Breakfast was always the most popular meal on set, Julia told him. Dido received another sausage from the cook. ‘You should be watching yourself at your age,’ he said to her.
He was joined by the actor who played Collier – Matt/Sam/Max. Munching his way through an egg roll, the actor said, ‘In your expert opinion, what do you think is the best way to kill a dog? I’m supposed to shoot one in a scene soon, but I thought a bit of hand-to-hand combat would be more visceral. Or hand-to-paw, I suppose.’
Jackson had had to kill a dog once, not a memory to dwell on, but he refrained from saying this – not in front of Dido anyway. ‘Stick with the gun,’ he said. ‘God knows, a gun’s visceral enough for anyone. Who’s this Callum bloke, by the way?’ he added casually.
‘Julia’s boyfriend? He’s the new DOP. I think she likes him because he lights her really well.’
Jackson digested this news along with the bacon roll.
More irritating than the appearance of this unexpected person Callum in Julia’s life was the fact that she had gone with him to Rievaulx. The Terraces at Rievaulx were one of Jackson’s favourite places on earth, it was where he was going to live in the afterlife if there was one. (Unlikely, but he wasn’t against hedging his bets. ‘Ah, Pascal’s Wager,’ Julia said mysteriously. Tide in/tide out, Jackson guessed.) In fact, he had introduced Julia to Rievaulx. And now she was introducing someone else to it. Jackson didn’t know about Pascal, but he would be willing to bet that she wouldn’t tell Callum they were canoodling in her former paramour’s favourite place.
He was homeward bound, on Peasholm Road, just passing the entrance to the park, when the ice-cream van appeared, approaching from the opposite direction. A Bassani’s van, pink like the last one he had seen and still creakily pumping out the same music. If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise.
It gave Jackson the chills and started him thinking about all the lost girls over the years. The ones lost in woods, on railway lines, in back alleys, in cellars, in parks, in ditches by the side of the road, in their own homes. So many places you could lose a girl. All the ones he hadn’t saved. There was a Patty Griffin song that he played sometimes, ‘Be Careful’ it was called. All the girls who’ve gone astray. It had the power to make him irreducibly melancholic.
He hadn’t thought about his latest lost girl for at least twenty-four hours. The girl with the unicorn backpack. Where was she now? Home safe? Being berated by loving parents for having come back late and for losing her backpack? He hoped so, but his gut told him differently. In his (long) experience, your brain might mislead you, but your gut always told you the truth.
He might have been remiss where the girl was concerned, but there were still people out there who needed him to protect and serve them, whether they liked it or not. The men who had snatched Harry and Candy hadn’t voluntarily released them, so what was to stop them going after one or both of them again? Crystal might have said that those perfect lips were zipped, but the kidnappers had no way of knowing that. Should he let sleeping dogs lie? Were they sleeping or were they prowling around waiting to pounce again? His own sleeping dog was in a post-sausage slumber on the back seat and had no opinion on the matter.
He sighed and took the turning for High Haven. He was the shepherd, he was the sheriff. The Lone Ranger. Or Tonto, perhaps. (You know tonto is Spanish for “stupid”, don’t you?’ Julia said.) He might be shit at being the shepherd, but sometimes he was all there was. ‘Heigh-ho, Silver,’ he murmured to the Toyota.
Women’s Work
Ronnie and Reggie stayed the night at the hospital, in the small side ward where the girl they had found had been berthed. Someone ought to keep guard over her and no else seemed to be available. In fact, they were having a hard time garnering any kind of police concern about her, even though she had been beaten up and had heroin in her system, according to the doctor.
The duty sergeant had almost laughed when they phoned in last night. They were too ‘resource poor’, he said, to come out and interview the girl, and