“Welcome back.”
“Poor Maxwell. You’ve got to see him. He has to sing your praises everywhere he goes.”
“And pretend he’d never wanted to sideline you.”
“A toast,” said Izzie. “To Monday morning – and getting started again on Petrus.”
The never-ending forest of legal thickets and procedural thorns still there to be hacked away at in order to get to the next set of murdering bastards.
“How’s the boy?”
Maddy shrugged. How was Darren? Would he ever construct some kind of life for himself? If he was a haunted child, he’d be a man possessed. Though he and his mother seemed to be helping each other as much as they could. Jackie went to visit him every day; swore blind to anyone who would listen that she’d changed. That she was going to dedicate her life to making her son well again.
“And Belinda?”
Maddy played with her gin, thinking of Belinda in her prison clothes, the brightness in her eyes only marginally dimmed. “She’s working something through: she took action, for her boy, delivered justice. She thinks now she can forgive everyone. Except herself. Not for killing MacDougall. For failing her son.”
They all sipped quietly. Izzie put her hand on the table, close to Maddy’s. “What about Louis?”
“Want me to do The Test on him?”
“I managed that all on my own this time, Dan, thanks,” She chinked glasses with Dan, Manda, and Izzie. The dusk sun stooped to peer in the bar window. Maddy met it in the eye. Up the street, a familiar figure approached. Coulter, looking ten years younger than he ought to, but with the hesitant walk of an injured old man. The sun was still warm, thawing that black line that had grown around her. Red sandstone and evening blue sky. Closing her eyes to feel the city around her, she felt a fourth, invisible clink of her glass. Nonno.
Salute, Maddelena. We’ve come a long way, you and I. From the rocks of Monte Capanne to this town half a world away. Keep travelling, principessa, one foot after another. Maddy Shannon raised her glass into the air. Ciao Nonno, have a good journey yourself.
Copyright
© Chris Dolan 2014
First published in September 2014 by
Vagabond Voices Publishing Ltd.,
Glasgow,
Scotland.
ISBN 978–1–908251–40–4
The author’s right to be identified as author of this book under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.
Cover design by Mark Mechan
Typeset by Park Productions
The publisher acknowledges subsidy towards this publication from Creative Scotland
For further information on Vagabond Voices, see the website,
www.vagabondvoices.co.uk
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