by Gwen Moffat
‘Then you need me to run the house and see to your meals. I’ll be here to answer the phone too.’
‘Very well. If you like.’
At eleven o’clock – coffee time – Evans came in, and there was fluster and indecision as everyone wondered where Judson was. He came home half an hour later, his step jaunty, his eyes gleaming.
‘Any sign?’ he asked as he entered the kitchen.
No, Evans told him, no one had seen the dog.
‘That’s a valuable animal,’ Judson said. ‘I’ll report it to the police.’
‘No one would steal him!’ Evans was horrified.
‘No one could steal him. What d’you think, Evans? Has he gone right out of the valley, over the mountain, after a bitch?’
‘Hughes Cae Gwyn’s bitch were on heat, but Hughes never saw our dog. But someone were shooting yesterday afternoon.’
‘With a dog, d’you mean? A bitch?’ Judson spooned sugar into his coffee.
‘No, sir. I did not mean that.’
‘Huh? What are you getting at, man? Speak up.’
Evans glanced at the women, puzzled. Gladys looked resigned but Ellen was tense as a pointer.
‘You may remember, sir,’ he said heavily, ‘that threats has been uttered.’
Judson blinked and the sparkle left his eyes. He looked annoyed and ugly. ‘Threats,’ he repeated. ‘He’d never dare. None of ’em would.’
‘The dog’s not come back,’ Evans said, greatly daring himself. They watched him, waiting for an explosion, but he exhaled slowly and his face cleared.
‘You’re paranoid, Evans. The dog’s after a bitch. But it won’t hurt – no, it won’t hurt ... Go up and lean on Lloyd a bit, and if you see those two lads, Banks and Owen, a few threats of your own wouldn’t come amiss.’
‘It’d come better from you, sir. They respect you.’
Judson nodded carelessly. ‘I’ll threaten ’em all right: after the weekend, on Monday. I have to go to Liverpool now on business. I’ll be back. I’ll leave it in your hands, for the moment. You know what to do if there’s trouble. Bring the police in.’ He was grinning happily, exuding good humour.
‘Very well, sir.’ Evans rose, removing his beret from where he’d tucked it under his epaulette. ‘I’ll go up there now and do a bit of leaning.’
The woodlands were scored by paths. He took one that ran from the back of his cottage, zig-zagging steeply to Lloyd’s access track. As he emerged from the trees he saw that the man wasn’t alone and for one moment he thought he’d caught the boys here as well. Was there anything in those suspicions of the boss’s? Could Lloyd be one of them? But the second figure moved and he saw the outline of her breasts. He would have liked to pause, to work out how to deal with this unexpected development, but he was afraid they’d catch him hesitating, so he hunched his shoulders, his arms hanging loosely ready for any sudden move, and continued.
They became aware of him at the same time, turning to contemplate his arrival without interest, as if he were a bullock that had strayed up the track. They left the first words to him.
‘Mrs Judson were here yesterday,’ he said, without expression. Lloyd was suddenly furious. ‘Haven’t you found that bloody dog yet?’
‘I understand that you told her you hadn’t seen it.’
‘If I’d seen it I’d have shot it, if I’d had a gun with me.’
‘But you didn’t,’ Seale said.
‘A pity,’ Lloyd spat out. ‘I hope someone else has by now.’
‘Perhaps we could examine your weapon,’ Evans said silkily and stared as Seale crowed with delight.
‘You know what you can do,’ Lloyd growled.
Seale stepped inside the cottage and emerged carrying a shotgun. Lloyd opened his mouth, glanced at her face and said nothing. Evans took the gun suspiciously. He, too, was watching her face. She was amused. He broke the gun, squinted down the barrels, sniffed the breech.
‘You’d have cleaned it since, of course.’
Lloyd said nothing. Seale was grinning broadly.
‘Where were you yesterday afternoon, Lloyd?’
‘Oh no!’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘You’ve been watching so much telly you’ve got square eyes.’ His face hardened. ‘Did he send you here? I don’t believe it. Why wouldn’t he come himself?’
‘Mr Judson,’ Evans said with dignity, ‘has business to attend to in Liverpool.’ Seale turned interested eyes on him. ‘He intimated that it was likely you knew more than had been divulged so far at this point in time.’
Lloyd grimaced in disgust.
‘So he said: “Go and lean on them”,’ Seale observed.
‘He didn’t mean you,’ Evans said quickly, and handed her the shotgun. ‘Although this isn’t the first time you handled firearms, is it?’
‘No.’ She studied him. ‘What are you going to make of that? Usually it’s rifles,’ she added when he didn’t reply. ‘“Lean on them"? Who’s “them”?’
‘The local hooligans.’
‘Good for you.’ She turned and went into the cottage.
‘Right,’ Lloyd said. ‘Let’s see your dust. We’re leaving and I don’t want you skulking around this place while I’m away.’
‘It’s our place,’ Evans pointed out with a thin smile.
‘That’s immaterial. It’s my possessions inside. That’s why I don’t want you hanging around.’
Seale looked out. ‘And that goes for my tent too. Just remember I’m under your master’s protection.’
Evans stood for a moment, sucking his teeth, then he walked away. I’ll get him, he thought, I’ll get him if it’s the last thing I do – and that dirty little whore with him.
‘I had heard rumours,’ Ted Roberts said, filling Miss Pink’s glass from the decanter. ‘But you know how people gossip, and one must admit that in these times, when a man has stuff worth stealing in his house, and he owns guard dogs, he’s not averse to spreading the story himself that they’re savage. Where’s the deterrent in a dog without teeth?’
‘There is that.’
They had met at a hotel on a lake below a stony pass. Thirty miles from the Bridge Hotel, Miss Pink had confessed to a sense of outrage as she explained why she was afraid to take a walk in the area she had chosen for a week’s holiday. Ted Roberts, retired solicitor, old friend and climbing partner, had listened with sympathy but not without objectivity.
‘What are the rumours you’ve heard?’ she asked.
His foxy face sharpened further as he hitched his chair closer and, their backs turned to the distant bar, they gazed through the open window to the boulder fields beyond the water. But neither was interested in the view.
‘Not only dogs,’ he said. ‘Women.’
She was disappointed. ‘That’s obvious. I’ve been there only two days and he’s chasing a new arrival while a lady who is either his last conquest or feels that she should have been, is beside herself with bad temper. His wife is Resignation on a monument.’
‘It was Patience on the monument.’
‘If Gladys Judson has anything to wait for, it will be useless to her by the time she gets it.’
‘Meaning Judson?’
‘Blood pressure if ever I saw it. Drinking heavily, riding hard, violent quarrels, frenetic sex.’
‘You shock me. How do you know that?’
‘He doesn’t choose placid women, with the exception of his wife. Anna Waring – you know her?’
‘That’s ancient gossip.’
‘Evidently that was what you were about to tell me. She’s violent, but the new girl, the one he’s chasing, is too much for him altogether: vital, confident, strong and, I would say, totally amoral.’
‘Really?’ He regarded her with interest. She told him about the slide show, about Seale’s gypsy life-style. ‘In that valley she appears exotic,’ she murmured, ‘and yet she gives you the impression that she feels herself quite at home. As I said: confident. Of course she’s too young to have any qualms about alienation.�
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‘Innocent.’
‘Innocent? Well, yes, but it’s an animal innocence, not human. I think Maggie Seale is able to take care of herself. I’ve seen men of Judson’s stamp make a dead set at young women and I’ve known that ghastly dilemma: whether to issue a warning or hold my peace. With Seale I don’t feel that. I’ve been in her company only for short periods but when men show up I’ve found myself standing back and watching as if I were a spectator – uninvolved.’
‘This sounds like trouble for Anna Waring.’
‘It is. Significant that you don’t say trouble for Gladys Judson. Poor woman.’ Miss Pink sipped her sherry, thinking of all those down-trodden, second-class citizens of whom she and Maggie Seale had no part. She eyed the decanter with approval. How pleasant to find a civilised hotel again. A few places will still leave the bottle on the table but how many take the trouble to decant?’ She sighed for a vanished era. ‘And public quarrels ... although they didn’t realise I was there. Violent scenes are fascinating. So difficult to retreat. One experiences no emotion at the time, apart from trepidation, but every movement, every nuance of expression can be recalled. Not that there were nuances; it was raw, naked aggression.’
‘Melinda, you have had three sherries; your mind is playing leap-frog.’
The machinery checked, rolled back to an intersection and set off again on the right track. Without umbrage she continued: ‘I was in my room after breakfast trying to decide what to do. The fact that I couldn’t walk – safely – made me ridiculously angry. I wondered if the police had been told that the dog was loose and I went downstairs to ask Waring. The big river room was dim but the lights were on behind the bar and they didn’t see or hear me. I came in the door and Anna had just turned to Waring and she said, so coldly that at first I didn’t realise it was a quarrel: “It was decided weeks ago.” Waring said: “Yeah?” and it was the contempt in that one word that warned me. I hesitated, and then Anna lost control. She was going away with “him” that day; it was all arranged, Waring could divorce her, she’d had enough. ... By this time, of course, I was retreating –’
‘Not very fast, I’ll be bound.’
She ignored him. ‘It was hackneyed. One’s heard it over and over again in old films ... I’ve written the kind of thing myself, but not for a long time – but it sounds the height of melodrama when you hear it in reality for the first time, and said with obvious sincerity. She may not have been speaking the truth but she was certainly sincere. As I went up the stairs I heard the sound of a slap and the tirade stopped. Cut off. I’m afraid my sympathy is largely with Waring. He’s a good inn-keeper.’
‘Did she leave the pub?’
‘I don’t know. The scene made up my mind for me. I drove away and rang you from the public telephone box. Now what are we going to do about this wretched dog? Obviously, the situation can’t be left as it is.’
‘What proof is there that it’s vicious?’
‘The story is that it’s been trained to kill. Judson’s man insists on that. Gladys Judson is extremely concerned when the animal breaks out –’ she became agitated, ‘– and it will be ravenous by now, Ted; it must be killing sheep. Something has to be done.’
‘That’s how they could locate it: by the sheep it’s killing. I’ll have a quiet word with the chief constable; I can’t speak to anyone else when the dog’s owned by a magistrate. Should you ring the Judsons first and ask if the animal’s been found?’
She hesitated. ‘Would Judson tell me the truth?’
‘If he says they have got it back, try to get that confirmed by someone else: Waring or the postmistress. But try Judson first. We don’t want to alert the police unnecessarily. For my money they’re going to go up in smoke. Alsatian guard dogs on the loose! What’s the Press going to say?’
There was no reply from Parc. Miss Pink rang the Bridge and Waring came to the telephone. To his knowledge the dog had not been found. He sounded harassed. She returned to Roberts who took her place at the telephone. When he came back he told her that Judson had reported the animal missing and that now the police were worried, not least because Ted – a former coroner – was putting his oar in. A news flash would be transmitted as soon as possible, and farmers would be told to report any sheep that appeared to have been savaged by a dog within the last twenty-four hours.
‘I can’t see the Welsh farmers trotting up the hill to gather their sheep,’ Miss Pink said. ‘And unless they are gathered how can you tell whether any are missing?’
‘They can go round their valley sheep. If the dog’s on the mountain there’s less danger from him.’
‘What about the danger to hikers and climbers?’
‘Once a dog’s started killing, he’s an outlaw and he’ll shun people.’
She stared at him and he looked uncomfortable.
‘You’re talking about sheep dogs,’ she pointed out. ‘Have you ever had experience of an Alsatian gone wild? And what about the sheep and lambs?’
‘It’s the best they can do, Melinda. What would you suggest?’
‘A regiment with rifles,’ she said grimly.
‘They’re considering it.’
‘What!’
‘Oh yes. The police really are alarmed. Judson reported it only as a valuable animal that had gone missing. However, most police dog handlers know the history of guard dogs in their area and someone got onto the kennels where Judson’s dogs were bred. His animals are savage all right: trained to be, and awkward bastards at that; at least, this black one is. It will be shot on sight. Name’s Satan, by the way. You knew that? Not its kennel name, of course. That’s Black Diamond of Something or other.’
‘Judson is going to create hell.’
‘That won’t do his blood pressure any good. Well, we’ve done all we can. Shall we go in to lunch?’
At four o’clock Ellen Evans answered the telephone yet again and told the caller to wait because she could hear a car in the yard.
Gladys looked exhausted as she walked across the cobbles. Ellen told her she was wanted on the phone and searched her face avidly, like a person contemplating an exciting meal.
‘Who is it?’ Gladys asked, without interest.
‘A lady. Long distance. The police have been calling all afternoon –’
‘What for?’
‘About the dog –’
‘What’s it done, Ellen? Tell me.’ She was distraught, almost hysterical. Ellen stared.
‘Nothing. They haven’t found it.’
‘Then what –’ Gladys drooped, looked at a chair, then remembered the telephone. ‘Never mind. Put the kettle on.’
She plodded into the hall. The phone stood on a window sill beside the front door.
‘Hello?’ She spoke in her normal telephone voice but as she spoke she was sinking into a chair. She stretched her legs and eased off her shoes.
‘Mrs Judson?’
‘Yes. Who is this?’
‘Anna Waring.’
‘Oh.’ She sat up, her eyes going to the back of the hall. There was no sound from the kitchen. ‘Yes?’ It was polite, neutral.
‘I want to speak to Richard.’ Anna sounded as if she’d been drinking.
‘He’s not available.’
‘Where is he?’
‘I couldn’t say. Would you care to leave a message?’ Gladys picked up a pencil.
‘Ask him to call this number as soon as he comes in, will you?’ Anna dictated a number. Gladys wrote it down carefully. ‘You’ll do that?’ There was a trace of anxiety behind the slurred consonants.
‘Of course.’
There was a click and the dialling tone came on the line. Gladys replaced the receiver, looked at the number, tore the sheet from the scratch pad and, folding it in half, put it in the pocket of her skirt.
‘Now, Ellen,’ she said brightly, returning to the kitchen, ‘let’s have a cup of tea and you can tell me all about those police calls.’
‘They’re threatening to shoot ’im, m
um,’ Ellen’s eyes were round behind her spectacles. She’d recognised that voice on the phone – but the dog came first: ‘They’re putting it out on the News,’ she added.
‘Putting what out?’
‘Why, that we all got to be on our guard, and to watch for savaged sheep. Evans was here. They was talking to him on the phone.’
Gladys said: ‘Go and get the brandy. We’ll have a drop in our tea.’
Ellen rushed to the dining room. Brandy! At four o’clock in the afternoon! What next? Really, what ever would happen next? Behind her, Gladys stared at the scrubbed wooden table, fingering the piece of paper in her pocket. A Chester number, she was thinking. Chester?
Chapter 5
‘I COULD KILL Judson,’ Waring said.
He looked out of place, idling about the kitchen in the evening.
‘Careful, George.’ Lucy’s tone was arch but there was a warning in her eyes as she indicated the Indian pantry boy at the sink.
Waring blinked at her then nodded and changed tack.
‘It’s that bloody dog. There’s not a customer in the bar, not one. Even the visitors have heard by now. If anyone comes in tonight he’ll have been travelling since before six o’clock and he won’t have a radio in his car.’
‘The dog will be found soon enough –’
The bar bell rang.
‘How much d’you bet they haven’t got a radio, that they’ve been travelling –’ He trailed off as he returned to the river room.
It was the police: the occupants of a patrol car. They wouldn’t have a drink.
‘You armed?’ Waring asked hopefully.
‘We are not,’ the sergeant told him. ‘You’re twisting the knife, Mr Waring.’
They exchanged meaning looks. Miss Pink came in from the dining room, surveyed the visitors and wished them a good evening.
‘No sightings?’ she ventured, and would have been surprised if they’d said yes. ‘Are you armed?’ she asked.
When they’d gone Waring said: ‘You can be sure they won’t leave the patrol car tonight except when they’re parked a few steps from a building. They’re only showing the flag. It’s a waste of the taxpayer’s money. That dog’s keeping out of the way.’
