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they’d be looking around in vain. A couple of homes near him had been broken into in the past month. He’d even had a police constable on his doorstep, asking if he’d seen or heard anything. Fox hadn’t bothered identifying himself as a fellow officer. He’d just shaken his head and the constable had nodded and headed elsewhere.
    Going through the motions.
    Six minutes, the curry took. Fox found a news channel on the TV and turned the sound up. The world seemed to be filled with war, famine and natural disasters. An earthquake here, a tornado there. A climate-change expert was being interviewed. He was warning that viewers needed to get used to these phenomena, to floods and droughts and heatwaves. The interviewer managed somehow to hand back to the studio with a smile. Maybe once he was off air, he would start running around pulling out clumps of his hair and screaming, but Fox doubted it. He pressed the interactive button on the remote and scanned the Scottish headlines. There was nothing new on the explosion outside Lockerbie; the Alert Status at Fettes had been MODERATE, same as at Kirkcaldy. Lockerbie: as if that benighted spot hadn’t seen enough in its history … Fox flipped to a sports channel and watched the darts as he ate the remainder of his meal.
    He was just finishing when his phone started ringing. It was his sister Jude.
    ‘What’s up?’ he asked her. They took it in turns to call. It was his turn, not hers.
    ‘I’ve just been to see Dad.’ He heard her sniff back a tear.
    ‘Is he okay?’
    ‘He keeps forgetting things.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘One of the carers told me he didn’t make it to the toilet in time this morning. They’ve put him in a pad .’
    Fox closed his eyes.
    ‘And sometimes he forgets my name or what year it is.’
    ‘He has good days too, Jude.’
    ‘How would you know? Just because you pick up the bills doesn’t mean you can walk away!’
    ‘Who’s walking away?’
    ‘I never see you there.’
    ‘You know that’s not true. I visit when I can.’
    ‘Not nearly enough.’
    ‘We can’t all lead lives of leisure, Jude.’
    ‘You think I’m not looking for a job?’
    Fox squeezed his eyes shut again: walked into that one, Malc . ‘That’s not what I meant.’
    ‘It’s exactly what you meant!’
    ‘Let’s not get into this, eh?’
    There was silence on the line for a few moments. Jude sighed and began speaking again. ‘I took him a box of photographs today. Thought maybe the pair of us could go through them. But they just seemed to upset him. He kept saying, “They’re all dead. How can everyone be dead?”’
    ‘I’ll go see him, Jude. Don’t worry about it. Maybe the thing to do is phone ahead, and if the staff don’t think it’s worth a visit that day—’
    ‘That’s not what I’m saying!’ Her voice rose again. ‘You think I mind visiting him? He’s our dad .’
    ‘I know that. I was just …’ He paused, then asked the question he felt was expected of him. ‘Do you want me to come over?’
    ‘It’s not me you need to go see.’
    ‘You’re right.’
    ‘So you’ll do it?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘Even though you’re busy?’
    ‘Soon as I’m off the phone,’ Fox assured her.
    ‘And you’ll get back to me? Tell me what you think?’
    ‘I’m sure he’s fine, Jude.’
    ‘You want him to be – that way he’s not on your conscience.’
    ‘I’m putting the phone down now, Jude. I’m putting the phone down and heading out to see Dad …’

4

    The staff of Lauder Lodge, however, had other ideas.
    It was past nine when Fox got there. He could hear a TV blaring in the lounge. Lots of people coming and going – looked like a shift changeover.
    ‘Your father’s in bed,’ Fox was told. ‘He’ll be asleep.’
    ‘Then I won’t wake him. I just want to see him for a minute.’
    ‘We try not to disturb clients once they’re in bed.’
    ‘Didn’t he used to stay up for the ten o’clock news?’
    ‘That was then.’
    ‘Is