Free Mr. Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt

for a moment. His voice was fractured when he spoke again.
    “Historians are apt to judge war ministers less by the victories achieved under their direction than by the political results which flowed from them. Judged by that standard I am not sure that I will be held to have done very well.”
    “No one can help you with this,” said Black Pat.
    “What are you insinuating?”
    “It is not an insinuation.” Black Pat lifted his face. “It’s an instruction. You know you will not find sanctuary in the answers of others. No peace lies there.”
    Churchill said, “Then let me go to bed.”
    The dog’s voice was emotionless. “Have another drink. It’ll clear your head.”
    Reaching for it, Churchill drained the last of his whisky in retaliation, banging the glass down on a small circular table next to him, the bust of Franklin D. Roosevelt shuddering.
    “There!”
    His head was far from clear, it felt woolly with alcohol and fatigue. The room rocked with the fluidity of oil on water. He blinked to control it, but it rolled on. “… Now
leave.
”
    “Not yet,” said Black Pat.
    “I’m telling you to leave.”
    “Not yet.”
    “Then I’m begging you,” said Churchill.
    Black Pat’s head dropped back to the floor, his muzzle stubbed against the Persian rug. “I know you are.”

CHAPTER 14
    4.00 a.m
.
    T he front door closed gently, weight cautiously applied until the lock made a slow snap. Under a powder of sleep in her bedroom Esther was immediately awake. Her eyes swerved to the bedroom door, open a few inches. The stairhead and landing outside formed a construction of dim shapes.
    Noises came from down in the hall, the sound of a lumbering bulk trying not to be heard. There was a dull thud as a shin met the edge of a table hidden in the dark, followed by an ago-nised pause, the sound of a knuckle bitten to keep from crying out.
    Esther lay there as if waiting for an atrocity, a motionless ball.
    In the hall there was a tight crack, something plastic being shattered, then a slew of paws, a heavy lurch into the frontroom’s doorframe, and a filthy obscenity. Esther shot upright in bed, the sleeves of the dressing gown locked around her elbows, hair thrown over her face. Fighting through the sleeves, she remembered the escaped pepper pot. It would have been funnier, but still funny enough.
    Scrabbling claws signalled that Black Pat was scratching at the carpet, the instincts in him to carve out a den. Something ripped. A pounding of paws in a circle was followed by the gradual crash of a body dumping itself onto the floor. Then a sigh came, a peeved one, the head shifting in small posture changes to find a tolerable spot. Bangs came from the head as it lumped around, nothing comfortable.
    Esther listened with satellite ears, sitting cross-legged, the bedcovers in chaos. She started to speak and changed her mind. She changed it again and spoke in an emergency hiss.
    “Black Pat?”
    Another sigh, this time impossibly annoyed. “What?”
    “Are you going to stay down there?”
    “Yes.”
It was the tedious tone of an unresolved argument.
    Anxious that Black Pat might invade the upstairs rooms, Esther said, “You’ll definitely stay in the front room?”
    “Ock.”
A snort of contempt. “Shhh!” A firm demand.
    “You’ll be there all night?”
    “Could you keep your voice down? I’m trying to sleep.”
    She did keep her voice down, speaking in a booming whisper. “Sorry.”
    There was no reply, an awkward peace as both of them lay in silence. Esther felt the embarrassment of trying to sleep in the company of acquaintances, that squeak of adult humiliation at talking in pyjamas and then very consciously not talking and lying there in the blackness.
    Unable to bear it, she turned on one elbow, twisting to clump the pillows. Her striking fist made a furrow. A few minutes chipped away. From below came the sound of the dog’s face lifting to lick at his foreleg with a brusque tongue. Black Pat