Finders Keepers

Swimbridge, but now everything that’s leather comes from China or India ten times as cheap. We’re nothing now, England. All we got left now is our traditions, and there’s those what would like to see them gone too, and us all living like Russians.

I hose down the shed, then sharpen up another knife and take down old Bubbles. The hounds know the sound of the second knife sharpening and start to sing, so I join ’em: The hocks, the hoofs, the hide, the head, the hocks, the hoofs, the hide, the head …

I put chunks of the old milker in a wheelbarrow and take her out to the yards and throw her over the gates. The hounds stop singing and start eating. The older ones eat first: the pups learn that fast. Only Milo tries it on, and I have to wade in there with the whip and pull his teeth out of General’s shoulder. Him’ll be a fine dog, Milo, but he needs a lot of arse-kicking. The whole litter’s turned out a bit bolshy, as it happens. That’s Rufus for you. Finest sire in four counties, but him do get some growlers and some nippers. Rick and Rosie like a sly nip when they’re walked. That’s why they go out coupled with Drifter and Sandy – them two’ll put any pup in its place quick enough. Nothing like being bit hard by a bigger hound you’re chained to, to teach you some manners. By next winter them’ll be as good as anything the Blacklands ever had.

There’s a car coming up the lane. Not expecting visitors.

John Took got out of his Range Rover and lit a cigarette against the biting wind. He wasn’t looking forward to this.

He’d inherited Bob Coffin. The bow-legged huntsman had come in a package deal with the sixty-odd hounds that had become his when he’d taken on the role of Blacklands Master three years before. If John Took could have chosen, he’d have picked a huntsman with a bit more stature. Someone who looked well in a white coat and bowler hat at the county hound show. Possibly not quite so much like Neanderthal Ice-cream Man.

The kennelman, Nigel, would have fitted the bill, but what could he do? Nigel was only twenty-eight and Coffin had been the Blacklands huntsman for almost forty years. Even Took had known enough not to rock a forty- year-old boat. Not here on the moor, anyway.

At least he kept the place clean. Never a bit of straw out of place, never a speck of blood in the big shed, never a turd in the cement runs. And he never complained about the cottage that came with the job, even though the hunt hadn’t spent money on it in thirty years. Took assumed Coffin did any repairs himself, and never asked about the cost.

He turned out good hounds, too, Took had to give him that. Hounds well bred for the idiosyncrasies of Exmoor, big and strong enough to fight their way through gorse, wire and flooded rivers, but light enough behind to keep going all day over hilly terrain.

It was a shame. Really it was. They were all going to suffer.

He heard a gate latch and Coffin emerged from the yards and touched his cap. It was feudal, but Took rather liked it.

‘Bob,’ he said.

‘Mr Took.’

Took had a final drag and stamped on his cigarette.

‘Bad news, I’m afraid, Bob.’

Bob Coffin’s expression didn’t change. Like a sheep’s.

‘We’ve worked out the merger with the Midmoor.’

Coffin nodded, waiting for more.

‘We’ll have joint Masters, and their whipper-in has agreed to go part-time with Alistair Farrell. But I’m afraid we’ll lose the name.’

This was a bitter blow. Took could tell by the way Coffin almost blinked. There’d been a Blacklands Hunt on Exmoor for a hundred and forty-odd years. Never fashionable, but there.

‘The good news,’ Took continued more cheerfully, ‘is that Malcolm Bidgood has room for one more in kennels—’

‘Huntsman?’

‘Assistant huntsman.’

No such thing. Coffin didn’t say it, but they both knew it. Forty years and he was being demoted to kennelman. Like some work-experience boy up for the summer holidays from Bicton College.

‘We’ll be based at their kennels,’ Took hurried on, relieved that the worst was over. ‘But I don’t want you to have to hurry out of here, Bob. This is your home, and I made sure it was part of the deal that it won’t be sold until next season, so you’ve got plenty of time to sort things out. I was very clear about that.’

Bob Coffin didn’t thank him, but nodded briefly and glanced at the cottage.

‘Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings.’

Coffin nodded once more. ‘What of the pack?’ he asked.

‘Ah yes. The pack. Mr Stourbridge says we’ll take three couple. He trusts you to pick the best of them, but they did say nothing over three years old, please.’

‘What of Rufus?’

‘Nothing over three. I did ask. And I’ve been calling round all week but nobody needs the others. Bloody shame.’

‘Nobody needs ’em,’ said Bob Coffin. It wasn’t a question, but Took answered it anyway.

‘That’s right.’

‘What’ll I do with ’em then?’

Took looked surprised. Surely that was self-evident? But Bob Coffin just looked confused. He wasn’t going to make him say it, was he?

Apparently he was. The passive-aggressive little caveman.

‘Well, I’m afraid we’ll have to dispose of them, Bob. Terrible shame, but there you go.’

‘Shoot ’em, you mean?’

Took was surprised that Coffin was surprised. God, anyone would think he’d never shot an animal in his life. Like there wasn’t a constant stream of ribby horses and broken-legged cows to dispatch in the big shed. Not to mention the old hounds – every season there were five or six who could no longer keep up and had to go to the happy hunting ground, courtesy of a .22 handgun. The old bugger wasn’t going to get all weepy on him now, was he?

‘Yes,’ said Took. ‘We’re all going to suffer a bit, I’m afraid. I can ask Nigel to come up to help you, if you like.’

Coffin looked away across the meadow to where the pied backs of the sixty hounds could be seen through the chain-link, tails high and curved and waving like happy flags as they milled around the giant slabs of raw cow.

‘Shoot ’em,’ he said softly.

‘That’s right,’ said Took briskly. ‘Nothing you haven’t done a thousand times before though, is it?’

‘Not to fit dogs.’

‘Look, they exist to do a job and now they’re out of work. We have to be realistic about this, you know.’

‘The whole pack,’ said Coffin quietly.

Took started to lose patience. ‘They’re hounds, Bob, not pets, for fuck’s sake! They’re not bloody children! You don’t love them.’

Coffin said nothing – he continued to look away towards the yards through the first stinging flakes of sleet.

Took collected himself and cleared his throat. ‘Look, I did my best. Been calling round all week. Packs like to breed their own now, you know that.’

Coffin said nothing. Took decided to stop grovelling and treat him like the hunt servant he was. ‘So you don’t want me to send Nigel up?’

‘No,’ Coffin said.

‘Right,’ said Took, and strode back to the Range Rover, leaving his flattened cigarette butt to show where he’d been.

* * *

When Mr Took left, I chose the three couple for the Midmoor.