Very fucking soon. I’d been sat on the wall for a while. Best-case scenario, the dog had already been locked in the car for twenty minutes.
The dog’s eyes were wild. Foam bubbles were beginning to form on its lolling tongue.
There was a broken bench by the wall, loose wrought-metal hanging from its rusted bolts. My hands itched, and anxiety surged in my veins. Fuck it. I dashed to the bench and yanked free the biggest hunk of metal.
Back at the car, I stripped my T-shirt, wrapped it round my hand, and smashed the back windshield.
Gus
Somehow I knew the cluster of police cars was all about Billy. I approached the fair with trepidation, picking my way through the crowd that had formed in the car park. At the front I found Billy surrounded, naturally, by police officers and angry folk dressed head to toe in tweed. The kind who drove four-by-fours down narrow country lanes but didn’t like mud.
There was glass all over the floor from the smashed back window of a brand-new Ranger Rover, and Billy was shirtless, which made even less sense than the cocker spaniel he was clutching. Am I even awake right now? After a long night without Billy in my bed, I wasn’t quite sure.
I met Billy’s gaze. He shrugged, angry and insolent, like the old Billy, but I knew him well enough by now to know it was a defence mechanism. That he felt cornered, and being aggravating—aggressive, even—was the only weapon he thought he had in his arsenal.
It broke my heart that he still didn’t believe any different. But, then, why would he? What had actually changed in the months he’d lived with me? He drank less, and he hadn’t, until now, got in any trouble, but why? Because he was more secure in his own skin? Or because he’d been distracted by my migraine-inducing horniness?
Is that even a thing? In the time it took me to figure I had no idea, Luke had pushed his way to the front of the crowd.
We’d swapped personalities. He was no longer the one who hovered ineffectively on the sidelines of his own life. That role was, apparently, now all mine. Luke inserted himself between Billy and the nearest officer, facing Billy. “What happened?”
Billy shrugged again. “Some rich twat left their dog in the car. It was dying, so I smashed the window to get it out.”
Of course he did. And that explained the cocker spaniel. I dragged my feet from where they seemed rooted to the concrete, and joined Luke and Billy. The dog stuck its tongue out and licked my hand. I laid a hand on its silky head and swore. “Jesus. It’s roasting.”
“She,” Billy snapped. “It’s a girl. It says Jessie on the collar.”
“So the owner cares enough to label her as a possession, but not to keep her safe?” I rounded on the nearest police officer. “Isn’t animal neglect illegal?”
The officer nodded. “It is, actually. But we need to be sure that’s what’s happened here. There’s been a spate of dog thefts in the area.”
Luke scoffed. “If he was stealing it, he’d be long gone, not waiting around for you to decide if he’s guilty or not. Look at the evidence—it’s boiling hot, and the dog is clearly distressed.”
“Yes, but—”
“But what?” Luke glanced between Billy and the officer, then it seemed to dawn on him that the officer was having a hard time accepting that Billy—a known face for all the wrong reasons—hadn’t broken into the car on the take. Luke could say otherwise until he was blue in the face; we all could. Billy’s rep would still follow him everywhere he went.
I stroked the dog again. “She’s still really hot,” I said to Billy. “Should we pour some water over her?”
He nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t have any.”
Ignoring the police, I took the water bottle a nearby woman held out to me. More came forward, and Billy set the dog down while a small crowd set to work cooling her down. When she was calm enough to drink for herself, I stood. “She’ll still need to see a vet. You should’ve let him help her before you surrounded him. You could’ve done that without letting him run off with her, if that’s what you honestly think he was going to do in a packed car park in the middle of the day.”
“He wasn’t going anywhere,” Luke said. “He’s working here, all day, with me on the Wild Amour stand. Check the paperwork. He signed in this morning, like everyone else.”
An officer departed to do just that, and frustration rippled through my veins. Were these clowns seriously more concerned with a potential theft than the fact that the dog would’ve died if Billy hadn’t taken her from the car, regardless of his intentions? I took a breath, my anger gathering pace, but Luke squeezed my elbow and shook his head.
I didn’t know what he meant, but before I could find out, a new commotion raged behind me. The owner of the car had returned, and...it was Barry Keane. Of course it was, though how that idiot had bagged himself a Range Rover, I had no clue. He’d been driving a Vauxhall Zafira the last time I’d seen him, when he’d lost his mind over Billy being within spitting distance of his house.
This isn’t gonna end well.
Chapter Eighteen
Billy
Barry Keane was an ignorant piece of shit. The kind that voted UKIP because he didn’t like Indian doctors and wasn’t afraid to say so. His kids were all the same, and I had zero remorse that I’d once put his youngest son in hospital. I’d do it all a thousand times over.
My only regret was
