Going to the Dogs

by Dan Kavanagh

  ‘Right.’ Unless he couldn’t get it out of his system. Unless he was just keeping his hand in. No, that wasn’t very likely.

  Duffy left Belinda, thinking she wasn’t necessarily as bad as he’d imagined, in fact quite a bit less bad, and went in search of Vic. When he’d been given the directions he needed, he set off round the back of the house, dodged behind a hedge, and slowly worked his way towards the wood. As he tiptoed cautiously up the path, expecting everything that wasn’t obviously a nettle to be a camouflaged nettle, he wondered about Taffy. Just a house guest. Quiet, polite, a bit boring, liked to talk about the individual’s relationship to society, looked like a weekend jazz-player. Fine, except that he had a habit of beating people up and braining screws with iron bars. This, of course, was precisely what gave him his social pull. It was well known that London café society welcomed major criminals, so why shouldn’t country society welcome minor villains who’d once made the front page for a couple of weeks? In the words of his host, England had become a place where your Vics could mix with your Damians, and your Damians could hob-nob with your Hugos. Why shouldn’t your Taffys rub shoulders with your Vics, your Damians and your Hugos? Besides, it wasn’t just about social mobility. Crime was sexy. This was another truth that Duffy, as an ex-copper, found it difficult but necessary to accept. Drugs were fun and crime was sexy; not always, but often enough. You read about East End villains splashing around in pink champagne at those restaurants written up by Basil Berk in the Tatler. You read about — you’d even seen — ex-cons (as long as they were really violent ex-cons who’d really scared people) pulling girls as easy as shelling peas. It wasn’t fair, Duffy thought. Why weren’t coppers sexy?

  What a way to spend a Bank Holiday Monday afternoon. The path had got steeper suddenly, and the bracken thicker. Vic had said there was a bit where the path seemed to go straight on but there was a little nick in a beech tree and a track you normally wouldn’t notice off to the left. Was that a beech tree? Was that a nick? Was that a track? If only he’d been in the Boy Scouts. He’d probably need to know a few posh knots before the week was out, and how to light a fire by rubbing two Girl Guides together.

  This seemed to be the place. Vic had said you had to go past and then look back, otherwise you’d never notice it. Yes, there it was. Even Duffy could appreciate that Jimmy’s camp, though only ten minutes from the house, was well hidden. The leaves on the ground gave way beneath him like posh carpet, and he approached the hide with caution. He had a sudden memory from a kids’ book, or maybe the cinema, of the sort of traps Red Indians or Africans or whoever used: all of a sudden the ground gave way, you fell ten feet and got a sharpened stake up the bum. You lay there like a piece of meat on a kebab stick until the locals turned up, piled lots of wood around you, and had you for dinner. Duffy! Duffy! That’s enough. Even so, he half-wondered, as he approached Jimmy’s camp, whether he shouldn’t have a long stick with him, and be poking at the leaves as he walked.

  It wasn’t exactly a camp, more a sort of hide from which you watched birds, or a place thrown up for the night by a particularly tidy soldier in a war film. A large piece of tarpaulin had been stretched over stakes at a point where the ground shelved away; bracken and stuff had been piled on the roof. It didn’t at the moment look particularly concealed — there was even a patch of burnt earth by the front door where a fire had presumably been — but it looked as if it could be very concealed if necessary. Duffy dodged sideways down the slope for a closer examination.

  The hide was about eight feet long and consisted of two rooms. Not that there was a division between them; it was just that six feet of the space was clearly the bedroom, and the other two the kitchen and bathroom. At one end was a bedroll wrapped in a sheet of polythene and staked to the ground. At the other Duffy found a small primus stove, various square green tins and a mirror. He opened the tins: shaving equipment, canned food, a few bits of biltong wrapped in foil, and some cutlery. Not, however, the cutlery that had taken a walk from Braunscombe Hall; only one of those knife-fork-and-spoon sets with a screw through the middle to hold it all together.

  In a corner of the sleeping section, by the bedroll, was another row of green tins. Bedside reading, thought Duffy facetiously. In the first tin he found a small paraffin lamp; in the second a large jar of presumably paraffin plus a small jar of what smelt like methylated spirits; in the next three copies of Playboy wrapped in a polythene bag. He looked at the date: they were several years old. The fourth tin he nearly put the lid back on as soon as he’d flipped it open: what business was it of his? Well, you could never tell what might turn out to be business. On top lay a photograph of a small boy with a receding chin; he was dressed in some uniform, maybe Boys’ Brigade. Next came proof that the child hadn’t changed much fifteen or twenty years later, by which time he was in a grownup uniform, that of the Army. Then a much older photo of someone’s wedding: a smiling bride, a severe groom, looking from their lapels and hairstyles as if it were just after the war. Jimmy’s parents, presumably. Underneath was a picture which Duffy had no trouble in identifying: Angela, with large eyes looking away from the camera, and what smelt like a bit of touching-up around the jaw. Clearly a studio job; Duffy flipped it over, but the photographer hadn’t bothered to stamp the print. Finally, a clipping from a newspaper which puzzled Duffy until he read the caption: only then did he realize that it was a story from the local Mail & Advertiser about Henry and Angela’s engagement. He hadn’t been able to grasp this at first because the clipping was punctured by several dozen circular burns. The sort of burns you make with a cigarette at the end of an evening when you’ve only a four-year-old copy of Playboy to tuck up with. Duffy stared at the tortured photo and found an extra reason why it worried him: the burns obliterated not only Henry’s face, but also Angela’s.

  When he emerged from the wood, having miraculously managed to avoid the bear-traps, the killer spiders and the Iroquois, he wandered to the lake’s edge. A gesture brought Jimmy swimming over to the bank. He stood up, water streaming from his wetsuit, and raised his mask. He was better-looking with his head all swathed in rubber.

  ‘Any sign of Ricky?’

  Jimmy shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Must be lying doggo,’ said Duffy.

  ‘I don’t think that’s funny.’ Jimmy pulled down his mask, adjusted his snorkel, turned and trudged back into the lake.

  ‘No, maybe it isn’t,’ Duffy muttered to himself.

  He lay on his bed waiting for the dinner gong with a copy of the Tatler open at the society pages. Miss Olivia Fartface marrying the Hon. Peregrine Pokerupthebum, the couple to take over the ancestral home at Much Gelding, where he will live off inherited wealth and she will bear a royal flush of laughing children fit only for the finest schools. Duffy wondered idly about the joke he’d made to Belinda: marriage as a three-day event. Maybe it wasn’t a bad comparison. It started with that section where the horses were all got up to look their best. What was it? Dressage, that’s right. They skittered around on tiptoe, all primped and shiny, doing very formal manoeuvres ever so tidily. That was like the courtship part. Then there was the main bit, the cross-country. None of that pointing the toe and looking good, you just ran, or cantered if that’s what they called it, out across the open country, and that was fun and a release, except that every so often there’d be these hurdles you had to get over, some of which were pretty steep, and there were great muddy banks with water at the bottom of them, and you might be inclined, if you’d had enough, to throw your rider. What’s more, it went on and on, this cross-country bit, miles and miles of it. Finally, it was over, and they took you back to your stable and you had your dinner, and thought you’d done pretty well — or if not well, at least you’d done your duty. Then the next day, just when you were thinking about putting your four legs up, they took you out again and made you jump all these obstacles, even though you were really knackered. And all you did in the show-jumping was lose points. You never gained po
ints at this stage, you only lost them.

  Was it like that? It looked a bit like it from the outside. Duffy had never tried marriage, never been tempted by the three-day event. Of course, having quite a spell of being queer hadn’t improved his chances. Or, if not being entirely queer, at least walking both sides of the street. Had he ever been in love? He wasn’t sure. Well, if he wasn’t sure, he couldn’t have been, could he? He remembered how he’d felt about Carol when they’d first started going around together; he’d felt as if he was beginning to understand things, and as if there’d always be something for dinner. Was that love? Maybe you called it this because you reckoned it was the best you were going to get. Maybe Belinda had been right to laugh at him. In the real world you married not for love but because someone else would have you, because there was someone out there who could bear to be with you, and because if you didn’t you were lost. Perhaps he ought to phone Carol.

  Instead of phoning Carol, he flipped back a few pages in the Tatler until he got to the restaurant column. What was Basil Berk writing about this month? Duffy read the page with rising incredulity. Call this a job? You went along to some wallies’ rendezvous — in the present case one of three fish restaurants in Chelsea — had a jolly good nosh-up, took Lady Berk along with you, copied down the menu, made up some joke or other and pretended Lady Berk had said it to you across the fish-knives and went on to the next restaurant. And the prices … You could get seven good dinners at Sam Widges for the price of a single fish snack in Chelsea.

  He threw down the magazine and yomped to the nearest lavatory. Then he went downstairs and into the family room. Lucretia was in her accustomed position on the sofa, blonde hair cascading down the back of it, cigarette and watered whisky on the go. She nodded expressionlessly at Duffy. He sat in a chair opposite her and found himself, rather to his surprise, clearing his throat. He was almost as surprised by what he said next.

  ‘I find the sauce is very good at the Poison d’Or.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I find the sauce is very good at the Poison d’Or.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The sauce. The way they put saffron in it.’ (Had he got that right?) ‘It’s very nice.’

  ‘Where’s this?’

  ‘The Poison d’Or.’

  ‘Now,’ said Lucretia briskly, ‘after me. Poisson. Poisson.’ As she said the words her lips parted and then came together in a way that was really very, well, nice, Duffy thought.

  ‘Poison.’

  ‘Poisson. Poisson.’

  ‘Poison.’

  Lucretia gave him that half-smile which made him wish he could somehow get her to give him the full version. ‘Promise me one thing. Don’t ever go into a French restaurant and ask for the fish, all right?’

  ‘Promise.’ He looked at her. ‘How did I do?’

  ‘You’re funny, you know that? You are funny.’

  Was that good in her book? Either way, Duffy felt a little less out of his league with this girl. He was about to turn the conversation suavely on to topics of wider interest — like whether she enjoyed horses and had she ever been for a ride in a Sherpa van — when there was a commotion at the door. Jimmy ran into the room, with dripping hair, though fortunately no longer in his wet suit, and stood between the two of them, his back to Lucretia, and winking furiously at Duffy.

  After about a dozen of these facial contortions Duffy finally got the message.

  ‘Oh, er, excuse me, Lucretia.’ Silent, she waved a hand at him in dismissal.

  Excitedly, Jimmy led him round the house to a bit of undergrowth by the lake. There, by a discarded wet suit and a pair of flippers, lay a blue plastic laundry-bag with a tail sticking out of it. The handles were tied together.

  ‘Had to cut the string,’ said Jimmy. ‘Probably tied round a stone or something. Couldn’t bring that up as well, though.’

  ‘Great stuff,’ said Duffy, and clapped Jimmy firmly on the shoulder. It wasn’t at all the sort of phrase or gesture that came naturally to Duffy, but he supposed he ought to speak Jimmy’s language. The snorkeller beamed, and began to explain in more detail than was necessary how he’d divided the lake up into sections with markers on the bank and removed each marker as he cleared each section. Duffy heard him out and at the end repeated, ‘Great stuff.’

  ‘Ange will be pleased, won’t she?’

  ‘I’m sure she will, Jimmy. But perhaps we won’t tell her immediately.’

  ‘Oh.’ His face fell, which was easy given its shape.

  ‘You see, I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘Right.’ Jimmy seemed to fall in with Duffy’s idea even before it was explained to him, as if anyone who had been thinking automatically deserved respect and obedience.

  ‘The point is, someone threw Ricky into the lake because they didn’t want Angela to bury him. Maybe they didn’t want us to have a good look at him. And whoever did it can’t be that far away. So, if we just tell everyone about it, the same thing could happen all over again. Ricky would go for walkies. Permanently, this time.

  Jimmy was nodding slowly. ‘So?’

  ‘Well, I suggest we put him in a safe place for a bit. Until we can think about what to do.’ Duffy had already thought about what to do.

  ‘Where’s a safe place?’

  ‘Well, my van, for instance.’

  ‘Is that safe?’

  ‘Well, it says DUFFY SECURITY on the side, it ought to be.’

  ‘Is it alarmed?’

  ‘No, it isn’t as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Righty-ho, well, I’ll leave it in your capables.’

  Jimmy picked up the wet suit and flippers. Duffy belted him on the shoulder in congratulation once again, and he headed off towards the house. Duffy, the laundry-bag in one hand, worked his way stealthily round Braunscombe Hall until he crossed the driveway at a point two-thirds of the way to the stone balls with the salamander on top. There he left Ricky in a ditch. He jogged back to the house, climbed into his van, and set off down the drive. He returned after ten minutes, which was longer than necessary. Ricky was safe; but Ricky was not in the back of his van.

  The gong had gone by the time he returned, and everyone was seated round the refectory table.

  ‘Been putting in some practice?’ asked Damian.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Been making pretty patterns on the green baize in anticipation of our nocturnal showdown?’

  ‘No. I’ve been checking the van.’

  ‘You know,’ said Damian, again managing his trick of addressing the whole table while excluding Duffy, ‘it always amazes me that the lower classes have taken to snooker with such ferocity.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ asked Vic. He could tell when Damian needed to be stoked up with the obvious question.

  ‘Glad you asked. Because it’s so elitist. I mean, can you imagine, some of the balls are actually more valuable than others. The black’s always worth seven, the pink’s always worth six, and the poor little reds are only worth one point each. It’s like people having more money than one another, not just for a bit but for always. I bet if this was Russia,’ he said emphatically, ‘all the balls would be red, and all of them would be worth one point each. You’d probably prefer that, wouldn’t you, Duffy?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be such a good game,’ he replied. Don’t let him rile you, he thought; don’t let him rile you now, and don’t let him do it on the table either.

  ‘But it would be more democratic, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s relevant,’ said Duffy.

  ‘He isn’t going to rise,’ put in Lucretia.

  ‘That’s your problem, sweetie, not mine,’ said Damian. Sally giggled violently at this, and Jimmy looked blank.

  Henry was at dinner that night, and Duffy was able to get his first good look at him. He was large, square-headed and fleshy, with big red hands and a mouth that turned down at the corners; he looked straight at you when you addressed him, but still seemed to keep something in res
erve. He wore a farmer’s jacket with a check big enough for even a myopic noughts-and-crosses player to be able to manage, and a yellow silk handkerchief cascaded out of his top pocket; the same spotted bow-tie continued to clash with the same Viyella shirt. He didn’t say much, not even to Angela, though when she addressed him he would turn slowly towards her and beam in a benign sort of way. Duffy thought he looked just right for the green-wellies brigade; which was perhaps why Angela had come as such a bright surprise to him. Angela, for her part, seemed calmer in his presence; neither hyped-up nor apathetic, but more or less normal, which was probably as normal as she got.

  Occasionally, Damian would address the odd remark to Henry, as if trying to bring him into the conversation. ‘Dipped many sheep today, Henry?’ he would ask brightly, whereupon Henry would reply, ‘It’s not the time of year for that. You dip sheep …’ but before he could tell Damian when you dipped sheep, his interlocutor had gone on with, ‘Well, you must have shot some pheasant then?’ And as Henry started up again explaining that no, he hadn’t done that either, Damian danced off to another topic.

  Duffy thought this a bit unfair, and at one point turned to Henry and did his best with, ‘Have you got a large farm, Henry?’ but Henry wasn’t allowed to answer. ‘ “How many acres have you got?” is the better way to phrase it, Duffy,’ cut in Damian, ‘but that’s a boring question anyway, because everyone but you knows the answer to it already, so why don’t you stick it down your jumper until you’re alone with Henry and ask him then. I do think conversation over dinner ought to involve as many people as possible.’

  ‘Are you always like this?’ asked Duffy.

  ‘Like what, like what?’ Damian was expectant.

  ‘Do you always go on like a prat?’

  ‘Ah, aaah,’ Damian moaned. ‘Stabbed. A poniard in the vitals. Such a turn of phrase, such a pretty turn of phrase.’

  ‘Knock it off, kids,’ said Vic.

  After dinner Damian tried to get everyone to watch the Braunscombe Hall snooker final, but something about his jocular over-enthusiasm — ‘Roll up, girls, and listen to the clicking of balls’ — seemed to put people off. Vic and Belinda went to bed; so did Angela; Taffy went off to watch a television programme hosted by a female rabbi about whether or not we choose to do evil; and Lucretia disappeared without explanation. Duffy was a bit disappointed by this. Still, maybe when she was next in town she’d like to watch him play in goal for the Western Sunday Reliables; she probably enjoyed football.