The Magpie Trap: A Novel Read Free Page B

technological disasters
waiting to happen, did they? They didn’t want to hear about how the changeover
in communication methods for their televisions, computers and phones would also
affect the signalling of their burglar alarm systems.
    People were much
happier in the knowledge that they’d be able to get seven hundred extra
television stations on their plasma screens than questioning whether said
screen could now be stolen from them without the police or the security company
even being alerted. People were much happier that their children could laugh
and point and everyone could live happily ever after in a state of blissful
ignorance. But then, that was the way that Danny wanted it. The more that the
problems with the Intertel Shift got brushed under the carpet, the more his
chances of succeeding in his plan increased.
    Plans; Danny didn’t
exactly look like a man who made plans and he knew it. He was too fresh-faced
and innocent-looking to scheme, wasn’t he? He looked as though he could have
been a member of a boyband. Sure he’d
be the one that always lurked somewhere in the background and never sang, but
those dreamy-types were always the ones that got the most fan-mail, weren’t
they?
    He wore his hair
slightly slicked-back, like Johnny Depp in Donnie
Brasco or more fittingly, given his slightly bigger frame, like Alec
Baldwin in his early middle-ages, before he let himself go. Danny looked at
least a couple of months away from any such descent. Instead, his appearance
was carefully manicured but starting to fray at the edges a little, just as
fashion dictated.
    But fashion had very
little to do with the bookies that Danny was approaching. It was a place that
had completely let itself go and didn’t care who knew it. Like most of the sad
row of shops in which it sat, it exuded a kind of hopelessness. Most of the
paintwork was starting to peel away and the gutter was still hanging off the
wall from a few weeks back when Danny had seen a fellow punter repeatedly
head-butt it after a particularly severe loss on the dogs. In the front window
display, there were images of footballers from the days before there were even
shirt sponsors, rugger-buggers chasing the egg on a pitch which resembled a
scene from a war film and two female black athletes from the 1980s, both of
whom had abusive graffiti daubed over their faces. A lonely, hand-written sign
read: ‘We downt give Credit. So downt even ask. Cash ownly.’
    Sighing, Danny pushed
his way through the plastic beading which covered the doorway - it was like the
stuff he could remember from his nan’s kitchen back in the day - and into the
inner sanctum.
    The smell hit him first
and it hit him like a runaway train, just as it always did. It was a heady
concoction of stale cigarettes and raw desperation; the scent of men whose
lives were no longer governed by things like councils or governments, but
rather by the sharp blast of a starter pistol or the shrill rasp of a final
whistle. Alcohol was in there too, but Danny didn’t notice that as much; he’d
sunk a couple himself before coming down to the shop.
    Despite the constant
buzz of noise of the race commentary from the many screens, the bookies seemed
shrouded in unhealthy silence. It was a place in which any outward show of
emotion – even talking – was frowned upon. Everything was geared toward the
main purpose; gambling.
    He’d once seen three
student-types come in – probably they were lost on some excursion into the nether
regions of Leeds – and try to place a bet on the National. They’d
struggled over the whole concept of gambling; having to ask Eileen behind the
counter to explain the meaning of the odds at least three times as though they
were some ungraspable scientific theory or something. When they’d finally
placed their bets – probably a quid each way on the favourite or something
equally pointless – they’d sat in the island of plastic seating in the middle
of the shop and settled