‘You’re still seeing Miranda.’
‘That’s not the same thing. She’s an ex-wife with benefits.’
‘Benefits?’
‘Perfect breasts and thighs that can crush a filing cabinet.’
I shake my head and laugh, which I shouldn’t because it will only encourage him.
Instead he grows serious. ‘Do you know what makes a good detective, Prof? We’re the suspicious ones. We believe that everybody lies. Suspects. Witnesses. Victims. The innocent. The guilty. The stupid. Unfortunately, the very thing that makes us good detectives makes us lousy husbands.
‘When I was married to Miranda, she put up with my moods and my late nights and my drinking, but I know she lay awake sometimes wondering what doors I was kicking down and what lay on the other side. All she ever really wanted was to have me walk through
‘I think maybe she could have lived with the uncertainty if I didn’t leave a part of myself behind every time. We’d be at a restaurant, or a dinner party, or watching TV and she knew I was thinking about work. It got so bad that sometimes I didn’t want to go home. I used to make up excuses and stay in the office. That’s your problem, Joe - you can’t leave it behind.’
I want to argue with him. I want to remind him I no longer have a home to protect or pollute, but Ruiz would just slap me around the head for being pessimistic and defeatist. It’s one of the things I’ve noticed about him since he retired - he’s become far more pragmatic. He can live with his regrets because one by one he has set them to rights or laid them to rest or made amends or accepted the things he cannot change. When you’ve been shot, stabbed and almost drowned, every day becomes a blessing, every birthday a celebration - life is a three-course meal occasionally seasoned with shit but still edible. Ruiz has learned to fill his boots.
‘If you want my advice,’ he adds, ‘you need to keep getting laid.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s pretty self-explanatory.’
‘You think sex will cure me?’
‘Sex is messy, sweaty, noisy, clumsy, exhausting and exhilarating, but even at its worst . . .’
He doesn’t finish the statement. Instead he looks at me closely. ‘So who is she?’
‘Who?’
‘Your bit on the side.’
I want to deny it, but he grins, showing me the boiled sweet between his teeth.
‘How did you know?’
‘I wasn’t born yesterday.’
‘Is it written on my forehead?’
‘Something like that. Who is she?’
‘I’d rather not talk about it.’
‘Suit yourself.’
We lapse into silence. I’m thinking of Annie Robinson. I can still see the freckles on her shoulders and feel her breath on my face. One arm lay across my chest and her breasts were pressed against my ribs. I always feel empty after sex, sad and happy at the same time.
‘Hey, did I tell you,’ says Ruiz, ‘I heard a guy being interviewed the other night on one of those sex-therapy shows. The interviewer asked him to describe in one word the worst blowjob he ever had. You know what he said?’
‘What?’
‘Fabulous.’
Ruiz’s face splits into a mess of wrinkles and his eyes glitter. We’re laughing again. He’s happy now.
Wind buffets the plane as it takes off and rises above the clouds. Rain silently streaks the windows.
By the time I get home it’s after nine. The house is dark. Quiet. Opening the front door, I turn on the hall light and walk through to the kitchen expecting to hear Gunsmoke thumping his tail against the door.
He must be in the laundry. Perhaps he didn’t hear me. Opening the back door, I call his name. He doesn’t come bounding down the path, licking at my hands. The old rubber mattress he uses is unoccupied.
Retrieving a torch from the laundry, I search the yard. Maybe he dug a hole beneath the fence or somebody could have opened the back gate. When he was a puppy he got out of the yard and went missing for a day. One of the neighbours found him sitting by the bus stop, waiting for Charlie to get home from school. He must have followed her scent.
A noise. I stop moving and listen. It’s a soft whimpering sound from the direction of the compost bin. The torch beam sweeps cautiously across the ground and picks out something shiny in the grass. My fingers close around it - the tag from Gunsmoke’s collar.
I call his name. The whimpering grows louder.
I see him then. His front legs are hog-tied and his neck is pinned to the tree by an arrow that sticks out at a right angle. Torchlight gleams on his matted fur, slick with blood.
His head lolls forward. Instead of eyes he has weeping wounds. Acid or household cleaner has been poured across his face, dissolving fur and flesh, blinding him permanently.
Dropping to my knees, I put my arm around his neck, cradling his head, trying to take pressure off the arrow which is holding his body upright. How in God’s name is he still alive?
He swings his head to the left and licks my neck. A groan deep inside reveals how much he must be hurting.
Gunsmoke, my dog, my walking companion, my housemate, my hopeless guard dog . . . Why would someone want to hurt him?
Leaving him for a few moments, I go to the shed and pull out a hacksaw from the box beneath the bench. Gently, I put my hand between the Labrador’s body and the tree, feeling for the arrow. Then I use the hacksaw to cut through the shaft.
Wrapping Gunsmoke in a blanket, I carry him through the house to the car.
What car? The Volvo is still at the workshop.
On the verge of tears, I sit on the front step with the Labrador’s head on my lap. Fumbling for my mobile, I call directory enquiries and ask for an animal hospital. The nearest one is in Upper Wells Way, about three miles away. I count the rings and then it clicks to an answering machine - a recorded message gives the business hours and an emergency number.
I don’t have a pen. I repeat the number to myself, trying not to forget it.
I hear it ringing. A woman answers.
‘I need your help. Someone shot my dog.’
‘Shot him?’
‘With an arrow.’
‘Hold on, I’ll get my husband.’
I can hear her calling to him and he shouts back. Under my breath I’m whispering, ‘Please hurry. Please hurry. Please hurry.’
‘This is Dr Bradley. Can I help you?’
I try to speak too quickly and start choking on a ball of saliva that’s gone down the wrong way. I’m coughing in his ear.
‘Is there a problem?’ he asks again.
‘The problem is someone tortured my dog and shot him through the neck with an arrow.’
Questions need answering. Where is the arrow now? How much blood has he lost? Is he conscious? Are his eyes fixed and dilated?
‘I can’t see his eyes. They poured something caustic into them. He’s blind.’
The vet falls silent.
‘Are you still there?’
‘What’s your address?’
Dr Bradley is on his way. I lean my head back on the door and wait, feeling for Gunsmoke’s heartbeat. Slow. Unsteady. He’s in so much pain. I should put him down, end his misery. How? I couldn’t . . .
Growing up I was never allowed to have a dog. I was away at boarding school most of the time so my
