didn’t take long for her to realise that Buster was going home. They were in the orchard, a scrubby, neglected place full of gnarled fruit trees with more canker than leaves. Bob’s bungalow wasn’t difficult to spot, though the word bungalow suggested far more glamour than the ramshackle structure she was confronted with. The building was essentially a badly rendered cinder-block box with a pent roof and some mismatched windows. In fact, it looked more like a large garage than a home.
Outside the door, Buster began to sniff the ground, showing that somewhere in his mongrel mix there might be a bit of ancient bloodhound. It took him a moment or two to find the scent of his quarry, but once he had he was locked on and running. Maura quickened her pace and followed, fervently hoping that he hadn’t scented rats or rabbits or something else likely to lead them both an un-merry dance. Fortunately, the object of his focus was Bob, who was leaning on a fence post, puffing on a shoddily rolled cigarette and obscuring the view with pungent clouds of smoke.
‘I think he wanted to come home,’ Maura said as Bob turned.
‘Did he now?’ Bob said as he bent to scratch the dog behind the ears, his face pinched as he squinted against the smoke leaching from the drooping cigarette that clung to his lip. ‘I been watching the goings on down there,’ he added, pointing at the building site where Maura could see that a large area had been cordoned off. ‘Not much going on at the moment. They’ve put a tent up over the bones by the look and there’s a load of bods in white overalls milling about.’
‘SOCOs I expect,’ Maura said.
‘Eh, whatto’s?’
Maura laughed. ‘You need to watch more telly, Bob. Scene of Crime Officers. They make sure any evidence is handled properly and that the scene is preserved while investigations take place.’
‘Ah, right. I don’t watch much telly – bit of snooker when it’s on. Don’t mind a bit of that Attenborough feller sometimes, though. Mind you, they’re going to be dealing with another body soon by the looks of him.’ He pointed to a heavy-set man in a long coat. Maura could see by his stance that he was riddled with tension, and his face was red with barely contained frustration. He looked like a football manager who’d just seen his team relegated by a series of own goals in the last match of the season.
‘Who is he?’
‘Perlman, the landowner. Not happy that proceedings have come to a halt by the look of him, not happy at all.’
Maura had to concede that the man looked like he might explode at any moment. ‘Definitely not happy. It looks like the press have started to turn up,’ she said, as an inappropriately dressed woman, followed by a cameraman, picked her way across the mud towards the cordon. ‘We’ll be famous in a few hours.’
Bob chuckled. ‘Hope she don’t try to interview Perlman. By the look on his face, they’ll have three bodies to deal with, not one!’
Maura smiled, but felt a pang of guilt at the gesture. Someone was dead and she and Bob were observing the scene with amusement, not even having the grace to show detached curiosity. ‘I suppose we ought to be a bit more dignified about this. Perhaps we should go before that reporter spots us and thinks a bit of local colour might enhance the story.’
Bob nodded. ‘Perhaps you’re right. Don’t feel real, though – to think I’ve been living in spitting distance from that body all this time and never had a clue.’
‘Why would you?’ Maura was puzzled. There was a strain in Bob’s voice that didn’t fit his casual and detached words.
Bob shrugged, ‘Dunno. But I must have walked across the top of it a million times. When the land belonged to the Grange, that is. I’d be trespassing now. I’m surprised old Buster never caught a sniff of it – he likes a bone. Poor sod’s got a lousy sense of smell, though; just goes through the motions these days, bit like me.’ He laughed, but the humour was thin and taut, like an elastic band at the point before it snaps.
They had reached the “bungalow” by then and Maura had to suppress a shudder at the thought of Buster dragging a muddy femur up the path with drooling relish.
‘Coming in for a cuppa?’ Bob asked.
‘Better not. Cheryl will be back soon and she’ll have a ten-ton hissy fit if I’m not there too. Besides, his lordship will be awake soon, demanding his fish-paste sandwiches for tea. I think it’s fish paste today anyway.’
Bob rolled his eyes and gave her a weak grin. ‘A woman’s work is never done, love.’ He reached inside a small lean-to that seemed to serve as a porch and produced a lead, which had a sobering effect on Buster, who hung his head as if in defeat. ‘He don’t like the lead but it’s the only way you’ll get him back with you. Best have him there tonight. I’ve fixed the window but the putty’s still wet, so it isn’t secure. Not that it stopped that rock before.’
He bent and clipped the lead to Buster’s collar and handed it to Maura, who thanked him and towed the reluctant dog back towards the house. All the way back her mind was on Bob. He seemed haunted and she couldn’t help but feel for the man.
If it hadn’t been for the dog suddenly perking up and showing interest, she might have missed it. A sudden flash of movement in the trees near the gate that induced a low, menacing growl from the dog and caused him to strain on the lead. The vegetation was dense near the house. The remains of a garden had sprawled in the absence of tender, loving care, creating an abundance of leggy shrubs and greenery that anything could lurk in unseen. After the previous night’s fright, Maura was wary and called out ‘Who’s there?’ but there was no reply, despite Buster’s continued growling insistence that something of interest was in the bushes. Maura rationally decided to assume it was a squirrel or a cat that he’d sensed, though her instinct told her it had been much bigger. She could hardly claim to have seen anything as such – but the flash of perception had settled in her brain as more than just a stray cat on the prowl. Eager as Buster seemed, she dared not let him off the lead. There wasn’t time to go haring after him again, and whatever it was seemed to have gone. She could sense no further movement and doubted anything other than an animal could have remained so still. With some effort she dragged Buster through the gate and bolted it behind her, on principal more than anything else. One bolted gate could not secure an area that was open to the world on the other side.
Buster seemed to settle once beyond the gate, but she didn’t let him go until they were inside the kitchen and were being greeted by a surprisingly benign and cheerful Cheryl.
‘Hello there, been for a walk, have you? I’ve checked on Mr Henderson; he’s still dozing but I expect he’ll be awake soon. He seems quite taken with you, Maura. Well, I say that – he hasn’t tried to bite you yet!’ Cheryl followed this with a tinkling laugh that Maura supposed was meant to denote some level of camaraderie, but which was in fact somewhat startling. She could have joined in and said Gordon had tried and been given short shrift, but Cheryl’s quixotic temperament was becoming profoundly unnerving.
Instead she began to unload some of the carrier bags that littered the table in a bid to be helpful. ‘Oh, don’t worry about that, I’ll do it. I got you some nice ready meals to keep you going, by the way. Can’t expect you to survive on fish paste and soup too, can we?’ There was that laugh again, edging Cheryl’s words with a tinge of something hard to pin down but which gave Maura the sense of a pill being sugared.
The reason for Cheryl’s unnatural buoyancy was soon revealed: she had a date, with a man (not that Maura would have assumed differently, but it was said pointedly, as if to imply
