Scrap 81

SCRAP 81
Frank’s overnight encounter with the Old Bill has left him rattled and he leaves the Police station feeling unusually nervous. He knows they have no evidence against him but they clearly are out to pin something on him this time and he will have to be extra careful not to let his guard slip.
He shivers in the cold damp morning air as he turns the key to unlock the Dormobile camper he bought only yesterday. It’s too early to go round Scotty’s so he heads for the seafront, parks up and watches the sunrise before it disappears behind a bank of grey rain cloud. He makes a cup of tea and eats a whole packet of custard creams with it. This lifts his spirits somewhat and he stretches out on the bed hoping to get an hour’s shut-eye.
Four hours later he is awoken by the sound of clanking and loud voices coming from the nearby catamaran compound. He sits up and rubs his face, clears the condensation from a window with his shirt sleeve and peers out. The once deserted foreshore is now alive with day-trippers. He checks his watch and wonders if Scotty will still be at home at eleven o’clock. He hopes that Dawn will have gone Saturday shopping with her mother and the girls as usual, giving him the opportunity of installing the Dormobile before she gets back.
As he pulls into Coronation Road he sees that Scotty’s car is parked outside the driveway and parks behind it. Scotty is waiting for him in the garden, pulling up weeds from the flower border. As he straightens up he reveals a swollen black eye, which is almost closed. ‘Wow, what happened to you?’ Asks Frank, studying the damage. ‘Dawn happened,’ says his pal, leading the way into the kitchen. ‘She wanted to know why I was so late back and when I told her she went mental. Threw the iron at me and it hit home right there.’ He points to the obvious site of impact as he takes two cans of beer from the fridge. They each take a long draught before stepping back into the garden.
‘I got as far as the customs shed in Dover and I must have been looking a bit shifty because they pulled me in and took the load apart. I tell you I was shitting myself knowing what was on the trailer but they didn’t find anything. Nobody was more surprised than me when they loaded all the pallets back on and sent me on my way but by this time I must have sweated a bucket or more because my face was as white as a sheet. I don’t know how I managed to make it back to Paddock Wood. Then Merck’s bloke has the cheek to complain about me being late and his men waiting five hours for me to show up. I told him this is the last run I do for his boss and I mean it. It’s not worth the carrot; wonder I didn’t die of heart failure. Well Dawn has gone off like a bomb, shouting and screaming and throwing things. If the kids hadn’t been here I think she would have finished me off. That’s the finish though, I’m never going on one of those runs again, I don’t care how much it pays.’
Frank resists the urge to say ‘I told you so,’ instead leaving a polite silence before changing the subject. ‘What did she say about me parking the Dormobile here?’ Scotty gives him a look which says that he hasn’t dared mention this issue. ‘We can’t park it on the drive because the neighbours will tell the council and have it shifted,’ says Scotty. Frank has already thought of this. ‘Ah, but if we place it behind the hedge we can say it’s been there for years and we couldn’t move it without cutting the hedge down and they’d never agree to that.’
Scotty looks confused, more than usually so when Frank suggests a plan. ‘Come and give us a hand with these doors,’ says Frank, leading him out to the Dormobile. They remove three old solid wood doors from the van and lay them against the six feet high privet hedge, at an angle. Frank leans his 20+ stone weight against them each in turn, starting the process of collapsing the hedge. When he deems it is at an acceptable angle he carefully backs the Dormobile across the footpath, over the doors and into the garden. He then removes the doors and the hedge slowly springs back into place.
Scotty laughs out loud, forgetting about his eye for a moment. ‘You crafty git; you can’t even see it from the road, but how will you get it out again? You can’t do that to the hedge too often or you’ll kill it.’ Frank explains that he had no intention of using the van, only for sleeping in. He still has his car and trailer and he still has the lock-up. ‘And that’s where we’re going next,’ he adds, ‘So finish that beer and get your car keys.’