Under a Watchful Eye(25)

Seb was choked more by exasperation than the smell. Did that make him forget what he wanted to say? Perhaps the intense way Ewan looked at him was disarming. Ewan had no time for the glance. His eyes were still and he looked at Seb like a cat that Seb remembered from his childhood. A cat that would sit and stare with black eyes that had always made him feel uneasy and guilty, as if its suspicions of Seb’s unacceptable thoughts had become more than a hunch.

Ewan, like the cat, was really expecting some kind of challenge or attack. Those were the eyes of someone incapable of trust, who pushed his luck and awaited reprisals.

Suffering an aversion to meeting Ewan’s black eyes – one that writhed in his gut – Seb looked away.

About the living room were the books that Ewan had taken off the shelves, flicked through and discarded, open and face-down. A first edition of an Oliver Onions collection lay beside the chair that Ewan had slumped into. An empty cider can was placed upon the dust jacket.

Seb rushed across the room and retrieved the book. The jacket was marked by a drying ring of liquid that smelled vinegary. ‘Jesus Christ!’

Ewan sniggered.

‘Do you know how valuable this is?’

Ewan shrugged. ‘It’s just a book.’

‘My book!’

‘Oops,’ he replied in a placid tone before he giggled. ‘Would you listen to him?’

‘Listen to me!’ It was then that Seb noticed a stained rucksack and two bulging bin liners arranged messily beside Ewan’s chair. Luggage.

So Ewan had been out that morning, while Seb slept, to fetch his things. Another two cans of extra-strong cider were balanced on the arm of Seb’s favourite chair. A king-size Mars bar and three bags of crisps lay upon the coffee table. The provisions must have been inside Ewan’s grubby rucksack, or procured while Seb had been lost to the world and dreaming of another place.

The front door locked itself once it was pulled to. Seb laid the book down. ‘You . . . you’ve been out. And then you let yourself back in. How? How the hell did you get back in here?’

‘With a key.’ If anything, Ewan seemed surprised that he was being questioned about how he came to be sitting in Seb’s chair with the bags beside his feet.

‘Key?’ Seb queried, beginning to feel soft-limbed and weightless again from the sheer preposterousness of the situation.

‘It was on a hook in the kitchen.’

Ewan had taken the spare front door keys from the hook on the back of the kitchen door. What else had he taken? Seb noticed that the door to his office was ajar.

‘That’s it! Police.’ Seb ran for the landline phone.

Ewan was amused. ‘I went to collect a few of my things. I have something very interesting to show you. I told you about it yesterday.’

Seb’s fingers paused on the phone. He invested every ounce of dismissive incredulity he possessed into his voice. ‘I’m not interested in anything that you have to tell me. You took my keys and let yourself into my house! A private building. Are you bloody insane?’

‘I didn’t think you’d mind.’

There was a plate on the floor, smeared with tomato sauce. Takeaway papers were screwed up beside the plate. At the sight of those, the room seemed to judder in Seb’s vision. He’s eating in here!

Seb took a deep breath, then placed a hand against his racing heart. He sat on the sofa. ‘We need to talk.’

‘What about?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I’ve been waiting ages for you to wake up.’

Seb closed his eyes, steadied himself, lowered his voice. ‘You can’t stay here. Put the keys on the table. Right now.’

Ewan stared at him, his expression wilting to pitying amusement, the eyes swimming with inebriation.

‘Look at this place,’ Seb said, his voice hampered by his panting breath. ‘Look at what you’ve done to it, in a matter of hours.’

Nonchalantly, Ewan surveyed the room. ‘Sorry, what am I looking at?’

Seb slapped his hands against the sofa cushions. ‘Can you not see?’

‘What do you mean? I can see plenty. It’s you I worry about.’

With an upturned face, Seb appealed for support from some higher power. He could not let himself be drawn into another exchange with Ewan, one that promised to be baffling, devoid of reason and conducted in this atmosphere of his unwashed body and clothes.

‘I want you out. Now.’ Something squealed in Seb’s voice, which made him sound foolish and impotent.

‘Sorry, why?’

‘You were never invited! And the mess! The bloody mess. It stinks in here! You are ruining my books. My things. Everything.’ Holding his head in his hands, Seb added, ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. This is my home. You are not welcome here. What are you doing here? What are you doing to me?’

Ewan’s expression maintained a weary, intoxicated puzzlement. He sniggered again.

‘This is no joke.’ Seb’s voice broke again. ‘I know you have problems. But you are your own worst enemy. And they’re not my problems. You need to leave.’

Reaching over the side of his chair, Ewan picked up a can of cider. Leisurely, he took a throaty swig. Observing this simple, unapologetic and carefree act made Seb realize that he despised Ewan so intensely that he wanted him destroyed. Wanted to destroy him.