Little Boy Blue

62

He hammered on the door with his stick, but there was no response from inside. What was it with these people? Did they think that paying rent was optional?

Cursing, Gary Lushington looked down at the little book in his hand. There it was in black and white – rent arrears going back over three months. Paine had been a good tenant at first – if you ignored what he got up to for a living – but he’d been evasive and moody of late, which made Gary nervous. That type of behaviour usually meant only one thing – him ending up out of pocket. And that wasn’t something he was prepared to allow.

Muttering, he leant against the door and, pulling the key chain from his pocket, began to search for his duplicate set. As he did so, he became aware of a very strange sensation. His back felt warm against the door – no, more than that, it felt hot. Gary pulled away quickly, turning to face the doorway.

And now he became aware that this corridor was markedly hotter than the couple he’d already visited on his rounds. He’d assumed his clamminess was the result of all those stairs – they were harder for him now he had to use a stick to get about – but now he realized that the heat he felt was emanating from within the flat. What the bloody hell was Paine thinking? It was a nice autumnal morning, for God’s sake – there was no need to have the heating on full blast.

Suddenly Gary was seized by a nasty thought. Perhaps Paine had gone away, leaving the heating on. He might even have done a bunk, leaving his landlord with a hefty heating bill as a final fuck you.

Pushing the key firmly into the lock, Gary turned it hard and pushed the door open. Calling Paine’s name angrily, he stepped forward, but almost immediately found himself stumbling backwards again. Crashing into the wall opposite, he remained rooted to the spot, momentarily stunned into silence. The temperature within the flat was overwhelming and a wave of choking heat now flooded out, crawling over the shocked landlord and escaping down the corridor beyond. But it wasn’t this that rendered Gary Lushington speechless, nor even the sight of a figure hanging from the ceiling. No, what really stopped him in his tracks this morning was the smell.