This Way Out (14 page)

Sam, having finished eating, had been about to set off and explore. Still licking his chops, he submitted to having the line fastened to his tartan collar. Expecting to be taken for a walk, he looked up and wagged his rudder.

Derek ignored him. If he took too much notice of the dog he would never be able to go through with his plan. He collected some dead branches and hurriedly constructed a rough shelter, made it more or less watertight with dustbin bags, concealed them with newly green larch fronds, and spread another plastic bag and the piece of sacking on the floor. Then he picked up Sam's empty plate, crushed it, and added it to his rubbish dump.

The sturdy tri-coloured beagle stood watching, a worried look on his domed forehead.

‘You're camping out tonight,' Derek told him. ‘You'll be safe enough here.' Satisfied that he had done the best he could in the circumstances he took a moment to crouch down and make much of the dog, rubbing its broad chest and fondling its flop-ears. ‘Now, you be a good boy, and Dad'll come and fetch you tomorrow. All right?'

He produced from his pocket the last of his purchases, a bone-shaped chewing bar, and pushed it into the dog's mouth. ‘That's a good boy. Now, stay! Stay.'

He stood, one admonishing finger upraised. But it seemed that he had communicated anxiety rather than reassurance, because the dog had begun to shiver. Sam remained obediently where he was, but his jaws opened in dismay and the chew fell to the ground. He began to whine, and then to bark.

Derek turned away. Slipping on the wet grass, he ran towards his car.

What else could he do but leave the dog? What alternative was there? Sam was safely tied, that was the important thing. If the old fool insisted on barking, well, he'd simply have to bark himself into exhaustion. At least there was no one to hear.

But as soon as Derek reached the point where he was out of sight of the dog, the barking stopped. Thankfully, he slowed. There was a brief pause. The silence of the forest closed about him.

And then another noise began, one so unfamiliar that he couldn't at first believe that it was issuing from his own domestic pet. It was penetratingly loud, both mournful and alarming: not an ordinary dog's howl, but the deep baying cry of a hunting hound in distress. Hearing it, feeling it almost, as though cold fingers were saxophoning low on his spine, Derek was suddenly afraid.

Idiot! Of course he couldn't leave the beagle tied up in the forest. There was no one about this evening, but tomorrow morning – Sunday – there would be people walking their dogs, whatever the weather. If Sam went on kicking up a row like that, someone would be sure to find him:
complete with his tartan collar on which was a brass tag engraved with the name Cartwright and their telephone number
.

And if anyone were to report his tied-up dog, what would the police make of that? Particularly on the day after his mother-in-law, left alone in the house, was found suffocated …

Thankful that he had realized his near-blunder Derek ran back the way he had come, following the sound of the baying. Sam stood rigid under the trees, straining the clothes line to its furthest extent; head thrown back, eyes rolled up and showing their whites, he was voicing his desolation with such intensity that he wasn't at first aware that Derek had returned for him.

‘All right –
all right
, you stupid old mutt …' Derek crouched to comfort the dog, keeping his balance with difficulty as it launched itself ecstatically at him. ‘Of course I won't leave you tied up – here, let's get rid of that bad old line.'

He released the line, looped it up quickly and slung it out of the way on the broken lower branch of a larch tree. Sam, still shivering, pressed close against his legs. Derek bent to pat the dog, at the same time unfastening the tartan collar and pushing it into his pocket. ‘Where's your chew?' he said. ‘Good boy – let's see if we can find your chew.'

He searched for and found the bone-shaped comforter, and teased the dog with it as they hurried together towards the car. Sam, his terror forgotten in the joy of going home, leaped eagerly for the chew.

‘Here then, fetch it!' said Derek, throwing it back towards the trees. And as the dog went chasing off he sprinted the final ten yards, wrenched open the car door, slammed it behind him, started the engine and tried to roar away.

The car shot forward a couple of yards on the rough ground, and then jolted as the front offside wheel hit an obstruction. The engine stalled.

Derek swore. He was aware that the beagle had followed and was running anxiously round the car, asking to be let in. Concentrating on restarting the engine, he ignored the imploring barks, the frantic leaps, the scrabbling claws against his door and window. He opened the throttle wide, felt the rear of the car skid sideways on the wet grass, then bumped it off the verge and began to gather speed on the deserted forest road.

He prayed that Sam hadn't been hit by the skid, but he couldn't bring himself to stop and find out. When he heard the barks that told him that the dog was racing alongside, he was at first almost relieved; but then Sam's persistence began to torment him. ‘Get off the road!' he shouted, as though the beagle could hear. ‘Stay where you are! I'll come for you tomorrow –'

He changed up and accelerated away. No longer able to hear the barking he exhaled with relief, until he looked in his mirror and saw behind him the long straight road, and the little dog still running.

The news that Sam was lost affected Christine more strongly than Derek had bargained for. She wasn't merely upset, she was distraught.

He had tried to prepare her by telephoning from a call-box, but his necessary assurances that he was still looking for the dog had given her too much hope. When he finally returned to the Brickyard, after dark, she came hurrying out to the car port, splashing through the puddles that had been left on the gravel by the afternoon's downpour.

‘Have you –?'

‘Sorry. My love, I'm sorry.'

She gave a cry of distress, half-stifling it with her fingers. Derek tried to put his arms round her but she pushed him distractedly away, grieving over Laurie's pet as though her husband's loss of the dog was a betrayal of her dead child.

Eventually Derek managed to lead her back to the house, saying what he could to comfort both her and himself. He had no need to simulate anxiety, because he felt it; he couldn't rid his memory of the frantic scrabbling of the beagle's claws against the car, of its imploring eyes.

At least Sam would take no harm in the open at this time of year, he argued aloud, secretly thankful that he'd given the dog a meal. First thing tomorrow, he said – swallowing hard as another image, that of Enid who would by then be lying suffocated in her bed, intervened – he'd go out looking for Sam. And find him, he was sure.

‘But I simply don't understand what you took him out
for
.' They had entered the lighted hall and Christine turned on Derek, her eyes angry, strands of dark hair escaping wildly from her French pleat. ‘You hardly ever take Sam for a walk. What on earth possessed you to go as far as the forest on a pouring wet afternoon?'

‘It wasn't raining when we set out,' said Derek, wearily reasonable. ‘I'd enjoyed our walk the other afternoon, and I wanted to do it more often, that's all.'

‘But why the forest?'

‘Because I'd been thinking of Laurie, and the walks we used to have with her.'

‘Not in weather like this! We never went to the forest on wet days. I simply can't understand … Where did you go, anyway? Whereabouts did you lose him?'

‘At our old picnic place, by the sweet chestnut trees in Two Mile Bottom.'

‘Was there anyone else about?'

‘Not that I saw.'

‘I'm not surprised, in all that rain! Oh Derek, how could you? How
could
you?'

‘But I didn't
mean
to lose the dog,' he protested. ‘Anyone would think from the way you're going on that I set out with that intention! I'm every bit as cut up about it as you are.'

Christine's anger began to subside. She sighed, and touched his hand. ‘Yes, I know …'

Glimpsing herself in the looking glass on the massive Edwardian hallstand, she raised her arms to tidy her hair. As she did so, her one breast lifted independently of the prosthesis on the other side. She set her chin determinedly: ‘Well, I won't give up hope. I haven't given it up for myself, and I'm not going to give it up for Sam. I'll come out to Two Mile Bottom with you, first thing tomorrow morning, and between us we're sure to find him.'

‘Yes … only –'

For a moment Derek floundered. He hadn't bargained on Christine wanting to go with him. Guilt over what he had done to Sam made him desperately anxious to find the dog as soon as possible, but the place where he'd abandoned him was nowhere near Two Mile Bottom. He tried to think of some way of deterring her.

But then he remembered what was going to happen between now and first thing tomorrow morning. With her mother lying murdered upstairs, Christine would hardly want to go out looking for the dog.

‘I'm going to call the police,' she said suddenly.

‘What?'

He began to panic, thinking that he must have spoken his thoughts aloud.

‘To report that Sam's lost. That's what we ought to do, isn't it?'

‘Well, yes. But there's no point in doing it now, is there?' The last thing he wanted was for the attention of the police to be drawn to his household before the murder took place. ‘No one's going to find him tonight, are they?'

‘They might. Someone might drive past the picnic place, see him by the roadside and be kind enough to pick him up.'

Christine hurried towards the alcove where they kept the telephone. Then she stopped with it in her hand, her face clearing. ‘But if they do, then of course they'll see our number on his collar and ring us so that we can collect him. He is wearing his collar, isn't he?'

‘Yes,' said Derek, taking the receiver from her and replacing it. Exactly the same possibility had occurred to him, which was why he'd removed Sam's tartan collar before abandoning the dog. It was now in his car, hidden under some road maps in the pocket beside the driver's seat. ‘Yes, of course he's wearing his collar. He'll be found, my love, don't worry.'

He held out both hands, and Christine went to him. He wanted to take her in his arms, but now that she was more relaxed he was afraid of communicating his own increasing tension to her. Bending forward to kiss her forehead he asked, ‘Did you have a good day at Southwold?'

Christine glanced up the stairs. Although her mother didn't appear to be loitering at the top, she took the precaution of drawing Derek into the living-room and closing the door.

‘It didn't go as well as I'd hoped,' she said despairingly. ‘Mum was obviously glad to see her friends, and I began to think she might be prepared to go back to Southwold to live. But after she'd had two large gins at lunch-time she refused even to look at her own flat. I drove her there but she got quite stroppy with me when I tried to persuade her to go in. She wouldn't speak to me on the way home. I'm so sorry, Dee – I did my best to get rid of her, but she's not going to leave us voluntarily and I'm too frightened of the consequences to force the issue. I'm afraid we're stuck with her.'

‘Does she intend to come downstairs this evening?' Derek heard himself ask. He prayed that she wouldn't. If he had to see and make conversation with Enid – particularly if she was as civil to him as usual – he doubted that he would be able to go through with the operation.

‘No, she's taken her supper up to bed, thank goodness. I don't think we could have stood much more of each other's company. Oh well –' Christine visibly pulled herself together. ‘Talking of supper, you must be hungry. I'll make something for you.'

‘No!' Derek had begun to breathe quickly; his mind on what was to come, he jerked out the word. ‘No thanks. I'll forage for myself later on. All I want now is to get out of these damp clothes.'

For the first time that evening, his wife looked him over. ‘You must have been soaked,' she observed.

‘Are you surprised? I've spent hours searching for Sam in the rain.'

Christine's eyes darkened again. Her anguish renewed, she shook her head in bewilderment. ‘But that's another thing I don't understand. All right, you wanted to take Sam back to our old picnic place. I'll accept that, even though I can't imagine why you did it in the rain. But why didn't you change before you took him out? Why in heaven's name did you take Sam for a walk in the forest on a wet day in your
office
clothes?'

Derek looked down at himself, and saw that he was still wearing his grey suit with the chalk stripe. The cloth was dark with moisture; there was green-stained mud on both knees, on his thin black shoes and on the cuffs of his pale blue shirt.

Wet, weary, guilty, ashamed, afraid, he was incapable of offering

a credible excuse.
‘I forgot,' he said.

As he passed the door of his mother-in-law's bedroom, on his way to the bath, he could hear maniacal bursts of television-comedy laughter. He looked at his watch: eight-fifteen. Packer wanted him and Christine to be out of the house between ten forty-five and eleven-thirty, but what Derek had planned was likely to take them away for a good deal longer than that.

He couldn't be sure, though, for just how long. He was afraid of what he was going to have to do, and he was desperate to get it over and done with, but he daren't risk doing it too early. Nine-thirty would probably be about right … An hour and a quarter to go.

He ran a hot bath in the hope that it would relax him, but he was so tense that he couldn't stay in the water long enough for it to do him any good. He needed a shave, but his shaking hands made it so difficult to fit the blade into the razor that he abandoned the idea. He wanted a drink, but the whisky was in the living-room and he couldn't face Christine again so soon.