air. After a moment she wandered off to examine some flowerbeds.
‘You should call her Daisy. There’s a girl in my class called Daisy who’s nice.’
‘Maybe I will call her Daisy, good idea.’
‘She looks a bit like our dog. But Rebus isn’t here at the moment, is he, Mummy?’
Adele was trying to push Ryan up the steps. ‘Go and tell Magda you can watch a DVD.’
That grabbed his attention. ‘ Kung Fu Panda?’
‘Sure, Kung Fu Panda.’
‘All of it?’
‘Yes, all of it.’
‘Yes.’ Ryan made a celebratory fist as he reached the top of the steps. He turned and waved at the dog, which was sniffing in some bushes.
‘Bye, Daisy,’ Ryan said, then looked at Billy. ‘Maybe you could bring her back when Rebus is here, so they can play together.’
‘That’s a great idea.’
Ryan took Magda’s hand at the door and went inside.
‘Get out of here,’ Adele said.
‘What?’
‘Dean will be back any minute.’
‘So?’
‘Do you think it’s that easy to replace someone?’
‘I didn’t think…’
‘No, you didn’t. There’s still a chance Rebus will turn up.’
‘I’m sorry, you’re right.’
Adele sighed. ‘Look, it’s just… it’s all getting a bit much, you know?’
Billy heard the crumpling noise from the roof of his car in his mind, felt the knots in his shoulders, the needles of pain in his hands.
‘Yeah, I know what you mean.’
He reached out and touched her arm, but she flinched and pulled away. ‘Not here.’
‘Then where?’
She removed her glasses. He was surprised to see her eyes were wet. ‘I’ll be in touch.’ She looked at the house. Magda was in the living room holding a DVD box and staring out the window at them. ‘Now go, and take your stupid dog with you.’
He parked the Micra outside the flat. He reached past the dog and opened the glove compartment, rattled through the medication blister packs crammed in there. He hadn’t realised he’d been through so many. Not enough, though, not the way he felt. He rummaged around, pushed out a couple of greens and two oranges. He was pretty sure one was amphetamine, the other morphine. Did it matter?
The dog tried to lick the pills in his hand.
‘Not for you, girl,’ he said softly. He swallowed the pills.
He had no idea how to look after a dog. Food. A basket? Collar and lead. Toys? He thought about how his mum had never let them have one. He pulled down the driver’s side sun visor. Tucked inside was a battered old photograph. He slid it out. He and Charlie kept it there to remind them. It was the three of them on Porty beach. Billy was only six or seven. He remembered it being taken, they stopped a man walking his dog on the way past. The dog was friendly and he and Charlie nagged Mum for a few minutes, giving up when she put her foot down. They knew she wouldn’t change her mind. They played on the sand, building castles, digging trenches, paddling in the icy waves, Mum relaxing on a towel in shorts and a T-shirt. They were a unit then, comfortable, content.
He stared at the picture. All three of them were squinting into the sun. Mum had her hand up, shielding her eyes. It looked as if she was trying to see into the future, peering at him now, wondering what had happened in the years since her death.
He turned to the dog.
‘I don’t think the name Daisy suits you.’
The dog responded by pushing her ears back keenly.
‘I think we’ll call you Jeanie, after Mum. How about that?’ He rubbed her nose. ‘You like that, Jeanie? Yeah?’
She nuzzled him as he rubbed between her ears.
He glanced one last time at the photograph of the happy family and put it back in the sun visor, folding it away. He opened the car door.
‘Come on, then.’
The dog stayed in the car.
‘Walkies?’
She bolted out the door, suddenly alert, tail swishing, ears pinned back, walking in tight circles.
Billy laughed. ‘Walkies it is, then.’
*
Queen’s Drive was still closed, but there were no police about.
Looking down from the Radical Road, he was struck by the quiet. No swishing car noise, no city chatter, just the occasional buzz of insect wings, the gentle padding of Jeanie’s paws on the gravel and grass as she followed various smells.
He sat down on the edge of the precipice, his legs dangling over the side like a tiny child on a giant sofa. His legs felt so weary, heavy beyond words. His shoulders felt crushed by the atmosphere, hunching him over like an old man. He had to give up. He wanted to confess. Surely it would be easier than this. He tried to think about the repercussions, but his mind got lost in a haze of endless possibilities, infinite universes branching off into oblivion, each one taking an atom of his fractured brain with it. He touched the lump on his temple, the evidence of the crash there for all to see. It seemed to have hardened further. It felt alien to his body, an interloper in his system. Weren’t bodies supposed to attack outside agents, protect the organism at all costs? He rubbed at the bump as Jeanie crouched close by and went for a piss. The soft patter of urine on grass, a trickle running on to the path.
‘Lovely evening.’ It was a middle-aged woman out walking her dog.
Billy nodded as she passed.
‘Nice and quiet, with the road closed,’ she said.
He tried to imagine walking into a police station and telling them everything that had happened.
He struggled to his feet, his body lurching with the pills and the pain, with everything else.
‘Come on, girl.’
He made his way back down the road, Jeanie at his side.
17
He had the key in the door when his phone went. Jeanie was sniffing around the weeds poking up between cracked paving stones in their front garden. He pulled his phone out. Rose.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Nothing at the Dog and Cat Home.’
‘Never mind that, we’ve got another breakthrough. It was a hit and run on Queen’s Drive, for sure.’
Billy felt his throat close up and he struggled to swallow. ‘How do you know?’
‘They found blood on the tarmac across from where Frank’s body was found. It matches his blood type.’
‘Shit.’
‘I know. They also found tiny fragments of car paint at the same place. Red. They went back and checked the body — sure enough, matching paint chips on Frank’s clothes.’
Billy took his key out of the door and walked down the path to the street. He stared at the Micra parked there.
‘So it looks as if someone hit him on the road, then panicked and legged it. Or maybe they moved the body.
