The Crosby family By Charles Roberts

 

The Crosby family had always been smugglers, since the seventeen fifties in fact, the only thing that had changed was the product they smuggled into the country.  It was always something which would bring the highest profit and from the nineteen sixties it was drugs.  They guarded their ‘turf’ with a rough justice, always metered out in the dead of the night and always the same, but in different locations around their patch.

          They could be seen from a mile off in this flat countryside.  Four spread eagled bodies, each one pinned to one of the sails of the windmill as it slowly turned, pumping the fen water out of the fields and into the dyke.  That’s the sort of punishment you get when you cross the Crosby family, any of the Crosby family.  They stuck together and looked after one-another, old and young alike, cross them at your peril.

          The car was, once it had stopped rolling, upside down in the middle of the field the front near side tyre shot out.  It was being driven too fast for the twisty road anyway, but those in the chasing van knew that and bided their time until the rest of the family were in a position to shoot the tyre out and end the chase, then inflict the punishment.

          The only, if you could call it that, thing that they did wrong was to try and muscle in on the drug ring in the very lucrative fenlands.  And that was the heart of the Crosby family business.

          They’d arrived very quietly in one small corner, so that they didn’t draw attention to themselves.  Business was good and there wasn’t any competition, or didn’t appear to be, and their drugs were good, clean, and soon became very popular with the addicts.  But it was noticed, not at first, but when the Crosby family sales began to drop slightly they became suspicious and started to investigate. 

However they found out that the new comers were at school gates trying to get the young kids hooked by giving free samples, and even though drugs were the Crosby families’ main business they drew the line at selling to children at the school gates

          They didn’t strike right away, but let the interlopers build a small business, and find new customers, before they moved in and took their turf back.  The new kids on the block made the mistake of trying to expand their business, but they were being watched and once the Family started to feel threatened they struck, like only the Family could.  The end, and only result was a permanent end to the new comers with the Family taking back, not only their turf, but also the interlopers new found customers. 

So increasing their sales and profits, and the new kids on the block were carefully screwed, with six inch stainless steel screws through their wrists and ankles one to each of the four sails of the windmill, which was a slow and painful death.  The body being pulled left and right, then hung upside down hanging from their ankles, and finally hanging from the wrists.  All this took time, once every ten minutes, to be exact, as there was very little wind that night.

And to make sure no one was alerted to their predicament their mouths were stitched up using a large needle and string.  A good night’s work was washed down with Whiskey and then, after one last look at their handy-work, the Family headed home for the night, a job well done.