Free Rottenhouse by Ian Dyer Page B

his expressionless face red with tears but
nothing else, out of his head. That picture he had of Stevie, as
the night wore on, mixed together with the image of the garage and
the red oil blood that seeped from under the door
    They leak. They bleed. They don’t stop
once they started.
    swirled around in his head. He couldn’t
get rid of it and he wanted to go back to the house, back to Lucy,
and then lay down and go to sleep.
    Memories of the nightmare that had
awoken him earlier were gone and he started to feel his body begin
to close down, preparing itself for a good night’s rest. It was as
if he was now a computer, put into shutdown mode at the end of a
long day, and his internal system was updating its files with the
day’s happenings and they were flashing before his eyes prior to
going black. Simon put on his light jacket as he walked through the
reception room and followed Mr Rowling out into the chilly night.
Clouds were obscuring the stars and the moon shone through them
leaving a pale cream gossamer painted over the sleepy village of
Rottenhouse. He had been through quite a series of events today.
Too many for one day. But maybe tomorrow would fare better. A fresh
day; a fresh start. Perhaps the weather would be fine and he could
take Lucy and his camera into the forest where they could be alone
for a few hours. He found he could always relax with his
camera.
    As the two men walked down the steps
and into the square Simons shutdown mode was interrupted as he saw
that Mr Rowling had put his hands into left jacket pocket and had
removed his car keys. He rattled them as if to wake some unseen
dwelling creature.
    ‘ You’re not driving,
are you?’
    Mr Rowling kept on
going and held out his keys and rattled them again. It was a motion
that said; of course I am you silly
southern tit. Why else would I have gotten them out?
    ‘ But you’re over the
limit.’
    ‘ Limit? What you mean,
limit?’
    ‘ Err, the drink
driving limit?’ Simon’s voice raised an octave or two as he
finished.
    The two men were now in the deep shadow
at the centre of the square. The only car left in the car park was
Mr Rowling’s and it loomed large in the distance; lit by the orange
street lamp.
    ‘ Nowt like that here,
Simon. Probably one of yer silly city ways ?’
    ‘ No, Mr Rowling, it’s
the law.’ And then to try and make him understand that Rottenhouse
isn’t a law unto itself, Simon added, ‘Everywhere, yaknow, the
law.’
    Mr Rowling reached his car, went round
to the driver’s side and placed his hands on the roof making sure
that the keys were well away from the paintwork. The glow of the
street lamp lit up his back as if it were on fire; the rest of him
was shrouded in a dark shadow. The shadow reminded Simon of the
stairs that led down into the basement in the Workings Mans Club.
Suddenly he wished he had never brought the subject up.
    ‘ Camon Simon, yer
talking silly now. There int no law that says a man can’t drink a
couple of drinks and drive home. What kind a world you think this
is, Nazi bloody Germany? And if there were a law like that, I would now about it,
don’t yathink?’
    Simon smiled, at first
thinking this was a joke but then remembering that this was Mr
Rowling we were dealing with here and he didn’t tell jokes, well
ones that Simon understood anyhow, no, Mr Rowling was a straight
man, a factual man who saw things in black and white, not magenta
or navy blue or orange or sunburst yellow. Maybe it was his
tiredness, or that his own String was tightening, but Simon couldn’t let this one
go.
    ‘ Mr Rowling,
seriously, it’s the law. You aren’t allowed to drink and drive.
It’s serious, like lose your license serious. People
die.’
    ‘ From a few drinks?
Camon Simon, really? You tellin me that people have died just
because a few pints were had? Don’t believe it.’
    ‘ What’s there not to
believe? It’s like a fact or whatever. You drive drunk and your
judgment and all that is off and