Give The Devil His Due by H G White

sweatshirt he was wearing, torn. He had a swollen eye; blood was trickling from his fringe down his forehead and he was limping.
           ‘Neil, what's happened?’
           ‘Three arseholes came out of the station and just started punching and kicking me.’
           ‘Are you hurt bad?’
           ‘No; I’m a bit sore, but it looks worse than it is.’
           ‘Do you want to go to hospital?’
           ‘No.’ I thought this unwise, but not wanting to upset him, I didn’t push it.
           ‘Are you hungry?’
           ‘Starving. I could eat a scabby monkey!’
           ‘Right, as soon as we see somewhere, we'll stop and get you something.’
           I grabbed the first aid kit out of the boot, and handed it to Neil.
           ‘There should be some plasters in there; wet wipes are in the glove box.’
           We pulled away and hadn't gone a quarter of a mile when we came across a hotdog van. I stopped the car.
           ‘Stay here, I won’t be long.’
           I jumped out, walked over to the van and ordered a jumbo hot dog, fries, a can of Coke for Neil and a small hot dog for me. Very quickly, we were back on our way again. I stayed silent while Neil ate. He'd scoffed the food in no time.
           ‘Was that OK?’ I asked.
           ‘Yeah, lovely, it hit the spot.’
           I hadn't been able to eat mine, being too busy steering and changing gear. ‘Do you want this one?’ I held my hot dog towards him.
           ‘Why? Don't you want it?’
           ‘No, I don't even know why I bought it really.’ It was a lie. I was hungry, but I could sense Neil was ravenous.
           ‘Cheers Will.’
           We'd had a good run on traffic lights and it wasn't long before we were on the M4 heading west. I decided not to drive like a man possessed for the return journey. Now I'd found Neil I could ease up a bit. Besides I didn't want to lose my licence. That reminded me. ‘Neil, I know now's not a very good time, but you have got a valid driving licence haven't you?’
           ‘Yeah.’
           ‘Have you got it with you?’
           ‘No, it’s at mum’s, with a bunch of other papers. When I came out and got it back I was staying with my folks, then I moved to London and didn’t need it, I haven’t bothered with driving for years.’
           ‘Could you get hold of it by tomorrow?’
           ‘Will, I don't want to see my parents looking like this.’
           ‘You won't look like that; we'll get you cleaned up.’
           ‘The bruising I mean.’
           He was right. It wasn't going to look too good when he met Alan either. ‘Why don’t you just ask your mum to dig it out, and tell her I'll pick it up.’
           ‘She'll wonder why it’s not me picking it up.’
           ‘Don't worry about it. Tell her I'm moving some furniture from London to Wales and you're going to help me with the van driving, so I need your licence to put you on the van-hire insurance. She doesn't need to know where you’re ringing from. You can wing it, Neil. You've got the gift of the gab.’
           Neil smiled. ‘So what do you really need my licence for?’
           ‘Mr Fairburn, you're about to become a cabbie! ’ Neil thought for a moment and then had another little smile to himself. I'd been so caught up in events over the last hour or so, I hadn't noticed Neil was humming. He wasn't in Steven Morris's league, but then he didn’t smell of roses either.
     
     
    ***
     
    It was very early morning when we arrived. We'd had to stop for coffee because I’d nearly fallen asleep at the wheel. Neil was given a quick guided tour after which he headed straight for the bathroom to shower. I took the dog outside for a pee and sat on the little patio wall in the front garden while he performed. The sky was clear and you could see