Trust Me, I'm a Vet: The Otter House Vets Series

by Cathy Woodman

  ‘Alex!’ I yell out. ‘Alex!’ I can’t breathe. I can’t see. I can’t see Alex. I dig at the burning rubble. The fire bites back, searing my skin. ‘Alex! Where are you?’ I keep digging, but all I can see in front of me is a throbbing mass of black circles which gradually coalesce. And then nothing . . .

  I come round to the cool of the night air, hunched on a fallen log, breathing through a mask over my face and the sound of running water in my ears.

  ‘Is it raining?’ I mutter.

  ‘It’s the hoses you can hear, love.’ A man holds a silver blanket tight around my shoulders while flashing blue lights strobe through the darkness. Floodlights focus on the smouldering ruins where emergency workers are damping down the fire. Now and then, a fresh surge of flames flickers up from the pyre of Buttercross Cottage.

  ‘Come and lie down in the ambulance for me.’ The man gently removes the mask. ‘I’m Dave. I’m a paramedic. What’s your name?’

  ‘Maz. Maz Harwood.’ I can’t stop shivering.

  ‘It’s all right, Maz. You’ve had a bit of a shock, but you’re going to be OK.’ He holds me tighter. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘I can’t go anywhere until I know what’s happened to Alex. Where is he?’

  ‘You mean the man who was in the house with you? They’ve got him out,’ Dave says.

  ‘He is all right, isn’t he?’ I say, panicking as I watch the lights of an ambulance disappearing off down the lane.

  ‘Let’s concentrate on you, shall we?’ Dave says in a tone which suggests he’s holding something back – to me anyway, in my state of confusion and shock.

  ‘Alex!’ I can hear my voice screaming in my ears, and I’m finding it difficult to breathe, and it’s all Dave can do to restrain me from chasing after the ambulance.

  ‘Hey, that’s better,’ he says when I’ve calmed down a little.

  ‘What about Gloria, the woman who lives here? She’s one of my clients.’

  ‘No news yet. Come on, take it easy now . . .’

  ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’ Dave says, as he leads me across to the back of a waiting ambulance. ‘I remember. It was the baby, the one we delivered at Otter House. You’re the vet.’

  I nod. I’m the vet, I think, with a sense of desperation. If I can’t be of any help to Alex, I should be helping to get the animals to safety.

  ‘Has the fire reached the cattery?’ I ask. ‘It’s the building which backs on to the yard at the back of the house.’

  ‘As far as I know, the fire’s been contained, but it’s nothing for you to worry about.’

  ‘There are at least fifty cats and dogs on the site – I’m the best person to deal with them.’ Coughing, I try to discard the blanket. ‘Patch me up and let me go. Please.’

  Dave tips his head to one side, as if considering. ‘All right, but it’s against my better judgement.’ He insists on bandaging my arms while I call Izzy to bring the visit case, cat carriers, collars and leads and anything else she can lay her hands on.

  ‘I’ll bring Chris too,’ she says, once I’ve explained very briefly the scene at Gloria’s place, and then the phone cuts out and I’m sitting there like an idiot with it pressed to my ear, until Dave extricates it from my grasp and gently stretches out my right arm, so he can bandage it to match my left. As my elbow straightens, a wave of pain shoots up from the ends of my fingers to my brain. It is as if it’s ignited all the nerve endings between. I gasp. I can’t stop myself.

  ‘I really think you’d be better off in hospital,’ Dave says firmly.

  ‘No,’ I snap. ‘I’m fine. Just leave my fingers free, otherwise I’ll be worse than useless. Make it quick, will you?’

  ‘What score – out of ten – would you give me for my dressings, lady vet?’ Dave unwinds the last turn of the self-adherent wrap from the roll and touches it to the layer underneath, making me wince.

  ‘Ten and a half,’ I say, and summoning some superhuman strength, I force the pain to the back of my mind and jump down from the ambulance. ‘Thanks, but I’ve really got to go . . .’ I head out into the darkness, unsure where I’m going, and by chance run straight into Izzy, who’s carrying the visit case and dog-catcher. Chris walks alongside her, a rolled-up stretcher under one arm.

  ‘This is unbelievable. I’ve never seen so many fire engines in one place before,’ Izzy says, wide-eyed. ‘Are you all right, Maz?’ she adds, looking at my bandages.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say.

  ‘What about Gloria? And Alex?’

  ‘Alex is on his way to the hospital – that’s all I know.’ Biting back tears, I force myself to concentrate on my mission to save Gloria’s animals. ‘We have to hurry. This way.’ I grab Izzy’s arm. ‘Did you bring a torch?’

  ‘Everything but a torch and the kitchen sink,’ says Izzy, ‘and I’d have brought that with me, if you’d asked.’

  ‘I’ve got one in the truck,’ Chris says. ‘I’ll get it.’ He hands me the stretcher and jogs away into the night, returning shortly after with a powerful lantern. ‘We’ll have to be quick. If PC Phillips gets wind of this, he’ll pull us back behind his cordon.’

  We cross the paddock, then skirt the hedge until we find a gate. Chris unfastens it and we hasten through.

  ‘You can get to the cattery this way, as far as I remember. I brought a couple of sheep up here for Gloria once to keep the grass down in the paddock. Trouble was, when it was time for me to collect them, she refused to let them go. Couldn’t bear the thought of them going for meat.’ Chris aims the beam of his light at the door alongside us. ‘Is this it?’

  ‘No, the animals are in the next building down, right behind the house, where all the howling’s coming from.’ I don’t like it. I don’t like being so close to the fire. I can taste it, smell it, feel it tearing at my arms . . . Shuddering, I force myself to keep going.

  Chris breaks the lock on the door into the cattery and pushes it open.

  ‘I’ll go first,’ I say. ‘I’ve got a rough idea of which animals live where.’

  We remove all the cages to the paddock, then release the cats, opening the doors to their pens and shooing them out in the hope that they’ll head out for the open fields or hide out in the copse. Finally we take the dogs, collaring all of them but Petra, the white German shepherd, with rope leads.

  Petra won’t come. She sits pressed against the wall at the back of her cage, like a cornered wolf, her eyes dark with fear, her tongue hanging out and her teeth glinting in the shadows. I imagine her heartbeat knocking against her ribs and the adrenaline surging through her blood, like mine. Flight or fight? There’s nowhere to flee . . .

  ‘Petra,’ I call softly as I step inside to join her with Chris behind me, making clicking noises in his throat. Petra growls, then lunges towards us. Chris flies back behind the wire door. I stand my ground.

  ‘We’ll have to leave her,’ Chris says. ‘It isn’t safe.’

  ‘Here.’ Izzy hands me the dog-catcher, and I have a go at slipping the noose over Petra’s nose, but she snaps at the wire, catching it on her teeth.

  ‘Who’s there? Is there anybody there?’ Heavy footsteps come hurrying along the corridor towards us, and two firefighters appear from the gloom. ‘We’re here to clear the building. We’ll show you the way out.’

  ‘Give us a minute,’ I say, making another fruitless attempt to get the noose around Petra’s neck.

  ‘You can have half,’ says one of the firefighters.

  ‘Last chance, Petra,’ I mutter through gritted teeth. I hold out the noose and Chris approaches her from the front like bait to a shark. Just as she makes to spring towards him, I manage to slip the noose right over the back of her head, and pull it tight. She fights back, scrabbling at it with her paws until they bleed, and twisting her body, repeatedly backing off and running forwards, while I cling on for grim death until Chris takes over, dragging her outside where he allows a little give on the noose so as not to choke her. We cross the paddock to where PC Phillips a
nd Stewart Pitt are waiting to help us load the animals into the back of Chris’s truck. I have to admit that I’m relieved when Stewart starts talking to Chris, not me.

  ‘I was getting the cows in for milking when I saw the fire. You can see it for miles, although I’m surprised you noticed it from your place, seeing as you’re on the other side of the hill.’

  ‘Ah,’ says Chris, ‘I wasn’t at my place, but don’t ask me now. It’s a long story.’

  ‘I’ll take the dogs up to the Manor,’ Stewart says.

  ‘You can’t do that,’ I cut in.

  ‘It’s you, the one who let my dog die.’ He swears. ‘I don’t think it’s up to you to tell me what I can or can’t do.’

  ‘We’re taking them back to Otter House.’

  ‘No way.’ Stewart stares at me through narrowed eyes. ‘That’s like condemning them to death.’

  ‘They can’t go up to the Manor. Old Fox-Gifford’s up in London, and Alex . . .’ His name catches in my throat.

  Stewart steps towards me, his face menacingly close to mine. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In an ambulance on the way to hospital. We went inside. I thought there was time to get Gloria out, but the roof fell in, and Alex . . . he saved my life.’ Rubbing my eyes, I watch the last cinders drift and die on the wind. My arms, my lungs, my bones, everything hurts, and I guess from his expression that Stewart is hurting too. He’ll never forgive me now.

  ‘I don’t know what it is about you, but I wish you’d do the right thing and push off back to London,’ he says harshly. ‘I never want to see your face around here again.’

  ‘Steady on, Stew.’ Chris touches his arm and draws him back. I don’t know what he says to him, but they return a couple of minutes later and Stewart closes the tailgate on the dogs, who are now quiet and subdued on finding themselves outside the prison of the sanctuary.

  ‘Stewart’s going to catch the donkeys and take them back to Barton Farm in Alex’s lorry,’ Chris says as he drives away from the scene of the fire, and I notice how Izzy, who sits beside him, rests her head on his shoulder, and I envy her. ‘I’ll go back for the cages.’

  ‘What about the cats?’ Izzy asks. ‘We’ve got lots of carriers and old baskets back at Otter House – we’ll have to go back and see how many we can catch.’

  I don’t like to think about it, but I suspect that many of Gloria’s animals have perished in the fire, Mac and Tosh included. As for Ginge, who knows?

  ‘Can I borrow your mobile, Izzy?’ I ask in a small voice. ‘I seem to have lost mine – probably when I was grappling with Petra – and I have to find out what’s happened to Alex.’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ she says. ‘Let me call directory enquiries and find the number of the hospital. I’ll speak to them – you’re in no fit state.’

  Izzy contacts the hospital, but they won’t give out any information about a patient unless she’s a relative, and it’s too late to claim that she’s Alex’s sister.

  ‘Have you got Alex’s mobile number on there?’ I ask her, praying that not only has he got it with him and left it switched on, but that he’s in a fit state to answer it.

  ‘I think so.’ Izzy hands me the phone. ‘Try searching for “Fox-Gifford”.’

  I call Alex’s mobile. When he answers, my heart jumps, but it’s only his voicemail telling me to leave a message and he’ll get back to me as soon as he can. I try Talyton Manor, but the phone redirects me back to Alex’s mobile. I leave seven messages in all: please, Alex, please, answer your phone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Intensive Care

  What have I done? I don’t believe in God, or angels, but I’m praying like mad anyway.

  By nine o’clock in the morning, the Kennels at Otter House are full – I must be hallucinating. The lights are too bright and the clank of the cage doors too noisy as Izzy, in her scrubs and clogs, bustles about feeding and watering the inpatients, adjusting the drips and changing soiled bedding and litter trays. Petra and Ugli-dog are in the two large dog cages, the other five dogs we brought back with us occupy the remaining dog cages, and there are eleven cats – one in each cat cage, two sharing the space under the stairs, and another in the cage the practice loans out for confining cats at home after major surgery.

  Even Nigel is here, getting his hands dirty for once. He came in at six, hoping to intercept the bailiffs and not knowing that I’d settled the repayments on the car and the X-ray machine using my own account the day before. I should have told him, but unsurprisingly, considering all that’s happened in the past twenty-four hours, it slipped my mind.

  I stay with the sickest of the dogs, a cute little Heinz 57 with a long body, short legs and a curly tail. Izzy’s nicknamed him Raffles. He sits inside a cage which we’ve converted into an oxygen tent with a clear plastic sheet over the front. He’s panting, his big brown eyes wide with fear, as he fights for air. He’s terribly thin, the ridge of his spine is black with flea dirts, and his wavy coat, which is a golden tan, is crawling with lice, but I can’t think of dealing with these problems until his condition stabilises and I can assess the level of damage the smoke has done to his lungs.

  I slip my hand inside the cage and check his colour – his gums are still an ominous blue. It’s such a shame – he’s only a baby, eighteen months old, if that.

  ‘Maz.’ Izzy touches my shoulder. ‘Can you leave Raffles for a mo? I need a hand with a dressing. The silver tabby.’

  ‘OK.’ I force myself to keep going – for the animals’ sake. I perch on a stool at the prep bench and hang on to the cat for her while she applies a non-stick dressing to a superficial but extensive wound across its back, then fastens a clear plastic collar around its neck to stop him licking at it. Izzy sweeps the cat up and returns it to its cage. She fills in the inpatient card on the front – no name, number 7 – then returns to me.

  ‘You’re leaking,’ she observes.

  I’m not sure what she means, since I associate leaking with incontinence.

  ‘Your bandages – I can change them, if you like.’

  ‘I’ll do it.’ I look down at my arms. The feeling is coming back to them, a constant stinging sensation as if someone’s holding them under a jet of boiling water. My fingers, which were only lightly seared, are beginning to throb as they swell, and the bandages are wet through and stained reddish-brown as if they’ve been dunked in the River Taly. ‘Later.’

  ‘Maz, you can’t possibly. Let me do it.’

  I bite my lip as Izzy peels the dressings away, revealing weeping weals and cuts across my forearms that look just as bad as they feel.

  ‘We have to get these checked out at the hospital,’ she says.

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ I grimace. ‘They aren’t infected.’

  ‘You’re the vet.’ Izzy shrugs. I don’t think she believes me. She fetches fresh dressings – blue self-adherent wrap with paw prints on it. ‘We’re going to have to get hold of some more supplies – we’re almost out of Vetrap.’

  ‘I’ll call the wholesaler’s,’ I say. ‘They’ve got the number of my credit card.’

  ‘You know you shouldn’t be here,’ Izzy says.

  ‘I almost wasn’t.’ Memories of the fire creep back into my head, like tiny flames. They grow in intensity and surround me, the heat burning my lungs, the smoke, like a pair of arms, clutching my chest too tight, Alex’s hands on my waist, the panic in his voice. I make to grab a tissue from the box at the end of the bench, but my hands are trembling and I can’t bend my fingers.

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ Izzy says. ‘You should take a break. Let me and Nigel clear up.’

  ‘There’s loads to do.’ I look around at the muddle. There are animals to treat, Raffles needs a chest X-ray . . . ‘I’d rather keep going. It keeps my mind off . . . things . . .’

  ‘I’ll get that.’ Nigel hurries out of Kennels.

  ‘What was that?’ I ask Izzy.

  ‘The bell. Didn’t you hear it?’

  I shak
e my head as Izzy goes on, ‘I think Nigel’s pleased to have an excuse to take his Marigolds off.’ She falls silent at the sound of Nigel’s footsteps trip-trapping back along the corridor.

  ‘This way, ladies,’ I hear him say, and he shows Frances and Fifi Green into Kennels. Proving Izzy wrong, he slips his Marigolds back on and returns to the sink to continue washing up all the empty food and water bowls.

  ‘We’ve heard the news.’ Fifi clutches a Louis Vuitton handbag to her chest, and it suddenly strikes me exactly how insulting it was of her to ask for a discount at Otter House when she’s swanning around in designer gear.

  ‘The most dreadful news,’ echoes Frances. ‘We just had to come.’

  One of Izzy’s eyebrows disappears into her hair.

  ‘How dreadful. Poor Gloria.’ Fifi puts her bag down on the bench in a pool of fluid of questionable origin. Izzy rescues it, shifting it onto a piece of paper towel, yet Fifi scarcely notices.

  ‘I’ve confessed to PC Phillips,’ she goes on. ‘I’m entirely responsible for what’s happened.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I interrupt, but Fifi raises one hand to shut me up and keeps going.

  ‘After you called me, Maz, I went straight over to Gloria’s. I know you said not to, but I was so angry I just had to. I told her a few home truths. Someone had to do it.’ Fifi shakes her head slowly. ‘I didn’t think she’d do anything like this.’

  ‘It was an accident, one of the cats knocking a candle over, or a spark from the fire,’ I say, recalling the log Gloria had burning in the grate.

  ‘My son’s a firefighter,’ Fifi replies. ‘He says there were signs of an accelerant, paraffin, something like that. Gloria kept all kinds of chemicals in the old sheds. Tom, her husband, needed them for the tractor. That’s when the place was looked after, the lawns mown and the fields kept harrowed and tidy.’

  ‘I can’t believe that she’d dream of hurting those animals though. She adored them,’ Izzy says. ‘Have they found her?’