‘It’s watching the boy trying to destroy himself that makes me mad.’ His voice was gruff but quiet now, almost gentle. For a split second I glimpsed the man behind the posturing.

‘Don’t you think that you might be just a tiny bit responsible?’ I picked up the dog. ‘He’s trying to fill the socking great hole your contempt has drilled in him. It’s just, he’s not filling it with the right things.’

The housekeeper appeared, scurrying like a frightened mouse. ‘Mrs Bailey, she not answer phone. Please can you –’

Malcolm held up a sturdy hand, his fingers straggly with coarse hair. ‘It’s all right, Gemi. Maggie can take the dog. I’ll square it with the missus.’

‘Oh.’ Gemi looked hugely relieved. ‘Thank you, Mr Bailey.’

I looked at Alex’s father and I wondered if my words had made an impact. ‘Yes, thank you, Malcolm. Come on, Dig. We’ll see you around.’

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Five

When I left Malcolm’s I went to see Gar. I felt like I was saying goodbye to everybody; I felt like I was on the run… like the predator was closing in.

It was Susan’s day off and an insipid-looking redhead called Annette was on duty, reading the Sun next to a fake white Christmas tree festooned with gaudy tinsel. She barely raised her eyes as I walked past.

Gar looked more dishevelled than usual somehow, although she managed to pat my hand after I’d hugged her tightly. I felt horribly anxious about the fact I was planning to leave town again.

‘Hello Maggie,’ she said, and I looked at her in surprise.

‘She’s been all right, has she?’ I asked Annette when she came to give Gar her pills.

‘As all right as she ever is, you know.’ Insipid shrugged slouchy shoulders. ‘Aren’t you, dear?’ she yelled at Gar.

‘She’s not deaf, you know,’ I said stiffly. ‘Just a bit –’

‘Senile?’ Insipid sniffed.

‘She’s not senile,’ I snapped. ‘She’s got Alzheimer’s. There’s a difference, you know.’

‘If you say so. She had another visitor yesterday, that perked her up – didn’t it, dear?’ she shouted again.

I bit my tongue. ‘My dad, you mean?’ I moved the poinsettia I’d brought with me onto Gar’s bedside table, noticing with irritation that beneath the top layer of scarlet leaves, the next layer was already shrivelled and dead.

‘No, not your dad. I know Bill, lovely man, he is.’ She looked almost girlish for a minute. ‘No, this was a lady I think. I’m not sure, I weren’t here yesterday. Leanne said.’

My blood ran colder than it had all day. ‘Who was she?’

‘Said she was a relative. She’s been before. I think she left something for Vera.’ Insipid had lost interest now. She snapped the lid back on the pill bottle.

‘What?’