Forty-Nine
Having picked up a burger on the way home and demolished it in short order, Miller sat noodling on his guitar, working his way through a few of the more acoustic numbers from The Beatles’ ‘White Album’ – ‘Blackbird’, ‘Dear Prudence’, ‘Rocky Racoon’.
On the other side of the room, Alex lay on the floor next to the rats’ cage, feeding small strips of carrot through the wire and watching Fred and Ginger eat with rather more delicacy than Miller had managed.
‘I’ve definitely seen more … dignified exchanges,’ Alex said.
Miller stopped playing and looked across.
‘You and the puppet.’
‘Yeah, well, he was winding me up.’
‘Giving you the willies, more like.’ She poked another strip of carrot through the bars, smiling as Ginger – whose fur had almost returned to normal – nibbled at it. ‘You’ve always been a bit weird about puppets and dolls.’
‘That’s rubbish.’
‘Is it, my love?’ Alex grinned. ‘I remember that time you had to leave the room when Keith Harris and Orville came on the telly.’
‘I wasn’t feeling too clever,’ Miller said. ‘That’s all. It had nothing to do with …’ He fought to suppress a shudder. ‘That … duck.’
Alex climbed to her feet, wandered across and perched on the edge of the sofa. ‘You think anything’ll come of it?’
‘The puppet?’
‘The dancer.’
Miller laid his guitar down. ‘I’d be very surprised.’
‘She might have known something useful and just chosen not to tell you. Maybe she was closer to Battersby than she let on.’
‘Either way we’re left with less than bugger all.
’ Miller sighed and sat back, then stared up at the ceiling at the sound of a door closing on the floor above.
‘So, that’s a major kidnap case that’s going nowhere fast, on top of the Darren Grant murder which has gone colder than a penguin’s nutsack. ’
‘You never know,’ Alex said. ‘There might be someone out there the Cutlers didn’t get to.’
‘You think?’
‘Someone who might be persuaded to come forward if you tried another appeal.’
‘Right, and Malky McDougall might get religion and decide to confess.’
Alex looked at him, her concern evident. ‘You OK, Miller?’
Miller looked back at her.
‘It’s not like you to be so negative, that’s all. To show it, anyway.’
‘Sorry, long day.’
‘It’s fine with me,’ Alex said. ‘I’m very much a glass-half-empty kind of girl myself, these days. What with being six feet under and everything.’
‘I’m knackered, that’s all it is,’ Miller said. ‘Knackered and cheesed off.’
‘Anything I can do?’
Miller shook his head, feeling his eyes beginning to close.
‘Don’t get me wrong … it’s great to have you here to come home to.
Even if you’re not actually here. Even if you’re stone-cold dead and I’m sat around like a plum, talking to myself.
’ He tried to laugh, but it wouldn’t come.
‘Let’s be honest, I might as well be talking to that effing puppet.
’ He raised his head when he heard footsteps on the stairs, and nodded up to Finn.
He wasn’t surprised to see her. She knew where the spare key was, on top of which he’d clocked her rucksack by the door when he’d walked in.
‘Hey, Finn …’
She didn’t respond and stopped suddenly at the bottom of the stairs. She stared around, miles away. He knew she was high, because he’d smelled the weed in her bag and now he could see it in her eyes. She was wearing her usual outfit of grubby joggers and a faded sweatshirt and her hair was wet.
She rubbed absently at it with a hand towel. ‘I had a bath.’
‘I hope you didn’t use my Mr Men bubble bath.’
She looked momentarily frightened, as though she was being scolded for something she didn’t remember doing.
‘It’s fine,’ Miller said. Only it wasn’t, because when he got up and walked towards her he could see that she’d been crying. ‘Hey …’
‘Hey, Miller …’ It was as though there was a ten-second delay between them, and she’d spoken as if she was talking in her sleep.
‘Is everything OK?’
‘I had a bath.’
He moved closer and tried to put an arm around her, but she ducked beneath it and walked towards the front door, tossing the towel on to a chair as she went. ‘Where are you going?’
‘There’s a meeting.’ She picked up her rucksack and hoisted it over her shoulder. ‘I need to go to the meeting.’
‘Your hair’s still wet. Didn’t your mum tell you about going out with wet hair? What am I talking about – I know she did.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘And you’re high.’ He tried to keep his voice calm and measured. ‘I can tell that you are.’
Finn made no such effort. ‘We’ve had this discussion. There’s no law that says you can’t go to a meeting if you’re using and no law that says you can’t come out of the meeting and go straight to wherever you can get high again. Anyway, it’s my business.’
‘I know there’s no law …’ Miller was struggling for the right words. ‘I don’t understand, OK? Trust me, I’m trying.’
‘Besides, I’m going there to find someone, fair enough? I’m not going for any of that higher power codswallop, I’m going because there’s someone I need to talk to. It’s important.’
‘Fair enough,’ Miller said. ‘I get it.’
‘No, you don’t.’ Finn rubbed at her eyes. ‘You just said it yourself, you don’t understand. I thought you would by now. But you just … don’t.’
Miller had nothing left to say, and knew very well that even if he had it wouldn’t have made any difference. When she dug the door keys from her rucksack and dropped them on to the table he wanted to tell her that she should keep hold of them – beg her to – but there seemed little point.
He could do nothing but watch her leave.
When Finn had gone, Miller turned back into the room, hoping that Alex might see fit to return, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not conjure a trace of her.
He fell back on to the sofa and closed his eyes.
His mind was racing, but before too long it began, mercifully, to slow.
He thought about the blackness in Finn’s eyes and about a young man with a bag over his head and quite possibly a gun to it.
He was thinking about a tango that never was when he felt a different kind of blackness begin to thicken and settle over him, and he was only too happy to let it.