‘No, I don’t see that, Ben.’
‘What do you see, Mrs Newton?’
‘That’s what’s so strange. It’s all so confused. I see people dressed in old-fashioned clothes, oh, Victorian, I suppose, and they’re shouting, shouting; it’s not anger, it’s through fear and urgency. Hurry, hurry, hurry! And I hear this hammering sound going on and on. You know, Ben, I think that—’
‘Now, now, Mrs Newton, don’t go upsetting yourself. Why don’t we move the records office back into the annexe? I know it’s a little on the small—’
‘Oh, will you, Ben? Thank you. You know, that’s such a weight off my mind.’
‘Ah, we must keep our staff happy, Mrs Newton. You know the dogs react to our emotions. If we’re unhappy or ill at ease then it’s so easy for them to go off their food and begin to pine.’
And that’s how the conversation went. Mrs Newton got what she wanted.
Ben Middleton moved the furniture back to the annexe. After the third trip up to the hayloft he murmured to himself, ‘Bad vibes, my foot. It’s the stairs, after all.’
But then the barn was a peculiar place. When he’d been clearing the accumulated dirt from the stone floor the previous year he’d found a coin. It had been buried under a thick concrete-like mud. Delighted, he’d hurried away to clean it, wondering if it might be a Victorian sovereign or some such treasure. After carefully soaping it with washing-up liquid and rinsing it under the tap, he’d dabbed it dry with kitchen roll.
The coin was blackened with age. He began to speculate that it might be part of some highwayman’s horde from centuries earlier.
Moments later he’d held the coin under the kitchen light and scrutinised it closely. Forehead wrinkling, he managed to make out the date. At first he’d read it as 1897… then 1797.
‘Oh?’ he’d said, surprised, as he used his thumbnail to scrape away a spot of dirt. ‘1997?’ The coin was nothing more than a ten-pence piece minted a couple of years earlier. All that work, too. He blew out his cheeks. Why, it looked as if the thing had been buried there a century, never mind a few months. Surmising that the mud in the barn possessed powerful ageing properties he’d dropped the coin into the PDSA collection box and thought nothing more about it.
With it all but dark now, Ben walked back to the house. Once inside he locked the doors, then checked that the CCTV monitors were working.
He fully appreciated that the people who boarded their dogs here at Perseverance Farm wanted to know their animals would be safe as well as having heated kennels, individual outdoor runs and the like. Ben was happy to reassure them. His establishment boasted closed-circuit television surveillance that he could monitor from a bank of screens in his living room in the farmhouse.
He poured a glass of wine, then stood with a black Labrador pup under one arm and watched the four TV screens for a moment. Three showed high-level views of the kennel buildings, the fourth covered the area just outside the front door at eye level.
‘All shipshape and Bristol fashion,’ Bell announced.
From there he went to the sofa. His other three dogs had already claimed the hearthrug.
For an hour he watched television. The Labrador pup curled up in his lap slept soundly.
Ben wasn’t particularly interested in what the television had to offer. That night it just happened to be a crusty detective with a permanently sour expression who was on the trail of a murderer in San Francisco. If anything, Ben simply enjoyed being part of his pack at rest. He sensed some kind of mystic link between himself and the dogs. They – and he included himself – weren’t individuals as such, but each was part of a whole. If one dog was disturbed by a noise, all would lift their heads, Ben included, look round for a moment, then, when all were satisfied nothing was amiss, they’d relax once more.
He sipped his wine.
The TV detective ate doughnuts in a seedy diner while claiming that although his methods weren’t orthodox they got results.
Ben’s attention wandered to the framed photograph of his great-grandfather on the wall. Harry Middleton had battled childhood illness to become a successful solicitor, justice of the peace and alderman. Unusually for a product of the Victorian age, Harry Middleton had despised any kind of cruelty to animals. More than once he’d torn the whips from horsemen who had been beating their animals and broken the instruments of brutality over his knee. Later in life, he’d retired from the legal profession to set up a stud farm and dog-breeding business. Gradually, over the years, it had evolved into what it was today, a thriving boarding kennel.
For Ben Middleton no saint stood nearer to the Almighty than his great-grandfather Harry Middleton.
Ben allowed his eyelids to droop. His drowsy breathing synchronised with that of the dogs.
At a little after 11 he suddenly snapped awake. The dogs had lifted their heads and were looking round, eyes bright. Even though he’d slept, by some miracle the glass still stayed upright in his hand.
For a moment Ben wondered what had disturbed the dogs. He couldn’t hear anything. The dogs in the kennels weren’t barking.
He looked round the room. Everything was in its place. Then he turned to the curtained window. A brilliant white light shone through it.
Something had triggered the security lighting.
Placing the glass on the table, but still carrying the puppy, he walked quickly to the CCTV monitors. He had a sneaking suspicion what he would see. Often he’d watch the monitors and see a fox slinking along the paths between the kennels. Of course, the dogs couldn’t get out and the fox couldn’t get in. Still, there would be pandemonium as all those domestic pets scented for the first time in their lives an animal from the wild. Ben thought there must be something exciting and provocative about that scent, because the dogs would bark like mad.
Ben screwed up his eyes at each colour monitor in turn. Beneath the brilliant lights the paths gleamed whitely. Moths attracted to the lamps darted in and out like specks of fire.
But there was no sly old fox.
Occasionally, however, there would be a dog-owner returning home late from the airport who’d decide to call in en route. Strictly speaking, clients had to collect animals during office hours, but Ben appreciated that some people missed their pets so much they just couldn’t wait. Ben understood the emotion well enough. The idea of being away from his own dogs for two days – never mind two whole weeks – was nothing less than nightmarish to him.
He turned his attention to the monitor that showed the area around the front door.
Again it revealed nothing more than flitting moths, ornamental shrubs and the low hedge that bordered the front garden.
He thumbed the button that activated the intercom.
‘Hello? he said. The speaker beside the front door would carry his voice into the front garden.
He listened for an apologetic, ‘We’re sorry to trouble you so late, but we wondered if we could collect…’ The sentence would be rounded off with a dog’s name.
But there was no answering voice.
‘Hello?’ he repeated. ‘Can I help you?’
He listened for the sound of a voice, or at least footsteps on the gravel path.
Nothing.
But he had begun to hear barking coming from the kennels. Already, his own dogs were standing, ears pointing, muscles tense.
‘Now, now, now, what’s all this, then?’
He studied the front-door monitor, thinking he’d caught a faint sound.
He cocked his head to one side in unconscious imitation of his dogs.
At first he thought static had affected the speaker.
He could hear a faint sizzling. It was almost the same sound as sand being drizzled onto paper.