This is a work of fiction.

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locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First published in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin in 2017
First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Freight Books

Copyright Philip Miller 2017

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 How then shall I find you, if I have no memory of you?
Augustine, Confessions

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 1

There were monsters on the beach.

Roland saw the purple bodies lying across the morning
sand. Squat and heavy on mounds of tentacles. The boy, his
pockets clinking with pebbles, sat down on the grass. The sea
was before him, from Eigg to America. Whispering, egg-shell
blue and pink. He had collected the pebbles along the way from
the cottage. He turned one over in his hand, deep in the green
cotton pocket of his jacket. His father was still sleeping off the
drink, back at the house. And now there was no beach to play
on. He slowly walked, and then slid, down to the sand. The
clean silicon squeaked under his pumps. He walked to one of
the bodies. It was purple, over-full of jelly and liquid. It had no
eyes or ears or face and stank in the cold morning.
He took a pebble and dropped it on the jellyfish. The pebble
fell and sat. Roland stood further back and threw another stone
at the body. It made a flapping noise as it rebounded from the
body, throwing up a tiny crown of sand as it hit the beach.
Roland walked up and down the field of jellyfish. Some had
burst, others were tangled up with others, their tentacles a
sandy mesh of coiling thick ropes and sea string. There were
bodiless pools of jelly, streaked with pink. There were little
globes of clear fat. There was seaweed that could have been an
animal, and animals that could have been seaweed. He didnt
dare paddle in the gently retreating waves.
There were rocks at one end of the beach. Dark and wet.
The sand around them was black, tiny white shells embedded
like stars. He clambered over them. The wind had picked up,
the water whiter at its teeth, clouds thickening above the island.
He emptied his pockets of pebbles as he stood on the rocks.
They clattered down.
At the end of the beach, by low curving cliffs, he could see

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 PHILIP MILLER

a statue, man-high. He was hungry now, his head a little light.

There had been no breakfast.
It was a statue of Christ, his arms at his side, his hands open
to the sea. He had a long nose, a finely carved straight beard.
Open eyes, with no pupils. Pale, as if made from driftwood.
It had once been painted, but the colours were flaking and
fading. The statue leaned slightly to one side.
Roland remembered a mint bar in his inside pocket. He sat
at the foot of Jesus and began to eat. As he crunched the bar,
mint torched up his salty nose.
A darkness was gathering in the west. The jagged isle of
Rum glowered across the sea. On his fingers, there was salt and
brine, and the faint smell of the dead.
Out there, somewhere in the blue, was his mother.

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 MACS0647-JD

black, black, black.

Dark. No sense of sense. And then
Confusion. A sense of feeling and finding. A brush of
something. Thought. A sense of seeing, again. An eye open to
the dark. And the dark flowing over eyes.
Then: still. No touch, no heat or sound. Just thought. There
was nothing here, and nothingness about. And then at the
edges a hardening, from the outside, moving to the centre.
And the centre grew, and the sense of that centre coalesced.
Strengthened. The eyes blinked: some light. Then the light
was softened at the edges, suddenly flaring fierce at its centre,
circles within wider circles, like the expanding ripples of a
pond. Circlets of fraying light. He was the iris. He was the
stone. He felt as if he were rising again, and then he was there
inside the smallest circle of many circles of light.
And he was in a landscape. The light rose and faded up
into a sky. A breath of wind on his face and over his eyes. He
realised he wasnt breathing.
Hey, a voice said.
A slightly wispy, silky voice. A hint of brushy hair.
And he could hear water, running. Eyes opened onto a field
of many points. An edgeless field of stipple and dots. There
were streaks of white light that became flashing, twisting
ribbons. The ribbons joined and unjoined. The noise grew
louder. It was a river.
A tiny globe of water, a flung droplet, landed on his face. He
realised he had a face. He put his hand he had a hand to
his face. His vision came into a sudden focus, as if two blurred
lenses had been placed together and created clarity. He was
lying on a small shingle beach beside a flowing river.
Hey, the wispy voice said again. He turned his head.

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 PHILIP MILLER

A dog, small and brown, with a wet black nose and black
ears. It was furry and brown on the hard pebbles. The river
roared by.
Hey there, the dog said.
The dogs mouth moved as it spoke. It had a pale pink
tongue and tiny white teeth. Its tail began to wag, swish swish
swish on the smooth rocks. He looked up the river bank to high
and thick stands of trees. In the undergrowth vivid green,
healthy, tangled white flowers were shaking. He looked down
at himself. He saw a body, and it was naked. His skin was clear,
no marks on his flesh, no creases around his knees or stomach.
He was not cold or hot. He wiggled his toes. He put his hand
to his chest.
No, you are fine now immaculate, the dog said.
A talking dog.
I guess you might want some clothes, the dog said, and
trotted over, paws crunching on the shingle. The dog put a
paw on his knee. He felt the tiny indentation of the dognail, the
tickle of its hair.
Can I speak? he thought.
Of course you can speak. Hot dog breath on his face. Hair
moved in his nose. He felt the breath on his eyelids, his eyes.
There you go, the dog said. And he looked down, and he
was wearing clothes some pale trousers, a pale shirt. Some
slippers.
But wear what you like, the dog said. I prefer this marvelous
fur.
The boy opened his mouth and a noise came out. He felt a
little cold.
Try again, the dog said, softly.
Who, he said. He looked down. He was wearing a thick, grey
jumper now.
Well. You dont remember me, the dog said. It made a
snuffling, ruffing sound. A hint of a growl.
He looked up. The sky was blue but stars were shattered
across it. A smear of fractured glass. The arc of light was

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 ALL THE GALAXIES

splintered at each horizon, trails of gas smudging the panoply.

Sometimes this happens, the dog said, shaking its head. But
we have time. Ill just sit here and think about food for a while.
The dog closed its eyes.
The dog was his.
Yes, he said at last.
He knew who this dog was. It was Kim, his terrier. The
terrier a Border Terrier. Kim.
At last, she said, her tail wagging. I knew youd get there in
the end. You people youre not as sharp as you think.
I can speak, he said. He felt his mouth move, his tongue
move.
Of course, Kim said. Youre dead. Youre not dumb.
I dont know where I am, he said.
You are at a bend in the river, Kim said.
Water flowing and stars shining.
What shall I call you now Kim said. Your old name, or
something new? You can be called anything now.
He didnt know. He had another name, another sound, in
his mind.
Tarka, he said.
The dog turned her head to one side.
OK, Tarka, she said. If you like.
Kim stepped over Tarkas leg and sat inside his thighs. Tarka
remembered her warmth and feel. Her silky ears, the ruffle of
ochre hairs along her back. He held her body, put his face into
her fur. It smelled of dog.
How can you talk? Tarka said.
How can you talk, dead boy? Kim said.
Tarka looked at his hands. Pink, new.
You want to move upstream? Kim said.
His body shook. There was a sudden blush of heat on his
cheeks. Tarka realised he was crying.
Cry, Kim said softly. You can cry and cry. We all weep.
Youd be surprised. Some weep for years.
Tarka pulled his knees up to his face. He put his hands to

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 PHILIP MILLER

his face and let his body shake, and his face and hands became
wet.
Where is this? he said at last.
Kim raised a paw, and peered at it.
A place, she said. I chose it for you, for a soft landing. If you
were still breathing, it has air, it has water. You dont need them
now, and neither do I. But I like to paddle and swim. On the
hills there, beyond this bend of the river, are fruit trees. You
can eat, but you never need to. And we can wait. This is not
time as you knew it.
The dog turned around and wagged her tail.
I come here quite a lot. There are rabbits here. We chase
each other. The river smells amazing. The trees, too. In the
mountains there are deer. We chase each other too, and in the
winter, the trees grow white blossom. Like snow. Under the sea
are fat fish. But mainly, I sleep and eat and run around. I am
a dog.
How can you talk though? Tarka said.
Kim snuffled.
I can do anything I want, Kim said, as her paws left the
rocky ground. She floated up in the air, and became level with
his face.
Look at me, Kim said, tail wagging, and then barked loudly
several times.
Tarka could now hear other things, as if the barks had tuned
his ears. There was a low wind through the branches and
leaves, the clicks and buzz of insects.
Tarka lay down. He had the shape of a memory, but it was
pale, uncoloured. He could not remember how he had got here.
Kim was close again. He could smell the dogs brown breath.
Dont worry, the dog said. It is a sudden thing. But it all
comes back, whether you want it to or not.
It all comes back, Tarka said.
We can move on, but only when you want to.
Tarka touched the dog with a pale hand.
There is a lot of time, she said. And can you do something

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 ALL THE GALAXIES

for me? I have waited a while. Rub me behind the ears. Like
you used to.
The human and the dog sat for some time, Tarkas fingers
in her hair.
Later, the sky darkened. Tarka looked at the stars for a time,
feeling their width and depth and height.
Where are we, Kim? he said.
It has no real name, Kim said. Her wet black nose glittered
under the starlight. The river roared on, from nameless hills to
a never-named sea.
Her thin, rubber-pink lips, Tarka saw. Her precise, tiny
white teeth. Every hair seemed distinct on her otter-brown
head. The blackness of her ears, the tawny felt of her close-
cropped head.
Border Terrier, Kim said, and looked Tarka in the eyes. Her
eyes round and brown and liquid.
I loved being a Border Terrier, she said.
Is this Heaven? he said.
No. Its a planet. Not in our galaxy.
Overhead the stars wheeled and curled.
The galaxies, Kim said, putting a paw on Tarkas knee, are
home for the dead. This is where we come when we die: all the
galaxies.
All Tarka said.
Plenty of time, Kim said softly, her thick tail moving like a
silk brush over the stones.
The dead are here? said Tarka.
My mother is here, Kim said, and laughed a whiskery,
tonguey laugh.
Your mother?
Yes, shes out there somewhere. Shes there with her mother,
and her mother too. Some cousins, some nieces. My brother.
Your mother? he said again.
Its time for you to fly with me, said Kim.
Fly?
I have been here for years. I know the ways.

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 PHILIP MILLER

Tarka put an arm on the dog and as he did, the dog rose into
the night air. He felt himself holding on to her as she suddenly
picked up speed, as if she were a rising balloon. He held her
as her legs straightened, and he wrapped his arms around her
warm hairy body as she rose into the sky. Below the river was
a ribbon of black, the hills rising, the mass and weight of the
forest heavy to the obscured horizon.
They rose and the sky bent, and there were distant blue
mountains with crags and peaks. A light gleaming at their
edges, their far-off precipices.
Lets go, Kim said.
No, no, no, Tarka said. He was panicking. He flailed his
new legs.
You cannot fall.
Tarka gripped harder. He could feel the dogs legs and ribs,
the small tightly bound mass of her. Kim barked. A noise lost in
the widening, deepening sky. They rose further. Tarka could
make out a shoreline, the lines of a continent. He felt what
was around him. Warm night air wind the salty spark of a
distant sea the dampness of clouds and the fuzzed warmth of
his dog, under him, carrying him, now.
They flew. He held her, and she led him through new skies.

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 2

John Fallons son was missing. Fallon sat in his glass-walled

newspaper office. It had been two days since he had last seen
Roland.
He looked at his computer screen: he had 1,645 unread
emails. On his desk were pages of type that he needed to proof,
a long feature that his newspaper, The Mercury, ran every
year: The 101 Most Powerful People in Scotland. As Features
Editor, it was his duty to scan the list, to make observations
and comments, to remove names, usually of the dead, and find
people to fill their places. Since his promotion he hadnt written
a word. He tinkered with, deleted, and shaped other peoples
words. As a byline, John Fallon had been de-commissioned.
The number one position in the list had been reserved for the
First Minister but the Scottish Parliament had been disbanded
during The Horrors. Its halls and windows were now closed
and guarded by visored police. Elections had been postponed
until after the trial of Wee Lawrence.
Now Thomas Parry was first on the list, the chief executive
and leader of Greater Glasgow. Fallon looked at Parrys pudgy
headshot. A glimmer of light on a large head. Thick glasses and
large lips. Fallon sighed as he scanned further down the list:
the pink-faced city leaders of Edinburgh, Dundee, Inverness.
All men, all white. A few artists and musicians. A noted poet.
Various Westminster politicians with newly strengthened
remits north of the Border. The general of the North British
Battalion.
At number 10 was an English playwright who had
written a well-received trilogy about the first Independence
Referendum. The second referendum, held not long after
amid greater tumult, was also a No, by a larger majority. The
trilogy was a pained historical work called A Wee Shame. Fallon

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 PHILIP MILLER

remembered seeing some of the third part. He had drunk too

much at the free bar at the interval, and had slept through the
second half. He woke to people standing, clapping, dabbing
their eyes. Maggie had been angry.
Number six in the long list was deliberately controversial:
Wee Lawrence. The headshot that pale face, those wide eyes.
A smile.
Number seven was Fiona Gawthrop, head of Glasgow Food
Banks: she fed a third of the city. Food was being imported
again, supplies were high, supply chains steady and robust.
People could buy food online again, if they had computers. If
the internet reached them again.
Supermarkets had proved to be a soft target. He remembered
the dead. Glass gliding over the red tarmac on Byres Road. A
childs buggy full of blood. Bodies shovelled from the Co-Op.
He called Rolands mobile phone number again. It rang and
rang and then stopped. His sons soft voice spoke.
Hi, its Roland. Leave a message.
Roland sounded half asleep, listless.
Fucksake, Fallon said.
When he had last seen Roland, the boy had been in a bleary
teenage fug. He had stumbled into the kitchen, eaten some
toast in silence, and stumbled out again.
Fallon needed a drink. He reached for his phone. He texted
Maggie. She had moved out. She had never really moved
in. Still nothing, he thumbed. She wouldnt reply to his text.
Maggie was preparing to stage a new show at her gallery. She
had been fond of Roland. But that was all over now. He slid his
phone across the desk.
His office was small, glass-walled, its air cut into bars of
shadow by the blinds. On a coatstand hung a spare suit in a
translucent plastic cover, like a body inside a ghost. Fallon,
big, heavy, watched dust swirl in the air. Glinting multitudes
spiralling in the light.
Outside, ruined Glasgow was soaked in a sudden rain. From
his window he could see the city streets, sluiced with fresh

10

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 ALL THE GALAXIES

water. Tiny people hurried. A girl on the corner struggled with

an umbrella that had turned inside out. It looked like she was
being attacked by a black bird.
Small people skittered and pattered on the pavements. It
had been warm that morning, and a rainbow had glittered over
the distant hills. It had arced and glimmered and faded.
Metal fences rattled in the wind around the rubble of a
gutted theatre. Bunches of flowers wilted in the rain. There
was a small field of candles for the dead. The theatre had sat for
years there, its corners like towers, its bulk like a fort. No more.
Ray Paton, the Deputy Editor, poked his shaven head
around Fallons flimsy door.
Come on, soft lad, morning news conference.
Aye Im coming.
At yer own pace, big man.
Fuck off.
Youll miss me calling you a twat in front of every dicknail
there, Ray said.
How could I miss that pleasure?
Ray dawdled off. He was low-slung and waddled in his
rolling hips. The Anglo-Saxon gait, hed once said.
Fallon looked down the early morning news list, which had
been emailed by the news editor, Donald.

Wee Lawrence: solitary in Bar-L, refusing food (ADAMS)

The Horrors Part 12: How were The Wardens financed? (News
team)
Internet finally restored to Highlands in national rollout where
are the black spots, service shadows Staff
Celtic strikers new pony is called Trevor (Sport)
Students demand march rights in March Against Madness,
Friday? (BARBER)
Pro-indy groups hold convention to discuss Third Alliance
(POL)
Stigmata man? (Sandison checking) When is this happening?
Skating Minister painting repatriated to France (SILVER)

11

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 PHILIP MILLER

Outside his office the editorial staff were murmuring and

typing. Hunched over telephones and computers. Whispering
and muttering. A series of televisions hung from the ceiling. A
news ticker sped across the screens. It was the quiet time on the
newspaper floor: lists were being compiled, calls made, emails
sent. Coffee made and drunk. The day was gathering itself.
Out on the news floor he saw the pale face of Shona Sandison.
She was staring at a clump of her rough fringe, which she held
between her fingers close to her eyes, peering at a split end. She
was doing nothing. She was meant to be writing a story about
a man in the city who, she had been told, had Christs wounds.
Fallon watched as she swore silently and sat up, her face intent,
her eyes flickering over words on the screen before her.
He remembered her holding a wreath for the newspaper at
the mass memorial service on Glasgow Green. Shed gently
placed it by the cairn of flowers before the soaked, silent crowds,
her large blue eyes holding the flicker of the flame in the rain.
Deep, watery eyes. Like Roland. Like Pat.
Roland was in first year at university, studying history.
Fallon had seen him lope out of the shower one morning that
week straggles of black hair under his armpits, redness on his
shoulders and chest. A long lithe body, like his own had been,
all those years ago.
Little Roland had once been tiny and tender and pink,
entering the world in a buzzing blue-lit hospital. In the soft
light of the special unit, Fallon had walked in the hush past
respirators and incubators. Past tiny babies twitching amid
nests of wires and tubes. A pair of twins in bassinets, side by
side in white woollen caps. Outside, past the darkened windows,
light smeared in pale and gold blurs as the cars of a motorway
rolled by. So much movement outside a room with nearly none.
Tiny rubber fingers tickling the air.
The nurse had led Fallon to an incubator near the window,
and inside the plastic box was his son: small and mauve and
cross. A pipe had been put into his right arm, held with an
outsized plaster and bandage. His chubby legs were akimbo.

12

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 ALL THE GALAXIES

A stomach like a ripe fruit, dimpled by a thumb-print belly

button. His face, ovals and pudgy lumps, a tiny mouth in an O,
eyes like petals, and wisps of dark hair stuck down with goo.
Fallon watched and watched, realising after a time his hand
had moved to the clear plastic wall between them.
A lovely wee boy, a nurse said, cupping Fallons elbow
slightly with her hand.
Baby, Fallon had said. Baby, baby. And he stayed, his nose to
the glass, as the baby wriggled in a fitful sleep, and his mother,
Pat, on another floor somewhere, slept, her stitches new and
bloody.
Fallon opened his eyes. Two new emails pinged on his
computer.
One was from Bernard Troutwine, the newspapers new
executive editor. It was a mass email to everyone in editorial.
4pm Staff Meeting on Main Floor: compulsory attendance.
The newspaper had been bought two months ago by a
Monaco-based company, LaVey. LaVey had made its money
in glue and adhesives. LaVey itself was owned by another
company which seemed to have no base and no headquarters.
Only a series of interlocking financial instruments denoted by
acronyms.
The Mercury was the first newspaper owned by LaVey, who
were moving into acquisitions in the print media as the industry
failed and died. Troutwine had been brought in from a hazy
role in Canada to run The Mercury. Ray said he was an asset
stripper and knew nothing about newspapers. Or Scotland.
No one knows about Scotland, Fallon said. Not even
Scotland.
Says the Bard of Trongate.
Scotlands like you, Ray recovering from a nervous
breakdown.
Hilarious.
Anyway, what about this Troutwine, do you think he is
MI5? Fallon said, joking.
Ray thought everyone in a position of power in Scotland was

13

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 PHILIP MILLER

employed in some form by MI5.

I dont care if he is a spy or a paed, Ray said. All I know is he
means business, is going to make cuts, and is an utter stroker.
A platinum-plated stroker.
Give him time, Fallon had said.
But now he felt that Ray was probably right. Fallon knew
that The Mercury, by other newspapers standards, had a
surfeit of staff. That it still existed, in its present form, was
probably unusual. Even aberrant. Ten newspapers had closed
in the last few years. Only four were still being printed on paper.
Only The Mercury and The Herald continued as broadsheets.
Some, in a lurch towards a hope for new life, had become online
only, and had then died suddenly when the internet was cut to
Scotland during The Horrors. Nine months of no internet, no
broadband, and a countrywide firewall, had shut down their
life support. They had burned up and vanished, like cellophane
in a flame. And no one remembers old newspapers. They are
as lost as sunken ships.
The Mercury was a survivor, but one that predatory
international companies like LaVey could buy and strip and
sell. The Mercury had led the way on covering The Horrors
and its aftermath but LaVey would not care about that. Its head
office didnt even know who The Mercurys editor was. It didnt
know where Scotland was. It didnt know where Glasgow was.
It didnt know what Glasgow was.
In the greater panorama of a world in torment, The Horrors
had been small news. A convulsion on the edge of atomised
Europe. Fallon felt a dread of the future in the pit of his stomach.
It felt like these were the last days. Scotlands last days. And the
last newspaper would report them in its last pages.
Fallons second new email was from an address he didnt
recognise.
John Fallon: If you want to know about Norloch, meet me, Cafe
Royal Edinburgh, tomorrow 6pm. Reculver.
Well blimey, he said, and closed it again. His email pinged
again. A note from a writer, Adams, about his piece on Wee

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 ALL THE GALAXIES

Lawrence. Some legal queries. Some issues of taste. Wee

Lawrence: Lawrence Brown, the leader of Scotlands death
cult. The bombers, the kidnappers, the throat-cutters The
Wardens. The shadows in a nightmare that seemed to be over.
A season of medieval butchery that had spilled its last blood.
Fallon looked out of the window. He didnt want to work.
He wanted to go out into the town. Have a drink. Find his son.
Give him a hug. Kiss his forehead.
He left his desk, pulled on his suit jacket, and walked in the
direction of the canteen. He remembered it was closed, and
turned on his heels, and headed for the news editor.
The smells of the newsroom. Old paper and the coughings
of dust mites. Cold coffee and perfume. Polystyrene trays of
abandoned food. Lank settled farts. Unpressed three-day-
old shirts and earwax. A grey cloud of desperate gloom. The
clinical smell of the broken photocopier.
As Fallon walked he held a piece of blank paper. It made him
look busy. Journalists hunched around computers. Un-ironed
shirts and black jackets. They whispered into telephones.
He heard one say: I have a spot up my nose that is making
me cry with pain.
Reporters looked at videos on their computers. A sudden
snort of laughter from the sports desk. He wandered over to the
newsdesk. Donald was red-bearded, panda-eyed, and typing
furiously.
Conference, Donald said, staring at his screen. His keyboard
rocked as his fingers bashed the grey keys.
Yes, Fallon said, remembering.
Donald pummelled the plastic.
Did you see the email from Troutwine, Fallon added.
Cunt, Donald said, not looking up.
Yep. Well. Be with you in a tick, Fallon said, and put his
piece of blank paper down, and headed for the office door.
He walked past more desks, mainly empty. Dead computer
screens, grey and dusty.
He passed Shona Sandison.

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 PHILIP MILLER

Hey Shona, he said. Hows the stigmatic?

Dont ask me, Shona said, head in one hand.
Well, its your story. Its down for a page lead. With pictures.
Jesus, Shona said. Today?
If youre lucky.
Im getting nowhere. We might need to hold it, she said,
in a low voice, staring at her screen. I dont have enough of
anything.
Oh really, Fallon said, in a mock dramatic voice. Havent
seen your byline in a while.
She stared at him.
Fallon trudged on. By another glass office lights out,
blinds drawn Kate, the editorial secretary, was putting letters
in dookets. She was throwing them in, side-armed, from about
a foot away. Thok, thok, they landed.
Hey, he said, as he walked by her.
John, its conference, Kate said. She smiled.
How could I miss it? he said, and smiled back.
Kate, most people in the office knew, held the editorial
operation together. She made arrangements, answered phones,
filed expenses. Kate had a first-aid kit and the key to the first-
aid room. John had slept in there several times, on its blue
plastic bed, under fluorescence.
Has Roland phoned? he said.
No, she said, and shook her head. She had dark hair, bronze
streaks. Should he have?
No, no, Fallon said.
Kate stood still, and raised her eyebrows, awaiting
something.
Im out of here, he said, softly.
Right. What shall I say this time? Kate said, and returned
to filing letters.
Say my arse has exploded, he said.
I cant say that again.
Think of something delicate, disgusting and vague, he
said, and left the office.

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 ALL THE GALAXIES

Aye right, she said.

He walked down the back stairs and out into the street.
The roar of Glasgow in his ears. Cars and trucks on the
pothole-pitted roads. Noise jangled and spat around him. Lean
men in poor clothes stalked the road. Ill women hunched at
bus stops. He walked past the shuttered Buchanan Galleries,
a bankrupt shopping mall. A pile of flowers still lay on its
steps, memorial wreaths and images of the Virgin on guttered
candles, flakes of ash floating in rainwater.
He walked slowly across the city.
He lost the time.
A thin man in a tracksuit lay on the kerbside, a swollen
bandage on his neck, pink with blood.
He entered an old pub in the Merchant City. A pensioner
was asleep at the bar. On a silent TV screen, the pale flat face
of Wee Lawrence. Words across the screen: Lawrence Still
Refusing Food.
He sat on a stool at the dark bar and asked for a whisky and
water.
His phone buzzed. It was Ray.
Where the fuck r u?
He texted back: Asking my liver some hard questions.
Meeting with Troutwine will be a clusterfuck, come back you
wholesale tit.
Fucksake, Fallon said.
He downed his drink. It was sweet and fiery. The butchers
had left the distilleries alone.
No messages from his son, no messages from Maggie.
The sleeping old man snorted and moaned, and suddenly
sat up. He wore a dark, crumpled suit and a woollen hat. On his
lapel there glittered what looked like a peacock feather.
Ah, you, the old man said. He had a plaster on his forehead.
Who? Fallon said.
You know, the old man said, and took something from his
pocket an envelope. He put it, face down, on the bar top, and
slid it to Fallon.

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 PHILIP MILLER

Read it once you have left this place, the man said. He put
his head down again on the bar top. His hands were covered
by gloves.
Fallon paid and left the warm darkness of the pub, stepping
out onto the clattering cobbles of Candleriggs.
He tried ringing Roland again. There was no answer.
He was almost back in the office when he remembered the
letter from the old man. He opened it as he walked into the
glassy, gassy space of the newspapers office atrium.
He read the single, typed line of words on the cream, clean
paper, which was decorated with a cross and a small, blue
sketch of a butterfly.
HE WILL RETURN IN SPLENDOUR.
Fallon screwed it up, threw it to the ground.
A tract from a bampot. The country was bleeding with
them.

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