Slaughter in the Cotswolds (13 page)

They were all over forty, and might be considered grown up. The death of their father was a source of sadness, a good man gone forever, but they had rich memories of him and when a man in his seventies died, there was no great convulsion to the natural order of things. The sadness was a gentle sensation, not so much a source of pain as a reminder of the essential human condition. The conveyor belt of life moved inexorably and everyone sooner or later was tipped over the edge into the abyss. Emily’s self-flagellation on Saturday had quickly passed. Thea had not seen it as a cause for concern. Her distress now could only be due to the death of Sam Webster – of that she was increasingly convinced.

She was pleased with the advice she’d given Bruce, confident that it was all that would be needed to set Emily right again, after a few more days. If the police managed to catch Sam Webster’s killer, that alone might be enough to calm her down – although the probable need for her to give testimony against him could be stressful.

Perhaps it was this thought that got her stomach roiling again. Small stabs of discomfort were occurring as she went over once more the account of how Webster had died. There was something unsettling about it, beyond the fact of the extreme violence employed. The filmic sequence in her mind only really acquired conviction at the point where the killer panicked and ran off into the darkness. That bit she could clearly visualise. The rest was still obscure – the kicking and shouting, the blood and brains and 999 call. The car parked in the gateway, the hooting horn and dauntless shouts – somehow that was harder to absorb. But it had to be true – Emily’s car did have a scratch on it, as Thea had witnessed on Sunday morning, but it had not been muddy. Presumably the rain had washed everything off.

And then she was back on the small road to Lower Slaughter, choosing the one which took her through the village, and then off to the left
for Hawkhill. Already it was familiar and easy, with no need to watch for landmarks or pause indecisively at junctions. She swept through the farm gates with an idea of taking Hepzie for a walk down a path labelled ‘Warden’s Way’ on the map, well clear of Galton’s sheep, and didn’t notice for some minutes that there was something important missing.

The dogs had gone. Freddy and Basil were not on their chains, there were no welcoming barks, no friendly faces peering from their shed. Fighting to remain calm, Thea went all round the yard looking into the various sheds and logpiles, then did a circuit of the house, calling ‘Dogs! Dogs!’ across the weedy jungle that was the back garden.

They were not there. Their absence was tangible. Without even having to think about it, Thea piled herself and Hepzie back into the car and drove into the road, and quickly off again, down the track leading to Henry Galton’s sheep farm. Quite how she knew the way, she could not explain, except that she had stared
anxiously across the fields to the lambing sheds and hay barns several times over the past few days, until the geography was familiar. The track was bumpy with potholes and ruts, and longer than expected. It dived down into a hollow and then climbed up a final incline to the farmstead tucked into the lee of a gentle hill, facing south and sheltered on the other three sides. Even in her rage and panic, Thea had time to appreciate the clever siting, and the impressive age of the farm. The house was quite possibly Elizabethan, a modestly sized manor that had not been extended or modernised since its creation. By contrast, the farm buildings were considerably more recent and of poor quality. There were sheep on all sides, occupying many of the visible fields.

As she got out of the car, she caught her spaniel’s eye. Sitting cheerfully on the passenger seat, Hepzie was entirely oblivious to the danger she was in. If Galton had kidnapped the other dogs and taken them into a barn to be shot, he might well decide to finish the job and grab the third marauder as well. Shakily, Thea removed the key from the ignition and locked the car. ‘Stay there,’ she mouthed at her dog. What if Hepzie had been left behind at Hawkhill when Thea went to Lower Oddington to meet Bruce? Would she now be a stiffening corpse in the corner of a dark shed as well?

But perhaps she’d arrived in time. Perhaps Galton was hesitating before he performed the execution. Perhaps he would, after all, abide by lawful procedure and wait until there was hard evidence against Freddy and Basil. And what would that evidence be? Matching toothmarks in the flesh of the sheep? DNA from the rams on the jaws of the dogs?

She marched determinedly to the front of the house and banged the brass door knocker loudly. Ten seconds later the door opened, and Galton stood there in socks, his hair tousled. ‘What do you want?’ he said with a puzzled frown. ‘I’ve just been having a nap. Your car woke me. What time is it?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said impatiently. ‘Where are the dogs? What have you done with the dogs?’

He rubbed his face with a big hand. ‘What dogs? Wait a minute, I’m still half asleep. I’ve been all the way up to Shrewsbury and back today. Left at five, and got back just before two.’ He turned and peered back into the house, where Thea could see a handsome grandfather clock in the hall. ‘That was an hour ago, look. I haven’t even had any lunch yet.’

She would not allow herself to doubt her own convictions. ‘The dogs have gone,’ she insisted. ‘Who else would take them but you? Have you shot them yet?’

Galton seemed immensely more human than the last time she’d seen him. No longer intimidating, but genuinely bemused by her accusations, his story of the long drive might qualify as an alibi if Thea could accept it as true. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘you’d better come in and sit down and tell me what you think I’ve done.’

She followed him into the house, keeping her shoulders very square and her jaw tight. She was not going to take any nonsense from him, she promised herself. What he’d done put him completely in the wrong, and he should understand that. At the same time, concern for the dogs and the inevitable reactions from the Angells was undermining her resolve quite badly.

He led her into a big tidy kitchen, with a monumental Welsh dresser taking up one wall and a matchingly enormous old pine table in the middle. The floor and the worktops were slate. Did this man have a wife, she wondered for the first time? On the dresser the chunky china looked clean and expensively collectable. ‘I need some tea,’ said Galton. ‘Wait while I make a pot.’

She had no idea what to say. Her accusations had been made, and it was for him to confess or deny his crime. Much too late, she wished she’d phoned Phil and told him what had happened. But what would he have said? That a search for lost dogs was slightly below his remit? That she
ought to have realised this could happen and just be thankful Hepzie hadn’t gone as well? For the first time, she felt the loss of him as somebody she could make unreasonable claims on. Now he was just a policeman, interested in anything connected with his murder investigation, but definitely no longer at her beck and call.

Galton set a large mug of tea before her, and laid a plate of chocolate biscuits where they could both reach it. Then he sat at right angles to her and looked at her fixedly for a moment. ‘You are a very lovely woman,’ he said as if only just noticing. ‘I’m sorry if that sounds impertinent, but you are.’

And he was quite a handsome man, she conceded, with his big square head and thick springy hair. Though nothing like as attractive as Peter Clarke, of course. This man’s eyes were a muddy mix of brown and green, not the vivid blue of the vicar’s. She smiled carelessly, and flipped a hand at the compliment. ‘So where are the dogs?’ she said.

‘You’re going to have to believe me when I say I have no idea. I have not taken them, nor shot them. I’ve been too busy even to think about them. Those dead tups have to be replaced by the end of this month or my lambing schedule is shot to buggery. That’s why I had to go to Shrewsbury and sort out a new lot. Luckily, it’s all a done
deal and they’ll be here at the end of the week.’

‘And are the dead ones insured?’

He nodded, with a grimace. ‘After I’ve filled in about fifty different forms and persuaded the loss adjuster they were the best in the flock. And then the premium’s going to rise and I lose my no claims. It’s a bit different from claiming for a broken telly, I can tell you.’

‘So where are the dogs?’ She was beginning to sound repetitive, even to herself.

‘I have absolutely no idea. Are we going to have to have this same exchange all day, because if so I warn you I’ll get sick of it quite soon.’

‘But – they’ve gone. I was out for two hours, two and a half maybe, and when I got back just now there was no sign of them. Somebody’s undone their chains and taken them away.’

‘Well it wasn’t me.’

‘Who else would do it? There’s nobody else. It
must
have been you. Or somebody working for you.’ She stared at him suspiciously. ‘You must have people who work for you, farm hands. You’ll have told one of them to do it.’

‘No, I didn’t. Sorry – but I don’t know your name,’ he said, suddenly. ‘You never told me your name.’

‘Thea Osborne.’

‘And I’m Henry Galton.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘And it’s
Mrs
Osborne, is it?’ He looked at the wedding ring she wore.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Right. So now we’ve got that sorted, I’m not sure there’s any more to say. I can see I might owe you some sort of apology for shouting at you the other night. But in the circumstances I think I was justified. Even if I haven’t stolen the dogs, I still think they’re the ones who killed my tups. Could be the police agree with me, and they’ve taken them away. Unlikely, I grant you, but possible. Otherwise, I can’t suggest any other explanation. People do steal dogs, of course. That’d be funny, if they were nicked for some fool who thinks they’d make good workers. That huntaway is a good-looking beast, once the mud’s cleaned off him. Huntaways are worth a bit these days.’

‘I’m surprised anybody’s even heard of them – I hadn’t until a week or two ago, when Mr Angell explained about them.’

‘Well, my dear, you’re not exactly part of the farming community, are you?’

The old familiar Galton was back, showing his nasty side, patronising and arrogant. She pushed her mug away and got up. ‘I don’t know what to do now,’ she said quietly, almost to herself. ‘Where do I start?’

‘You believe me then?’ Again he scrutinised her closely.

‘I suppose I’ve got to, though I don’t know why I should. You said you’d shoot them, you’ve got a gun – and now they’ve disappeared. It’s all too much of a coincidence. And yet—’

‘And yet it wasn’t me. I might be a loud-mouthed bully, but I don’t tell lies. Even my ex-wife would tell you that.’

She wasn’t interested in his marital status, she discovered. He did nothing for her, not a flicker of attraction could be discerned, as she met his eyes. He was a puzzle, affluent and yet an obvious manual worker; nicely spoken and yet unsophisticated. Was he the latest generation in a long line of lords of the manor, accustomed to respect and forgiveness from the locals, however outrageous his behaviour? He ought to have a gang of teenage sons at his heels, a wife fielding the phonecalls and pursuing some part-time career of her own. Instead it seemed he lived in the house alone, somehow keeping it clean and tidy while also running his vast flock of sheep. Across the yard was a huge barn, piled to the roof with massive bales of hay, each one a good three metres long and one wide. A tractor with a contraption at the front boasting long metal prongs stood close to the barn.

There must be a hundred places where two dead dogs could be hidden. There was even a JCB on a bank some distance away, apparently halfway through digging a new ditch. It would
take less than a minute to dig a grave for Freddy and Basil, if necessary. And yet she found herself believing him, if only because he would want to proclaim the execution of the dogs, if it had indeed been carried out. He would be defiant and self-confident about it.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘Well – could you let me know if you see them? Or hear anything about them?’

‘If I see them loose on my land, I
will
shoot them,’ he said calmly. ‘Now I ought to get myself some food. And I suppose you’ll have to contact Cedric and Babs and tell them what’s happened.’

It hadn’t even occurred to her. She stared at him in horror. ‘No – I can’t do that.’

‘Why not? They must have left you a number where you can reach them.’

‘Yes – their son’s in Hong Kong. But what would I
say
? It would only spoil their holiday for no good reason. I always think bad news can wait,’ she added quietly.

‘Well, it’s not my business.’ He turned away from her as if losing interest.

She forgot she’d locked the car and spent a few seconds wrenching in vain at the handle. Then she felt foolish, and hoped Galton wasn’t watching.

‘So what now?’ she asked Hepzie.

She drove back, her mind almost blank. How did you begin to search for stolen dogs? Already they
could be in the middle of Birmingham, confined in a cellar before being shipped to some sadistic buyer who might want them for dog fighting or vivisection. What possible course of action was open to her?

Just before she turned down the drive for Hawkhill, she saw in the road ahead a man with two large dogs on short leashes. For a crazy second, she persuaded herself they were Freddy and Basil, until she looked again and realised they were bigger and of a totally different hue.

The man was familiar, but she couldn’t place him. Perhaps it was only that he had the animals, which were more or less what she had been hoping to find, that drew her attention to him. In any case, she braked and waited for him to come closer. He did not change his pace, walking with stiff legs, his arms out in front of him as he controlled the large beasts. They were fawn-coloured, short-haired and their shoulders were level with the man’s hips.

Thea wound down her window, and restrained her own dog, which was eagerly trying to jump out for a frolic with these potential new friends. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Haven’t I seen you before?’ Before she’d finished the question, she remembered. This was the man she had met on the footpath on Sunday afternoon, just after her charges had escaped. The man who told her they
were highly likely to be shot. Somebody had mentioned his name to her – Lister! This was Lister, who turned out to be a dog-owner himself.

‘You remember me, I’m sure,’ he said, watching her dawning recognition with a brief smile. ‘I heard what happened when you let those dogs go. Told you, didn’t I?’

He was not a pleasant person, Thea concluded, as she had on the previous occasion. He took pleasure in other people’s misfortune and in having his own dire predictions come true. His dogs danced impatiently at the end of their leather leads, until he jerked them viciously and swore at them to keep still.

‘Rhodesian ridgebacks, aren’t they? My uncle had one, when I was little. I was always quite scared of it.’

He smiled again, with a secret satisfaction. ‘Most people are,’ he agreed. ‘It’s the ridge that does it. They look as if their hackles are up.’

‘But really they’re quite docile,’ she supplied, expecting him to say something to this effect.

‘Strong,’ he amended.

‘I can see they’re a handful. They look as if they’re not really used to walking on a lead.’

‘They’ve got their own compound at home, big enough for a good run. But now and then I take them out like this. Teaches them who’s boss.’ Again he jerked at the lead in his left hand, making the dog yelp.

‘A girl and a boy,’ Thea observed. ‘Brother and sister?’

‘Nope. A breeding pair. Worth a bit, I can tell you. The pups go for close to a grand, if they’re good specimens. We’ve had two litters already.’

‘Very nice,’ said Thea, unable to repress a shudder at the idea of keeping dogs for purely commercial reasons. The man showed no signs of affection or even pride in his handsome beasts.

‘So – did you find the runaways?’ A glitter in his eye suggested that he knew exactly what had happened since their last meeting and was merely playing with her.

‘They came home,’ she said shortly. Some instinct kept her from splurging her latest trouble. After all, he had been a lot less than helpful the last time. To admit that they’d gone again seemed to be inviting scorn.