Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
‘C’mere, ye wee shite!’
Cal Neish erupted in a squeal of hysterical laughter as he toddled wildly around the coffee table, one arm held out for balance, the other struggling to hold the weight of his father’s shoe.
Tyler groaned. It was too early in the morning for this.
‘Sinead, he’s taken my shoe again!’ he cried, lunging to catch the boy before he could make it to the downstairs bathroom and deposit said shoe in the toilet.
From upstairs, Sinead had to shout to make herself heard over the high-pitched wailing of the smoke alarm, which had been blaring for the past several seconds.
‘Then take it back off him!’
Tyler flashed a smile at their daughter, Lauren, who sat on the couch, leafing through the pages of an upside-down picture book, apparently oblivious to the chaos unfolding around her.
Cal shrieked with joy when he made it out of the living room and into the hall. He performed the mad little stomping dance he did whenever he needed to change direction, then threw his top half towards the open bathroom door, forcing his legs to keep up.
‘Can you stop that smoke alarm?’ Sinead shouted from the top of the stairs.
Tyler glanced up as he passed the device in the hall. The ceilings were too high for him to reach without standing on a chair, so he wasted a second waving a hand beneath it like this might purify the air, then lunged after his son.
Too late. The wee bugger was already careening into the bathroom. The home straight.
‘No!’ Tyler cried.
The world seemed to grind into slow motion as he watched Cal swing the shoe back and then launch it in an underarm throw towards the toilet.
It arced through the air, laces trailing behind it, up, up, up, then down, down, down, and—
Clunk.
It landed on the closed lid of the toilet. The child fell silent with disappointment. Tyler stared in wonder at the still-dry shoe, then across to the lanky teenager standing brushing his teeth just a couple of feet away.
Harris, Sinead’s brother, looked back over his shoulder at Tyler, mid-brush.
‘You’re welcome,’ he said through a mouthful of blue foam, then he returned to matters at hand.
‘Cheers for that,’ Tyler said.
He grabbed both his shoe and his child, wriggled a foot into the former, and tucked the latter under an arm.
Once he’d safely deposited Cal on the couch beside his sister—where he’d remain for anything up to five seconds, if past experience was anything to go by—Tyler fetched a chair from the kitchen, then pressed the button to silence the screeching smoke alarm.
He sighed with relief as blessed silence returned.
‘Thank you!’ Sinead called from upstairs.
‘No bother,’ Tyler replied. ‘What’s burning, anyway?’
There was a long, pregnant pause.
‘What do you mean?’ Sinead finally shouted back. ‘How would I know?’
It was at this point that Tyler remembered the bacon.
‘Fuuuuck!’
Leaping down from the chair, he dashed into the smoke-filled kitchen, grabbed the handle of the grill tray, and pulled out six shrivelled slices of what appeared to be charcoal.
The smoke alarm gave a warning chirp, like it was about to kick off again. Tyler opened the back door, and some of the smoke rushed out, like even it’d had enough of the house for one day.
‘Toast?’
Tyler turned to find Sinead standing in the kitchen doorway, a smile tugging at one corner of her mouth.
Tyler turned off the grill.
‘Toast,’ he agreed.
Sinead ate her toast standing up, while jiggling Cal with one arm and trying to finish doing her hair using sheer willpower alone.
Tyler sat on the couch next to Lauren, who watched him eating his own slice of toast with such an intense fascination that Tyler was beginning to suspect she’d done something to it when he wasn’t looking.
Arsenic, maybe.
‘How you feeling?’ Sinead asked. ‘About today?’
‘I mean, it’s not off to a great start,’ Tyler replied. ‘Although, no worse than usual, I suppose.’
‘The bacon was a nice touch,’ Sinead said. She smiled. ‘But I meant the interview.’
‘Oh, that? Aye, I’m not worried. It’ll be a walk in the park. The idiot I’m up against doesn’t stand a chance.’
He laughed as he dodged the toast crust that was tossed in his direction.
‘Funny, I was going to say the same,’ Sinead told him. Her smile ebbed away. ‘But we’ll be fine, won’t we? Whatever happens?’
‘What do you mean?’ Tyler asked.
He side-eyed his daughter as he brought his toast to his mouth. She continued to watch the process with a worrying level of interest. He’d offered her a bit of it a few moments ago, and her firm rejection had only made him more paranoid.
‘I mean, whoever doesn’t get it, they’re going to be fine, right?’ Sinead switched Cal from one arm to the other, mid-jiggle. ‘Like… we’re going to be alright?’
‘Aye. Of course,’ Tyler said, rising to his feet. He crossed to his wife and son and kissed them both on the head, one after the other. ‘You’ll get over it, no problem.’
Sinead rolled her eyes and held up a buttery hand. ‘Shut up, or I’ll rub crumbs through your hair.’
Tyler paled at the thought. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’
‘I probably wouldn’t manage. It’s rock solid,’ Sinead pointed out. ‘You’d need a chisel to get through that. What did you use in it this morning, superglue?’
‘Laugh it up all you want, Detective Constable,’ Tyler said, tucking his thumbs into an imaginary pair of braces and rocking back on his heels. ‘There’ll be less of that sort of cheek when I’m in charge.’
Sinead laughed. ‘Aye, you keep telling yourself that. Even if you get the promotion, you won’t be in charge. We both know it.’
‘That’s a fair point,’ Tyler conceded. He took her buttery hand in his and gave it a squeeze. ‘We’ll be fine. Whatever happens.’
There was a grunt from the hall as Harris heaved his heavy schoolbag up onto his shoulder. He was technically wearing his school uniform, but as tenuously as the rules would allow.
The tail of his white shirt hung past the bottom of his dark jumper. His top button was undone, and his tie wouldn’t have troubled the neck of the Incredible Hulk.
He had no jacket with him, despite Sinead having bought him at least two in the past six months.
Nobody wore jackets, apparently, except the weird kids and the losers.
Harris had fought tooth and nail to avoid winding up among the ranks of either group, and he was damned if a wee bit of rain and the odd sixty-mile-an-hour gust were going to change that.
‘You had enough for breakfast?’ Sinead asked him.
‘Aye, I had the toast you made, and that bacon.’
‘What, that bacon? My bacon?’ Tyler gasped. ‘You didn’t eat that.’
Harris shrugged. ‘It was fine.’
‘It was bricks,’ Tyler countered. ‘It was six wee black bricks.’
Harris shrugged again, dismissing the discussion entirely. ‘I’d better go, or I’ll be late.’ He started to leave, but then hung back. ‘Good luck, or whatever.’
‘Cheers, mate,’ Tyler said.
Harris awkwardly raised a finger in his sister’s direction. ‘I actually meant her.’
‘Oh.’
Sinead didn’t even bother trying to suppress her grin. ‘Thanks.’ She glanced at the window. ‘You, eh, you walking with Olivia today?’
‘Nah.’
There was something about the way he said it, the way he moved to avoid her gaze, that made Sinead press the issue.
‘How come?’
Harris shrugged yet again. ‘Just not been hanging out with her much. Think she might have a boyfriend or something.’
‘Weren’t you her boyfriend?’ Sinead asked, which drew a scowl of horror from her younger brother.
‘Shut up. No. We were just…’
‘Snogging?’ Tyler asked.
‘Shut up!’ Harris repeated, with even more emphasis.
Sinead handed Cal to Tyler. The boy immediately jabbed a finger up his father’s nose.
‘You OK?’ Sinead asked, crossing to her brother.
‘I’m fine! It’s not a problem!’
Harris blushed, and adjusted his bag on his shoulder.
‘Maybe she doesn’t have a boyfriend. I don’t know. She’s been weird for a few weeks now, since she found out—’
His mouth snapped shut around the rest of the sentence.
‘Since she found out what?’ Sinead asked.
‘Nothing.’
‘Harris.’
Sinead didn’t say anything more than his name. She didn’t have to.
Harris sighed, fully aware that there was no way he was leaving this house until he’d spilled the beans.
‘I wasn’t supposed to say anything,’ he mumbled. ‘But, I mean, it’s fine now, I suppose. You all know.’
‘Know what?’ Sinead asked.
Harris’s gaze flitted from his sister to Tyler and back again. ‘About her dad getting out. I mean, he’s out now, so you all know, so I suppose I don’t have to keep it a secret now.’
Sinead glanced back over her shoulder at her husband. A look passed between them before she turned back to Harris.
‘No. No secrets needed now,’ she confirmed. ‘We know he’s out.’
Harris seemed to relax a little. ‘Good. Fine. Well, she’s been weird since she heard.’
‘Since she heard a few weeks ago?’ Sinead asked.
‘Aye. Freaked her out a bit, I think. I wanted to say something to you, but she begged me not to. Said she was fine, and that she could deal with it.’
‘Deal with it?’ Tyler repeated.
Harris shrugged for the fourth and final time.
‘I need to go, or I’ll be late.’ He headed for the door. ‘Good luck,’ he called back to them. ‘And that one was for both of you.’