A Chip Shop Circle

'It's cold isn't it? I'll have a brandy when we get there.'

There was an aura surrounding a rising sickle moon that was giving
clues about the incoming weather. The bedroom meteorological experts
all around the city had pulled their net curtains back and forecast
heavy snow for the next day. They rang the radio stations to warn them
but were laughed off the air. The BBC was predicting a hard frost and a
fluid winter sun for London. They were going to be proved wrong of
course, it was going to be a history making blizzard. The snow would
not thaw until New Years Day. Bad news for the birds, good news for
scarf sellers.

Great news for a murderer who was getting lucky.

'No I didn't want to bring it, it needs new strings anyway.'

The sodden, but soon to be firming dog shit fertilised Victoria Park in
East London is where they found the severed head of Earon Odona, the
aboriginal girl who asked too many questions about where she was from
and who was becoming an embarrassment. It was a piss freezing cold
Friday afternoon in late November at the dog end of the century.

'I haven't been this way before, is it quicker?'

The East-End used to be notorious for slicing, it had been going on for
years. Their had been no chivvying recently though, not for a long
while, what with the injection of new money and goatee wearing
celebrities making the area trendy. This new outrage was almost a
throwback to a bygone era. Many old timers around the area who swore
that they were in the hallowed boozer 'The Blind Beggar' the night when
Ronnie and Reggie Kray got nasty, felt quite romantic about this new
carve up. It was the way things should be done, even if it was a woman.
The young, pastel shirted blades of the Roman Road were very impressed
as well. They sat in their grubby, nicotine stained pubs on that Friday
night mixing Benson and Hedges, amphetamines and lager. They spoke
in
loud whispers about motives and suspects. Some even claimed to
personally know the killer of Earon Odona. They knew nothing except the
language of bullshit.

'I'm not climbing over the fence for the sake of five minutes, oh all
right if we must.'

It was two thirteen year old twins who had rescued the head. Jason and
Louis Brown were their names. They were just about to go home after a
hard afternoon of traipsing around in the freezing nothing. Home to
mum's undercooked Shepherds Pie and burnt peas. They had been bunking
the last school lesson of the day. It had been geography with the one
eyed, stinky, dribbling Mr Cartright. They hated him, he was northern
and hard. He once slapped a cocky parent around the playground. You did
not mess with Mr Cartright.

' I'm not sure about this, are we lost? Let's go back the other way
eh.'

Louis found the head while looking in the bins for discarded cigarette
packets in the hope of finding a left behind fag. He was anxious when
he first spotted the milky smiling face, but kept his cool under heavy
brotherly staring pressure. He grabbed it by the dank, slippery hair
and flicked the sallow skin. Taking his time. He then clutched it with
both hands in front of him as if it were a venomous snake. Louis
squeezed Earon Odona's hard nose and aimed to kick it in the icy,
toffee coloured Regent's canal. He changed his mind at the last moment
for the sake of belly laughs and smartly rugby passed it to his better
looking brother, who hasn't uttered a single word since.

'Why are you looking at me like that?'

It was the park keeper, Harold Sherman, who rang the police. It took
two of them to wrestle the head off poor Jason, who squawked like a
crow who'd returned to her nest to find her eggs stolen. The poor boy
did not want to let the putrid thing go.

'Don't touch me, please. I'm cold'

One of the policemen, Terry Gibson, who was in his first month in the
job, has since resigned after finding a face painted balloon in his
private locker at the station. He has lost his bottle as they say in
the neighbourhood, and now apparently is on it.

'No. Lets talk about this.'

The twins Prozac drenched single mother, Rachel Brown, who thinks she
is a dab hand with mince meat, was at the end of her tether; what with
her kids smoking her cigarettes and swearing at the top of their
voice's. She did not know what to do with the hyper-active Jason who'd
caught the head so spectacularly. She kept smacking him, feebly, and
then hugging him.

'No, No, please.'

The family doctor, Peter Marsh, known as 'shaky' in some quarters, was
up to his ears with methadone addicts and has recently pondered if he
should indulge himself. He was at a loss also. He enthusiastically
prescribed a day at the seaside, Margate maybe.

'Don't hurt me, I..'

A month had passed and it was the week before Christmas. The police had
found nothing in the snow. They were not really trying, they had staff
parties to go to. In some Ikea clad offices people were getting edgy.
Right and left wing extremists who were fed up of chasing lost causes
found a new one and started waving their flags. Journalists were
snooping, and their bosses started offering rewards for information.
Questions were being asked in the House of Commons. It was turning into
an international affair. Somewhere in Whitehall a government official
began spinning.

'Ahh stop.'

Meanwhile Louis, the jubilant and now legendary thrower of the head,
had recently been spotted boasting of his 'bonce' exploits behind the
chip shop in-between puffs of Silk-Cut and swigs of his mum's stolen
gin. Rumour has it that even girls now fancied the lanky Louis. What a
turn up for the books this was. Timid Louis Brown, early acne, boy band
blue eyes and bum fluff moustache. He was an unknown in chip shop
circles up to a month ago, but that's all changed. He has got more
Christmas cards than the local newsagents. Such is his appeal and
confidence that he has even been made captain of the school football
team, even though he is rubbish. He hasn't played yet because it's
still snowing, he will get found out in the end. It's too late though;
his reputation had been made.

'Don't kill me, please don't kill me.'

Poor Earon, the trouble she has caused. She'd only gone out with her
new friend for a pie and a pint. A friend who said they would chase her
cause.

'Mama. I want my mama'