Black Dog. Stephen Booth

thinks his role is to be Graham Vernon’s loyal lackey,’ said Margaret. ‘Being involved in the murder of his daughter rather ruins the image, doesn’t it?’

      ‘Involved? Well, hardly,’ protested Andrew.

      ‘However distantly, of course,’ said Margaret, with a smile of satisfaction. ‘I suppose it’s bound to make you feel tainted by association.’

      ‘Stop it, Margaret.’

      ‘Perhaps it would have been better if Dad had just walked on and ignored it, and said nothing. Better for you, anyway. I’m surprised he didn’t think of your reputation at the time. It was very remiss of you, Dad.’

      Harry took his empty pipe out and sucked on its stem, looking from one to the other. Helen thought he was the only one of them who was enjoying the conversation.

      ‘Anyway, they haven’t much of a reputation up there to be worried about, have they?’ said Margaret.

      ‘That’s not fair. The Vernons are very well-respected.’

      Margaret snorted contemptuously. ‘Respected. Not in this house. What do you say, Dad?’

      ‘Rich buggers. Ignorant rubbish.’

      Helen smiled. ‘That needed saying too. They’ve done enough to this family. Why should we let something like this affect us? I’m sorry for their trouble, but it’s their trouble, not ours. It’s nothing to do with Granddad. Blow the Vernons. We have to see that Grandma and Granddad are all right.’

      ‘Of course we do. Andrew?’

      ‘Well, all right.’

      ‘We’re lucky we’re a proper family and can stand together,’ said Margaret. ‘Not like them up there. That’s been their problem, of course. That’s been the cause of all the trouble in the past. They don’t know what a family should be. And that’s the cause of this bit of trouble, too, you’ll see.’

      ‘We should talk about it,’ said Helen. ‘We should have talked about it before.’

      ‘He won’t,’ said Gwen. ‘He won’t talk about it to anybody.’

      ‘There’s no need for it,’ said Harry. ‘Let it rest.’

      Helen stood by his chair and put her hand on his arm. ‘Granddad?’

      He patted her hand and smiled up at her. ‘Believe me, lass, there’s no need.’

      She sighed. ‘No, we’ve never talked about anything important, have we? Not ever, in this family. Except when we were angry or upset. And that’s not the time to talk. It’s not the time to do anything.’

      ‘Well, I don’t know what you mean by that, I’m sure,’ said Margaret. ‘I’m as capable as anyone of talking things over without getting upset about it.’

      Margaret’s voice was becoming high-pitched. She tossed her head and fiddled with an earring, glaring at her husband as if challenging him not to support her. But Andrew turned away with sagging shoulders and found himself staring into the mournful eyes of Jess, who had crept into the corner of the room to listen. The dog’s ears twitched from side to side as she assessed the sound of their voices, trying to judge the mood and looking dejected at what she heard.

      ‘There was no need for you to come here, you know,’ said Harry. ‘No need at all. We were managing perfectly well, us and Helen.’

      ‘We could hardly stay away at a time like this,’ said Margaret. ‘We’re your family, after all.’

      Harry stood and walked slowly to the stairs. ‘I’ll be going out for a while,’ he said.

      And before anybody could ask him where to, he had disappeared. They could hear water running and the sound of a wardrobe door creaking above them through the ancient floorboards.

      ‘Where is he going?’ asked Andrew.

      ‘Not to the pub, surely?’ said Margaret. ‘Not at a time like this.’

      ‘Oh, yes,’ said Gwen. ‘He’ll be going to meet them.’

      Half an hour later, Harry had escaped from the cottage and was settled into an entirely different atmosphere, where he didn’t need to be prompted to tell his story. When he had finished, it required a moment of quiet contemplation, a few swallows of beer, a companionable silence to emphasize the seriousness of the occasion.

      ‘Well, Harry. Police and all.’

      ‘Oh aye, them, all right, Sam. A bucketload of ’em.’

      ‘Making a nuisance of themselves, I suppose?’

      ‘They try, some of them. But they don’t bother me.’

      The corner of the Drover between the fire and the window smelled strongly of old men and muddy dogs. The seats of the wooden settles the men sat on were worn smooth to the shape of their buttocks, and their boots seemed to ease themselves into familiar depressions in the dark carpet tiles.

      Sam Beeley had rested his stick against the table. Its ivory handle, shaped like the head of an Alsatian dog, stared at the beaten brass surface with contempt. Occasionally, Sam stroked the ivory with a bony hand, fondling the Alsatian’s worn ears in his yellow fingers, or tapping it with a twisted thumbnail on the corner of the brass. His knees cracked when he moved, and he shuffled his toes uncomfortably in soft suede shoes as if he was unable to find a position that did not give him pain. He was the thinnest of the three men, but his thinness was almost masked by the multiple layers of clothes that he wore, despite the warmth of the evening. The emaciation showed most in his hands and in his face, where the flesh had sunk into his cheeks and his eye sockets were dark pools where weak blue eyes flickered.

      ‘Bloody coppers,’ he said, his voice rough with cigarette smoke. ‘What do you reckon, Wilford?’

      ‘We can do without ’em, Sam.’

      ‘True enough.’

      ‘Oh aye.’

      Wilford Cutts had removed his cap to reveal a tangle of white hair around a pale scalp that contrasted sharply with the ruddy colour of his face. He had an untidy white moustache and a suggestion of sideburns that might once have been bushy around his ears. His neck was thick and sinewy and ran into heavy shoulders that could no longer be called well-muscled, but sagged forward into his sweater, soft and fleshy. His palms were stained with grime, and his fingernails were dark against the side of his beer glass. Dark fibres clung to his corduroy trousers, which were worn at the knees and stiff at the calves, where they were tucked into grey woollen socks. He kept his feet pushed out of sight under the bench, in case the landlord should notice the caked soil drying on the soles of his boots.

      ‘So it’s what they call a murder enquiry then, is it, Harry? They’ve worked out what happened to the lass?’

      ‘They didn’t say, Wilford.’

      ‘No?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Bloody coppers.’

      Harry was keeping his cap firmly in place. He was the centre of attention, the man of the moment, but it didn’t do to get too excited. He had put on a clean shirt to walk to the pub, and a tie with a discreet paisley pattern fastened neatly round his throat. His feet were thrust out in front of him into the room, where the wall lights were reflected in his polished toecaps.

      Now and then one of the pub’s customers would call to him across the room, and he acknowledged their greetings with a brief nod, not uncivil, but deliberately reserved. He stared, tight-lipped, at a group of youths and girls he didn’t recognize, who were laughing noisily at the far end of the bar, trying to talk above each other and now and then breaking into bursts of song.

      By unspoken consent, Sam sat closest to the fire, although it was summer and the grate was empty. Wilford sat furthest away, with his