When Will There Be Good News?: Reggie Chase, Warrior Virgin Summary & Analysis

Reggie keeps phoning Louise but not getting an answer. She feels that “the slender thread that still connected [her] to Dr. Hunter was broken.” She knows that Dr. Hunter’s phone is still in her house, so she decides to find the phone so that she can find the elderly aunt’s phone number and call Dr. Hunter there; then “all would be right with the world.”

Mr. Hunter isn’t at home. Reggie uses her house key to let herself and Sadie in. Sadie races around in search of Dr. Hunter, but it’s obvious to Reggie that the house is “quiet as the grave.” Reggie searches everywhere for Dr. Hunter’s mobile, but she can’t find it. Then she hears Mr. Hunter’s Range Rover approaching, followed by “another equally aggressive-sounding car.” She races upstairs and hides with Sadie in the bedroom. When she hears three voices moving upstairs, she grabs Sadie and pulls her into the walk-in closet.

Reggie peers through the slats and hears a man with a Glaswegian accent threatening Neil. He says, “Sweet little wife, pretty little baby. Do you want to see them again?” Reggie is sure they can all hear the pounding of her heart. Neil pulls open his side of the closet, removes something, and then leaves with the men. Reggie runs to the window and memorizes the license plate number of the departing car. Reggie is both comforted by the implication that Dr. Hunter is still alive and terrified by the likelihood that she’s been kidnapped. As she and Sadie scramble out of the closet, she finds Dr. Hunter’s purse. She takes it with her.

Reggie catches a series of buses back to her flat in Gorgie to find her phone charger. She looks through Dr. Hunter’s purse, knowing it’s theft, but figuring the normal rules no longer apply. The purse contains a brush, baby wipes, Dr. Hunter’s inhaler, her driving glasses, and her Filofax—which contains an address for Agnes Barker in Hawes.

When Reggie gets to her apartment, she finds a crowd of emergency vehicles outside the building. All the windows are broken, and the outside is streaked with soot. No one seems to have been hurt, which is a relief—“Reggie’s life was like the Ilian plain, littered with the dead.” She asks a loitering boy what happened, and he confirms that petrol had been poured through the letterbox of flat number eight—Reggie’s. She thinks of all her books and schoolwork and her mother’s things. Mr. Hussain comes by and offers Reggie a cup of tea. Reggie declines, hunches into her jacket, and walks away from the scene.

Moments later, Reggie notices that she’s being followed by a creepy white van. The thugs, Blondie and Ginger, get out and swagger towards her. They demand to know if she’s “Reggie Chase’s sister, Billy.” Sadie growls at the man’s tone of voice. Reggie delays. Ginger threatens Reggie that her brother will die if he doesn’t “come up with the goods.” Sadie barks alarmingly at them as they get back into their van. Ginger throws another Loeb classic out the window, this time the Aeneid. When Reggie looks inside, there’s a hollow carved into it. Reggie knows it’s Billy’s handiwork. She finally cries, wondering where “a person [went] when they had no one to turn to and nowhere left to run.”