This Way Out (13 page)

Derek rang. And rang again, impatiently. He was still wearing yesterday's fine-day business suit, and he was getting wet.

At the third ring, a slight female figure in an over-large dark-green waxed cotton jacket, a jungle hat, shabby cords and dirty wellington boots emerged from one of the outbuildings and came splodging down the yard.

‘Sorry!' she called breathlessly as she approached the reception hut. She was in her mid-thirties, with an air of harassment, a tangle of brown hair and delicate features that were thickened – as was her pleasant voice – by a streaming cold.

‘Frightfully sorry to keep you waiting. I was making up the feeds and I'm single-handed – my husband's had to take to his bed with 'flu. Do come in.'

The hut contained the bare essentials of an office. On the wall opposite the door was a large notice, artistically hand-painted:
Barn Farm Boarding Kennels and Cattery – John and Rachel Dean
. Beside it was pinned a newspaper photograph of a young couple surrounded by domestic pets. The clipping, yellowed by a year or two's exposure, carried a story headed
Ex-teachers'rural venture
.

‘My dog's in the car,' said Derek abruptly. In his former life, Before Packer, he would – as a matter of normal civilized consideration for a person who was having problems – have commiserated with her before telling her what he wanted. But now there was too much on his mind for such courtesies. ‘Can I leave him with you?'

‘Gladly.' Looking more cheerful, Rachel Dean pushed back the sleeves of her jacket with small, grubby, weather-reddened hands and opened a register. ‘How long would you like us to keep him?'

‘Just the one night.'

Her disappointment was obvious, but she made an effort at concealment. ‘Fine. Would you like to see the accommodation? We're rather proud of it.' Her voice began to sound as though she had a peg on her nose. Pausing to blow, and draw breath, she began a muzzy recitation: ‘Each dog has its own brick-built and tiled kennel, with a covered outdoor run. The kennels can be heated individually, but I'm afraid we do have to charge extra for that.'

It sounded a better place than Derek had thought. He declined the tour (there were hours to be got through before he could return home, but the build-up of anxiety made him feel that he was in a hurry) and agreed to pay for a heated kennel. Might as well make the old dog as comfortable as possible.

Rachel Dean sat at the table and began to fill in the register, breathing through her mouth and wearily ignoring the drops of rain that rolled off the brim of her hat and plopped on to the page. There had been very few entries. Derek noticed as she wrote the date, since the beginning of the year.

She sneezed, mopped her nose, and held the handkerchief ready for further use. ‘Could I have your name and address, please?'

He had come prepared for the question. ‘David Carter,' he said, ‘Flint Cottage, Fodderstone.' Fodderstone was the name of a village he had passed through on his way to the kennels, and several of its old buildings were faced with flint.

‘We usually ask for the name and address of your own vet,' she said as she wrote, ‘but as it's only for one night there's no need. You have a current vaccination certificate for the dog, of course?'

‘Of course.'

She looked up at him, bleary-eyed but expectant. Uncomprehending, he looked blankly down at her.

‘With you, I mean,' she said. ‘You've brought the vaccination certificate with you?'

‘No – no, I haven't.'

‘You do need to, I'm afraid. It's a precaution we have to take for the sake of the other dogs.'

Derek frowned. ‘I didn't know that – we've never boarded him before. Well, I can assure you that he's had whatever jabs are necessary. We've got the certificate somewhere at home.'

‘Yes, I'm sure you have. But I do need to see it.' She sneezed again. ‘It's not that I doubt you, Mr Carter, but unless you produce the certificate I'm afraid we can't accept your dog. I know it's an awful nuisance, but would you mind fetching it?'

‘
Fetching
it?'

The tension had been gathering hot and tight inside his chest; now, suddenly, it rose in his throat like a noxious vapour. Its only way out was through his mouth. Decent, honourable men don't resort to verbal aggression, but Derek's inhibitions were no longer functioning. He began to shout, his anger fuelled by fear of the events that were to come.

‘This is
stupid
. I've never
heard
of anything so bloody stupid! Do you seriously expect me to go all the way home just to fetch some ridiculous piece of paper for you to look at? For God's sake –'

Rachel Dean stood up, a tiny person swamped by her wet-weather clothes and exhausted by her cold. They were standing so close together that she had to pull off her hat and tilt back her head in order to be able to look up at his face. Her eyes were watering, her cheeks were as pink as her swollen nose, and she had to dash away a drip before she spoke, but she gave him her answer with dignity.

‘What you do is entirely up to you, Mr Carter. But if you want us to take your dog, yes, I
am
asking you to fetch the certificate. After all, Fodderstone's not more than five miles away, is it?'

Baulked, Derek fumed for a moment in silence. It would take him a good three-quarters of an hour to drive back to Wyveling. By the time he got there Christine and her mother would probably have returned, and that would put an end to his chances of getting the dog out of the way. And even if they weren't back, he wouldn't know where to begin to look for the wretched vaccination certificate.

But he wasn't going to have his plans frustrated. Shouting at the woman had been counter-productive, but at least it had relieved his tension sufficiently to get him thinking on his feet again. His best move, he decided, would be to appeal to her sympathy with a story that was sufficiently near the truth to account for his anxiety.

‘Mrs Dean –' he began apologetically.

He understood the importance of body language. Had there been a visitor's chair he would have sat on it, in order to stop towering over her. Unable to sit, he changed his upright stance to a careworn slump.

‘Mrs Dean – that is right, isn't it? I don't know what you must think of me after that outburst. I do apologize, most sincerely. The fact is … The fact is, I didn't want to bother you with my own problems when your husband is ill and you're not at all well yourself. I do sympathize believe me. I'd never have shouted like that if I hadn't been so desperately worried. This is a family emergency, you see. I'm trying to get to Peterborough as quickly as possible. It's my wife's mother … she isn't expected to live through the night.'

Rachel Dean began to sympathize, but Derek cut her short.

‘That's why I'm in such a hurry, I'm afraid. I told my wife I'd find somewhere to leave the dog while she went on ahead, and naturally I want to follow her as quickly as possible. The dog's hers, and even if I were to dash back home I wouldn't know where she keeps his vaccination certificate. But we do have a current one, I promise you.
Please
, Mrs Dean – even if you can't forgive me – won't you be kind enough to look after my wife's dog without seeing the certificate, just for this one important night?'

The young woman was biting her lower lip, wavering. ‘It's always been one of our basic principles, you see,' she said unhappily.

He pressed in for the close. ‘I understand that, Mrs Dean, and in normal circumstances I'd respect you for sticking to it. But this is an
emergency
. Surely you can overlook a principle when you're asked to help in a matter of life or death?'

She was bemused. She looked as though she was running a temperature. Derek was confident that he had won, if only because she was in no fit state to continue the argument.

Greatly relieved, he took time to feel sorry for her and her husband, and their rural venture that had so evidently turned into a financial flop. ‘Look,' he said, with impulsive generosity, ‘I'll pay you in advance, of course –' he pulled his wallet from his hip pocket ‘– and I'd like to make up for my rudeness by giving you the money for a week rather than for one night. A full week, plus a week's heating charge. How much will that be?'

It hadn't occurred to him that she might interpret his offer as a bribe, until he saw her affronted look and the patchy flush of crimson on her face.

‘Nothing,' she said breathlessly. ‘Nothing at all, because I'm not going to take your dog. No reputable kennel would do so without evidence that it's been vaccinated. We may not have many customers, but they know they can leave their pets here without fear of infection, and I'm not prepared to take any chances. I'm sorry, truly sorry, about your wife's mother – but, as I see it a principle's a principle.'

‘What am I do with the dog, then?' he protested.

She sneezed, and sneezed again. ‘That's your problem, isn't it, Mr Carter?'

‘Shut up, Sam! For God's sake shut up and let me think –'

The beagle, unused to being spoken to so savagely, stopped whining and gave his master a reproachful look. ‘You stupid old fool,' said Derek, this time with more exasperation than anger. He was driving fast, now the rainstorm was over, but getting nowhere. ‘What the hell am I going to do with you?'

There was no point in trying another boarding kennel. He couldn't go through all that business about the vaccination certificate again. The alternative seemed to be to find somewhere secure – an empty shed, that kind of thing – where he could shut the dog up overnight.

But sheds are only to be found in populated places. Supposing someone saw him bundling the dog inside? Or discovered Sam, and remembered having seen his car?

No, much too risky. Whoever-it-was might tell the police, and that would either foil the whole operation or put his alibi under suspicion. Any kind of shutting-up was definitely out.

What, then?
What
?

It was no use being sentimental. The dog had to be got rid of somehow, and before very much longer. Derek looked at his watch. It was nearly five o'clock; Christine and her mother would have been home for an hour or more, and she would be starting to wonder where he was. He would have to telephone soon to tell her that Sam was lost.

The beagle was whining again. No wonder, when it was past his meal time. Whatever else happened – and Derek had more or less made up his mind what it would have to be – the animal needed to be fed.

They were still in the forest area, and the villages were miles apart. In the first they came to, the only shop was shut. The second village, however, had a Georgian house whose ground floor had been gutted and turned into a self-service general stores, and it offered a wide choice of dog food. Derek picked up a can of Pedigree Chum with rabbit, Sam's favourite, and then went to the hardware section.

He saw what he wanted almost immediately, an old-fashioned metal can-opener, one of a bunch hanging on a string from a shelf bracket. Realizing that he would have to turn the meat out of the can on to something, he settled hurriedly for a left-over packet of waxed paper plates with a children's Christmas party design. And then he found the other things he was going to need: a nylon-covered clothes line, and some black plastic dustbin bags.

He paid and drove on, taking the narrow roads that led well away from habitation and into the deepest part of the forest.

On a fine early spring evening there would have been other dog-owners about, leaving their cars parked under the oak and sweet chestnut trees that bordered the roads and walking, by courtesy of the Forestry Commission, along the grassy rides between the pine plantations. But today's heavy rain and the threat of more had evidently been a deterrent. He and Sam had the forest to themselves.

The rides were blocked to cars by larch pole barriers, but Derek backed off the road as far as he could. ‘There you go,' he said, letting the beagle out. Sam doused the roots of the nearest tree, barked vigorously, shook himself, and snuffled about for a few minutes. Then he came running back to the car, stern waving, ears flapping, with an enquiry about supper.

Derek collected his purchases, together with the piece of old sacking that he kept with his tool kit. ‘Come on, then,' he said. ‘You're going to have a picnic'

He walked rapidly through the wet grass, up the dim, silent aisle between two mature larch plantations. The trees were so tall and dense that even on a bright day they would have excluded the light. The air was filled with the pungency of damp resin. Not a bird sang. The atmosphere was so strangely oppressive that even Sam seemed subdued, and trotted silently to heel.

After about a hundred yards, Derek plunged into the outer fringe of trees. The ground, covered with fallen conifer needles, was fairly dry. Squatting on his haunches, he quickly opened the can of Chum at both ends and pushed the meat out on to a waxed plate. The rich gooey smell of the dog food almost turned his stomach, but he forced himself to break it up into bite-sized chunks with the handle of the can opener. Sam looked on, whining softly, eager for his meal but unmistakably puzzled.

‘Go on,' said Derek, pushing the plate towards him. ‘This is what you've been wanting, isn't it? Eat it, you great silly. Make the most of it.'

While the dog scoffed its food, Derek flattened the empty can with his heel. He had always been conscientious about the disposal of picnic litter, but this was one occasion when he didn't propose to take it home. He shoved both can and opener into a convenient hole under the roots of a tree, added the unused party plates, and kicked a covering of pine needles over the lot. Then he unravelled the clothes line. He looped it round the trunk of another tree, and approached the beagle with the spare end in his hand. ‘Good boy,' he said. ‘Good old boy. Let's have you.'