snorting sounds came from their master, a middle-aged man with a basin-cut hairdo and a face like a cliffside, who apparently thought he was controlling his charges when finally one lay and the other sat tensely, both with snarls locked in their throats, the bullterrier with teeth bared at a calico cat a youngish couple had wedged between them.
On the other end of that bench sat the owner of the Jaguar (clearly), who appeared to think her foothold on a rung way up the social ladder from the other benchwarmers got her feet far enough off the ground to avoid the drooling bullterrier. Everything about her was glossily groomed: her Chanel suit, her wings of frosted hair, her whining poodle whose snout was pressed to the wire insert of the sort of carrier required by airlines. She did give Melrose a quick, appraising glance, fingered her pearls, and craned her neck to get a better view of the hood of the Bentley.
The two women on the other bench both wore thick woolen coats and paisley scarves over their heads and tied under their chins. In their laps were almost identical flat, black bags. Leaving off what had been a gossipy exchange about some 'owld sluther-guts,' they turned their wide, pleasant faces, bland as Yorkshire puddings, on Melrose and acknowledged both him and the weather by commenting on the rain lashing the windows. 'Fearful poggy the rooads be,' said one, giving him a rubber-band smile.
Melrose returned the smile and the nod as he sat himself and the basket on the single unoccupied bench.
The two returned to their exchange, apparently unconcerned that the Skye terrier at their feet was lying with glassy eyes and front legs splayed out and possibly already dead; or that the cardboard box beside the one who had spoken seemed to be moving toward the edge of the bench-
'… to get 'em to stir theirsen, an' then ah cooms doan't'see't'bairns w'Mickey 'ere…'
She nodded at the terrier. '…'t'lectric an'… in't'Persil. Ah was ommast fit to bust, Missus Malby… wi''t'bairns yammerin' an'… roun' 'n roun'.'
'Ooh, aye. Pore ting loaks deead i''t' middle, 'e do. Perky, 'ere…'And she tapped the box with the airholes. '… clackin' away, ahr Tom was… caught i''t'mangle, and ahr Alice yammerin' abaht…'
She opened the box and Melrose thought he saw the beak and top of some colorful-looking bird pop out before the one called Malby shoved it back in.
The other one clucked her tongue. 'Aye, Missus Livlis, lookin' yonderly 'e is,' and gave the room in general a gummy smile. Melrose interpreted this to mean the parrot was near death, for these two were certainly into it.
Melrose was fascinated by all of this, for what he made out was that Mrs. Malby's bairns had stuffed the terrier into the washing machine (which was apparently an appliance the Malbys had just acquired) and dashed in some washing powder. (Sometimes Melrose was just as glad he was bairn-less.) Whether the terrier had actually gone round at all before its rescue by Mrs. Malby, he couldn't discover from their clotted talk, but from the look of it, he'd say the terrier had been spin-dried. The parrot's fate was uncertain. Caught in a mangle? It could be Mrs. Livlis (Lovelace, perhaps?) was not as fortunate as Mrs. Malby and had to do her wash in an old-fashioned tub and the parrot might have enjoyed perching on the mangle-
The outside door burst open upon this scene of riot, carnage, and washday blues, admitting wind, rain, and a small girl covered more or less top to bottom in a hooded yellow oilskin and black Wellingtons. Melrose was hoping the box she held harbored something ordinary, like a litter of kittens. She entirely ignored the yowlings for her blood her entrance had effected in the Alsatian and the bullterrier as she marched up to the desk.
Fortunately, the receptionist was finally telling the man with the dogs to go back and the Alsatian and the bullterrier more or less chewed and clawed their way across the room, making passes at the child's boots, though she didn't seem to notice or to care as she set her box on the floor. The flaps were up; it appeared to be empty, so he supposed she was coming to collect her pet. That encouraged him, for he wasn't certain about anything leaving True Friends alive, given the intermittent screeches and yelps he heard coming from the bowels of the building.
Wearily, the receptionist put a question to her-Melrose was too far away to hear precisely, but he picked up on 'appointment.'
The girl's chin just grazed the counter. She sounded a little thunderstruck when she had to answer, No, and tried to add something about a doctor there.
With that sort of impatience some adults reserve for all children, the grizzle-haired receptionist asked her, 'Have you brought in your pet?'
The girl raised her own voice. 'No-' Something seemed to catch at her throat.
'Well? What's your name?'
'Abby.' The word exploded. 'It's my cat.'
'And Doctor told you to collect it? Well? What's its name?'
'Buster!' said the girl in a voice raised several notches as she whirled from the counter and marched over to sit on the bench by Melrose, making sure she kept her distance. She sat with her arms hard across her chest, hands fisted, staring straight ahead.
The receptionist just shook and shook her head at this intractable girl and called across the room, 'Is he in the hospital, then?' Here she jabbed her pencil toward the ceiling.
'
The receptionist quickly changed her tune, realizing that Buster had died at True Friends. The reaction of the customers was predictable:
Well, thought Melrose, sliding down in his seat, there were always people who liked to check out electrical sockets with their fingers or pull parrots from mangles. He knew what was coming.
Although the little girl refused to look at the well-dressed lady or her beastly poodle, the woman still said, 'Never mind, dear; you can always get another kitty.'
The Furies, Medea, Pandora could not have unleashed anything into that room more violent than the little girl's expression when she looked at this person. The woman backed physically away from what could have been a fist in the face when the child's dark eyes snapped up and locked with the woman's pale blue ones. And the thunderclap that shook the room just then certainly sounded to Melrose as if God had a few ideas about the fate of the poodle.
It was perhaps fortunate that as the little girl rose in something like a trance to face this woman, the receptionist hurried in with the box, obviously heavier now.
The child took it without a word, turned in her yellow slicker, and walked through the door that Melrose had risen to open for her.
The rain poured from a sky gray-dark as the little girl walked down the road, splashing through puddles.
Melrose had, of course, wanted to transport her to wherever she was going, and wondered what had sent this child on such an awful errand by herself.
But he didn't offer; he felt, for some reason, she knew how she wanted to go, and where; that she must go the way she came, carrying her dreadful burden. Two burdens, he thought, standing there in the door getting wet: her fury and her dead female cat named Buster.
11
As Jury was walking down the Citrine driveway to his car, hoping for a hot bath, a good meal, and a pretty waitress at the Old Silent, he saw her.
At least, he thought it must be Nell Healey. It was at a distance, and down a torturously winding path screened by trees; but he was sure he had seen a woman moving beyond him.
Jury stepped from the drive to the footpath that wound erratically between pines and spiny-branched elms. No wind stirred. It was as if there had been no storm. The wood at dusk was drearier even than it had seemed earlier that afternoon, as desolate and unhappy a scene as could be.
