The old betting lark

I don’t know why I did it.

Actually, that’s a lie. It was the money. Root of all evil and all that.

The reason I don’t mind telling you’s because my brief’s already told me I’ll get off scot-free at the trial. See, he reckons I shouldn’t have been allowed ‘to place a bet on the annual death toll of any vulnerable group of people, or indeed any group of people’. It’s the fault of the company that made the bet up that caused the problem in the first place so it’s game over for them. Nowadays it’s all about the moral responsibility of gambling firms so they’re cracking down on it big time. 

Court’s next week. It’s a landmark case, which means I’ll be famous. Not in the best way I admit but you can’t have everything. According to the brief, unscrupulous match-fixing in global sports has been going on a bit too much of late and it needs reeling in. The real problem is that some of the big western players aren’t getting their whack so they’re going bonkers. All the money’s staying in Asia, see, and that’s not good. Needs to be shared out carefully. The law can’t touch the horses because it’s mostly old money. 

Anyway, story goes, I was trawling sites for a good bet when I stumbled on this one site that had a bet on how many teenage killings there were going to be in good old London Town during this last year, 2028. After a quick and very basic calculation I listened in to my gut and lumped down ten grand on 63-64 killings at 50/1.

It being about mid-October, and with 41 teenagers already stabbed or shot to date, these were very attractive odds, especially with Bonfire Night, Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve still to come, all bumper fight fests in the main. 

I’m a wily old sod when it comes to these quirky bets and I know that most knifings happen in winter. It’s cold, see, and kids don’t have anywhere to play like they do in summer. If it’s warm they can drink themselves silly and crash in the park but winter’s different. Money’s tight and families don’t cope as well as they do in summer. More bills and clothes and Christmas crap to pay for. Tearaways with big problems don’t stand a chance in winter, nowhere to go, nothing to do, no dollar to pinch.

By November 30th, six weeks after I placed the bet, my shrewd analysis of the situation was proving correct. Another ten deaths took the old quota up to 51 teenage killings, averaging about one and a half a week. If I was to get to the magic 63 I’d need three popped every week in December. The odds for 63-64 deaths had shot in to 11/1 so I was certainly knocking on the door, although still as an outsider. 

The media started to make a big hoo-haa about the amount of deaths because it was looking like a record, but I knew that wouldn’t change anything. Real society don’t change with a few timely newsbytes and, besides, kids can’t help themselves with the drugs they’re on now. We were never as bloodthirsty in my day, not in the fight sense. A fight meant fists and maybe the odd stick here and there, a stool or something to hand. It was all about waking up with a hangover and black eyes and bruises and getting told off by your mum. 

Nothing like that now. It’s all knives, firearms, car accidents, street whacks, dodgy bags of gear. They reckon it’s all about respect but I can’t see it myself.

Most the youngsters round here are trained to fail from dot. Life does that to a kid when there’s nothing doing. Shrivels them up, tells them they’re worthless so they’re bound to explode sooner or later. Take it out on someone else. Even the score. Gloat at the blood spewing out of the lad’s neck. You can’t stop it. They’re past caring, think they’re in a movie half the time. It’s that bloody skunk. 

So, by December 14th, with a further five killings under my belt, driving the tally up to a steady 56, I felt reasonably confident that I was onto a winner. My odds had tumbled from 50/1 down to 5/1. 

But then my luck dried up like a piece of old snot, no more killings for a whole week. Not one kid popped anywhere. Nothing.

I started thinking the police were sweeping a few under the carpet along the way to keep the numbers down for the public (the record’s 60). 

I checked my favourite news-sites every hour or so for more death but nothing changed. It was turning into a complete disaster. 

Christmas Eve has always been a good time for killings in London, a real spike in crime too, and 2028 proved to be equally bloodthirsty. It was a weird one actually, two lads getting into a meaningless scuffle at a bus stop, then stabbing each other at the exact same time just moments later, one in the heart, the other in the groin. Apparently they both bled out on the spot looking at each other until life left them. Utter hell. 

By Boxing Day, the number of deaths finally hit 60. One was at a family affair with two boys vying over turkey slices, the other in a queue somewhere in town, a nut job the news reckoned. 

I can still remember the moment I heard that magic number - 60. It was on the evening news, a female voice, all sad and downhearted. I leapt out of the sofa, punching the air and dancing around the telly like a twat while some Tory did an interview on the telly, flanked by two massive police officers on a beaten up estate in Hounslow. He was calling for calm in the community while a bunch of hoodies blew their cheeks out behind him.

My boys, Rocky, who’s seventeen, and Leon, who’s nineteen, wanted to know why I was so happy so I told them. I was so close to that half a million quid I could see it right there in front of me. 

I sat them down, got on the website and showed them the bet on the account, also how much I stood to win if three more kids got stabbed or shot in London by the end of the year. Their mouths dropped to the floor as it sank in.

‘Half a million quid?! You jammy bastard!’ Leon screamed.

‘I haven’t won it yet, dimwit!’

‘How comes you got ten grand to bet with when you won’t even buy me a new strip?’ asked Rocky.

‘Forget the bleeding strip,’ I told him. ‘I’ll buy you the whole effing club if this comes off!’ The boys started screaming and yelping, jumping up and down. Shortly afterwards, there was an awkward silence.

That’s when the trouble started. Three more kids, that was all we needed. I could see the boys mulling it over, closure, biting their nails, laughing then frowning. That’s what money does to you, makes you do things you’d never dream of doing under normal circumstances. It’s a bit like playing God.

The next three days all drew blanks but then, the day before New Year’s Eve, reports came in about a shooting in North London. The lad hadn’t quite died but he was in a critical condition. His whole family was there praying for him at his bed with half the hospital working on him and there was me wishing the poor boy dead.

The next morning, I turned on the radio and he’d gone. I felt awful when I heard that, sat up in bed, one fist at my side wanting to clench in victory. It’s weird looking back now but I was on another wavelength by then, lost in the dollar.

Anyway, only two more teenagers needed to pop and I was made for life.

I’d already confirmed with the gambling website that the cut-off was midnight on New Year’s Eve so I knew that it’d go down to the wire, what with most killings happening after midnight, the alcohol wearing thin and the good women gone. 

At lunchtime on New Year’s Eve I did the unthinkable and asked the lads to go out and kill a couple of teenagers. I know it’s a terrible thing to admit but there you go. The brief says I’ve got to be totally open about the whole thing to show how the bet affected me.

The boys agreed as long as I promised them a flat each. They’d obviously thought about it. I agreed, with the proviso that it might have to be a two bedder for the pair of them what with the current climate, so off they went, down to the East End in the Polo with a pair of hammers. Best way to pop them these days, six bangs to the head and it’s game over. Not much spillage too. 

When they got back, they told me they’d done it but then it came on the evening news that the two they’d done were twenty. 

I thought I better ask if the boys wouldn’t mind going out for two more but they weren’t having it. 

‘Just two more, lads. That’s all we need! Then it’s bye bye Britain, hello Hawaii.’

They were shaking and crying and looking at their hands so I gave them some whisky to calm them down. In the end there was no point pressing them. They’d have only fucked it up again anyway. 

There was a kid on a life-support machine in Tooting but he didn’t count because he’d stabbed himself. Another lad had six drips in him at a private hospital in Kensington, but then we found out he’d overdosed on an exotic cocktail of party drugs at some soiree, which put that one to bed. 

Typical of my luck, or maybe it was the devil in the detail, 2028 was the first year in London’s history (at least since records began) that no teenagers were killed on New Year’s Eve; small mercies considering it was also the year that beat the record.

From New Year’s Day onwards, my only hopes were pinned on the vague possibility that the police might unearth dumped bodies that had gone missing over the holiday period. The website issued strict rules that excluded any bodies found a week after midnight of the 31st, ‘as time of death could not be made certain by autopsy after this time’.

On the morning of January 7th, the police came to visit. They handcuffed Rocky and Leon and took them away for questioning, locking them up without bail. DNA proved beyond doubt that they’d killed the lads in the East End.

The weirdest thing happened the day after that, though.

This posh bloke turned up at the door and told me that we’d all be in the clear if we did exactly as he said. It was a clear case of diminished responsibility, see. He was a brief acting on behalf of some wedged up moral crusader who wants to see these gambling websites shut down for good, says it’s immoral and all that. 

According to this brief all I had to do was claim that I’d lost all sense of fair perspective and good judgement because of the implications of the bet placed on me by the site. This guy, the brief, then told me outright that he’d see to it that the lads were given suspended sentences. I’d be cleared of everything as a matter of course.

There’s only a week till the court case and I’ve had lots of letters of support from some very powerful people. I think they’ve got a little wager on me winning the case. Apparently it’s a foregone conclusion and they’ve even got me down as the victim! I’m set to win the case so I’ve told a few mates to lump large on the outcome. The odds are crap but it’s a sure win.

The only thing that worries me is the amount of death threats I’m getting. There’s birds out there want me hung up and left to rot. 

No matter how hard I try, I just can’t get any proper sleep. Keep having this dream that I’m blind, shouting in an empty street. Rocky and Leon have both been stabbed at the remand centre (cutlery knives) but they’re generally bearing up all considered. The wife’s left me and wants me out the house by the end of the month but my brother says I can stay with him in Majorca till everything calms down. 

Still, it would have been a lot worse if it wasn’t for that brief.