Give a Dog a Name (Three Oaks Book 4)

by Gerald Hammond

  If she did not like apple, so be it. Without interrupting my now laboured chatter, I ate the rest of the apple myself.

  Three biscuits later, by which time I was giving Walnut my considered views about the situation in the Middle East, I decided to try for another step forward. I pushed my hand in as far as I could with a biscuit on the palm, still chatting as comfortably as I could from my cramped position and trying not to remember that a nervous snatch could cost me some skin. After several minutes and just before my aching muscles forced me to give up, I was rewarded by a soft snuffle and the tickle of whiskers as the biscuit was lifted from my hand.

  That was as much progress as I could expect in a single visit. I left my stool where it was, locked the gate of the run and backed away. On the off-chance, I waited twenty yards off. Soon, a face appeared at the kennel door. She came far enough out to sniff my fishing stool and then retired to lie with her head just inside the door, watching me unblinkingly. She was very similar to Stardust although her nose was fractionally shorter and I thought that there was something different about the eyes. I produced my last biscuit and held it up where she could see it. There was a danger that I could frighten her again if she had been subjected to stone-throwing, but gentle throwing motions caused no more than a slight twitching. I tossed the biscuit as gently as I could and it landed in the run. The face vanished immediately but reappeared. I retired a few more paces and she ventured out, picked up the biscuit and retired quickly.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, I turned towards the house.

  While I was preoccupied with Walnut, my car had returned. It was standing at the nearest point of the gravel and two figures were coming slowly across the grass. I was surprised to recognise the elderly kilted figure of Charles Buccleugh. He was leaning on a stick and also on the arm of Henry who, although not a member of the partnership, often walked over to give Isobel his company and us his help and advice. On this occasion, after all the midnight activity, I guessed that he had stayed overnight with Isobel and slept in even later than I had. Beth, who had been locking up the car, avoided my eye and scuttled indoors.

  The two elders halted as I neared them and we exchanged greetings. ‘Your delightful young wife came to invite me over for a look around your kennels,’ Buccleugh said. ‘I was glad of an excuse to be around spaniels again for a while and also to get out of the house. My daughter has the Ellingworth brats with her for the day, nice enough lasses but an old man can take just so much exuberant young girlhood. Beth – she asked me to call her Beth – also told me about your present problem.’ He saw that I was dumbfounded and smiled softly. ‘She was careful to ask first whether I had become friendly with Aubrey Stoneham and I was able to assure her that my attitude was unchanged. It seems that, on a previous occasion, her then employer was called away suddenly to stand in at a trial, because somebody had fallen ill and I had refused point blank to be a co-judge with Stoneham. I remember the occasion. I had shared the duty with him previously and found him prepared to overlook failures by his friends and determined to persuade his colleague to do likewise. After what I said on that occasion, we never spoke again. So you can trust my discretion.’

  ‘I’m sure we can,’ I said weakly.

  Henry winked at me. ‘Shall we move on? I’m sure Mr Buccleugh would be happy to get the inspection over and to sit down.’ We moved towards the kennels, taking our pace from Buccleugh. ‘Beth,’ Henry went on, ‘may also have been influenced by the fact that Mr Buccleugh still knows most of the dog world, including who is and who is not friendly towards the unspeakable Stoneham. And, because you visited him after the first incident, he has an excuse to ask questions about the shooting of Horace on his own account, without compromising this establishment.’

  ‘Ah,’ Buccleugh said. ‘That would no doubt explain why we arrived here by a somewhat roundabout route.’

  ‘To avoid having you seen in her company. One would suppose so,’ Henry said. ‘Our young friend here thinks that his wife is impetuous, but in my experience she thinks things out very carefully before she acts.’

  ‘I have the same impression,’ Buccleugh said.

  The two old gentlemen nodded in unison. They had not met before but they seemed to have struck up an instant rapport.

  We toured very slowly round the kennels. Buccleugh was complimentary about our setup and our dogs. He had a remarkable memory and it was evident that he still kept up with the trial results, because he was able to recite the awards, some of the pedigrees and even most of the unplaced runs of each of our trialling dogs.

  On our way back towards the house, we paused not far from the isolation kennel. ‘May I see your changeling?’ Buccleugh asked.

  ‘If she’ll come out,’ I said. I walked forward to within a dozen paces of the pen and whistled softly. There was a rustle from inside the kennel and a pair of eyes gleamed. Then a face showed in the opening. I spoke to her and let her see one of my last two pieces of chocolate and then lobbed it into the run. After a cautious look around, she came out and gobbled. This time, instead of darting back under cover, she stood in the open, poised for a quick retreat.

  The others had come slowly up beside me. ‘May I see if I can get closer?’ Buccleugh asked.

  ‘Try, by all means,’ I said, handing him my last piece of chocolate.

  Without Henry’s supporting arm, he was very slow. The arthritis was evidently troubling him. But he shuffled closer, making chirruping noises and leaning heavily on his stick, and to my surprise the bitch stood her ground, eventually taking the chocolate from his fingers.

  Buccleugh turned with a triumphant grin. ‘They always know who are their true friends,’ he said. ‘Could I have an arm again, please?’

  As soon as Henry stepped forward, Walnut vanished into the kennel. ‘I was hoping that I might see a clue to her breeding,’ Buccleugh said, ‘but no such luck. A nice-looking bitch, though. If you can get the pedigree, you might do worse than breed from her.’

  ‘I’d want to see her working first,’ I said.

  ‘And have her hips and eyes checked. Of course.’ Despite the lines of pain on his face, I could see that he was pleased with himself and also amused.

  ‘Come clean,’ Henry said to him, offering his arm. ‘You’ve got some idea in your head as to why she let you approach and not either of us.’

  ‘True,’ Buccleugh said. He hobbled a few more paces. ‘It’s only a wild guess, but worth a try. Does either of you have a kilt?’

  ‘We each do,’ I said. Mine was intended for evening wear, bought in a rash and affluent moment and rarely worn, but Henry was often to be seen in a kilt of the yellow McLeod tartan.

  ‘I suggest that you try wearing it. I remember when a kennel-maid, some years ago, took to giving my dogs a dunt with the broom whenever they got in her way. Several dogs took against women after that. Dogs don’t depend on their eyes as much as their other senses, but their viewpoint is at trouser level. If she’s been treated gently by a woman and harshly by one or more men, she may be associating trousers with assault.’

  ‘A good point!’ Henry said. ‘I’ll dash home later and change. Then I can take over the attempt at therapy and let John get on with the real work of the kennels.’

  ‘That would help,’ I admitted, ‘although it may be more important to get her reconciled to me than to you. I’m the one who’s being accused.’

  We were almost at the front door. ‘Of course,’ Buccleugh said, ‘nobody has asked me to help in so many words. But—’

  ‘We’d be more than grateful for any help you can give us,’ I said.

  He ignored my words although I thought that there was a smile at the back of his old eyes. ‘But, if they should do so, the temptation to escape for a while from the monotony of my invalid existence and the company of Ellingworth’s progeny, and at the same time to rock Aubrey Stoneham’s boat for him, would be irresistible.’

  ‘Don’t try to resist it,’ Henry said. ‘What use is temptation if you don’t
give in to it?’

  ‘He’s lived his life on that principle,’ I told Buccleugh, ‘and it doesn’t seem to have done him any harm.’

  *

  Evidently Beth classed Charles Buccleugh in the very uppermost rank of visitors, at least as high as Lord Crail and considerably higher than any of our few relatives. Coffee and buttered scones were waiting in the sitting-room, which was rarely used so early in the day except on special occasions. The vase of dried beech-leaves had been removed from the fireplace to the side-table and a log fire burned in the grate, counteracting the central heating by drawing cold air into the room but creating a picture of warmth and comfort.

  Charles Buccleugh paused to admire our one good picture which hung over the fireplace before lowering himself carefully into one of the wing-chairs. Henry, by virtue of age, took the other. Isobel joined us. She and I sat in the settee and Beth, after a doubtful look at me, settled between us.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. I felt her relax. ‘I know that I said that we’d keep our heads down, but you’re right. We have to do something, just as long as we’re very, very cautious. We can’t just wait for the sword to fall. So what do you think?’ I asked Buccleugh.

  He accepted a cup of coffee and a biscuit, stirring thoughtfully. ‘For a start,’ he said at last, ‘I quite accept your version of events. I’ve had the binoculars on you often enough while you’ve been training dogs on Easter Colm and I’ve never seen you give one of them even a flick with the lead. The photograph that I saw in the car – may I see it again?’ Beth handed it to him. He took out a spectacle case and removed a pair of gold-rimmed half-glasses. ‘That’s better! This, as Beth told me repeatedly, could be of almost anybody; but taken together with a better shot of you in the apparent act of beating a dog, it would be damning. It might not stand up as evidence in a court, but the eyes of the press and public are what you have to fear.

  ‘Next, your wife’ – he gave Beth a nod which was almost a bow – ‘told me that you wanted to keep your heads down – your own, military, expression – and be seen to do nothing. She was quite indignant about it, but I think you’re right. You need the utmost caution. The threat’s a serious one. The kind of publicity hanging over you would ruin you. I still have some clout with the Kennel Club and a little with the SSPCA, but if the tabloids were making a stishie about it my voice would count for nothing. And a scandal about cruelty to animals, and in an establishment catering to the shooting fraternity, would be meat and drink to the popular press. Your only recourse might be a libel action which would cost the earth, take for ever and which you might not win. And even if you came out on top, it would be the original slur which the public remembered.

  ‘On the other hand, as Henry pointed out, you could hardly be put at risk if I were to do some inquiring, my curiosity inflamed by your visit of last week – if by any chance my inquiries came to the ears of your enemy, which I don’t think they would.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Henry said. ‘It seems to me that your only course, John, if you’re not going to sit still and hope for the best, is to find out who’s behind this and why. So let’s consider what we know about him. Or her or them, but let’s assume that he’s singular and male for the moment.’

  ‘But we don’t know a damn thing about him,’ I said.

  Buccleugh smiled at me encouragingly. ‘Don’t despair so easily,’ he said. ‘My guess is that you’ll find that you know much more than you think you do. Let me make a few suggestions. Some of these points are inferences and may prove wrong. For instance, you infer that he has something to fear from Arthur Lansdyke. That seems speculative. There could be many other reasons why he didn’t want it generally known that he shot spaniels.

  ‘But he has a connection with Aubrey Stoneham or a hold over him – if the culprit isn’t Stoneham himself. Stoneham lent his weight to the pressure on you, perhaps believing innocently in the evidence, perhaps wanting to believe it.

  ‘Next, he obtained the original, genuine photograph. Ask yourselves how he came by it.’

  ‘John runs what we call his Masterclass once a month,’ Beth said. ‘There are always cameras clicking away. People like to record the progress their dogs make. And if somebody wanted a photograph that somebody else had taken of his own dog, he’d be as likely to borrow the negatives of the whole film.’

  ‘And have them printed,’ Henry said. ‘It’s difficult to pick out one dog in a strip of negatives.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Buccleugh said. ‘So, a possible connection with somebody who’s attended the Masterclass. And then, he has a camera, or the use of one. And access to a darkroom.’

  ‘Why a darkroom?’ Isobel asked.

  Buccleugh flicked the photograph impatiently. ‘This isn’t the sort of material you’d put through your local chemist. There have been prosecutions in the past because some technician in a photographic lab spotted pornographic or illegal material. Suppose that one of the technicians was a dog-lover. He’d be round to the SSPCA in two jumps.’

  Isobel threw up her hands. ‘Question answered,’ she said.

  Again Buccleugh gave a nod which was almost a bow. ‘Next, the bitch. Did I hear you address her as Walnut?’

  ‘Just a name I plucked out of the air,’ I said. ‘I don’t know why. I felt that I had to start giving her back an identity.’

  ‘Let her be Walnut, then. Walnut wasn’t imprinted with that deep fear of men in the day or two that was available to him.’

  ‘More than a day or two, surely,’ I said.

  Buccleugh looked at me benignly. ‘The questions you asked of Lansdyke’s neighbours were natural. After that, you would have been expected to let the matter drop. I think that the visit here of a policeman, or your trip to Kilcolm in his company, made somebody believe that you were pushing your inquiries further. It put the wind up him. Even I, in my ivory tower, heard gossip about it.’

  ‘But that was about something totally different.’

  ‘Our quarry might not know that. What he did know was where he could put his hand on a springer bitch, already a nervous wreck and bearing at least a passing resemblance to the one in the original photograph.’

  ‘You’re drawing heavily on coincidence, aren’t you?’ Isobel said.

  ‘Not if you look at it from the other side,’ Henry said. ‘As Beth pointed out, it may have been the availability of the photographs and the dog that put the plan into his mind. Other circumstances might have generated a different plan.’

  The logical progress of the two wise old boys was giving me heart. The atmosphere in the room seemed to be brightening. I decided to add my own small contribution. ‘He knew enough about this place to be able to neutralise our alarm system.’

  Buccleugh nodded approvingly. ‘Perhaps from his visit to the Masterclass. He had access to a shotgun and a mixed lot of cartridges. What else?’

  We drank coffee in contemplative silence for most of a minute. ‘I think that’s all,’ I said.

  Charles Buccleugh shook his head at me. Evidently I had disappointed him. ‘There remains the one question to which we can only guess the answer. He had a motive for shooting the dog. If the dog had, for instance, been raiding Mr Ellingworth’s chicken-house, Ellingworth rather than Mr Lansdyke would have been the aggrieved party. So why the desperate efforts to avert any inquiries? When we know that, we’ll know it all.’

  ‘Mr Lansdyke phoned this morning,’ Isobel said. ‘I had no good news for him about Horace. He couldn’t suggest anyone who’d have a reason to worry about his good will.

  Charles Buccleugh began to struggle up from the chair. ‘If Mrs Cunningham will run me home, I’ll start phoning around.’

  ‘Do it from here,’ I said. ‘Stay to lunch.’

  ‘Thank you, but no. Another time, perhaps. At home, I have a book of phone-numbers an inch thick. Meanwhile, you should spend time with Walnut. It’s amazing how much a dog can tell you, if you have understanding.’

  Beth and I took an arm each and helped
him to his feet. ‘We’ll be more than happy to pay your next phone-bill,’ I said.

  He chuckled, a rattling sound from deep in his chest. ‘No need for that. I’ve been waiting for an excuse to call up some old friends. And reclaim a few favours. As I may have said before, life gets very boring when you’re old and a cripple.’ We had almost reached the door, but he stopped and turned round carefully. ‘I’m not afraid of that word,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to come to terms with what life is doing to me. I am a cripple, not a “disabled person”. I don’t know why we start off with perfectly good words for human conditions and bodily functions and then decide that the words, because of their meaning, must themselves be unacceptable. Then we find it necessary to invent coy and unwieldy euphemisms. The world is becoming mealy-mouthed. How long before those euphemisms themselves become unacceptable in their turn?’

  I helped him into the car and watched Beth drive off.

  Henry was alone in the sitting-room. ‘A forthright old boy,’ he said. ‘I like that. I hope I’ll be able to face my declining years with the same courage. Tell me, why Walnut? You’d better have a good explanation ready when Beth asks you why you chose that name.’

  ‘I plucked it out of the air. I told you.’

  ‘You plucked it out of your subconscious. “A woman, a spaniel and a walnut tree,”’ he quoted, ‘“the more you beat them, the better they be.”’

  ‘If you look it up, I think you’ll find that the original referred to an ass, not a spaniel. And don’t you forget it,’ I added more cheerfully. It was not often that I could bandy quotations with Henry.

  *

  Henry decided to walk home, change into his kilt and grab a pub lunch on the way back. I put in an hour, taking the older dogs out of their kennels one by one and putting them through their basic exercises. A bolting rabbit furnishes the most testing temptation for a gun dog but our rabbit-pen had been visited by myxomatosis. I spent some time on steadiness training, using a rabbit-skin dummy powered by shock-cord.