Give The Devil His Due Read Online Free Page A

BIG, hence the nickname Peachy. At least it was better than being called ‘Tea-cosy’ – the other nickname he’d had as a youth.
           ‘How was the train ride?’
           ‘Train was packed. I had to stand until Swindon.’
           ‘You should stop being such a cheap bastard and buy a first-class ticket then,’ Phil quipped.
           ‘Fuck off.’
           ‘Nice to see you too Peachy,’ replied Phil.
           ‘Nice to see you? It’s customary for the host to welcome the guest warmly and inform him of the sleeping arrangements.’
           ‘You're in the back room downstairs Peach. There's an airbed in there but you'll have to blow it up yourself. Bog's straight up the stairs directly in front of you, cans are in the fridge. Any other questions?’
           ‘Yeah, what's for dinner?’
           ‘We'll sort that out later. Probably a sit-down Indian.’
           ‘Fair enough.’
           With that, Trev disappeared inside, only to return minutes later, Hawaiian shirt and shorts on, can in hand. He looked like he'd just arrived on the first day of his holidays. I could see it was going to be one of those evenings.
           ‘So fill us in then. What've you been doing with yourself?’ I asked.
           ‘Where shall I start?’
           ‘Why not begin at the beginning?’ Jesus, I was turning into Lewis Carroll! Trev did begin at the beginning. He gave us the whole lot, from university to lawyer, to a kibbutz, then political journalism, BBC researcher, assistant records manager at the Central Criminal Court and his current post – which he'd held for the last three years: senior archivist at the British Archives, Kensington. Throw in a couple of Dawn French look-alikes along the way. One he had been engaged to – but the relationship went sour when she lost weight for the wedding, so he lost interest. I reckon there was enough material there for a major new series on Channel 4. It seems I hadn't done it all; Peachy had.
           He'd even brought along three photo albums to substantiate all this, just in case we didn't believe him. Both Phil and I were laughing at one of his holiday snaps, when the hound-from-hell announced Neil's arrival. Same routine; the slow opening of the gate followed by accommodation instructions and drink location.
           Unlike Trev, Neil had changed. He looked tired and quite gaunt. He was going to have a quick shower to freshen up before joining us outside.
           I said to Phil, ‘Must have had a heavy one last night.’ He was showing his age a little more, but you could see he would scrub up well. He still had a bit of panache about him. Like Peach, he gave us the low-down on what he'd been doing over the last few years. Repping, redundancy and acrimonious divorce. Then he dropped a bombshell.
           ‘I've been inside too.’ I looked at Phil; Phil looked at me. Trev just looked … well, sort of vacant.
           ‘Inside?’ Phil asked.
           ‘Yeah, prison.’
           These were uncharted waters we were venturing into. Neil continued. ‘It was all to do with the break-up. I became very depressed, and got done for drink-driving. It was the next day at the station, after the cops had pulled me the night before, that I found out she'd stopped the insurance direct debits. My blood alcohol reading was so high I got nine months. The magistrates acknowledged that the insurance might not have been my fault, but it didn’t excuse my state and for that reason they sent me down.’
           I could see the tension in Phil's shoulders ease. I think he initially thought Neil was going to tell us he'd spent the last ten years inside for being a mad axeman or something.
           The atmosphere lightened and we all started to really enjoy the warm afternoon. The chat, the laughter … it was like we were fifteen years younger. Phil put some tunes