‘Make it short,’ I barked. ‘Three sentences. Go.’
Dodge thought hard, his brow creasing, still flicking the hat brim in a way that was making my shoulder muscles tighten. ‘I own this piece of land, and the houseboat located upon it.’
‘One,’ I said.
‘The boat floated here during some massive floods we had a while back.’ Dodge huffed a sigh. ‘Annndit wasn’t sensible, financially, for the original owner to, uh, to recover it from my field and to tow it back to its mooring … because it was in a state of disrepair, or, um, semi-disrepair, and so an agreement was made between myself and—’
‘Two!’
‘And if you were amenable’—Dodge’s speed picked up, his face reddening with the effort of not prattling on—‘I thought this might suit you and your daughter as temporary accommodation, because it’s so central to the town and to the crime scene, and … d-d-do you want to just go take a look?’
I glared at Dodge and made to turn back towards town, almost running smack-bang into Bridie. I hadn’t even heard the Mustang following us, or the sound of it pulling up.
‘What the hell is that?’ She pointed.
‘That’s what he just said.’ Dodge smiled.
‘Don’t tell me that’s where we’re staying. Is it, Dad?’ She grinned at me. ‘Look at it! How did it get here? Oh my god. Oh mygod!’
Bridie walked towards the boat, Dodge at her heels. I followed, low scrub brushing statically against the legs of my jeans. The two-storey, wood-shingled vessel was fifty yards from the edge of river, a thing that was weather-beaten on the outside but showing cutesy signs of life from three large windows on the first level on the port side. Coffee mugs hanging over a stainless-steel sink. A kitchen nook in bright florals. Bridie entered up a gangway at the stern and crossed a barbecue area complete with fairy lights and wind chimes and potted plants, while Dodge blathered on with as many sentences as he damned well pleased.
‘My main house is down the road a bit, you see,’ he was saying. ‘And after her hip replacement, my mother-in-law has been stayingthere with my wife and me. Patsy is her name. Not my mother-in-law. My wife. Renee is the mother-in-law. Anyway, she’d been living in Weatherill Park, but with her getting older and needing her hip done, we thought she should be closer to us. Turns out inside the house with us isrealclose, if you know what I mean? Not to say we don’t love having her there, but we did have this land and this boat, and …’
I rubbed my temples, following Bridie and Dodge into the vessel, silently reciting a prayer for Dodge to stop talking.
‘It’s just that the bed situation itself might be an issue,’ Dodge droned. ‘In the back there you’ll find a dining room set. Two bench seats and a big table. The seats fold down and become two single beds, or you can put a cushion over the tabletop and folditdown and the whole thing becomes a king-sized bed. But you’ll be wanting to have singles, right? Which is fine, except for the fact that I only have linens for a king.’
‘I think everything will work out,’ Bridie said with inexplicable optimism. ‘We’re so grateful that you would put us up, aren’t we, Dad?’
‘I would rather be literally anywhere but here,’ I said. ‘If a helicopter came down into that field right now, and a couple of guys got out and said, “Detective Inspector Powder, we need you to leave this houseboat, and this town, and the company of Senior Sergeant Louis Dodge, because we’ve found a mass grave under a serial killer’s house, and we need you to spend an indefinite period knee-and-elbow-deep in the brown decomposing sludge that these bodies have become, picking out teeth and bones and searching for forms of identification, I’d say, “What are we waiting for, chaps?”’
‘He’s very creative,’ Dodge said to Bridie, nodding, appreciating me. ‘I could see all that stuff he described just then, in my mind. The brown sludge. The teeth.’
Bridie was looking at me the same way her mother used to when she complained about a headache and I’d tell her to drink more water. ‘He’s just messing with you, Mr Dodge. We’d be so pleased to stay here, and the boat’s really cool.’
Bridie rubbed Dodge’s arm as she went to the kitchenette. Actually rubbed his arm, like I’d thrown scalding water on it. ‘I’m making coffee. Then I’m going to get the place settled. You guys probably both have work to do.’
It was Dodge’s turn to make himself scarce, telling me he’d go get a status report from his staff. Bridie dug around in the tiny cupboards and found me a plastic go cup, made me a coffee and one for herself with some long-life milk that was there while I simmered in the awkwardness of her having rescued Louis Dodge from my jaws. One minute your kid is crying because the nose fell out of her Bubble-O-Bill, and the next thing you know she’s drinking coffee and calling you on your bullshit in front of strangers.
‘You could take it easy on that guy,’ she said.
‘I could, but I could also take up cave diving, and neither of those things sounds safe or enjoyable to me.’
‘Dad.’
‘It’s too risky, Bridie.’
She shifted one of her bags from the little kitchen nook and sat down. ‘It’s risky to be nice to people?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘For me it is.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it opens the door on it, Bridie.’
‘On what?’
‘All of it.’ I sipped the coffee. ‘Dodge is a friendly guy. He’s talkative. He offers stuff. About the mother-in-law, for example. About the wife. You let him do that for long enough and suddenly he starts feeling free to pick atmylife, trying to even things up. And what do I say? Huh? “Oh, yeah, I had a wife too, once. Then I destroyed her life and my daughter’s life because I found out at nearly fifty years old that I’m a flaming queer.”’ Something came over her face at the words. I was too afraid to look closely at it, to see whether it was surprise or anger or sadness. ‘How do you think that’s going to play out in a town like this, Bridie?’ I went on.
