"Dave Hutchinson - Discreet Phenomena" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hutchinson Dave)

almost six years ago, when I decided to buy the garage. I'd sat here so many hours over the years, looking at
that mannequin, that I occasionally considered buying the tank-top myself, just to change the view, but I
always caught myself just in time.
 I slurped beer, scratched my armpit, looked at my watch.
Eventually, a little police car came along the road from the centre of the village and parked outside Mavis's
shop. An enormous man shrink-wrapped in a uniform a size too small for him got out and stretched. Even
from across the road I could hear seams popping. I checked my watch.
Nigel finished his calisthenics, put on his cap, looked both ways along the road, and crossed over to
where I was sitting.
"I make that an hour and forty minutes," I told him. "I'm going to write to the Daily Mail and make a
complaint about the standard of rural policing."
"Afternoon, Geoff," said Nigel, touching the brim of his cap and smiling.
I got down off the stool. "It's back here."
On the way past the office, I called through the open window and told Domino to keep an eye on the
pumps.
"So," said Nigel, looking at the little blue car and scratching his head. "How many's this, then? Six?"
"Five."
He opened the bonnet and regarded the empty engine space with the same kind of gravity he would have
accorded a murder or a lost kitten. "Well," he said finally, "if nobody claims them in six months, I suppose
they're yours." He looked at me and smiled sunnily. "Make yourself a fortune, I expect."

The first engineless car had rolled past the garage about a fortnight before, a couple of days after Domino
turned up. It had come to a stop, that one indicator flashing, a few yards down the road, completely innocent
of driver, passengers or motive power, and we had pushed it back into the yard and called the police. Nobody
wanted to drive it, and Nigel was leery about towing it, so we cleared out one of the sheds at the back of the
yard and put it in there.
The next day, Nigel returned with the news that the car seemed not to exist. Its vehicle identification
number wasn't on record anywhere, and its numberplates weren't registered to any known vehicle. Nigel had a
feeling that something not quite legal was going on, but he admitted to not having a clue what it was, and in
lieu of further evidence he decided to leave the car with me for the time being.
Three days later, the next one arrived. We put that one in the shed too. And the next. And the next. Now,
every time I went out to the pumps to serve a customer, I found myself glancing up the road, just in case I
saw another slow-moving vehicle cresting the hill.

Nigel watched Domino and me push the blue car into one of the sheds. Then he watched me padlock the
door, just in case someone decided to steal it.
Walking back to his car, Nigel looked through the window of one of the other sheds and said, "I don't
remember this one."
I stopped beside him and looked into the shed. "It's my car," I told him.
"Thought you drove a VW."
We stood side by side looking at my Peugeot on the other side of the glass. I said, "The Volkswagen's
Karen's car. We don't have off-road parking, and Laura Gibbs complained when we parked both the cars
outside the house."
"Laura lives on your street?"
I nodded.
Nigel shook his head. "She always was a cow, even at school. Never understood it, pretty girl like that."
He looked at me. "Want me to have a word with her?"
"No," I said, suddenly alarmed. "Jesus, Nigel. I'm a big enough laughing-stock around here without you
fighting my fights for me."
"You're not a laughing-stock, Geoff," he said.