When Will There Be Good News? (26 page)

Of course she didn't need to drive all the way out to Musselburg
h
and back in rush-hour traffic. 'It's out ofyour way,' Reggie said. It was, but she didn't care. Not out of any real consideration fo
r
the girl, it was just a time-spinner, an avoidance of the inevitable return home. She'd been on the move all day, her own personal hejira, and the idea ofcoming to a stop was unsettling. Unable to stay put, she had spent half the day in her car going places and the other half making up places to go to. (Sorry I'm going to be late, something came up. Who had insisted that Bridget and Tim stay five whole days?

Louise, that was who.) 'What's Dr Hunter like?' she asked Reggie Chase on the drive to Musselburgh and the girl said, 'Well .. .' It seemed Joanna Hunter liked Chopin and Beth Nielsen Chapman and Emily Dickinson and Henry James and had a remarkable tolerance for the Tweenies. She could play the piano -'really well', according to Reggie -and agreed with William Morris that you should have nothing in your house that you didn't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. She loved coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon and had a surprisingly sweet tooth and said that it was a medical fact that you had a separate 'pudding stomach' which was why when you'd eaten a big meal you could always 'find room for dessert'. She didn't believe in God, her favourite book was Little Women because it was about 'girls and women discovering their strengths' and her favourite film was La RegIe du Jeu which she had lent Reggie a copy of and which Reggie liked a lot although not as much as The Railway Children which was her favourite film. If Dr Hunter had to rescue three things from a burning building they would be the baby and the dog but Reggie hadn't been sure what the third thing would be -Louise suggested Mr Hunter but Reggie said she thought he woul
d
probably manage to rescue himself. Of course, if Reggie was in the building then Dr Hunter would rescue her, Reggie said.

And she loved the baby. Gabriel -of course, Gabriel, Gabrielle. The baby was named for Joanna Hunter's dead mother. Louise hadn't made the connection, probably because neither Joanna Hunter nor Reggie Chase called him by his name. He was 'the baby' to both of them. The only baby, the light of the world.

'Chase and Hunter' -what was that about? It sounded like a bad seventies sitcom about amateur detectives. Or 'Hunter and Chase', upmarket country estate agents. Reggie. Regina. You didn't meet many girls called Regina.

'I found this in the man's pocket,' the girl said, shyly handing over a filthy postcard.

'What man?' Louise asked, taking the postcard reluctantly between her thumb and forefinger. Like the baby's blanket, the postcard was a bio-hazard of mud and blood and looked as if it had been trampled by a herd of horses.

'The man whose life I saved.'

Oh, that man, Louise thought. That imaginary man. The postcard was a picture of somewhere European. Louise struggled to make it out beneath the muck.

'Bruges,' the girl said. 'In Belgium. His name and address is on the other side. I didn't imagine him.' 'I didn't say you did.' She turned the postcard over and read the message. Read the name and address. 'Jackson Brodie,' the girl said hopefully. 'I don't know if he's alive or dead though. Maybe you could have a wee look for him?' Louise handed the postcard back and said, 'I'm very busy at the moment.'

She didn't come off the A1 on to the bypass. Instead of taking the road home she turned at Newcraighall and headed to the hospital, as obedient as a dog to a shepherd calling her home.

Nada y Pues Nad
a
NO WAY WAS SHE GOING BACK TO GORGIE SO IT WAS JUST AS WELL SHE had the keys to Ms MacDonald's house. And on the plus side, Musselburgh was currently the focus of national media attention. Reggie couldn't imagine that the would-be terminators would go looking for 'a guy called Reggie' in Ms MacDonald's dull street, especially when it was still crawling with police. The more time that had passed since this morning the more unlikely it seemed that the idiots, rechristened 'Ginger' and 'Blondie' in her mind now, were actually looking for her. They were looking for Billy. She should just have given them his address in the Inch, he'd obviously given he
r
address to them. She should return the favour.

'This is where you live?' Inspector Monroe said, peering through the windscreen at Ms MacDonald's house.

'Yes,' Reggie said. 'My mother's not here at the moment.' One lie, one truth. They cancelled each other out and left the world unchanged. It seemed so much simpler not to go into any kind of detail whatsoever.

Inspector Monroe had at least listened to her, even if she clearl
y
didn't believe her, but if Reggie had added, 'And in an entirely unr
elated incident two men trashed my flat and threatened to kill m
e
this morning, and oh, yeah, they gave me a copy of the Iliad,' at tha
t
point Inspector Monroe would probably have made a swift exit from Starbucks. She didn't really look like a policewoman, beneath her winter coat she was dressed in jeans and a soft sweater, the same offduty clothes as Dr Hunter. Her hair was scraped back into a ponytail that it wasn't quite long enough for and she had to keep tucking a wayward strand behind her ear. 'I'm still growing it,' she said. 'I had it cut really short but it didn't suit me.' Mum used to say that women had drastic haircuts at the end of unsuccessful relationships. Mum's friends were always appearing with shorn heads but Reggie's mother knew her hair was an asset to be valued. She was so besotted with Gary though that she might have cut her hair if he had asked her to. She would have done just about anything to keep Gary although a lot of his attraction was simply that he wasn't the Man-Who-CameBefore-Him. Imagine if he'd said to Mum, 'I'd love to see you with short hair,Jackie.' It was difficult to put words into Gary's mouth, he was so tongue-tied. (,You're very articulate, Reggie,' Dr Hunter had said to her once, which she had taken as a great compliment. 'Oh, she's a talker, our Reggie,' Mum used to say.) And then Mum might have gone to her hairdresser (Philip -'camp but married', according to Mum) and said, 'Cut it all off, Philip, it's time for a change,' and Philip would have given her a nice short bob, just below her ears or, even safer, an urchin cut like Kylie after the cancer and -ta-daa Mum would at this moment be stirring a pan of mince in the kitchen in Gorgie and looking forward to EastEnders.

Reggie wondered if Inspector Monroe had ever suffered a broken heart. She didn't look the type somehow.

Sadie had been a bit of a problem but in the end Inspector Monroe had put her in the back seat of her car (along with the burdensome Topshop bag) from where the dog had watched them walk away along George Street with such intensity that she might have been trying to burn them on to her retinas. Inspector Monroe didn't seem like a pet sort ofperson but then she said, 'I had a cat,' as if it had meant something.

Reggie was grateful for the muffin, she was ravenous -apart from Mr Hussain's Tic Tacs and the Mars bar (hardly a balanced diet) she hadn't eaten all day, the morning's toast having been *ejected before it was digested. She wanted to concentrate on eating the muffin so she got the words out quickly -the car, the phone, the piece of moss-green blanket, the shoes, the suit, the whole unlikely notbeing-thereness ofDr Hunter, as ifaliens had descended and whisked her away. She made a point of not mentioning alien abduction t
o
Inspector Monroe. When she reached the end
of her
story, Inspector Monroe yawned and said, 'Excuse me. I'm very tired, I was up all night.'

'At the train crash?' Reggie guessed.

'Yes.'

'Me too,' Reggie said.

'Really?' Inspector Monroe gave her a doubtful look as if she was considering putting her in the fantasizing psycho box after all.

'I gave a man CPR,' Reggie said, climbing deeper into the box. 'I
t
ried to save his life.' The lid of the box banged shut.

This was the first time she had mentioned the man to anyone. Sh
e
had carried him around all day like a secret and it felt good to get i
t
out of her head and into the world even though, once spoken, th
e
idea seemed unlikely. The events of last night already seemed mor
e
unreal by the hour, then she remembered looking at the body of M
s
MacDonald this morning and the events of last night seemed les
s
unreal.

'Oh?' Inspector Monroe said. Reggie might as well have playe
d
the alien abduction card because Inspector Monroe couldn't hav
e
looked more sceptical if she'd tried.

'How did you get that bruise?' she had said, peering closely a
t
Reggie's forehead.

Reggie tugged her fringe down and said, 'It's nothing, I wasn'
t
looking where I was going.'

'Sure that's all it was?'

She looked concerned. Reggie knew what she was thinking
,
domestic violence, etcetera. She wasn't thinking 'slipped and fell in
a
shower when threatened by two idiots'.

'Sweartogod,' Reggie said.

She could have told Inspector Monroe about Ginger and Blondi
e
but it wasn't going to help find Dr Hunter (and fantasizing psych
o
etcetera). And anyway perhaps their threats were real (Don't go to the police about this wee visit or, guess what?). What if they were watching her? What if they had seen her in Starbucks drinking coffee with a detective chief inspector, not even a humble uniformed constable. They would never believe it wasn't about them. It was only when Reggie said, 'Just here, please,' at Ms MacDonald's front door that Inspector Monroe said, 'Oh, I see, it was right on your doorstep,' as if she finally might believe that Reggie was not lying about the train crash.

'Well, nearly,' Reggie said.

'Right then,' Inspector Monroe said, 'best be getting off, things to do, you know.'

'Tell me about it,' Reggie said.

She waved goodbye to Inspector Monroe who was frowning not waving when she drove away.

Reggie pushed the reluctant sash of the bedroom window as far up as it would go to welcome in some fresh air. There were men working under arc-lights on the track, accompanied by the constant clatter and whine of the heavy machinery. A huge crane was lifting a carriage from the track. The carriage swung in the air like a toy. A massive, bone-white moon was rising in the sky, shining indifferently on the unnatural scene below.

It was too noisy to sleep in the neglected back bedroom, even with the window closed, and there was no way that Reggie would contemplate sleeping in Ms MacDonald's own bedroom at the front, awash with the stale scents of dirty laundry and half-used medicines.

She caught sight
of her
selfin the mirror on the dressing table. The bruise on her forehead was turning black.

Sadie had spent the last hour tracking the ghostly scent of Banjo around the house but now was flopped miserably in the living room. Reggie supposed that when someone went away it must seem to their pets that they'd simply disappeared off the face of the earth. Here one minute, gone the next. Dr Hunter said Sadie was lucky because she didn't know that she was going to die one day but Reggie said she wanted to know when she was going to die because then she could avoid it. No one could avoid death, ofcourse, but you could avoid a premature death at the hands of idiots. (,Not always,' Dr Hunter said.)

After foraging in Ms MacDonald's bare cupboards Reggie came up with half a packet ofstale Ritz crackers but struck gold when she discovered the Cash 'n' Carry-sized stash of Tunnock's Caramel Wafers that Ms MacDonald kept for her supper. She shared the Ritz crackers with Sadie and ate a caramel wafer.

Would Chief Inspector Monroe really look for Dr Hunter? It seemed doubtful somehow. Why had she come to Dr Hunter's house on Tuesday? 'Oh, something and nothing,' she said. 'To do with a patient.' She was a good liar but then so was Reggie. It took one to know one.

Something and nothing. This and that. Here and there. People certainly were very evasive around Reggie.

Reggie decided to sleep on the sofa. Sadie jumped into an armchair and turned round and round until she was satisfied with it and then settled down with a huge sigh as if she was getting rid of the day from her body. The sofa Reggie was sleeping on still bore the faint imprint of Banjo's body but there was a kind of comfort in that. It had been an unbelievably difficult day. Hard times, indeed.

Some time in the night, Sadie left the chair and joined Reggie on the sofa. Reggie supposed she needed comfort too. She put her arm round the dog and listened to the strong heartbeat in her big chest. The dog didn't smell of anything much but dog. It had never occurred to Reggie before but usually Sadie smelled of Dr Hunter's perfume. Dr Hunter must spend quite a lot of time hugging Sadie for that to happen. If Dr Hunter was OK she would have phoned, if not to speak to Reggie then to Sadie (Hello, puppy, how's my gorgeous girl?).

Where was Dr Hunter? Elle revient. What if she didn't?

Why had Dr Hunter stepped out of her shoes and walked out of her life? There were so many questions and no answers. Someone had to hunt for Dr Hunter. Ha.