A couple of K of the Devil's Afters rewrite

I hope it might be of interest but this is for 18+ readers but doesn't have any violence just the suggestion. Hope you like it but it is just a chunk out of Gris who tortured Boy being forced by DUA to marry to suit his activities.

Boy and Gris entered Cuddles, meeting the grease as Dirk Rentley approached – oiling his way over.

“Evening, Dirk… whisper what you drink, Gris, being the passionate thing you are?”

“Bloody Mary, Ralf.”

“Bloody Mary, Dirk – anybody will do, if Mary’s out?”

“Hilarious, Ha, Ha,” said Dirk and Gris, together.

“You two obviously met, Dirk?”

“I’d remember if I had met your Lady, Boy.”

“You’re an ex-copper, Dirk and I do trust your memory, but let me introduce my future wife – the special licence and congregation for Saturday, before I am posted abroad.”

“I never considered you the marrying kind, Boy – congratulations.”

“I’ve met anyone like Gris before, Dirk?”

We watch Dirk stride off, and Gris rammed her palm into my gut and listened to my breath leaving, “you just can’t stop going at me, can you?”

“Nor can you,” but something is bothering Dirk. He keeps turning around?

I had an elbow in the ribs this time although my thoughts were controlled and not by Gris who spun her buttocks on the way as she headed for the loo, saying “Watch the door and see who hangs around it.”

Which door, I wondered. And where were the nooses—was she studying Eastern cultures?

As Gris left, Dirk oiled his way back in again, “Interesting Lady, Boy,” commented Dirk, as Gris shimmied for the loo. Looks like she won’t get fat?”

“Any strangers in tonight, Dirk. A friend of mine came down from London. Did he arrive and miss me?”

“Funny you should say that, Boy. Someone said the same thing to me earlier and described you to a ‘Tee’. He was around when you came in and then went out, as you came with your Lady, which makes it a pack of lies. What are you involved in and I want it kept well away from this pub?”

“Nothing I want to be involved in again, Dirk.”

“Have you known your girl long, only he described her as well, and said she was a close friend of his?”

“I’ve known Gris, from somewhere else, for a few months, but we didn’t get on well when we first met. Now it seems to blossom, and should be good. Who else is around?”

“Two guys came in and approached him, and left again. I don’t think they’re friends of yours, Boy, and I don’t want trouble in the Pub. You and your lady are fine as long as you don’t cause trouble, but whoever these are, they are trouble, and I’ve been a Publican too long not to know trouble when I see it. What is it about, Boy?”

“History, Dirk, and you are an old copper who lived with villains. I can’t say any more, but there won’t be any trouble in the Pub.”

“Good. Just keep it like that. Here’s your Lady,” and as Gris came back over, Dirk wandered off, out of earshot. 

“I just spoke to DUA. There’s no-one about!”

“They met up in here, Gris. The guy left as we came in. Dirk smelt there was trouble when the guy described you and me, as his friends, and then left as we came in… they… They all bloody know what is going on but me. I’m the target and you are all playing Mr Hoo in your delusions. They know you betrayed them, so you are a potential target as well?”

“I wonder if DUA reasoned that out and wanted us safe in here – out of trouble.”

“The Chistle stretched has various ways in and out. Cuddles has one way in, I think. They’ve gone to the waste ground opposite here with the car park and waiting for us is my guess?”

“You’re sure of this, Ralf? They won’t take us out another time?”

“I don’t even know who set this up. Roger Turner is dead. I’ve no idea about the rest of why someone is on a killing spree. We need an update so can I suggest something you ate sends you to the loo again – make some comment and head for it.”

“Why?” 

“Dirk knows these guys are, I’m sure, and he knows your bunch somehow. He recognised you from the beginning?”

Gris looked at me for about 2 minutes… a foolish thought in the circumstances as I never change, no matter how long you look at me—another Irish teaching?

Eventually she uttered, “I must have eaten something that doesn’t agree with me… back in a moment,” and headed for the loo again, at speed!

No sooner had she gone, then Dirk was at my ear once again, “What’s wrong with her? Pregnant?”

“No, she’s not pregnant, Dirk… or not by me, if she is!”

“Sorry Boy, I am getting nervous.”

“Well, you are making me nervous, with comments like that, and having decided to marry the woman, you and Cuddles are not helping!”

“I’ll get the Champaign out and you ordered it all round?” 

I let him make his profit. Like a true Copper, if he was earning it was good and at least kept his mind off Gris who now reappeared.

“Where has he gone, now?”

“To get the Champaign for our engagement.”

“You’ve proposed.”

“DUA did it for me!”

“The bunch are where you said – Prilloch and DUA heard them whispering, and reckon there are 3 there. The rest between here and the Chistle, and you still haven’t asked me to marry you… something without sarcasm, please.”

I then tenderly held her in my arms for the sake of onlookers and said, “you will not knee me in the bollocks again, will you?”

“Just say the words, ‘will you marry, me’”

Still expecting the knee or a smack around the head, I said, “and it won’t get much worse, the way we are going, ‘ please will you marry me’, dearest?”

Boy’s real thoughts were, ‘Will you marry me, Gris, since with my relationship with you… you know my body better than I do, and you have tested its endurance because you are a bitch.’

Before long Dirk appeared with the Champaign, which would no doubt launch itself in soda bubbles onto my bill, as the door open and DUA came in. 

Gris saw him, “Don’t I get a ring,” laughed Gris.

“DUA is giving you body instead. I think the head needs drying out before you wear them, although you can wear them as you want’”

“So where is my ring?”

“I’ll get it later off the bath!”

“Hilarious—I accept… as I don’t have a choice.”

Seeing us, DUA came up and said, “3 down… we’ll pick them up later, and Bishop took out one more who moved into your bedroom – he’s still alive, just gagged and tied up there, so that is 6 out of 9 – 2 out on the street and 1 still around the hotel but I seem to lose count—getting old…? Here’s your engagement ring, Gris. Security owes me it for this lousy pension deal I’ve got after we sorted out their problems for them.” 

He handed a box over to me and said, “consider it a down payment on what you are going to do for me… have a good time together, even if it isn’t very long.”

I passed the box DUA have given me to Gris to open, and there was an antique diamond ring that must have lain in Security, from Queen Victoria’s time. Originally nicked from the Royal Household; knowing Security—been away for cleaning ever since. 

She put it on her finger, and it seemed like the lights in ‘Cuddles’ went out. Suddenly we heard the pop, which was probably Dirk’s finger leaving his mouth, and DUA was there like a Genie looking at soda water.

Dirk gave DUA a strange look but who didn’t.

Breaking out the glasses for the toast, whilst Gris glittered around the ring like a blushing bride who has just nicked the church collection and legged it. 

“Yes, Father-in-law, or shall I call you Daddy.”

“Neither if you want to live, Boy. I had enough of Fatherhood, years ago.”

“Who was your child and when did you kill them?”

DUA stared at me, but after the Lady in Africa, he could stare all he wanted!.

Another time lapse and no I don’t read Japanese Tactics where you stay quiet because someone wants you to speak… load of sushi and Bishop might have seen action but all DUA ever saw was his underwear and he wasn’t the old DUA I’d seen years before—I saw him now, looking old and before his time—and he was hiding behind the lines on his face.

“I want you and Gris, to stay here, Boy… I have too much resting on you two, to risk anything else. I’ll head back to join Prilloch, Bishop and take care of those other three.”

“How long do you need, DUA?”

“Give us two hours as we have one in your bedroom as well, and they can enjoy a late view from the cliff, as they go down it.”

Gris and I mixed with the Bar after DUA left—watched carefully by Dirk, until he came over to us, “That guy who came up to you…? How well do you know him?”

“Fairly well. Why?”

“He came in earlier, looked around the Bar, then at that guy I told you about, and went out.”

“He was looking for us,” said Gris. “We arranged to meet him here, and got a bit delayed, because of Ralf here!”

Dirk looked at us two intensely and walked away, saying nothing.

“Your friend seems to have noticed a lot, Ralf?”

“Dirk came from Shepherd’s Bush – ran a Pub there… if you don’t see things going on in your Pub there – no Pub. He doesn’t miss a trick, even if a grease-ball, but I don’t think it involves him. He might once be a crook or more times than they had ever caught him, although more likely an ex-Copper he took early retirement before the investigation. Pocketed the cash and retired. DUA probably appeared in the past, but he knows something’s up; he recognised DUA but leave it be for now – he has a good business here and he won’t wreck it for something that doesn’t concern him. DUA wanted us out of here after two hours. Do you want to ring him?”

“No. They will block us on the way, if it isn’t done. Best to stay out of it!”

“I think you are right. Probably time we played lovers and drank the Champaign.”

We stayed for the couple of hours, ordered by DUA, before saying goodbye to Dirk.

“Dirk… we are making a move.”

“No problem Boy. Enjoy a good night!”

“Come on, Mr Snuggles; let’s say our goodbyes to the Champaign as well.”

“Who is Mr Snuggles?”

“A teddy bear I had. I used to smash to pieces, regularly.”

“Sounds like your courting habits!”

“Do you want to survive?”

“How much of my body is left, Gris.”

“There will be less than there is now if you don’t follow instructions?”

 “I proposed. Do you want this to be a brief engagement and Mr Hoo taught us a lot of techniques as we spent the time at sea? You probably can’t match me if I want to kill you. How much is the ring worth, by the way?”

She looked at me, “DUA stole it years ago. It is a diamond.”

“How much is it worth, Gris?”

“More than you are.”

“That isn’t difficult, but where does it get me?”

“Inside me.”

“I didn’t mean that, but for how long?”

“Find out?”

We left the bar and headed out into the road.