The Shooting in the Shop (18 page)

The whine that brought her hurrying back to
the kitchen was more aggrieved than distressed,
but the sight that greeted her was not a pretty one.
There seemed to be a disproportionate amount of
blood over everything and it took her some time to
locate the part of Gulliver’s body that was its source.
Mopping with tea towels and kitchen roll eventually
revealed that the blood was coming out of his mouth,
prompting an immediate panic about an internal
haemorrhage. This was assuaged when Carole spotted
that the wound was actually on his gum, but
seeing what had caused it gave rise to renewed anxiety.

The remains of Gulliver’s perfect stick lay bloodstained
on the floor. His assiduous chewing had split
the wood open, revealing the rusty rivets which held
it together. It was one of those that had gashed the dog’s gum.

Within minutes Gulliver was sitting on a dirty rug
on the backseat of Carole’s immaculate Renault on an
emergency rush to the vet’s in Fedborough.

‘He’ll have to have a general anaesthetic,’ said Saira Sherjan.

‘Oh dear, is it very serious?’

‘No, Carole, it’s not very serious. Simply that dogs
don’t like having their mouths fiddled about with.
And while I could say to a human patient, “Now I’m
just going to give you an injection of local anaesthetic
so that you won’t feel a thing when I stitch up your
gum”, it’s difficult to get a dog to take that information
on board.’

‘Yes, of course, I take your point,’ said Carole, feeling
rather stupid.

But the vet’s grin cheered her. ‘Simplest if we
keep him in overnight. You could take him home later
today, but he’ll be a bit woozy and we’d rather have a
look at him in the morning, if that’s OK with you . . . ?’

‘Fine,’ said Carole. She prided herself on not being
one of those people who got sentimental about animals.
But she was still surprised to feel a small pang
at the thought of spending a night in High Tor without Gulliver.

‘I’ll just give him an injection now to calm him
down – not that he looks too much as if he needs
calming down . . . Would you mind just holding him?’

Carole did as requested and Gulliver, docile as
ever, submitted to the injection. Saira led him out of
the surgery and returned a moment later. ‘By the
way, do pass on my thanks to Jude for her party last
week. I will get around to sending her a card, but you
know how it is over Christmas.’

For a moment Carole was tempted to ask how
Saira had come to meet her neighbour, but she
decided that the question would be sheer nosiness.
Instead, she enquired, ‘Have you been busy over the holiday?’

The vet’s fine eyebrows rose ruefully. ‘And how! I
know human beings tend to have a lot of illness over
Christmas, and I can understand that, because for
many people it is a very stressful time, though how
that anxiety communicates itself to animals I don’t
know. But it does. It’s been emergency call after
emergency call for the whole of the last week. And
because I don’t have kids like most of the partners,
guess who tends to get lumbered with most of those
emergency calls? Rhetorical question.’

‘So you haven’t had any problem in keeping to
your no-alcohol routine?’

‘No, I haven’t. I tell you, I’ve forgotten what
alcohol smells like. And I’ve forgotten what my bed
looks like too. So, Carole, tell me all the Fethering gossip.’

‘I don’t think there is any, really.’

‘Oh, come on. You must have heard some dirt.
You’re one of the Fethering Beach dog-walkers, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I know for a fact that dog-walkers constitute
one of the most efficient gossip grapevines in the
world. Members of the Fethering Beach Dog-walking
Mafia exchange all kinds of secrets on their early morning walks.’

Oh dear, thought Carole, something else I’m
missing out on. The most she usually exchanged
with another dog-walker was a curt ‘Fethering nod’.
To avoid making herself sound completely anti-social
(which, it occurred to her, perhaps she was), she told
Saira Sherjan that the only topic of conversation in
Fethering was still the tragedy at Gallimaufry. ‘But I
expect you’ll have seen all about that on the news.’

‘No. I’ve forgotten what my television looks like,
as well as my bed.’ She was unable to prevent a large
yawn. ‘Sorry, Carole, but, God, it’s been insanely busy
this last week. And actually, I don’t really mind,
because I love the animals and I love the work,
but . . .’ she mimed propping her eyes open – ‘I’d be
quite glad of an uninterrupted night’s sleep.’

‘I remember,’ said Carole, ‘you said you were going
to be on duty the evening of Jude’s party. Was that a
busy night?’

The question was random, merely a politeness,
but by serendipity it had been exactly the right thing
to ask. ‘That was one of the worst nights of the lot,’
Saira replied. ‘At least with Gulliver you’ll never have
the problem of puppies.’

‘No, he’s the wrong gender, for a start, and then
again whatever gender he might once have had has
been surgically removed.’ When Carole had decided
on having a dog for her new life in Fethering, she’d
done everything to ensure the minimum of complications.

‘Well, most bitches whelp as easily as shelling
peas. They know what to do, they follow their
instincts, there’s really no need for a vet to be involved
until you get to the point of injections for the
puppies. But every now and then you get a really
complicated birth, and the one I had that Sunday was
the most difficult I’ve ever encountered. I was up all
night that night.’

‘What, here in the surgery?’

‘God, no, you can’t move a whelping dog, particularly
one who was in as bad a state as this one was.’

‘Did she survive?’

‘Yes, I’m glad to say she did. As did her six
puppies. She’s now the proud mother of four dogs and
two bitches. All doing well. But it was a long night.’

‘Did you have to go far?’

‘No, just outside Fedborough. It’s . . . You probably
know them. Ricky was at Jude’s party.’

‘Ricky Le Bonnier?’

‘Right. It was their Dalmatian, Spotted Dick –
which is a bloody stupid name for a bitch.’

‘So you were actually at their place – Fedingham
Court House – all through that Sunday night.’

‘Yes, the call came in from Lola – that’s Ricky’s
wife – around five-thirty. I was there within half an
hour, and finally left just before eight the following
morning.’

‘And was Lola there all the time?’

‘Yes. Poor girl, I felt so sorry for her, because she’d
got the problem with the dog whelping, and then
one of her kids had an ear infection . . . between the
two of them, she didn’t get a wink of sleep.’

‘And you were with her right through?’

‘Pretty much, yes.’

‘She didn’t leave the house, didn’t go out anywhere?’

Saira Sherjan was starting to look at Carole rather
curiously. Casual conversation seemed to be transforming
into interrogation. ‘She didn’t leave the
house all night,’ she replied almost brusquely.

No power on earth could have stopped Carole
from asking the next question. ‘And was Ricky there
all the time as well?’

‘No,’ said Saira Sherjan. ‘He went out a few times.’

‘But Saira had no reason to lie,’ protested Carole, irritated
to find Jude in one of her rare nit-picking devil’s
advocate moods.

‘No reason that we know of.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Simply that neither of us knows Saira that well.
She may have history with the Le Bonniers about
which we have no idea. She could have been another
of Lola’s Cambridge contemporaries . . . or one of
Ricky’s many flings with younger women.’

‘Well, the way she talked about the birth of those
Dalmatian puppies, I believed every word she said.’

Jude grinned. ‘You’re probably right.’

‘I’m sure I am.’ Carole was feeling irritable. Partly
she was hungry. In the panic of Gulliver’s injury and
the rush to the vet’s, she’d missed lunch and the
sugar from the buttered teacake she was eating in
the sitting room of High Tor hadn’t yet got into her
system. Also, though she would never have admitted
it even to Jude, she was uncomfortably aware of
Gulliver’s absence. More than that, she was actually
worried about him. However minor the operation, he
was having a general anaesthetic. And anaesthetics
could go wrong with dogs just as they could with
humans. She couldn’t wait till ten o’clock tomorrow
morning when she was due to go back into Fedborough
to collect him.

‘So . . .’ Jude mused, ‘if Saira was telling the
truth . . .’ she caught the look in Carole’s eye – ‘which
I’m sure she was, Lola could not possibly have been
in the Mercedes 4×4 near Fethering Yacht Club
around eight o’clock on that Sunday evening.’

‘Whereas Ricky very definitely could have been.’

‘Yes, but Kath said he was with Lola. So either
Kath’s lying or—’

‘From the account you gave of her conversation,
I’d be disinclined to trust a single word she said.’

‘Yes, all right, Carole, she
was
sounding extremely
loopy, but there seemed to be a logic – albeit a strange
one – in most of what she told me.’

‘Think back to her exact words, Jude. Did Kath
actually mention Lola by name?’

‘No, she said she wasn’t interested in the names of
Ricky’s Devil Women.’

Carole snorted. ‘And you describe her as someone
capable of logic.’

‘But she must have been talking about Lola. Kath
said she was the latest Devil Woman to seduce Ricky
away from her.’

‘Well, maybe, given his reputation as a philanderer,
he’s moved on to another Devil Woman since
he’s been married to Lola.’ Carole sniffed contemptuously;
she’d made the suggestion as a bitter joke
against the male gender. But when she thought about
what she’d said . . . Carole’s blue eyes fixed on her
friend’s brown ones and she came to the realization
first. ‘Do you think he might have started up an affair
with someone else?’

‘It’s possible, I suppose. But who . . . ?’

‘I think I know,’ said Carole with quiet confidence.

‘Who?’

‘Anna.’

‘What do you base that on?’

‘The way she behaved, things she said when I
talked to her on the beach on Boxing Day. I didn’t
really notice at the time, but she kept defending
Ricky. She said he had talked to her about Polly.
Somehow, the way she said it implied she talked to
him quite a lot. And then when her mobile rang, she
grabbed it like she was desperate for a call. And when
I told her about Polly having been shot, she said that
must have got Ricky very preoccupied. She seemed
obscurely pleased about that . . . maybe because it
explained why he hadn’t called her.’

Jude looked sceptical. ‘You’re making a few rather
big leaps of logic, Carole.’

‘No, I’m convinced I’m on the right track.’

‘I wonder if there’s any way of confirming your
thesis . . .’ Jude tapped her chin as she tried to think
of something.

‘You don’t have a phone number for Kath?’ asked
Carole suddenly. ‘She’d be able to tell us who was
with Ricky in the car, wouldn’t she?’

‘Yes, but I don’t have a number for her.’

‘Might Ted have one?’

‘I doubt it. Can’t think of any reason why he
should. I suppose I could ask him to alert me again
next time she’s in the Crown and Anchor, but I think
she’s mostly there at lunchtime, so there’s no chance
till tomorrow.’

‘What about contacting her at work?’

‘Well, I know she does the books for Ayland’s, the
boatyard. But they would shut up for the full Christmas
break, wouldn’t they, Carole?’

‘I don’t know. A lot of people keep their boats
there, people who don’t like all the snobbery attached
to the Fethering Yacht Club, so there must be someone
on duty over the holiday.’

Carole found the number of Ayland’s and passed
the handset to Jude. They were in luck. The call was
answered by Kath herself. She seemed unsurprised
by the enquiry, and confirmed that the Devil Woman
she had seen with Ricky in his car at the relevant
time had heavy lipstick and peroxide blond hair. Jude
asked whether she knew if the two of them were
having an affair, but all Kath would say was, ‘She’s his
latest Devil Woman, the one from the shop.’

As soon as Jude switched the phone off, Carole,
who had pieced the conversation together from her
end, announced triumphantly, ‘I knew it. That Anna
is far too glammed up for her age.’

‘Are you suggesting that a woman who makes herself
look like that deserves everything that’s coming
to her?’ suggested Jude mischievously.

‘Yes,’ said Carole, unaware of any irony. ‘That’s
exactly what I’m saying.’ She rubbed her thin hands
up and down against each other. ‘Hm . . . well, I know
a fairly foolproof way of making sure my path crosses
with Anna’s.’ An expression of irritation crossed her
face. ‘Or I would if had Gulliver with me. I’ll have to
wait till he’s back from the vet’s.’

‘Carole,’ said Jude gently, ‘it is possible for a
person to take a walk on Fethering Beach without
a dog, you know.’

‘Oh, is it?’

‘Yes, I’ve done it many times myself.’

‘Have you really?’ said Carole, bemused by the
alien concept.

When she got back to Woodside Cottage Jude found a
couple of messages on her answering machine from
clients who needed her services. In both cases a back
problem had recurred, and in both cases Jude felt
pretty confident that the relapse had the same cause.
The tensions of family Christmases were reflected by
increases not only in consultations with lawyers
about divorce, but also in stress-related illness.

Knowing the level of neurosis in the two clients
who’d left messages, Jude realized that the sessions
would be long and arduous, and she would have to
expend at least as much energy in listening as she did
in healing.