Grave Matters (8 page)

‘She’d have noticed if volume five was missing?’

‘I’m sure she would have. Maybe it’s slipped down the back somewhere.’ Ellen pulled out several of the books and looked about, but there was no sign of it. ‘How very strange,’ she said.

‘It’ll turn up, I expect,’ Patrick said. ‘Maybe it got replaced wrongly. I’ll make a little note so that we find it later.’

He wrote in the margin of the list.

‘This looks a rather ordinary, unglamorous sort of edition, compared with most of Amelia’s books,’ Ellen said, surveying them.

‘It’s a good working set. I’d have expected your great-aunt to have the Teubners – she did, here they are. But they’re old and much used. Probably she lent these to pupils, these newer ones,’ he said. ‘She wouldn’t risk her more precious ones.’

‘You’re right, I expect,’ Ellen said.

‘I’m sure we’ll want the Teubners,’ Patrick said. ‘What I’m taking now is only a first bite.’

‘You’ll want to come down again, when you’ve had more time to consult with your friends,’ Ellen said.

‘If I may,’ said Patrick, and Jane would have been amazed at his diffident air.

‘That’s all right,’ said Ellen in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘You can let me know when you want to come. I can manage almost anyShe sat there with Mildred’s list in her hand and Patrick looked at her.

‘Ellen?’

‘Well?’

‘We have ladies’ nights at Mark’s now and then, when we invite ladies to dinner. Will you come one day? I’d fetch you – or meet you in Oxford if you’d come for the weekend. I—there’s a spare room in my set but it would be more suitable if I arranged for you to stay at the Randolph.’ He was floundering desperately, but he must make her understand. He hoped she’d realise he meant to pay. He gazed at her earnestly through his heavy-rimmed spectacles. A lock of fine, dark hair fell forward over his forehead.

‘When are you inviting me for?’ Ellen asked primly.

He could scarcely believe his ears. She would come! He plunged.

‘Saturday week,’ he said. ‘Please come.’

‘You really want me to?’ She was looking at him doubtfully.

‘I do,’ he said firmly. He had very seldom invited a woman to dine at Mark’s who was not a don, a pupil, or a relative.

‘The talk will be miles above my head.’

‘It won’t. Why should you think that? Dons are just people.’

‘All right. Thank you. I accept,’ said Ellen.

‘Oh, that’s wonderful,’ said Patrick, beaming.

‘You’ll stay for tea?’ said Ellen, suddenly becoming formal. ‘There are only biscuits. Shall we go for a walk first?’

She got up and moved away from him, towards the window.

‘A walk would be lovely,’ said Patrick, like a polite little boy. ‘Where shall we go? Across the fields?’

‘If you like. There’s a stream in the field beyond the garden and it’s a bit wet in spots. I’ve got boots, but what about you?’ She looked at his feet in their dark leather shoes.

‘I’ve got some in the car. I keep them there for when I go to see my sister,’ said Patrick. ‘I’ll get them.’

He fetched them from the Rover and changed into them outside the door of the cottage, putting his shoes inside. Ellen joined him. She had tucked the ends of her tweed slacks into a pair of Wellingtons. Patrick could see traces of damp mud clinging to them. Of course she had dug the garden, but that must have been the day before; she would not have worn Wellingtons to mow the lawn. This mud had come from the field, but she made no reference to having been that way earlier in the day as they set out across the meadow towards the stream.

The few heifers grazing in the field took no notice of them as they passed, busy cropping the last nourishment from the grass before the winter. When they reached the stream they followed its course towards the bridge, which Patrick could now make out quite clearly. It was a rustic affair, a few planks with a handrail, and willows guarded it on either side.

‘It’s dry enough now, but the stream gets quite deep in winter, and these meadows sometimes flood,’ Ellen told him. ‘You find kingcups in the spring.’

They paused for a few moments on the bridge and watched some leaves and twigs slowly drifting down. Two hundred yards away, the dark yew hedge hid Abbot’s Lodge from prying eyes.

‘How are the Bruces settling in?’ Patrick asked, as they resumed their walk on the further side of the stream.

‘Well enough, I think,’ Ellen said lightly. ‘They’ve scarcely begun on the alterations. A bit of painting’s been done. But Carol means to have a completely new kitchen.’

‘What do you think Miss Forrest wanted to tell you that day, at the B.M.?’ Patrick asked.

‘I can’t imagine. Maybe she’d heard some fable about the house – more definite than what we’d already said, like the ghost of a monk or something. She may have heard people in the village chatting. It was probably nothing, really. Anyway, we’ll never know now.’

‘No, I suppose we won’t,’ Patrick agreed. They walked on, following the course of the stream which looped round close to the boundary of Abbot’s Lodge; they were near enough to see the stout fence that kept the grazing cattle away from the menace of the yew hedge. Just as they were about to turn back, Patrick caught sight of something in the water.

‘Hullo, what’s that?’ he muttered, and strode forward to the edge of the little stream. He clambered down towards the water, the bank crumbling a little under his weight, and pulled aside some reeds that grew at the edge. Ellen, close behind him, saw it almost as soon as he did.

‘Oh no!’ she cried. ‘Oh, it’s Rufus.’

The Bruces’ golden retriever lay on his side underneath the water, quite sodden, and quite dead.

Patrick lifted the dog out and laid him on the bank. Water streamed from his thick coat which clung to his body. He was surprisingly heavy, and he was very cold. Bits of weed and vegetation were tangled in his hair, and his tail drooped, its fine featheriness totally obliterated.

‘He’s been dead for some time,’ Patrick said. But he had been alive at twenty minutes to twelve that morning.

‘How could it have happened?’ Ellen’s face was white with shock and her eyes huge. ‘Dogs can swim. Anyway, the water’s not deep, he could stand in it. He hasn’t been shot or anything, has he? There might have been boys out with air guns.’

Patrick carefully turned the body over. There seemed to be no mark anywhere.

‘We’d better get Bruce,’ he said. ‘We’ll need a sack or something to carry him. I suppose he’s at home? Are you all right, Ellen?’

She nodded.

‘Just horrified,’ she said. ‘We can get through the hedge over there and go across the garden.’

They walked together, without talking, along the path that he had earlier seen David Bruce take. Here the grass was worn into a definite track; either this route was often taken from the house, or it was the way the cattle used. There was a stile in the wooden fence which separated the yew hedge from the field; they climbed it, and opened a wrought-iron gate that led into the garden of Abbot’s Lodge.

‘We’d better go round and ring the front door bell, I suppose,’ said Ellen, a little uncertainly.

‘Perhaps they’ll see us coming,’ Patrick said.

Someone had clearly been busy in the garden since he was last there; the grass had been cut, and several of the beds were ready for planting, though others were still over-grown. They walked up the stone steps where Carol had twisted her ankle and round the side of the house. David Bruce was there in the yard, washing his car. He had the hose on, and did not hear them coming. They went round to the far side of the car and he started with surprise when he saw them suddenly appear. He could tell at once from their expressions that something was wrong, and immediately laid down the hosepipe and turned off the tap.

‘What’s up, Ellen? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost,’ he said.

‘It’s your dog,’ Patrick said bluntly. ‘I’m afraid there’s been some sort of accident. We found him in the stream. He seems to have been drowned.’

‘Drowned? Rufus? But how could he—it’s impossible . . .’ David gaped at them.

‘I know. It seems like that, but it’s true. We were walking by the stream and we found him,’ Ellen said. ‘Patrick got him out, but he’s very wet indeed and it needs two people to carry him.’

‘He was Carol’s dog,’ David said.

Patrick saw Ellen’s look of surprise at this information, but she said nothing.

‘We’d better tell her then,’ he suggested. He had already noticed that both the garage doors were open and there was no sign of the second car; Ellen had said Carol had a Lancia.

‘She’s out,’ David said. ‘She’s visiting some house she wants to write about.’

‘Perhaps it’s just as well, since the dog is a rather pathetic sight,’ said Patrick. ‘We can deal with it before she comes back. Have you got a sack or a tarpaulin or something?’

‘What? Oh, yes. There’ll be something in the cellar,’ David said.

He went off towards the house and down a flight of steps outside the back door.

‘We’ll cope with this. Don’t you come, Ellen,’ said Patrick.

‘I don’t want to stay here by myself,’ said Ellen. ‘Carol might come back and I’d have to explain.’

‘Funk sticks, eh?’ said Patrick, in a gentle voice.

She nodded. He longed to touch her, to make some sort of physical contact, but his hands were damp from touching the dead, wet dog.

‘Why not go back to the cottage, then? I’ll come along as soon as we’ve finished here.’

‘Perhaps that would be best,’ she said. She looked sheepish. ‘Sorry to be feeble. After all, it’s just a dog, not a person.’

‘Well, he’s a big dog. That somehow makes it more shocking,’ Patrick said. And more difficult to account for, he thought. ‘Make that tea we were going to have.’

‘All right. I’ll have another look for the Cicero too.’

‘You do that,’ Patrick said. ‘We shouldn’t be too long. I’ll have to help Bruce see to things.’

She knew he meant bury the dog.

‘I understand. I’ll be off, then.’

She left, and David Bruce emerged from the cellar carrying a sack as she passed the head of the stairs. Patrick saw him look at her, but she went unsmiling past, without a word.

‘Ellen’s a bit shaken, so she’s gone home,’ said Patrick shortly. ‘The poor brute does look very pathetic. Where shall we bury him?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said David. ‘I’ll think of somewhere while we fetch him.’ Patrick forbore to point out that he owned at least four acres of land, much of it wild orchard. A suitable grave should not be difficult to find.

‘That sack won’t be big enough,’ he said. ‘Have you a knife or something? If we slit it, we could sling the dog in it and carry it between us. I could have brought him back myself but I thought it would upset Ellen.’

‘You were quite right. Anyway I’d like to see where it happened. I can’t understand it,’ David said. ‘He was my wife’s dog, but he spent most of his time with me. I was fond of him.’ And indeed he looked almost as shaken as Ellen had.

He went into the house and returned with a large kitchen knife which he used to slit the sack so that it made a sheet. Then he went back into the house with the knife. A tidy man, Patrick thought.

They walked together to the stream.

‘Was he an old dog? He doesn’t look it,’ Patrick asked.

‘No, he was only five,’ David said. ‘I got him as a puppy.’

Heart failure was unlikely, then, as the cause of death.

‘Wasn’t it difficult, having him in London? Isn’t that where you lived?’ Ellen had told Patrick that the Bruces had lived in London. ‘A big dog like that must need a lot of exercise.’

‘We lived in Putney. I used to take him on the heath. And Carol gets about a good bit in her work. She took him with her sometimes. But it was better for him here, he loved it, running in the fields.’

They could see the pale blob of the dog’s body on the bank of the stream long before they reached it.

‘My God! You poor old fellow,’ said David, bending over it. As Patrick had done, he turned it, lifting the limbs, searching for any mark.

‘Boys? Hooligans?’ Patrick asked, thinking of adolescents who cut tails off cats.

‘Very unlikely. Meldsmead isn’t like that,’ David said.

‘He couldn’t have just tumbled in,’ said Patrick. ‘Will you get the vet?’

‘I’d like to know what happened, but I think it would be very upsetting,’ David said. Patrick wanted to know too, but even if there was an autopsy it would be difficult for him to learn the results. Ellen might tell him, perhaps.

They spread the sack on the ground and lifted the dog on to it. A smell of wet hair rose from him. They wrapped the sack around him and lifted it by the ends, but the bundle was dripping by the time they reached the garden of Abbot’s Lodge again.

‘I wonder if we should bury him before Carol gets back?’ David said. ‘She might want to see him.’

‘Well, you saw how upset Ellen was, and he isn’t her dog,’ Patrick said. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to get him out of sight, if you’re not going to call in the vet?’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ said David. ‘Very well. We’ll bury him in the rough grass over there.’ He pointed to an area under some trees where probably, in the spring, daffodils bloomed. Or if they don’t, they ought to, Patrick thought.

‘You could put a rose tree over him, one of those big spreading ones, what are they called, they turn into a great bush, my sister has one,’ he said, getting carried away by what Jane would have called his marshmallow streak. ‘Nevada, that’s the name. It’s lovely and grows huge.’

‘I’ll remember it,’ David said austerely. He obviously thought the idea a poor one.

They chose a spot.

‘I’ll get a couple of spades. You wait here,’ David said. He seemed to assume Patrick would see the operation through. He would, of course.

It was a morbid task. They dumped the dog on the ground and while David went off to the tool shed, which was part of the stable block, Patrick sauntered along looking at the various trees and shrubs in that part of the garden. He was no horticulturist, but since Jane’s marriage he had often lent her a helping hand in the garden, first in the rented cottage she had lived in at Winterswick, and later when Michael and she had bought their present house. He could recognise most ordinary trees and common flowers, and the Fellows’ garden at St. Mark’s was famous for its herbaceous border. He saw some lilacs, and what he thought must be a forsythia, and another, tall tree with a slender stem and slim, spreading branches. Under it a few seed pods lay on the ground. He picked three or four up and put them in his pocket.