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little singer. Up on the roof, I can make out the top of Arthur’s Seat goring the mist. Oh Madeleine, how furious you’d be . . .
    A swarm of migrating birds hovers above me, as if stacked on a bank of clouds. I’d like to catch hold of their wings and tear myself away from the earth; if only my heart’s troubles would take flight, nothing else would matter. Please, dear birds, take me to Andalusia, and I’ll find my way from there.
    But the birds are out of reach, like chocolate piled high on a shelf, or the alcoholic flasks of tears in the cellar, or my dream of the little singer where I have to climb over Joe in order to get to her. If I’ve killed him, things will be even more complicated. My clock is throbbing. Madeleine, you’ve got your work cut out.
    I must try to turn back time. I grab the hour hand that’s still warm with blood, and tug it backwards in one quick stroke.
    My gears whine, the pain is unbearable. Nothing happens. I hear shouting, they’re heading this way from the playground. Joe is holding his right eye. I’m almost reassured to hear the injured poodle yelping.
    A teacher intervenes and I hear the children denouncing me, all eyes scouring the playground like radar. Panicked, I tumble from the roof and jump into the first tree I see. I scratch my arms on the branches and go crashing to the ground. Adrenalin gives me wings. My legs have never been in such a hurry to get to the top of the mountain.
    ‘Did you have a nice day at school today?’ Madeleine asks, as she tidies her shopping away into the kitchen cupboard.
    ‘Yes and no,’ I answer, trembling all over.
    She looks at me, sees my twisted hour hand, and fixes me with a disapproving stare.
    ‘You saw the little singer again, didn’t you? The last time you came home with your heart in such a filthy mess, you’d heard her singing.’
    Madeleine talks to me like I’m a schoolboy sloping home with his best shoes ruined after playing football.
    As she tries to straighten my clock hand with a crowbar, I start telling her about the fight. But it makes my heart beat faster again.
    ‘You’ve been very foolish!’
    ‘Can I turn back time by making my clock hands go backwards?’
    ‘No, you’ll put pressure on your gears and it’ll be extremely painful. But it won’t make the slightest bit of difference. You can never undo your past actions, not even when you have a clockwork heart.’
    I was expecting to be scolded horribly for poking Joe’s eye out. But hard as Madeleine tries to look annoyed, she’s not entirely successful. And if her voice chokes, it’s more with concern than anger. She seems to think it’s less serious to poke out a bully’s eye than to fall in love.
    Strains of ‘Oh When the Saints’ suddenly come our way. It’s unusual for Arthur to be paying us a visit at this time of night.
    ‘Och, a carriage full of police officers is making its way up the hill, and they’re all looking like their wee minds are set, if ye ken what I mean,’ he says, out of breath.
    ‘I’ve got to go, they’re coming to find me because of Joe’s eye.’
    A fistful of different emotions sticks in my throat: the rose-tinted dream of finding the little singer combined with my fear of listening to my heart beating against the bars of a prison cell. But a wave of melancholy drowns everything. No more Arthur, no more Anna, no more Luna and, above all, no more Madeleine.
    I will come across a few sad looks in the course of my life, but the one Madeleine gives me right now will always be – along with just one other – the saddest I’ll ever witness.
    ‘Arthur, go and find Anna and Luna, and try to find a carriage. Jack must leave town as fast as possible. I’ll stay here to greet the police.’
    Arthur plunges into the night, limping as fast as he can to reach the bottom of the mountain.
    ‘I’ll get your things ready. You need to be out of here in less than ten minutes.’
    ‘What will you tell them?’
    ‘That you