Twice Bitten

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘At first, everybody seemed sorry for her and impressed by her devotion to the truth. But then it came out that she’d sold her story to at least one of the tabloids. “My Life With A Sex Fiend”, that sort of thing. It was only discussed in hushed tones, but when I was considered old enough to hear about such things my mother explained that the Macevoys seemed to have been running out of money – scraping the bottom of the barrel, was how she put it – and that there was no doubt that her evidence had been heavily weighted against her husband so that she could get her hands on the money she got for telling, or inventing, the story.’

  ‘If they were going broke,’ Beth said, ‘it doesn’t sound as though he was embezzling.’

  ‘One of them could have been gambling,’ I pointed out. ‘Or he may have been hiding his ill-gotten gains from her so as to be able to get out of her clutches.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have blamed him for that,’ Daffy said. ‘Anyway, allowing for good behaviour he should be out soon and then the fur will fly. They say that she stands looking out of the front window in case he’s coming. Ready to bolt out of the back door, I suppose. That would explain how she came to see us on Lincraigs. And talking of coming, I must be going. Rex is due home any minute. It’s all right, Ducky,’ she said to Hannah. ‘I won’t see you stuck. I’ll come and relieve you so that you can go out to play with your Dougal.’

  ‘Saturday?’ Hannah said quickly.

  ‘I don’t know about Saturday,’ Daffy said, shrugging into her coat. ‘I think we’re going away. But now and again. Cheerio!’

  *

  That weekend, for the first time that season, Isobel was due to compete in an open stake – that is to say, a trial for dogs which have qualified by winning a novice stake.

  By long-standing custom Daffy, who pulled more than her weight at other times, was allowed to work part-time while Rex, her husband, was ashore. The pair were to meet friends for a weekend in Paris.

  We were quite used to our logistics being thrown into disarray by the unexpected. After some discussion, it was arranged that Hannah would drive Isobel on the understanding that she would accept no drinks from anybody but Isobel herself and keep her hand over the glass containing any that either of them bought for her. Henry by then felt the weight of years too heavy for undertaking long drives. I think that he would have liked to go along with Hannah and his wife as a passenger, spectator and relief driver, but he nobly stayed behind and spent much of the Saturday in helping with the still necessary chores. By early that evening the work was done and we had even managed to give every trainee a few minutes’ workout. Henry, who was to stay and eat with us, fell into an exhausted sleep in the sitting room. Sam, who had been carrying feeding dishes and holding leashes with the rest, had flaked out in the other chair, the two of them snoring in occasional synchronization.

  I could see that Beth was tired but when I tried to help her with the meal she shook her head. ‘You look pooped,’ she said. ‘Go and have a zizz with the other two.’

  ‘I don’t feel like it,’ I said. ‘I slept last night. If I sleep now, I’ll lie awake tonight. And have you heard the noise they’re making?’

  ‘Then go down to the pub.’ This was Beth’s panacea whenever I seemed to be in low spirits. It was her contention that draught Guinness and a change of company helped to restore me in body and spirit. After consideration I decided that for once I felt like following her advice.

  ‘I think I will.’

  ‘Wrap up warmly.’

  I blew a raspberry. There is nothing more annoying than being told to do something that one was going to do anyway except, perhaps, being warned not to do something which one would not have done on a bet.

  The pub in our village was a former coaching inn, long since bypassed, which had been extended several times and then, happily, left alone. The stone-flagged bar wandered round unexpected corners where several open fires competed for the available draught. I penetrated to the furthest corner where I knew that the fire threw out the greatest warmth and knocked on a serving-hatch. It was early and there were only two or three customers making pit stops. During the week it would have been busy with customers on the way home – perhaps, I thought, gathering strength to face the pandemonium of family life after the peace and quiet of the office.

  I sat down, made a small inroad into my pint of Guinness and let my mind drift. Business, I decided, was going as well as could be expected in an economic recession and a highly competitive, leisure-oriented market. (It was a renewable source of surprise and relief to me to find that that, however much Mr Average had to tighten his belt, there were always plenty of customers with money to spend on luxury goods.) My family life was better than most. I should have been quietly contented. But there was a ripple in the pattern. Something not quite right was cruising at the back of my mind.

  My reverie was interrupted before that thought could surface. Dougal Webb’s thickset form penetrated my nook. ‘Mr Cunningham!’ he said. ‘Are you ready for another of those?’

  ‘This will last me, thanks,’ I said, wondering whether the offer would have been made if I had not been nursing a nearly full pint glass. He knocked on the hatch and bought a half-pint of lager.

  ‘Do you mind if I join you?’

  I could hardly refuse without creating a hostility which might have rubbed off on Hannah. He took the chair opposite and leaned back comfortably. He was very smart in fawn slacks, a soft tweed jacket very slightly too large for him and a white shirt with cravat. I was getting the measure of Dougal Webb. He worked hard but he expected his money to do the same, a pound doing the work of a fiver. The jacket, I suspected, had come from the Nearly New shop.

  ‘Hannah’s not back yet,’ I said.

  ‘Mrs Cunningham told me. She said I’d find you here.’

  I suspected that Beth had betrayed my whereabouts in order to get rid of him. We chatted for a few minutes about the weather, the harvest, the shooting season and our progress with the dogs but my mind was elsewhere and so, I thought, was his. Eventually he came to the point. ‘That’s a good gun you have,’ he said.

  I acknowledged that the Dickson was a very good gun, hiding my surprise that he recognized the quality of a design which to the uninformed eye looks no more than efficient and unobtrusive.

  ‘How much do you want for it?’ he asked me bluntly.

  ‘It’s not for sale,’ I told him.

  ‘I’ll give you a hundred,’ he said grandly.

  His nerve almost took my breath away. I had had several offers for the gun, not one of them for less than two thousand. ‘I suppose you’d want a “lucky penny” back as well,’ I said. ‘Nothing doing.’

  His square jaw seemed to get squarer and his eyes narrowed. ‘I suppose my money isn’t good enough for you?’

  ‘It’s good enough,’ I said. ‘There just wouldn’t be enough of it even if my gun was for sale, which it isn’t.’

  ‘I’ll give you a receipt for whatever figure suits you. You can use it as a tax loss.’

  ‘Watch my lips,’ I told him. ‘My gun is not for sale.’

  ‘Everything is for sale,’ he said with conviction. ‘It just needs the right inducement. Let’s keep it friendly. You’d best accept my offer.’

  Either he was out of his mind or I was being blackmailed. ‘Or what?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘Or you’ll be very sorry. I know what’s been going on.’

  ‘Then you’d better tell me, because I can’t think of anything.’

  He looked at me, hard faced, through slitted eyes, and then glanced round to make sure that we were not overheard. ‘No, I can’t swallow that. You know damn well what I’m talking about. And you wouldn’t like it if I told the Kennel Club. That would cost you a damn sight more than the price of a gun, you and my boss both.’ He got to his feet. ‘You think it over and I’ll ask you again. You’ll be glad to take me up on my offer. You’ll thank me one of these days.’ He turned away.

  ‘I’ll see you in
hell first,’ I said to his receding back.

  My peaceful interlude of contemplation was over. I finished my pint and walked out into the patchy lighting of the car park. There was no sign of Dougal Webb nor of his highly unsuitable car. I walked to the end of the pavement and took to the grass verge by the light of my torch, pondering as I walked.

  At home, Henry and Sam were awake. ‘Hannah phoned,’ Beth said. ‘They’ll be a little late – you know what a slow driver she is – so we’ll eat and I’ll keep theirs in the oven.’

  ‘How did they get on?’

  ‘Certificate of Merit.’

  I grunted. A Certificate of Merit might be valuable if we wanted to sell the dog but it was no help towards the Field Trial Champion status that alone would enhance every subsequent pedigree.

  Sam was a terror for remembering odd snatches of conversation and repeating them just when and where they would be least appreciated so I asked Henry, who was ready to walk home, to wait until the boy was asleep and I persuaded Beth to put Sam to bed in good time. That gave me a few minutes before Hannah, with Isobel in tow, arrived home and I told them, in as much detail as I could remember, of my conversation with Dougal Webb.

  ‘It’s off-putting,’ I finished, ‘to be blackmailed and not know what it’s about. We haven’t done anything we wouldn’t want the Kennel Club to know about, have we?’

  ‘You’ve cursed them up hill and down dale for a bunch of short-sighted idiots, ruining good breeds with unrealistic breed standards and a closed gene-pool policy,’ Beth pointed out.

  ‘That’s different,’ I said. ‘I don’t mind them knowing about that. I want them to know what asses they are. I hate to think that they’re going around with delusions of competence.’

  ‘Well, just don’t expect them to thank you. I can’t think of anything else,’ Beth said.

  ‘What are you going to do about it?’ Henry asked. ‘If anything.’

  ‘I can’t complain to the police if I don’t even know what the threat would have been,’ I said. ‘And he didn’t want to say it aloud. Anyway, I’ve no witness. He’s certainly not getting my Dickson. That’s the one thing I’m sure of. I’m not so sure what to do about Hannah.’

  ‘Yes,’ Beth said thoughtfully. ‘She wouldn’t believe you anyway.’

  ‘And,’ Henry said, ‘what attitude do you adopt if he visits here socially? If you exclude him from the house you’ll have to give Hannah a reason.’

  ‘And lose a good kennel-maid,’ Beth said. ‘Say nothing for the moment.’

  ‘A policy of masterly inactivity is often the best,’ Henry agreed. ‘But if they seem to be plotting matrimony, or something equally drastic—’

  ‘Then we’ll have to tell her,’ Beth said. ‘And only then.’

  ‘Is there anything equally drastic?’ I asked.

  Beth threw a cushion at me.

  Chapter Four

  When Hannah and Isobel returned, Hannah paused only to regale us with tales of game passed over, runners missed, eye-wipes, triumphs and tragedies, how Polly – Throaks Polygonum, to give her her full name – had failed at the last hurdle and been pushed out of the places by a half-witted tyke that had fluked the final retrieve. She then ate a meal appropriate for one of her youth and appetite before heading towards the phone to call the farm cottage where her Dougal pursued his bachelor lifestyle. The pair, we soon gathered, had then made another date for the following evening.

  ‘I hope you apologized for standing him up,’ Beth said severely. The two kennel-maids had started with us while they were in their teens and Beth, though very few years older, still felt the need to hand out motherly guidance on behaviour. On the whole they usually took it very well, with only the occasional sigh and casting up of eyes.

  ‘I don’t know why he came here at all,’ Hannah said. ‘I told him I couldn’t be back in time. He must have forgotten. He tried to tell me that I never said any such thing, but I remember my very words and what he answered.’

  Hannah spent the Sunday emulating a quick-change artist. She began the morning in jeans and a thick sweater. When the first round of chores was done, she put on a demure suit and, being in the midst of a mildly religious phase, went off to the kirk. But Daffy was in Paris and dogs, more particularly puppies, take no cognizance of the Lord’s Day, so Hannah spent the afternoon back in her jeans and wellingtons, walking a succession of dogs in small groups in the cold and drizzle around the nearby fields while I undertook a little elementary training in the old barn. We carried out the evening feed and clean-up together. Hannah ate with us and then, much too early, went for a bath and reappeared in a much less demure frock and some jewellery borrowed from Beth. Even Sam seemed impressed.

  When Sam was asleep, Beth and I retired to watch the television in the sitting room. Hannah came with us, but spent her time looking through the curtains at countryside prettily lit by the rising moon, holding her breath whenever the lights of a car approached from the direction of the village and releasing it explosively as the car went past. When Dougal’s arrival was definitely overdue, she tried to phone the cottage and then Quentin Cove’s farmhouse, but neither number answered.

  At last she came and asked for the keys of my car. ‘Something must be wrong,’ she said.

  ‘If you go chasing after him,’ Beth said, ‘you’ll seem too eager. Men don’t like that.’

  ‘He’ll lap it up,’ I promised. ‘Drive carefully. If he turns up after you’ve left, we’ll send him back by the main road.’ With a flea in his ear, I added to myself.

  ‘You shouldn’t encourage her,’ Beth said as the sound of our car faded in the distance. ‘Knowing what he is.’

  ‘If I hadn’t said what I did, she might have invited him in,’ I pointed out.

  ‘You have a point.’

  Later, when we were watching a film on video and beginning to yawn, the telephone sounded. I had the cordless with me so I answered it. It was Hannah. ‘He hasn’t been here,’ I told her.

  ‘Mr Cove arrived back,’ Hannah said. ‘I’m phoning from his house. He doesn’t know where Dougal’s got to. There’s no sign of him or his car and I’m worried.’

  ‘There’ll turn out to be some quite simple explanation.’

  ‘Like some other lady-friend? That’s not exactly a weight off my mind, Mr Cunningham.’ For a moment Hannah sounded almost light-hearted but when she spoke again her spirits had dropped. ‘I’m going to bide here for a while.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Don’t get cold.’

  ‘Mr Cove says I can sit in front of his fire. Don’t wait up for me. Dougal won’t come looking for me this late. You go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.’

  We disconnected and I relayed Hannah’s words to Beth. Beth was immediately anxious but not about Dougal. ‘Should she be alone in Ardrossie farmhouse with Quentin?’ she asked me. ‘From what I hear, he’s a danger to women.’

  ‘But not to girls,’ I said. ‘Hannah can look after herself.’

  ‘She shouldn’t have to.’

  ‘She went there of her own accord,’ I pointed out. ‘But if you think she needs a chaperon, phone for a taxi and go and join her. Or would you rather that I went and sat with her?’

  It was a cold night and I was tired. The fire was comforting. Into my voice I deliberately put more enthusiasm than I was feeling. That was enough for Beth. ‘As you said, Hannah’s quite capable of looking after herself,’ she said.

  There were times when both Hannah and Daffy spoke to us as though we were elderly parents verging on senility, but her last words had been sensible advice and we took it. I for one was sure that, if Dougal had not found himself other company, he was playing tit for tat with Hannah for standing him up the day before. But then I remembered that Hannah had not been at fault. The date had been Dougal’s error. The remainder of the video got less than my full attention.

  We woke in the morning to the sound of brisk footsteps outside and the jingle of the trolley that we used to transport feed
around the kennels. Beth squinted one-eyed at the clock. ‘Five thirty!’ she said. ‘The dogs won’t know what day it is!’

  ‘They don’t care what day it is,’ I said. ‘As long as there’s food on the go, every day is Christmas.’ I closed my eyes for a few seconds during which a sombre daylight arrived and Beth disappeared. There was a warm cup of tea beside the bed. I was usually the first to rise in the morning but, in deference to my sometimes uncertain health, Beth always left me to sleep in if she was the first to wake.

  When I came downstairs, Beth was presiding over a pan on the stove. ‘I heard you in the bathroom,’ she said in explanation, as she always did. I had come to dislike the implications of the wording. Hannah, her back to us, was in jeans again. She was washing puppy dishes at the porcelain sink which was never used for non-canine washing-up. I glanced at the newer stainless steel sink but there were no dirty dishes there. Either Hannah had done the washing-up from one breakfast, which was not part of our routine, or she had not felt like eating. I raised my eyebrows at Beth and she screwed up her face.

  Hannah turned round suddenly. There were dark stains under her eyes. ‘Dougal hadn’t come back by the time I gave up, around four. I’ve phoned the police and his car hasn’t been in an accident.’

  ‘But, Hannah,’ Beth said, ‘haven’t you been to bed at all?’

  ‘I couldn’t have slept.’

  ‘You haven’t eaten either.’

  ‘Honestly, I’m not hungry.’

  Beth shared out the scrambled eggs and toast between three. ‘There’s no point making yourself ill,’ she said firmly. ‘Sit down and eat this and then go to bed.’

  Obediently, Hannah sat. ‘I’ll phone again soon. Mr Cove is probably up by now. Daffy should be back soon. I’ll go and rest when she comes in.’ She looked at her plate suspiciously and then fell to with the hunger of youth, wiping her eyes, secretly as she thought, with a paper napkin.

  ‘Mrs Kitts will be here any minute,’ Beth said, ‘and probably Henry too. You’ve already done most of the work. We can manage for the moment. But I don’t know what we’ll do in the longer term if you fret yourself into a breakdown.’