A deep-throated growl interrupted Belle’s answer. They turned and saw a Jack Russell crouching on the other side of the yard. Belle said, ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ in a soft baby voice and sank to her haunches, holding out a hand for the dog to sniff. The terrier bared its teeth in a white slavering snarl.
Magnus put a hand on her shoulder. ‘I don’t—’
Jacob shouted, ‘Get away from it.’
‘The poor thing’s scared,’ Belle said, in the same silly voice.
‘It’s rabid.’ The priest took his gun from its holster just as the dog began to edge towards them.
‘Leave it alone.’ Belle made kissy noises towards the dog.
Magnus grabbed Belle by the arm and yanked her to her feet. The girl resisted, but he pulled her to him. He looked the dog in the eye and said, ‘Sit,’ in the commanding voice he had saved for the farm dogs. He saw a look of comprehension in the dog’s eyes. Its steps faltered and though it gave a low, exploratory growl, Magnus knew that it wanted to obey him. ‘Sit!’
He felt Belle stiffen. ‘Don’t!’ Her yell was lost beneath the crack of Jacob’s bullet. The shot hit the dog in its flank and it fell whimpering to the ground.
The girl shuddered in Magnus’s arms. ‘You fuckers! You fucking fuckers!’ She punched Magnus in the chest and he let her go. The abbot’s hat tumbled from her head, releasing a coil of blonde hair, and she ran to where Jacob was already standing over the small white body. The dog’s ribs were moving up and down; quick and sharp and not quite final.
‘At least finish the poor beast off,’ Magnus shouted and Jacob squatted and put a bullet into the dog’s head.
A splash of blood spattered all three of them and Belle screamed again. She put a hand to her face and shouted at Jacob, ‘Why do you have to kill every fucking thing?’
The priest’s face was pale. ‘I don’t…’
But the girl had turned her back on him and was running across the yard. Magnus made to follow her, but Jacob caught his arm. ‘Let Will go after her.’ And Magnus saw that the tall man had already left the corner of the yard, where he had stood silent while the drama played itself out, and was jogging to catch up with her.
Magnus bunched his fists. His biceps were tight with the urge to punch the priest in the face. ‘Why did you shoot it?’
Jacob touched the creature with his foot. It was the same gesture he had made after he shot the Audi driver. ‘It was about to attack.’
‘It was entitled to. We were on its territory. The dog wasn’t rabid, Belle was right, it was frightened.’ Magnus felt an urge to bury the thing, the way Raisha buried the children she found.
Jacob looked at him. ‘How do you think it’s been living since its owners died?’
A horrible realisation dawned on Magnus but he said, ‘There are plenty of rabbits in the fields, sheep even.’
The priest touched the dead dog’s belly again with the toe of his boot. ‘I had a family too: a wife, two girls and a boy. The children wanted a dog and so eventually we bought them one. Spot, the not very originally named Dalmatian. Annie and the children didn’t make it. Spot did.’ The priest looked at Magnus, his features tight and bone-white. ‘I would be a Herod to dogs. I would kill a whole generation of them if I could.’
‘I’m sorry.’
The words were nothing, but the priest acknowledged them with a small nod. He turned and walked towards the barns, his gun still in his hand, and after a moment Magnus followed him.
They were cowsheds, as large as a car plant and full of death. Magnus and Jacob smelled them from yards away. Magnus would have turned back, but the priest was resolute and so he followed him inside, pulling the neck of his T-shirt up over his mouth and nose in the vain hope that it would help protect him from the stench. To his relief they did not venture deep into the buzz of flies, just stood in the doorway of each outhouse taking in the swollen bellies, the exploded innards and dead, infected eyes.
Jacob said, ‘I only had six months to go. I was a career soldier, I’d expected to retire in uniform, but I’d seen too much of this kind of thing. Replace those cows with people and you’ll get the idea.’ He nodded towards the yard where he had shot the dog. ‘I saw some petrol up there. We should burn these sheds.’
Magnus said, ‘There must be millions of places like this. How can you still believe in God?’
Jacob stopped walking and turned to face him. ‘The reason I had decided to leave the army was that I could feel my faith deserting me. Annie said that she could see it in my face. She said my eyes had changed, grown harder, like bits of broken glass.’ He smiled. ‘Annie wrote poetry. I don’t know if it was any good or not, but it spoke to me.’
‘And now?’ Magnus asked.
‘And now?’ The priest raised his eyebrows.
‘Has your faith deserted you?’
‘The sweats renewed my faith. This disaster wasn’t God’s doing, it was man-made. God has given some of us the chance to live. He saved us and however sad we feel we owe it to Him to make a go of things.’ Jacob smiled at Magnus. ‘I know you don’t agree with me. But you may come to in time.’
‘Perhaps,’ Magnus said, but he knew that the priest was wrong. If God existed then the devil did too and it seemed that he had the upper hand.
They watched the sheds burn from a distance, but they could still hear the crackle and spit of the flames and smell the spoiled barbecue rot of burning cattle. The cows had been swollen with gas and once the fire took hold there were small explosions. Magnus began to worry that they had made a miscalculation and that the surrounding fields would go up too, but the cattle sheds had been set far back from them on tarmacadam paths.
The byres on his parents’ croft had been close to grazing fields, the livestock turned out on to grass as soon as the weather allowed.
‘They never saw the sun,’ Magnus said. ‘The cattle were kept inside until it was time for them to be sent to slaughter.’
‘We grew too big.’ Jacob spoke as if he were reaching the conclusion of a long sermon. ‘But we have a chance to learn from our mistakes.’
‘No.’ Magnus’s own certainty surprised him. ‘Isn’t that one of the things your Bible tells us? We’re greedy, overreaching idiots who are destined to destroy ourselves over and over again.’
Belle and Will were waiting by the truck, Belle cradling something in her arms. Will said, ‘I was going to come and look for you, but Belle was feeling sick and I didn’t want to leave her.’
‘It’s that smell.’ Belle had wrapped a shawl around her, though the afternoon was still hot. Whatever she was holding shifted beneath the fabric.
Jacob said, ‘There were barns full of dead cattle. We thought burning them might help stop infection spreading.’
Will gave a snort. ‘Then you should burn the world.’
Belle’s shawl slipped, revealing two squirming bundles of fur. She threw Jacob a disgusted look. ‘She was protecting her puppies.’
Magnus said, ‘Jacob killed the dog for a reason…’
The priest put a hand on his arm. ‘It’s okay.’ He looked at the girl. ‘I hope you’ll forgive me.’
Belle climbed on to the trailer without answering and Will jumped up after her. Magnus reached in to stroke one of the wriggling balls of fluff. The puppy bit him on the hand, not quite hard enough to draw blood. He pulled it away quickly. They were old enough to be weaned, he realised, old enough to eat flesh. He was about to get into the cab, but the priest touched his arm.
‘We didn’t check the outhouses on the other side.’
The smoke was making Magnus feel uneasy. It was okay for the priest to say that he wanted people to see his community working and join it, but so far all he had done was light a fire that could be seen from miles around.