The Bungalow-1

Chapter 1

“Your two ash trees. They’re very close to the wall. Thought maybe you’d like me to sort them out, like…”

Hawke didn’t reply. He just let the guy stand there, shuffling, putting the weight on one foot, then the other. In his late thirties, possibly early forties. Brown-green T-shirt, faded blue jeans with rips in them, but not the fashionable sort. Squat, brownish hair, blue eyes, built like the proverbial brick shithouse. A good guy to have on your side in a bar-room brawl, only he probably wouldn’t be; much more likely to be the opposition, along with half a dozen of his mates from the caravan camp. Hawke hadn’t said a word since answering the door of his bungalow. He leaned back slightly against the wall of the porch. The clatter and chunter of a tractor and plough wafted across the field behind the building. “I said, like, your two trees…”

“Yes, I heard you!” For a hefty guy, Hawke’s voice was strangely reedy, nasal, a Northern twang overlaid by decades of living in the South.

“No, I don’t need them doing. Sentimental value; my brother-in-law planted them. OK?” He levered himself off the wall and moved to shut the door. “If you wanted, we wouldn’t chop dem down completely, we could manage the growth for you, like…”

“Manage their growth? You Mother Nature all of a sudden?” Hawke tilted his head downwards, fixing his gaze on a spot on the man’s forehead. “Oh, sure, we can pollard them, cut dem back…”
“Pollarding won’t stop the roots from growing. Pointless. We done here?”

“I was wondering, is Next Door in? That big old laurel …”

“Now you leave her alone! She doesn’t need anything doing to her bush…least of all by you!” He was protective about Auntie Hilda, as he and all the other neighbours called her, an active, sprightly 80-year-old, still had all her marbles, still went to all the parties in the isolated row of bungalows, provided someone saw her back to her door on account of her night-blindness.

“It’d just be to give her a quote, like. No obligation…”

“I said, you leave her alone! Be off with you!” The phrase, as he uttered it, sounded curiously archaic, the sort of thing an Edwardian gamekeeper might say to a poacher.

“It’s a free country. You’ve no roight to tell me…”

Without taking his eyes off the man, Hawke reached down behind him and, with his left hand, snapped the catch off the antique wooden whisky box on the table behind the door. Blindly, he fumbled inside and his right hand found the old compact semi-automatic pistol – the one he’d picked it up when he was doing that security detail in Iraq. He disengaged the safety with his left. It made a faint, barely audible click, not like in the movies. Hawke cleared his throat, moved his head down to the scuffed black muzzle poking out from his cardigan. The man looked confused, rather than scared; not in the script, beyond his comprehension. “Now, you don’t want…to be…to be doin’ anything loike dat, Mister…”, his County Meath accent suddenly thicker. “Oill just be…be on my way, loike…”

“You do just that! You just do exactly that.” Hawke advanced a pace towards the man, , keeping just an inch of muzzle visible. The man took a couple of backward paces, then turned ninety degrees, making a crablike progress down the garden path towards the gate, his gaze fixed on the muzzle, as if to lose sight of it would cause Hawke to open fire. His left foot caught the gate, which he’d left ajar; he nearly overbalanced into the road. He grabbed the top of the gate with one hand and squeezed through the gap, continuing his sideways shuffle towards the rust-streak panel van, A3 Tree Surgeons 0777865148. Not taking his eyes off the muzzle, he pulled keys out his pocket; the door opener bleeped and he scrambled into the driver’s seat, simultaneously jabbing the key into the ignition. The engine coughed into life and the van kangarooed down Hilltop Lane. Hawke aimed a kick at the right rear door; it made a loud metallic boom: “SOD OFF, PIKEY! DON’T LET ME SEE YOU UP HERE AGAIN! EVER!”

The net curtain at 68A was pulled back a couple of inches, then flipped back again. Hawke turned back into his garden and strode up the path, slamming the door of number 70A Hilltop Lane behind him was a bang that echoed across the valley.

Continued in Chapter 2: The Bungalow-2 | ABCtales