitz-Stanley. He can be a right evil bastard and he does like to see nonces suffer.”

Ash nodded.

“Then, Mike’ll probably be injected with some of the same shit Nigel used and once he’s OD’d and good and dead, Mr Fitz-Stanley will make sure his boy is found murdered by that bastard so he can wipe out all traces of scandal concerning his son’s drugs habit. Of course, the autopsy will come back with a clean bill of health for Nigel, despite what we know is true – rehab for the recently dead, if you like. And Mike, who was never a junkie, at least not the injectable type, will have that smear transferred onto his already blackened name.”

“Oh…” Ash said. “So the police won’t be looking for anyone else?”

Justin shook his head. “Nope. And in the remotest possibility that they did suspect a scrawny nine-year-old girl, you’d only have to give Mr Fitz-Stanley a ring and it would all go away.

“You know way too much for him to allow you to go to court. But I doubt you’d be a serious concern for him. I think he took a shine to you, I saw him smile at you when you asked about what would happen to Mike. He likes ruthless people. I wouldn’t be surprised if your prospects don’t rise massively in the next few years.”

“That’d be nice…” Ash said.