Never Apologise, Never Explain - James Craig [1]
After considering various options, Dog stepped up to a collection of refuse sacks piled by a street lamp on the east side of the street, outside an Indian restaurant called Sitaaray. Pulling a Stanley knife out of his jacket pocket, he bent down and carefully slit open the nearest bag. A couple of minutes of careful rummaging yielded some decent leftovers: lamb shaami and chicken masala, as well as a couple of peshwari naan. As a meal, it was better than anything that he would have got at the hostel, and would go perfectly with the remains of the two-litre bottle of Diamond White cider that he had saved from earlier in the day. Checking up and down the road to make sure that no one had spied upon his good fortune, Dog gave a silent prayer of thanks for the city’s endless bounty before retreating into the darkness of a nearby alleyway at the rear of a huge block of mansion flats to set about his feast.
TWO
Still dressed, unable to sleep, Agatha Mills stood at her living-room window and gazed out at the floodlit splendour of the British Museum. The view was the best thing about the flat, especially at night; she often spent time contemplating its Ionic columns and the sculptures on the pediment over the main entrance, depicting The Progress of Civilisation.
Progress indeed, Agatha thought sadly, shaking her head.
This view had been the thing that had made her fall in love with the flat when they had first seen it, almost forty years ago. She had badgered Henry to pay the asking price immediately, even though they couldn’t afford it. He had been very grumpy about it at the time, something that still made her smile, even now. Over the years, however, as it became clear that the flat was the one sound financial investment they’d made in their entire lives, her husband had relented and graciously accepted that she had been right.
For Agatha, however, their joy in Great Russell Street had always been tinged with sadness. From that first visit, she had dreamed of taking her own children down the stairs, across the road and into the Museum. She had daydreamed of picnics in the courtyard, lost afternoons spent among the Egyptian mummies or the Roman treasures. If, at the time, she had known that there would be no children, she would have felt utterly crushed. Even now, there was a sharp stab of regret that she knew would never go away.
However, a stoical pragmatism ruled the Mills household: you have to live with your regrets – and they had done so. Life went on. They had found other things to occupy their time and their emotions. Sometimes she wondered if Henry was as disappointed as she was – being a man, after all – but ultimately that didn’t matter. They weren’t having some kind of competition to see who could wear more of their heart on their sleeve.
She thought of him now, asleep in their double bed and smiled. He was a good man who had taken on her struggles and made them his own. Over the years she had realised that he was a truly remarkable companion and she was lucky to have him.
A movement in the street below caught her eye. Stepping closer to the window, she gazed down on a tramp going through the rubbish, looking for something to eat, or maybe some discarded clothing. For Agatha, at her window at this time of night, it was a fairly common sight and no longer elicited much of a response other than the gentle voyeuristic thrill of spying on another human being going about their business. Having spent much of her life working in poorer countries, she was used to human scavenging. Indeed, she had seen much worse than London had to offer. Here, however, Agatha had found that she was less sympathetic to the plight of others. Maybe it was just that she was getting