Turbulent Priests (Dan Starkey 3) by Bateman Read Free Book Online Page B

home,’ she cried.
    I went to her. The three of us nestled together. ‘It’ll be okay,’ I said, without a great deal of confidence.
    Little Stevie went to sleep on our double bed.
    We decided to clean the inside of the house beforeunpacking our belongings. There were cleaning materials under the sink. Once we got stuck in it didn’t take long to get the kitchen, then the bathroom, into shape. Then we took a break. We looked in on Stevie; he slept soundly. We brought some of our supplies in from the car. Trish made a cup of tea. I had a can of Diet Pepsi. It was warm, but it was still Diet Pepsi.
    ‘It’s not so bad, is it, love?’
    ‘Mmmmm,’ she said. Her eyes glazed over for a moment and she looked like she was drawing up a mental list of the things that were so bad. The noise of a car engine snapped her out of it. We peered out of the window. A Land-Rover was just pulling into the driveway. When it stopped a tall man in a pair of mud-spattered blue dungarees got out. He went round to the back of the vehicle, reached inside and pulled out a cot.
    ‘Brilliant!’ Patricia exclaimed and made for the door.

7
    ‘I’m very sorry,’ the big man said, ‘I didn’t think youse were coming until next week. I got the shock of my life when they told me in the shop you’d arrived.’
    He held the cot in two massive arms. I went to help him, but he shook his head. ‘Duncan Cairns,’ he said, wiggling a couple of fingers round the base of the cot. ‘I’m the school-teacher. I should have gotten this place ready ages ago . . . but you know how it is.’
    ‘Never worry,’ Patricia said, reaching out and tweaking his little finger. ‘It’s good of you to bring it.’
    Duncan smiled bashfully and manoeuvred the cot sideways through the front door. I thought it best not to join in the tweaking until I had figured out his sexual orientation.
    Patricia bustled in behind him. ‘It’s good of you to bring it,’ I mimicked behind her. ‘You’ve changed your tune.’
    ‘I’m only being polite,’ she whispered.
    ‘You could be polite to me,’ I said.
    ‘That’ll be the day,’ she hissed with enough venom to suggest a nodding acquaintance with the family Viperidae .
    I shrugged and followed them in. It’s funny how marriage vows give you a licence to be mean to your loved ones but polite to strangers. I have always believed and practised that it should be the other way about. Indeed, that I was within my rights to tell Duncan Bloody Cairns to stick his cot up his hole, as Oscar Wilde had once famously not said. But I held off. He had the flushed face and red-rimmed eyes of someone who might know where the beer was kept.
    Duncan set the cot down in the bedroom, then stood back and admired it for a moment. ‘It was mine when I was a kid,’ he said.
    ‘Aw,’ said Patricia.
    He looked at Little Stevie, sleeping soundly on the bed. ‘Now there’s a picture,’ he said.
    ‘Aye,’ said Patricia.
    I had done enough beating around the bush. I’d let him through my front door. I’d let him relax in his new surroundings and get to know us as friends. He’d crammed a lot into ten seconds. ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I’d offer you a drink, but there appears to be none on the island.’
    ‘Naw,’ he said with a slight shake of his head, ‘there’s not.’
    ‘How come?’ I asked. ‘I saw the pub’s shut on the way in.’
    Patricia tutted. ‘You’ve got drink on the brain, Dan,’ she scolded. ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Duncan?’
    ‘If it’s no trouble . . .’
    ‘No trouble at all.’
    She scooted off to the kitchen. ‘What’s with the lack of drink, then?’ I asked.
    ‘Aye, well, Old Jack McGettigan . . . he owned the pub . . . well, he kind of got religion and decided to close it down.’
    ‘That must have gone down well.’
    ‘Actually, it did, mostly. The Parish Council took a vote and decided to ban the stuff entirely.’
    ‘Jesus,’ I said.
    ‘Something like that.’
    He held my eyes