Doghouse (Three Oaks Book 3) Read online

  ‘I’m to choose from the canvases in his studio. But he also left me a dog.’

  I was more interested in the painting, but decided to follow up the dog. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘tell me about the dog,’ and thereby unleashed another of Beth’s rare bouts of loquaciousness.

  ‘Uncle George did a lot of wildfowling. In recent years, because he was beginning to get on, he didn’t take it so seriously. I mean, he didn’t go plowtering a mile out through the mud any more. But he still got a lot of satisfaction, and the inspiration for most of his paintings, out of his trips to the foreshore. That’s why I said that you’d have liked him. His old dog, Mona, was getting very stiff and rheumaticky after a life spent in and out of freezing water. Now do you understand why I was so concerned about Samson?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t think that once will have done him any harm,’ I said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Uncle George bought a Labrador puppy from Edgar about a year ago and paid him in advance to train it. Well, sort of bought it. He liked one of Edgar’s bitches, so he paid the stud fee for a really good sire in return for the first choice of a pup. He could have trained it himself – a wildfowler’s dog doesn’t have to be anything marvellous, does it? – but instead he paid Edgar a fee to train it. I think that he was doing Edgar a favour. Edgar’s usually short of money. Clients don’t like his manner.

  ‘My uncle left everything to Hattie, of course, except for a few small bequests. But he knew that I was involved with dogs, while Hattie hardly knows a dog from a dodo. I mean, she can feed them and she pats them if they’re there and takes them for walks if she happens to feel like walking. She’ll give Mona a good enough home for the rest of her life and they’ll get along all right, but she has no real feeling for them. And I was always his favourite. So he left the puppy to me. He’s called Jason after a favourite dog Uncle George had years ago.’

  Something was nagging at a corner of my mind. ‘If you were at the funeral, how is it that you only heard yesterday?’ I asked.

  ‘Hattie wasn’t at the funeral. Uncle George’s death gave her such a shock that she was sent to hospital. I only got her letter yesterday morning, enclosing the pedigree.’

  ‘Has Isobel checked it?’ I asked. Isobel maintained an astonishing mass of information about gundog blood-lines.

  Beth nodded. ‘Isobel says that there’s no hip dysplasia in the pedigree and no progressive retinal atrophy for ten generations back. And there are both Show Champions and Field Trials Champions in the pedigree.’

  ‘I wouldn’t set too much store by that,’ I said. ‘When you mix show and working dogs, you often get the worst of each.’

  ‘Not so often with Labs,’ she said quickly.

  ‘Maybe not.’ I sighed. This was going to be difficult. ‘But you know that we agreed not to have personal dogs around the place. Dogs are our business and we have to be unsentimental about them.’

  She laughed at me. ‘Look who’s talking,’ she said. ‘Whenever we sell a pup you carry on as though the buyer was asking for the hand of your daughter.’

  ‘Our daughter,’ I said. ‘That makes a difference.’

  ‘Our daughter,’ she repeated, wide-eyed. ‘Golly! I can just see you asking our daughter’s boyfriend whether he’s got adequate kennel space and an enclosed run and whether he knows about worming. Don’t laugh, I mean it. Anyway – be fair, John – I didn’t go out to look for a dog. He was left to me. He sort of happened. And I thought that if you’re going to go after ducks and geese in rotten weather it would be better if you had a dog for the purpose which wasn’t one of our breeding stock. And a Labrador would be better than a spaniel for wildfowling anyway. They sit still for longer.’

  ‘There’s some sense in that,’ I said, ‘but not a lot.’ It seemed a good moment to begin negotiating from a position of strength. ‘If you and Isobel are going to kick up hell every time I go off in pursuit of our Christmas dinner—’

  She knew exactly what I was up to, of course. Beth’s youthful appearance and sometimes inconsequential remarks often fooled me into thinking of her and even treating her as a dimwit. But she had a keen mind and a sort of animal cunning. ‘You’re probably right,’ she said. ‘I was going to suggest that we went to Hattie for the weekend. She suggested it herself. She’s back on her feet now and she sounds lonely. Then we could have picked out my picture and taken a run to visit Edgar. You could have told me whether Jason looked like being worth his keep. But we can skip it if you like. We’ll go to that hotel near Kelso instead.’

  The message was clear. No dog, no painting.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘We’ll do it your way. I could take a gun and see whether the geese are still coming in at Crinan.’

  My message was equally clear. No wildfowling, no dog.

  She was ready for me. ‘I don’t think there’d be time. You always say that it’s immoral to go shooting without a good dog because of the danger of leaving wounded birds behind – that’s part of your sales patter when the purchaser jibs at paying our prices. Mona’s too old and stiff. Even if we brought Jason away with us, you couldn’t get back and reach Crinan in time for the evening flight. And there’s no shooting on a Sunday.’

  ‘I could take Samson,’ I said.

  ‘Definitely not,’ she retorted. Negotiations were at an end and compromises had been reached which were acceptable to both parties. I was not going to Crinan. On the other hand, I could still reject Jason. The door was open for future wildfowling forays provided that I was accompanied by Jason and not Samson.

  Beth decided to return to a more important subject. ‘You’re sure that what was bothering you was just a general discontent left over from the boring time you had while you were ill? You’re not tired of Three Oaks and the business? And me?’

  There is only one satisfactory answer to that sort of question. I pulled her closer and reassured her with little kisses. One minute later I had her under the covers with me. Coaxing her out of her jeans and sweater under the duvet made it all seem novel and exciting again.

  Her tousled head popped out suddenly. ‘Wait,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Not now. Save it. I’ve got the dogs’ main meals to prepare.’

  ‘I’ve already done them,’ said Isobel’s voice from the landing. We heard her go into the bathroom. The toilet was flushed.

  So also was Beth. ‘She heard us!’

  Isobel’s feet descended the stairs with deliberate loudness.

  ‘Who cares?’ I said. ‘We didn’t tell her anything she didn’t know before.’

  When it came, it was tender and perfect. I only just stopped myself from making some comparison with the days before my illness. But I had not known Beth in those days.

  Chapter Two

  We were late getting away from Three Oaks on the Friday afternoon. For this we shared the blame. One of the pups in training, which had previously regarded the whole question of fetching and carrying as a waste of his valuable time, had suddenly decided that retrieving was his mission in life and it was important to impress the lesson before he forgot it again. And Beth was so determined to leave the house and kennels spick and span for Isobel and Henry that she was dusting cobwebs off the wire mesh of the runs and had to be dissuaded from applying metal polish.

  We made a pact to be more sensible in the future, took one last walk round together just to be sure that our livestock was comfortable, tick-free and neither gaining nor losing weight, and got on the road just as the sun dipped behind the low hills of Fife. Isobel waved us off, no doubt with a sigh of relief.

  We had put in a hard day and my tiredness must have shown. Beth drove the rather weary old estate car which served both as our personal and canine transporter. She was a good driver, so good that I laid my head back and dozed for part of the way. We went by way of Perth and Crieff and Lochearnhead – a scenic route by daylight, but now a black void spewing sudden, blinding lights of onrushing traffic. Between lights, the outlines of the hills against moonlit clouds grew ever taller
as we travelled to the west. We had passed Crianlarich and were heading down Glen Falloch towards Loch Lomondside before the traffic died and Beth could spare attention for chatter. It seemed a good time, before we set eyes on Jason and Beth became too enamoured of him, to make sure that we both understood our tacit agreement.

  ‘I’d have thought there were more than enough dogs in your life already,’ I said into the darkness. ‘Why do you want to take on another?’

  ‘Uncle George wanted me to have him.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean that you have to keep him,’ I pointed out. ‘If his pedigree’s so good, you could always sell him. Uncle George wouldn’t know.’

  ‘I’d know. I’d feel that I’d let him down. And I want you to have a proper retriever when you go wildfowling.’

  ‘I do appreciate the kind thought, but if you’re going to get in a tizzy every time I go to the foreshore—’

  ‘If I could be sure that you were all right, I wouldn’t mind so much,’ she said. ‘You need new waders and some thermal undies. Perhaps we could shop in Glasgow tomorrow.’ She fell silent while she screwed her eyes against the glare and squeezed past an oncoming tanker. ‘Perhaps I’d be less worried if I came with you—’

  I tried to visualise Beth sitting still and quietly in hiding through a freezing dawn, and failed. ‘Isobel would get restive if we both started skiving off,’ I said.

  Beth drove in silence for another mile. ‘If you really want to know—’ she said suddenly. Then she fell silent again.

  ‘I do want to know,’ I said.

  It came out with a rush. ‘You’ve more or less said it yourself a dozen times. And yet you only look at it from your own selfish viewpoint. You complain and feel hard done by and left out of things. Well, you don’t have a monopoly of getting fed-up.’

  ‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘What’s this leading up to?’

  ‘To this. You and Isobel get all the fun and I’m just the food-fetcher and shit-shoveller. I help with the training when you’re not available or an extra pair of hands is needed, but when it comes to the things which make or break the business I’m out in the cold. Well, all right, somebody has to do it and I don’t mind, it’s what I came for in the first place. But, just once in a while, I’d like to pull my weight. You’ve heard of what they call job satisfaction?’

  I knew exactly what she meant and I felt a sudden pang of sympathy. ‘If you want, we could let you try handling one of the young spaniels in a Puppy Stake,’ I said.

  Beth snorted, took a bend too fast and had to jerk the wheel. She slowed right down. ‘Isobel’s the tops,’ she said, ‘and you know it. I’d feel terrible if I spoiled our record. Anyway, I’m not up to working spaniels in a field trial, not to winning standard. But I always go along with Isobel to the trials, just to give her moral support and a drive home, and some clubs run spaniels and retrievers on the same day. I could enter with Jason in a Retriever Trial without making a total muck-up of it – the worst thing that can happen with a retriever is getting its eye wiped – and it wouldn’t harm the business if I came last or got put out. Or don’t you think I could do it?’

  Consciously or unconsciously, she had found an argument which was bound to appeal to me. To the dedicated spaniel man the work of a mere retriever – walking steadily to heel until there is downed quarry to fetch – seems to be straight out of the kindergarten. As long as the dog doesn’t chase a hare or eat the retrieve, its handler can hold up his or her head. A spaniel (which is required to perform the same duties, but also to quest and flush its quarry at some distance from the handler while remaining under perfect control and steadfast against temptation) presents a whole host of additional problems.

  ‘You could do it,’ I said. ‘But could you do it while still giving the other dogs your full attention?’

  ‘If you ever think I’m neglecting my job,’ Beth said bravely, ‘you can get rid of him for me. I’ll give you that in writing. And I’ll pay for his food if that’s bothering you.’

  In the face of such determination I could only give ground. ‘No need for that. We’d better take a look at him,’ I said cautiously. ‘Your cousin may have ruined him already.’

  Beth said nothing, but her driving had regained its usual high standard so I knew that a load had come off her mind.

  *

  A meal was already waiting for us and our hostess was hopping with impatience. It had taken us some time to find the house, which was perched on a hillside high above the loch and approached by a succession of minor roads. Occasional lights pinpointed a sprinkling of other dwellings. Beth had visited her uncle several times during his lifetime, but only as a passenger. More than once she was sure that she recognised a road, but the darkness defeated her and each time she was wrong.

  Harriet Muir, Beth’s aunt by marriage, had evidently been expecting us for some time. Like any good hostess, she wanted to serve the meal before it dehydrated. She brushed aside my conventional words of condolence and gave us a few seconds to wash and examine our (separate) rooms before she had us seated at table in a neat but old-fashioned dining room. The house was a rambling old place. Many owners had left eccentric imprints on it, but if anything had ever been shoddy or out of key it had been remedied. It was a comfortable home, kept up unpretentiously but to a high standard of cleanliness and polish. A faint odour of pipe tobacco still lingered. The meal was conventional Scottish fare, unelaborate but deliciously prepared. The glasses on the table were accompanied by an uncompromising jug of water. I wondered whether this had been a teetotal household but decided that to ask the question would be to suggest criticism.

  Hattie – as she asked us both to call her – was a brusque lady in her forties. Her blue-black hair should have been greying, but I detected the unnatural blackness of a famous colour restorer. She was tall, almost stately. She had a soft, West Highland accent quite out of keeping with an authoritative manner.

  ‘You found the place at last,’ she observed as we ate.

  ‘At last,’ Beth agreed. ‘I thought I remembered the way but I didn’t. When you’re being driven, you see more of the scenery but less of the route.’

  ‘You should have stopped and asked.’

  ‘We did. Three men who were strangers here themselves, one woman with a bad stammer who’d never heard of the place and a drunk who insisted on drawing a map on the back of an envelope.’ Beth laughed suddenly. ‘We nearly didn’t believe him, but he turned out to be absolutely right.’

  Hattie nodded slowly. ‘That would be Grant Nolan?’ she said.

  I had slipped the envelope into my pocket rather than drop it in the car. I took it out and looked at the name of the original addressee. ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘It would have to be,’ she said. ‘He’s my gardener and odd-job man. And he’s the only one of the heavy drinkers around here who would know the way. George could enjoy a dram of an evening, but he only had contempt for boozers. That wasn’t among his vices.’ She glanced at Beth’s hand and her eyes came back to me. ‘Beth told me on the phone that you’re engaged. I wished her every happiness and I’ll wish you the same. When do you plan to tie the knot?’

  Beth and I were getting along so comfortably that we had hardly bothered to discuss dates. I was uncertain how to answer. Some West Highlanders are fanatically moral, others believe in marrying just in time to legitimise the first baby. Beth stepped into the moment of silence.

  ‘We’re in no hurry,’ she said. ‘We’ve been more concerned about John’s health.’

  ‘The war wound,’ Hattie said, nodding.

  Beth, who knew how that remark would irritate me, explained hastily. The longstanding illness which had cut short my army career had resulted from the bite of a leech infected with a rare tropical bug; but rumour in the gundog fraternity, and locally in Fife, persisted in crediting me with having been wounded in the Falklands War.

  ‘He could do with some flesh on his bones,’ Hattie said. She made to fill my
plate again, but I resisted firmly. I had surprised myself by eating all of a generous first portion.

  ‘He’s definitely on the mend now,’ Beth said. ‘If we have time tomorrow, we thought that we might run into Glasgow and choose a ring.’ She gave me a look which warned me not to express surprise. She was indulging Hattie’s preconceptions.

  Discussion of my health between others always made me feel peculiarly mortal, as though I were in my coffin and they were speaking of whatever had carried me off. (As long as my health remained my own business, I could ignore it or succumb to self-pity according to my mood.) And the choosing of an engagement ring was among the many subjects of my procrastination, because I was torn between competing desires – to give Beth the very best and yet to plough back every penny of my earnings into the house and business.

  To turn the subject I said, ‘But you’ve not been well yourself. Beth said that she missed you on the day of the funeral.’

  ‘Doctors!’ Hattie said. ‘They’ll have you walking around on a broken leg and then send you to bed to get over an upset. It was a shock, mind, and I dare say that I was the better for the rest. The fright that I got, I thought that my heart would stop and that I’d be laid to rest beside poor George.’

  ‘You must miss him terribly,’ Beth said.

  ‘I’ll miss having him around,’ Hattie admitted. ‘Not that he was much company, always in the studio or away out in the car and painting like a mad thing, or shooting, or with his nose buried in a book. But when he’d finished a picture and he wasn’t fishing or away after the geese, then he was a fine husband. And a good provider, I’ll say that for him.’

  I hoped that Beth would be able to say as much for me when I was gone.

  While Hattie rattled on she had been serving up a trifle with cream, giving me no chance to say that I was already full. When I sampled it I found that I still had a little appetite left. Between mouthfuls, I asked, ‘What exactly did happen? If you’re ready to talk about it . . . When I saw the report of George Muir’s death in the paper I didn’t realise that he was Beth’s uncle, so I only glanced at the heading. And Beth said no more than that he was killed in an accident.’