The Red Road by Denise Mina Page B

looked very suspicious now. He glared down his nose at Robert. ‘When are the rest of your party coming?’
    He clearly thought Robert was ill and was hoping someone else would come and look after him.
    ‘Probably tomorrow,’ lied Robert.
    He grunted, looked out of the window as if he hoped to see them there, unexpectedly early. ‘Suppose the afternoon ferry’ll be cancelled because of the storm.’
    The hippy turned away then, heading back for the hallway. Robert followed him. As the hippy slunk down the corridor Robert saw him reach out a hand without glancing around, his fingers running across an ornament on the window sill. Robert hurried after him and, glancing down, saw a small brass statue of Pan. The furry-trousered god was blowing two pipes and skipping a dance on a grey marble plinth. The patina of the statue was black except for one hoof which was rubbed a shining bronze; it caught the light from the kitchen. The hippy had been here for a very long time. Robert thought suddenly that he must have grown up here.
    He was waiting for Robert at the bottom of the stairs. ‘The bedrooms are upstairs,’ he said, and set off.
    Upstairs he pointed to two doors. ‘Master bedroom. Bathroom adjoining.’
    He opened a door and Robert followed him in. A four-poster bed with a tester covered and canopied in blue toile and a matching bedspread. Windows looking out over the castellated entrance porch and beyond to the bay. The patch of sun at sea had gone, nothing but grey rain. The white sand of the beach had a filthy black rim.
    ‘Are you the owner?’
    The hippy seemed uncomfortable at that. He pointed at a door. ‘Bathroom.’ He hesitated then, and turned away, leaving the room.
    Robert watched him walk away, noting the slight blush on the back of the man’s neck.
    Out of the window the dark hills glowered. Whoever they had sent to kill him might be here already, they knew where he was all the time. They might have caught the ferry before him and could be out there now, on the hills, watching the lights flick on in the rooms, tracing their movement through the house. Robert wanted to shout out to the hippy, tell him that if he stayed here he would die. He should run, get out, visit a friend or a relative, just get out. But if Robert did that the man would call the police. Robert couldn’t have the police here. Worse, he might call a doctor – Robert did seem strange, he knew that already. He hadn’t changed his suit in two days and he had been drinking. He probably smelled odd. They would take him to the local hospital, they’d hear that his father had died. They’d mistake his terror for grief and sedate him, so that he couldn’t even think for the last few hours of his life. And then the murderer would kill whoever else got in their way.
    As he processed these thoughts the hippy stared at him from the corridor. The house was terribly silent.
    ‘Why do you want to be alone?’ he asked.
    Robert didn’t know what to say. ‘My father’s ...’ He didn’t know what to say. ‘Just died.’
    ‘Oh.’ He looked at the floor and then pointed at another door. ‘Twin room.’
    Robert looked out of the window. He could hear the hippy padding around the house, now outside the door, now on the stairs. Robert didn’t move. He watched the sea claw at the beach. He watched the sky bicker with the land. He watched the opposing cliffs growl at each other. He had tried to remove himself, to make it safe for other people. He could just as well have gone to a Premier Inn by a motorway and paid with a credit card.
    There were family pictures around the room. Robert registered it as the home of a nice, old-money family. His parents’ house wasn’t old money or nice money. His family home was a big Bearsden status symbol but inside was dirt and chaos, misery running down the walls, dripping from the curtains, everything sticky dirty because Margery met the cleaning woman at the door twice a week and paid her to go