227: Written in Blood

Of course it’s not written in blood.  I know it’s supposed to be and that makes it more believable, but have you ever tried writing in blood?  No, thought not.  But I have and it’s very hard.  Or maybe you have tried it and that’s why you gave me the job.

I didn’t think it would be so hard at first.  I had instructions see from that bloke in the Queen’s Head, Paul something.  The one who headbutted his Da so hard his Ma’s teeth fell out they say.  He said he did it when he was in school and took in a note to be let off PE, written in his own blood.

He said you just have to collect some blood in a little cup, get a pen and dip the nib in, then write your note.  Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?  Well he had things a bit different than I did, didn’t he.

First off he was using his own blood not the blood of a blonde waitress with a rich gangster boyfriend who we snatched out of the back yard of the restaurant when she was on a fag break.  He would have been ready for the cut but she wriggled like a bitch and squealed like a scalded pig, before I ever got anywhere near her with my knife.

Second he would have been using ordinary paper and an old fountain pen like we all used at school.  That would have at least meant he could suck up some of the blood into the pen by squeezing the rubber bit.  All I had was a green felt tip, 2 free Ikea pencils and a handful of them funny little blue biros from Argos.  Try dipping them in blood and writing with it.  I even tried using a feather I found in the garden, like as a quill or something.  Very scratchy and it stunk. 

And of course to prove it was real like, Shaun insisted we use official paper from the restaurant for the note.  That was posh paper not something out of a school exercise book, so it was really thick and soaked up the blood faster than I could write.  The writing looked like a 5 year old’s or like a pissed spider had been wandering over the page.

And last of all his note would have been something like “Please excuse Paul from games today as he has a bad leg” which wouldn’t have taken much blood to write I reckon.  I had to write a great long ransom demand with instructions on how much we wanted and where to take the money and what would happen if he didn’t and with that crappy pen and paper I needed a lot of blood.  An awful lot.  She didn’t like that idea, specially not when I had to go back twice for more.

In the end I did another copy on my laptop and sent that in the envelope with the blood one.  Next time I’m just typing it from the start and cutting off a finger.  Much less messing about.