Chapter 20
In the car on the way back from the celebration/funeral/sing-along/chocolate cake extravaganza, Julia gave Tabitha a full rundown of her conversation with Candy, and the aggression from the man Julia now referred to privately as the Lunatic Dog Walker.
‘Isn’t it great that Candy is really her name? The cake baker?’
‘And the choir mistress was called Melody,’ said Julia.
‘Oh, how wonderful,’ said Tabitha with a contented sigh.
‘It couldn’t be more perfect,’ said Julia appreciatively.
‘I love a good aptonym.’
‘I know you do. As do I. But now, the question is how to find the Lunatic Dog Walker with his brace of sled dogs.’
‘That’s a question,’ said Tabitha. ‘Another question might be: why not just pass on this information to Hayley Gibson and let her find him and determine whether Husky Man had anything to do with Esmeralda’s death? I imagine she could do it in a jiffy.’
‘Because this new superintendent fellow has instructed her not to continue with the investigation into Esmeralda’s death.
He’s convinced it was natural causes. Hayley practically asked me to get involved.
She left the tox report on the counter for me at Second Chances and all but asked me to show it to Sean.
And you don’t need me to remind you that you are still not allowed to leave Berrywick.
Or that we are mere days away from your flight to Ghana. ’
‘A week,’ said Tabitha sadly.
‘So, since we’re in the car, shall we pop past the meadow and see if we can spot Husky Man?’
‘Yes. Thank you, Julia. I know you are trying to help. Let’s go and see if we can find him.’
Julia drove slowly along the road beside the meadow, with Tabitha peering out looking for a man with huskies.
There were a few places from which there was quite an expansive view, but most of the meadow was unfenced and abutted various gardens, commonages and woods.
The diggers were parked on the side, and it was clear that the work had started.
Giant piles of upended soil scarred what had previously been a beautiful meadow.
Julia felt a stab of loss as sharply as if the digging had been done in her very own garden, and felt a moment of affinity with all the people who were furious that this type of behaviour was labelled as ‘development’ and ‘progress’.
On top of that, there was absolutely no chance that they were going to find the husky owner in this field of destruction.
She did see a glimpse of a ginger cat in the long grass near the diggers – probably catching little mice whose nests had been disturbed by the work.
She sighed at the thought of all those homeless mice.
‘We could look in other meadows,’ said Tabitha, in a tone that made it clear that she thought this was hopeless. Julia considered the idea. For it to work, they would have to be very lucky. Rather than relying on luck, they needed to be clever.
‘I have an idea of how we might be able to narrow the field,’ she said, slightly emphasising the last three words.
‘Nice one, the field… meadow…’ Tabitha said. Of course she got the little joke. They’d been friends since girlhood and their senses of humour had practically fused. ‘And how do you plan to do that?’
‘Pippa. She lives not too far from here, and she’s always out and about walking the guide dog puppies, so she’s probably seen him. Plus, she knows a lot of dog people, kennel clubs, and so on. I’ll phone her and ask if she knows who he is.’
‘It’s worth a try,’ said Tabitha. ‘Go on, give her a ring.’
Pippa didn’t know Husky Man personally, as it turned out, but she had seen him around the place on her puppy walks – in the meadow, in fact.
‘He’s hard to miss with those big dogs. But I don’t know his name or where he lives,’ she said, her voice coming from the car’s speakers. ‘Sorry, Julia. I don’t think I can help you. But if I see him, I’ll let you know.’
‘Thanks, and don’t worry. I knew it was a long shot.’
Julia’s finger was hovering over the button to end the call when Pippa said, ‘Oh, hang on a mo. I’ve got an idea. There’s someone who might know.’
The Husky Rescue Association for the Cotswolds was based just outside Berrywick, but neither Julia nor Tabitha had known it existed. Even when Pippa gave them directions, and instructions to talk to Ingrid, they couldn’t imagine where it might be.
‘You expect to see a vast snowy wilderness where the dogs can pull sleds up mountains and recover from husky trauma, don’t you?’ said Tabitha, who had always had a poetic streak and an active imagination.
‘I suspect you’ll be disappointed, if that’s your vision. It’s on Acorn Lane, on the far side of the school, closest to the woods. More English oaks than Siberian pines, I suspect.’
‘Acorn Lane? That’s near where my hairdresser lives. I think I’d have noticed a vast, snowy mountainous wilderness if there was one. Or a pack of sled dogs. But let’s go and see.’
It wasn’t far, and it was their only lead for finding the husky owner, so off they went, heading out of the village, where the properties were larger and the people fewer.
As suspected, there was no snowy wilderness, just an ordinary country road.
The only distinguishing characteristic of the place was a high, sturdy fence and gate with a bell and an intercom.
Julia was about to press the bell when she caught sight of a woman in the garden walking a large dog on a lead and speaking to it in calm tones. ‘There’s a good chap… Slow… Good boy…’
The dog saw the two women peering over the gate and let out a volley of short barks.
‘It’s all right, Bear,’ said the woman, stroking the dog in a soothing way. She was short, but powerfully built, and handled the dog with quiet authority. She led him to the gate. ‘Let’s go and say hello.’
The dog’s bark had set off a round of yapping and howling from a large pen at the far end of the garden.
The woman seemed to be used to the din and spoke firmly over it.
‘Hello. Can I help you?’
This was always a tricky question to answer when one was nosing about in an unofficial capacity. Tabitha looked at Julia expectantly.
‘Oh, hello. Are you Ingrid?’
‘Yes…’
‘I’m sorry to disturb you. I’m Julia Bird. And isn’t he a beautiful boy?’
The dog looked quite pleased to hear it, stopping his noise and regarding the new arrivals eagerly. His eyes were a pale, luminous blue, a colour that was both beautiful and unsettling. Ingrid held his lead loosely and stroked his ears.
‘He is. He’s settling down ever so nicely, aren’t you, Bear?’ She turned her attention back to the women. ‘Are you looking to adopt?’ she asked hopefully.
‘I’m afraid not. I have my hands full with my chocolate Labrador.’
‘Then what can I do for you?’ said Ingrid, who was clearly not a person given to beating around bushes.
Julia cut to the chase. ‘We are looking for someone, and I wondered if you might help. There’s a fellow who walks three huskies. I thought you might know him, because of the husky connection.’
‘Well, I do know a lot of the husky owners, and I’ve placed dogs with some of them. But I don’t know anyone around here with three. If there was anyone in this area with three huskies, I’d definitely know.’
‘That’s a lot of huskies, I would think,’ said Tabitha, nodding in an agreeable way.
‘It is. They need a great deal of space and exercise. The ones we get here at the rescue are often here because their owners didn’t realise what being a husky parent entails.
Bear here was brought in by someone who lived in a flat.
A flat! Why he bought a husky, I don’t know.
They need a decent-sized garden and a daily walk. ’
‘Well, that’s actually why we are looking for him. The walking,’ said Julia. ‘The fellow I’m looking for is running a petition to stop development on the meadow over the other side of Berrywick.’
‘Oh, him? That’s Sven Olafson. I heard he had a petition going. One thing I must say about Sven: he doesn’t take things lying down.’
‘How so?’ asked Tabitha.
‘Oh, I don’t know. He has a lot of strong positions, and he fights for them.
Like the field. It’s just like Sven to start a petition.
No doubt he’s been on to his local MP about it, and written to the papers.
And got into a terrible grump about it all.
Gosh, you’ve reminded me, the fuss he made about yoghurt packaging a few years back.
He was writing to the Prime Minister, by the end of it. But he doesn’t have huskies.’
‘I think he does. Three of them, from what I hear.’
‘Definitely not,’ said Ingrid, in a tone meant to settle the matter once and for all.
‘We were told he did…’ Julia was worried that Sven was perhaps not the right man. It had been a man with three huskies who had caused the problems for Esmeralda.
‘The dogs he has are Alaskan Malamutes,’ Ingrid explained somewhat impatiently. ‘Huskies are from Siberia. They are not the same breed, though they are both Arctic working dogs. It’s a common mistake among lay people.’
She sighed in disappointment at the ignorance of the non-Arctic-working-dog community.
‘Malamutes are bigger than huskies, and there are certain differences in temperament.’
The way she said it suggested that she had more to say on that subject, but would restrain herself.
‘Ah, I see, well thank you for clearing that up,’ said Julia, heading off further discussion of the dogs’ relative attributes. ‘Could you tell us where we might find Sven Olafson?’
‘If you don’t mind my asking, why do you want to know?’ Frankly, Julia was surprised she’d got this far in her enquiries before the woman thought to ask.
‘Oh, we think we might have something of his… He dropped… something…’ said Julia, floundering.
For some reason, she couldn’t think what exact item he might have dropped.
A banana? A book? A beret? None of them seemed plausible.
Her brain refused to let go of the letter B.
Then it went into gridlock. She started to panic and stutter. The woman frowned suspiciously.
‘A bunch of keys. In the park,’ said Tabitha, thinking on her feet. ‘One of the other dog walkers found them and thought they might belong to him. She had seen him right there with the dogs, but he’d just left, apparently.’
Tabitha realised that her spur-of-the-moment explanation accounted for the dropped and found object, but introduced another question – why they had the keys. She shot Julia a ‘Help!’ look.
‘She was going to the airport,’ Julia said, having recovered her equilibrium. ‘The lady who found the keys said that she was going to the airport…’
‘The Seychelles!’ added Tabitha eagerly.
‘That’s right, she was going to the Seychelles. And we were right there, so she asked us to take the keys and see if we could find him and return them to him.’
Ingrid looked at them as if she was noting what an odd pair they were.
‘Well, I can tell you where to find him, but don’t expect too much in the way of thanks from old Sven… You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t turn the whole situation around, and somehow you’ll find that you’re in the wrong.’