by Fiona Walker
Their hostess, Mimi Du Pont, weighed in like a Chinese Budei in a fright wig, her cosmetically lifted smile turning her face into a mask. She was towing a lean whip of Mumbai sex appeal behind her, no doubt one of her husband’s inamorati who would be passed off as a PA. ‘We are so excited to welcome you, Dougie. My friend here is a huge fan of your acting.’
Before Mimi could introduce them, there was a loud shriek nearby, followed by the sound of a sharp slap being administered to a square-jawed, stubbled face. ‘Take that back, Finlay, you fucking bastard!’
Dougie glanced wearily over his shoulder to see Kiki doing her hyperventilating-breathing-and-wobbling-lipped number as she and the Scot glared at one another, both overacting like mad. He let out a deep sigh and turned back to his companions. ‘Will you excuse me?’
Before he stepped away, a business card landed in his palm and a dark hand closed over it to administer a shoulder-dislocating shake. ‘Another time.’
‘Absolutely.’ Dougie nodded, noticing distractedly that the Indian man with his hostess had unusual grey eyes. He pocketed the card and went to deal with Kiki.
Whether she intended to make him or Finlay jealous was uncertain, but Dougie could tell it was engineered – he could almost see the Meccano bolts holding the scene together as he stepped into it. ‘Is everything okay, darling?’ he asked, uncomfortably aware that he sounded even more like Hugh Grant. He’d be doing the twinkle-eyed grimace at any moment.
‘Fine!’ she said loudly, for public consumption, before drawing him to one side and stage-whispering, ‘Finlay’s just asked me to go to bed with him.’ When she looked up at him, her expression was innocent outrage, but her eyes flashed wickedly.
Registering her need for some chest-beating action, Dougie glanced over his shoulder at Finlay. The Glaswegian was poised for his cue, still standing his ground, dark eyes turbulent, clearly very deeply in role, but wary enough of Dougie’s prior claim and superior muscle tone not to make the first aggressive move.
Still in Hugh mode, reluctant to take a head-butt, he turned back to Kiki and muttered, ‘I thought you’d already spent this week in bed together, or doesn’t it count when it’s being filmed?’
‘Why do you never taking anything seriously?’ she hissed. ‘Not even our relationship. I need your help here. You’re my fiancé. Finlay’s all over me like a rash.’
‘What do you want me to do? Apply Sudocrem to you both?’
His phone began to ring in his pocket. He reached for it, relieved to have a temporary respite.
‘Don’t answer that!’ demanded Kiki, furious to have her scene interrupted. ‘Answer that and we’re through, Dougie!’
There it was: his get-out-of-jail-free card was back in play. She had been threatening to say something like this in so many late-night fights, her anger always such a red mist of illogical threats, yet he’d never imagined the first golden ticket would come tonight. Weeks of tactical play and she’d thrown away the best line. In sudden recognition, she stepped back, a hand to her mouth, knowing she’d just offered Russian roulette to a compulsive gambler.
He held the receiver to his ear, guessing his life was about to change. But when the emotional bullet went off, it wasn’t Kiki holding the gun.
The voice at the other end of the line was choked with tears and fear. ‘The barn’s on fire! You’ve gotta come! Zephyr’s still in there…’
Chapter 11
Breaking every speed limit in his borrowed car and running every red light, Dougie headed west towards Burbank like a getaway driver, taking the sharp bend at the top of the hill that dropped down to the equestrian centre so fast his car almost went up on to two wheels.
Then he saw it, a great fireball ahead of him, lighting up the night sky and casting an eerie orange sunset over the oaks.
In the hour since it had been first spotted, the fire had completely taken hold, the roof close to collapse. The LA fire department had two engines on site, the chief fire officer refusing to let his men go back inside because it was too dangerous. The heat from the blazing building was like an erupting volcano, the roar deafening. The officers had been forced to hold back the grooms and volunteers from surrounding barns to stop them running to try to rescue the last horses still trapped inside. Many were in tears.
‘He can’t be saved, buddy,’ the officer told Dougie, grabbing his shoulders as he tried to push past. ‘He won’t be feeling anything now.’
He refused to listen. He would no more stand back and leave one of his own horses in there than not try to save a brother. Dougie was certain he could hear the screams of terror and pain. It was a sound he’d never forget.
When the fire officer barred his way, refusing to let go, he rugby-tackled him out of the way. Then, pulling his shirt over his lower face, he ran inside.
He was hit by a wall of smoke so thick it seemed visceral. The only clear air was in the few inches close to the floor and he dropped into it like a commando, crawling along the aisle between the stalls, listening for sounds of life. It was strangely quiet inside, noise muffled by the smoke despite the fire raging in the timbers around him. He had no flashlight and could see almost nothing as he scrabbled hurriedly past empty stalls, the occupants now safe while his pearl was left to die.
Adrenalin spiked to maximum, he made the crouching sprint to the furthest end of the barn where Zephyr was stalled. As he did so, he heard a horse coughing and spluttering.
The black stallion was standing in the corner of his stall, strangely calm, his raven coat dull grey with smoke and welted with burns. He cast Dougie a long-suffering look through the smoke: it was as though he’d been waiting.
Sobbing with relief, Dougie hauled open the door, the metal fittings so hot they seared his palms. Zephyr refused to budge. No matter how hard Dougie pulled and pushed, he was planted.
Roof timbers were starting to come down just metres away.
‘Come out, you bastard!’ he screamed, hitting him in desperation. The stallion jerked up his head, eyes rolling as he backed further towards the side of the stall with its running bars that separated him from the neighbouring stable which the yard owner had stopped using because the roof leaked. And then Dougie saw the flash of white eye through the bars and a curve of blood red nostril matching the reddened welts on the ash-covered grey skin. It was one of the young Spanish stunt horses put there by the Mexicans who hadn’t realized they’d changed the order. The horse let out a terrified squeal, and Zephyr gave a low, rumbling whicker in reply.
Hauling the second door open, Dougie pushed him into the aisle. He clattered out with a shriek of panic, cannoning against doors, almost buckling over.
‘It’s all right,’ he reassured him, his voice choked with smoke. ‘It’s all going to be all right. You’re safe with me.’
Zephyr followed him out now, still eerily calm, shadowing Dougie’s stumbling footsteps as though making sure he, too, was safe. The young Iberian by contrast shook all over as he barged and stumbled towards freedom. He seemed close to collapse.
As soon as they were outside, Dougie let the veterinarian and her team of helpers take over, getting oxygen into the horses and giving the burns emergency treatment while he dropped to his knees and coughed his guts out.
‘Thirty more seconds and that horse would have never made it out alive,’ the vet told him later. ‘I have to warn you I’m not sure he’ll survive the next twenty-four hours.’
‘And the black stallion?’
‘I’m talking about the black stallion.’
The vets and fire officers insisted Dougie must go to the emergency room to have his lungs checked out while the horses were moved to an equine hospital. He tried to protest, but he was coughing too much. ‘Give me your cell-phone number,’ the vet said. ‘We’ll text you updates every hour.’
Dougie groped in his pocket for a card to write it on and pulled out a clutch he’d been handed that night. One word caught his eye.
Seth.
Chapter 12
One word was now on everybody’s lips in Eardisford: Seth.
A philanthropist, entrepreneur, cricket fan and notorious technology wizard, who would almost certainly connect the village to broadband and phone signals at last, he was seen as a Very Good Thing.
Nobody had yet spotted the mysterious Seth, but his presence was felt everywhere as an army of workmen swarmed around the main house, and the lanes were choked with white vans and lorries delivering building materials and interior fittings. The Eardisford Arms did a roaring trade at lunchtime, serving builders, plumbers, electricians, architects, designers and local planners, all politely interrogated about progress.
Still hidden beneath its scaffold and sheeting canopy, the old house was having a complete face-lift to bring it up to date, with specialist teams from all over England to ensure its historical preservation, while modern delights such as underfloor heating, a basement cinema and en suites to every bedroom were cleverly incorporated without incurring the wrath of the listed-buildings officer.
News of the donation Seth had made to the animal sanctuary compounded the general belief that his custody of the estate heralded a bright future. Constance’s dying wishes also seemed to have been honoured: Kat and the animals were surely safe.
The Constance Mytton-Gough Animal Sanctuary committee had voted to use the large donation to replace long stretches of broken fencing and remove rotten trees, repair the sieve-like stable roofs and reseed and fertilize the grazing paddocks for new spring growth, which pleased everybody except Russ, who had wanted it spent on a specialist wildlife recovery unit.
‘That would cost five times the amount, and it’s not really what the sanctuary’s about,’ Kat had pointed out. But as February’s wet chill gave way to March’s windswept bursting buds, then froths of white and pink blossom, it had become increasingly obvious that this was exactly what Russ wanted it to be about, regardless of the cost.
The open-fronted barn at Lake Farm was now lined with hutches filled with bandaged rabbits, hares and badgers that he had rescued from snares or nets, most of which died from shock within their first twenty-four hours of captivity. The burial mounds in Herne Covert were fast taking on long-barrow proportions. The sanctuary was also caring for several malnourished post-hibernation hedgehogs that had fallen into cattle grids, and a pair of Canada geese injured after becoming entangled in fishing line.
‘He’s so passionate about them all, Dawn,’ Kat told her friend, during one of the long, weekly phone chats that had become their norm, slotted between the classes she ran in the village hall, nights out in the pub, Russ’s band practice and their lovely, horny nights in together.
‘As long as that’s not his only passion,’ Dawn said, her mind increasingly carnal since she’d started internet dating.
Kat thought about the Tantric sessions, her chakras revving, and grinned into the phone. ‘That’s definitely not the only thing he’s passionate about…’ She left a teasing pause. ‘He loves his music. Animal Magnetism has its first gig soon. It’s the weekend of the point-to-point.’
‘Is that the horse-racing thing? You’re not still seriously planning to take part?’ Dawn sounded genuinely worried.
‘I’m definitely not good enough for the Ladies’ Race this year, but the charity race is just a straight-line gallop with no jumps, and it’s all in aid of the sanctuary, so I’m entered in that. Tina’s lending me a horse. I’m having a lesson on him tomorrow.’
‘What about the one with the funny ears?’
‘I’m not riding Sri,’ she admitted. ‘Russ is helping me do some horse-whispering stuff, but we’re not totally “joined up” yet.’ She didn’t confess that the mare refused point blank to let her get on. ‘There’s no way we’ll be ready for the race, even a charity one. It’s supposed to be really good fun, though. You should come. Russ’s band is playing a benefit gig in the pub that night.’
‘If it’s that awful din I can hear now, it doesn’t sound like they’re ready either.’
Kat tilted her head as guitar riffs wailed through the walls from the old dairy. ‘There’s a band rehearsal later. Russ is running through his favourite solos. That’s the Cure, I think.’
‘I’d hate to see the symptoms. Isn’t secular music illegal on a Good Friday in the countryside? Or is it just sex?’
‘Ha-ha. It’s wild here, you know. It’s movie night at the village hall tomorrow, then the best ever Sunday roast with the Hedges and the village egg-rolling and bonnet competitions on Monday.’
‘I can’t believe I’m missing out on such debauchery.’ Dawn’s plans to visit Eardisford over Easter had been thwarted by house-selling stress. ‘I’ll be stripping all my lovely pink feature walls and toning down the main bedroom.’ The little Watford house with its garish interior had been on the market for six weeks and was struggling to attract interest; the agent had tactfully suggested the colours might be putting buyers off. ‘People are so dull round here. I think I might move to your village, after all. Your locals have pink hair. I can’t get away with a pink wall.’
Kat laughed, although she was in a bad mood with pink-haired Mags, who had recently shown her support for Russ’s wildlife emergency wing by bringing in three badly injured pheasants she’d knocked down while speeding on the back road to Hereford in her battered Citroën. She’d said boyfriend Calum always dispatched them with a shovel, so it was lovely to have somewhere to bring them for a second chance at life.
Mags delivered a fourth casualty that evening when she arrived late to Lake Farm for the rehearsal, her car packed with band members. ‘Hit the bleeder as I was coming through the woods. What you do here is magical, Kat.’ Mags enclosed her in a car-crusher hug before handing her a warm, limp pheasant and joining Russ in the old dairy to run through the band’s eighties punk repertoire, leaving Kat to go in search of spare water drinkers and bird seed, hoping James Stevens, the dashing vet, wouldn’t charge her to take a look at this one with all of the others when he came to do routine vaccinations next week. His kindness was bound to run out soon.
All the rescue cases needed veterinary care, warmth and feed, which cost money they didn’t have. The income from the trust that Constance had left barely covered the costs of the original veterans, and the collection jar that Mags had put by the bar of the Eardisford Arms was nothing compared to the fund-raising needed to take on wildlife rescue. They were now just a hedgehog or two away from the overdraft limit. Russ’s plans to stage foraging workshops, vegan cooking days and a pub-quiz night had not yet got into gear. The band was admittedly donating all profits from its first gig to the sanctuary, but they had only sold three tickets so far.
In a bid to raise much-needed funds, spear-headed by MFH Miriam, the committee had arranged for a special Constance Mytton-Gough Sanctuary charity race to be included in the local point-to-point, and Kat had agreed to ride in it. The annual race meeting was organized by the Brom and Lem Hunt and its primary purpose was to bring income for the next season, which went totally against Russ’s principles. He was predictably enraged, thinking it totally hypocritical for hunt followers to help raise money to rescue wildlife: ‘That’s like tuna fishermen organizing a sponsored swim to save the dolphins!’
The outburst had led to their first full-blown row a week earlier.
Given that half of the sanctuary committee were also on the hunt committee and they badly needed the money, Kat had insisted they should take their support with good grace: ‘Last year they raised thousands for the air ambulance, and Riding for the Disabled before that. It’s incredibly generous of them to select our cause.’
‘I’d rather beg on the streets than raise funds alongside that bunch of murderers!’ Russ had stormed off to the pub, where Mags had finally persuaded him to co-operate in her gruff, no-nonsense way, pointing out that the sanctuary was named after a great local hunt supporter and relied upon her trust for its income: he could hardly be precious about rattling a collecting tin at a hunt event.
Kat was grateful for her support, although she now regretted offering the band the farm to rehearse in whenever they liked.
She covered her ears and shot an apologetic look at the dogs – they were all cowering under the kitchen table, apart from deaf Maddie who was sprawled, oblivious, on an armchair. Dawn was right, they sounded awful – even worse now that a drummer and two more guitarists were murdering ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ beneath Mags’s rasping twenty-a-day singing voice. It was no wonder the group needed a gimmick. In a recent bid to secure gigs – their only guaranteed venue so far being the Eardisford Arms’ skittle alley – they had not only changed their name to Animal Magnetism but also taken to wearing dramatic Gothic wildlife costumes.
It was the idea that he could wear his stage outfit to the point-to-point that finally persuaded Russ to come onside with the fund-raiser. His badger look was intimidating, a world away from anything Kenneth Grahame might have imagined sharing a boat with Toad, Ratty and Co.; the huge-shouldered, leather and fur outfit was part biker, part skunk. Mags, who had made all the costumes, was eager to don her sexy fox-orange second-skin velour to rattle collecting tins. She’d been pushing Kat to borrow a deer outfit, but she was resisting, worried that the fancy-dress theme was misleading.