Part 6

“Oh, Pinky,” she said upon him opening the front door. “Look at the state of you. And the state of this place.”

Now sporting a full Robinson Crusoe beard, he must’ve lost a good stone in weight, and his body odour was so ripe and repugnant, he was unlikely to have seen a shower for weeks.

“Haven’t you done any clearing up?” Jeanette pointed to the decimated ruins of the once-respectable open-plan front room she’d occupied on many occasions, and admired for its functional if slightly chintzy cleanliness.

“It don’t need to be clean and tidy,” Pinky somewhat bizarrely put forward in defence of himself. “Not now it’s just me.”

Little did those who knew Pinky appreciate just how devoted his mother had been to his care. Ever since she brought him back from the hospital, she always made sure he had clean clothes to wear and a good meal at the beginning and end of the day. As a result, he didn’t know how to open a tin of beans, let alone cook them, and certainly wouldn’t have known one end of a washing powder packet from the other.

“Pinky, you must let me help you clear up a bit. You can’t go on like this.”

“Says who?”

“Everyone beginning from me – your former fiancée – to the Environmental Health department of the local council. If you don’t do something, you’ll get rats; you’ll make yourself ill.”

But Pinky was adamant – he didn’t want anybody’s help; he just wanted to be left in peace.

All of which upset Jeanette to such a degree, she had no idea what to do for the best – risk alienating Pinky forever by having him sectioned under the Mental Health Act, or let him have his own way for a little longer in the hope he’d see sense soon. Like lots of people in difficult positions, she chose to do nothing practical in the end, other than continue to call Pinky’s number and send heartfelt and sincere letters that remained unopened on the doormat until the disaster she prophesied that evening (or something near enough to it) did in fact transpire.

* * *

Unable to shake off his grief and despair and in desperate need of money to pay the rent and fill the cupboards, Pinky had no other option than to put his oversized arms to criminal use. Quite how a man with appendages that dangled close to the floor could be such an effective shoplifter is perhaps an image too absurd to conjure. Though it was most certainly true, highly profitable, and probably more applicable to the “hiding in plain sight” adage than anything else.

Mid-afternoon, brazen as you like, he’d visit the main supermarkets in town (except for the hallowed Bugden’s of his previous employ) and load up on useful and pricey semi-essentials and the odd luxury item that the everyday woman, man, and child in the street most desired.

His technique was flawless.

Ambling over to the signposted plain-clothes store detective, he’d engage him in basic (if slightly bizarre) conversation – “Quiet in town for the time of year,” “Been working here long, mate?” – before making inquiries about the whereabouts of certain items, giving off the distinct impression of mental retardation that the said store guard lowered his own guard, and considered Pinky no threat to the establishment’s most prized wares. Thereafter, he supplied the town’s more dubious elements with everything from cut-price Gillette “The Best a Man Can Get” razor blades and name-brand sanitary towels to luxury chocolates, to bottles of scotch, if rumours of him shoplifting a Flymo lawn mower from a garden centre were sadly unsubstantiated at the time of writing.

Kleptomaniacal to the extreme, he started to steal to order:

“Get us another box of Black Magic for my old girl, will you, Pinks? It’s Mother’s Day on Sunday.”

“You couldn’t pick us up that Lynx Africa box set, could you, Pink’O? I’m bust until payday and it’s me oldest boy’s birthday tomorrow.”

“I really need some ribbed arouser Durex for the weekend. You couldn’t do the necessary, could you, Mr. Goose? A three-pack should suffice.”