The Plague Dogs (31 page)

"What was the object all sublime?" asked Driver, as they made their way through the Manor into the square and got back into his car. "Well, that was a sort of psychological thing, too, as I understand it," replied Mr. Powell. "That was why they needed an adult, thoroughly domesticated dog

—they paid quite a bit for it, I believe, to some woman in Dalton."

"Why did she part with it, d'you know?"

"Well, it wasn't originally hers. Apparently it had belonged to her brother in Barrow, but it had somehow or other brought about his—I'm not sure, but his death, I believe I heard—in an accident with a lorry, so naturally she wasn't keen on keeping it. That's an exceptional situation, of course. In the normal way domesticated animals—people's pets—aren't easy to come by for this work, as you can well believe. The operation was something quite new—a bit like a leucotomy, but that's misleading, really. To be perfectly frank, there were innovatory complications that put it a long way beyond me.

But the general purpose—and no one'll be able to say, now, how far it was successful; not in this particular case, anyway—was to bring about a confusion of the subjective and objective in the animal's mind."

"How would that work in practice, then?" asked Digby Driver, accelerating out of the square and up the hill towards the Coniston road.

"Well, as I understand it—whoops!" Mr. Powell belched beerily, leaned forward and frowned, seeking an illustrative example. "Er—well, did you ever read a book called Pincher Martin, by a man named Golding? You know, the Lord of the Flies bloke?"

"I've read Lord of the Flies, but I don't think I know this other book."

"Well, the chap in it's supposed to be dead—drowned at sea; and in the next world, which is a sort of hellish limbo, one of the things he does is to confuse subjective and objective. He thinks he's still alive and that he's been washed up on a rock in the Atlantic, but actually it's an illusion and the rock is only a mental projection—it's the shape of a back tooth in his own head. The dog that had this operation might have illusions something like that. Suppose it had come to associate—well, let's say cats with eau de cologne, for instance—then it might be observed to treat some inanimate object—a cardboard box, say—as a cat when it was subjected to the smell of eau de cologne: or conversely, it might see something objective and act as though it was nothing but the equivalent of some thought in its mind—I can't think what, but you get the general idea."

"It must be a fascinating job, yours," said Driver. "Straight on, do we go here? All the way?"

"All the way to Coniston. It's really very good of you."

"No, not at all—I've got to go there myself, as I said. No, I mean, a fascinating job you have with all these experimental discoveries."

"A lot of it's routine, actually—you know, Fifty L. D. and all that."

"Fifty L. D.?"

"Fifty lethal dose. Say you—or anyone—wants to market a new lipstick or a food additive or something, then we have to forcibly feed quantities of it to a group of animals until we've ascertained at what dosage level half of them die within fourteen days."

"Whatever for? I mean, suppose the stuff's not toxic anyway?"

"Doesn't matter. You still have to continue forcible feeding until you've ascertained Fifty L. D.

They may die of internal rupture—osmotic or pH effects— anything. It's a bore, actually, but that's partly what we're there for. All in a good cause, you know. Cosmetics have to be safe, or no one'd buy

'em."

"I suppose there are compensations—not for them but for you, I mean—defence projects and secret stuff—breaking new ground. No, O. K," added Digby Driver, smiling broadly. "Don't answer that, as the judges say. I don't want you to give me anything to pass on to two square-jawed blokes in raincoats on Hampstead Heath."

"Oh, Goodner's the chap for that. I wouldn't be in the least surprised to learn that he'd been one of those very blokes in his time. He's German by birth. He was working in Germany at the end of the war—for the Germans, I mean. He's on secret work of some kind right now, that I do know. Something to do with lethal disease, for the Ministry of Defence. They practically lock him up at night—they lock up all his stuff, anyway. And there's no talking shop to him. I bet he gets paid three times what I do,"

added Mr. Powell, hi a candid non sequitur.

"And what sort of leave do they give you?" enquired Digby Driver, who knew exactly how far to go and when to stop. "Where's this? Oh, Torver, is it? Does it get a bit lonelier before Coniston?

Good—I could do with another piss, couldn't you?"

" 'Accidental death,'" said Robert Lindsay. "Ay, well, that's all he could have found—couldn't have found owt else, Dennis, could he?"

"Could have found suicide if he'd had a mind," said Dennis. "Never on the evidence. There were nothing to suggest it. If yon Ephraim chap's alone and he dies wi' shot-gun when he's standing beside his car, he's entitled to benefit of all the doubt there may be; and there were no evidence at all that he were of suicidal disposition. Nay, Coroner were reel enoof—on available evidence that were accident, Dennis, plain as day."

"He never said nowt about dog, though, did he?" said Dennis. "But it were yon bluidy dog browt it about, for all that. It were dog as shot him, tha knaws."

"Y'reckon dog set off gun an' killed him?"

"Ay, I do that. It were seen booggerin' off oop fell like th' clappers, tha knaws, Bob."

"Coroner couldn't bring that in on evidence either. An' if he had, it would still be accidental death, wouldn't it? Dog's an accident as mooch as light trigger or owt else."

"Ay, happen it would, Bob, but if he'd pinned blame fair an' square on dog, like, then happen police or soom- one'd be instroocted to find it at once and shoot it. Way it's been left now, you an' me's no better off than we were at start. You could lose a coople more sheep tonight an' Ah could lose three next week, and no boogger but us give a damn. Research Station weren't at inquest—no bluidy fear.

Nowt to do wi' them—and they'll do nowt, an' all, without they're made to, Bob, tha knaws." There was a pause while Robert sucked the top of his stick and considered his next words. Dennis lit a cigarette and pitched the spent match over his dog's head into the long grass below the wall.

"Theer's joost woon lot o' chaps as could make them stand an' annser, Dennis," said Robert at length. "Compel them to answer, like."

"Member of Parliament?" asked Dennis. "He'll do nowt—"

"Nay, not him. Woon lot o' chaps; an' that's press chaps. Did y'see Loondon Orator yesterday?"

"Nay, Ah niver did. Ah were back late from Preston—"

"Well, they're sending reporter chap oop from Loondon—special reporter, they said, to coover t'

whole story, like, an' get to t'bottom of it. It were Ephraim's death started them off. Chap called Driver

—ay. Real smart chap, be all accounts—real 'andy fella."

"Ay, but wheer's he at? No good to us without he's here, is he?"

"Coniston police were over to Dawson girls this morning, tha knaws," said Robert. "Git awaay?"

"Ay, they were that—an' fella from Research Station were wi' them. Two dogs with green collars were into Dawson girls' doostbins int' early morning. Phyllis got one on 'em shut int' shed an'

she phoned police, but dog were awaay owt of back-eend draain before this yoong research fella could grab it.

Ay, weel, if police are that mooch interested, Dennis, tha knaws, and tha tells 'em tha's got soomthing tha wants t' say to yon Driver chap, they'll tdl thee wheer he's at,"

"Ah've got a whole bluidy lot Ah'm gann't to say to him," said Dennis.

The morning turned still and fine, with high-sailing, diaphanous clouds barely masking the sun's warmth in their swift passage across its face. The heather was snug as a dog-blanket. Rowf lay basking on the summit of Caw, warming his shaggy coat until the last moisture of Duddon had dried out of it. A few yards below, among a tumble of rocks, Snitter and the tod were playing and tussling like puppies over a bone long picked clean, the tod pausing every now and then to scent the wind and look east and west down the empty slopes below. "What's up wi' ye noo, marrer?" it remarked, as Snitter suddenly dropped the bone and remained gazing westward with cocked ears and head lifted to the wind. "Ye're not hevvin' one o' yer bad torns agen? Aall that aboot 'inside yer head—where else wad ye be, ye fond wee fyeul?"

"No, I'm all right, tod. Rowf! I say, Rowf!"

"Aargh! He'll take ne notice, he's still dryin' hissel' oot. What's gan on, then? Can you see owt doon belaa?"

"Far off, tod. Look—the dark blue. It's not the sky. It's like a great gash between the sky and the land. They've cut the top of the hills open, I suppose, but why does the blood spill out blue?"

"Mebbies yer still a bit aglee wi' yon shed carry-on. Which way ye lukkin'?"

"Out there, between the hills."

Ten miles away, through the clear, sunny air, between and beyond the distant tops of Hesk Fell and Whitfell to the west, a still, indigo line lay all along the horizon.

"Yon? Yon's th' sea. Did ye not knaa?" As Snitter stared, the tod added, "Well, it's ne pig's arse, fer a start."

"No, I suppose not. What is the sea? Is it a place? Is that what we can smell licking the wind like a wet tongue?"

"Ay—th' salt an' th' weeds. It's aall waiter there—waiter, an' forbye a sea-mist noo an' agen."

"Then we couldn't live there? It looks—it looks—I don'l know—peaceful. Could we go and live here?"

"Wad ye seek feathers on a goat?" replied the tod shortly, and forthwilh crept up through the rocks to where Rowf had woken and begun snapping at flies in the sun.

Snitter remained staring at the patch of far-off blue.

Water—could it really be water, that tranquil stain along the foot of the sky? Firm it seemed, smooth and unmoving between the crests of the hills on either side; but further off than they, deeper, deep within the cleft, a long way beyond and within.

It could be put back, I suppose, thought Snitter, musingly. It shouldn't have been cut open like that, but it's all still there—funny, I thought it wasn't. It could be closed up again and then I'd be all right, I suppose. Only it's such an awfully long way off. If only I could have stayed inside my head this morning, I might have been able to decide how to get there—how to reach it. But whoever would have thought it was all still there?

He closed his eyes and the salty wind, fitful and mischievous, tugged at the grass and whispered in a half-heard song, while faint scents, breaking like waves, came - and went between his nostrils and ears. "We are the brains the whitecoats stole, And you the victim of the theft. Yet here the wound might be made whole, The sense restored and healed the cleft. And since, of sanity bereft, You can devise no better plan, To us, the only place that's left. Come, lost dog; seek your vanished man."

"If I could just get all these thoughts up together," murmured Snitter. "But I'm sleepy now. It's been a long day—long night—something or other, anyway. How smoothly that grass moves against the sky—like mouse-tails." Soothed and finally oblivious, Snitter fell asleep in the November sunshine.

Lakeland shopkeeper Phyllis Dawson got a shock yesterday, tapped Digby Driver on his typewriter.

(Except when signing his name, Digby Driver had seldom had a pen in his hand for several years past.) The reason? She found her dustbins the target of a new-style commando raid by the two mysterious dogs which have recently been playing a game of hide-and-seek for real with farmers up and down the traditional old-world valley of Dunnerdale, Lancashire, in the heart of poet Wordsworth's Lakeland. The mystery death of tailoring manager David Ephraim, found shot beside his car at lonely Cockley Beck, near the head of the valley, took place while farmers were combing the fells nearby for the four-footed smash-and-grab intruders, and is believed to form another link in the chain lying behind efforts to pinpoint the cause of the enigma. Where have the unknown dogs come from and where are they hiding? Shopkeeper Phyllis' contribution was doomed to disappointment yesterday when scientist Stephen Powell, hastening eighteen miles to the scene of the crime from Lawson Park Animal Research Station, arrived too late to forestall the dogs' escape from the shed where they had been immured pending identification and removal. Are these canine Robin Hoods indeed a public danger, as local farmers hotly maintain, or are they wrongly accused of undeserved guilt? They may have an alibi, but if so the term is more than usually apt, for where indeed are they? This is the question Lakeland is asking itself as I pursue enquiries in the little grey town of Coniston, one-time home of famous Victorian John Ruskin.

Well, thought Digby Driver, that'll do for the guts of the first article. If they want it longer they can pep it up on the editorial desk. Better to keep the actual connection of the dogs with Lawson Park to blow tomorrow. Yeah, great—that can burst upon an astonished world as an accusation. "Why have the public not been told?" and all that. The thing is, what come-back have the station got? We know two dogs escaped from Lawson Park; and thanks to dear old Master Stephen, bless him, we know what they were being used for and what they looked like. And we can be certain—or as good as—that they were the same dogs as those that were raiding Miss Dawson's dustbins. But that's no good to the news-reading public. The thing is, have they been killing sheep and, above all, did they cause the death of Ephraim? What we want is evidence of gross negligence by public servants. "Gross negligence, gross negligence, let nothing you dismay," sang Mr. Driver happily. "Remember good Sir Ivor Stone's the bloke who doth you pay, To make the public, buy the rag and read it every day, O-oh tidings of coomfort and joy-He broke off, glancing at his watch. "Ten minutes to opening time. Well, mustn't grumble. I confess I never expected to fall on my feet right from the start like this. Drive down Dunnerdale and walk straight into the dogs and then into Master Powell looking for them. All the same, it still doesn't grab the reader by the throat and rivet the front page—and that's what it's got to do, boy, somehow or other. Tyson—and Goodner—ho, hum! Wonder who that there Goodner used to be—