Salvation was at hand. Two days later he woke late after another bad night and heard the sound of someone playing his piano. Badly. A deepand truly awful voice drifted up from below.
‘You look sweet, talk abaht a treat, you look dapper from yer napper to yer feet . . .’
Troy swung his feet to the floor and reached for his dressinggown.
‘Dressed in style, wiv yer brand new tile, yer farver’s old green tie on, buuuuuuut ah wunt give yer tuppence for yer old watch chain, old iron, old iron!’
Descending the stairs, something told him this was not an unannounced visit from Lennon and McCartney.
‘Any old iron, any old iron, any any any old iron . . .’
The Fat Man sat at the piano, a brace of dead pheasants on the piano lid. He was in black jacket and stripes, a bowler hat the size of one of the lesser planets plonked down next to the pheasants. His gentleman’s gentleman outfit. Troy had never seen him in it before.
‘I was in this neck o’ the woods,’ he said. ‘The guv’nor fancied a fresh bird, what with the glorious twelfth just passed. So I got on me bike and bagged a couple o’ yours. You wasn’t up. So I was just passing the time at the old joanna. They don’t write ’em like that any more do they?’
No, thank God.
‘You’re going up to town?’
‘All the way to the ’Dilly, old cock.’
‘Any chance of a lift?’
‘’Allo, ’allo,’ said the Fat Man. ‘’Ere we go again.’