Month: March 2026

Chapter 5 Missing036

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TubbyLa is one of many small time crooks who works with the Runcorn Mafia. The RunMaf have an uneasy relationship with the WidMaf, although they share control of the former Queensway Bridge.

After The Decimation the road and rail bridges fell into disrepair, and eventually collapsed into the water. Nothing can get past them on the river, and to start with, nothing could cross over the river either.

It was another 200 years before the bosses of the RunMaf and the WidMaf came to an agreement to establish a new crossing. With no civil engineers, no major projects had ever been undertaken in Worringfolk. So in a truly elementary fashion a system of wooden platforms was designed.

Pathways were built over the top of the derelict road bridge, and the mafias collect tolls from everything that crosses. Pedestrians, livestock, horses, wagons, and stagecoaches.

Until now MickeyWarr had been living in Wid, and had been working as a farmhand.

TubbyLa stares at him.

“You’re a pirate now! You’re on your way to Boot to meet BlackCloud and BlackDog, your new workmates. I’ll slacken one of those leg irons in a minute, so you can walk better, you’ve got 20 kilometres to cover today.”

Stunned, MickeyWarr goes pale and stares towards the ceiling. He’s not focussing on anything in particular. “It can’t be true! I don’t believe this is happening to me!”

He moves his feet a little, the leg irons are true enough!

—o—

“They’ve taken Mickey,” says LankyLa.

“Taken the mickey?”

“No! They’ve taken MickeyWarr, press ganged! We’ll be lucky if we ever see him again.”

On a Monday morning Mrs Bell opens up her farm shop nice and early. Normally, LankyLa and MickeyWarr are among the first customers of the day, picking up bread and eggs

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Chapter 5 Missing035

Previous – Book1 Page35 – Next

Chapter 5

Missing

Being stabbed awkwardly in the soft, sensitive part of your lower eyelid, by a jagged shred of dried hay, is not a welcome experience. Especially when you’re asleep!

Forcefully brushing it away from his left eye, with the sort of push normally reserved for a wasp buzzing about his face, MickeyWarr slowly opens his right eye. Half opens it, squinting in the half light of the barn, trying to make out what’s going on.

No wasp!

With his left cheek still firmly on the floor he opens his left eye a little, and tries to focus.

A few broken rays of sunlight have found their way through the gaps in the uneven, dilapidated wooden walls. This hard floor is unmistakeably dry earth, and the inadequate layer of hay was certainly not conducive to a good night’s sleep.

Even with global warming it’s still a typical, chilly Sunday morning in late October, and MickeyWarr is not dressed for rough sleeping! He’s dressed for a Saturday night out at the tavern. A smell of unfamiliar manure hangs in the air. It’s not goat dung. He knows that smell, but this one is heavier, clinging to the lining of his nose and throat, like a drowning man who’s clinging onto a rope and refusing to let go.

Raising the left side of his head off the floor a little, he looks about.

“Angel! Angel, where are you?”

“She’s not ‘ere mate,” says a raspy, gruff voice to his right.

“What?”

“She’s gone, you’ll not be seein’ ‘er again.”

Except for the docks, where the pirates are in control, the local militias run everything in Worringfolk. ThunderCloud won’t have his hands soiled by doing the dirty work, so he leaves it to the pirates in Boot, and to the local mobs inland, to handle all day to day business.

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