Bullets Over Ealing Broadway

Paul D Brazill

Alex had really had enough of Jake’s incessant whining, so he was more than somewhat relieved when Scotch Ben eventually shot the annoying twat in the back of the head, spraying blood and gunk down the front of Jake’s previously pristine, white Fred Perry t-shirt.

Alex’s guts churned. Although he certainly had no qualms about the moral aspects of murdering Jake, he didn’t really have the stomach for the gory stuff. He never had; truth be told.

‘Hold onto this for me,’ said Ben, handing the Glock to Alex whose hands shook as he took the gun.

Ben checked his reflection in the mirror to see that there were no splashes of blood on his red Versace suit. He ran a gloved hand through his spikey, dyed red hair. Alex checked his own clothes but thankfully his powder blue suit was as pristine as ever.

‘Make sure you wipe your fingerprints from the gun before you get rid of it, eh?’ said Ben, grinning. ‘We don’t want to get nabbed because of slovenliness.’

Ben’s Glasgow accent rarely broke through his mock Cockney drawl but sometimes Alex could detect a trace of it, especially when Ben had been snorting happy talc. The man’s cocaine consumption was phenomenal.

Alex avoided looking at Jake’s corpse and looked around the cluttered kitchen. Slivers of morning sunlight sliced through the broken blinds. Like the rest of Jake’s flat, it was a shithole. A dust coated plasma TV was fastened to the wall, silently showing an interview with the winner of the recent American presidential elections.

Jake had been a small-time gangster all his adult life, and a good part of adolescence, although his career trajectory had certainly plummeted of late. So much so that Alex and Ben were able rip off his drug stash and money with ease. They untied Jake’s corpse from the kitchen chair he’d been strapped to.

‘Right, are we going to have a nosey through the rest of the flat now? I’ve still got my mum’s Christmas present to get?’ said Alex.

Ben picked up a red North Face bag and Alex did the same.

‘Let’s get on with it then,’ he said.

Alex went into the living room to see what was worth taking, though there wasn’t a great deal of interest. When he went back to the kitchen, Ben was sat drinking a bottle of Sprite.

‘What did you get?’

‘A few bits and bobs on the gadget front. A couple of tasty watches. Was there anything in the bedroom?’

‘A load of overpriced artisan crap made by old lags. I even recognise one of the artists’ names. He was in Wandsworth nick last time my brother was there. He croaked his whole family. He’d turned to Jesus, last I heard.’

‘Art is good for the soul, eh?’

Ben giggled as he took a shoebox from an otherwise empty fridge. He opened it and took out a handful of cash. He flicked through it and grinned.

‘Not a bad haul this. What are you going to do with your share of the dosh?’ said Ben, as he rifled through the briefcase.

‘I’m going to start my own business,’ said Alex.

‘Good idea that. I’m all for free enterprise. What kind of business?’ said Ben.

‘A record company,’ said Alex.

‘Really? These days? Can you still make money out of that? I thought everyone downloaded music for nothing now. Spotify and the like.’

‘Yeah, you can do alright if you know what you’re doing. Specialist stuff still sells. Vinyl only. Niche market and that. I’m going to put out stuff from cult artists. Lost rockabilly classics and the like.’

‘Best not get caught here then or you’ll have a criminal record!’ said Ben, guffawing.

And then he froze as he sifted through the shoebox’s contents.

‘Bloody Nora,’ said Ben. ‘If this is what I think it is, we’ve hit paydirt.’

Alex squinted as he looked at what Ben held in his hand.

‘A stamp?’ he said.

‘Yeah, but it’s not just any stamp. It’s the 1868 Benjamin Franklin Z-Grill. It’s worth about £4m, if it’s the real deal.’

‘Well, I’ll best get in touch with Helene Miller,’ said Alex. ‘She’s still the best fence in London.’

‘Best get moving,’ said Ben. He stood, laughing. ‘We don’t want to be nabbed by the fuzz. Very painful, that is.’

Alex chuckled as he picked up a barstool and slammed it against Scotch Ben’s head, knocking him to the ground.

#

From the outside, The Severed Head looked like many of the other quaint, faux, mock- Tudor pubs that riddled Ealing, and West London in general, but inside it was different. It was lit by dim red lamps that had been placed randomly around the pub; the walls were painted black and decorated with paintings of skulls and pirate flags. A massive, red and black Satan Souls banner hung behind the bar. And the pub stank. It smelt of incense, sweat, nicotine, beer, and testosterone.

The main bar was stuffed full of overweight, middle-aged greasers. Everyone was dressed in leather and denim. The sound of Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’ filled the place.

Helene Miller sat in a battered, brown leather armchair that was pushed against the back wall. She looked, and felt, completely out of place in her sharply cut designer suit and high heels. Her long blonde hair was tied back, and she kept her expensive handbag on her lap. She’d covered her ample cleavage with a scarf but she could see that was still getting leery looks from the greasers. She sipped a Britvic orange cordial as she impatiently waited for Alex.

Alex was late, as usual, which was annoying enough but what really pissed her off was his choice of meeting place. Of all of London’s thousands of pubs why had he chosen this stink pit? She really hated rock music, heavy metal in particular. Ugly, stupid, music for ugly, stupid, people. She was strongly tempted to get a real drink and break her month long run on the wagon. She wondered if Kopparberg cider could be considered a halfway house. A compromise, of sorts. The strawberry one was hardly alcoholic, after all. And wasn’t it Swedish or something? They were always so health conscious it was probably good for you.

Two stinky bikers walked out of the toilets, sniffing their fingers. Helene ignored them as they walked past her. She was tapping away at her iPad, checking her LinkedIn page, when a particularly hairy greaser carrying a cloudy glass of snakebite approached her.

‘Hello gorgeous, fancy a shag?’ he said, looming over her.

Helene turned and was about to give the bloke a smack when she broke into a wide grin. Normally, Alex was so good looking and stylish that it made Helene uneasy. Just like his late father, a best-selling thriller writer, he was a suave bugger. Not today, though.

‘Alex, you silly twat,’ she said. ‘What the hell’s this all about?’

She looked him up and down and Alex chuckled.

‘Well, there’s a bit of a story behind this,’ he said. ‘But, then, isn’t there always? Fancy a drink in lieu of a shag?’

‘Okay. Bugger it! I’ll have a cider. Kopparberg. A strawberry one,’ said Helene.

‘You’ve got to be joking. In this place, if you want cider, it’s Strongbow or nothing,’ said Alex.

Helene grimaced.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘When in Rome …’

‘Shag a priest?’ said Alex.

‘Something like that,’ said Helene. ‘If you’re young enough.’

Alex ordered the drinks from the tattooed barmaid.

He hadn’t inherited his father’s ability to churn out money making potboilers and so he had decided to try and get into the film business. He was currently working as a film and TV extra, trying to make contacts in Hollywood.

‘So?’ said Helene. ‘What are you doing? Getting into character? Doing research?’

‘Exactly that!’ said Alex. ‘Spot on. I’m up for the comedy sidekick role in a new ‘80s style action flick. I may even get to act alongside Tom Cruise.’

Helene looked at Alex.

‘You’re about a foot and a half taller than him. I doubt he’d be too happy about that, ’she said. ‘These actors do have fragile egos, you know.’

‘Maybe they’ll dig a trench for me like they did for Veronica Lake when she was acting alongside Alan Ladd,’ said Alex.

He chuckled.

‘More likely, the scientologists will bury you in a trench if you piss off Tom. I have heard rumours …’

The barmaid put the drinks on the sticky bar. Alex paid and pointed to a table in the corner of the pub.

‘Let’s go over there to talk business,’ he said.

They sat at a wobbly, round table next to a broken cigarette machine.

They both sipped their drinks.

‘So?’ said Helene.

She sniffed and took out her perfume. She sprayed it around extravagantly.

‘So, indeed,’ said Alex. ‘Well. To cut to the chase. I may have a little something that you may be interested in.’

‘You may?’ said Helene.

‘Yes, I may,’ said Alex, grinning.

‘Or may not?’

‘Well, probably will.’

Helene sighed. Someone had turned up the music and Deep Purple’s ‘Child In Time’ was now assaulting her ear drums. She couldn’t wait to get out of the place.

‘Something unusual, I hope,’ she said.

Alex looked around the pub and moved closer to Helene.

‘Oh, this is very exotic,’ he said. ‘What do you know about the 1868 Benjamin Franklin Z-Grill stamp?’

‘Oh, it’s one of the rarest U.S. stamps, with only two known examples. Worth about £4 million quid.’

‘Well, I reckon I’ve got one,’ said Alex. ‘Needs to be verified, of course.’

Helene sipped her drink and grimaced.

‘It’s an interesting proposition, I’ll give you that,’ she said. ‘How did you get your hands on it?’

Alex tapped his nose again.

‘That’s for me to know and … me to know.’

‘Okay,’ said Helene. ‘I’ll put the feelers out regarding a possible customer and get an estimate to you. How soon can you get your mitts on it?’

‘Soon enough,’ said Alex, smirking.

‘In that case,’ she said. ‘You’d better get me another bloody drink and make it in a bottle this time. The state of that glass was disgusting.’

Alex smirked as he went to the bar.

‘And tell them to turn this bloody racket down, too,’ shouted Helene, just as the song stopped.

She laughed.

‘That was quick,’ she shouted to Alex.

Iron Maiden’s ‘Run For The Hills’ burst to life, even louder than the previous song.

‘Oh, for fucks sake,’ said Helene. ‘I can’t stand much more of this.’

Alex brought over the drinks.

‘Let’s go outside to the smoking section,’ said Helene. ‘A passively smoked pack of Silk Cut is less detrimental to my health than this horrible cacophony.’

As they went towards the door, Moonflower, a muscular biker chick with wild red hair and more facial piercings than Pinhead from Hellraiser, stepped in front of them.

‘What’s the matter, pet? Is our pub not good enough for you?’ she said.

She jabbed a finger at Helene.

Helene sighed. Tensed.

‘Something like that,’ said Helene. ‘Though it’s not so much the pub it’s the bloody awful music. And the clientele, of course …’

The biker grabbed Helene by the shoulders.

‘Well, maybe you should hang around a bit and we could show you some local hospitality?’ she said.

She licked her lips. A couple of ageing Hell’s Angels stood next to her chuckling.

Helene sighed. She turned to Alex.

‘Move,’ she said.

As Alex stepped back, Helene grabbed his pint glass from his hand and smashed it in the biker’s face which turned crimson as she screamed. One of the bikers rushed at Helene who slammed her cider bottle in his face and waved the broken bottle at the others.

Alex walked backwards out of the pub as Helene dropped the bottle and took a silver Derringer pistol from her handbag. She pointed it at the other bikers.

‘Any of you ugly bastards follow us and I’ll shoot you. Simple as that. Understand?’ she said.

‘Oh bugger it, let’s go The Ivy,’ said Helene, as they stepped into the street. ‘I’ve had enough of slumming it.’

Alex flagged down a passing black cab

‘Are you sure I’m dressed for it?’ said Alex. ‘I’m not exactly wearing my Sunday best.’

He opened the taxi door for Helene.

‘You’re an actor, darling,’ said Helene. ‘So act!’

As she got into the taxi, she saw a big, ginger biker taking their picture with his smartphone. She sighed. She would have to do something about that potential little inconvenience when she had the chance.

#

The nightmares never stopped. They smothered her sleep and draped Moonflower’s days with gloom and fear. The medication that the quacks shovelled down her throat helped a tad but there were still those moments when all she could see was the blood. The shrink had called it post-traumatic stress disorder, one of the consequences of Helene glassing her.

Moonflower switched on the television. There was another programme about cooking. That was all there was on the telly these days. Cooking and gardening, for fucks sake. She found a cartoon channel instead and watched Scooby Doo for a bit. Most of the channels in the community room had been blocked for fear of showing programmes that overstimulated the residents, as they called them. But they left the ones about ghosts and Ninja Turtles. Nothing to give you hallucinations there then.

Moonflower was the only one in the room. At that time of the morning most of the residents, or inmates as she liked to refer to them, were asleep. Doped out. But Moonflower didn’t sleep much. She had bloodstained dreams of killing Helene. She’d told the police and the doctors that she couldn’t remember who attacked her. That it was all blank. But she remembered alright.

Out of the window she could see the night creeping over the roofs of the trees. She shivered. Darkness made her uneasy these days.

She was lucky, she supposed. The care home she was in was one of the best in the city. Expensive, it was, too. And most of the staff were professionals, not daft YTS lasses that worked in the other ones. Satan’s Souls had paid for it, mind. Luckily she’d be out in a couple of weeks. If she behaved herself.

She changed the TV channel and tried to find some news but, of course, it was blocked. So she watched the weather channel for a while. Rain, rain and more rain. She looked out of the window. A well-dressed, suntanned man got out of the car and walked up the path.

She heard the front door open, and Dr Cope came in.

Dr Cope was jolly, jovial and boisterous. Everyone loved him. Everyone except Moonflower, that is. Moonflower couldn’t stand the fucker, though she didn’t know why. Maybe because he was posh. Popular. He was also the world’s leading authority on the Klingon language, apparently and used speaking in Klingon as part of his radical therapy. Moonflower had told him she wasn’t interested and had never seen Star Wars and he’d glared at her.

The place was coming to life and so Moonflower retreated to her beige, little room. She lay on her bed and closed her eyes. The beige turned red. She had an old cassette radio on the bedside table. She played the compilation cassette that one of the doctor’s had given her. She used to think four seasons was a pizza, but she was starting to get into Vivaldi. She hadn’t liked the Sati that followed it so much, but it seemed to be getting better. She slept and dreamt of tower blocks, motorways, service stations. In one dream, Helene was eating a meal in a Little Chef and choked on the food. Moonflower woke herself up laughing.

#

Moonflower’s housing association flat was bathed in the dim light of a dozen red Lava lamps. Stale dope fumes mixed with the smell of staler cider and cigarettes. An old TV played a flickering copy of Goodfellas with the sound turned down. An expensive sound system played a Janice Joplin song at low volume. Her brother Smudge sat on a battered brown sofa smoking a spliff.

Moonflower stormed into the room from the kitchen, taking sips from a frothing can of Special Brew. She was drunk and she was fuming.

‘We just can’t let that posh cow get away with it, Smudge?’ said Moonflower. ‘Look at me. Luck at the bloody state of me!’

She pointed to her scarred face, slumped in an armchair and swigged her beer.

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Smudge.

His West Country accent burred like a tractor. He yawned. ‘We’ll do something. Sometime. Soon.’

‘When? People might start to think Satan’s Souls have gone all old and soft.’

It came up to one of Smudge’s favourite scenes in the film. The part where Ray Liotta beat the crap out of the posh bloke that disrespected Ray’s girlfriend. Smudge turned to Moonflower. He looked at her scarred face.

‘Alright,’ he said. ‘It’ll take some planning, like. I’ve had some of the lads keep an eye on her and they reckon she’s well connected. Has friends well high up, like. But we’ll have a meeting with the pack. Like. Don’t you worry. Satan’s Souls will sort her out.’

‘You’re a good lad, big bruv,’ said Moonflower.

She cackled and opened another can of beer.

‘Maybe we can make a bit of dosh out of this, too,’ she said. ‘That bling she had on her must be worth a fair bit. We could auction it off on eBay.’

‘Couldn’t hurt to try. I fancy a booze cruise somewhere.’

She picked up a hammer from a rusty toolbox that was on the floor.

‘What do you think, ball hammer or claw hammer?’ she said.

‘Why not use both on the bitch?’ said Smudge. ‘In for a penny, in for a pound.’

#

Sir Peregrine Nation used a napkin to shine his expensive cufflinks. He contemptuously sniffed the stale air in The Severed Head and tried to ignore the heavy metal that was playing but it was proving a tad difficult. He drank his water from the bottle, avoiding the dirty glass that had been placed in front of him. He assumed that The Severed Head’s red lighting was meant to mask its grubbiness, but it wasn’t succeeding. Two massive ex-SAS bodyguards with buzz cuts sat either side of Sir Peregrine.

Alex sipped his third brandy, looking smug.

‘I must admit,’ said Sir Peregrine ‘You’ve surprised me. You really have. I didn’t think you had it in you. Well, not anymore. I thought you were stringing me along. Leading me on a wild goose chase.’

‘In fact, Helene should be here with the stamp any moment,’ said Alex.

He drained his drink and crunched the ice that remained.

‘You have brought the cash?’ he said.

Sir Peregrine nodded at one of the bodyguards who put a stainless-steel briefcase on the table.

‘It’s a life of surprises, Sir Peregrine. Excuse me. I need to take a leak, as the colonials say.’

He got up and stormed through the graffiti-stained toilet door. As soon as it closed, a bald behemoth stepped in behind him.

‘You must be on a fucking suicide trip,’ said Smudge.

He pushed Alex against the wall. ‘With what your bird did to my sister, I can’t believe you’d come back into my local.’

Alex smirked.

‘Don’t you worry, young man,’ he said. ‘You’ll be getting what you’re owed and more.’

‘What are you talking about? Where is your fucking bird?’

‘She should be outside just about now, actually,’ said Alex.

He pointed into the bar and stepped back into the toilets.

It all happened in a matter of minutes. Smudge turned and saw Helene walk into the pub. She walked towards Sir Peregrine who stood up to greet her. As she drew close, Moonflower rushed towards Helene holding a claw hammer. Helene stepped back, holding her hands up. The security guards stepped in, taking hold of Moonflower. Smudge ran out of the toilets screaming and waving a ball hammer. Helene climbed under a table as Alex threw a Molotov cocktail behind the bar, and it burst into flames.

‘Frying tonight,’ shouted Alex.

One of the bodyguards, smashed into Moonflower, knocking her against the bar. She head-butted him, bursting his nose open. Smudge slammed the other bodyguard in the head with his hammer then throttled Sir Peregrine with a thick bike chain.

‘Hold on,’ said Helene.

She picked up Sir Peregrine’s stainless-steel briefcase.

They sneaked out of the pub, laughing, as it burst into flames.

‘All’s well that ends well,’ said Alex.

Which was when he saw Scotch Ben run towards him wielding a machete.

© Paul D Brazill 2026

Paul D. Brazill’s books include Guns of Brixton, A Case of Noir, and Last Year’s Man. He lives in Hartlepool, England. His writing has been translated into Spanish, Italian, Finnish, Polish, German and Slovene. He has had writing published in various magazines and anthologies, including three editions of The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime.