‘I will message you every day but you can follow me on Instagram. Love you,’ said Dixie, giving her another tight hug. ‘I’m going before you make me smudge my mascara.’ With a forced smile Dixie went to say goodbye to some of the others.
The sound of panting made Nora turn around. Bruce arrived, pulling Jay behind him. The dog tried to greet everyone at once. Jay was making a sort of wheezing sound. He pulled an inhaler from his pocket and took a puff. He bent over and held a hand in the air, which seem to indicate he needed a moment to catch his breath.
‘Are you OK?’ asked Nora.
‘Did I miss it?’ he asked.
Elsie chugged into life as if on cue. ‘Oh, thank heavens for that. I set off with plenty of time but Bruce is like a guided missile with the wrong co-ordinates. But I did go past a lovely little café I didn’t know existed.’
Dixie tooted Elsie’s horn and everyone cheered. Renee was talking to Dixie through the driver’s window and appeared to be passing on words of wisdom. The little crowd parted and Dixie drove the spluttering van out of the car park. With a puff of black smoke it disappeared into the traffic.
Nora was absentmindedly rubbing Bruce’s head as he looked up at her adoringly. ‘That’s that then,’ she said, feeling more bereft than she had expected to at the sight of her best friend setting off on a new adventure.
‘Try not to worry about Dixie. I’m sure she’ll be fine. Come on,’ said Jay, giving her arm a squeeze. ‘Shall we check out this little café, if I can get Bruce to find it again?’
‘Thanks but there’s something I need to do,’ said Nora.
Nora had spent some time thinking things through about Benicio. It felt like the situation had moved on a bit from her quest. She could always come back to that but for now it felt like finding Benicio was the more pressing goal. Over a hundred people a week went missing in the UK and many were never seen again. She hadbriefly considered that he was no longer any of her business and she could just forget about it, but something kept niggling at her brain. From what the women at the gym had told her, it sounded like he had fallen on hard times. One in 182 people were homeless in the UK; was he now one of them? Just another statistic. He wasn’t the sort of person to ask for help. He was the classic strong, silent type.
Nora put on her seatbelt. It wouldn’t do any harm to drive over to Corby and see if she could find him. Right now she needed something to take her mind off Dixie travelling to goodness-knew-where in a mobile death-trap. Trying to track Benicio down, or at least find out what had happened to him, would be a distraction. She still had an old photo of her and Benicio together on her phone. He’d never liked his picture being taken but she’d managed to take this one on the sly and thankfully hadn’t deleted it after the split. Her thoughts were interrupted by large paws thudding on to the side of the car and Bruce’s furry face appearing at her window.
‘Sorry!’ said Jay. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’
Nora twisted her lips. ‘I’m just off to Corby to check on ex number six, Benicio.’
‘Ooh, any chance you could give me and my furryfienda lift? There’s an excellent pet shop there apparently.’
She’d not been expecting that but she couldn’t really say no. ‘Sure. Get in.’
That was easier said than done. Bruce was very unsure about getting in the back of the car. They tried coaxinghim but he just looked the other way. However, when Nora got out to give Jay a hand, the dog happily jumped in the driving seat.
‘I’m guessing he doesn’t have a licence,’ said Nora.
‘Only to drive a forklift,’ said Jay. ‘Now what do we do?’
Nora squeezed on to the seat next to Bruce and he conceded a little. ‘Right, go on, over you go,’ she said, pointing at the passenger seat, and happily he did as she asked. ‘That was easier than I was expecting. Looks like you’re in the back, Jay.’
Jay looked up the legal requirements for a dog travelling in the front seat. They secured Bruce, as he was already wearing a harness, switched off the airbag on his side and set off with the dog enjoying the view and Jay feeling slightly queasy in the back.
Their route took them through Rockingham and past the castle, and soon open countryside gave way to modern urban sprawl as they drove through Corby. Nora parked up.
‘Shall I call you when I’m done and then we can meet back here?’ she suggested.
‘Or we could do it all together. Go to the pet shop and then do whatever it is you need to do?’ Jay looked hopeful.
‘Er, actually I’m hoping to track down Benicio but I don’t know how long that will take. So if you wanted to get the train back rather than waiting for me, I’d understand.’
Jay pulled a number of faces. ‘You saw what he was like with your car,’ he said, nodding at Bruce. ‘I don’t think I’d get him on a train. Unless they’ll let him drive it.’
‘Then I’ll message when I’m done. OK?’
‘Of course. Good luck,’ said Jay. He gave a little tug on Bruce’s lead and the dog walked off in the opposite direction, taking a reluctant Jay with him. Nora decided to head for the park as that was the last place the woman said she had seen Benicio, and if there were other people sleeping rough then that might be a place to find someone who knew him. It was a sunny day and the walk was a pleasant one. It wasn’t far to West Glebe park and it was nice to wander through the trees and watch the squirrels busying themselves. She did wonder what Bruce would make of them. There were a few folks about but mainly dog-walkers and people striding through on their way to somewhere else. Nora had a stroll around the perimeter while she considered her next move.
‘Spare any change?’ came a voice to her left. A man was sitting under the shade of a tree.
‘Yes!’ said Nora, making the poor man jump a little with her enthusiasm. She pulled a five-pound note from her purse and his eyes widened as he reached for it. ‘Do you know this man? He might be sleeping rough.’ Nora showed him the picture on her phone but his eyes were darting back to the five-pound note.
‘I dunno. Are you police?’ He was scanning her Wonder Woman T-shirt and black jeans.
