‘That’s the man,’ he said. ‘You know him?’
‘I’ve met him a couple of times. I helped him to get his dog back.’
‘That was you, was it? He was mighty glad to recover that dog. A handsome critter though not what I’d want for a shooting dog. Seemed to me that Bruce was as much cut up about the dog as about his wife. He was over in the States at the time, learning about our new line of products. The old days when a salesman could be selling perfume one month and computers the next are long gone. In the hi-tech field, a sales manager has to be ready to snap back with the answer to any question the customer can throw at him.’
‘This was in Texas?’ I asked idly.
Ken Boyce shook his head and made a face of disgust. ‘New York. The Big Apple. The Rotten Apple, I call it, but you have to go where the work is.’ He shook his head again, this time sadly. ‘Bruce has had it tough. She was his second wife and he thought the world of her. First part of his stay he was on the phone home most nights, from his hotel room or mine, trying to make up after some spat they’d had. I guess the fault couldn’t have been all on her side, because he was no monk. Rented a car one weekend and said that he was driving up for a skiing weekend in Vermont but I don’t know how much skiiing he did. She-ing more like. Begging your pardon, young lady,’ he added to Beth.
‘Just after that, I heard him yelling at his wife again on the phone and he told me she’d threatened to have his dog put down. That would sure as hell be one lousy trick. But I guess she didn’t do it if you found the dog for him. Maybe she still has a soft centre after all. And, next thing, he got word that she’d been killed in a fall. He flew back as soon as he could get away and I followed on when my new passport came through.’
Beth was set to probe further into the tragedy of Bruce Fullerton’s marriage, but the intractable Mr Wallace was making it clear that lunch was over and that the Guns had better make their way to the next stand or the birds would be driven over vacant pegs.
I had time for a word with the small Texan before the last drive of the day. He gave me his card and showed me his bulging left palm. ‘It took two handkerchiefs and my tie,’ he said. ‘Feels kind of clumsy, but it did the trick. I’m swatting them good.’ He gave me his card. ‘Any time you’re over in the States look me up. We’ll shoot some skeet together and I’ll show you how pointers work on quail.’
*
My Sunday class for aspiring trainers and their dogs would not come round again until the following week. On all other Sabbaths it was our habit to give ourselves an easy day. A respite from the rigors of training did us all good, the dogs no less than the people.
Puppies still had to be fed, runs cleaned and the dogs given some free-running exercise, but when those duties were done we lit the sitting room fire and the three partners and Henry settled down for a drink and a post mortem on the previous day’s events. We tried to include Hattie in the fellowship of the group, but our conversation was necessarily centred around dogs and shooting and field trials, all of which were areas so foreign to her that they might have been in outer space. So, feeling rather left out of things but taking it in good part, she had finished the housework, left our lunch in a slow oven and taken Mona for a walk, well wrapped against the chill of another frosty day.
‘Despite whatever you lot may think,’ Isobel said, ‘I am not a bad loser. But I resent being pushed back into second place by a dog which has had surgery on its vocal chords.’
‘If you’re sure,’ I said, ‘you could have lodged an objection. That’s a disqualification offence under the new rules.’
‘How could I be sure?’ Isobel asked grumpily. ‘I wasn’t there at the time of the operation. All I know is that the blighter was usually put out last season because he couldn’t keep quiet, and yesterday he hardly even yelped when he was trodden on. But I didn’t want to start a feud, let alone put down a twenty-five quid deposit when the owner could probably produce a certificate to say that the operation had been for nodules.’
Isobel was drinking shandy, a sure sign that her modest success had been celebrated the previous evening although Hattie had been reticent on the subject. Beth was on Babycham and Henry and I were drinking canned beer.
‘Not to worry,’ I said. ‘Second place will qualify her for an Open Stake as soon as we think she’s ready for it. Brockleton worked well, by the way. His owner can pick him up tomorrow. I’ve phoned him.’
‘Thank God for small mercies,’ Isobel said. ‘How did Jason get on?’
‘He was beautiful,’ Beth said. (Henry and Isobel looked at each other and raised their eyebrows.) ‘No, truly,’ she said. ‘He was a bit sticky at first. He seemed to think that he was still in training and that somebody was waiting to skelp him for the least error. Once he realised that he was there to do a job, he went like a dream.’
‘Allowing for an understandable exaggeration,’ I said, ‘that’s quite true. I had a grandstand view across the valley on the last drive and for most of it the birds weren’t coming over my end of the line so I was free to watch you. I saw you handle him out onto the scent of a strong runner and then leave him to work it out for himself. You were good and he was even better.’
Beth blushed like the schoolgirl she so much resembled. ‘Honestly?’ she said.
‘Honestly. Keep working with him and we’ll enter you for a Puppy Stake after Christmas.’
Beth’s blush turned to scarlet.
Isobel chose to be amused. ‘You’ll take it in your stride,’ she said. She got up and replaced her empty glass with a strong gin and tonic.
‘Better now?’ I asked her.
‘I can feel the faint possibility of survival creeping up on me. Let Jason make a name for himself,’ she said to Beth, ‘and we’ll maybe get some useful stud fees for him.’
I yawned. It was very quiet in the room. ‘Let’s stick to one breed,’ I said. ‘We don’t go in for Labradors.’
‘And I don’t want Jason learning any nasty habits,’ Beth said. Her face was straight but there was a mischievous gleam in her eye.
Henry’s long shape was stretched out in an easy chair so that his legs nearly bisected the room. ‘I don’t know why you should consider such habits nasty,’ he said. ‘The human race seems to be thriving on them. And according to the Indian scriptures – Indian Indian, I mean, not American Indian – women get eight times more pleasure out of sex than men do.’
‘That could be true,’ Isobel said.
‘Perhaps that’s why you used to go around with a smile on your face,’ Henry suggested.
‘And perhaps that’s why I’m frowning now,’ Isobel replied.
Beth snorted with laughter and got Babycham down her nose. I mopped her with my handkerchief and then lent it to her.
‘I don’t know why that should remind me,’ Isobel said, ‘– or perhaps I do – but I saw your Bruce Fullerton at the trial yesterday, John. There was a face among the spectators which rang a faint bell and later it came back to me that it had belonged to a client, years ago when I was working as a vet. He had a cocker spaniel, in those days, which was always ripping itself on barbed wire and having to be stitched up. Then the name Fullerton popped into my head and I realised that it must be the same man.’
‘Small, skinny and with a face sharp enough to skin a rabbit?’ I said.
‘That sounds like him. I didn’t have time to look and, to tell the truth, I remember his dog better than I remember him. He saw me looking at him and glared at me so I had to look away and the judges called us into the line again just then. But I glimpsed him later on, fawning around that stout, blonde woman who always enters the huge springer with the mainly white coat.’
‘Men!’ Beth said. ‘We met his boss at Lord Craill’s shoot yesterday and he said that Mr Fullerton was working.’
‘He was working all right,’ Isobel said. ‘And I know what he was working for.’
‘Knowing the lady, he probably got it,’ said Henry. ‘Can’t think why he’s bothe
ring. Only been a widower for a month or two.’
‘Not used to the celibate life,’ I suggested. ‘The fact that he’s already been married twice suggests that he doesn’t like to go without his little comforts.’
We relaxed in our various seats and silence fell, broken only when one or the other of us gave a small sound of amusement. The stout, blonde handler was not respected in the trials community and the picture of the undersized Bruce Fullerton in her amorous clutches, which should have evoked disapproval, was only food for ribaldry and mirth. It was one of those peaceful moments which should always precede Sunday lunch. It also happened to be the last peaceful moment of the day and for several days afterwards.
I was looking once again at the wall above the fireplace and trying to visualise our painting in position when Hattie appeared in the door, bringing with her the chill of the great outdoors. She was showing agitation and we all looked at her. Mona hobbled between us to the warmth of the fire and pushed her grizzled jowls almost into the chimney.
‘Somebody,’ Hattie said, ‘is prowling around near the dogs. He ducked down behind one of the kennels as I came in at the gates. And such a bedlam of barking I’m wondering you didn’t hear it. I had a job pretending not to notice, but I thought that you might not want me to scare him off.’
*
In the few years since we formed our partnership we had had two thefts, a poisoning and an attempt to steal a service off Samson; and at the last annual stocktaking our accountant had drawn our attention to the fact that our valuable and perishable livestock represented a much larger portion of our assets than did such items as kennels and equipment. So we were acutely aware of the vulnerability of the kennels. We reacted as might a colony of rabbits on the intrusion of a ferret.
As I bolted into the hall, Beth was actually treading on my heels. I wanted her out of harm’s way. ‘Take our car,’ I told her. ‘Drive down to the road. If anyone’s left another car handy, you may be able to block it in. But don’t take any chances.’
‘And the same to you,’ she said.
I pushed the car keys at her. ‘If you’re in any doubt stay clear, but try to see where he goes.’
As Hattie had said, the dogs were barking their heads off. Normally they would have fallen quiet at my approach, but not when I came tearing across the grass and round the groups of kennels at full gallop. As best I could see in that almost photographic glimpse, nothing was out of place. The gates to the runs seemed to be closed. None of the dogs was eating strange meat or acting as though a stranger was hiding inside its kennel. The excitement had brought them all into the runs, but there was one notable absentee. I checked my pace slightly and hurried over the grass.
Across the drive from the hedge, an old wall formed the boundary to the road. Between the mown grass and the wall was an area which had held some old lilac trees and a flowering cherry. Beth had underplanted it with shrubs and had then left it to turn wild with whatever undergrowth cared to seed itself. It formed a haven for small birds, a floriferous barrier between ourselves and the road and a useful patch for giving puppies their first taste of searching in cover. It was also the one place where an intruder would hide – with the added advantage, from our viewpoint, that the wall was topped with barbed wire. Once in, he was trapped.
As I neared the first shrubs, Jason bolted out with his tail between his legs. I skidded to a halt. The young Labrador nearly bowled me over and then twined himself around my legs, seeking reassurance. He was panting feverishly and salivating. I was out of breath myself. I patted him and rubbed his neck until he was calmer and then walked to the edge of the cover. He followed me at heel, but very reluctantly.
‘Where is he?’ I asked softly.
Jason balked at re-entering the cover but he moved to a gap between two young rhododendrons, growled once and pointed like a bird-dog. It was enough. I waved him towards the house and he shot away.
‘Are you coming out or do I have to come in and get you?’ I asked.
There was no answer.
I worked my way round the rhododendrons, treading down dead nettles and long grass, and pushed aside an overgrown broom, spattering myself with drops of melted frost. The soles of a pair of muddy brown-leather boots were facing me. I kicked one of them hard on the ankle. ‘Come out, come out, whoever you are,’ I said, still puffing.
A man’s figure, in blue jeans and a heavy sweater, began to back out from under a large ceanothus. He began slowly to straighten, then suddenly snapped upright and swung a fist at my face. It was more a panicky gesture than a serious attempt at assault.
I was still not wholly fit and it had been several years since I had used my skills, but you never forget unarmed combat training when it has been drummed into you by a sergeant-major seconded from the SAS and impatient to get back to his unit. I was still wondering what to do when I found that I had ducked aside – too slowly, his fist had flicked the end of my nose – and chopped backhand at where I knew that it would hurt the most.
He doubled over and held himself. I could have killed or crippled him with ease, but there was no need. He was ideally positioned for an incapacitating hold. Within two seconds I was holding one of his wrists between his legs while my other hand had a grip on the scruff of his neck. He tried to struggle but I bumped his head a few times against the trunk of one of the lilacs and jerked his wrist up against the tender area until he saw wisdom. Then I marched him, doubled up and helpless, out of the bushes and towards the house. He said nothing except to utter a low, moaning sound.
Henry and Isobel were still at the front door. Beth, who had recognised the car which was waiting in the road, had returned and was just bringing our car to rest behind a third car from which Sergeant Bedale was already emerging, crisp as ever but looking somehow more hesitant than usual.
‘What goes on?’ the Sergeant asked interestedly. She seemed to be in no hurry to interfere.
‘Just caught an intruder,’ I said. I had got my breath back. ‘He was trying to steal one of our dogs.’ It always helps to get your own story in first.
Beth had erupted out of our car, leaving the door open and the engine running. She stooped to look at my captive’s face. ‘But that’s my cousin Edgar,’ she said.
‘I know,’ I told her. ‘I’ve seen him at the trials.’
I released my hold. He let go of himself cautiously and once he was quite sure that nothing was going to fall off he straightened up. Like his cousin, he was slim and dark, but he had close-set eyes – the mark of the natural predator – and teeth like those of a rodent.
‘I wasn’t stealing anything,’ he said sullenly. ‘You came to my place and you took away the wrong dog.’
Beth made a faint sound of distress.
‘We took the right dog,’ I said. ‘If you don’t agree, you have your remedy in the courts.’
‘Why should I put myself at the mercy of the legal sharks? You took the wrong dog. I came to swap them over. Then it would have been up to you to spend the time and money raising an action.’ He adopted a whining tone. ‘I wasn’t doing anything wrong, I was only rectifying a mistake. You had no right to attack me. I can have you up for that.’
‘I understand what you’re saying,’ I said. ‘I don’t agree with a word of it, but I can see what you mean. What I don’t understand is why you should care enough about one damn dog to kill your uncle for possession of him.’
My words, which seemed to emerge from me of their own volition and without conscious intent on my part, stunned all those present, including myself, into silence. Even the air was still. Edgar Lawrence drooped back against the wall of the house with his mouth open. Beth was looking at me oddly but also with concern.
‘You’re bleeding,’ she said.
I touched my nose and found it tender. My finger came away bloody. ‘He took a poke at me,’ I said.
Henry and Isobel, who had been looking from one to the other of us like spectators at a tennis match, waited expectantly for the next
development. Sergeant Bedale was also looking at me, but with what seemed to be dawning hope. ‘I could hold him for that,’ she said, ‘while we look into the other matter.’
Edgar Lawrence was the first to recover his voice. ‘I didn’t do any such thing,’ he said hoarsely.
‘Which thing?’ I asked him.
‘Neither of them, you bastard.’ He switched his eyes back to the Sergeant. ‘Are you a police officer?’
‘I am.’
‘Then I’m charging this man with assault.’
‘It seems to me that you have some explaining to do yourself,’ the Sergeant said.
Edgar came away from the wall and glared at me. ‘All right, so I wanted my dog back. I’ve got my ambitions, same as the next man. I’ve made up a champion once. It felt great at the time but, later, I didn’t feel that I’d gained anything. Rather, I’d lost something. We all need something to look forward to, to work towards, to dream about. You understand?’
There was a faint murmur of assent. We were not sympathetic but we all knew about dreams.
‘Well, I’d dreamed mine and it was gone. To make up another dog would have been less of a thrill. That left me with only one ambition, one dream. I wanted a dual champion. Show and Field Trials. For the first time, I had my hands on a young dog which might have done it. Jason. He has talent and he’s going to be a looker.
‘I ran my best bitch in an Open Stake yesterday. She’s good, but she’ll never win a prize in a show. And when I was pushed out of the money, I knew that Jason could have pulled it off. Not yet, but in a year or two.
‘But I’d no need to kill to get him. Now that I know the sort of pups Farthingale Bonus can throw when he’s put to my bitch, I can scrape up the money for another service and start over again. And I can do it.’ He looked round our faces. ‘My God! You don’t believe me!’
I said ‘No.’ I meant that I didn’t believe that he could do it. He was suffering from folie de grandeur. The odds were stacked against him. The same sire and dam might never produce a similar pup again and, if they did, he was not the man to partner it to victory. His own failings would defeat them. But he would be happy, living in hope.
Doghouse (Three Oaks Book 3) Page 12