Page 87 of Safe Hands

“I invited the dog round.”

“The dog can’t drive.”

Lauren picked up Carly’s abandoned lemonade, realised it wasn’t hers and put it down again. Her face was hot, and it wasn’t the radiator.

Becky leaned over and squeezed her arm. “For what it’s worth, I think it’s nice. Having company. Whoever’s company it is.”

“It’s Berkeley’s,” Lauren said.

“Of course it is.”

Paige jiggled Sam on her shoulder and said nothing at all, which was much worse.

Lauren drained her own drink and stood up. She needed to go home, hoover up the last of Reggie’s fur, find a bowl big enough for a German Shepherd, and possibly change her T-shirt. For the dog. Dogs noticed these things.

“Have fun with your mate,” Paige called after her.

Lauren didn’t turn round. She lifted one hand over her shoulder and gave Paige the finger, discreetly, so Sam couldn’t see.

26

Carly

At two minutes to six, Carly sat in her car outside the bungalow with a forty-kilo German Shepherd breathing down the back of her neck and told herself, for the third time since leaving Samantha’s, that this was practical.

Berkeley needed a change of scene. Samantha needed an evening without him. Lauren had said her house was too quiet. Three problems, one solution. She could have drawn it on a whiteboard.

Nobody had asked her to. That was the trouble with being the only person in the car.

“Right,” she said to the rear-view mirror. “In and out. You have your tea, I’ll have mine, and we go home.”

Berkeley yawned enormously, showing every one of his teeth, which she chose to interpret as agreement.

She walked him up the path. The lawn was edged, and there was a pot of something purple by the door that hadn’t been there before. The door opened before she could knock.

“Hi,” Lauren said. Then she looked down. “Hi, Berkeley.”

She’d changed since the clubhouse. Clean jeans, a grey jumper with the sleeves pushed up, hair damp at the ends as if she’d showered again for no reason. The hallway smelled of furniture polish and, faintly, of hoover.

“You’ve cleaned,” Carly said.

“I always clean.”

“You’ve hoovered the skirting boards.”

“It was Reggie’s fur. It gets everywhere. I had to.” Lauren stepped back to let them in. “Come in, mate. Both of you.”

Mate again.

Four times in the bar. She’d counted, though she’d have died before admitting it to Paige. Mate was what you called the plumber. The bloke at the bar. The teammate who’d never be anything else. A word with no room in it, and Lauren kept handing it to her.

Which was fine. It was clear. Carly respected clarity.

She stepped inside and unclipped Berkeley’s lead.

He didn’t move. He stood in the hall, ears up, tail low, looking from Carly to Lauren to the kitchen door, and Carly felt Lauren tense beside her.

It was easy to forget how big he was until you saw him in a small space. In the park, he was a dog. In a bungalow hallway, with his head level with the radiator, he was a presence. Last time he’d been passing through. Tonight he seemed to know he was meant to stay.