Free Painkillers by Simon Ings Page A

wondered how I was going to explain the holes in the garage wall. I said, 'Did you see him when you went back for the present, this afternoon?'
    I left him in the kitchen.'
    'Did you see him?'
    She thought about it. 'No.'
    'But you left the door open when you went back.'
    'No I didn't.'
    'You did. I saw you.'
    'Did I?'
    'Yes.'
    She thought about it. 'I went upstairs for the PlayStation. It was still in the bedroom.'
    'Well,' I said, 'there you are, then.'
    'Well wouldn't you have seen him?'
    'I don't know,' I said.
    She swallowed. 'Oh, Adam...' She reached out to touch my arm. I stepped away, conscious suddenly of the smell sticking to me; something gluey between the second and third fingers of my left hand. I shoved my hands back in my pockets. 'I'd better get moving,' I said, and headed down the stairs to the kitchen. She followed me down. 'Where are you off to?'
    'Well if he's not in the house I'd better go look for him, hadn't I?'
    'I'll come with you.'
    'Wait in the house. He hasn't been fed - he'll probably be back before I am.'
    'Where are you going to go?'
    'I'll just drive around a while, see if I can see him.'
    It needed two hands to open the kitchen door.
    'Adam,' she said, 'wait.'
    'What?'
    'Your hand's bleeding again.'
    'It doesn't matter,' I said. I gave the bottom of the door a kick and it came open.
    'Let me drive.'
    'For God's sake,' I shouted, 'let me do something.'
    Her smile was so gentle, something dropped inside me. 'Thanks,' she said, softly. 'If you're sure.'
    I smiled back at her, because it was what she wanted, and went back to the car. 11.
    My hand felt like there was a wasps' nest under my skin. It was so swollen, the palm so blackened, I couldn't bear to look at it. I drove one-handed down Hemingford Road, then swung a left and tried heading south, but the traffic was so heavy I lost my temper and turned again too early, losing myself in the mewses and plazas that fill the junction of Liverpool Road and Upper Street. When at last I found a way through, I found myself on Islington Green, heading towards the Angel. I remembered the canal and braked sharply for the left turn down Duncan Street. The driver behind nearly rear-ended me. As he overtook, we wound down our windows and he called me a cunt. 'Leather interior,' I sneered back. It was nice not having Eva in the car.
    The Grand Union Canal runs underground through Islington, directly beneath the road I was driving down. At the end of the street, where the tunnel ends, a small copse of mature trees hides the emerging water. I dog-legged right and drove slowly, trying to see into the cutting. There were lights down there houseboats, moored along the towpath from the mouth of the tunnel all the way down to the next bridge. So that was out. After that the road veered right, away from the water. There wasn't any other traffic just then so I whipped as fast as I could through a four-point turn and drove back the other way, and over the canal. I took the first right turn, hoping this road would follow the line of the water. The Georgian facades moving past me were smart enough but the road might have been a dirt track, the way it felt under my wheels, all patched and pitted, with speed bumps every few yards. I gritted my teeth, kept to a steady 25mph, and tried not to hear Boots thumping about in the back. I reached the junction, looked right, and there was a pub, the Narrowboat, built on the corner of the bridge and the cutting. So that was out.
    I dog-legged left again and then I really lost it: every street I tried turned out to be a dead end until I reached Rheidol Terrace, by which time it felt like I was miles off course. I drove down it anyway until it suddenly opened out, roads leading off every place, and a church rose up ahead of me, and I finally admitted defeat. I turned immediately right, more out of panic than anything else, and found myself in the middle of a council estate. The road disappeared into the darkness, straight and uniform as