Chapter Three
There’s a wooden sign nailed to the fence with the word “Thornwood” painted on it, which Jane doesn’t remember from that long-ago night, and there is a plastic button attached to a post by the gate that Jane presses.
She hears the faint tinkle of an old-fashioned electric bell-chime from inside the house and notices Hugo react to it, look around expectantly, the beginnings of a low growl forming in the back of his throat.
There is the sound of a door being opened, and then a male voice calling from the other side of the beaten-up jeep, which is still there.
Jane feels her breath catch at the sight of it. If the jeep is still there then the man must also still be there.
“Yes?” comes a male voice.
Dexter and Jane exchange a look. “Oh,” Jane calls back. “Hello. Have you lost a dog?”
There is a brief silence and the sound of large feet on gravel. Then a man pulls the gate open and stares at them.
Jane braces herself for the man from that chilling night all those years ago but it is not that man. It is a very different man indeed.
He is fiftyish, average height, and scruffy-looking with long salt-and-pepper hair, thinning on top, and pulled back into a ponytail. He wears a faded Ramones T-shirt, black combat trousers, and worn black trainers, and holds a mug of something in a tattooed hand. His gaze goes down to Hugo.
“Fucking hell,” he says, resting his mug on a wall and crouching down to the dog. “Where the fuck have you been?”
Hugo looks pleased to see the man and nuzzles against his hands, his tail whipping back and forth. But Jane can also read a slight confusion in the dog’s body language, a sense that he doesn’t quite know what’s happening.
“What’s his name?” she asks the man pointedly.
“Hugo,” says the man, going back to standing. “He disappeared a few days ago. Thought he’d been nicked. Where d’you find him?”
“Near my house,” she says primly. “On the coast.”
The man looks surprised. “The…?” he starts, but then stops and shakes his head. “Whereabouts, exactly?”
“Brighton,” she says sharply. “Just outside.”
She senses Dexter throwing her a confused look and ignores it.
“Well,” says the man. “Thank you for bringing him back. Is he OK?”
Jane nods. “I took him to the vet. He was a little dehydrated but, apart from that, in good condition.”
“Do I owe you any money?” he asks, a hand going absent-mindedly to his trouser pocket. “For the vet?”
Jane shakes her head. “No,” she says. “It’s fine.”
He takes his hand away from his pocket and nods. “Well, cheers anyway. I appreciate it.” He leans down with a sigh. “Come on, mate,” he says to the dog. “Let’s get you inside.”
“My name is Jane, by the way. And this is my stepson Dexter; he only lives up the road, so if you ever need anyone to look after the dog, take care of him, I know he’d be more than happy.”
Dexter nods enthusiastically, but the man is already backing away, his hand on the gate, preparing to close it again.
“Sure,” he says, “thanks. Like I say. I appreciate it.”
“How long have you lived here?” she asks.
He shrugs. “Ten years? Or so?”
“The jeep? Is it yours?”
“Nah. Belonged to my landlady’s ex-husband. Why? Do you want to buy it? It’s up for sale.”
“Oh,” she says. “God. No. Thank you. I just, er… I just recognized it, that’s all. My dad had one like it. When I was little.”
He nods at her, and then he turns, the gate closes, and the man and his dog disappear from sight.