Sweetpea: The most unique and gripping thriller of 2017. C.J. Skuse

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СКАЧАТЬ that I wanted to talk about Craig or Craig’s dull job. Neither were interesting subjects to talk about. He built things, ate pasties, smoked the odd spliff, liked football, played video games and couldn’t pass a pub without eating enough pork scratchings to fill Trafalgar Square. That was Craig – Gordon Ramsay clap – done.

      So they were all wanging on about The Weekend That Must Not Be Named when a random bloke with bad neck zits appeared at our table, clutching a glass of lager.

      ‘All right, girls?’ said Random Bloke with Neck Zits. He produced a couple of red-wine bottles, emboldened by a six-strong gaggle of blokes with neck and chin zits at the bar. Surprisingly, the corks were still in the bottles so there was no danger of us being Rohipped and dragged to the nearest Premier Inn for a semi-conscious rape-fest. Yeah, I think of these things, another reason I’m a useful friend.

      These weren’t the same guys who’d bought us Prosecco, this was a different lot. Younger. Louder. Zittier.

      ‘Mind if we join you?’ Winks and knowing looks all round.

      Cue giggles and shrieks.

      I had intended to order the double chocolate brownie with clotted cream for pudding but we were at the part of the evening where we all had to hold our stomachs in so I resisted, wondering if I could get home for some leftover Christmas tiramisu ice cream before the bongs signalled the death knell of fun-eating habits.

      Imelda, Lucille and Cleo made the usual ribald comments, clearly turned on by the attention. Pidge started joining in too, once a sufficient amount of wine had been imbibed. She was always too Christian to participate in either tittage or bants before alcohol allowed her to. I wasn’t nearly pissed enough for either.

      So the evening dragged on like a corpse tied to a donkey cart as the Seven Dorks squeezed onto our table and allowed their eggy breaths and chubby fingers to fog our air and tweak our knicker elastic. We had Grunty, Zitty, Shorty, Sleazy, Fatso, Gropey and Mute.

      Guess which one I got stuck talking to. Or rather, at.

      And, one by one, the PICSOs all left me. They each did the ‘you’re only young once’ speech and hooked up with the Dorks to go on to a club for a New Year’s foam party – can’t remember which one as I had no intention of following them.

      ‘You coming, Rhee?’ asked Anni, weighed down with gifted baby detritus. ‘Me and Pidge are just gonna shove this lot in the car and meet them there.’

      I don’t know why she was so excited to be tagging along to a nightclub. She was the size of a barge and was on orange juice and bi-hourly toilet breaks. Nightclubs weren’t known for facilitating either.

      ‘Yeah, I just need the loo,’ I said, sinking my wine.

      I was testing them now. Testing to see who would actually wait for me. Who was the true friend? But, as I expected, nobody waited. I paid my part of the bill, stood on the doormat of Cote de Sirène and watched them all waddling and cackling up the street with the Dorks circling them like sharks around chum. Not a second thought did I get.

      So there I was, alone, in the centre of town, preparing to hike the two miles back to my flat, on New Year’s Eve.

      But this is where my fun began.

      As it turned out, walking across town went without incident. I’m not counting the tramp with a tinsel halo, pissing in streams down both legs, using NatWest as a walking aide. Or the couple shagging behind the wheely bins at the back of Boots’ car park. And I’m not counting the fight that broke out inside Pizza Express then spilled onto the pavement, during which a bald man in a striped shirt yelled, ‘I’M GONNA RAPE YOUR FUCKING SKULL, MATE!’

      None of that was particularly noteworthy.

      Whereas, what happened down by the canal, was.

      It must have been about 11.30 p.m. by the time I reached the playing fields and took the short cut along the cycle path and down to the canal towpath, a mere five hundred feet from our flat. It was here that I heard footsteps behind me. And my breath shortened. And my heart began to thump.

      I shoved my hands into my duffle-coat pockets and turned around to see a guy I recognised. He was the one in the Wales rugby shirt with the tattooed forearms who’d bought us the first lot of Prosecco at the restaurant.

      ‘Where you going then, baby?’

      ‘Home.’

      ‘Aww, can I come?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Please? We can make each other happy tonight. Still got a bit of time before the bongs, ain’t we? You look sad.’

      He sidestepped in front of me. I stepped away. He stepped back. He laughed.

      ‘You followed me, didn’t you?’ I said.

      He leered, eyeing me from head to toe with a lingering look at my crotch area, which I’ll admit did look inviting in my too-tight skirt. ‘Just seeing where you were going, that’s all. Don’t be like that. I bought you a drink.’

      ‘I said thank you at the time.’ Like, of course that would be enough.

      He put his hands on me.

      ‘Could you take your hands off me, please?’

      ‘Come on. You were giving me the eye.’

      ‘Don’t think I was. Get off.’ I wasn’t raising my voice. I didn’t need to. His molestation attempts were pathetic. A hand on my boob. A motion to his belt buckle.

      ‘How about you get your laughing gear round my old boy then? Just for ‘Auld Lang Syne’, eh?’

      He was strong; a prop four or something. As well as the cut on his left eyebrow, he had the beginnings of a cauliflower ear. He slathered all over my face and I let him. Nobody else was around. Even if I screamed, the nearest people over in the Manette Court complex would take five minutes to get to me. And that’s if they even bothered. He’d have come in me and gone by then and I’d be another statistic, getting vaginal swabs and drinking tepid tea in some police waiting room.

      No. That might be my sister but that would not be me.

      ‘Come in here,’ he gasped in my ear, taking my freezing hand inside his hot clammy one and pulling me towards the bush. An upended Lidl shopping trolley lay on its back.

      I stayed rooted. ‘There’s no room in there.’

      ‘Yeah, there is.’ He tugged harder on my hand.

      ‘Pull your jeans down,’ I said.

      He smirked like his ship had just come in – a ship with a massive hard-on. ‘Oh, yes, baby girl. I knew I could thaw you out.’

      Unsteady on his feet, he fumbled at his belt. Then his zip. His over-washed jeans collapsed in a heap at his ankles. So did his boxers. There were little Homer Simpsons all over them. His cock sprung out like a small Samurai, ready to do battle.

       Ba-doing!

      It СКАЧАТЬ