Chapter 25
Wednesday 9th October, 2024
Dalton Hill Garage, Crockenhill
Her iPhone slides from left to right, skidding across the shabby, dirt-trodden car mat with every harsh turn, and although she's exhausted herself trying multiple times to contort her elbows, arms, and fingers, Maura cannot find the right angle – it's just no use; the only things she manages to grasp are clammy chunks of grass-tangled mud and the odd gravel chip.
She grits her teeth and puffs her cheeks, stretching her fingers out as far as her muscles will physically allow; she cannot reach it for the life of her, no matter how desperately she tries. Defeated, she gives up.
The car turns off to the right and purrs as it comes to a halt. Maura wipes her squinting blue eyes and blinks into the black.
Gus: Are you tired my love?
She jerks the hand brake up abruptly and takes her key out of the ignition before bending down to pick up her phone from the footwell.
Maura: Yeah. Let's get dinner cooked and we can both have an early night. I think tonight's open session exhausted us both, but I'm so glad I got to sit in on this session. You make me proud.
Gus: We are very fortunate to have this chance - it was lucky that Angel convinced Dr Tate to accept my late application to the trials. We are even luckier to have the programme funding it. I'm doing this for you and for your brother; you both need a powerful role model to look up to.
She nods, silently fearing that Kit's current role model, in the shape of a 'six-foot-four' savage in Scarosso's, is in fact a little bit too powerful - powerful enough to brainwash Kit into treasure hunting for pink cocaine and firing bullets at the bad man to defend the worst man.
Shaking the sour memory of Kit's conversation from her brain, she opens her car door, and then presses it closed behind her.
Instantly something smells off, because she can't smell anything at all.
There's no scent of warmed salted spam, which Norris always makes for his supper. And though Maura listens for a short moment, there's no COPD-induced, phlegmy cough rattling through the building, like normal, either.
Norris never works past daylight and yet a glowing light surrounds the back exit of the garage doors, framing the shutters with a warm yellow beam. Oddly, there's no music.
Maura: But Norris always plays the old radio?
Gus slams the passenger door shut and turns his shirt collar up against the chill.
Gus: My darling, it is, how the English say, 'very nippy'. Quickly, let's get inside.
Maura nods and smiles, and makes her way up the drive with Gus following her.
Maura: Norris?
She curiously ducks below the shutters, expecting to see him sliding around under the body of a Mazda, or scratching his head as he rummages through a bottomless pit of rusted flywheel shafts. But Norris isn't in the garage.
Maura: Weird.
She flicks the light switch off and crouches back underneath the doors, hitting the automated door switch - the shutter descends, meeting the ground with a clatter.
Gus: Maura please, you have the keys, my love. I'm freezing.
Maura fishes into her Jöttnar jacket pocket and fiddles amongst a half-eaten tube of polos, a snotty tissue and a trolley coin, before finding the loose door key. It's actually not her jacket - it belongs to Angel, and though she was considering cutting it up to use as polish cloths some days ago, she finds herself incapable of taking it off, no matter how much he's hurt her.
She turns the key in the lock and steps aside to let her father walk in first. He hobbles past her and she forces the door closed behind them - it still doesn't shut right after Angel split it's hinges, and takes her three attempts before she is successful. Maura makes a mental note to straighten out the joints once daylight breaks.
There's an almost-opened tin of spam and a can opener perched on the worktop alongside a small, tarnished frying pan. Maura checks the expiry date and cringes - it's a month out of date and means she's spending at least an hour cleaning and airing out the house bathroom tomorrow. Gus tells her he doesn't feel overly hungry but will make them both a simple cheese toastie in exchange for her making them drinks.
Maura: What would you like?
Gus: Screwdriver, hold the vodka.
Maura stifles a tired giggle and takes the Tropicana juice from the fridge.
Gus: Should I fry this for Norris in his absence?
Gus wiggles the tin of spam.
Maura replies with a shrug as she pours the juice, and tells her father she will go and ask Norris - after all, he can only be in one of the other four rooms in the house, right?
She puts the carton back in the fridge and takes her phone from her jacket pocket, punching in the start-up pin as she walks into the living room.
YOU ARE READING
Trestle
Mystery / Thriller**SMUT warning** Following the death of his racketeer father, Angel is left to manage the O'Hare family's rugged affairs. He vows to worship his girls and protect them from the threat of poverty, sin, and dangerous men like himself. But when debts c...
