The old woman’s lips gesticulated wildly without a sound. Aid had zoned out, adrift in alien surroundings. The wallpaper and carpet were of a similar sand tone. Rorschach blotches spotted the skirting boards and lower third of the living room walls, likely damp or urine. There were tiny scratches on the door frame. The legs of the side table which wobbled each time she laid cup upon saucer were chewed and frayed. They destroy everything they touch, thought Aid. His nostrils were stung by the unambiguous scent of a slightly wet pet, the smell spread like a sickness across every soft surface. Atop a chipped mantel over the flickering electric fireplace, white porcelain statuettes stood. Madonna and child. Three angels. Their bulging ornery eyes bearing down upon him sent Aid shifting his seat. The old woman was staring too, expectantly. The milky white pup with eyes like ripe blueberries in her lap had not looked at him once.
‘A big garden, you said,’ she was trailing off, searching.
She seemed only to speak when her cup was raised. The rattle of the saucer served as a warning. Aid let her mind wander a little farther. It was a moment before he spoke. The old woman, she had not told him her name, sat sunken into a foostie old armchair with a pull-out foot stool though she did not rest her feet upon it. He could only just make out a sliver of bandages where the hem of her trouser gapped the heel of her slippers, the wrapping was yellowed and stained like everything else in this house. Neither of her sides touched the arms of her chair, the back of which cleared the tip of her thin white hair by a good few inches. Dandruff over the ridge of the chair sparkled in tones of red, amber, and green. Sunlight shone at her back through stained-glass patio doors. The base of the doors patterned by ankle height imprints of a snout. The garden was cut out into a patchwork of overgrown grass, an eclectic range of fallen flowers and shrunken shrubbery. It might have been beautiful once.
The spoon slid on the saucer. She was about to speak again.
‘Very,’ Aid interrupted. ‘Secure, too. Fences, six feet high on three sides. The rear of the garage on one side and a locked gate on the other. Nothing in or out. Plenty of room for running about.’
‘Oh, she loves a good run about,’ said the old woman, ruffling the dog’s chin. It would not open its eyes to Aid. ‘Trouble comes when you try to catch her.’ There was a note of bitterness here which Aid could not fully diagnose though he had his suspicions.
‘Plenty of grass to jump around in, and in the far corner my wife has her own little garden-’
‘A dog ruins a garden!’ she exclaimed in a mocking, low voice. She messed the dog’s fur over its neck roughly then massaged its ears. It seemed to enjoy this and leant further into her prodding fingers. ‘That’s what Alec used to say.’
At the far end of the mantel past the faceless porcelain ghosts stood a framed photograph of the old woman, much younger, with a man who looked to be the same age. Frilly wedding gown, thin tie, both unsmiling. She gestured with the flick of two bony fingers but would not cast her gaze upon it.
‘Maybe he was right, but you’ve still enjoyed it, haven’t you missus.’
The dog rolled over in her lap. It occurred to Aid that the listing made no mention of the animal’s gender – he had never taken in a bitch before. For his purposes, it should not matter so long as she was neutered, though it was a calculation to be made all the same.
‘Green-fingered, is she?’ she asked after a moment
It took Aid a moment longer to realise she meant Meesh.
‘My wife takes an affinity for all things green.’
The waistband of his jeans had receded from sitting so low and so far forward on her brown leather couch. He had not found furniture fit for his height since he was a teenager.
Those were the first words out of people’s mouths as soon as they saw him, look at the height on you or how’s the weather up there? No-one had ever called it stature. They tended not too when the man was tall but not muscular. Aid was a lumbering cadaver. Clothes fit him poorly, he tugged and fidgeted with collars and waistbands constantly. He pulled himself to the edge of the couch to fix his trousers. A small treat which must have been lodged between the couch cushions sprung free and rolled onto the floor. The dog leapt from the old woman’s lap and pounced upon it. She was a sprightly thing. No sooner was she on top of it swishing her head from side to side – it had to have been one of the meaty, chewier ones – than the treat had vanished if not for a crumb or two lodged in the slick fur of her cheeks. She would lick her lips and taste the remainder of that treat for hours until it was pawed out. She huffed.
‘Give her a clap,’ the old woman encouraged.
What was her name? Had she told him at the door? Had it been on the Gumtree listing? She could not have made the listing herself. Aid wondered if she was even given advance warning of it before her door started getting knocked by potential suitors. What happened here, he surmised, was that this nameless, blameless old woman had waited her entire life for a dog; and not any, it had to be this pissing, scratching, leaping little thing. Denied by her husband all her life, but he was gone and she found herself alone. The dog was not a puppy but certainly not senior, the old woman might have only had her for a year or two. Then out in the garden one day, lost in the overgrowth, she tripped over the dog who only wanted to play. A grown-up child, or a grandchild who mistakenly thought they were grown; knew better, decided the dog had to go. They could have had that garden cleared in an afternoon, but eventually they would have to do it again. And they only had to get rid of the dog once. They don’t come around, maybe the first time they had in a while was after she had managed to crawl back into her home to call for help. No, it’s too much for you, Mum. The dog will have to go. It’s not safe. You give up your life for your children.
The dog stretched uncomfortably across his lap. Aid laid a hand across its back, and it looked up at him gently. It had finally acknowledged him. Aid checked his watch. In seventy-two hours, this would all be over. Time was ticking.
‘My son,’ he whispered, beckoning her to lean in. And she did. ‘Callan. He’s only nine. He kneels on his bed at night and stares out over the fields. We are the last house on the very edge of Kilsyth. And just over the garden fence are kilometres of open space, cut in two by the Forth and Clyde canal. He’s seen it on the train. Tapped his fingers on the glass and reached for it. There is something there that he yearns for. To bask in the sunlight, feel the warm grass as high as his hips. Watch the horses trot around their stables. Feel the stillness of the world. Breathe it all in. I want to take him there, so far he can’t see the way home – couldn’t see himself if he were looking through that little window. He could talk to me. Tell me all the things he might be too shy to say at the dinner table or in front of his Mum. He’s a Daddy’s boy at heart. Or we could just walk. Chase the dog around tall trees and out of bushes.’
Aid cupped his hands over his eyes and nose, almost praying, his head bowed. What the old woman could not see was what his pointer finger and thumb were fidgeting away at. He pulled his head back up with tears in his eyes.
‘School is hard for him. He never really fit in. Won’t talk to his teachers about it. And if he can’t talk to me-,’ Aid whimpered. ‘Or his mum, I just want him to have someone. A pal. To listen. I’ll be honest with you, I’m afraid I can’t be that all the time.’
Nothing more needed to be said. It did not matter that she would be losing the apple of her eye, so long as a little boy out there might go to bed not feeling so alone. Not just any dog. Her little Westie. The old woman collected the lead and collar from the drawer and walked them out. She held Aid in the doorframe for a moment as he fought the urge to flinch. One last kiss and a rub of her chin.
‘Be good,’ she told her. The dog’s nametag jingled on the collar as it seemed to nod back at her.
The Westie fidgeted in his arms. Kev had moved the van. Aid was spinning in circles until the horn honked at his back. Kev parked, grinding the front left rim on the kerb. He must have been bored, circling the block whilst his brother did what had to be done. Aid unlocked the back and thrust the dog into its cage before slamming the door shut. He had to open it again, forgot something. The dog recoiled from him, but he yanked her by the tail, collecting her collar. Tossing it and the lead over the bushes at his back, then sliding into the passenger seat.
‘We could have lifted five dogs in the time it takes you to chat up one Granny,’ bemoaned Kev, leaning on the steering wheel.
‘We only need one,’ replied Aid, fumbling for his buckle. ‘And I’ve told you this is cleaner. People advertise their pets for adoption and they’re so distraught at having to do it they just let go. Jump out of a van and snatch a woman’s lap dog and she’ll never stop looking. WhatsApp, Facebook, suddenly the whole town, whole world; shared Nevada x, is looking for you on top of the police. No, we do it this way, I don’t care how long it takes. It works.’
Kev had heard it all before and sucked in through his teeth, glad that this would be the last time.
‘Was it the monologue?’ he asked. ‘You know, the fields and the dug and the opening up about him peeing the bed and whatnot.’
‘Aye,’ Aid replied.
‘It worked.’
‘Always does,’ said Aid. He rubbed his nostril which was red from pulling out a few hairs at the crescendo to his tall tale.
Kev leant over his shoulder to inspect the unluckiest of little things.
‘Jesus, there’s no meat on it,’ he scorned, as he rattled the dogs cage with his newspaper. ‘He’s more likely to hump that to death than anything else. That’s for Bronson?’
‘Aye, it’s for Bronson. And he’s not getting out tonight to do any humping. Can sit in his own piss and shit and stare at it and get hungrier and hungrier. Needs to smell it. You can put their cages together. He needs the incentive. The hunger. Even if it won’t mean a thing.’
‘And what about that her? If she’s not for feeding or fucking, what will we do with her after the fight?’
‘Who gives a fuck?’ Aid spat. Did he forget the line of business they were in? ‘The second that begins we are on a countdown. Do you need me to write it down for you?’
‘You can write your will whilst you’re at it,’ Kev retorted. ‘The Whale is going to skin us alive once he realises what we’ve done.’
‘Can’t skin men he can’t find,’ said Aid. ‘Listen, we take this one back, that makes three bait and three fighters. Each fighter can bark and bite and drool all night. No one will hear them in the shed. We meet the Whale tomorrow as planned and we play up the grovelling like he’s never seen before. Tell him after the fight on Sunday, not only will the debt be repaid, but he will also have in the two of us loyal soldiers.’
Kev choked with laughter at that. Aid continued, ‘Come the fight, the Staffy goes first- wait, have you-?’
‘Aye,’ Kev interrupted. ‘Van is going to Pete the Postie in the carpark before the fights. Told him the price, cash goes straight to Barry Bookie.’
‘Good,’ Aid nodded, for the first time he was starting to feel as though this might work after all. ‘That will make five grand. All of it on the Staffy gives us ten back. All of that on the Rottweiler gives us twenty-’
‘Twenty’s plenty,’ interjected Kev. ‘It’s not worth the risk.’
‘If a hundred grand isn’t worth risking it all for, I don’t know what is.’ Aid shot his brother with a look of pure stone eyed determination. There was no other way.
‘We get twenty back when the Rottweiler wins, stick that on the Pit Bull to fall. Five to one. A hundred grand in cold hard cash.’
‘And when The Whale finds out that his Pit Bull, his beloved Bronson, is dead – not because of a fair fight lost – but because you’ve mashed sleeping pills in its dinner, you think he’ll just let us walk out of there alive?’
‘He will suspect nothing beforehand; that’s the beauty of it. And it will take an autopsy to figure out the truth. Bronson goes into that ring ready for action, he’s been staring at that whimpering little rat in the back for forty-eight hours without getting to sink its teeth into it, but by the time the fight gets going, the pills kick in, he will lose and we will win.’ Saying it out loud made it seem all so obvious to Aid, but Kev had a look in his eye that needed further convincing.
‘Plus, I’ll already be out,’ Aid said, turning from his brother to face the road ahead. Eyes fixed on the horizon line. Orange over grey streets and greyer houses. ‘You’ll get to Barry before the fight ends, before Bronson is a full-on goner. Give him ten for his silence.’
Kev put his head in his hands. The Westie was whimpering in the back.
‘Meesh is borrowing her Mum’s car. Will have overnight bags for the three of us, you can sort yourself out tonight. We take it in shifts. One drives, one keeps the driver awake, the other gets some kip in the back with Callan. The Whale’s got eyes as far as Leeds, so we take the back roads,’ said Aid, still not facing any other way than dead ahead.
The song on the radio, which Kev had heard no less than three times waiting for his brother, faded into the news.
Time for your twelve o’clock bulletin with Laura…
‘Two days from now we will have royally fucked over the last man in Britain you would want to pull one over on. We’ll have rigged his prize fight, killed his pooch, and made off with his cash. And Kev, we will not look back.’
Kev turned to face the horizon, too.
‘No looking back,’ he agreed, and they set off home.
When they arrived, Aid got out of the van to pull up the garage door and Kev backed in. Get it out, get it in the cage across from Bronson beside the other two bait dogs, and don’t. Let. Them. Bark. The neighbours didn’t know. No one did. The fences were high and the shed was windowless, padlocked, and soundproofed. Aid would run over the plan one last time with Meesh once inside, rehearse what she had to say to Callan once pulled from his bed at midnight on Sunday. He lowered the garage door, and Kev yanked the westie by the scruff of its neck.
The front door was stiff under a bevy of letters. Meesh was up, but she hadn’t made it that far. A haze of smoke from her joint filled the air, Aid batted it away. He found her, sleeping through the phone ringing bloody murder on the couch passed out in front of some chat show with a lit joint in one hand, flicks of ash staining the rug underneath. He shook her, almost, awake.
‘The phone, Meesh, for fuck’s sake!’ he yelled. She failed to stir. Her long black hair, the first part of her he fell in love with, was matted like a bird’s nest against the cushion. The mug balanced precariously by one finger on her left hand over her hip stunk as though there was more than just milk and coffee swimming inside. Bit early even for her, Aid thought. She wouldn’t have expected him back so soon. The bottle would still be findable. Wedged under couch cushions or down her bra. She only drank miniatures. They made less of a clink in the bin, even if there were plenty of them.
‘Meesh!’ he screamed, as the ringing stopped. The answering machine tone rung out, and a message was being recorded:
Hi, this is Ms. Henschel. I’m calling on behalf of St. Jude’s Primary. I’m looking to speak to Michelle Grant or Aidan Shaw regarding the school attendance of Callan Shaw. Callan’s non-attendance at school today is the fourth unexplained absence in two weeks and, following local authority guidelines, this is now grounds for a home visit. I’m just calling to give you notice that I’ll be heading over in the next half an hour. If you need to, you can reach me beforehand on this number.
Callan wasn’t at school? Callan hadn’t been at school for four days over the past two weeks? Aid was always gone in the mornings before Meesh took him. Had she been taking him? Had he been letting himself out? At least he locked the door behind him when he did, as Aid always returned to it that way. If he had been going out, and not just waiting out his Mum’s hangovers upstairs in his bedroom, why had he not being going to school? Where else could he have been going for the day, just to arrive home at the right time to avoid suspicion?
It could not be true. He was upstairs in his bed. Callan just slept in once again and Meesh had tried to hide it from him. There could be no other explanation. Aid traversed the stairs two at a time but after not finding him in the bathroom, their bedroom, or his own, he yelled to Meesh once more.
‘Wha-?’ she returned, groggily.
His bedroom was just as it should be. Bed unmade. Toys everywhere. His school bag was gone and hangers torn from that day’s uniform lay on the pillow. Aid peered out the window over the bed, where he had told the old woman his son knelt and dreamt of green fields and horses and long chats with this Dad, he’s a Daddy’s boy at heart, and late nights chasing the dog which was now caged and being eyed up for a snack Bronson would never taste.
‘Michelle!’ he howled, as he leaped back downstairs to the living room.
The back door swung open and Kev rushed in, ‘Aid!’
‘Not now!’ Aid screamed. He grabbed Meesh by the shoulders, her coffee flying to the floor dosing the joint which fell from her other hand. ‘Meesh- Michelle, for fuck’s sake!’
Her eyes were opened but there was not much more to them than that.
Kev grabbed a hold of Aid, pulling him back.
‘Not fucking now, Kev!’ Aid barked, as he shook the stupor out of his partner.
‘Aid, I really think-’
Aid pushed his brother back and slapped Meesh across the cheek, she tumbled off of the couch and raised herself to her knees begging for a moment in which to finally wake up and grasp her surroundings. Aid felt flushed with fear, regret, shame, and helped Meesh back up as Kev was still pulling at his side.
‘Give me a fucking minute, Kev,’ he said as he batted away his brother’s arm once more. ‘I need to tell Meesh- to tell her-’
‘What do you need to tell me?’ asked Meesh, shivering from fear as much as the cold Irish coffee dripping from the lower half of her pyjamas.
Aid sunk his head into his hands, and said, ‘Callan is missing.’
Kev touched his brother’s arm softly, and said, ‘So are the dogs.’
