Trestle

Chapter 3 - Knock Out

Chapter 3
Friday 5th July, 2024
Dalton Hill Auto Repairs, Crockenhill, London

Angel parks his RS5 in front of the garage on Dalton Hill; it's been standing here for as long as he can remember and is probably just as ugly as the day Norris Woods and his wife Nancy became the proud tenants of the flat attached, back in 1978. The entire building used to be white, but years of engine soot and wheel-spun muck has taken its toll - anything still white in this town is only white because it's been scrubbed clean of damning evidence.

He gets out of the car and throws his wooden Fab lolly stick to the ground, thinking the beige adds colour to the place.
The front door is closed, and the blind has been pulled down on the other side of the glass. Angel knocks once and removes his cap. His brown hair is borderline-black around his neckline from sweating in the early July heat, and the contrast only makes his few silver hairs stand out even more.

When no one immediately comes to the door, Angel scratches his eyebrow in dismay and retreats down the path, but then makes his way to the back of the property – he has no intentions of leaving.
Angel: Will this month's excuse be different to the last?
Regardless, he doesn't take well to people in this town who like to take an inch when given a mile; he has big boots to fill since his dad died, and isn't going to let anyone turn his inheritance into a mickey-mouse business.

That 'Friday feeling' is slowly slipping away, and Angel has spent all of today's patience at the ice-cream van. He sets his cap down on a stack of Goodyear tyres and takes a deep breath. On the exhale, he lifts his right foot and kicks just below the handle of a rotting back door. The door collapses in a heap inside the hallway.

Angel makes his way into a cramped living room where Gus has passed out in a Sherlock chair, cradling an empty bottle of Cinzano. Though not quite the introduction he was expecting, it was about time Angel met the Martucci's who had bunked up with the lonely widower, Norris, six months back.
Angel: This lump looks nothing like a vintage-car mechanic, Norris, you fucking liar.
Angel replays the conversation he witnessed between his father and Norris after Nancy died last year - Norris promised Bill that Gus would bring in enough money to substitute Nancy's half of the rent, but Angel isn't convinced that Norris is keeping his promise.
Angel: This scruffy twat looks every inch the bum he smells like.

The crotch of Gus' grey trousers is black and piss has puddled between his thighs – Angel imagines his father would have leathered this man just for the sport of it, but it would take weeks for Zola to wash the stench out of his clothes. However, somewhere amongst the spice and stale urine, Angel can smell something sweet, almost like pear. It's a soft scent, like the smell of freshly washed, air-dried hair, but it has a milky undertone and certainly doesn't have any business lingering in a nasty establishment like this.

Angel hears a chair scrape across a wooden floor and walks into the room adjacent, where Norris is crouching behind a kitchen table, hiding in fear; he knows it's time to pay the piper, but what's the price?
Angel: Norris, my old mucker.
Angel grabs him by the collar of his shirt and drags him back through the living room, over the collapsed door and onto the dusty floor outside. Norris is trying to get to his feet and shouting for mercy at the hands of Angel who kicks dirt at his face, sending him onto his back. The old man rolls onto his stomach and winces in pain, as a speckled German Pointer dog bounds over to give sympathetic sniffs and whimpers. Angel takes out his handgun and aims it directly at the mut.

An unfamiliar woman's voice cries out for 'Scooch' in objection, and Angel looks over his shoulder to see which lady doth protest. She is olive-skinned with shoulder-length black hair and Nordic-blue eyes. She hurls past him to defend the animal.
Angel: Ah, there's that banging whiff of milk and pear again.
She stands valiantly between the gun and the dog.
Angel: Valiantly, or stupidly?