Chapter 13
13
The Jack Russell not being easy was the understatement of the year, Jade thought as she filled up her water bowl from the safe side of the wire netting on Monday morning. She’d nicknamed her Fang because she tried to bite everyone who went near, which was a pain as it meant Jade had to see to the little dog herself. She couldn’t risk anyone getting bitten.
At least Ben was back at school now, and there were only two more days until Sarah and Callum were back.
‘How’s she doing?’ Aiden asked when he turned up at lunchtime as promised. ‘Is she settling?’
‘A little,’ Jade lied, not wanting him to feel bad that he’d lumbered her with a dog that was three times as much work as the rest. ‘Come and see. I was just about to check how she’s doing.’
As they reached her kennel, Fang snarled and hurled herself against the wire.
‘I could come in a couple of times a week, try and socialise her a bit,’ Aiden said, stamping his feet and rubbing his hands together. ‘Brrr, it’s a cold one today. ’
‘Come in whenever you like. You can go in there now if you like, but put some gauntlets on if you’re planning on touching her. Or you won’t have any fingers left.’
‘I’ve got a couple of calls, but I’ll pop in on my way back,’ Aiden said, glancing at his watch. ‘I’ve got a few minutes now, though. Why don’t I take her for a stroll? I’m sure you’ve got plenty of things you could be doing.’
‘Thanks. I will need to go and pick up Ben shortly, as it happens.’ Jade left him to it.
By the time she got back with Ben, Aiden had gone again. But at least he’d saved her a job by walking Fang.
Ben declared he wanted to paint a picture of the puppies, so Jade set him up at a table in reception, which was the warmest place, while she did some admin.
Ben was bored after ten minutes. ‘Is it all right if I take a kennel dog out, Auntie Jade? I’ve finished my picture.’
‘You can take Mickey.’
‘We’ve been out already, but he doesn’t like the frost on his paws. It makes him go all skiddy.’
‘OK then, but not on your own. I’ll come with you if you hold on a minute.’ As she spoke, the landline rang and she picked it up, aware of Ben’s disappointed gaze.
Ben went outside and cracked the ice on some puddles with the heel of his trainer while he waited, but by the look on Jade’s face, it was going to be a long phone call. When he glanced back through the reception window, she shrugged her shoulders and mouthed ‘sorry’ and then carried on talking.
He put his hands in his pockets. He’d taken a couple of leftover sausages out of the fridge, which he was going to feed to whichever dog he took out. Jade was pretty cool most of the time, but she could be a bit of a fusser, like his mum. He didn’t need her to tell him which dog to walk. It was easy enough to work out. He wandered up to the yard and found Finn up a ladder. ‘Hiya, mate.’ Finn always called him ‘mate’ and it made him feel really grown up as he echoed the words back at him.
Finn stopped what he was doing and came down a couple of steps. ‘Hello there. How’s it going?’
‘OK. Need any help?’
‘Not just at the moment,’ Finn said, smiling. ‘Maybe later if you’ve got some time spare?’
‘Might have.’ Ben scuffed his feet and blew on his hands, which were starting to go numb. He liked Finn. He didn’t speak down to him or treat him like a kid and he’d said his painting of Diesel was really good.
‘See you later, then,’ he said, nodding seriously and heading up the yard. He stopped at the chicken run, tore off a chunk of sausage and stuffed it through the wire. One of the birds came across, pecked at it, then dropped it again. Ben glanced back down the yard. Jade wasn’t coming and he was sure a minute had passed. Lots of minutes, probably. It wouldn’t hurt to just nip up and have a quick look at the dogs. He mooched up and down outside the kennels, trying to decide which one to take first.
He was still undecided when he saw someone coming out of the quarantine block. That was where Fang, the new dog, was. Jade had told him not to go near Fang, but it couldn’t hurt just to look.
He glanced back over his shoulder, but there was still no sign of Jade. Shoving his hands deeper into his pockets, he carried on through the last gate. There was a big notice on the door that said ‘NO Adsomething’ in spiky capital letters. Ben gave up trying to work out what it said, unbolted the door and stepped inside. There was a hot, crunchy feeling in his stomach as he headed up the walkway past the dogs’ sleeping areas. Dogs smelt a lot better than chickens, he thought, peering into the first few runs, which were empty. At the end he found the run with Fang in. She was in her basket, curled up. A white roly-poly ball of a dog on a blanket, except that when she heard him, she stood up and he could see her ribs jutting through her coat. Her coat was a mess, Ben thought, crouching down for a better look. In some places the fur was missing altogether. He wondered if she was cold.
‘Poor little sweetie.’ He put his fingers through the wire door. She looked at him. She had a brown patch over one eye and pricky-up ears.
‘Come on then, girl.’ He wriggled his fingers and looked at the bolt that held the gate in place. ‘You wouldn’t bite me, would you?’
She gave a low growl and lifted her lip at him to show white teeth.
‘Don’t be scared. I’m not going to hurt you.’
He gave the bolt an experimental tug and it shifted easily. He pulled it right back and opened the gate enough to squeeze through. ‘Look,’ he said, putting his hand in his pocket and retrieving one of the sausages. ‘Come and see what I’ve got here for you.’
Aiden drove to his next call, deep in thought. He wished he’d said more to Jade. Tried harder to talk her out of sharing her house with a complete stranger. Except that it had already been too late by then, he thought, switching on the demister to clear the windscreen, and wishing it was as easy to clear his mind of Jade.
It was his own fault for being such a coward. He’d told himself that he hadn’t asked Jade out before because he didn’t want to affect their working relationship, but deep down he knew he’d been kidding himself. There was only one reason he hadn’t asked Jade out. And that was Anita.
He’d steered clear of women since his disastrous marriage, although there were plenty in the village who’d made it clear they wouldn’t mind a liaison. They stood in his surgery, fluttering their eyelashes over heavily made-up faces, and ‘accidentally on purpose’ brushing his fingers while he examined their fat Labradors and their bad-tempered Persian cats.
He wasn’t interested in any of them. Anita had put him off predatory women forever. Besides, he’d convinced himself he was happy with his life as it was. He loved his work, which he was good at, and he spent most of his spare time gardening. The house he’d shared briefly with Anita was a touch small, but it was fine for him and it had one amazing saving grace: French windows led out to a hundred-foot back garden, which stretched down to a stream, beyond which there was nothing but fields. Aiden tended the garden with the same careful precision with which he spayed cats and de-scaled canine teeth, and it was beautiful. Full of sweet-scented wild roses and climbing plants on artfully positioned trellises so that the garden was sectioned off into little private corners. This year’s plan for it included the creation of a jasmine-scented bower. There would be a bench, where you could sit and sip wine on long summer evenings. Lately, he’d harboured the odd fantasy that one day he’d sit there with Jade, his arm draped casually along the back of the bench behind her .
He sighed. There was no sense in beating himself up about it. Suggesting that he call in regularly to socialise Fang had been a stroke of genius. And if Jade had suspected that his motives weren’t entirely altruistic, she hadn’t said anything.
At least it meant that he could keep a weather eye on that Finn chap. Jade might think he was the best thing since sliced bread, but Aiden had serious doubts. He wouldn’t have been at all surprised if Finn were on the run from something or someone. Blokes like him didn’t jack in well-paid jobs without good reason. The guy was definitely not all he seemed. Someone had to keep an eye out for her and Ben. They could get into all sorts of trouble.
Jade suddenly remembered she was supposed to be getting a dog out for Ben, who, to her alarm, seemed to have disappeared. Grabbing her coat, she hurried up the yard and found Finn up a ladder.
‘You haven’t seen Ben, have you?’ she called up to him.
He climbed down, with difficulty, because his hands were full of bits of broken plastic guttering, and stood next to her. ‘He was around a little while ago. Said he was going to give me a hand later.’
‘Let me know if he’s a pest and I’ll find him something else to do.’
‘He’s not a pest.’
As he spoke, the phone began to ring again and Jade sighed.
‘Damn, I promised I’d get a dog out for him.’ She glanced up towards the kennels, her face anxious. ‘I hope he hasn’t gone by himself.’
‘I’ll go and check if you want to get the phone.’
She nodded and ran back down the yard. ‘Tell Ben I’ll be two ticks,’ she shouted back over her shoulder. ‘He’s probably in the chicken run.’
Ben wasn’t in the chicken run, so Finn walked on towards the kennels, setting the dogs off barking as he passed the first block. The kennels were full, Jade had told him yesterday when she’d pointed out some guttering that needed doing, except for the very end section.
‘It’s where we put the newcomers,’ she’d said. ‘We use it as a quarantine block, or, in her case’ – she’d pointed out Fang – ‘if they’re not too good, temperament wise. We don’t want to take any risks.’
As they’d passed, Fang had hurled herself at the wire door of her run and Finn had stepped back, alarmed.
‘She’s a cruelty case,’ Jade had told him, her face darkening. She’d pointed out the circular marks on Fang’s coat.
‘Cigarette burns?’ He’d been horrified.
Jade nodded. ‘She’ll settle down. But, in the meantime, I don’t want any unsuspecting members of the public wandering up here. If she bites someone, I’ll have to have her destroyed. And it hardly seems fair, does it? After what our kind has done to her.’
Finn went past the main block. There was no sign of Ben and he was about to turn back when he noticed, with a jolt of unease, that the door of the quarantine block was open. Surely Ben wouldn’t have gone in there. Yesterday the door had been padlocked and bolted, but it wasn’t now. It wasn’t shut at all, Finn realised as it swung open beneath his touch.
‘Ben,’ he called, stepping into the run and closing the door behind him .
There was no answer. He made his way past the first few kennels, which were empty, and then he came to Fang’s run. Through the wire mesh of the door, he could see Ben sitting on the floor holding something out towards the small dog.
‘Come on, girl,’ he was saying. ‘Don’t be scared now. Come and have a bit of sausage.’
Finn sucked in his breath. He knew very little about dogs, but this one didn’t look happy. She’d backed away from Ben, almost into a corner. Her ears were flat against her head and her eyes were wary. As he hesitated, the door clanged at the other end of the run. In the same instant, Ben, who hadn’t noticed he was no longer alone, began to edge towards the cornered dog.