Road Kill

really seen that much of Dad since he and Mum split up.”

Difficult to know how he’d be expected to feel about his father’s girlfriend, I suppose. Particularly as she was far closer to Jamie’s age than to Jacob’s.

I’d told him only the bare bones of the story. That Jacob was away somewhere in Ireland and that Clare had been in a bike accident in which another biker had also died. I didn’t tell him the rumours about what might or might not have been going on between Clare and Slick. As it was he’d taken the news in pale silence.

“So,” I said, sitting back. “Your turn. What were you doing breaking in to your father’s house at half-two in the morning?”

Jamie grinned. “Got in to Heysham earlier this evening and went round the town with a few mates after we got off the boat,” he said. “Then—”

“Boat?”

“Ferry,” he explained. “From Ireland.” And when I still looked blank he added, “That’s where my mother’s family hail from, so that’s where we went back to. Just outside Coleraine. In the north.”

I reached for my coffee cup again and waved him on.

He shrugged again, still fussing with the terrier. “Well, I was supposed to be meeting someone but they didn’t turn up,” he said, pulling a face, “so then I didn’t have any place to stay.”

A girl, I surmised. And he’d been hoping to get lucky. “And?”

“And nothing,” he said with the same kind of easy smile that Jacob was master of. “I suppose I just thought why should I shell out for a hotel when my dad’s place was just up the road, so I thought maybe I’d come and crash here.”

He hesitated, possibly realising that use of the word “crash” was not the best choice in these circumstances.

“So you bypassed the drive alarm and broke in through the study window,” I said dryly, draining my coffee cup and standing. “Don’t they have doorbells in Ireland?”

“I didn’t want to wake anyone,” he said, smiling easily. “I helped Dad dig that sensor in one summer when I was about ten. And the study window’s always had a dodgy catch on it.” He tipped the terrier back onto the floor and got to his feet, too.

“Besides,” he added, following me out into the hallway, “when I saw the car and the bikes were all here I wasn’t expecting them to be away – or that I’d be jumped by Lara bloody Croft on the way in.”

I led the way upstairs, turning off lights as we went. At the airing cupboard on the landing I dug out sheets and pillows and thrust them into Jamie’s arms, ignoring his surprised expression. I think he was probably hoping I’d offer to make the bed up for him. His mother, I reckoned, had a lot to answer for.

Jamie made straight for the second room on the left, pushing open the door and stepping inside before I could stop him.

“Erm, Jamie,” I called sharply. He stopped. “That’s where I’m sleeping and I’m afraid you aren’t invited.”

He cocked his head in my direction, taking in my rumpled shirt and jeans in a single sweeping glance that seemed to suggest he was giving me serious consideration. “Oh well, if you’re sure,” he murmured, backing out. “Although, as that used to be my room, technically speaking I’m not the one who’s in the wrong bed.”

For a moment I considered offering to move, but he was already grabbing for the handle of the door opposite instead. I shrugged, but slid the bolt on my door once I was safely inside. Then I climbed back into bed and slept like the dead for what remained of the night.

***

I woke around seven the next morning, courtesy of my in-built alarm clock. A lazy mist hung over the trees and the river, promising another long hot day ahead. I glanced down onto the forecourt and saw a snazzy little race-replica Honda RVF400 with a Northern Irish plate on it parked up next to Jacob’s old Range Rover. Nice bike. It seemed that in amongst the rest of the genes, Jacob had also passed on his love of biking to his son.

I slipped into the bathroom first, then climbed into my leather jeans and a clean shirt, glad I’d made that detour. I looked in briefly to the bedroom Jamie had taken but he was spark out, lying diagonally across the bed in a face-down sprawl.

I went downstairs and let the dogs out, then rang the hospital again for news of Clare. Comfortable, they told me, which seemed absurdly optimistic of someone with as many broken bones as she had.

The sun was already throwing out warmth, beginning to heat up the stones of the old house. I drank my first coffee of the day sitting out on the terrace in peaceful solitude, soaking it up. The events of yesterday seemed remote, like a dream. I remembered my conversation with Sean and almost wondered if I’d imagined that, too.

Away to my right came the sound of water running down the drainpipe from the bathroom. Sleeping beauty awakes. I went back inside to put a fresh pot of coffee on.

I was halfway through filling a cafetiere when the drive alarm went off. The dogs scrambled out of their beds, barking furiously like they’d been practising the drill. The combination of the two made me jump and slosh hot water onto both the kitchen floor and down the leg of my jeans. Good job they were leather or I’d have been scalded.

When I looked out of the window onto the forecourt, it was just in time to see the post van pull up outside.

“Oh yes, very dangerous he looks,” I told the dogs, sarky, as the mail dropped through the letterbox in the front door. They whined and avoided my gaze and looked embarrassed. I wondered if it was the alarm rather than the vehicle the dogs reacted to, like some Pavlovian experiment. Was that why they hadn’t kicked up a fuss last night?

Jamie arrived just as the coffee was brewed. He didn’t wait to be invited but helped himself, retrieving a mug