Transit van with the Oldcastle City Council logo on the side. The back doors were secured with welded metal straps and a big brass padlock: not taking any chances in Kingsmeath.
I climbed out and plipped the Merc’s locks. I wasn’t taking any chances either.
My place had always looked like every other shitty council house on the street – harled walls streaked with dirt, ancient single-glazing with wasp-eaten wooden frames, grass growing in the guttering, but now that all the windows were boarded up too it actually managed to lower the tone. In Kingsmeath.
The council had replaced the front door with a slab of solid chipboard. A wee man in orange overalls was nailing a notice to it. ‘WARNING: THESE PREMISES ARE CONSIDERED DANGEROUS AND UNFIT FOR HUMAN HABITATION. AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY.’ The sound of his hammer echoed around the street.
He bashed in the last nail, took a step back to admire his handiwork, then turned and squealed. ‘Fuck’s sake …’ A hand on his chest, breathing hard. ‘Scared the crap out of me.’
I flashed my warrant card. ‘I need in.’
‘Nah, sorry, mate – she’s all locked up till they can get a renovation crew down here. Besides: place is a shitehole, you don’t want in there, trust us.’ He picked up his toolkit and hobbled back to the van, unlocked the driver’s door and climbed inside. Wound down his window. ‘You can give the Housing Department a bell if you like, see if they’ll let you in?’
He gave me a smile, a wave, then gunned the engine and drove off.
Officious little prick.
The new front door was hefty, solid. Looked like a Yale deadbolt set into it.
I took two steps back then slammed my foot into the wood beside the lock. CRACK. The sound of squealing wood. One more for luck … BOOM, the whole thing burst inwards in a shower of splinters.
Gloom and darkness inside. They hadn’t just boarded up the windows around the front: they’d done the back too. I reached for the switch, flicked it on. Then off. Then on again. Nothing. They’d killed the power.
I pulled the torch from my pocket and swung the beam across the hallway.
‘Holy shite …’
Shifty Dave hadn’t been exaggerating. The whole place reeked of mould and damp, the wallpaper peeling off the grey plaster. The ceiling sagged like a pregnant cat’s stomach. Both doors off the hallway were hanging off their hinges.
I went through into the kitchen. The linoleum curled under my feet. Whoever it was had ripped the doors off the units, hauled out the drawers; cutlery and tins and jars lay amongst the debris of shrapnelled plates, glittering in the torchlight.
A big patch of the ceiling had caved in, the support beams for the floor above exposed like skeletal ribs, chunks of swollen plasterboard piled up in the sink.
Lounge: the sofa torn up, everything else trashed.
Upstairs, the bathroom was a disaster area – broken toilet, sink stuffed with towels, a pile of sodden clothes and blankets shoved to one side in the bath. Medicine cabinet looked as if it had exploded.
Bedroom: every drawer pulled out, wardrobe tipped over onto the bed, mattress slashed. All the paperbacks from the windowsill were bloated on the damp carpet. Clothes everywhere.
Spare room.
Fuck …
All the cardboard boxes were torn open, their contents strewn around the room. Everything Michelle had hurled out of the bedroom window when she found out about me and Jennifer – everything I hadn’t sold or pawned – was sodden and broken.
The carpet squelched as I bent down and picked up a little wooden plaque with a tiny gold-coloured truncheon mounted on it. Someone had stamped on it, breaking the plastic shape in two – the dirty imprint of the boot clearly visible on the wood.
There was no way this could have been Mr Pain. OK, maybe he could have hauled himself through the house smashing things, but it’s pretty difficult to stamp on something when you’ve only got one working leg. I dropped the plaque. It hit the soggy carpet sending up a little splash.
It was all ruined. All of it. Books, newspaper clippings – the announcement of Rebecca’s birth, the article on her when she won silver at the Oldcastle Highland Games when she was six, the little piece about Katie and some other kids appearing in the school panto … Nothing more than grimy papier-mâché.
The council were right: not fit for human habitation.
The fat man behind the counter smiled. White shirt fraying at the cuffs, maroon waistcoat stained with dollops of brown and red, small round glasses, comb-over greased flat across a wide shiny scalp. ‘Ah, Mr Henderson, and what brings you to my emporium of delight this fine day?’
Little Mike’s Pawn Shop smelled of dust and mildew, with a lingering undercurrent of stale cigar smoke. The walls were lined with shelves packed with other people’s possessions: everything from electric guitars to vacuum cleaners, with a line of washing machines and flat-screen TVs down the middle. The counter was glass-fronted, full of rings and watches that sparkled in the dim lighting.
An old-fashioned glory hole in both senses of the word: it was full of random crap, and you knew you were going to get screwed.
I dumped the Waitrose carrier-bag on the countertop. ‘How much?’
He shook his head. ‘And there was me thinking you’d come in to redeem one of your priceless family heirlooms.’
‘How much?’
A sigh. He reached into the bag and pulled out Ethan’s watches, rings, necklaces, and a couple of iPods. ‘Ah … Not your usual items, Mr Henderson …’ He wiped his chubby fingers on his waistcoat. ‘Tell me, how warm are these? Will one of your colleagues be paying me a visit in the not too distant future, miraculously find these items, and infer some wrongdoing on my part?’
‘They’re not hot. I just don’t need them any more.’
‘You don’t need a steel Rolex?’
‘How much?’
‘“How much”, “How much”, like a broken record.’ He pulled out a jeweller’s eyeglass and popped it in, scrunching his face around it as he peered at each item in turn.
‘Well?’
‘Patience is a virtue, Mr Henderson.’ More scrunching and peering.
I settled against the counter, looking down at the array of engagement rings. Big sparkly ones, little sparkly ones, all with a price tag attached. Probably came from Argos. All those hopes and dreams for the future, ruined and up for sale in a manky little shop in a manky little shopping centre, in manky old Kingsmeath.
Mike settled back in his creaky chair. ‘Two thousand.’
‘Four.’
‘Two.’
‘… Three and a half.’
‘Mr
