by Guy Sheppard
The truth was that food took his mind off Selma, his Brazilian girlfriend, who had just called time on their five-year relationship. She had declared him an intolerable burden.
‘What the hell?’ he cried suddenly as an animal burst from a gap in the hedge right under his wheels.
Sickened, he tried not to be sick. There was one advantage to being large: the folds in his belly cushioned the impact in his replacement Saab 9000 front seat and its belt quite nicely.
The creature’s oddly intense observation of him now sent his thoughts in a new direction. Its bold stance struck him as pugnacious and not a little contemptuous, while its entirely superior air he could attribute only to something vaguely human.
Worse still he’d failed to hit it. He could always put fresh roadkill to good use. In the kitchen.
The pre-Christian landscape had been full of plants and animals that had held peculiar significance, he recalled as he drove more carefully along the lane towards Berkeley Castle. He fought to slam the camper van into a higher gear as if he would rearrange his own thoughts just as easily. Horses, wolves and ravens all had their spiritual importance, along with trees and flowers such as oak, holly, willow or yew.
That hare he had just met would once have been deemed sufficiently powerful as to belong to a mysterious otherworld of the supernatural.
‘See some animals and you see shape-shifters,’ he told himself aloud. ‘When the Irish warrior Oisin hit a hare with his arrow, he followed it to a door in a wood that led far below ground. He arrived at a large subterranean hall. Found a beautiful young woman who sat on a throne and who was trying to stem the blood that flowed from her wound. The Celtic peoples thought that a hare had such supernatural powers that they forbade anyone to eat it.’
If only people endowed more animals with that sort of respect, then he would, de facto, have less to eat. It would be like not eating cows in India.
Papers from his file landed loose at his feet. A warning hand could not have scattered them better all over the handbrake.
He wriggled about in his long black coat and took firm hold of the faux leopard skin steering-wheel. Since ‘Martha’ had most likely been stolen, ‘scrapped’, exported or flagged as otherwise unroadworthy, he had been able to acquire her six months ago for a very few pounds – no questions asked – from a very nice woman in a backstreet in County Londonderry. He had been on an interfaith pilgrimage to Holy Mountain at the time but had ended up drinking Guinness with the locals in a pub. He fell in love with the offer of his very own 1974 Hippie wagon.
Jorge belched. Never before had he emitted sounds so loud now that he had decided to go on his skinnybitch low-fat, high-fibre diet. Never had it occurred to him that day after day of consuming cabbage could turn anyone into a giant rabbit.
Nothing was that therianthropic?
Was it?
*
Next minute Jorge could not deny that he was somewhat astonished, or wondered in fact if he had come to the right place. His satnav, however, thought it correct. The sun had bleached the brick walls of a scabby Gothic fantasy, apparently – two castellated turrets resembled those of a very small castle or folly.
His jaw dropped as he settled his black cap on his head.
‘You come about the bitch, Inspector?’
‘Good question.’
Jorge stared at the tall man in the doorway. Began to suspect that he was about to be rather unpleasant or uncooperative. Instead he levelled his eyes thankfully on his.
‘You are the head constable from Gloucester Cathedral, aren’t you? You are Inspector Jorge Winter?’
‘I am.’
‘At last! I must have rung the dean a dozen times and asked what they wanted to do about her. This way, Inspector. She’s been going crazy all cooped up. She’ll be delighted to see you.’
‘Interesting.’
It was not the intention of his investigation to interview any animal as such.
‘The local police have been no help at all, Inspector. They told me to call the RSPCA. If only dogs could talk, eh? This one would soon solve your murder for you, I bet.’
‘Who said anything about a murder?’
‘What are you doing here, then?’
‘Do me a favour, hurry it up.’
The huntsman pulled his tweed cap low over his eyebrows. His face was pink with a sense of rightful injustice, Jorge noted. His guide squeaked in his tight green Wellingtons as he led the way through the mini-castle. He explained on the way that he came from a family who had tended to the foxhounds here for many centuries.
‘As I said, Inspector, I rang the Church as soon as our vet saw that her ear had been chipped, but no one has done a bloody thing about it. Then out of the blue you call to say that you’re on your way over. Why all the delay and indecision? It’s been eight months.’
‘What can I tell you? Perhaps it’s ecumenical.’
*
A row of stables with green upper and lower doors lined the wall at the back of the mock castle. Beyond that lay two more stables in an adjoining building with a pitched roof outside which lay brushes, scoops and barrows for clearing out muck and straw. It was to the last, shut door, that the grey-eyed huntsman led him.
‘I’m Andy Bridgeman by the way.’
‘Well, Mr Bridgeman, what’s up with all the hounds? What’s set them off?’
‘Can’t understand it, Inspector. It’s not time for their raw meat yet.’
Andy bellowed in vain at the noisy, restless animals nearby. They had the run of a paved yard all of their own; they were putting their paws up to the wire mesh that kept them captive in order to press their white muzzles and brown heads together while they tried to get a better view of their mystery visitor.
‘I never would have been able to put her in with them,’ said Andy. ‘They would have torn her to pieces.’
Jorge tried to close his ears to the awful baying.
‘Torn?’
‘We’re talking about hounds, beagles and harriers. They’re not pets, they’re here to do a job.’
Andy slid back the bolts on the upper and lower doors to the stable. At once a strong smell of stale bedding filled the air.
‘Time’s up, Sasha.’
Jorge looked in uneasily.
‘This her?’
‘Correct. Name and address are on her microchip. That’s how we discovered that she belonged to Reverend Luke Lyons. You’ll have to ask the vet to change the records.’
‘I’ll come to that in due course.’
At rest on the straw lay a black and white bitch whose large egg-shaped face immediately indicated to him that she was some sort of Bull Terrier.
‘Here, girl,’ said Andy, clapping his hands.
‘Is she well?’
‘Perfectly well, Inspector. Come, Sasha, come and say hallo to your new owner.’
‘You got that wrong.’
‘Dogs like her were bred to fight other dogs after the ban on bull-baiting in 1835,’ said Andy, approvingly. ‘Bulldogs were too slow to fight, so breeders crossed them with terriers for that aggressive, ruthless streak.’
‘If you say so.’
‘You not convinced?’
‘I’m just not sure there’s enough dog there to fight anything.’
‘That’s because she’s a miniature, Inspector. Bred for ratting. She comes from the runts of Bullterrier litters. Oh, and there’s some Dalmatian in her for extra power and stamina.’
‘Is she safe?’
‘Bullterriers were ferocious fighters but the modern dog has a gentler side. Can be damned hard to dissuade if they do decide to act, though.’
‘That’s not massively reassuring.’
He studied Sasha’s small, dark eyes and the scissors bite of her jaws. She gave a few welcoming flicks of her short, black tail. He was struck mostly, though, by her loneliness as he took out his notebook and pencil.
‘You found her when and where exactly?’
Andy’s face exp
ressed surprise.
‘Oh, no, I didn’t find her, Inspector. She was given to me.’
‘By whom?’
‘It was the day after Reverend Lyons disappeared on the 31st of July last year. A woman marched into the yard. Stood right where you are now. Said I must take Sasha off her hands there and then because she was going away that very day.’
‘She give a name at all?’
‘No.’
‘But you remember her face?’
There followed a not very coherent list of attributes. Ask two people to describe a person and they would invariably give different accounts, but Jorge wrote everything down on his pad anyway.
‘Some say she was staying in Berkeley Castle. No one knows for sure, Inspector. But I can say that she was tall and thin and her hair was exceptionally red. Very striking. Spoke with a strong Welsh accent. Oh, and she wore black lipstick. Said she found Sasha running down the road and wanted to be rid of her.’
‘You believe it was a fortuitous act of self-interest?’
‘So now you want me to give you a better reason?’
‘I’m interested in discovering who last saw Reverend Luke Lyons alive. Might it be this redhead, do you think?’
‘I have absolutely no idea.’
‘Still, you must have some clue where I can find her?’
‘Trust me, she won’t help you, Inspector.’
‘On the contrary, I very much need to speak to anyone who might know whether some person or thing drove Reverend Lyons to kill himself.’
‘She won’t care.’
‘He might have been in trouble and it might not have been his fault.’
‘So he’s dead, then? I knew it. I’ve been telling everyone in The Mariners Arms it was foul play all along.’
‘You really don’t want to do that. Believe me. That’s a very bad idea.’
‘You mean the Church is scared of a scandal? You’ve not come for the dog, have you Inspector? You’ve come to cover it all up?’
He made no response since the conversation threatened to go down a very difficult path indeed. He was suddenly at a loss to explain himself in anything like agreeable terms.
‘Has your mysterious visitor ever shown her face again?’
‘No, absolutely bloody not.’
‘Can you be certain?’
‘Yeah, I think I can.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘So am I, Inspector.’
‘Are you? Are you honestly?’
The hounds, by now, were becoming increasingly disturbed. They were hurling themselves angrily at their wire fence as though some demonic compulsion drove them to attack, even though all their attempts proved fruitless.
‘About Reverend Lyons’s bitch?’ said Andy, holding open the stable door.
‘What about her?’
‘Don’t forget to take her with you.’
‘Oh no.’
‘Fact is, she’s a provocation to the hounds. You know what will have to be done if you don’t…’
‘Fact is, I can’t lose sight of my mission.’
*
Safely ensconced in his camper van, Jorge eased off the brakes and let its 2ltr twin carb engine take him back to his B&B in Berkeley.
Which still begged the question, why in God’s name was he really here?
It was to do, in part, with Church politics. The recent welcome appointment of a woman as Bishop of Gloucester remained controversial among certain members of the Church. The last thing she needed right now was some zealot or other stirring up trouble, she did not want any scandal on her watch to give them any ammunition against her.
But he had to tread carefully because he was on a very tight budget. While he personally was only being paid a little over twenty thousand pounds a year, it represented a significant cost to the diocese to fund the additional Security Manager and several constables that he was going to have to hire to keep the cathedral safe. So far he was on his own. That meant managing the safety of cash and artefacts, maintaining fire and intruder alarms on properties belonging to the , as well as patrolling the old Abbey grounds and providing security for VIP visits.
He had also to respond to enquiries about the Memorial Books from members of the public.
Hence, Frank Cordell’s letters had come his way marked Strictly Confidential.
He had been provided with the file on disciplinary measures concerning Rev. Luke Lyons just prior to his disappearance. Such a process was started by a formal written complaint which was made to the diocesan bishop. No anonymous complaints were accepted. The complaint contained certain prescribed information, was signed and verified by a statement of truth and had written evidence in support.
As such, he had some facts and names to go on but there had to be more to it than met the eye?
Somebody in the Church was obviously very worried since he had been given carte blanche to investigate.
He felt certain of one thing. Andy had known the name of the redhead who had left Sasha at the castle kennels, in what he would have him believe was a simple act of kindness.
Of course no one wanted such a dog.
What fool would?
At which point something very wet and slithery licked his chin.
He could discount the feeling of brief discomfort, but not of revulsion.
‘Wow, that was unpleasant.’
Sasha sat up on his lap. She tried to look out of the camper van’s windscreen. Behaved as though they were already the best of friends.
‘Yeah, most likely it’ll never happen but we’ve got to try, I suppose.’
The first day of his investigation had given him no reason to doubt what he already knew.
1. Luke vanished without explanation one Sunday last summer.
2. Police had investigated his clothes left at the riverside and had concluded that it was most likely suicide.
3. Luke left behind him a dog named Sasha.
Jorge stared at the river, its dark currents swirling past his window, and thought equally dark thoughts. He wondered whether it knew where Luke had gone. And what he’d run from? Or to?
Or whether he was ever coming home?
6
Luke drove over Chelsea Bridge with Sasha on the seat beside him, even as intrepid people searched the Thames’s beaches below him. With the storm tide came all sorts of relics and their hunters.
Acquisitive himself, he understood their acquisitiveness.
He, too, was a mudlark who loved to comb for coins, wig-curlers, Georgian jewellery or even the iron balls and chains once used to shackle condemned pirates that occasionally emerged from among all the used condoms and pebbles. Every river was the perfect depository for everyone’s rubbish, losses and secrets.
And skeletons.
Every week at least one decomposing cadaver washed up with the tide in London.
‘Don’t worry, Sash, you’ll love it where we’re going now, you really will.’
Sasha sat shivering on her cushion in their very old Land Rover while behind them bumped a sailing dinghy on its four-wheeled metal trailer. She cocked her head on one side and eyed him suspiciously. Anyone could tell a dog a thing or two, but tone of voice was one of those fundamental prerequisites of the man-dog relationship. That’s why the inability to lie took such special talent.
Suddenly the latest weather bulletin crackled over the radio.
Another turbulent front was expected to make landfall in the early hours after crossing the Atlantic.
The London to Penzance railway, meanwhile, had fallen into the sea at Dawlish. It was not without precedent. Such acts had once been deemed more spiritual than meteorological. Contemporary pamphlets had said of one such storm in the seventeenth century, it was ‘ God’s warning to the people of England by the great overflowing of the waters or floods’ .
Severed branches littered the roads after such a tempestuous night. Fog turned to icy rain as the savagely split sky lit up and blinded him every few seconds. O
r, as Adele’s song would have it, thought Luke, with a shiver: ‘There was something in the water, now that something’s in me.’
He lost sight of reassuring suburbs that fast dissolved into nothing.
There was snow on the hills and the temperature plummeted the further west they travelled.
The way the sleet pursued the Land Rover fuelled some apprehension on his part – it was the lashing, scaly swipes of something serpentine and living. Violent strokes of head, limb and tail spat at him against his windscreen. Hissed a challenge.
‘What the hell. It’s just a shower.’
Three hours later they stopped at a layby high on the Cotswolds, two thirds of the way to their destination. A dark red bus-cum-café offered him All Day Breakfast.
He had just sat down with some coffee at a table next to a steamed up window, when his phone rang.
‘Listen to me, Luke, I can’t stand it any more! Molly, my grey mare, has collided with a wall. Nearly knocked her fucking eyeball out. It’s too fucking much, I tell you, what with this stupid wedding and the farm going to pieces. Did you order the flowers yet? All I’ve done so far today is milk the cows.’
It was his twin sister Ellie.
‘Relax. For £3000 the wedding reception tables will be covered with crystal vases filled with fragrant white blooms just you as you want.’
‘Doesn’t mean you have to sound so cynical.’
When one sibling called another he ought not to behave like a pious fraud in his godly clothes.
He ought not to attempt to sound too soothing like the saint he really wasn’t, thought Luke, as he fed Sasha a sausage.
‘No, well, yeah, it seems an awful lot for a few lily of the valley and ranunculus.’
He was dressed in his clerical collar which he had found so hard to earn, but realistically he could only aim to offer advice that was unlikely to be fulfilled.
‘Please, Luke, do you think the silver and white tea-lights will be all right?’
‘Don’t ask me, ask mother.’
‘Very funny.’
‘You saw her on TV, then?’
‘It would be nice to be able to cut her out of the preparations altogether.’
‘From the way she was talking she could fly home from Spain at any moment.’