I could just make one quick transaction. They should pay. It was just under one thousand pounds.
Could I?
My bank account had forty-three pounds in it. The shop’s account had two hundred, but that was earmarked for the bean supplier who would cut me off if I missed another payment. My last remaining family asset was my pride. But Edinburgh was expensive, and my son was going to need somewhere to sleep in a matter of days, and the drawer I’d thought to use was not, upon reflection, going to cut it.
"Fergus," I said. "I need you to be honest with me."
Fergus looked up from the slipper. One ear was up. One was down. He’d never quite figured out the synchronization.
“Should I use this card?”
Fergus tilted his head to one side.
“If I have the delivery going to the post office, who’d find us?”
He stared at me and I tried again. “Okay, I’m going to make this very large, very illegal and potentially dangerous order, and then when it arrives we are going to go for a walk…” Fergus wagged his tail, “to the post office to pick it up. Because it would be stupid to have it delivered here.”
I didn’t want to have three Russian men tracking the transaction to this address.
“Would you like a navy-blue blanket?”
Fergus wagged his tail.
"Good choice."
Fergus barked. One sharp, decisive, supportive bark. The bark of a dog who understood priorities and that the flat was getting colder.
I glanced at the screen and added a blanket for Fergus and two for me. And two fluffy cushions. The weather was getting colder. And if I was in for a penny, I might as well be in for a pound.
I still paused for a moment while my finger hovered over the touchpad. The cursor blinked on the "PLACE ORDER" button.
"This is a terrible idea," I said to Fergus.
He went back to my slipper with more gusto than before.
I thought about my son sleeping in a drawer. About Artem’s whisper. Then I thought about the fact that soon I was going to push a small human out of my body with no partner, no pack, no family, and nothing but a Yorkshire Terrier for company.
"Oh, for the love of God."
I clicked.
The screen loaded, and a wheel spun before the confirmation popped up.
ORDER PLACED.
I swallowed as the email pinged a second later. One thousand and forty-two pounds, ninety pence, charged to Mr Ivan Petrov.
I stared at the screen and suddenly blood rushed into my ears. "Well, Fergus," I said. "We had a good run. how long do you think we have? W week?"
Fergus sneezed.
"Yeah, three days if I'm lucky." I closed the laptop, put my hand on my stomach, and waited for the world to catch fire.
2
Artem
I’d not slept innearly nine months.
