When Will There Be Good News? (23 page)

'Seeing as Dr Hunter usually takes Sadie for her walk,' Reggie said, 'I thought I could do it for you while she's visiting her aunt. Aunt Agnes.'

Mr Hunter rubbed the stubble on his face as if he was having trouble remembering who Reggie was. Sadie had no such problem, appearing at Mr Hunter's side, wagging her tail at the sight of Reggie, although in a more subdued way than usual.

'Have you spoken to Dr Hunter since she left on Wednesday night?'

'Yes, of course I have.'

'How did you speak to her?'

'How?' Mr Hunter frowned. 'On the phone of course.'

'Her phone?'

'Yes. Her phone.'

'Only I've been phoning Dr Hunter, on her phone, and get no answer.' 'I expect she's very busy.' 'With the aunt?' 'Yes, the aunt.' 'Aunt Agnes? In Hawes?' 'Yes and yes. I have spoken to her, Reggie. She's fine. She doesn't want to be bothered.'

'Bothered?'

'What did you do to your head?' Mr Hunter asked, changing the subject. 'You look worse than I feel.' Reggie gingerly felt the bruise on her forehead where she had hit it in the shower.

'Wasn't looking where I was going,' she said.

Sadie whined impatiently, she had heard the word 'walk' several sentences ago and still nothing had happened.

'You probably don't have time to take Sadie out,' Reggie said. 'You having a lot ofthings to do and everything.' Mr Hunter looked down at the dog as ifit was going to answer for him and then shrugged and said, 'Aye, right, fine, OK then.'Which seemed like a lot of words for 'yes', even for a Weegie.

'Can I have a phone number for Dr Hunter's aunt?'

'No.'

'Why not?' Reggie asked.

'Because her aunt needs peace and quiet.'

'Can I leave my bag?'

'Bag?' Mr Hunter echoed as if he couldn't see the enormous Topshop bag that Reggie had lugged all the way over here. She had taken the bus to the town centre and bled her Topshop account. She had fled the flat in Gorgie with what she stood up in (Ms MacDonald's clothes, unfortunately) and she wasn't going back for any
of her
stuff that was lying in a dodgy-smelling heap in her room.

In fact she wasn't going back to that flat for anything. She just wished that her books and A Level coursework had been left undefiled.

In Topshop, Reggie had bought two pairs ofjeans, two T-shirts, two sweaters, six pairs of pants and socks, two bras, a pair of trainers, two pairs ofpyjamas, a coat, a scarf, a hat and a pair ofgloves. ('Never knowingly underdressed,' Dr Hunter used to laugh when she saw Reggie piling on her layers of winter clothes to go home.) Reggie had never bought so many clothes at one time apart from when she and Mum had tried to comply with the gargantuan school uniform list at the horrible posh school. Being in Topshop had been like buying a layette or a trousseau, both pleasingly old-fashioned words for starting a new life. Not much chance of that.

She put on a whole set of new clothes in the Topshop changing room and threw Ms MacDonald's clothes into a builder's skip on the street. It felt like a cruel act. Ms MacDonald herself was lying quietly in cold storage, as unwanted as her clothes.

Reggie had caught a bus from town to the hospital and presented herself at reception (she asked again about 'Jackson Brodie' but there was still no record of him), where a very nice Polish girl ('from Gdansk') collected her and led her to a room where she could look at Ms MacDonald through glass. A room with a view. It was like looking at a tableau or being presented with a small, intimate piece of theatre. Ms MacDonald's face was uncovered and Reggie said, 'Yes, that's her.' Her face was bruised and swollen but she didn't look as bad as Reggie had expected. She didn't like to think what condition the rest of her was in. It seemed unlikely that she was all in one pIece.

Reggie supposed that both her old teacher and her blue Saxo would be the subject ofa lot offorensic tests. Last night, Sergeant Wiseman had taken a note ofReggie's mobile phone number and said that someone would contact her when 'the body' was released. Reggie wanted to say that it was nothing to do with her, but it would have sounded churlish given the circumstances -carnage, etcetera. And anyway she was only sixteen. She might be technically an adult but really she was just a child. You couldn't make people who were almost children be responsible for dead bodies. Could you?

This was the third dead body Reggie had seen in her life. Ms MacDonald, Mum and the soldier last night. Four if you counted Banjo. It seemed a lot for a person of so few years.

She'd identified a dead body, had her flat vandalized, been threatened by violent idiots and it wasn't even lunchtime. Reggie hoped the rest of the day would be more uneventful.

'No,' Mr Hunter said.

'No what?'

'No, you can't leave your bag, I have to go out.'

'I have a key.'

'Of course you do.' Mr Hunter gave a long-suffering sigh as if he was conceding a drawn-out argument. 'OK. Give me the bag, I'll get the dog-lead.' He took the Topshop bag from Reggie and dropped it unceremoniously on the floor by the sink and then unhooked the dog's lead from behind the door and handed it over. An eager Sadie bounded past him as if set free from prison.

'Oh, and Mr H.,' Reggie said boldly (poking the bear), 'it's Thursday. Dr Hunter pays me on a Thursday.'

'Does she now?' Mr Hunter said. He smiled at her, one of his nice smiles that recognized you as a special person, and took his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and pinched out a small sheaf of notes without counting them. 'Don't spend it all at once,' he laughed, as if he was handing over pocket money rather than payment for a job well done. 'Leave some clothes in the shops, OK?'

'Very funny, Mr H. Thanks.' No point in telling him that she'd been on her shopping spree because two jokers had wrecked her house and her clothes
. T
he Hunters didn't live in that kind ofworld. Reggie didn't want to live in that kind of world either.

When Mr Hunter had gone back in the house and shut the door, Reggie counted the money. It was half ofwhat Dr Hunter gave her.

Sadie had a basket of toys in the garage, balls, rubber bones and ring
s
and an old teddy bear, and Reggie said, 'Let's get a ball for you
,
Sadie,' and Sadie gave a little wo~fof excitement at the word 'ball'.

The garage used to be kept locked but then the key had got lost and no one had got round to cutting a new one. Dr Hunter said that the worst thing that could happen was that her car might get stolen and it was insured so what did it matter? Mr Hunter said that was a cavalier attitude and Dr Hunter said, 'Well you get one cut then,' which was probably the nearest thing to an argument between them that Reggie had ever witnessed. Mr Hunter didn't know about the spare car keys that she kept on a shelf in the garage, behind a tin of paint (Clouded Pearl, the colour that the hall had been decorated in), because then he would 'go ballistic' according to Dr Hunter.

The garage was small because the house was built in the days when most people didn't own one car, let alone two, and the garage had been squashed into a small space next to the house as an afterthought, separated from the house by a narrow passage. Mr Hunter's big Range Rover couldn't even get into the garage and so it remained the snug home of Dr Hunter's Toyota Prius. Reggie squeezed past the car to reach the basket and pick out Sadie's favourite, an old red rubber ball so chewed that it had lost almost all of its bounce.

'Come on then, old girl,' Reggie said to Sadie as she shut the garage door. It was what Dr Hunter always said to the dog when they set offfor a walk. It felt odd to be in charge ofSadie. No Dr Hunter, no Mr Hunter, no baby. Reggie realized she'd never been entirely alone with the dog before. They squeezed through the gap in the hedge that let them directly into the field that today was home to three horses, all standing around rather listlessly as if they were waiting for something to happen. Reggie threw the ball and then raced round the field with the dog because that was what she liked best.

Here was the thing. Dr Hunter had travelled to Hawes last night. She drove down last night, Mr Hunter said on the phone this morning. So why was her car in the garage?

When they got back from their walk the house was locked and there was no sign ofMr Hunter. A note placed prominently on the kitchen table said, 'Dear Reggie -actually I forgot -Jo suggested that maybe you would like to take our mutual friend to your place and look after her until she gets back. You'll probably have more time at the moment than I will anyway. Thanks, Neil.' It took Reggie a moment to realize that the note referred to the dog. Mr Hunter seemed a different person on paper, he certainly used a lot more words. There was no mention of money for dog food, Reggie noticed.

The thing was. When she brought the dog back from her run in the field, Reggie had gone upstairs to Dr Hunter's bedroom -Mr Hunter's too, ofcourse -not for any reason,just to be there, to look, to feel closer to Dr Hunter. She shouldn't have, she knew, but she wasn't doing any harm.

Dr Hunter wouldn't have minded, although you could be pretty sure that Mr Hunter would.

The bed hadn't been made -Mr Hunter's 'bachelor's rules'. Otherwise it was pretty tidy, although not as tidy as when Dr Hunter was home. Sadie circled the room, sniffing everything like a tracker dog -the sheets, the carpet, the dry-cleaning bag that Dr Hunter brought home with her yesterday lying over the back of a chair. Reggie took the newly cleaned suit out of its plastic shroud and hung it up in the closet next to one of Dr Hunter's other suits. The closet was a big, walk-in affair, Dr Hunter had one side, Mr Hunter the other. All the clothes on Dr Hunter's side smelt faintly of the perfume that she always wore. The plain blue bottle stood on the chest ofdrawers next to Dr Hunter's old-fashioned silver-backed hairbrush, her spare inhaler and a photograph of the baby taken when he was just a few days old and looking as if he was still waiting to be inflated. Reggie dabbed some
of the
perfume on the insides of her wrists. Je Reviens. A promise. Or a threat. Hasta la vista, baby. Back soon.

Where was the third suit? The one already in the wardrobe still had the dry-cleaner's little pink tag attached to its collar with a small safety pin, so the suit that was missing must be the one that Dr Hunter was wearing yesterday. There was no sign ofit anywhere. Had she driven all the way down to Yorkshire to see the mysterious sick aunt without getting changed? That seemed completely out of character for Dr Hunter who always got changed the minute she got home from work, kicking off her shoes, hanging up her suit and throwing on something casual, jeans usually. 'There, I'm me again,' she sometimes said, as if the suit was a disguise.

On the carpet, in front of the chest of drawers, were Dr Hunter's low-heeled black court shoes, one upright, one fallen over, looking as ifDr Hunter had just stepped out of them. Sadie sniffed anxiously at each
of the
shoes as ifshe was about to be sent off to follow a scent trail. Next to the shoes were Dr Hunter's discarded tights in a wrinkled heap on the floor, pale and empty, like an abandoned snake skin.

Looking at the contents of the closet gave Reggie a funny feeling, a bit like when she looked at Mum's clothes hanging in the wardrobe or Ms MacDonald's clothes in the skip. It seemed to have the same effect on Sadie who lay down on the floor next to the shoes and gave a mournful whine. Reggie wanted to hear Dr Hunter's voice, hear her say, 'I'll be back soon, Reggie, don't worry.' Reggie was sure that Dr Hunter wouldn't feel 'bothered' ifshe phoned her. She dialled Dr Hunter's mobile number again but just as the number began to ring she heard the sound of a car approaching. Sadie pricked up her ears and stood to attention. A glance out of the window confirmed it was the Range Rover. 'Sugar,' Reggie said to the dog.

For a mad moment she thought about diving into the bedroom closet but when people did that in horror films it never turned out well. They were either found and murdered or they witnessed something horrible from behind the slatted doors of their hiding place.

The thing was, when she dialled Dr Hunter's phone (my lifeline) she had heard the unmistakable sound ofits ringtone -Bach's 'Crab Canon' ('So called,' Dr Hunter explained, 'because the second voice plays exactly the same notes as the first, only backwards,' which Reggie didn't entirely understand but she smiled and nodded and said, 'Right, I get it.'). The phone was ringing from somewhere downstairs. Reggie was halfWay down the staircase on a hunt for the phone -the Bach sounded as if it was coming from the kitchen when Mr Hunter burst through the front door at his usual velocity and was brought up short at the sight of her.

'Still here, Reggie?'

'Just been to the 100,' Reggie said, feigning nonchalance. The phone had stopped ringing a beat after Mr Hunter entered the house.

'Don't you have a home to go to?' Mr Hunter said.

'Yep, sure do,' she said, marching past him and out of the front door. Sadie raced past her, hoovering up familiar smells in the border at the side of the drive. When Reggie reached the gate she whistled to Sadie, who came trotting up tail whirling round, the way it did when she was excited at retrieving treasure. She was carrying something in her mouth and when she reached Reggie she placed her find at her feet and sat obediently, waiting to be praised.

Reggie's heart nearly stopped when she saw what Sadie had dropped on the ground.