OLLIE PULLED BACK THE CURTAINS ON HIS MOBILE home like he was taking a swing at them, and damned the man to hell when he realised it was Steve Hughes who was making all the racket with his car horn. They weren’t even due to play poker. He dropped the curtain again and looked around. No matter what brought Steve to his door, Ollie wasn’t of the mind to be sharing any of his best bottles of whiskey with the man. By the time he opened the door of the mobile to let Hughes in, he’d safely hidden it away.
‘Some afternoon, Ollie, what?’ Steve Hughes rubbed his hands together to get a bit of warmth.
‘What the hell are you at, frightening the life out of man, jumping on that bleeding horn of yours?’
‘Not feeling too sociable are we, Ollie?’
‘Less of your smart mouth. I’m not in the mood for visitors. Most decent folk would be of the mind to leave a man alone when he wants some peace.’
‘It’s just as well I’m not decent, isn’t it then?’ Hughes joked.
‘You said it, not me.’
Steve looked over at Ollie’s whiskey glass. ‘Any of that whiskey left? I could do with something to calm my nerves.’
‘There’s an end of a bottle over there by the sink. Go easy on it, mind, it’s the last drop I have.’
‘Sure, I can bring you back one tomorrow.’
‘Right so. Go on then, if you are going to replace it with a full bottle.’
Steve poured what was left of the cheap whiskey into a glass drying by the sink. He took two large gulps out of it before sitting down opposite Ollie on one of the sofa beds.
‘Yer man’s been down again.’
‘Who?’
‘Who do you think, the fucking king himself.’
‘Well, it’s his house.’
‘You don’t have to tell me that, Ollie. Cronly made that only too clear the last time we had the pleasure of each other’s company. Put more bolts on, so he did.’
‘Probably down getting it ready so he can put it up for sale. I heard he’d called into Moriarty Auctioneers in the village not long back. The man couldn’t wait to high-tail out of there after the old one died. He’s barely been down since.’
‘Made a couple of house calls lately, though.’
‘As I said, Steve, it’s his house.’
‘He’s been doing a bit of spring cleaning too.’
Ollie’s ears caught the inflection in Hughes’ voice and he was interested, in spite of himself. ‘Spring cleaning?’
‘Yeah, he had his cleaning stuff out all right. The place stunk to high heaven of bleach everywhere. Didn’t pay much mind to it at the start, but then I noticed how he’d taken to washing the carpet in the living room, even some of the walls. You could tell right away they’d been given the once over.’
Ollie wasn’t going to enter any conspiracy contest with Steve Hughes. ‘So what? Nothing wrong with a man giving the place a bit of a tidy up.’
‘That’s what I thought, and sure I know well how he is always tidying stuff up and all. But it was a bit fishy, all the same.’
‘What do you mean, “fishy”?’
‘Well, like, there were bits that got attention and other bits that didn’t.’
‘You’re not making any sense, man, what the hell are you on about?’
‘I’m just saying, it wasn’t like the way he’d normally go about things, you know, doing one thing at a time. Like you’d have thought he’d have cleaned the whole carpet.’
Ollie felt his head starting to throb. He’d already had enough of Hughes’ voice and everything else about the man. ‘Hughes, don’t you go drinking any more of that whiskey, cause as it is, I can’t make any sense out of what you’re saying.’
‘The carpet in the living room, there was some of it cleaned and some of it not. Why would he have done that now, tell me that?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe the man spilled something, for God’s sake. It seems to me like you are making a whole lot of something out of nothing.’
‘That might be right, but I haven’t told you the best bit.’
‘And what would that be?’ Ollie said wearily.
‘When I went upstairs—’
‘Hold on a minute, what were you doing in the house in the first place?’
‘I’d forgotten something, needed to get my hands on it before yer man did.’
‘I’d call that breaking and entering.’
‘I’d call it getting what was rightfully owed to you.’
‘Get on with it, I’m listening.’
‘Well, when I went upstairs, my curiosity got the better of me.’
‘That’s not like you at all,’ Ollie said sarcastically.
‘Less of that, Ollie. People in glass houses and all.’
‘It’s my whiskey you’re drinking, which gives me rights. Keep talking.’
‘When I got upstairs, right, I started to wonder what yer man’s bedroom was like. It wasn’t a room that ever had the door open, even when the mother was alive. I was a bit reluctant at first, like he might have been watching me somehow, but I went in and I couldn’t believe what I saw.’
‘What?’
‘The room hadn’t changed from when he was a boy. I mean, everything in it was like something a kid would have, comics, trains, toy cars, nothing but that kind of shit. Oh yeah and on a tall dresser, the guy had a huge silver crucifix, on a stand and all.’
‘Nothing wrong with a bit of religion, plus maybe he’s someone who likes to keep things, some people can be sentimental.’
‘More like fucking mental, if you ask me.’
‘Well anyhow, you were there in the room with his majesty’s toys …’