The Unkindest Cut Read online

  The surgery, so called, was still in its original form, with a shop where clients might wait and where simple treatments were given, and then a small back room, now with floor and walls tiled, where veterinary surgery could be performed up to a certain level, anything very major being referred to a larger practice in Coldstream or to Edinburgh. On one or two occasions when action had been urgently required, Jane had performed quite major operations in the back room, fortunately with satisfactory results.

  A long seat occupied the back wall of the outer room and clients in general rarely had any objection to their animal receiving minor treatment in full view of anyone waiting there for attention and instead enjoyed a sociable exchange of gossip and a discussion of their pets’ symptoms, treatment and progress. But the town was growing and Jane accepted that larger premises would soon be necessary; however, for the moment this would suffice very well.

  On a day in May, a month or so before the wedding day, Mr Calder, one of the proprietors of the local gun and fishing tackle shop, had called in for a prescription for his Labrador. Keith Calder was a man now well into his sixties. His black hair was thinning and silvered, his face was becoming lined and his step was losing its spring, but he had retained his attractiveness and Jane felt a quite pleasurable loosening of the knees whenever their eyes met. He, being a writer on gun dog subjects among his other interests, was one of the clients who would be claiming his expenditure before tax and she was careful to accept his credit card and to give him a receipt.

  He was in no hurry to leave and her next client was still trying to fit a large car into a small parking space in the Square. He leaned on the counter. ‘I’ve seen you with a young Labrador,’ he said. It was as much a question as a statement.

  Jane nodded. ‘Sheba,’ she said. ‘Her paternal grandfather was your Briesland Echo.’

  ‘She should be all right then. Echo’s strain has been sound. Do you work her? You seemed to be training her as a worker the other day. I’ve seen you with a dummy launcher.’

  ‘She’s young enough yet,’ Jane said. ‘I’d like to give her some work in the not too distant future.’

  ‘We’re looking for another picker-up. I’ll phone you.’

  Jane felt a glow of pleasure. Anyone with two legs capable of independent movement can be a beater but to be invited to ‘pick up’ on a shoot, and presumably even to be paid a pittance for it, equates with acceptance as a competent dog trainer with a trustworthy dog.

  ‘That would be great, but the family may make it impossible for another year.’ She patted her midriff. She was showing very little but Keith would have been aware of her pregnancy through Deborah, his daughter and Jane’s friend.

  Keith snorted in answer which could have meant anything from derision at a good picker-upper going to waste or congratulations on her news. Knowing Keith it was probably the former, Jane acknowledged, but she didn’t mind and was still grateful for the old man’s offer and was keen to take him up on it as soon as the situation allowed.

  As Keith left, another patient arrived, this one dripping a little blood on the PVC tiles. Dog and owner were taken into the back room and Jane got to work. After stitching a wound in the leg of Stella – or possibly Stellar, nobody was quite sure – she found that the previous first patient in line had still not yet arrived, its owner having dented somebody else’s car in the car park and got into an argument about insurance. Jane could see figures gesticulating out in the Square, no doubt trying to work out who was to blame with neither party admitting to an apology. Meanwhile, back in the surgery, Jane was chatting to Lance Kemnay, the owner of the ridgeback Stella whose leg she’d just stitched up. Lance was the local helpful contractor and patron of Kempfield. He was a burly man with a blue chin, full lips and a surprisingly deep voice. He had begun his working life as a joiner but his wife had had a win with a premium bond. Instead of blowing it on a world cruise they had set him up as a building contractor, and in the ensuing dozen or so years he had won and carried out successive building contracts of escalating value without putting a foot wrong and without making any extravagant claims for extras. Developers were clamouring for his services.

  Jane and Lance had settled down for a chat over a cup of machine tea, Lance seated in the one bentwood chair reserved for the client at the head of the queue while Jane leaned on the counter. That day there was no queue. Lance had no grounds to claim Stella’s costs before tax so he paid cash. He had been playing hooky from business, he explained, decoying pigeon on his cousin’s farm until Stella had gashed herself on broken glass. He was usually well dressed but that day he was wearing tweed breeks and an old sweater.

  ‘How go the preparations for the Feeding of the Five Thousand?’ he asked.

  She knew that the question was a polite formality but it was at the front of her mind so she told him anyway. ‘Pray God it doesn’t turn out to be that many but it seems to be heading in that direction. We’ve been promised most of the consumables,’ she said, ‘by which I mean food, and a small working party of mothers is turning the raw materials into a buffet with the help and supervision of the chef at the hotel. Mrs Ilwand is lending me a gorgeous wedding dress. The meal will have to be a stand-up buffet. Drink is the remaining problem. Everything else seems to be providing itself but the booze is different and I haven’t dared to count the number of people who’re expecting invitations. I’ve been advised to tell people to bring their own or else to give them one glass of sherry and then leave them to pay for their own, but you can’t do that. So we timed it to catch the elderflower season and I’m going to make a superginormous batch of my elderflower champagne. And if anybody turns up their nose at that—’

  ‘They won’t,’ Lance said, laughing. Jane’s elderflower champagne was famous and much respected throughout the district.

  ‘Well, if they do, then they can bloody well fetch their own from the off-licence.’ Jane went on to recount the lengths that they were going to in order to brew the required quantity of wine.

  When she mentioned her need of a stainless steel tank, Lance sat up suddenly. ‘I have just what you want,’ he said. ‘You probably saw that the extension to the athletic centre in Edinburgh was cancelled. I had already put some materials on order. Most of them I managed to absorb into other work but there was a tank that was intended for the boiler room – something to do with sterilization of swimming pool water with the use of ozone – that nobody wanted. I got paid for it anyway but I was left with it on my hands. I didn’t know whether to send it to the dump or cut it up for bits and pieces.’

  ‘Don’t do either of those, one of them could be the answer to a maiden’s prayer. Not that I could claim to be a maiden,’ Jane said, stroking her stomach where she was convinced that the bump was becoming noticeable at her waist, although to the untrained eye it looked as taut as ever.

  Lance laughed. ‘I damn nearly said that I see what you mean, but I just managed to stop myself in time and actually I can’t really notice a thing! Anyway, congratulations. That’s great news for you and Roland. Now,’ Lance continued, this time in a more serious tone, but with a smile on his lips, ‘getting back to the business at hand, regarding the tank, I’ll send Mrs Stiggs over in the morning. She’ll take you over there.’

  ‘Thank you – and regarding the matter at hand,’ Jane replied, being equally businesslike and with her own smile playing round her mouth, ‘I do know my way to your warehouse.’

  ‘Not this one you don’t. It used to be a church hall until I built them the newer and better one. So this is a different place and it’s much easier if I just send Mrs Stiggs over to take you there tomorrow instead of having to give you complicated directions, which you’ll then lose and will phone me up in a panic totally lost, no doubt. No, this is much the easiest solution all round. And, out of the goodness of my heart and because I want to be rid of the tank, I’ll even transport it for you. That pickup that they use for Kempfield would hardly look at it.’

  Jane, who had been ex
pecting to have to use relays of milk churns, had switched to expecting a need to do something clever with a boat trailer, but now she could relax. ‘Write down your name complete with your middle names,’ Jane said. ‘I’m going to nominate you for a JCB in the next honours list.’

  Lance tried to laugh with his mouth full of tea. It was lucky that he was wearing older clothes than usual. ‘I’ll see that you get it back in good order,’ Jane said, mopping up the spillage with a paper towel.

  ‘But I don’t want it back,’ Lance insisted, mopping his eyes with a swab provided by Jane. ‘That’s the whole point. I’m trying to get rid of it. Take it away and lose it, for all I care.’

  ‘Then you wouldn’t mind if I made holes for immersion heaters in it?’

  ‘I’ll say this again for the last time. Watch my lips, Jane. I … do … not … want … it … back. If you try to give it back to me I shall drop it on your foot.’

  ‘Then the yacht group can cut it up for chainplates and things when I’ve finished with it. That wasn’t a question,’ Jane added hastily. ‘I was summarizing.’

  Next morning Mrs Stiggs telephoned to find which part of Jane’s day was unencumbered by surgery times and duly turned up with another driver and Lance’s Audi. Vets have to drive a lot of miles and Jane had only been able to afford a Citroën 2CV and not a very new one, so to be driven in a quiet and comfortable car was a luxurious novelty. In the surgery window Jane hung the sign that she kept for these occasions. Neatly printed by computer and duly laminated, it read: ‘CALLED AWAY. IN EMERGENCY PHONE …’ and there followed the eleven digits of her mobile phone number. A similar message went on to her answering machine.

  In the nearby jeweller’s shop, just a few doors along the Square, a local young woman called Helen Maple, who considered herself to be the local female factotum, was in charge for the moment but not heavily occupied, so Jane asked her to look out for disappointed customers Helen happened to notice lingering outside the surgery, most probably looking for dog food, flea powder or biscuits. Helen was happy to oblige and Jane was free to go.

  Mrs Stiggs was a widow, slightly overweight but still not without her sex appeal because she gave her face, figure and hair the intense care that an infatuated owner gives to a garden. She was a good driver but on this occasion, because of a sprained ankle, her daughter Joyce had come along as driver. Joyce, who was red haired, blue eyed and slender, also took a pride in her personal appearance. She was very well dressed in colours suited to her strong complexion and a summer dress cut to flatter her slightly plump figure. She, like her mother, worked for Lance Kemnay, though in a more junior position.

  Jane hopped in the back seat of the Audi, luxuriating in the plump leather seats and ample leg room. It was only a short fifteen-minute journey, but Jane revelled in this time out from her busy day; it was a great excuse to take her rather aching feet out of her shoes (as sensible as they were for a vet) and massage the soles of her feet and her ankles, both of which were beginning to suffer under the strain of slight water retention and extra weight.

  Joyce conveyed them all, briskly but safely, to the former church hall at Longdene. Once the expedition members had exited the car, both Jane and Mrs Stiggs showing signs of stiffness, they entered the building, negotiated their way around piles of various building materials and sacks of cement and there, half hidden by a stack of terrazzo floor tiles, was a tank. It looked more than large enough.

  ‘How many glasses of champagne would that hold, do you think?’ Jane asked.

  Lance retained the services of Mrs Stiggs as his secretary at the cost of a substantial salary, not for her looks but because she was the sort of person who knew the contents of the average champagne glass in cubic centimetres, could estimate the dimensions of the tank by eye and could divide the one by the other in her head. She had hobbled from the car with the aid of two sticks but her mind was still needle sharp. ‘Just under a hundred and twenty thousand,’ she said.

  That sounded rather a lot but they need not fill the tank to the brim and Jane was not going to pass up the chance of a free stainless steel tank. ‘I should think that’ll do it,’ she said. ‘Please tell Mr Kemnay to go ahead, shift it to Kempfield and to let me know when it’s coming. Or going. Or whatever. And ask him where those terrazzo tiles are destined for. We could use them at Kempfield.’ Jane knew that when a contract included terrazzo floor tiles the contractor would usually allow for a spare quantity because if extra was needed the first run would be almost impossible to match for colour. So consequently he very often ended up with the surplus on his hands.

  Mrs Stiggs winked. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll see to it.’

  Joyce, however, did not approve of Lance’s frequent gifts to Kempfield. ‘They should be paying for all these materials,’ she said defiantly.

  ‘What do you care?’ her mother asked rather tartly. ‘It doesn’t come out of your pocket.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Joyce said doubtfully.

  Mrs Stiggs and Jane exchanged raised brows and subtle yet amused smiles and all concerned made their way back to Newton Lauder, Jane now that much closer to a completely organized wedding.

  There were some clients whose animals Jane had treated, at least once in the past, without looking for payment. These were those whose favours she was likely to need on some other occasion. Among them was an impecunious farmer who had woken her from a deep sleep when he thought, mistakenly, that his cattle had eaten a poisonous weed. From him she called in her favour and demanded the loan of a tractor, trailer and driver on a date chosen after careful scrutiny of the calendar and the weather. Other tradesmen and shopkeepers had been blarneyed or blackmailed into providing goods or services as well.

  However, Jane had no need to use blackmail on the young members at Kempfield. For many of them she had nursed a sick puppy or kitten back to health or had obtained special access to facilities at Kempfield or elsewhere. The page posted in the lobby for members volunteering to pick elderflowers soon had to be supplemented with extra pages. A plumber whose son’s budgerigar’s talons she had clipped had, in return, fitted and connected immersion heaters to the tank.

  This enthusiasm to help her out just proved that Jane was a very well-liked and popular member of the local community and how, as a prominent person on the committee of Kempfield, she had earned the respect and friendship of many of the young who frequented the place. GG had also been incredibly well respected in his role as photography course leader, and many of the now respectable thirty-somethings of Newton Lauder owed their present success to GG’s role as their mentor which had kept them from veering into the world of the petty criminal.

  On the day chosen for the big elderflower pick, the tractor and trailer made four runs between Kempfield and two stretches of woodland rich in elder trees. A measured quantity of water had been added to the tank and brought to the required temperature. The elderflower heads were added, together with lemon, wine vinegar and bags of sugar. Two boys who had been prevented, by leg injuries incurred in a football match, from joining the harvesting party were left to stir the concoction which was then covered with muslin, and the tank was wrapped in insulating material and left.

  The yeast that was working itself up in a clean jar proved unnecessary – after two days the tank could be heard and smelled from anywhere in the complex. All activities involving paints or anything else that might taint the wine had already been banned. For four more days the brew was left to bloop and gurgle. Then it was siphoned through muslin filters into milk churns, the lids were clamped down and additionally fastened with fencing wire, the room allowed to cool and the churns left to finish their fermentation in peace. The tank was scrubbed out and went to store.

  The date for the wedding was coming close but, while the ceremony was of interest only to the young female members of the fashion and catering sections, the male members foreswore their boats, cars, motorcycles, furniture and firearms for a period and turned their attention to Kempfield itself. The p
roject had sparked the general imagination and the reception was to be the success of the century or else …

  THREE

  In addition to those who loved Jane or owed her favours, somehow the idea of this wedding above all others being the one occasion for everybody to meet and greet had caught on and spread like flu. Even the Newton Lauder Hotel ballroom would not have contained the crowd that was expected for what would undoubtedly be the wedding of the decade, but the former barns and cattle courts of Kempfield had ample space. They had been scrubbed out, lined, decorated and redecorated several times since being taken over and could be made available at short notice. Two hectic days were spent on another clean and a clearance of the three largest workshops and then some clever work with cheerful wrapping paper completed the transformation, disguising the utilitarian spaces as circus tents. Most of the problems were resolved by intelligent analysis but the removal and storing of machinery made demands on the pure manpower which, fortunately, was available. Jane’s own attitude vacillated between trepidation and eager anticipation.

  While all that work was going on, Jane was checking over her mental list and ticking off the jobs to be done. Surely everything was almost done … Then, on her very wedding eve, it hit her, forming such a distraction that she nearly inoculated a Persian cat against brucellosis. She was so used to driving herself everywhere that her mental picture had faded away at the point of getting herself from place to place apparently by teleportation. Guests could be trusted to make their own ways to Kempfield; and if they became unfit to drive and had to walk home again at least it was downhill all the way for the locals. The bride, however, would be expected to arrive and depart with dignity. A phone call established that nobody had remembered to book the limousine kept at the Ledbetters’ garage and service station which was generally reserved for weddings and funerals and the occasional visit of a VIP.