At first light, feeling more tired than when she went to sleep, Annie slipped from her bed, dressed and made her way out to the little beach behind her home; a curve of sand that edged the loch. She sat on a rock there, a red tartan blanket over her shoulders, the breeze like velvet on her cheeks, and sipped from a flask of 27coffee, watching a pair of ducks as they dived for food just yards from where she perched.
She had fallen asleep the night before, eventually, but tiredness was like grit in her eyes, and guilt at not intervening before Lachlan died was still a weight on her limbs. Movement in the far right of her vision had her lift her face to the sky, and she watched a bird of prey as it flew in her direction.
The ducks were aware of the danger, it seemed, and they swam for the shelter of the long grass edging the banks further down the shore.
She loved this spot, and would often sit here for hours, savouring nature and its healing arts, and she was tempted to just stay here and allow that soothing, but the thought of the blood-red paint splattered on her door nagged at her. She wouldn’t be able to settle until that was cleaned off completely.
With a sigh, she aimed herself back indoors, to the sink and a pail and a scrubbing brush, and then she stood before her front door to assess the damage and to work out what needed to be done.
The paint was mostly on the bottom half of the door – a rich red against the stained oak – and some had made it onto the walls and the doorstep. Annie noted there were no footprints anywhere, meaning Chrissie and Mandy had managed to avoid stepping on it as they made their way over to their car.
As she studied the mess she realised she actually liked the colour. Against the white of the walls it was quite striking. Rather than clean it all up she could simply buy a tin of the stuff and paint the rest of the door. And it would be the work of moments to touch up the splashes on the walls with white masonry paint. Then, once the colour was cleaned off the doorstep it would all look quite smart.
This cheered her, and in her mind she gave a two-finger salute to the men who’d done this.
And then she thought of Lachlan again. Why hadn’t she been clearer? 28
A crush of guilt landed on her, and she exhaled, long and slow.
Enough. She had work to do to clean the doorstep and make the door ready for its new look.
Sometime later, over the noise of the brush against the stone, she heard an incoming car. She jumped to her feet in alarm, holding the brush in her hand like a weapon. If those guys, or any other idiots, were on their way to try and intimidate her, they’d find she was ready for them.
A car crested the hill, and she relaxed with relief as she recognised Lewis’s black Honda. But then she became annoyed. It was only nine am. He must have left Glasgow at the crack of dawn to be here at this time. Mrs Mac must have phoned him and told him about the attack on her home.
Lewis parked. Climbed out of the car and walked towards her, holding a little brown bag in the air. ‘Did you order bacon rolls?’ he asked. A smile hovered across his face, but his eyes betrayed his concern. He looked past Annie at the paint on the door. ‘You okay?’
‘You didn’t need to come driving up here like a white knight,’ Annie said, aware that she was bristling, but also pleased to see her brother. ‘When did Mrs Mac phone you?’
‘Last night. And if I was interested in doing the white-knight thing I would have left straight away. But fuck that, I need my beauty sleep.’ He grinned. ‘I did leave pretty early, right enough.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘But you’re okay, yeah?’
Annie studied her twin.
‘What?’ he asked. ‘You’re doing that thing.’
‘What thing?’
‘The looking me up and down, assessing thing.’
‘Just trying to work out how my brother is.’
‘And?’ Lewis stood still and held his hands out wide.
‘New expensive jeans. New girlfriend? Flatter stomach. Been working out?’
‘No, and yes,’ Lewis replied with a chuckle.
He reached out to her and they hugged. 29
‘You don’t need to worry, you know,’ Annie said after she’d stepped back. ‘I can look after myself.’ After her near-death experience the previous year, Lewis had taken up Krav Maga and running, apparently to fulfil his role as her protector. When she’d challenged him on it, he’d reminded her that their father’s instruction to him on the day before he committed suicide, when Lewis was just turned thirteen, was to look after her. ‘And that shit is difficult to deprogramme,’ he’d added.
‘Nice repaint,’ he said now, looking over her shoulder at the door. ‘Half and half. Kinda works.’
‘I’m thinking of keeping the red,’ Annie said.
‘Making lemonade?’
Annie laughed.
‘Is it coming off okay though?’ Lewis asked.
Annie wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘They used emulsion paint.’ She offered Lewis a half-cocked smile.
‘Amateurs,’ Lewis said.
Annie dropped her scrubbing brush into the bucket of soapy water. ‘C’mon in and I’ll put the kettle on.’
As they passed through the living room, Lewis gave a low whistle at the window, and the towel covering it. ‘Quite dark in here without that window, eh?’
‘Let’s hope the weather doesn’t grow cold for a wee while yet,’ Annie replied. ‘Can you imagine the draughts coming in when the wind’s up?’
‘You can’t really stay here with a hole in the wall like that, Annie.’
‘Don’t you start,’ Annie replied. ‘Where would I go? I can’t face leaving. It’s been so nice to have this long break from all that madness.’
Lewis gave her a shoulder a squeeze. ‘We’ll think of something.’
In the kitchen, each with a coffee and a half-eaten bacon roll in front of them, Lewis asked, ‘How are you, really?’ He was the one 30person in the world who understood her – better, almost, than she knew herself, so she didn’t even bother to disguise how she was feeling.
‘I’m furious,’ she said. ‘At those arses. How dare they try to ruin my wee home.’ She looked at her brother, just for a moment, his eyes suggested a hint of anger. Annie guessed that it was on her behalf, and that it was fresh. ‘What happened?’ she asked.
Just like Annie, Lewis knew there was no point in obfuscating. ‘When I was in the café, waiting for the coffee and rolls, a couple of old biddies were talking about you.’
‘Pay no attention, Lewis.’
‘It wasn’t nice, Annie. They’d heard that some kids had thrown paint at your door, and they weren’t criticising it. It had the tone of “serves her right”.’
Annie sat with that for a moment. ‘I get it,’ she then replied. ‘I could have saved that young guy.’
There was the sound of a car horn.
Lewis stood up. ‘That’ll be Mandy and Chrissie.’
‘I locked them out last night,’ Annie said with a grimace.
‘I know.’ Lewis smiled. ‘Mandy told me.’
Annie got to her feet too. ‘Better face the music.’
Annie opened the door just as the two sisters reached the front step. There were cries of hello as they entered the house and everyone hugged. When it was Mandy’s turn to hug Annie, she held it for a long moment, stepped back and looked into Annie’s eyes.
‘Okay?’
Annie looked at the floor, tugged a strand of hair behind her ear, and nodded.
They were soon gathered around the kitchen table with tea and coffee.
‘I spoke to Jenny Burns’ dad,’ Mandy said with a quick glance over her shoulder at the broken window. ‘He’s going to get his guy to come out and fix your window. But he’s on holiday for a few days.’
‘Great, thanks for arranging that,’ Annie said. 31
‘He was delighted to help. And scandalised that you’d been treated so badly,’ Mandy added.
They all sipped in silence for a moment, and Lewis pulled his phone out. Annie noticed Chrissie widening her eyes at Mandy, who gave her sister a tiny shake of the head in reply. It was clear to Annie what the exchange between them meant.
‘It’s okay,’ Annie said, putting her cup down on the table. ‘You came here yesterday to talk about Damien. So … let’s talk about him.’ She turned to Chrissie. ‘What can you tell us about that boy of yours?’
Chrissie swallowed, and her eyes instantly welled up. She tugged at the little silver St Christopher at her throat, running the medal back and forth along its silver chain.
‘He was back,’ she said. She looked each person in the room in the eye. ‘He was,’ she protested, as if they’d refused to believe it. ‘I had my boy – my real boy – back, but then he goes and vanishes. The police won’t listen. My friends all think I’m deluded, that he’s a bad sort and he’s got what he’s due.’ She paused. Prodded her sternum with a stiff index finger. ‘A mother knows. His days going gadabout and getting up to God knows what are over. He’s turned his life around for wee Bodie. He’s desperate to get more time with the wee fella. So this time, his leaving is out of character. Something’s happened to him, I’m sure of it.’ Again Chrissie looked at each of them in turn, as if desperate that they should all believe her. ‘Something bad.’