“Isn’t he a guard dog?” he asked eventually.
“He’s had a tough life,” I said, stroking him behind his ears. “Come sit with us.” I pushed a chair out of the way.
There was a long pause. Then a huff, and slowly Simon sat down on the floor beside me and reached out to touch Kenny. “I’m not sure we’re going to be friends; he didn’t seem to like me very much when I let him out earlier. Even feeding him didn’t seem to win him over.”
“Luckily, Kennedy is forgiving. For whatever reason you upset him earlier, he’ll let it slide. Won’t you, boy?” I said and gave the enormous mane of fur around his neck a ruffle. His tongue fell out of his mouth, and he lolled over me with joy.
Simon delicately put his hand on Kenny’s head and gave him a quick scratch before pulling it away again. “Oh, for God’s sake,” I said and grabbed his hand – his big, strong, pale, freckly hands that had cupped my arse perfectly – ahem – and guided it back towards Kenny’s neck. “Give him a proper scratch. Come on, it’s calming to play with dogs, there are studies and shit about it and everything.”
“Is that why you got him?”
I shrugged. “I got him for lots of reasons.”
Simon paused, waiting for me to continue.
With a sigh, I spoke: “Guard dog, companionship, someone to come home to at the end of the day who is always pleased to see me.”
“You work from home,” he said with a crick in his brow.
“Fine, someone who’s pleased to see me no matter where I’ve been or what time it is.”
Simon’s hands reached forward, and he tentatively placed them on Kenny’s mane. He let his fingers sift through his fur and smiled slightly. “Soft.”
“You’re damn right it is; I spend a fortune on this mutt’s fur. He goes to the groomer every month, and I brush him as often as I can get him to sit still long enough to do it. I get enough to fill an armchair in a single sitting.”
Simon snorted.
He looked up at me and we locked eyes.
“Simon—” I started, but then noticed the wetness rolling down his cheeks.
“Sorry,” he said, brushing his face. “I don’t know what to do. Mum and Dad mean well but they’re suffocatingme. I … I can’t go back to work. They’ve told me to keep away until this is all … I don’t even know, what they think.”
His phone buzzed in his pocket. “That’ll be Mum. She’ll have seen I’m gone and will want to know where I am.” His phone buzzed a few more times. “Yup. She’s convinced I’m going to top myself.”
“So, finding you gone at 7 a.m.?”
He sighed and pulled out his phone. “Am fine,” he narrated as he texted a response. “Have gone for a walk …” He looked up at me. “With Arden and his dog. Might be a few hours.”
He put his phone back in his pocket. “There. Now, can you please listen to me about this?”
I resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of my nose.
“Fine. Okay, whatever. I need a shower and to brush my teeth. While I’m in the shower …” I stood up and grabbed a notepad that I kept to scribble ideas in while I was writing and ripped off the page I’d been brainstorming on the other day. I gave Simon the pad with a fresh page on top. “Write down everything that happened between you and Riz the last” – I thought for a second – “seventy-two hours before he was killed. Every text, every phone call, and everyone he met. Timelines, everything. You have until I get out of the shower.”
I departed without looking back because I knew Simon was middle class and would try to say thank you or something. Instead, I went up to the bathroom and took an epically long shower. Apparently, sleeping for that long gave me an ache in my shoulders and chest. I seemed to have creases from my pillowcases permanently tattooed on my cheek.
I would have taken up acrobatics and Chinese lessons if it meant staying in the bathroom longer and not having to face what was downstairs. Namely, a heartbroken manthinking I had some magical answers to, what, exactly – bringing back Riz? Getting him justice?
Even if that wasn’t the case, then the fact that it was Simon would still be an issue. Prickly, judgemental Simon, who made it abundantly clear he didn’t like me. Who regretted our one-night stand, who thought I was some floozy who collected men like supermarket coupons and, what was it that he’d said a few days ago, oh yeah, that I’d been trying to pick up men in a police station toilet. I mean, really.
I did that once when I was twenty. And it was in Soho. It’s practically encouraged.
So why I was putting on a nice shirt and jeans that sculpted themselves around my arse instead of shorts was neither here nor there. I hesitated over my phone. It was switched off. After several seconds of lip chewing over whether to turn it on and bring it downstairs with me, I decided to leave it up in my room.
I came downstairs to find that Simon had … oh, sweet Jesus and all the serial-killing-saints. My living room walls were now covered in pages from the notepad like a madman’s lair. Kenny, that traitor, had abandoned his usual spot outside the bathroom door whenever I was in there and was following Simon about the place like he was a god. If only I’d known that was all it took. There had been some awkward moments when I was busy trying to take care of nature as quickly as possible before he clawed the door down.
“Do you have a printer?” Simon asked before I could even open my mouth to ascertain why he’d turned my home into Dexter’s workshop.
