Rottenhouse (16 page)

In all the years that Simon had been
with Lucy she had never been one to shy away from the facts, no
matter how horrific they were. She almost revelled in them. Anytime
one of their friends hurt themselves she wants to know how it
happened, where it hurts and what it looks like, which was why he
was taken aback when she had thrown her guts up when she found the
body of Stevie. If ever she was told that she wasn’t allowed to see
anything or be told anything; be it gruesome, private or just plain
non-consequential, she dug deeper until whatever it was was known
to her. There was nothing he could hide from her, and when he tried
to keep things under the Lucy Radar; birthday presents, Christmas
presents, holidays, parties, that kind of thing, she had a way of
getting it out of him one way or another. So when Simon was about
to fight her corner Lucy said something he’d never thought he would
ever hear her say.

‘
I agree with Dad,
Simon. Best I don’t know.’

That shut him up and
Simon wanted to smash the glass over the head of Mr Rowling when he
saw that smug smile plastered across his face. For a brief moment
he imagined throwing himself across the table and grabbing Lucy by
the collar and shaking her violently
what
the hell are you saying, Luce! When have you ever let anything stop
you from knowing everything? Even if what you need to know matters
not a jot to you, you have to know. You have to dig and dig until
the nugget of information is pulled out of the poor sucker you have
latched onto.
There was something stopping
her being herself, he could see it in her expressions, the way she
sat, the way her eyes looked right through Simon and out into the
fields. She was
different.
Changing.

Changed, Simon. She has changed.
Reverting to how she was when she was a girl. Changed to suit the
environment.

Simon didn’t know what
to say, the words having been taken from him and he sat in silence,
his arms hanging down, his fingers being tickled by the long grass.
He looked at first to Mr Rowling, but he was back to fiddling with
the grass, and then to Lucy who was of no use to him. It was as if
she were two people now. Occasionally, like this morning out in the
valley, she had been Lucy – his Lucy – the one he had fallen in
love with. The same Lucy he had met in a pub, him wearing an old
pair of jeans and a black Pulp Fiction
t-shirt (the one with Uma Thurman on the front, her laying on
her belly looking right at you; all seductive with that straight
black hair and red lipstick; cigarette in one hand and a gun
nestled below her chest) whilst Lucy was wearing a short, figure
hugging red dress, she too with straight black hair and red
lipstick. She wasn’t smoking a cigarette nor did she have a gun
nestled below her chest but when he had seen her, standing out from
the crowd holding a glass of wine, he knew that she was going to be
the woman he was going to someday marry.

Simon now felt like a fifth wheel.
Whatever they had been talking about prior to his arrival seemed as
though it was not going to start up again. Among his friends Simon
had many things to talk about, even with Lucy, he found small talk
easy. But Lucy’s father made things hard. He was so obtuse and even
in silence he could still bring a conversation to a halt.

His phone vibrated again and for some
reason, like when you are in a library and you try and whisper to
your mate but instead you shout your mouth off with excitement, it
sounded louder than it should have.

Lucy looked up. ‘That your phone?’

‘
Kyle. He’s text me a
few times now he’s left a voicemail I think.’

Lucy shook her head. ‘Probably another
one of his stupid jokes. Guy is an idiot sometimes. Better check
though, just in case.’

‘
Suppose.’

Simon took out his phone and saw that
he was right; the voicemail icon was flashing and with Kyles being
the only missed call his detective work seemed sound. ‘Excuse me.’
Simon said, and he stood and walked down to the end of the garden
pressing and holding 1 on his phones keypad to quick dial
voicemail.

As he walked away he
heard Mr Rowling say, ‘What is
voice
mail,
Barbara?’ She then went on to
explain.

The computerised
womanly voice on the end of the phone asked which option he would
like to choose:
One for new messages Two
for old messages Three to record a new message greeting,
Simon choose option 1 and listened
intently.

3

Hey fucktard. Why you not return my
texts? Too good for me now that you is thinking of settling down?
Too good now that you have your own house and business? Anyway,
just been told by that prick Marcus that you is selling some of
your shite and that he’s got first dibs on the good stuff. Now come
on, Si. We’re best buds. If you is selling up bits to pay for the
wedding or whatever then A – tell little Miss Red Dress to calm the
truck down and B – let me see it first, especially your guitars
man. Come on buddy, really, Marcus first? Weddings can be pricey
things Si-baby and I know Red Dress has you wrapped around her left
tit. I aint proud of this but man you have some good stuff, so,
before that lard arse gets there, I want that Red Rock Rose Ibanez,
I want the valve amp and a few of the pedals – especially that
phase shifter; I love that bad boy. If your selling everything then
I definitely want that R2D2 projector man, that is the most awesome
thing I have ever seen and I need it in my life. You know I is good
for the money. Marcus, he don’t appreciate the finer things in
life. Anyway. Have a nice time away. Don’t crap yer pants when you
ask old man Rowling for her hand. I’m sure he won’t axe you to
death when you ask him. But then again, it is a bit red neck up
there. I’ve seen American Werewolf, Slaughtered Lamb, or whatever
that pub is called. Speak to you later. Don’t go on the moors alone
fucktard.

Then the line went dead.

4

Simon hadn’t noticed that he had been
listening to the call with his head up against the rough timber of
the shed at the end of the garden. He put the phone into his pocket
without looking, almost dropping it onto the grass. His head was
spinning a little but not as much as it had prior to him being sick
earlier. Simon had that gut wrenching feeling you get when you go
over a bridge at speed or when you know something bad could have
just happened and you narrowly avoid it. Kyle was a prankster,
since the day Simon had met him Kyle loved playing a joke; a jolly
jape, a harmless bit of tom-foolery. Occasionally they went too
far, like when Kyle had encased a friend’s car in cellophane, or
when he organised for a For Sale sign to be put up outside a
neighbour’s house, or when he put glue on a toilet seat, or
pretends to be dead. You name it; he has done it.

‘
Everything okay,
Si?’

Simon pushed himself from the shed, his
forehead a little red from the harshness of the bare timber and he
looked at Lucy. ‘Err, yeah. Fine. Just Kyle with one of his stupid
jokes I guess.’

Lucy shook her head and rolled her
eyes. ‘What’s he trying to pull now?’ She then turned to her dad
and continued, ‘Kyle, he’s one of Simon’s old college mates. Loves
to play practical jokes, but I don’t see the funny side most of the
time. Gets annoying after a while.’

Mr Rowling drank the rest of his
lemonade and placed his glass back onto the table. The little birds
were tweeting again and from the garden opposite a small black cat
hopped onto the wooden fence and began walking across it; its tail
flowing from side to side to keep balance. Mr Rowling clicked his
fingers and the cat immediately jumped down and made its way to
him. Even the animal world is at his beck and call.

‘
Well, what is he up
to now?’

‘
We’re selling up.
That you contacted Marcus and offered to sell him all my stuff.
Something about we needed the money, desperate to keep the business
afloat to get as much money together as possible.’ Simon shook his
head. ‘Guy is off his trolley.’

Lucy didn’t reply straight away, from a
distance Simon couldn’t tell if that digital egg timer was ticking
away behind her eyes or not, so he guessed that it was, which made
him more suspicious than he thought he should have been. She kept
her eyes on Simon as he sat back down at the table and he poured
himself another glass of lemonade. He thought it was odd of her,
usually she loves a bit of Kyle bashing, but surely he wasn’t
right. Was he? Could Lucy be selling up his stuff without even
speaking to him, unlikely, but so had it been unlikely that Simon
would have witnessed a man hacking apart another man this week.
Simon was starting to realise that, in this place, anything was
possible.

‘
He’s not right, is
he?’ Simon had lowered his voice to barely a whisper in a vain
attempt to keep it from Mr Rowling, but it was no good, and he saw
from the corner of his eye that the old man, though still stroking
the cat with one hand hanging down from his chair, had looked up
and was waiting for the situation to evolve.

‘
Of course not. Don’t
let him get to you.’ Said with an authoritative stance but there
was something underlying in her tone, her mannerisms and it didn’t
sit well with Simon. Like the look she gave him yesterday in the
kitchen, or like she had been after that bullshit attempt at sex
last night, she was different. But he had to be careful here, he
couldn’t mention the wedding. But at the same time he had to know.
Simon’s old adage sprung to mind and he repeated it a few
times

Go with the flow, Simon

Go with the flow, Simon

Just go with the sodding flow. Simon.
Simon.

‘
SIMON.’ Lucy yelled
pulling him out of the fugue.

‘
Yeah,
sorry…What?’

She was looking at him with black
insect eyes and Simon turned to see Mr Rowling waiting for
something. But what?

‘
If yaneed money,
Simon, if business is bad, like I hear things are down in the
cities, then don’t think I can’t help.’ Mr Rowling lifted the cat
onto his lap looking ever more the like the Bond
villain Simon was beginning to think he
was.

‘
Dad, no, it’s not
like that.’

‘
Yeah, Mr Rowling
thanks, but really, business is great. Never been so good despite,
like you said, the rest of the UK struggling. Kyle is just trying
to stir things up, is all. Appreciate the gesture but we’re
fine.’

‘
Yeah, dad, Simons
right. We’re good. Really good.’

Mr Rowling continued to stroke the cat.
‘Family is an important thing, Simon. Thought I’d lost mine, but
sat just there is a woman I thought I would never see again.’ He
lent forward and let the cat jump down onto the floor. He
unconsciously rubbed down his trousers to get the fur and fluff off
and licked his lips prior to commencing. Simon noted that the
birds, the crickets, even the stream had fallen silent; waiting for
the old fella to continue. ‘She tells me yagood man, Simon, honest,
trustworthy and the like. I have no reason to doubt that. You’ve
seen some things that don’t sit well, I get that, but that don’t
mean to say they aint right, that don’t mean to say we aint got
reasons for doing what we do.

‘
I saw ya face last
night when I told ya we don’t do with police and the like here. You
looked as if you’ve just picked up the finest goose in the market
only to find out it were a rabbit dressed in feathers. We had
police, when I was a boy we had two local fellas who watched over
us. But they weren’t good men Simon. They were bad men. That the
opposite of good. They did things to kids, Simon. Not nice things.
Bad things. So we got together, a few of us, and put an end to
it.

‘
For good, Simon, and
by that I mean we killed em.’

He leant back and wiped the sweat from
his brow with a white hanky that he had retrieved from his back
pocket.

‘
I’m not sure what you
want me to do with that, Mr Rowling. If it’s an acknowledgment of
that and my approval then that is something I cannot give. What
happened last night with Stevie and then today, it seems barbaric.
I can hardly believe it all happened and yet I was the one that saw
it.’

‘
Such a shame. His
mother must be in bits.’ Lucy added but Simon didn’t dwell on her
words and by the looks of it neither did her father as he took up
the conversation again:

‘
We will find out who
did it, Simon. He got what was coming to him last night, might
seem
odd
to you,
that, but like I said and will go on saying; is that we do it
different up here. That said, his death want right, and we shall
find out who did it and bring him to justice.

‘
Rottenhouse justice.’
He added as an afterthought and now that he had stopped the birds
started singing to the soft beat of the crickets and in the
background the stream seemed to flow once more.

5

Mr Rowling left the couple alone at the
table and headed inside.

Simon took a deep breath and let it out
in one long sigh. Lucy poured herself half a glass and held it to
her forehead. It made Simon notice that it had gotten hotter in the
garden. The sun had started its descent and would soon fall behind
the valley wall that he and Lucy had climbed that morning. All of a
sudden he felt dirty. Not just hot and sweaty, but dirty like he
had just ran a half marathon through mud and grit and was made to
stand in front of a wind machine just for good measure.