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drove home with Debs’s Katy Perry CD playing and didn’t bother to switch it off. The dog greeted me like a Ritalin-deprived six-year-old, jumping and clawing, diving all over the furniture to land a paw on me. He was a dog that I’d rescued, took the name ‘Usual’ from the regulars in a pub I ran for a while. Another failure of mine; something else to forget.
    I shut Usual in the living room and hit the hay. I’d been up all night without any sleep. As my head hit the pillow the dog clawed at the door. I realised I didn’t actually want to be alone and got up to let him in. As I climbed back into bed Usual chanced his luck and jumped up. I allowed him to curl silently at my feet.
    I felt tired. Damn-near exhausted. But sleep didn’t come. I pulled the pillow over my head and tried to block out the light streaming in through the curtains.
    Wasn’t happening.
    I knew whatever I did next, none of it would sit well with Debs. After our divorce we’d went our separate ways but we’d patched things up now; there was something that pulled us back together. A bond? Shared history? We’d been through so much misery that maybe we just knew where to stack the ballast to keep each other afloat. My jaw tensed at the prospect of her reaction to me raking into my brother’s death.
    A child in the flat upstairs started laughing. Sounded like it was trapped in the floorboards. It was all I could take.
    Grabbed my mobi, dialled: ‘Y’right?’
    ‘Gus, lad, how’s it hanging?’
    I didn’t need to soft-soap Mac the Knife. ‘My brother’s dead.’
    He rasped, ‘Michael . . . dead?’
    ‘Killed. Plugged.’
    ‘What the fuck?’ His voice dropped. ‘Where are you?’
    ‘Home. I need some gear. Can you get me some speed or something?’
    A pause.
    ‘Erm . . . is that a good idea?’
    I sat up in bed, took a bit of a flier: ‘Don’t gimme good or bad idea here, mate, can you get me fixed up?’
    Mac took the blast well. ‘Aye, sure. I’ll be round.’
    ‘Fine.’
    I hung up.
    There was a stack of folk I needed to see and Davie Prentice topped the list. If there was some trouble at my brother’s business, I needed to know. Shit , I needed to start somewhere. The factory seemed like the best place to turn up a motive. Fat Davie needed to face some harsh questioning.
    I got out of bed and put on the shower. Got it burning hot; pushing up the steam, I crouched down and let the hot water burn into me for the best part of an hour.
    When I came out, the dog was sat at the bathroom door, lying on the rug with his chops between his front paws. He looked up when I appeared.
    ‘You’re a smart animal,’ I said. He sensed the change in me; I felt it myself.
    I hunted for some music, but nothing seemed right. The nearest I approached was Johnny Cash, toyed with it, put it in the player and cranked up the track I wanted to hear: ‘Hurt’, his Nine Inch Nails cover, but I couldn’t bring myself to press ‘play’.
    Got dressed in a new pair of Gap jeans and a top from River Island that Debs had bought for me. They didn’t feel quite comfortable enough, like I was trying too hard for trendy. Still, she hadn’t quite succeeded in weaning me off my Docs yet.
    I had the kettle brewing for coffee when Usual let rip with a burst of loud barking. Someone was on the stairs. The door went.
    It was Mac.
    He strolled in, eyes down, never raised his gaze once, said, ‘That’s some bad shit about Michael . . . I’m sorry for your loss.’
    I thanked him, but I really didn’t want to hear it again. I didn’t want to hear it the first time. I shouldn’t have been hearing it at all. That was the truth of the matter and nothing was going to change it.
    I steered him off course: ‘Did you get my gear?’
    He fished in his jacket pocket, exposed a ‘Vote for Pedro’ T-shirt. ‘Some fast powder.’
    I snatched the wraps off him, got fired in.
    ‘Go canny with that stuff.’
    I rubbed my nose, backed him off with my eyes.