“You’re going to do it yourself,” Colin said in the unhurried Midlands cadence he used on Mrs Picton’s grandchildren when they were being daft about trying to stuff each other in the fridge. “And I’m going to teach you.”
Diwa laughed and shook his head. “That’s a really nice offer. I get it. Teach a man to fish, yeah? But honestly, I wouldn’t want to put you out. It’s probably much faster if you just…”
Colin’s silence did most of the work. He ignored the request and set his bag down on the floorboards beside the Selfridges bag. “First thing. Where’s your fuse box?”
“My what?”
“Fuse box. Consumer unit. The thing with all the switches in it.”
“Oh.” Diwa looked around his hallway as though it might volunteer the information. “I think there’s something under the stairs.”
There was, as it happened, something under the stairs: a perfectly ordinary consumer unit mounted at chest height inside a cupboard. The cupboard also contained a Hoover still in its packaging and a pair of slippers with a grinning red and yellow cartoon bee on each toe, holding up one white-gloved hand in greeting. Colin stood back and let Diwa look at the inside of the consumer unit.
“This one.” Colin tapped the main switch. “You’re going to flip it off before you go anywhere near that fitting. Anything live in the ceiling becomes not-live. Then you can get on with it.”
“Got it.”
“Off you go.”
Diwa flipped the switch, and from the kitchen came the cessation of sound that Colin’s ear had long since learned to listen for. The fridge had stopped humming.
Diwa stared at the switch for a moment. Then he flipped it back on.
“What are you doing?” Colin asked.
“I just wanted to check.”
“Check what?”
“That it worked.”
“It worked. The fridge stopped.”
“Right. Yeah.” Diwa flipped it off again. The fridge stopped again. He looked at the switch, then flipped it back on.
Colin pressed his lips together and trapped the inside of his cheek between his teeth. “Mate,” he said.
“Sorry. Sorry, I just want to be sure.”
“It’s on now.”
“I know.”
“You’re going to have to flip it off again.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m going to. I just want to think about it for a second and makereally sureit’s off.”
Colin watched as Diwa de la Vega, twenty-eight years old, business owner, gave his consumer unit the searching, considered look of a man weighing up a chess move. Diwa’s hand hovered. Then he flipped the switch on and off repeatedly. Diwa looked at Colin and began to edge towards the ladder.
Colin shook his head. “It’s on now, mate. Listen to thesoundsof the appliances.”
“I knew that. I was testing you. To make sure you’d call it out.”
Colin snorted and watched the man flick the switch once more.
“Right,” Colin said. “The ladder now.”
The ladder was leaning against the hallway wall in a state of pristine factory packaging. It was wrapped, by Colin’s count, in an outer plastic sheath, an inner plastic sheath, and then a quantity of fibrous packing tape that had been applied with total commitment.
