I don’t bother with the bathroom, but instead make straight for the room where Kenneth slept. The door is shut and the handle is stiff to turn. There’s a loud click when I open the door and I look round, startled, in case Andi comes, but she doesn’t. I’m guessing that Susan will have engaged her in a grown-up conversation to distract her; she’s good like that, is Susan.

The room is neat. There are still clothes laid out on a chair. But there is only one thing I have come for. I look up at the ceiling above Kenneth’s bed.

It isn’t there.

How can that be? Why isn’t it there? Who’s got it?

I step further into the room. Perhaps it has dropped down on the other side of the bed? I find myself tiptoeing, even though I don’t need to because of the thick carpet. It’s nowhere to be seen, and I’m considering pulling open the drawer of a chest when Andi says, ‘This is the second time, Malky!’ I swing round with a gasp. ‘Just what on earth are you up to?’

‘No … nothing,’ I say, stupidly. The look on Andi’s face shows she doesn’t believe me.

Chapter 60

Andi sighs and unfolds her arms, coming further into the room, followed by Susan who is wearing a pained expression on her face and mouthing ‘sorry’ for allowing Andi to escape.

‘Come on, son. Out with it: what’s going on?’ she says.

There’s nothing I can do except try the truth. ‘Have you, erm … have you seen a thing that used to hang here? It was like a decoration,’ I say, pointing at the empty hook above Kenneth’s bed. Andi nods.

‘It’s gone with him. His instructions were pretty clear.’

‘Well, who’s been here?’ I say, a bit too urgently. I sound rude and Andi looks taken aback.

Patiently, she says, ‘I found him … deceased … late last night. A doctor came first thing to issue the death certificate. The funeral directors arrived a bit later to take away the … Kenneth. Did you think you’d just come in and take it? Did he say you could have it?’

My silence is all the answer she needs.

‘One second,’ says Andi. ‘Come with me.’ She marches out of the bedroom that Kenneth died in and where I am beginning to feel very uncomfortable. Susan and I follow her back to the big room.

Andi takes a sheet of paper out of an envelope. She unfolds it and her eyes flick over the lines written on it.

‘Buried with him. He knew he didn’t have long, poor old soul. He left instructions on here: his “final performance” he called it. He wanted to be buried in his kilt along with his “dreany-mator” or whatever it was.’

Andi’s mispronunciation annoys me. ‘It’s a Dreaminator, and …’