Slaughter's hound

24

I leaned on the buzzer until I heard a click, then a tinny, angry voice asking who I was and what the fuck I thought I was doing. A metaphysical gambit, bordering on Cartesian, but I wasn’t in the mood, so I told him I was there to see Saoirse Hamilton at her request and if he didn’t open the door quick smart the art gallery hallway would have a new installation comprised of a Ford Sierra wearing a busted front door and a fake elephant-trunk knocker.

Three minutes later I was standing in the great hall again. Simon struggled into a glare while he knuckled sleep from his eyes, half-dressed in a rumpled white T-shirt, grey tracksuit bottoms sans piping, pool-deck flip-flops. The bloodshot eyes could have been the result of too little sleep or too much brandy, and probably both. ‘This better be good,’ he muttered sourly.

‘Look at me. Will you take a good fucking look at me? Do I look like I’d be here if I didn’t have to be?’

He stifled a yawn. ‘What happened?’

‘Doesn’t matter. I need to see your boss.’

‘She’s asleep right now. And she hasn’t been getting much-’

‘She wants to see me. I’m here.’

The quick lift of his eyebrows might have been surprise, disbelief or scorn, but whatever it signalled it meant he was out of the loop. ‘Is this to do with Finn?’

‘If she wants you to know, she’ll tell you later. So let’s go, chop-chop.’

He stared. I let my eyes go dead. He took a step back without realising it. ‘Wait here. I’ll ask if she’ll see you.’

‘Tell her if she doesn’t, she won’t be seeing me again.’

‘That’ll break her heart,’ he sniped, but it came from over his shoulder as he flip-flopped away up the staircase. I waited until he’d turned left into the corridor at the top of the stairs, then ducked into the study and found the phone.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s me, Dee.’

‘Shit.’

‘How is he?’

‘Fine, yeah. Great. Fantastic, actually.’ The bitterness was a mustard gas wafting down the line. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so peaceful for so long.’

‘You’re still at the hospital?’

‘’Course.’ Then: ‘Why, where are you?’

‘I had to leave. I’ve some arrangements to make.’

‘And they’re more important than Ben?’

‘You wouldn’t let me see him anyway.’

‘Not the point, Harry.’

‘So what is the point?’

‘The point,’ she said, ‘is that you put him in fucking hospital and now you’ve fucked off to make some fucking arrangements.’

‘I didn’t put him in hospital. We were-’

‘Save it for the cops. You were the one driving, on a mobile phone.’

‘Dee — it was you rang me.’

‘You’re saying it’s my fault?’

I could almost taste the menace. ‘I’m trying to tell you we were run off the road.’

A long silence, then, ‘If I find out you’re lying, Harry, I’ll stand up in court and testify myself.’

‘Ask Ben. When he wakes up, ask him. He’ll tell you.’

A choked-back sob. ‘You think he’s going to be alright?’

‘Of course he is. Look, I can’t say too much about these arrangements I’m making, but …’

‘But what?’

I swallowed dry. Saying it made it real. ‘I’m going back inside, Dee. There’s a cop on my case and he’s putting me away.’

‘For what?’

‘Does it matter?’

She sounded distant, half-dreamy. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose it does.’

‘I’ll stay in touch. If there’s any change in Ben, let me know.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Be strong, Dee.’

‘Fuck you.’

She hung up. I depressed the connection, rang Herb. In the silence the whole house seemed to lurk at my shoulder, one ear cocked. And maybe that was just the faint echo I was hearing, the kind you get on an open line.

‘Yello.’

‘It’s me.’

‘About fucking time, too. Where are you?’

‘Be cute. I’m on an unsecured line.’

‘Why, where’s your phone?’

I filled him in, ending with Ben’s condition.

‘Fucking hell. Will he be alright?’

In his cautious tone I heard the real question, the same one Dee had been asking, the one that ended with the words ‘brain’ and ‘damage’.

‘We’re hopeful,’ I said. ‘Signs are positive.’

‘Anything I can do from this end?’

‘Not much, Herb. But cheers.’

‘Okay, but if you think of anything … Listen, Harry? What about the-’

‘Not now, Herb. You’re on my list and I’ll get to you as soon as I can. But not now.’

‘Alright. But don’t go lost. Don’t make me send someone out to find you.’

‘Herb, man — I’m your reducer. It’d be me you’d be sending out.’

‘So don’t make me do it. You’re fucked up enough without turning schizophrenic.’

He hung up. I waited a full three minutes before hearing a funny kind of whispering click on the line, and then I hung up too.