Gasping for Breath: Black crime fiction

Small Regrets

'Small Regrets' is a story by Karline Smith, the author of two dark crime novels, Moss Side Massive (2002) and Full Crew (2003).

by Karline Smith

18th August 2022

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Gasping for Breath: Black crime fiction

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“Peeping through a slit in the blinds, Sophie saw Guy head off in the dark blue Audi. Then she noticed a car on the opposite side of the road sneak in behind Guy, like a shadow.”

‘Guy, listen to me!’ Sophie said, dangling her tenth cigarette in one hand, cradling her third glass of wine with the other. Sophie knew she was already involved, just through hearing his story earlier at the restaurant. He had witnessed a murder. ‘You have to get it back.’
‘How?’ Guy wailed helplessly.
‘The company will be in ruins. And your career. Guy, you could be implicated in this… unfortunate shooting. You have to get that laptop back.’
Sophie’s bedroom was almost completely dark with spots of dim light, void of any sounds but their voices.
Guy sat huddled on her huge king-size four-poster bed, a pathetic bag of creased, smoky clothing from the fire he’d escaped, his left wrist wrapped in plaster. Staring emptily at rows of designer shoes, drowning between her cushions, he looked as if he were in another room.
Guy passed his hand over his face.
‘I need… need a line. It… helps me, y’know, concentrate.’
‘I warned you not to go overboard with that stuff. Look, just listen to me for now, OK?’ Sophie closed her eyes as thoughts and solutions to Guy’s dilemma skimmed across her brain. ‘You said you sometimes get blow from those kids in this gang, right?’ He nodded vacantly, looking into a corner. ‘Do you know where any of them live?’
Guy perked up.
‘Yeah, Ty-Rico.’
‘Maybe the kid with the laptop is there…’
‘Do you think he’d be that stupid?’
Sophie resisted the temptation to remark on Guy’s own foolishness, but it wasn’t easy.
‘Well, even if he didn’t go there, maybe this Tyrone kid knows where he might be….… Or pay him a tenner.’
‘Ten pounds to grass his friend up…?’
‘Buy him a fucking ticket to Disneyland, I don’t know. Just get that laptop back, tonight, do you hear me?’
Guy’s mobile rang and he saw the name of the laptop’s real owner. Panic strangled his vocal cords.
‘What should I do? Should I tell him I’m trying to get it back?’
Sophie glared at him, blowing out smoke rapidly.
‘Yes, and then he would ask how you know where to get it from, and then he would figure out, wouldn’t he, how you conspired with those kids to steal the laptop in the first place, and how because of you he shot one and the other got away.’
‘I see your point.’
Sophie suffocated her sarcastic response, snatching the phone from Guy, switching it off and putting it into her handbag.
‘Take my car.’
Peeping through a slit in the blinds, Sophie saw Guy head off in the dark blue Audi. Then she noticed a car on the opposite side of the road sneak in behind Guy, like a shadow. Sophie felt a pressure on her chest, like the weight of someone’s foot bearing down…
Guy was being followed!
Shaking, she retrieved her mobile off the coffee table and dialled Guy’s number. When the voicemail kicked in, Sophie remembered.
Guy’s phone was switched off in her handbag.