Page 74 of Blow Down (The Plumber's Mate)
“I suppose.” She was silent for a moment. “I didn’t just apologise to you so you’d come round and fix things. I do feel bad about what I said. I don’t think you’re a fraud. Lance has been explaining it to me. About how dowsing works.”
“Yeah? Get on all right with him, do you?”
“Oh, you know.”
Not really, love, but I didn’t tell her that. “Good how him and your stepmum managed to keep working together after the divorce, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, that was only ever a business thing. Their marriage, I mean.”
I wondered who’d told her that. And how come she believed it. Seriously, who gets married for business reasons these days, apart from Mafia bosses?
“Right, love, here’s the damage.” I handed over my scribbled-out invoice.
She made a face. “I haven’t got that much cash in the house. Do you take credit cards?”
“Sorry, no, but a cheque’s fine. Or bank transfer.”
“God, does anybody write cheques anymore? I’ll pay you online.” She peered at the small print at the bottom of the invoice, which is where I give details of my bank account, and fiddled with her phone for a couple of minutes. “Done. I can’t believe you don’t make everyone pay this way.”
I tried to imagine some of my more elderly customers trying to get their heads around a phone banking app. “Long as I get what I’m owed, I’m not fussy. Right, cheers, love, and call me if you get any more problems, yeah?”
“I will. And thank you for coming, after . . . Well. You know. Are you all right to see yourself out?” She gazed sadly at the pile of soggy towels. “I need to load the washing machine.”
“Think I can remember the way,” I told her, and left.
I dunno why I felt so twitchy, walking back to my van in the dark. Maybe it was just ’cos I wasn’t so used to the dark, what with autumn only just drawing in. I mean, I didn’t hear a thing. Seriously, not a whisper. Certainly not any footsteps coming up behind me. It was dead quiet out there in the sticks, although I could just hear the odd car going down the main road at the end of the drive.
The only thing that happened was—at least, as I thought at the time—a spiderweb brushed my face. So my hand jerked up to brush it away, in case the spider was still in residence, because with that many legs at their disposal, they can flippin’ well walk instead of hitching a lift on yours truly.
And then I forgot all about sodding spiders, because my hand was trapped against my face and someone was panting down my neck as they pulled a wire so tight around my throat it burned. My free hand flailed as I struggled. The bones of my tortured right hand dug into one side of my windpipe, a duller pain than the wire on the other side.
Christ. It was like I was giving a helping hand to my own strangler.
My face felt too large, my head too full. Some evil flying leprechaun was stabbing tiny knives into my eyes, and my vision went patchy-dark. There was the metallic taste of blood in my mouth. Shit, was this it? I struggled harder, my limbs wild. Christ, if I died now, Phil’d never forgive me. We hadn’t even made it to the altar. I staggered—back, I think?—and tried to hit the bastard behind me who was trying to ruin my wedding.
I wasn’t sure if I hit ’em or not—or if they hit me, or gave me a god-almighty shove—but all of a sudden, I was falling forward onto my hands and knees, gasping in precious air. God. I thought for a moment I was gonna chuck, but I managed to hold it in somehow.
Had there been footsteps? The sound of someone running away? I wasn’t sure—but when I staggered to my feet, there was nobody there. Either my attacker had done a runner, or that’d been one bloody big spider. That spun its webs out of tungsten carbide.
I made this weird sobbing noise that might’ve started out as a laugh, and fumbled my phone out of my pocket. Dropped it. Thought Fuck my life as I got back on my hands and knees and gathered phone, case, and battery and clicked them back together. Staggered to the nearest wall and sat on the ground with my back to it, ’cos if my attacker came back for another go, I wasn’t just dead meat, I’d been shrink-wrapped and put on special offer on the deli counter in Sainsbury’s.
Finally managed to hit dial on Phil’s number.
He picked up, thank God. “Tom?”
“Yeah.” It came out as a whisper. “Need you.”
“Where are you? Are you still at the Majors’ house?”
I could hear sounds in the background—he was on his way already. I closed my eyes.
“Tom!”
Right. Hadn’t told him where to come yet. “S’ry. Yeah.”
“Are you in danger?”
“D’no.”
