This Little Piggy by Rob Ashman

Author:Rob Ashman [Ashman, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloodhound Books
Published: 2018-06-18T16:00:00+00:00

My pathological hatred of the Telegraph and Teresa-fucking-Franklin, with her fluorescent coloured hair and pantomime glasses, continued unabated. I counted down the days until the next issue landed on the desk in the recreational area. I would pounce on it. tearing through the pages to reach page twelve. Her head and shoulders by-line picture glared at me from the top corner of the article.

Once the newspaper was discarded, I would cut out her column and keep them in my cell. Other inmates thought I had the hots for her. Nothing could be further from the truth. I wanted to fuck her, alright, but not in that way.

It was Thursday morning and I was waiting for the delivery to arrive. It was late and my anxiety was going through the roof. Had the bitch written another pack of lies about me or was it the turn of some other poor unfortunate to be in her firing line? Postman Pat arrived with his trolley.

‘Here you go,’ he said, being well used to me snatching it out of his hand.

I flicked through until I found her face goading me to do something to stop her. The page was headlined: Local Businessman Takes 10 Pieces of Silver and underneath was written: Local Tradesmen cast onto the Scrapheap. To my astonishment, the face of my ex-partner, John Graham, stared out at me from the page.

I scanned the article and it failed to sink in. I read it again and the cogs began to whir. I re-read it and my blood boiled over.

The article reported how Graham had sold the business to Brixton Construction, but, more than that, he had sold the plot of land that the business had occupied to one of those low-cost supermarkets. The article berated him for driving his loyal workforce out of a job. It quoted numerous tales of woe from the workers, each one saying how they would not be able to keep a roof over their head now they were out of work. Graham tried to defend himself, bleating on about how he had kept the workforce on as long as he could and had delayed accepting the offer from the supermarket. Oh, the social tragedy of it all.

The slant put on the story by the sensationalist Franklin was “fat cat boss sells out and to hell with the consequences”. She tore Graham to shreds. But I couldn’t have cared less about that; my attention was transfixed by a date in the article. The date they had made Graham the offer.

‘He knew,’ I said to myself. ‘The fucker knew all along.’

The bastard knew three weeks before he forced me into signing the documents selling my share of the business for a pittance. He knew about the deal way before I went to see him. The fucker sold me out.

The paper carried a photograph of Graham standing at the gates of a huge house, probably taken when the journalist arrived at his new home, door-stepping him for a comment. He had obviously grown out of his three-bed semi.

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