by Jean Chapman
‘Let’s hope he finds it again fairly quickly,’ Betterson said fervently as the lights of a car swung across the bar windows. Moments later a young constable walked in with a large evidence bag.
‘This is for you, sir,’ he said to Betterson. ‘One black academic gown.’
‘I wouldn’t open that until we’re near Mavis Moyle’s place,’ Hoskins advised when the young officer had gone. ‘Let the dog get its scent fresh when he’s there.’
‘You’re the expert,’ Betterson replied, ‘but once we’re at the cottage there’s to be no more talking, no noise.’
There was still a light on in Mavis’s parlour as they grouped themselves just within sight of the property. Betterson crouched down and in the light of a shaded torch he opened the neck of the bag and advanced it a little towards the dog’s nose. Bounder backed off for a moment but as he caught Bliss’s scent it was as if he had been touched with an electric probe. First his nose, then his head were in the bag; his heckles rose all along his back and he began to growl.
Betterson moved the bag away a little and as the dog brought its head sharply out it looked a different animal. The DI found himself face to face with a lips-curled, tooth-bared, snarling beast.
‘Find,’ Hoskins, who was holding the lead, ordered hastily, fearing for Betterson’s safety. ‘Find!’ he repeated. The dog immediately began to pull towards the front path to the cottage, growling savagely in between the high excited yaps of a dog on a hot scent. Betterson said swiftly, if shakily, into his radio, ‘We have a positive reaction, be ready.’
When they were nearly to the front gate, Bounder suddenly took off, leaping over the wall, bringing Hoskins hard up against the stones and forcing him to let go of the lead. The dog was now in full cry and, in a repetition of the action Hoskins and Cannon had seen when the dog wanted to get into his dead master, it now pursued the scent of the killer.
The dog scrabbled at the front door in a savage frenzy, snarling, growling, leaping at the windows.
‘Go in, go in,’ Betterson ordered.
Men seemed to rise up from all points of the compass. One man was at the door with a battering ram and in seconds he was inside – but the dog was in first – then there was a shot, a yelp. Cannon was just in front of Betterson and Hoskins as they burst into the lounge.
Bliss stood at bay trying to reload the gun-stick. Cannon and Betterson were on him before the cartridge was in place. Cannon had thought the two of them would easily overpower this former academic of smallish build, in his sixties, but he had not reckoned on the strength of a madman practised in heaving heavy antique furniture about. Bliss managed to land blows on both of them before Cannon grabbed one of his arms and pulled him to the floor. Betterson joined him and with both of them sitting on the man, Cannon had his arms pinioned and Betterson finally clipped on handcuffs. The struggle had been silent but for the grunts and groans of effort, but now Bliss screamed, raved at them, a meaningless jumble of threats.
Cannon and Betterson stood up and left him to it.
On the carpet near the door Bounder lay in his final death throes. Hoskins bent down to him. ‘Good boy, Bounder,’ he said. The dog looked up at him and wagged his tail just once.
‘Right,’ Betterson said, swallowing hard, ‘so where’s Mavis Moyle?’
There was a shout from the back of the property.
‘Phone for an ambulance, someone!’ another voice cried.
All three went to where Mavis had been found lying on the floor of the locked pantry.
‘Given her a good going over,’ the officer kneeling next to her said, ‘but she is alive. I can feel a faint pulse.’
Cannon moved nearer. Mavis Moyle had well and truly been beaten and with her hands and arms tied behind her back she had been quite unable to protect her head. He was sure that if the stick had been as heavy as that used on Niall Riley she would definitely be dead.
Chapter 32
The next day Cannon watched Liz preparing their late breakfast. He still felt mistrustful of such normality. Could they just sit and eat, listening to the sounds of their pub being cleaned and ordered, before the day’s business?
‘Open as usual,’ he muttered.
‘It’s best, I think,’ Liz said. ‘Routine structures time.’
‘Very erudite,’ he commented, wondering how structured such as Hoskins’ day would seem, once more in a house without another living thing to focus on. He would do his rounds, no doubt, still fulfil his role as temporary gamekeeper. Then he thought sympathetically of Betterson; he would probably be already up to his knees in paperwork. Life went on. People like Mrs Riley and Timmy coping, pulling their lives back into some kind of shape. They were the real heroes and heroines.
There was a tap at the door which startled both of them. Liz dropped her spoon into her cereal bowl with a clatter.
‘What now?’ Cannon asked, as if some new catastrophe was about to happen.
Alamat put his head around the door. ‘You have visitors,’ he said.
‘Police?’ Liz queried, but he shook his head.
‘Visitors,’ he repeated and turned to beckon before they had time to reach any other decision.
Liz rose from the table in astonishment as Cathy Higham walked in, closely followed by Toby, then Paul and Helen, in uniform.
Cathy fell on Liz and they clung tightly to each other for some long moments, and questions flew around.
‘But … what’s this?’
‘You’re home?’
‘I’m on duty really.’
‘They called on us on their way here,’ Paul explained.
‘Your father?’ Liz queried.
‘Mother’s in charge of him, and not leaving his side until he can travel home, but he is going to be OK. So once we heard Bliss was caught, that you had …’ Toby looked towards Cannon. ‘We left everything to come to thank you.’
‘A lot of people involved.’ Cannon said.
‘And a poor dog,’ Liz added.
‘I’ve filled them in as far as I could,’ Helen said, ‘and now I must go, I’m already late.’
‘Where’s my boy?’ Cannon asked her.
‘With Mother-in-law until I get back,’ Paul answered.
When Helen had left, Cathy and Liz still stood with their arms around each other. ‘I … had to come too … to thank you both …’ Cathy said, ‘and to show … my father … I am independent.’ She went on with pride in her voice, ‘Toby and I have … come to see the house … is ready for him.’ Then she looked at Cannon and said very seriously, ‘This is the first time I have ever been in a … public house.’
‘But it won’t be the last,’ Paul interrupted. ‘I’m enrolling Cathy and Liz as our first students when we begin our painting classes here. Your stable block accommodation is finished, Alamat tells me, and Bozena will clean and caretake once she moves in with him.’
‘Hey,’ Cannon said, ‘hold on!’
‘We’ve talked about it enough,’ Paul said. ‘Now’s the time – get it all up and running for the start of next holiday season.’
‘What was I saying about normal routine life before this lot arrived?’ Cannon asked.
‘Something about it being the best thing,’ Liz said, ‘but I think this is better. This is something new we can put our energies into.’
‘We’re never going to forget,’ Toby said, ‘never, but …’ He paused and shook his head. ‘I should tell you one more thing. I’ve been contacted by the nursing home where I visited Bliss’s, or rather Evan’s father, because I was the only visitor he ever had at the home. Mr Evan died in his sleep, the same day his son was caught.’
There was a deep silence at the irony.
‘I’ve wondered if he had died years earlier it might have made all the difference to his elder son,’ Toby said, ‘and if he had died before his younger son, would the elder have cared for his brother?’
‘We’ll never know, but three men might still have been alive,’ Cannon added.
‘John, do
n’t …’ Liz began, but it was Cathy who went on.
‘That,’ she said, ‘cannot be changed, but you two have given us back our lives, our family. I know we will be happy now, and my father will see I do not have to be always under his eye. We will be happy and content even when not all together.’
Toby looked at her in astonishment. It was the longest unbroken sentence he had ever heard her utter and she knew it for she clamped her hand over her mouth in disbelief.
It broke some kind of tension as all of them felt shakily poised between laughter and tears.
Alexander Higham and Trude came home ten days later. Toby, who now came regularly to The Trap with Paul, brought a message that his father intended to see them very soon, but whatever else he would do two things. First he would ensure that Mavis Moyle, who was making a slow recovery, would always be financially secure. Secondly he would have Bounder’s ashes laid to rest in a special grave, with a suitable headstone, next to his old home at the gamekeeper’s cottage.
That evening before opening time, Cannon walked through to his bar and asked Alamat if he was all right in there on his own for a time.
‘Fine,’ Alamat answered. ‘Things settle down now, you see, time cures many things they say.’
‘I’ll open up,’ Cannon said and, going through the swing door to the bar, he unlocked The Trap’s double front doors and hooked them back – wide and welcoming.
He stepped out and turned in the direction of Hoskins’ cottage. He had not walked far before he saw the very man on his bike coming towards him.
‘Routine structures time,’ he murmured.
By the same author
Both Sides of the Fence
A Watery Grave
Deadly Serious
© Jean Chapman
First published in Great Britain 2015
ISBN 978 0 7198 1941 4 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7198 1942 1 (mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7198 1943 8 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7198 1800 4 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of Jean Chapman to be identified as
author of this work has been asserted by her
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988