Andi sighs and unfolds her arms, coming further into the room, followed by Susan who is wearing a pained expression on her face and mouthing ‘sorry’ for allowing Andi to escape.

‘Come on, son. Out with it: what’s going on?’ she says.

There’s nothing I can do except try the truth. ‘Have you, erm … have you seen a thing that used to hang here? It was like a decoration,’ I say, pointing at the empty hook above Kenneth’s bed. Andi nods.

‘It’s gone with him. His instructions were pretty clear.’

‘Well, who’s been here?’ I say, a bit too urgently. I sound rude and Andi looks taken aback.

Patiently, she says, ‘I found him … deceased … late last night. A doctor came first thing to issue the death certificate. The funeral directors arrived a bit later to take away the … Kenneth. Did you think you’d just come in and take it? Did he say you could have it?’

My silence is all the answer she needs.

‘One second,’ says Andi. ‘Come with me.’ She marches out of the bedroom that Kenneth died in and where I am beginning to feel very uncomfortable. Susan and I follow her back to the big room.

Andi takes a sheet of paper out of an envelope. She unfolds it and her eyes flick over the lines written on it.

‘Buried with him. He knew he didn’t have long, poor old soul. He left instructions on here: his “final performance” he called it. He wanted to be buried in his kilt along with his “dreany-mator” or whatever it was.’

Andi’s mispronunciation annoys me. ‘It’s a Dreaminator, and …’

‘Well, whatever it is, Malky, it’s been taken by the funeral directors and placed with him. Dying wishes. I’m sure you’d want to respect them. And whatever the heck you’ve been up to ever since that first night ends here and now, all right?’

She looks at us as though she’s expecting a response. Susan says, solemnly, ‘Of course.’

Andi seems reassured. She repeats, ‘Of course. Now, if there’s nothing else, children, I need to get on. I’m very sorry that this has happened. I was with him for three years. I know for a fact that he enjoyed meeting you.’

‘There is one more thing,’ says Susan. ‘What happened to Dennis?’

Old Dennis! How could I have forgotten about him? Admittedly, he never actually did much except make foul smells and sleep (often together), and I don’t think he ever quite forgot that his first encounter with me was that time in the backyard, but still …

At the exact moment Susan says his name, there’s a scuffling sound from under a couch, and Dennis’s old head appears.

‘Dennis!’ exclaims Susan, and crouches down to scratch him. I honestly don’t think I have ever seen a sadder-looking animal. His big amber eyes look up wetly at Susan, and he’s not even bothered by my presence. From under the couch, I hear the thump of a single tail-wag: his way of acknowledging Susan’s kindness.

‘Do you … do you think he knows … about Kenneth?’

‘Oh aye,’ says Andi, solemnly. ‘He was lying next to him. How he got up on the bed, I’ll never understand, but he managed somehow. He understands everything, that dog. And, if a dog’s heart can break, then his is in a million pieces right now.’

We’re back outside, Susan and I, and neither of us knows what to say to the other, so we walk along in silence until we get to the bench by the sailing club where we had sat before, and it’s like we both know that we’re going there, and that we’ll sit down in the same place. I feel it’s something we need to do, having just learned that Mr McKinley is dead.

I wonder if either of us is going to cry, and I keep shooting little sidelong glances at Susan to check, but, every time I do, she is just sitting with her eyes closed, her back straight and her face tipped up slightly into the wind coming off the sea, the wind that carries prayers around the world. So I try it too and we both sit there silently for a while like that. I don’t know how long for: probably only a minute or two, but it feels much, much longer.

Susan says, ‘They were more alike than either of them would ever think, you know.’

‘Who?’

‘Mola and Mr McKinley. Do you remember that thing he said the first time we met him? Something like: better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt. It’s a bit like what Mola says about silence not being empty …’

I complete the sentence. ‘It’s full of answers.’

Susan sighs and nods, slowly. ‘What are we going to do, Malcolm?’

We. I like that.

But it doesn’t mean I know what to do.