Chapter 31 Wednesday 19 June 2024 Sally
Sally
“Think about Bonnie, Sarah Sergeant’s Welshie,” says Ree.
“Why?” Tobes is scathing. “That plan would never have worked anyway.”
“Shut up, will you? Mum! Remember the photos Sarah showed us? Can you picture them? Dad, can you?”
“But Bonnie looks nothing like Champ,” Toby goes on, undeterred by the attempt to silence him. “I mean, is she even a full Welshie? Didn’t look like one to me.”
“She is,” says Corinne. “Kennel Club registered and everything.”
“Well…” Tobes shrugs. “It still wouldn’t work. Tess Gavey would say, ‘No, that’s not the dog that bit me. That dog looks completely different.’ And then the police would look at Champ, and look at Bonnie, and go, ‘Oh, yeah—no resemblance whatsoever.’”
“Is it a boy/girl thing, the lack of resemblance?” Mark asks Corinne, who shrugs.
“If you could all just shut up for a second?” Ree glares around the room. “Right. Thank you. Mum, listen. Bonnie—”
“No,” Sally says automatically.
“For God’s sake,” Ree growls. “You think you know what I’m going to say, but you don’t. I don’t want Bonnie getting offed by the feds any more than you do, okay? Hear me out. When Sarah showed you the photos of Bonnie, what was the first thing you thought?”
Sally thinks back. Eventually she says, “Sarah was talking about all Welshies looking alike, and I thought, ‘Not this one.’ I thought, ‘You couldn’t possibly have shown me a picture of a Welsh terrier that looks less like Champ.’”
“Right.” It’s the answer Ree wanted. “Exactly. Me too.” She looks and sounds like a lawyer who knows the last words out of the witness’s mouth have just won the case for her.
“I thought the same. I knew you’d have said no anyway, even if Bonnie and Champ had been identical, facially—but they barely even looked like the same species.
And I’d probably have thought no more about it if we hadn’t watched that movie a few days ago—the one with the scientist that either looked or didn’t look like Vinie Skinner, depending on your point of view.
“But we did watch the movie, and I remembered the argument we had about resemblances, and…you know how your mind just sometimes goes off in weird directions? Well, mine does—and I found myself wondering if Tess Gavey cared whether there was a resemblance or not between Champ and the dog who actually bit her. Like, did she get bitten by a different Welshie and think, ‘Aha, now I can frame Champ Lambert’? Or was the dog who attacked her a Jack Russell or a German shepherd? Did she think, ‘Who will ever be able to prove it wasn’t Champ, even though it was a dog that looked nothing like him?’”
“Wait…” Sally staggers to her feet. “Wait. Let me think.”
“Have you got it, Mum?” asks Ree. “You look a bit possessed right now, so I’m guessing you’ve worked it out, just like I did.”
“Worked what out?” says Mark.
Ree turns to face him. She says, “Let’s go through the possibilities.
One, a dog who looked like Champ bit Tess, and she honestly believed it was him.
Two, a dog who didn’t look like Champ bit Tess, and she deliberately lied and pretended it was him.
Since Tess is a scumbag, I don’t believe she made a genuine mistake.
There aren’t any other Welshies in Swaffham Tilney anyway, so I think she lied.
Which means she knows it wasn’t Champ who bit her.
They probably all know it—all the Gaveys. ”
“Right,” says Corinne, “but so what? I thought we were all assuming that anyway.” She looks round the room at each of us in turn. “Did anyone here believe it was a genuine mistake: that Tess truly believed the dog that bit her was Champ?”
Mark and Toby are shaking their heads.
“Oh my God,” Sally whispers. “Ree—oh, this is… this is…the swimming pool story!”
“Exactly!” Ree yells.
“The Field View Health Club!” says Sally.
“Yes, Mother. Well done. You’ve got it. No one else has got it yet.” Ree sits back, satisfied.
Sally looks at Corinne, then at Mark. “It’s not just Champ who didn’t do it,” she says.
“It’s not just Champ and Bonnie who are innocent.
It’s all of them.” This matters so desperately that she can’t find the right words to express it.
“All the dogs are innocent. Every single dog in the world. No dog bit Tess Gavey, Mark, no dog at all.”
Mark frowns. “How do you know?”
“Think about the story Corinne told us about Field View, and Lesley trying to get people fired because she wasn’t allowed to stay in the pool for a second swimming session.
Even after the club had apologized, it wasn’t good enough for her—heads had to roll.
She’s the most vindictive woman alive. There’s no way on God’s green earth that she wouldn’t want and demand justice—by which she’d mean death and nothing less—for any dog that had really bitten Tess.
However much the Gaveys hate us Lamberts, there’s no way they’d pretend Champ did it if that meant the guilty dog going unpunished.
No way in hell would Lesley Gavey let that happen. ”
“Maybe not, but…I still don’t understand,” says Mark. “Why are you women all so excited? What are Tobes and I missing here?”
“Because if we’re right, and we are, we have to be…and well done, Ree, for thinking of it—brilliant, just brilliant,” says Sally as Ree blinks away happy tears. “If we’re right, then there’s only one thing it can mean. And us knowing what that is gives us power. Think, Mark!”
“I’ve got it,” Tobes breathes. “Nice one, Ree. But also…” He shivers. “This is now getting a bit like something out of a horror movie, and these people are our neighbors, so—”
“Shall we just, like, watch Dad’s face until he works it out?” says Ree. “Come on, Dad. It’s worth it. Soon as it clicks for you, you’ll be as excited as we are.”
“I’ve got our new plan A,” says Sally, decanting a sleeping Champ from her lap to the bed as she stands up.
“I don’t see how it can fail.” Seeing Corinne also rising to her feet, she says, “No. It has to be just me. You all stay here and look after Champ. This next part works better if I do it alone.”