Black Dog. Stephen Booth

shuddered. ‘That means drugs, doesn’t it?’

      ‘We’ll have to talk to her about it seriously, when she’s back.’

      After the helicopter had moved away to hover somewhere along the valley, the faint sound of voices could be heard, carried towards the house on the evening breeze. Graham and Charlotte could see no one because of the heavy tree cover, but both of them knew, without discussing it, that there were many men out there on the hillside, calling to each other, searching for their daughter.

      ‘Of course, there were probably friends she didn’t tell us about,’ said Graham. ‘We have to face up to that. Places she went that she didn’t want us to know about.’

      Charlotte shook her head. ‘Laura didn’t keep secrets from me,’ she said. ‘From you, of course. But not from me.’

      ‘If you say so, Charlie.’

      A small frown flickered across Charlotte’s face at his calm acceptance. ‘Is there something you know, Graham? Something that you’re not telling me?’

      ‘Of course not.’

      He was thinking of his last conversation with Laura. It had been late on Thursday night, when she had slipped into his study and persuaded him to let her have a glass of his whisky. Her face had been flushed with some other excitement, even before the whisky had begun to take effect. She had perched on the edge of his desk and stroked his arm, smiling at him with that mature, seductive smile she had learned had such an effect on their male visitors. She had dyed her hair again, a deeper red than ever, almost violet, and her fingernails were painted a colour so dark it was practically black. Then she had talked to him, with that knowing look in her eyes and that sly wink, and told him what she wanted. The following morning, he had sacked Lee Sherratt. The second gardener they had lost that year.

      ‘No, of course not, Charlie.’

      She accepted his word. ‘And the boy, Lee?’

      Graham said nothing. He closed the abandoned novel, slipping a soft leather bookmark between the pages. He collected the book and the half-full glass of Bacardi from the table. The sun had almost gone from their part of the valley now. But the jagged shapes of the Witches were bathed in a dull red light that was streaked with black runnels where the rocky gulleys were in shadow.

      ‘What about him, Graham? What about the boy?’

      He knew Charlotte still thought of Laura as pure and innocent. It was the way she would think of her daughter for ever. But Graham had begun to see her with different eyes. And the boy? The boy had already been punished. Punished for not dancing to the tune that Laura had played. Lee Sherratt had been too stubborn to play the game – but of course, he had been busy playing other games by then. And so Graham had sacked him. It was what Laura had wanted.

      ‘The police have spoken to him. He told them he hasn’t seen Laura for days.’

      ‘Do you believe that?’

      He shrugged. ‘Who knows what to believe just now?’

      ‘I want to speak to him. I want to ask him myself. Make him tell the truth.’

      ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea, Charlie. Leave it to the police.’

      ‘They know about him, don’t they?’

      ‘Of course. They’ve got him on their records anyway. Over that stolen car.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘You remember. The car that was taken from the car park at the top of the cliff. It belonged to some German people. Laura told us about it.’

      ‘Did she?’ said Charlotte vaguely.

      At last she allowed him to lead her back into the room, where she began to touch familiar objects – a cushion, the back of a chair cover, the piano stool, a series of gilt-framed photographs in a cabinet. She opened her handbag, touched up her lipstick and lit another cigarette.

      ‘Who else is supposed to be coming tomorrow night?’ she said.

      ‘The Wingates. Paddy and Frances. And they’re bringing some friends of theirs from Totley. Apparently, they’re building up a big computer business, installing systems in Doncaster and Rotherham. Paddy says they’ve got a really good future. They’d make an ideal account, but I need to get in quickly and make the contact.’

      ‘I’d better see to the food then.’

      ‘Good girl.’

      As she turned towards Graham now, her eyes showed no sign of any tears. Graham was glad – she was not a woman given to tears, and he would not have known how to deal with it. Instead, she fiddled with the front of her wrap, letting him glimpse her brown thighs and the gentle slope of her belly above the edge of her bikini briefs.

      ‘You like Frances, don’t you?’ she said.

      Graham grinned, recognizing the opening. ‘Not as much as I like you, Charlie.’

      He took a step towards her, but she turned suddenly and picked up one of the photograph frames from the cabinet and began to stroke its edges.

      ‘Won’t you go and see the Sherratt boy, Graham? To help get Laura back.’

      ‘Leave it for now, Charlie.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Because the police will find her.’

      ‘Will they, Graham?’

      The photograph frame she was holding was bare and empty. The picture had been given to the police to enable them to identify Laura when they found her. Graham took the frame from her and replaced it in the cabinet.

      ‘Of course they will,’ he said.

      The old woman’s burst of anger was over, but her thin hands still jerked and spasmed on the floral-patterned arms of her chair. Helen watched her until she was calm, and pulled her cardigan closer round her shoulders from where it had slipped.

      ‘I’ll put the kettle on, Grandma.’

      ‘If you like.’

      ‘Do you want your Special Blend?’

      ‘The bags’ll do. But make sure you put an extra one in the pot. You know how I like it.’

      Helen stood at the narrow window of the kitchen of Dial Cottage while she waited for the kettle to boil. The electrical appliances that her father had bought for his parents-in-law left hardly any room in the kitchen to turn round. There was certainly not enough space for two people between the cooker and the oversized pine table crammed in lengthwise to the sink.

      The table was scattered with cooking equipment, place mats with scenes of a North Wales seaside resort, sprigs of mint and thyme tied with bits of string, a jar of marmalade, a jar filled with wooden ladles and spatulas, a potato peeler with a wooden handle, a chopping board and half an onion soaking in a bowl of water. By the back door a pair of wellington boots and a walking stick stood on the blue lino, and a dark-green waxed coat with a corduroy collar hung from the hook where Harry’s cap would normally have been. The coat had been Helen’s present to him on his seventy-fifth birthday.

      ‘He was never like this before,’ said her grandmother from her chair, not needing to raise her voice over the short distance to the kitchen. ‘Never this bad. Now he can’t speak without biting my head off.’

      ‘Have you asked him what’s wrong?’

      ‘Asked him? Him? I might as well talk to the wall.’

      ‘Perhaps he’s ill, Grandma.’

      ‘He had a cold the other week, I suppose.’

      Helen could see that her grandmother thought that Harry was just being a bad-tempered old man, that she had done something to annoy him. But Helen’s thoughts were running on some serious illness troubling him, something