Free Blood Relatives by Stevan Alcock

beast. I grazed my knuckles against t’ wall. I yanked down his drainpipe keks and dropped to my knees and took his hard-on in my mouth. Moments later he spunked off wi’ a solitary exhalation, rucked up his keks, palmed his hair, mumbled summat and left. I kicked t’ boiler door. ‘Fuck!’ I hadn’t even unzipped, barely got started.
    ‘Fuck!’
    I headed back up the steps. The bugger had shut the fire doors after him. I clambered over a wall and dropped into t’ road. The doorman wouldn’t let me back in unless I paid again cos I didn’t have a pass-out stamp.
    I headed home, toward t’ city centre. It wor raining sideways. The road gleamed in t’ wet and the city neon lights blurred at the edges.
    Taxi! I saw a taxi beetling along. I stepped out into t’ road, waving at it as its headlights bore down on me. The taxi slowed, then picked up speed again.
    ‘Fucker!’
    The taxi stopped abruptly, slammed into reverse. Oh, fuck, I wor thinking, oh friggin’ hell. The driver wound down t’ window.
    ‘I ain’t supposed to stop here. Get in, then, before t’ boys in blue clap eyes on us.’
    I slumped into a corner of t’ cab, my mouth still tasting salty-sweet from t’ lad’s load.
    ‘Bin another one,’ the driver wor saying as he swung sharp right down a pitch-black side street. ‘How many’s that now? Of course, it could all be a nasty coincidence, but I’d say it worn’t, I’d say there’s a maniac on t’ loose, wouldn’t you? Want to know what the wife thinks about it all? She thinks it’s someone wi’ t’ clap who’s out for revenge. But then, t’ wife’s full of ideas like that about t’ world. Me, I don’t know what to think. You go up the Carlisle Hotel and you’ll find ’em, strung along t’ bar stools wi’ price tags on t’ backs of their stilettos. Some of ’em you wouldn’t let a dog lift its leg on, know what I mean? Still, no one deserves to get sliced up, right? Picked up a few of their punters in my time. Well, you would, wouldn’t you, in this job? As long as they pay the fare I don’t look none too close. Young’un like you don’t go wi’ slappers like that, do you?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘No. At your age you shouldn’t need to. This one wor done in over Bradford way. Murdered in her own bed.’
    At the mention of bed I wor overcome by tiredness. I yawned.

Patricia ‘Tina’ Atkinson
    23/04/1977
    Mitch’s job wor driving a refrigerated lorry, delivering raw meat and canned food to works and school canteens around South Yorkshire. He had to deliver some pig carcasses to a coalmine, and asked me if I wanted to go wi’ him.
    While Mitch worked Monday to Friday, I always worked the weekend, and had two free days in between. It wor siling it down outside, so I wor grouching about t’ house, getting under Mother’s feet or playing my punk records in my room or tugging mesen off at similar speed, so when t’ chance wor offered to get out I grabbed it wi’ both free hands.
    Mitch’s lorry cab wor decked out in country-and-western/Southern US stuff, wi’ Texas Lone Stars and stick-on cacti, US dollar bills and dolly-bird pin-ups in Confederate flag bikinis, and Leeds Utd and Elvis stickers. To Mitch, Elvis wor some sort of god. Even though he had a bald patch, Mitch still combed his few strands into a greaser style and squeezed into his winklepickers on t’ rare times he took Mother out for some country-and-western hoofing.
    The mine wor out Castleford way. We drove along a bumpy track between moonscape mounds of slack and scree. The air wor flecked wi’ coal dust like swarms of tiny black flies. We heard a bell ring, and then up ahead we saw t’ pit wheel turning, taking men under or bringing ’em back up top.
    Mitch backed the van up to t’ loading bay of a low red-brick building that wor t’ kitchens and canteen. A large woman looked on, leaning against t’ doorframe, her thick arms folded over her apron. She wore a liquid-blue hygiene bag over her tight