Borstal Slags (32 page)

Authors: Tom Graham

BOOK: Borstal Slags

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Sam turned away from the church, strolled across an empty street devoid of traffic, and ducked into Joe’s Caff, a greasy spoon which served coffee like sump oil and bacon butties cooked in what seemed to be Brylcreem. There were red-and-white chequered plastic covers on all the tables, bottles of vinegar with hairs gummed to the tops and ketchup served in squeezy plastic tomatoes. Joe himself was a miserable, bolshy bugger who covered his fat belly in a splattered apron and never cleaned his fingernails. He let ash from his roll-up fall into his cooking, and checked to see if food was ready by sticking his thumb into it.

Sam loved the place. It was everything he could ask for from a greasy-spoon caff, and he wouldn’t have changed a thing about it.

‘Morning, Joe,’ he said as he strolled in, enjoying his brief inner glow of happiness. ‘Any news on that Michelin star yet?’

About the Author

Tom Graham left school at 14 without qualifications. He is a smoker, and says that writing the
Life on Mars
novels is the nearest thing he’s had to a regular job since he got banned from driving. He part-owns a greyhound called Arthur and his ambition is to get fruity with Raquel Welch (to be clear about it, that’s Tom’s ambition, not Arthur’s).

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Harper

An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers

77–85 Fulham Palace Road,

Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Cover image produced with the kind permission of John Simm and

Philip Glenister.

Tom Graham asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Version 1

FIRST EDITION

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