Ugly Puggly 37

I went home for a few days. Not home, home, just to see Molly, my wife, or ex-wife, but it was really to get away from them. Dave wasn’t sure if somebody had seen us burying the body. His nervousness made Ugly Puggly ratty. He claimed it was Murdo, waiting to see if he’d resumed his shit war on him, by shitting in his garden again and hanging his shitty knickers a tree to mark his territory. I wasn’t much better, spending much of the time drunk, or getting drunk. Molly said I come back and visit when I was sober, but I said I was see her in hell first. I think she’d a boyfriend which made me worse, almost as paranoid as Ugly Puggly. But he’d an excuse, as he kept telling us, because he was insane.

It was a gloomy April where it rained every day, and we were cooped up together inside. Ugly Puggly took to his scrap paper and endless logarithms and calculations which he checked and re-checked, producing more scraps of paper. He no longer cooked, and I could see he’d lost faith in producing a roof tile that was fit for purpose, whatever that purpose was, only he knew, and increasingly, he didn’t know.

He would materialise in my room late at night, with an update, and snatch of gloomy news. ‘Can you believe it?’ he asked.

‘Fuck off,’ I shouted, pulling the pillow over my head. ‘You’re daeing my box in.’

He wasn’t sleeping, which made it worse. I could hear him wandering up and down the stairs at all hours. The click of the backdoor. And I knew he was standing outside staring at the hole in the ground he’d filled in, with the grave beneath it. He hadn’t even started on the decking.

I was almost sober when I answered the door, unshaven, in my boxer shorts, with a can of beer in my hand.

‘Howard Lowther?’ asked the policewoman, flashing ID and eyeing me up and down to my bare feet. There was a raddled charm about her of a former beauty.

Her companion, a big drip of uniform on legs, made himself scarce and went down the lane to cover the back door.

Someone had grassed us. And the only one I could figure was Jeff. A murmur  at my back and Dave burst on the scene like a bouffant bomb.

‘Whit is it?’ he cried. And I thought he was going to make a run for it. I grabbed his arm ‘Whit have we supposed tae have done?’

The cop took a step backwards and glanced at the phone pinned to her tunic. ‘Are you Howard Lowther,’ she asked him.

I wondered if she was reaching for the pepper spray, but she’d raven black hair, a nice tan, with nice legs. She quickly regained lost ground. They’d have made good dance partners doing the cha-cha  

‘No,’ Dave cried. ‘I’m no. Whit um I supposed to have done? I know my rights.’

‘You’ve got the right to shut the fuck up,’ I told him I thought he’d protest and argue, but he did what I told him and stood with his lips pressed together like a five-year-old. ‘Here,’ I took a drink and handed him the empty can. ‘Go and stick this in the bin.’  

She moved her head to watch him going up the stair and into the kitchen. ‘I take it you’re not Mr Lowther?’ She asked who I was and if he was at home and what our relationship was.

I told her the truth, more or less. Mr Lowther was no longer here. That we were involved in an adulterous ménage a trois, but I wasn’t sure what that meant as I didn’t speak French.

‘I’m gettin better at fellatio,’ I reassured her. ‘But I’m still a virgin, if you know whit I mean?’ I raised my eyebrows and tried to wiggle them, but I thought that might have been overdoing it, even by my low standards.

‘Can I come in and have a look in the house for Mr Lowther?’ she asked.

‘Of course, you can,’ I smiled, when she stepped forward and I blocked her way. ‘If you have a warrant, or some legal document that allows you access. Otherwise I’m very sorry to say that you can’t.

‘Funny Cunt,’ she whispered. ‘I could make your life very miserable indeed.’

I held my hand over my mouth as I yawned. ‘Obviously, yeh don’t know me very well. That’s my ex-wife’s job. We both know there’s only two laws that really matter. One law for the rich. And the other law for yer poor.’ I shook my head. ‘And let me tell you noo, don’t let this handsome face deceive yeh. I’m filthy rich.’

‘Really?’ she eyeballed me.

Her partner wandered back down the lane and stood beside her like a hat stand.

‘Aye,’ I pointed. ‘See that van, I own that.’

They both turned their heads.

‘A council van,’ she said.

‘Aye, that’s how rich I’m ur. We’ve both got the same employer. I work for the same kinda people you work fer. We just wear different hats.’

The thin cop raised his arm and patted the top of his cap, as if to check.

She hissed, ‘I should take you in for waiting valuable police time.’

‘You should,’ I replied, grinning. ‘If yeh want tae wrestle me tae the ground. That hoose oer there’s got one of them modern motion cameras that pick up everythin you say or dae. When the glorious day of liberation comes, I’ll be unlockin the cell door and praising the Lord.’

‘Have a pleasant day,’ she replied, smiling. ‘And if you happen to see Mr Lowther, can you tell him that his psychiatrist at Golden Hill wants to see him. He’s still vulnerable and at risk, and we’re more than happy here to escort him to Gartnavel Hospital.’ She added, ‘Perhaps you would like to speak to a psychiatrist too?’

‘Love tae, I’ve always believed in the talkin cure. I’m mair than happy to entrust myself tae health-care professionals that don’t beat you up for a livin. You know whit they say about cops and social workers.’

She wandered away with the big drip of the cop at her back before I could tell them.

Dave came out of the kitchen, when I closed the door. ‘They away? Squeaky-bun time! I thought they hud us.’ He looked worried. ‘Has that hoose got a motion camera?

‘Don’t be so fuckin stupid. That’s McGrory’s hoose. It’s always squeaky-bum time for you and yer phone. You nearly gave the game away.’

‘Fuck off,’ he replied.

Ugly Puggly shuffled down the stairs clutching annotated bits of paper, a HB pencil behind his ear. ‘You two arguin, again?’  

Dave shrugged, ‘Nah, no really.’

Ugly Puggly squinted at me. ‘Who was that at the door?’

 ‘Naebody,’ I replied and glanced at Dave.

‘Naebody,’ said Dave.