Vince’s dad shouldered him downstairs, outside, towards the garage. The sun struck white flesh, making him gleam.
Andy woke up in Liz’s room and, as he dressed, surveyed the contents of her wardrobe in respectful awe. He was trying on a sequinned frock when Penny walked in. Her mouth dropped.
‘Quite a woman, your mam,’ he breathed. ‘I’ve only seen her briefly, and not to talk to.’
‘You mightn’t get the chance to now.’ Penny had brought coffee and cigarettes for breakfast. ‘I’m surrounded by trannies!’
‘Oh, I’m not,’ he said. ‘I was just trying it on…’ He looked at himself in the mirror. ‘Looks all right on me, doesn’t it?’ She sat on the bed and lit a cigarette. It seemed almost sacrilege to smoke in Liz’s tasteful boudoir, but Penny didn’t care. There was time yet for the air to clear. ‘Yeah. It hangs off you just right.’
‘Hm.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘Would your mam mind if I tried on some more things?’
She shrugged. ‘Probably. But she’s not here, is she?’
Andy asked, ‘So what happens now?’
‘You’re welcome to stay while she’s gone. It might be a while.’
‘That would be wonderful. We’d be company for each other.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’re really pissed off with her, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t know, Andy. It would serve her right if I filled this house with all the waifs and strays of Aydiffe.’
He went mock-indignant. ‘So I’m a waif and stray!’
‘I want to turn the house into a squat,’ she said. ‘I’d love that. A big shared house.’
‘Will she be away that long?’
‘Who can tell?’ She watched Andy wriggle back out of the blue dress. He was unabashed, standing there in his pants and looking at the rest of the clothes. ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘If you’re going to live here a while, I want you to make your peace with Vince.’
He sighed. ‘It wasn’t even a proper argument. He was just cross. There was us two, on about bloody Narnia and those little creatures and everything… and Vince couldn’t really give a shit. He’s not that sort of a person.’ Now Andy had found the hats and the wigs. ‘Vince is a realist.’
‘Get him to come round here.’ Penny lay back on bedclothes rumpled overnight by Andy. She felt quite comfortable with him now. ‘We’ll throw a party. Yeah, a house-warming. This is going to be my house for a while. I could levitate some objects for everyone’s entertainment… and we could invite those creature things round to perform a miniature circus and prove that they exist. I really want to throw a party.’
There were two policemen by his gate. Three next door in Jane’s garden. Two by the phone box. There were two marksmen, two dogs across the road, hiding behind the rosehip bushes.
‘Shit!’ Fran hissed through her blinds. ‘I hope I haven’t made a horrible mistake.’
Jane came to join her. ‘Better to be safe…’
Behind them Detective Inspector Collins was on her walkie-talkie. She switched it off. ‘They’re all set up. There’s no sign of life inside. I’m going to go and knock on the door myself.’
Fran nodded. Hand on the doorknob, she glanced around the kitchen at her familiar accoutrements, in these circumstances all of them banal. Frank had a can on the go, slurping worriedly. ‘Right,’ she said, and opened the door.
Vince’s dad strapped him into the passenger seat. As he drove them through town he noticed that the people out in the sunshine were watching. So he put a road atlas over his son to cover him up.
They drove over the Burn, across the big bridge, through the wet, healthy trees, then into the council estates. It was the fastest way on to the main road to Darlington, to the hospital. Now he wished he’d phoned an ambulance. He was wobbling all over the road.
Vince was coming to, groaning. His head tipped forward and he vomited on the road atlas. It splashed with a stench of animal. His dad put his foot down.
Down the main road. Down here.
No answer. Detective Inspector Collins gave the nod and stepped away from the door. Big John Burns, the biggest copper in the town, came forward. He took a long look at Gary’s door, though it was the same as any other council house’s door. Everyone held their breath as he gathered his concentration in.
Big John Burns took a few steps down the path and launched himself at the door. The lock cracked.
John followed the door as it crashed inwards, into the dark hallway. Collins found herself dropping backwards, startled, as a huge shape lumbered past Burns. She looked up from the garden path to see a great soundless dog bounding past her. Even the marksmen and the police Alsatians were silent in awe as it burst out of the garden and bolted for freedom.
Detective Inspector Collins stood up and was joined by Big John Burns. ‘What the fuck was that?’ she cried and tore out of the garden to see.
The marksmen followed her, ripping through the rosehip bushes, falling over themselves as they hurried out of patrol cars, coming at last to stand by the main road.
The unnaturally bulky dog was halfway across the road. He was also in the path of a screaming, gleaming Triumph Herald. Before screams could be exchanged, the dog was underneath and the Triumph skidding sideways to a halt.
Everybody froze.
The dog’s head had rolled into a gutter. Its other head, its real head, was still on the body, but the body was mangled. The real head was Gary’s, the army man’s, knocked senseless on the front bumper.
Collins heard sharp footsteps behind, running towards her. A fat woman in a black PVC mac, bleached hair, fishnets and suspenders, furious.
‘You’ve killed him! You’ve killed the Dog Man!’
Nesta stood clutching a leash.
And behind her: Fran at a run, her family and neighbours running
