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Hosstory

The Gangsters of Hunmanby

Have you wondered how Tush is getting on at The Cottage Inn in Hunmanby? Is he managing? And how does he handle the more rowdy of his customers at the weekends?

Well, if it’s anything as in the past, Tush and things haven’t changed that much………. In fact there is one thing that has changed, that is he’s not there anymore. Want to know why?

Chapter 1

Kenty Moor had been drinking beer, lots and lots of beer, and due to this had become very rowdy in Tush’s new and bright pub. Not only had he been rowdy but he’d also been mouthing off how much money he’d won from Tush at pool.

Tush hadn’t liked this one bit and had Kenty been much more sober at the time he’d have noticed and probably realised that life was too short to do such a thing, especially any such a thing where someone such as Tush was involved.

His accident of falling down the open hatch of the beer cellar behind the bar had proved that life was indeed too short and that it had just suddenly become even shorter for him. His fall and landing hadn’t killed him out-right though and he’d wakened in the dark just in the nick of time to see the silhouette of a full beer barrel in the hatchway above him. In a near none measurable length of time his life was ended. Tush had assisted him on his way by giving him all the beer he could have possibly wanted, for free. Still in its container and as fresh as the day it was brewed. A full barrel of beer rolled to and dropped through the hatch after Kenty had sent him on his way to where-ever he believed in. Of course, no one had seen or heard anything, not even the wind noisily and simultaneously crushed out of both of Kenty’s major orifices, although the stench minuets later wafting into the bar had raise some eyebrows.

Chapter 2

There Leo sat. Quiet and still, a perplexed and deep in thought look adorning nearly the whole of his face. He’d been sat like this now for near on four hours and the reason he was in this state of mind was that he’d been listening to Spiv. Spiv had told him something that he could not quite grasp but had made him think and in doing so he was sure that if he thought about it hard enough and for long enough he’d eventually understand and have the answer.

The mind boggling thing that Spiv had put Leos’ way after completing the reading of a whole cookery encyclopaedia was a question. This question was ‘how do they get the none stick surface to stick to the frying pan?’ This to Leo was mind stretching, and he’d thought hard and deep about it, the trouble was though, the more he’d thought, the more it puzzled him. If it was a ‘none stick’ surface, surely it shouldn’t stick to anything, anything like the surface of the pan? He’d kept thinking to himself over and over again until in some hypnotic trance.

Suddenly the phone next to him rang out loud near frightening Leo out of his wits.

“Hello.” Leo gasped nervously as he took in large lung-fulls of air in an attempt to calm himself down.

“Leo. It’s Tush. We’ve got a job to do. I’ll see you at the back of my pub at 3:30pm. Don’t be late.”

“Tush. Do you know of anything about frying pans?” Leo asked expectantly.

“What are you effin talking about?” Tush asked. “You haven’t been remembering things again have you?” He asked, thinking that Leo had been remembering things about their previous associate, Akker.

“No. The ‘none stick’ surface of a frying pan. How do they get it to stick to the pan?”

“Listen. If you’ve been listening to Spiv, forget it. There are more important things to do. If you’re not here by 3:30pm you’ll find out that my boot will be perpetually up and stuck to your arse. Do you understand?”

There was a pause as Leo absorbed the information he just been given. I filtered and sank in giving Leo something new to think about. Something more close and tangible to him.

“Yeh. See you this afternoon.” He replied slowly.

Tush started thinking of what Leo had asked. How did they get the ‘none stick’ surface to stick to the pan? He thought. He didn’t know. He didn’t care. He had better things to do. More important things, and when he saw Spiv he’d give him what for!

Chapter 3

Bang on 3:30pm Leo arrived at the rear of the pub. There waiting for him was Tush, beside him the job, wrapped in two black plastic bin liners. Not moving. Not saying a word. Not by its’ lack of breathing, alive at all. Leo knew instantly by these facts that this was a tidy-up job and not the usual free of charge encouragement their business provided to its customers, especially those who hadn’t paid what they owed when they owed it.

“Get him in the back of your car. You get the head, I’ll get the legs.” Tush indicated as he grabbed the legs end of the package.”

Leo grabbed the head end but wondered why Tush always got the legs end. Never once had Tush carried a body by the head end.

“Tush….” He was about to ask.

“Get it in quick before anyone shows up.” Tush ordered.

Leo quietened and they both proceeded to bundle the wrapped body into Leos’ car boot.

“Up to the railway.” Tush instructed. “We’ll chuck it down the disused mine.”

Chapter 4

Minuets later the two were removing Kenty’s body from the car and carrying it awkwardly across the fields to the side of the railway track.

“Deep isn’t it?” Leo commented as they both looked downwards into the darkness of the hole.

Leo had a nasty habit of stating the pure obvious and this often got on Tush’s nerves. This time assisted by his observation he’d come up with a pure gem.

“I can see it’s effin deep.” Tush replied. “What do you expect? It was an effin mineshaft.”

“What did they mine then?” Leo asked inquisitively.

Tush turned to his associate and looked. It was one of those ‘Don’t ask stupid questions or it will be bad for you’ sort of looks, and Leo knew by the look on Tush’s face what sort of look it was, and also that due to him been the only other living person in the close vicinity, it was directed at him. He went instantaneously quiet.

Sure enough, the hole that the two of them were now looking down was a disused mine, although what had been mined there the both of them were not too sure, and in Tush’s case, was not too bothered. The reason they were looking down the hole in the ground was much simpler to grasp and was laid quite motionless beside them not wondering anything in particular at all.

“You get his arms and I’ll get his legs and after three throw him in.” Tush instructed as he pointed to the body.

“Tush. Why’s it always you who gets the legs end and I have to get the head?” Leo asked.

“What!?”

“You always get the legs end.”

“What the hell are you talking about? It’s just a phrase. Just a figure of speech. There’s no reason for it.” Tush replied, not knowing what Leo was muttering about or even why. “Spiv hasn’t been saying things to you has he?” he asked waiting for Leo to tell him what Spiv might have told him about ends or something.

“Well, no. I thought…..”

“You’re not paid to think.” Tush interrupted “We’re here to do a job and it’s got to be effin done.” He added grabbing Kenty’s legs.

‘Leo thinking for himself? What next?’ he thought.

The two proceeded to lift Kenty’s body to the hole and after the count of three, with one almighty swing sent him into the darkness letting gravity take its course and complete the job for them.

Kenty was the only one of them there that day who found out how deep the hole was, but in his present state he wasn’t in to gooder mood or condition to tell. Several before him had found out but likewise, they’d not told either. It was a ‘well’ kept secret.

Chapter 5

“What’s all this here?” A puzzled brewery driver asked himself as his hands were covered in blood and excrement from the surface of one of the barrels in the pubs beer cellar.

Within seconds his question was answered, although not with any of the expected answers to such a question, as the answer he received very suddenly was a blow to the back of the head with a CO2 bottle that sent him instantaneously collapsing to the floor. As quickly as he fell he was placed on a chair where he was immediately tied and gagged, just for good measure.

The fact that he’d been found there in the first place was bad enough, but to be found there by Leo, and found there asking questions he shouldn’t was very very bad for him indeed.

If there was one thing amongst many that Leo knew Tush couldn’t stand, it was that of nosey people, especially those who couldn’t keep their noses out of important things, things such as his business, and Leo remembered that always those who put their noses into things that they shouldn’t soon wished that they hadn’t.

The unfortunate driver had arrived while Tush and Leo were away and had decided to start unloading and loading, seeing as the cellar was already open. It was quite unusual that the cellar of a pub was open with no one around, but the driver thought he’d start anyway. It would save him time.

“Who’s that in the chair?” Tush asked.

“I don’t know, but he was down here asking questions about the blood and things. So I quietened him.” Leo replied proudly.

“Who is he?” Tush asked again.

I don’t know.” Leo again replied.

“Didn’t you ask him before you knocked him out?”

“Well no.”

It was then that Tush noticed the drivers overall. The overall with the breweries symbol sewn neatly into its left hand breast pocket. It was then he remembered what day it was and moments ago seeing the breweries delivery lorry outside.

“You cretin! Do you know who this is?” Tush yelled. “I’ll tell you who it effin is, it’s the effin delivery driver. The one who brings the effin beer to my pub.” He added before Leo had time to say a thing.

“He was asking questions.” Leo came back timidly.

“What questions?”

“He said ‘What’s this’.”

“What’s this. What’s effin this?”

“His hands were covered in blood and shit off that barrel you used to do for Kenty.” Leo explained. “You always told me that you didn’t like people who ask too many questions, it was bad for business, so I did for him. Do you think the brewery will notice?”

“Brewery. Brewery?! Never mind the effin brewery, what about the effin law?” Tush asked angrily. The brewery will report the driver missing to the law then we’ll both be in it!”

“But….” Leo tried to interrupt.

“Shut it. Let me think. We’ll have to get rid of him….. Let me think.” They both sat there in silence, Tush thinking as hard as he could of what to do. Leo not wanting to say anything lest he be the next one to join Kenty and find out for himself how deep the hole in the ground really was.

“That’s it. That’s it.” Tush suddenly said.

“What? What? Have you thought of something Tush?” Leo asked enthusiastically.

“I’ll be kicked out of my pub. No brewery will dare deliver here once word gets out of this. ‘Don’t go to the Cottage in Hunmanby, you’ll never come back’ they’ll say.” He said sarcastically. “The last time at the Top House it was a parrot that got me kicked out. Now this time it’ll be a brainless cretin that’s done me the evil.” As he announced this Leo notice that he was been given one of Tush’s ‘your going to get it’ sort of looks, and in this case the ‘it’ that the looks referred to was going to be a really serious ‘it’, and very painful one no doubt.

“Tush. What if we take him down to the railway and throw him in front of a train. They’ll think he went mad and topped himself.” Leo suddenly blurted.

There he waited to see if his suggestion had saved him. It was a wait that seemed an eternity as Tush’s stair seemed to look right through him.

“Of course. Take him down the railway. Hang him in front of a train as if he’s topped himself. Why didn’t I think of that sooner?” Tush muttered.

Leo was just about to say that he’d had the idea first, but for his own health and not wanting to catch the next train after the driver, he decided that again it was safer to keep quiet.

Chapter 6

Dusk was beginning to slowly creep its way over Hunmanby and the surrounding land. There the two were, now bundling the driver, still tied and gagged and sat in the chair, into the back of his own wagon. Along with them Tush had brought a large bottle of cheap gin and several long lengths of rope, which Leo could not for the life of him figure out what for or why.

‘They didn’t usually take long lengths of rope with them on a job.’ He thought. ‘Maybe they were for something else? Maybe someone else? Maybe it was him?’ He thought. This last part of the thinking stuck in his mind and the more he thought about it the worse it became for him.

They closed nearer and nearer to the gateway that they usually parked at to offload. This time though instead of parking the vehicle on the road as they usually did, it was driven through the gate and over the fields to as near the railway as would allow. Tush doing the driving and the swearing, he not been used to the controls of the vehicle or their handling and due to this nearly having the machine on its side twice as the wheels and power steering made it swerve violently from side to side with the lightest of touch to the steering wheel. Leo, terrified of both been killed by Tush’s driving, and then by Tush with the rope later, keeping quiet in his seat and praying that either would not happen.

Finally they were there. As near to the railway as Tush could get them and Leo noticed at once that they were nowhere near their usual destination of the mineshaft. Where they were now was by the side of a deep steep sided cutting in the rock that the railway track followed.

“Tie one length of rope to his hands.” Tush ordered as he pulled the driver from the wagon and threw Leo two of the ropes. “I’ll tie another to his legs.”

Leo eagerly began to tie. He was relieved that the rope was been used for something else other than him.

There they were soon finished and there the driver was. Tied, gagged, and with long lengths of rope tied to the ends of each of his limbs. Tush opened the bottle of gin and quickly, removing the gag from the drivers mouth, stuffed its neck down his throat.

The driver, even in his slumber, gurgled noisily as the gin was forced into him. When half the bottle was consumed, what was left was sprinkled liberally over his clothes making him smell strongly of drink. There was now sat one drunk to the eyeballs driver, ready to end it all and say goodbye to all and one. Perfect.

“Right. Take these ends of the rope and cross the track, then climb to the top of the cutting at the other side.” Tush instructed as he handed Leo the two free ends of the ropes tied to the drivers left arm and leg.

“What do I do when I get there?” Leo asked, still not quite grasping what was to happen.

“When you get there, and you hear a train, pull the driver into the centre of the track, then when the train comes nearer we’ll make him dance about in front of it as though he’s mad and pissed and wanting to end it all! Simple.” Tush replied with a smile on his face.

It wasn’t often Tush smiled. A lip raised leer was about as near to a smile that anyone got from him, but this time he was happy that one big problem was about to be solved in one short time.

“When the train’s done its work, it’ll probably take it some amount of time to stop, it’ll be about a mile down the track by the time it does. We nip down, untie the rope, and leg it. Right move it, there’ll be a train due soon.”

Off Leo went. Scrambling through the prickly bramble bushes and up the chalk hill to the very place instructed by Tush. There at the other side of the cutting he waited.

Tush called to him telling him that a train was due soon and to be ready to pull tight on the ropes. Leo didn’t hear the ‘be ready to’ bit and thought Tush had said ‘Pull tight on the ropes’. As Tush reached forward to remove the ropes tying the driver to the chair, the driver along with the furniture was quickly dragged away and out onto the track. Tush saw that the driver was still in the chair and tried to pull him back. Leo pulled back harder thinking that’s what he had to do.

A macabre tug of war ensued as the driver was pulled first one way then the other and flicked occasionally into the air when both pulled at once. There now they suddenly both at once heard a sound. A hissing, rumbling, fast moving sort of sound heralding the approach of a train. Both stopped their tugging and in the now very dim light the drivers body, in the chair, could just be made out on the rails.

“Pull tight.” Tush shouted as loud as he could. “Make the bastard dance.”

The two pulled tight on the ropes, jerking and twitching them and there below they could see the driver dancing as if a puppet, in tune to their movements.

There train was almost upon them as in the light of its lamps the driver awoke. Drunk and not quite realising where he was he started twitching and shouting of his own accord. It was as if he wanted to join in. To take part in what was happening.

His enthusiastic participations were cut abruptly short as a mass of metal hit him square on at 60mph smashing the chair and most of the bones in his body into several hundred pieces. Tush let go of the ropes he was holding as soon as this happened, Leo unfortunately didn’t. The ropes he was holding whizzed through his fingers causing him instantaneous severe pain due to the friction burns he received. This is what Tush was banking on. Not so much the burns but the fact that Leo would try to hold onto the ropes and would pull the driver from the front of the train to the side of the track.

“Get onto the line and get the ropes.” Tush shouted.

In the dark and due to the howling, he could make out Leo scrambling down toward the track. There finally they met and in the distance they could see the train slowing down and coming to a halt.

Both ran up the track to where the drivers now mangled body lay. Quickly and without a word they both began to untie the ropes and gather what was left of the chair. They picked what they could and ran for all they were worth into the night. Past the wagon they ran, through the fields, and finally to the road. It was only there that they stopped for breath. Gasping there they lay until both were fit enough to continue.

Dumping the rope and smashed chair amongst the trees in the grounds of Hunmanby hall they carried on back to the pub where upon they rested. Leo finally heading home and Tush to his bed.

It had been one hell of a night and what was worse, they’d not made a single penny from it. They’d done it for nothing. Tush knew that now he’d have to get away. Far away, just in case people at the brewery started to ask questions about what really happened to their driver, just in case the law started to ask questions how.

His life as a landlord had again dealt him a bum card from the very bottom of its pack and he decided from that day on that things were going to be different.

A few days later in an overnight flash he was gone. Some say he went back to the money lending trade. Some say he’d topped himself. Some hoped he’d topped himself because of the amount of money that they owed him.

There are those though who still believe Tush is in the publican trade and that he moved Selby way. Some say that on occasions Leo and Spiv still visit him, when there’s work to be done that is. Who knows?

You may ask what happened to the body of the breweries driver?

It was examined and a hearing held, the outcome and verdict of which was ‘death by misadventure’.

And the train driver? Well. He reported the incident to his boss. Explaining how he’d been driving along and suddenly there in the trains headlights had seen a man in a chair dancing and floating about on and above the track in front of the train.

His boss been the sympathetic sort had had him immediately drink and drugs tested, which themselves both proved negative.

There was also a hearing into this matter held internally by Rail. The outcome and verdict of this been ‘insane’.

He’s now staying Beverly way I hear, and he’ll probably be there for an indefinite period of time.