white striped trousers. Its belly and bottom were massive. So were its feet, in the clown’s traditional enormous shoes. This clown’s face, like the others, was mostly grinning yellow teeth.
‘Hello, Jessica,’ it said.
Ten minutes later I watched the tail lights of Evi’s car disappear, then turned back to the house, wondering if I’d done the right thing telling her not to worry and that I’d see her on Tuesday.
Creepy toys. Masked figures in the garden. Blood – albeit fake – in the bath. Those were the actions of a seriously disturbed mind. And a clever one at that.
Two more cars passed me in the lane and I could hear more cars starting up. Country folk obviously did keep earlier hours. I really had to go myself. Evi’s story had worried me. I also wanted to think about Nick Bell and whether I really suspected him. And if he was involved, involved with what? Then there was Scott Thornton, a senior member of my college who, together with a couple of mates, had dressed up like Zorro and borrowed a well-established college ritual in order to scare and humiliate a new student.
Then all thoughts of Bell and Thornton fled, to be replaced by the most hideous sound. Several short guttural sounds, in fact. Like someone trying to scream and having the breath choked out of them at each attempt.
Telling myself the sounds had been faint, that whatever had made them was almost certainly some distance away, and that they’d been carried to me on the wind, I nevertheless stepped into the lane, not wanting to be too close to the hedge. Or to anything that might be hiding. The night had fallen silent again.
What on earth had I heard? A woman screaming in distress had been my first thought, but we were miles from anywhere out here. I looked back towards the house, wondering how long it would take me to sprint there, in the dark and over uneven ground.
There was something moving in the hedge. Something large, breathing heavily. I stepped back, a second from running for my life, at the same time not daring to take my eyes from what was coming at me. A creature, on four powerful legs, teeth gleaming as though they were lit from within. It bounded up to me with a speed I couldn’t hope to match. Then stopped, just a little too well mannered to spring.
‘Hello,’ I said, with a voice that didn’t sound too steady. ‘Where did you come from?’
The dog was soaking wet. It poked its long white nose towards the pockets of my borrowed oilskin. Its tail was wagging and its ears were back and it simply knew that my fingers were made to tickle the backs of its ears. When I stopped it stood upright on its hind legs, putting its front paws on my chest. It wasn’t far off my height. Could a dog, this dog, have made the noise I’d just heard? I didn’t think so.
Oh, having my face licked was a compliment I could do without.
Then I heard shouting from the field immediately on the other side of the hedge. I recognized Nick’s voice and the thin, reedy tones of silver-haired Jim. This had to be the dog from the sheep field. If so, they were hot on its trail. They’d be with us any second.
‘Come on,’ I whispered to the dog. Obedient in the way only dogs are, it followed me to my car.
‘In you get.’ It jumped inside and settled itself down on my back seat.
‘Keep your head down,’ I told it, before heading back towards the house. By the time I’d found my coat, Nick and the others were back.
‘Any luck?’ Liz asked Nick, completely ignoring Jim. He shook his head and turned to me.
‘Are we losing you?’
‘Early start,’ I lied. ‘Thanks for having me over.’
‘I’ll walk you to your car,’ he offered.
‘No, really. You should see to your guests.’
‘You are my guest.’
We were out of the door, heading across the side courtyard.
‘Have you registered with a GP yet?’ he asked me, when we were ten yards from the car and I was sure I could see eyes gleaming at me from the back seat.
‘Why, are you touting for business?’ I asked, catching the flick of a white tail. Oh, I was so busted.
‘On the contrary, I was going to ask you not to register with us,’ he said.
‘Why?’ I said, which wasn’t too bright, I grant you, but there was a white paw on each of the front seats and a long white nose was pointing right at me. Any second now …
‘Because if you’re my patient, I can’t ask you to have din—What the bugger?’
Dog and man were eyeballing each other on either side of the passenger window. Given that one had tried to shoot the other minutes earlier, the other was looking remarkably pleased to see the one.
‘Please tell me this isn’t …’ He stopped and just looked at me. I had to admit, he was cute. Joesbury’s height, but not quite so bulky. Not that I’d ever really gone for the body-builder type.
‘Well, I’d like to,’ I began. ‘I’ve just never been a particularly good liar.’ Which in itself, I suppose, was a lie. I’ve long been an excellent liar.
‘Do you know how many thousands of pounds of damage a dog can cause in a field of pregnant ewes?’ he asked me.
‘He didn’t though, did he?’ I said. ‘There wasn’t a speck of blood on him. That dog hasn’t killed anything.’
He opened his mouth, closed it, looked round, opened it again. I think he might have been the only man in the world to make such a gormless act look appealing.
‘Do you also know that I, and several other men in that house, are quite within our rights to shoot it right there in your car?’ he said.
‘You’ll have to get the keys off me first,’ I said. ‘And no, you’re not.’
He blinked and ran one hand through his hair, making it stand upright on his head. ‘Excuse me?’ he said.
‘If a dog is attacking livestock, and the only way to make it desist is to shoot it, you have a defence in law if the dog’s owner takes issue with you,’ I said. ‘You do not have any right to put down an animal without the owner’s permission. Only a judge has the authority to make that happen.’
‘What the hell are you, a lawyer?’
OK, I was on dangerous ground now. Not only was I being Lacey again, I was demonstrating knowledge that Lacey, not Laura, would have.
‘An animal lover,’ I said, which was another lie. There’s hardly been time for animals in my life. ‘Oh, look, I’m sure he didn’t kill any sheep.’
‘The entire bloody field could miscarry during the night.’
I looked down, then peered up at him again through my eyelashes. I think I even dropped my head to one side.
‘Well, aren’t you more likely to get compensation from the owner if the dog is delivered home safe and well?’ I said. ‘I’ll take it to the nearest dog shelter in the morning. I’ll also report it to the dog warden. Sorry, I’m just a bit soppy about dogs.’
‘And if it’s a stray?’
I shrugged. Pouted a bit. ‘It’ll be in the dog shelter,’ I said. ‘Can’t get up to much in there.’
He looked as though he were about to argue again and then shook his head. ‘I give up,’ he said, but he was close to smiling now. ‘If I agree to say no more about it, will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?’
Joesbury would kill me. Or might not give a toss. Either way. ‘Seems churlish to refuse,’ I said.
‘I’ll pick you up at eight,’ he said, properly smiling by this time. I waved cheerfully at Nick in the rear-view mirror as I drove away. Well, they do say to keep your enemies close.
ON THE QUEEN’S Road Joesbury found an empty parking space and opened his laptop. He connected to Scotland Yard’s central computer system and typed in a six-digit code. A few seconds later he was looking at a map of Cambridge. A red dot travelling along the A1303 told him his quarry was getting close.
