Dovetail

by Bernard Pearson

  He did, of course, but he was buggered if he was going to admit it.

  ‘Go on,’ said Skates.

  Bill felt he was digging himself a hole, but he didn’t know what sort or how deep, so he carried on.

  ‘The actual body, the carcase of the ruined chair, that alone would take weeks. It’s not just the making, it’s finding wood to match the original parts.’

  Not entirely bullshit, thought Bill, and he went on, conciliatory now as if he really would have liked the job but was baulked by ill health and lack of wherewithal.

  ‘As to making a new chair, that is a real can of worms. Starting from scratch, again you’d need the right wood; not just English oak but the right part of the oak. I suspect the two good chairs you have were made from one tree and that presents a real problem in sourcing the timber because you would have to find a bit of old oak that had all the right characteristics. And, between sourcing the right timber and getting the carving done, it would be nigh on impossible to keep this job secret.’

  ‘Is that all?’ asked Skates, as impassive as ever. Bill found his lack of reaction unnerving.

  ‘Staining and polishing would be a tough job. To get all four chairs to look right together you’d have to be lucky to get the right finish on the repaired and the new ones; otherwise you’d have to take the whole lot down to basics and start over from there.’

  That was true, though Bill had a talent for finishing that was almost magical, so it wasn’t actually all that likely.

  ‘But if all these problems could be dealt with, the job could be done, yes?’ asked Skates.

  ‘They could,’ said Bill, ‘but not by me.’

  ‘I understand about the carving,’ said Skates. ‘Who do you know who could do it?’

  Bill sat back. He needed time to think this one out, and no better implement existed to assist procrastination than the common tobacco pipe. The filling, lighting, and tamping of tobacco can stretch the very fabric of time itself, not even counting the ritual that preceded this; the patting of the pockets in the search for the tobacco pouch, the gentle reaming of the pipe. Bill was a past master at these things and he used the time to rifle through his memory for some poor sod to stand next in line when he had dropped out. But there really was only one person who had the skill to do this job.

  ‘Eric Howler comes to mind. He’s a hell of a good carver and once spent time with the National Trust tickling up some bits of Grinling Gibbons and the like. Another thing in his favour is he did a lot of work in Hampton Court a few years ago, so he knows his Tudor.’

  What Bill failed to mention was that Eric Howler was known in the trade as ‘The Howler Monkey’ because he had a tendency to get very drunk and tell everything he knew to anyone who would listen. Oh, and while he had indeed done some work at Hampton Court, he was also well known at the county court for various unsavoury reasons. Yes, Eric would do nicely, and Bill felt only the smallest qualm as he named him. But Skates’s next words showed Bill that even that qualm had been wasted.

  ‘I will pay you £20,000 for this job. Cash. Half now and the rest when it’s finished. You can use whoever you like to do the bits you can’t, but if even a rumour about this job gets out, then whoever has shot his mouth off will be in a world of pain.’

  Bill opened his mouth to object, but Skates spoke over him. ‘Bill, I have chosen you because you’re the best. I have chosen you because I want this job done in a reasonable amount of time and with great discretion. I have also chosen you because I know –’ and here he leaned forward until his face was just inches away from Bill’s, ‘– just what levers to pull. I have met your family. I know what they look like, where they live, and what car they drive.’

  Then he leaned back and calmly lit a cigarette.

  Bill felt sick and dazed, but managed to ask, ‘What if I have to go into hospital or become too ill to work?’

  Skates replied, ‘If you don’t take this on you will indeed go into hospital, and you might just be joined there by that lovely grandson of yours. Understand this: you will do this work for me, it will be done to your usual degree of excellence, and you will get paid handsomely for doing it. When the job is done and I am happy with the results, then you can be as ill as you like.’

  Bill got up and walked out into the yard, his mind boiling with a rage the like of which he had never felt before. He looked about him, at his place, his workshop, his home. That this man should threaten him was bad enough, but this arsehole, this fucking animal dared to threaten his family! It was too much.

  As Skates followed him out of the workshop, Bill turned and flew at him, landing a blow that surprised the man more than it injured him. Bill was no fool and he knew Warren was close by, but he didn’t care; he just wanted to hurt this bastard as much as he could before he was dropped. He would even welcome a beating if it put paid to any chance of him having to work for Skates.

  Bill never landed a second punch, however; he was thrown onto the ground like so much laundry and Skates stood over him, wiping blood from his mouth where Bill’s punch had caught him. ‘Well, Bill,’ he mocked, ‘life in the old dog yet, eh?’

  Bill lay flat on his back in the yard, the breath knocked out of him. Bess, confused and concerned, ran to his side.

  Skates extended a hand to Bill. ‘Get up,’ he said.

  Bill was too winded not to use it, so he did. Immediately Bill had regained his feet, Skates turned the hand hold into an arm lock that forced him to his knees.

  ‘You need to be taught a lesson, Bill.’

  Then, without releasing his grip, he turned to Warren and raised his voice. ‘What was it I said, Mr Warren? ‘Life in the old dog yet?’ Well, perhaps there is and perhaps there won’t be, eh?’

  Warren said nothing, but bent down, took hold of Bess by the back of her leather collar, and pulled her up by it. Her legs thrashed the air as she struggled to get away, gasping and choking like a condemned man on a gibbet.

  Bill, held in the vice-like grip of Skates, was unable to do anything to help her. He prayed to God they would let her go, do anything they liked to him, but not his dog, not dear old Bess, none of this was her fault.

  As Bess continued to writhe, Warren’s other hand went to his pocket and, over the sound of Bess’s suffering, Bill heard a metallic click. The blade of a flick knife caught the light from the workshop door.

  Warren looked at Skates, who nodded, then with one swift motion, he cut Bess’s throat.

  Blood, almost black in the gloom of the early evening, gushed over the yard and spread in tendrils along the cracked cement. So much blood. Bess’s struggles grew weaker and then ceased. She sagged in Warren’s hand and he let her drop to the ground. She made no sound, just shivered once as if she was cold, and then was still.

  Skates let Bill go and then he, too, dropped to the ground. Skates bent over, shoved a large envelope into one of Bill’s coat pockets, and patted him on the shoulder. Then he stood up and walked to his vehicle, all without saying a word.

  Warren looked down at Bill with a sneer, gave Bess’s body a kick, then walked over to the car, held the door open for Skates, got in, and drove away.

  Bill crawled over to Bess and cradled her in his arms. For what seemed like hours he just held her and said ‘I’m sorry, girl’ over and over. At last he got to his feet, went into the kitchen, and came back out with Bess’s blanket. He spread it over her, then went and found a shovel.

  Night gave way to dawn as Bill slowly dug a hole under the cherry tree in his private little garden, his progress impeded by frequent bouts of coughing. Finally, he wrapped Bess in her blanket and placed her with all the love in his heart at the bottom of the grave. He stood there when the job was done, feeling wretched and broken.

  ‘The only time you buy love is when you buy a dog,’ the gypsy had said.

  And when you bury one, you bury part of yourself.

  ~~~

  Later that morning, Bill packed up all of Bess’s things: her beds, her blankets,
her bowls. The sight of each newly emptied space cut into his heart as if he were somehow betraying her memory, but he had to keep busy, he couldn’t let himself just sit and brood. If he was going to deal with Skates and Warren, he needed to look outward, not fold in on himself like a crumpled wreck.

  Bill knew he would have to do Skates’s bloody job now one way or another, but inside he seethed with hatred. He remembered Harry Pexton saying, ‘It’s no use getting old if you don’t get artful.’

  Well, he was old and he was ill, but he was cunning and he would sort these bastards out and to hell with the consequences.

  While he was packing up Bess’s things, his phone rang, but he didn’t answer it. He wanted to speak to no one; words would be too hard to find. The ringing went on and on.

  Finally, too emotionally and physically exhausted to do any more, and dreading having to go back outside and clean the place where Bess had been slaughtered, Bill sat down at his kitchen table. He had not eaten all day. The loneliness and desolation that engulfed him seemed at odds with the intense light of the midday sun that streamed in through the open door. The sunlight so conflicted with his feelings that he cursed it as it flowed into the room.

  The only thing of Bess’s he had not yet boxed up was her leather lead. This he held in his hands, not wanting to part with it, but not wanting to see it in its old place over the back of his chair, either. The plaited leather was worn and the clasp at the end broken, but holding it brought her back to him.

  Suddenly, he heard a vehicle drive into the yard. If it was them again, by gods, he would do for them, he really would! All his tools were in his workshop, but he had a sharp carving knife in the rack by the sink. He took it out, wiped the tears from his eyes, and, carrying the knife close to his jacket so it couldn’t be seen, turned to go outside and face whatever was there.

  Into the square of light that was the doorway stepped what looked to Bill’s tired eyes like a golden shadow. It said, ‘Bill, I tried to phone. It’s taken me ages to find you.’

  As the shadow moved into the room, it resolved into Lucy. Lucy, standing there looking at him with his eyes all red from crying. The knife clattered to the stone floor and he stood like a puppet with all its strings cut, head bowed, shoulders hunched, motionless. Lucy ran to him and put her arms around him.

  Bill was so overcome by her totally unexpected arrival and the warmth of her embrace that all he could say was, ‘My Bess. My old dog Bess. They killed her. The bastards killed her!’

  And then he broke down.

  Chapter 13

  SUNDAY, 2 SEPTEMBER

  Lucy took over. She found what she needed to make a pot of tea, she found the knife on the floor, she found Bill’s whisky, and she found her heart going out to this man who was being brutalised by the same bastard who had caused her so much pain.

  When Bill was seated at the kitchen table with a cup of tea in his hands and a large dose of whisky close by, she pulled out a chair and sat next to him without saying anything, just being there. She looked around the room; it told her a lot about Bill. The house wasn’t very tidy, but it was definitely a home. The person who lived here was solitary and self-contained, but not lonely. And yet somehow she didn’t feel like an intruder.

  She put her hand on Bill’s arm and in a soft voice brought him back from the dark, silent place he had withdrawn to.

  ‘Bill? Bill, tell me what happened.’

  He looked up at her. She seemed a different woman from the last time they had met. She was dressed in her usual jeans and T-shirt, but she appeared to be a lot younger than he remembered her. She was lovely. He put a hand up to touch her face, as if to assure himself she was real. She took his hand and held it while he told her everything Skates and Warren had done, and how afterwards he had buried Bess under the cherry tree.

  When he was done, Bill felt completely spent. Lucy suggested he go lay down for a bit, and he simply nodded and got to his feet. She sighed as she heard him slowly climbing the stairs to his bedroom.

  Suddenly, she remembered poor Clive, who had been left in the car all this time. She went outside and, keeping him on his lead and carefully avoiding certain areas, she walked him around the yard. Then she tied him up in a shady spot and got busy.

  Bill awoke after a few hours’ dreamless sleep. When he remembered about Bess, he wished he hadn’t. But, hearing the chink of dishes downstairs, he made himself get up and go to the kitchen. It was late afternoon, and Lucy had put on a couple of lights. Everything looked so homely, so normal, but he knew there was no such thing as ‘normal’ anymore.

  He sat down in his chair, and Lucy put a cup of tea in front of him, then asked if it would be all right if she brought Clive in. ‘He’s been tied up outside for quite a while and he’s not used to it.’

  ‘Your dog,’ he said, immediately rising from his chair. ‘Yes, of course, you must.’

  As he walked out to the yard, he was surprised to see it looked the same as it always had (apart from an old green Volvo estate car abandoned at a jaunty angle in front of the house). He had somehow expected the violence and wickedness of the past twenty-four hours to be marked on the buildings, the fields, even the sky. But it was all just the same, except where it wasn’t.

  There was a large, clean patch of concrete, and signs of water and foam were still visible. It had been scrubbed and cleaned, and on a doorstep next to one of the outbuildings by the yard tap there was a brush he recognized as the one he kept under the sink. It glistened wetly in the fading sunlight, its once-white bristles now showing a hint of pink. He stood a long time looking at this scene, and it moved him almost to tears.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, not daring to look at Lucy.

  She said nothing; just placed a hand on his back and gave it a quick, light rub.

  Clive was laying down in the shade of the car, his lead attached to a door handle, but when he saw Bill he jumped up and yelped, his tail going round in excited circles. Lucy untied him and he ran frantically this way and that, trying to greet Lucy and Bill and sniff everything all at the same time.

  Daft hound, thought Bill affectionately, and called the dog to him, then ruffled its head.

  ‘He must be thirsty. I’ll get him a bowl of water.’

  Bill walked back into the kitchen and took a large pudding bowl from a cupboard, filled it from the tap, and took it into the yard. It was not Bess’s bowl, nor would he give Clive any of her other things. Well, the expensive dog food, maybe, but nothing else.

  After Clive had drunk his fill, they walked him a little way along Bill’s usual evening route so he could stretch his legs and perform other needful functions. Afterwards, back in the kitchen, Lucy fed Clive his dinner in an antique soup tureen. He seemed to like it, or at least the food it held.

  Bill asked Lucy if she was hungry, and it turned out neither of them had consumed so much as a morsel all day. Bill suddenly felt ravenous. He pointed Lucy towards the huge fridge that stood in the kitchen like something out of a sci-fi film, and she rummaged within its chilly depths. Luckily, there were enough bacon and eggs to make a good fry-up, to which was added the baked beans that were also a staple of Bill’s diet. Stale bread made good toast, and homemade marmalade turned the meal into a feast.

  They piled the plates next to the sink and sat on, talking, with a fresh pot of tea and an ever-diminishing supply of whisky.

  ~~~

  Lucy’s experiences since Bill had last seen her were far less dramatic than Bill’s had been, but they were not without interest.

  After Bill’s visit, she had become aware that she really was living in a prison of her own making. She was afraid to leave the house, yet all the time she was there she was terrified that Skates would turn up and start making her life a misery again. Now, for some reason, it seemed possible that there were other places she could go. She had £500 and two friends in the whole world: one by her side, the other in Somerset.

  She made herself walk Clive a little further from home every da
y, and the more she did it, the easier it became. Ilford being an East London suburb, it had a touch of the Wild West about it. Cosmopolitan, but full of dodgy characters scratching a living on the margins. Her walks took her past a house that had a forecourt with several cars parked in it and a garage at the back from which poured loud reggae music blended with the sound of metal being hammered. There were cars in the road in front of the house, too, and one had a ‘for sale’ sign on the window screen, but no price.

  Everything was a bit run-down, and a large sign on the small gate leading to the battered front door of the house warned people to ‘Beware of the Dog’. One day when she was walking past she saw a tall West Indian man come out of the door holding a large Alsatian on a chain. Clive was on his lead and pulled her forward, eager to engage this black and grey monster in canine conversation. She pulled him back sharply and walked on as fast as she could.

  A rich, brown voice with a beautiful Jamaican accent called after her: ‘It’s all right, lady! He as soft as butter; just looks a bad boy!’

  She turned, looked from man to dog, and said, ‘I bet he says the same thing about you.’

  The man’s laughter followed her up the street. She liked that; it felt as if she was rejoining the human race at long last.

  Eventually, she decided to do as Bill had suggested and buy a car. She had a license, but the only vehicles she had ever driven were her father’s and that had been a long time ago. Lucy got a local paper and went through all the adverts for second-hand cars. There were pages and pages of them, and she didn’t have a clue what all the abbreviations meant. She thought of that man with all the cars around his house and, summoning her courage, decided to go and talk to him.

  Leaving Clive behind this time, Lucy walked to the garage. The music sounded as loud as ever, but instead of banging, this time there was smoke and laughter coming from the building. She went up into the forecourt and looked at the vehicles parked there. All of them had obviously travelled some long roads to reach this final stop before the breaker’s yard.