Free Haunt Dead Wrong by Curtis Jobling Page A

disappeared into the shower, cleaning himself up after a hot, humid and slightly harrowing day. The encounter with Ruby Hershey had left us both emotionally
bruised. We hadn’t expected the old lady’s words to be quite so touching, her tale of lost love so tragic. It had only served to remind Dougie of how important Lucy was to him.
He’d called her, telling her not to make plans for the evening. And so we found ourselves at Casa Hancock, my friend preparing for a hastily arranged date as I killed time at the top of the
stairs.
    I heard Dougie’s dad downstairs, re-entering the kitchen from the garage, the creaking door revealing his location. I drifted downstairs, still in easy reach of my friend but free to
wander the house. The bottles clinked against one another as Mr Hancock heeled the garage door closed. More clinking as he fumbled with the key, locking the garage behind him. I watched as he
pocketed the key into his crumpled corduroy pants before shuffling back into the lounge. Just how much stinking booze did he keep in there? I phased through the locked garage door to find out.
    An Aladdin’s cave of junk materialised as I stepped through the barrier. A sliver of light marked the main garage door, the sun’s setting rays cutting through the dusty atmosphere
like a laser beam. Shelves crowded the walls, overloaded with all manner of paraphernalia. Half-used tins of paint were piled atop one another, jam-jars full of washers and boxes of broken timber
loaded up around them. An old bed frame stood on its end along one wall, dust sheets trailing from it like hanging moss. A collection of mops, brushes, garden forks and spades made for an unusual
sculpture to the side of the door, threatening to topple over with the slightest jostle. Mr Hancock’s old Bentley took up the lion’s share of the garage, his pride and joy at rest in
its lair.
    ‘And there’s the poison.’
    The crates were stacked, bottles of ale that would keep Mr Hancock in a half-cut state for the foreseeable future. He had no intention to quit the demon; its claws were in deep. Was Dougie aware
of how much booze there was down there? Grocery deliveries came in the daytime, when Dougie was at school, and the garage was the sole domain of Mr Hancock. He guarded that key like it was the One
Ring, never letting it out of his sight. Such was his shame for the arsenal of alcohol he kept in the garage.
    It was so sad to see how far Mr Hancock had fallen. When I was little, he’d often looked after me, arranging play dates for Dougie and me while my folks were at work. He was like an uncle,
entertaining us for hours on end during those holidays. That was the luxury of being self-employed, only driving when he had to, when clients demanded it. The Bentley always featured in those
childhood memories, Dougie and I sat in the back as we travelled in style to the coast or through the Peaks and Dales, windows down. It was such a shame that it now sat in this darkened tomb,
gathering dust.
    I passed through the Bentley from its rear – metal, wood and upholstery providing no obstacle – before settling into the driver’s seat. I was instantly transported back to
those road trips. Dougie had lost his mother when he was little, Mr Hancock acting as Dad
and
Mum to his son, providing everything a growing boy needed. Two boys were stashed in the back and
the picnic basket would drive up front beside Mr Hancock.
Queen’s Greatest Hits
would invariably be playing on the old cassette machine, Freddie and the gang accompanying us on each
adventure. We knew those old songs off by heart, father, son and friend singing in not-terribly-perfect harmony as we toured the north together.
    I let my hand roll over the steering wheel, imagining its feel, fingertips lingering over the old stereo. A crack in the windscreen rode up the driver’s side from the dashboard, no doubt
reparable. The walnut dash was coated with grime, long forgotten and ignored. What