‘It’s just that, now, it’s here…’
‘What?’ She’s flicking through pages and screwing up her face. She is not finding what she is looking for.
‘Well, now it’s time, I mean…’
Book slams. Patience is lost.
‘Myles! What?’
‘I don’t know if I can do it.’
‘You don’t have to do it. I never expected you to. Let’s face it, Myles, you can’t do anything. Anything at all. God knows how we got Lily in the first place. It’s me that is going to do it, isn’t it? Just, I don’t know, just sit over there and stay out of my way.’
Myles sits in a chair and cradles his glass, worrying. He feels safer now that she has reiterated that she is taking charge. Their plans are in place, Pam knows what she is doing. He still doesn’t like what’s going to happen but it’s not as if they are going to kill anyone, is it? I mean, he thinks, there might be a scene, but that should be it. Shouldn’t it?
‘How’s it going to work?’ he asks quietly.
‘Just stay in your chair and do as you are told.’
Pam is looking around at the floor now and Myles can see she has shifted mood. She is uncertain about something and that’s never a good sign.
‘What is it?’ he asks.
She holds up a finger and listens. Myles can hear the young people talking in the kitchen. The kettle has come to the boil. Pam looks at him. He shrugs.
‘You said it just now,’ she says, and her voice has dropped in volume. It’s almost soft, a whisper. ‘Something is not right.’
He finds her soft voice kind of sexy but knows there’s no point in telling her so. That wouldn’t lead to anything except humiliation. He watches as her eyes scan the room. They travel from the closed curtains, across the old radiogram - record player, lid up as always reminding him of the rhythmic scratch, clunk, lift, drop, click, scratch as one record after another played, died and was replaced - across the walnut table and its clutter that covers his juvenile carved-in initials, the framed pictures on the walls, the flowery armchairs and their cushions, the bookcase, the sofa, around to the other wall and over more pictures, more tables, over to the drinks, the glasses, the phone, and to the open door to the hall. Everything is in place, everything looks as it should. And then she looks at the ceiling, the rose, the lights, the corners. And then to the floor.
‘Pam, what is it?’
She studies a patch of carpet for a long while and then looks sternly at Myles.
‘Give me some of that Scotch,’ she orders.
‘What’s up?’ he asks, obeying as always.
She sits back on the sofa, her lips tight, and shakes her head. ‘I don’t know, but something is telling me there’s a problem.’
‘Yes,’ he says, ‘there is. He is not here. We need him here, or we need to find where he is.’
‘He will be here,’ she answers, sipping her drink and fixing her focus on the glass. ‘It won’t be safe for him to be out there, not for long. He’s too vulnerable away from the house, especially tonight. He’ll be getting a taxi back before his usual bedtime and we’ll be here, waiting for him. Waiting to surprise him on his birthday.’
They share a smile and Myles thinks that this is the first time they have shared anything other than arguments for many years. There’s a bond between them again, they have a common purpose like they did when they were first married. They have something in common. Knowledge. He starts to feel warmth towards his wife for a moment. He feels a flickering flame of hope for their future.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she says, icily, and extinguishes it.
Drover watches as the girl picks up the tray of things and heads to the front room. Pete looks at him nervously, and Drover winks. He’s sees a small smile pull at the side of Pete’s lips and knows that the guy is going to be fine. Once you convince Pete that all he is doing is making up a story and not telling a lie he’s usually okay with it. He is very easy to manipulate.
Once he sees Pete shuffle into the sitting room behind the girl, he gives a long breath out, gathers his own strength, calms his own nerves and, wondering what he might see, turns back to the window.
There’s nothing outside but the dark. No strange eyes, no shuffling shadows, just a blank black canvas on which an exhausted mind could easily create an image. He reaches up and pulls down the blind, covering the window completely. With the night out there shut out he feels like he is able to work without being seen. Not that there is anyone out there to see him. But, knowing what he has got to do, he knows it is best to be prepared.
Drover silently opens the garage door and then stands and looks around inside. He goes back to the car boot to check, just in case it was not locked. But it is. Where would the old man leave his car keys? He checks the car itself. The driver door is open but there are no keys in the ignition. He looks at the sun visor.
‘Only in American films,’ he says to himself.
No keys hidden in the sun visor.
Or under the wheel arches on the tyres.
‘No, Drover,’ he says to himself. ‘Think logic. This is his house. He reverses the car in the garage, he don’t need to lock it ‘cos he lives here, and, let’s face it, there’s no one for miles. He comes through into the kitchen…’
Drover goes into the kitchen walking through the steps. ‘He puts the keys straight down here.’ He touches the worktop to his left, but there is nothing there, no bowl of spare change, keys, miscellaneous things from pockets, no hook on the wall under the cupboard.
‘Okay, so he’s a tidy old man and always puts them in the same place out of the way. Here.’ He opens a cupboard, but it is empty. ‘No, in this one.’ He opens another and it is full of money. ‘Jesus, what’s with this man?’
He stares at the cash, more than he has seen in his life in just one cupboard. He notices, for the first time, that some of it is out of date. There are rolls of one pound notes and he knows that they have not been used since before he was born.
‘Where the fuck does it all come from? And why don’t he put it somewhere safe? This guy is asking to be robbed.’ He looks across the room towards the Aga. There are utensils hanging up beside it, a few gleaming pans, but no hooks for keys.
The back door?
He sees no hanging place for keys there either, but, then, why would there be? There’s no hook by the garage door and that’s where he goes to get into his car. He catches sight of the black of night behind the glass of the back door and feels his pulse quicken. Nerves. There was something out there just now; he definitely saw something. He crosses the room and draws the blind over the door. No, there wasn’t. Don’t be stupid. He yanks the blind all the way down, shutting out the night, and stands with his hand on the cord as he thinks.
‘Okay, so where else would he…? In his pocket?’ He can check when he moves the body. ‘Under the stairs,’ he remembers. ‘They put their coats under the stairs, there could be something in there.’
An ice cold breeze slithers in through the broken glass and under the blind. It slips across his hand, cold like the touch of a grave-free ghost. It feels as if someone has reached through and stroked his wrist.
He gasps and pulls away, backing across the room and watching the moving blind. It blows out slightly in a draft, but then settles as he gets further from the door and the wind dies down. Calming his breathing, blowing out air slowly to slow his pulse, he turns back to the hall.
Pam blocks the doorway.
‘Jesus, woman!’ he shouts as he leaps back, his heart suddenly banging against his ribs.
‘What are you doing?’ Her eyes are small black pricks of suspicion in her shrew-like face.
‘Tidying up,’ he says.
She looks over his shoulder and into the kitchen, scans the room quickly; eyes dart lef
t, then right, up down, all clear.
‘Come in here,’ she orders, ‘I want to speak to you.’ And with that she turns and strides back to the sitting room.
Drover talks inside his head: keep it together, nearly there. But he knows he is nowhere near wherever ‘there’ is as he follows the woman back to the front room. No time to look in the cupboard under the stairs right now. Wait a while. Later. Play her game. Stick to the plan.
When he walks into the room his eyes are desperate to look at the sofa, but he knows that might give him away. If she’s found the body he will know about it. But she hasn’t. She’s sitting down on the sofa and the others are standing by the window. He has to get them out of the room. Pete has clearly not put any kind of plan into place yet, he’s not done what they agreed. Drover feels annoyed but knows he must concentrate on what needs doing rather than on his friend’s failings.
‘Shall I put the tea in the dining room?’ he asks, cheerfully.
‘Sod the tea,’ Pam says.
‘But I made it, Pam,’ the girl says, and sounds hurt.
‘Call me Mother,’ Pam snaps back. ‘I changed my mind. No-one drinks tea at a birthday party. And that dining room is too cold. It harbours an uncomfortable atmosphere. We will wait in here where it’s warmer.’
Damn, thinks Drover. Now what?
‘Are we having a party?’ Pete asks, and his face lights up. ‘Can I have a drink?’
‘No,’ Lily says, firmly. ‘Drinking is for the adults, isn’t it, mother?’ She taunts Pam with the word as if she were swearing at her.
‘I’m an adult,’ Pete says unnecessarily, and Drover sees Pam roll her eyes.
‘Mother has not allowed me to drink,’ Lily explains to Pete. ‘But, now I am eighteen I can do what I want.’
‘Lily, don’t start,’ Myles says, but it has no effect.
‘What the hell I want.’
‘Watch it,’ Pam warns.
Lily picks up the whisky and unscrews the lid.
‘What the F I like.’
Pam is looking at her as if to say, ‘Do that and you are in big trouble.’
Lily lifts the bottle to her lips, smiling defiantly at her mother.
‘What the F. U. C. I like.’
‘Lily!’ Myles warns, his eyes moving nervously to Pam.
Lily laughs, lowers the bottle and turns to Pete. ‘Not worth it, Peter Michael Painter,’ she says, putting the cap back on. ‘They would only get into a hissy fit and this is supposed to be my birthday party. When I leave home,’ she says, directing the words to her mother threateningly, ‘I can do what the F.U.C.K. I like.’
She puts the bottle back on the tray with the others.
‘Good girl,’ Myles says. ‘Now then…’
But he is cut short by Pam screeching across the room.
‘Lily!’
Lily had put down the whisky, but had very quickly picked up the gin and is now taking a big, long swig of it.
Drover smiles to himself. Good on you, he thinks.
The girl wipes her hand across her mouth and puts the bottle down. ‘What the fuck I want,’ she says, and then starts choking as she glares at her mother.
Pam, white in the face, growls and swigs her own drink.
Drover feels thirsty and he is tempted to go and take some whisky for himself. He is considering it when the girl starts saying something about going to fetch a book.
‘You know he keeps that in the den,’ Myles says, ‘and you know that is out of bounds.’
‘Grandpa won’t mind,’ Lily says, and she’s got this pleading tone to her voice. ‘Please, Myles, he always lets me look at it on our birthday.’
Myles throws a look to Pam who, after a moment’s consideration and after looking briefly at Drover, nods thoughtfully.
‘We might find the decorations as well,’ Lily says.
‘He keeps them in the attic,’ says Myles. ‘But they are very old now, do you really want them?’
‘We could look. Then we could do the room as he likes it, surprise him when he gets back.’
Lily is suddenly the picture of innocent excitement and looks younger than her eighteen years. As she smiles, her metal brace glints in the lamplight.
Drover is aware that Pam has her eyes fixed on him. What should he be saying now, he wonders. What would she expect a volunteer to do now?
‘You should go help them look, Pete,’ he says. ‘We should make ourselves useful if we want our time sheets signed, yeah?’
Pete is looking blankly at him. Drover raises his eyebrows and smiles, pointedly. The plan was for Pete to make up a story and get them out of the room so Drover could move the body. This is a perfect chance.
‘Help out with carrying something, Pete, yeah?’
‘O-kay,’ Pete says, very slowly. Drover hopes he has understood.
‘Sure, we could all go,’ Drover adds and then realises that it was a suggestion too far. It sounded false.
‘No,’ says Pam. ‘You remain here and wait with me. Myles, take Lily to see if you can find that book. It might have something of interest in it that we have overlooked.’
That statement was loaded with another meaning, Drover thinks.
‘The retard can go with you…’
‘Hey, missus!’ Drover leaps right in, his face taut, his blood up. ‘Don’t call him that. He’s not retarded.’
‘My, you are protective,’ Pam grins back at him. She’s playing him, winding him up.
‘No-one calls him that.’
‘Something special to you, is he?’ she scoffs.
She’s testing you, Drover thinks. She’s acting like a bitch to try and get you to lose your cool. She’s nearly done it too. Keep it calm.
‘He is my friend,’ he says with measured words. ‘And that’s all you need to know.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Pete chips in. ‘I get used to names, missus. I know I’m not clever, but I did get a badge for swimming. And my teacher said I was good at telling stories. I got imagination.’
‘Yeah, okay, Pete, not now,’ says Drover. ‘This book you wanted?’ He turns to Lily.
‘Come on, Pete,’ Lily says, and grabs Pete by the hand. ‘You and I can go and look upstairs. And you can tell me a story if you like.’
Jesus, Drover thinks, there’s something behind those words too. He nearly laughs as he sees Pete’s face: delighted confusion. A girl is holding his hand.
Pete looks across at Drover, not knowing what to do, and Drover gives him a matey grin in return. Lily starts to pull him from the room.
‘Will you come as well, please?’ Pete asks Pam, but she shakes her head quickly.
‘Myles,’ she snaps. ‘Go and keep an eye on them. Find the bloody decorations and bring them back. And leave everything else alone.’
That was said so slowly and clearly it was obviously meant to warn Myles away from something, but it’s had the opposite effect. Myles’ eyes light up and his face brightens like he’s just had a dangerously naughty idea. Drover wonders what it is that Myles might want to find upstairs.
But he doesn’t have time to wonder for long. Lily, Pete, and Myles have left the room. Now he just needs to get Pam away, and quickly, so he can shift that damn body. He wonders, do bodies leak after death? Will the old man’s muscles suddenly relax and let go anything that’s inside, like piss or worse? Any moment now there could be a nasty noise from under the sofa, followed by a stench.
‘So,’ Pam is saying, and her tetchy voice snaps him back to the here and now. ‘Where do I know you from?’
Drover holds the back of an armchair and tries to stare her out. Bluff it, he thinks, and get her out of this room.
‘There’s a lot of good looking boys in the neighbourhood lady,’ he says
, playfully, with a heavy hint of his best Irish accent. She’s not playing ball.
‘I’ve definitely seen you before,’ she says, sipping her drink. ‘And I am confident that it was not under any pleasant circumstance.’
He opens his hands in submission. ‘No idea, then,’ he says. ‘Should we go and give them a hand?’ He can hear footsteps overhead, and the sound of an attic ladder descending.
‘No,’ she says. ‘What was the name of this scheme you said you were on?’
‘Community volunteers.’ He comes back quickly. ‘Like the volunteers overseas thing but more local.’
‘And they placed you here today did they?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You are sure about that?’
‘Yes.’
‘No one else sent you?’
‘Like who?’
‘You tell me.’
‘The social told us to come and help the old man out. We did.’
‘And you can’t now return home because...?’
‘We need him to sign our sheets or else they’ll think we skived off.’
‘You need William to do that?’
‘Yes, missus, we need him.’
‘And he didn’t do them before he went out because...?’
‘...’cos we hadn’t finished the work by then.’
‘But you have now?’
‘Yes.’
‘So where are they?’
‘What?’
‘The time sheets? I could sign them.’
‘Got to be him.’
‘Only him?’
What is she on, Drover thinks. This is like a cat and a rat playing table tennis for who gets to eat whom first.
‘Where are they?’
‘What?’
‘The time sheets?’
‘I think Pete has them,’ he says.
‘Ah, yes, the… other boy.’
‘Yeah, he’s got them. So, it’s getting late. Do you really want to wait around?’
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