CO-PILOTS

‘Much better than the old ones, these lifts, aren’t they?’ said the man I was sharing the lift up with and who, it turns out, lives the floor below me.
‘Luxury,’ I said.
‘So much more space.’
‘Much more,’ I said, ‘and faster too, though not a great deal.’
‘The voices though...’
‘Yeh, they’re already starting to irritate.’
Yesterday the first thing I noticed joining a man lives on my floor in the lift up was the smell but I wasn’t sure if it was his body odour or his breath.
I stared at the numbers changing as we went up and didn’t start a conversation in case the smell was his breath and talking’d mean more of it in the confined space.
It wasn’t until we got out on our floor and he’d held the first door to the corridor open and I’d said, ‘thanks,’ that he said, ‘any gigs soon?’
‘No,’ I said, thinking, ‘how does he know I play gigs? Maybe it was him who burgled me and he knows because he nicked the guitar and PA.’
I have no way of proving anything against him and am at a loss what to do other than nothing.