“Are you serious?”
“Almost always,” she replies without looking up from her laptop.
I stare at the wolf who stares back at me, as though he knows what is going on.
“Right. Well, does he need a lead?”
“No, he’s very well trained. Sunday will come when you call him. Just whistle like this if he strays too far.” She whistles two distinct notes, one high, one low, and the dog sits up, tilts his head, and stares at her adoringly.
I do not.
I don’t know whatmyface is doing, but I suspect it’s more of a glare.
“Where do you want me to walk him?” I ask.
“Up to you. Maybe take him to the beach? He loves the sea and the sand.”
“Fine.”
“And behave yourself.”
“You said he was well trained?”
“I meant you.”
The dog and I walk out of the pub, and along the harbor wall, where I take the coast path that leads through the sand dunes to Blackwater Bay. It’s only a ten-minute walk from the village, and I could do with some fresh air myself. In tourist season this beach is packed, but at this time of year it is normally deserted, because Blackwater Bay can only be reached on foot. I watch Sunday run ahead as soon as he sees the beach, ears flapping, tail wagging, bounding along the sand with the variety of carefree joy I have forgotten. Watching him makes me smile, which surprises me so much I have to look away. I take out my phone and try to catch up on all the things I haven’t been keeping up to date with since DCI Bird arrived.
A short while later, the sound of Sunday barking makes me look up. The sky has darkened while I’ve been looking down. Storm clouds have drifted in from the Atlantic, the wind has picked up, and the tide has rolled out, waves crashing and churning in the distance. I can’t see Sunday. I call his name but he doesn’t come. I can’t whistle—I didn’t want to confess to there being something else I can’t do in front of the new boss—but now I think I might have lost her bloody dog.
All I can see is a vast empty beach, all I can hear is the ocean. Then I spot Sunday in the sea, too far from the shore, and possibly out of his depth. Like me. Well trained, my arse, the husky is clearly suicidal. Maybe that’s what happens if you live with someone like Bird. The thought quickly mutates into guilt. Then fear.
If something happens to her dog she’ll kill me.
“Sunday!”
What a stupid bloody name for a dog.
I run toward the water, shouting his name over and over, like someone with days-of-the-week Tourette’s. But I don’t care if I sound like an idiot, nobody else is here and it looks like the tide is taking the dog farther out. I just need to get him back even if it means goingin myself. I start taking off my coat and anything else that will weigh me down in the water, but then the strangest thing happens. I hear a distinct whistle. Two notes. Just like Bird did in the pub, and the dog swims out of the sea and runs along the beach as though this was all a game. I’m the only person here and I can’t whistle. I spin around, but with the sea and the wind filling my ears, it’s hard to pinpoint where the sound came from. Until I see something out of the corner of my eye. A figure dressed in black on the other side of the bay. It’s not Bird. I can’t see their face, but from their height and build, Ithinkit’s a man.
I start walking toward them, but when they see me coming they run.
What the fuck?
I chase after him. I might not have been top of my class at the police academy, but I was always the fastest when it came to fitness tests. It doesn’t take me long to shorten the gap. I sprint along the sandy beach, knowing they can’t outrun me, getting closer every second. He briefly vanishes in the sand dunes, but I soon spot him again, and the chase continues. I almost fall clambering over the slippery rocks at the bottom of the cliff, and when I look up I can’t see him anywhere. The dog is by my side, wagging his tail as though he thought the chase was a game, but there is nobody else here. I search in all the obvious places, but they’ve gone, even though there was nowhere for them to go. As if they just disappeared.
I stop and try to catch my breath.
Confused and disorientated.
I might be mistaken, I think Imustbe, but the person I saw who whistled to save the dog and then vanished looked a lot like Harrison Woolf.
36BIRDY
Carter and his sister do not look at all alike. They are so different I’m finding it hard to believe they are related, and I use the time while Carter is gone to ask her a few questions.
Maddy is sitting behind the permanently empty bar of The Smuggler’s Inn. She’s twirling a strand of her long red hair around the finger of one hand and holding what looks like a romance novel in the other. I sit myself down on a barstool opposite her, and notice that my shoes could do with a polish. When Maddy doesn’t look up straight away I clear my throat. She turns the page of her book, so engrossed in the story she hasn’t noticed me. Or is pretending not to.
“I didn’t know Carter was your brother,” is my cunning opening line. She finally looks up from her paperback and smiles.
