Darkmans (57 page)

She placed down the truncheon and turned around herself. ‘So did we finally establish what it was exactly that
you
were doing in the woods tonight?’ she wondered airily.

Beede kept his back to her. He glanced over at the side-entrance as if hoping that the garage’s owner might return. But he didn’t.

‘I was searching for someone,’ he said, finally.

‘Who?’

‘A friend.’

‘A good friend?’

‘Yes,’ he said, defensively. ‘A fairly good friend.’

‘And this friend was seeking refuge in the woods?’

There was a trace of mockery in her voice.

‘Yes. I had reason to believe that he was.’

‘Does this friend make a
habit
of seeking refuge there?’

‘No,’ he snapped. ‘Not that I’m aware of…’

‘So why…?’

‘His
partner
asked me,’ Beede interrupted. ‘His wife. He hasn’t been well. He was distressed. They had an argument and he climbed out of the car. He ran off.’

‘I see…’ she nodded. ‘Well the conditions are hardly
propitious
for an overnight excursion…’

‘Exactly.’

She smiled, wickedly. ‘Must’ve been some hum-dinger of a row, though…’

‘Yes. No. I mean I wouldn’t really know…’

‘What was it about?’

‘I don’t know,’ he repeated, turning around.

She strolled to another part of the room and began picking through the rubbish again. ‘And the wife?’ she murmured, almost inaudibly, holding up a small, chipped, alabaster bust of Queen Victoria.

Beede put a nervous hand to his mouth. He investigated the cut on his lip with his index finger.

‘She’s obviously very worried,’ he said, dropping the hand, ‘so she asked for my help.’

‘D’you think he’s still there?’

‘Where?’

‘In the woods.’

He shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t have a clue, Peta.’

She glanced up when he used her name.

‘Then it’s a fruitless quest,’ she said, holding eye contact with him for a second.

‘Very possibly,’ he conceded.

She turned. ‘And on one of the coldest nights of the year…’ He nodded. He couldn’t deny it.

‘Well all I can say is that this wife must be a
very
persuasive character,’ she mused, inspecting Victoria in profile, now.

He scowled.

‘Did you think of contacting the police?’

‘
No
…’

Beede frowned. ‘I mean, he’s been in trouble with the police before,’ he elaborated. ‘He didn’t…He wouldn’t…’

‘And the wife?’ Peta persisted. ‘What’s
she
like?’

‘Nice,’ Beede insisted. ‘
Normal.
A chiropodist. They have a child – a son…’

‘Will you go back?’ Peta interrupted.

‘Pardon?’

‘To the woods? Will you return once you’ve finished up here?’

‘Uh…’ Beede scratched his head. ‘Yes. I mean I suppose I must…’

‘Then I’ll come with you,’ she said. ‘I have Pinch in the van. He’s an absolute gem. If
anyone
can help track down your man…’

‘No.’

‘But I
insist
…’

The garage’s owner suddenly came slamming back inside. He was heavily laden.

‘No iodine,’ he panted, dumping his various provisions down on to a nearby table, ‘but I’ve got Dettol…’

‘That’s a disinfectant,’ Peta clucked, marching over, ‘not an antibacterial agent.’

‘Or there’s TCP…’

‘That’s more like it.’

She grabbed the bottle and inspected it. It seemed rather old. She unscrewed the lid. There was rust inside the cap. She grimaced.

‘And I’ve defrosted some liver in the microwave…’ he continued.

‘Will she eat it raw?’ Beede wondered.

‘And milk?’ Peta enquired, before the man could answer, ‘and cotton wool?’

‘Full cream,’ he said, removing a carton from a carrier bag, followed by a small swab of cotton wool.

‘Good. Well done.’

Peta took the TCP and the cotton wool and went over to sterilise the tips of the pups’ cords with it. She grabbed them, one at a time, and dabbed gently at their bellies.

‘I’m sterilising the cords,’ she explained. ‘And for future reference, if the mother refuses to bite the cord herself, then it’s best to either tear it or to cut at it but using a rough, sawing motion. This second cut…’ she held up the smaller pup, ‘is rather too close to the body. It’s preferable to leave about 2 inches in order to prevent the risk of an umbilical hernia…’

‘Will he be all right, d’you think?’ the man asked, concerned. She shrugged. ‘It looks fine – I mean, so far as I can
tell.
All being well, the cords should fall off in a few days’ time…’

The man began to pour some milk into a bowl. ‘If she’s lost blood then you should provide her with plenty of iron: meat, milk, even a vitamin supplement. Cod liver oil, perhaps. You can buy capsules at your local pet shop. And don’t exercise her too much,’ she expanded, ‘just take her out for a quick trot on the lead, allow her to empty her bladder, then bring her straight back inside.’ The man nodded.

‘No more of those mysterious, nightly excursions,’ she persisted. He scowled.

‘I see you have an interest in Japanese Art Swords…’

‘What?’

The man stared at her, still scowling.

‘Samurai swords?’

‘Oh. Uh…Yes.’

He put a tentative hand to his hip.

‘I actually have a couple of wonderful, early Tokugawa period Katana,’ she said nonchalantly, ‘a matching pair – short and long from around 1630 – the Ogatana
and
the Kogatana…’

The man blinked. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Of course I’m serious,’ she snapped. ‘In fact I also have a
used
Waki-sashi, and a very,
very
rare, early Muromachi period sword which is
incredibly
beautiful and well over 3 foot…’

‘A
used
Waki-sashi?’

The man turned to Beede. ‘That’s the special sword a Samurai uses to commit suicide.’

‘I know,’ Beede said.

‘They slice open their stomachs with it,’ the man added.

‘I know,’ Beede said.

‘I have the most marvellous Edo period Japanese Samurai Helmet, too,’ Peta continued, ‘pre-1700. A 62 plate Suji Kabuto by Nobuiye, a master of the Myochin School.’

‘The Waki-sashi,’ the man persisted. ‘About how much would that…?’

‘I acquired it as part of an exchange,’ Peta said brusquely. ‘It’s a small but precious piece of Japanese cultural history. The value is an irrelevance, really…’

‘Oh.’

The man frowned, bemused.

‘You don’t
own
an object like that,’ she clarified.

The man nodded, plainly baffled.

‘I’m impressed by some of your little nick-nacks,’ she cast out a benevolent hand, ‘I see you have a Victorian burr walnut credenza up against the back wall. It has a replacement marble top, and the fabric has rotted away behind the fretwork, but I like it. If you’re
very
good I might be persuaded to give you forty quid for the thing…’ ‘Seventy-five,’ the man shot back.

‘Sixty,’ she conceded. ‘And trust me, I’m on a hiding to nothing here. Credenzas are all-but impossible to integrate into the modern home…’

‘I got it at the dump,’ he said.

‘A scavenger, eh?’ she mused, picking up a filthy, old jug from the table and inspecting the marks on the bottom of it. ‘That’s exactly how I started out, although I can rarely find the time any more. I restore antiques. It’s labour intensive. I’m what they call money-rich but time-poor…’

‘D’you like the look of that?’ the man asked.

‘It’s Royal Doulton. A late nineteenth-century ewer. An Emily Stormer, I believe. But there’s a small crack in the rim…’

‘Ten quid,’ he said.

‘Five.’

‘Done.’

‘I’ll round it up to eighty if you tell me you still have the brass bucket which fits inside that Regency mahogany planter with the openwork slats…’

She pointed.

‘I never had any brass bucket, no.’

He shook his head, forlornly.

‘That’s a shame. Then I’ll take it off your hands for a tenner.’

His face brightened.

Peta reached into her coat pocket, withdrew an old, leather wallet, unclipped it and removed a bundle of notes. She counted out £75.

Beede glanced over at the man. The man was rubbing his hands together, smiling, delightedly.

‘A
used
Waki-sashi,’ he murmured.

‘These chaps should be weaned in around five weeks’ time,’ Peta said, slipping the wallet away again, slapping the notes down on to the table, propping the Doulton ewer under her elbow and indicating towards the pups, ‘you can start them off on solids in about three, but only if they gain a sufficient amount of weight. Try them on baby cereal and warm milk. If the bitch’s condition declines then she
must
go to a vet. I have a good man in Tenterden. I’ll give you his number. Tell him Peta sent you…’

Peta recited the vet’s number. The man grabbed a nearby pad and wrote it down, very carefully.

‘Beede,’ Peta turned to Beede, ‘would you be so kind as to give our friend here a hand loading up my van with the credenza?’ she paused, her bright, green eyes twinkling. ‘And do try and be
extra
careful with the mirror, dear,
won’t
you…?’

She stared at him, blankly, as if she’d just opened her door to a complete and utter stranger –

A double-glazing salesman
…

A Prophet of Jehovah
…

‘Sorry. I know it’s a little
late
…’ he said, his cheeks reddening slightly at the coolness of his reception.

‘Of course,’ she murmured. ‘Of
course.
You’ve come for your jumper. It’s folded up in the washing basket…’ She glanced over her shoulder. ‘I’ll quickly run and grab it. Fleet’s in the bath. I shouldn’t really…’ She was deathly pale. Her hair was in disarray. Her eyes were red-rimmed.

Just tell her, you fool
…

He steeled his nerve and then opened his mouth to speak, but before a single syllable could leave his lips, her worn face broke into an unexpected smile. She reached out her hand.

‘You’ve actually got…’

She grabbed something from the back of his head, then held it up close to her face to inspect it. ‘What
is
this?’

He stared at the white napkin, flummoxed, and then, ‘Oh
shit
,’ he said, mortified, ‘how’d
that
end up there?’

‘Like a little halo,’ she said, her face softening. Then she stepped back and pulled the door wider.

He grabbed his opportunity and quickly slipped past her.

‘Isn’t it freezing?’ she asked, closing the door with a shiver and then turning to apprehend him. She paused. ‘Are you all right?’ ‘I just had a call…’ Kane said, his hand returning, neurotically, to the back of his head.

‘From Beede?’ she interrupted, showing as much animation in that moment (he felt) as she ever really might.

‘
No
,’ he said (irritated), ‘from my ex-girlfriend. Her brother just died. He was in a coma…’

‘How sad,’ she murmured (struggling to hide her disappointment).

‘How old was he?’

‘I don’t know. Twenty-one, twenty-two…But that wasn’t the weird part…’ he continued. ‘I was standing by the side of the road, having just finished the call, minding my own business, staring at my phone, and then suddenly this…this
thing
came plummeting out of the sky – like a
stone
– and crashed into the roof of my car.’

‘What kind of a thing?’

‘A bird.’

‘Really? What kind of a bird?’

She glanced, distractedly, towards the stairs as she spoke.

‘I don’t know exactly. A sparrowhawk, maybe. It was reddish in colour.’

‘A kestrel?’

She turned and started walking.

‘No. Different. Bigger.’

‘Then maybe a kite? A red kite?’

‘Well I guess it doesn’t really
matter
now,’ Kane trailed along behind her, ‘because it was dead.’

‘It must’ve died mid-air,’ she reasoned, starting to climb the stairs, ‘on the wing, mid-flight.’

‘But that’s the strange thing,’ Kane said. ‘It was completely frozen.’ ‘Oh.’ She frowned. ‘So maybe it froze to death. It certainly feels cold enough out there tonight…’

She was half-way up the stairs now. The stairway, Kane noticed, smelled quite strongly of damp.

‘And it had no eyes,’ he interrupted her, ‘the eyes had been torn out.’

She stopped in her tracks. He almost slammed into the back of her.

He reached out his hands to steady himself. One hand touched her waist. He quickly withdrew the hand, as if burned.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered.

She half-turned. ‘What did you do with it?’ she asked.

‘I guess I should’ve just tossed it into the undergrowth,’ he said, shrugging, ‘the damn thing dented my
roof
…’

‘But you kept it? You brought it with you?’

He nodded.

The boy began screaming for his mother from the bathroom.

‘Go and fetch it,’ she said, ‘I’d like to see it.’

He stayed where he was, confused.

‘Fetch it,’ she repeated.

‘Now?’

‘Yes. Go and get it. I want to see it.’

‘Muuuummmmy!’

Kane paused for a moment, surprised, and then he turned and jogged back down the stairs, out through the front door and along the short garden path to his car. He quickly disabled the alarm, retrieved the bird from the front passenger side, winced as he held it, grabbed an old Sainsbury’s carrier bag from the floor at the back and wrapped it around the bird, then carefully carried it inside.

But by the time he’d returned, she’d disappeared. He waited for a minute or so in the hallway, unsure whether to go up and find her. He could hear her conversing with the child in the bathroom.

‘Hold up your arms,’ she was saying, ‘quickly now. You don’t want to get all cold again, do you?’

Pause

‘What’s that on your arms?’

‘Where?’

‘Those rashes. They look like flea bites. Gracious me…there are
dozens
of them…’

‘I’m hungry, Mummy,’ the boy said.

‘But I don’t understand all these
bite
marks, Fleet. Daddy powdered the dog a few days ago, didn’t he…?’