by Max Frick
index finger and flipped back a page or two in his book.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘when was he let out again?’
Billy was perplexed.
‘Who?’ he asked. ‘Tony?’
‘The dog’, replied the detective. 'Dooly, was it?'
‘Em, I’m not really sure what you mean.’
‘Well,’ said the detective, ‘I see here that, according to you, he, Dooly, was at some point “shut through the back”. Is that correct?’
‘Em, aye. I got Tony to put him there while I went to help Ryan.’
‘Through the back where there are...’
He flipped back a few more pages.
‘...two bedrooms and a bathroom, right?’
‘Em, aye, that’s right, aye.’
‘So, when was he let out again?’
‘Eh... I’m not really sure. I mean, I don’t, em... Wait...’
Beetling his brow Billy once more cast his mind back, through the welter of intervening days, to the night, or morning, in question. He had fallen asleep on the chair and Dooly was still shut in through the back. But on waking some time later, had he been in the living room then? While it would forever, no doubt, be harder to forget than to remember just exactly how he had felt at that precise time, it was requiring considerably more of an effort to remember what he had noticed, or what he had not noticed, and, in particular, what would have certainly seemed at the time such an inconsequential detail. Nevertheless, by dint of concentration a picture soon began to emerge. He could see himself rising from the chair. And now he could see Tony, quite clearly, asleep on the couch. But he definitely could not see Dooly. He had stumbled round the chair and, averting his eyes from the thing beneath the window, had made for the door at the back of the room. And now he could see the door, see himself reaching for the handle even...and it was still closed! The door was still closed! Had he let Dooly out then? He had come back from the toilet and found him whining by the front door at the other end of the room, so he must have! But in that case there would have been no time for him to eat anything. So that must mean… No! No way! That must mean that Tony... Oh, Jesus! Oh, God!
Billy breathed deeply.
'Em,' he said meekly to the floor, 'I think Tony might have...'
He swallowed hard.
'...Tony might have...'
He raised his eyes, but only his eyes, to meet the penetrating stare of the detective.
‘...I think Tony might have let him out again while I was still asleep.’
THE END
