No Going Back (20 page)

Yes, he'd been tired, but that was no excuse – especially when you took into account what had occurred just two nights before. If he'd been any kind of detective, he'd have considered the possibility that the prowler from Friday was one of the Romanians. Given his recent history, to have dismissed it carelessly as an opportunistic attempt at burglary was the action of a fool and it was Taz who had ultimately paid for it.

Daniel glanced down at his hand, wrapped hastily in a grubby green and white tea towel. It was throbbing heavily now that he had time to register the fact, but in some strange way he was glad of the pain – glad that he hadn't got off scot-free when the dog had taken such punishment. The cloth was soaked in blood where it crossed his palm and to a lesser degree on the back, but although he knew it should probably be stitched, his fingers and thumb were working normally, so he wasn't unduly worried.

He stared around the waiting room, trying to take an interest in posters depicting the life cycle of the flea, adverts for puppy parties – whatever they were – and reminders to vaccinate yearly, but he couldn't repress the voice in his head that repeated over and over that it was all his fault that Taz lay critically injured on the other side of the surgery door.

He jumped up as the door squeaked open to admit the vet, rubbing her face wearily.

‘How is he?'

‘Well, we've made him as comfortable as we can and you'll be pleased to hear the X-rays didn't show anything too worrying – no fractures, major internal bleeds or anything nasty like that.'

‘So he'll be all right?'

‘Yes, he should be, but I'd be lying if I said he was completely in the clear. You can never be a hundred per cent sure with head injuries. I'll be happier this time tomorrow.' She hesitated. ‘He's been in the wars before, hasn't he? I noticed a couple of old scars. There's a nasty one on his front leg.'

‘Yeah, he sliced it on a sheet of corrugated iron while he was searching a scrapyard last year.'

‘Oh, he's a police dog?'

‘Was,' Daniel confirmed. ‘He's retired now. In fact, it was the leg injury that did it, but he made a full recovery in time.'

‘And you? Are you . . . ? I mean . . .' She faltered. ‘Sorry, I'm being nosy.'

‘I left too.' Daniel didn't elaborate and she didn't pursue it. ‘So, how long will it be before Taz comes round?'

‘Technically, he already has, but I've given him an analgesic – a painkiller – that acts as a sedative, so he'll sleep for several hours yet. We can only wait and see. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm gasping for a cup of tea. I'd just put the kettle on when you arrived. Would you like one? You look as though you could do with something.'

Daniel said he would, and followed the vet through to a small room off the reception area, where white kitchen units, a sink and a fridge dominated the space.

Daniel watched as she filled the kettle and took three mugs and a packet of decaffeinated teabags from a small cupboard on the wall. She did everything with the sure economy of movement that had characterized her handling of Taz. Her hands were pale and lean, with the blue veins clearly visible, and she had blonde hair cut into a short bob, longer at the front than the back, and with a fringe that kept falling into her grey eyes and having to be pushed away.

The tea made, Emma pushed one mug towards Daniel, then found half a packet of digestive biscuits and offered the open top to him. As she did so, she appeared to notice the state of his left hand for the first time.

‘What happened there? Did you get bitten?'

‘No.' Daniel didn't take offence at the suggestion: even the friendliest dog can bite when stressed or in pain. ‘It's a cut.'

‘Let me see,' Emma said in a tone that brooked no argument. ‘No, hang on. We'll have our tea first, then go through to the surgery. Here, pull up a stool before you keel over. You look shattered.'

After the tea and some uncomfortable questions about the fictional attempted burglary, Daniel followed the vet back to the room they'd first entered, where she put on surgical gloves before unwinding the bloodstained tea towel from his hand.

‘This doesn't look the most sterile wound dressing I've ever seen,' she observed dryly.

‘It's what I use to wipe the car windows with,' Daniel admitted sheepishly. ‘It was all I could find in a hurry.'

Emma dropped the offending cloth in a pedal bin and turned back to examine his hand, the palm of which was slowly pooling with blood. Mopping it with a damp wad of cotton wool revealed a wound maybe an inch and a half long in the angle between his thumb and index finger, from which blood welled sluggishly. Pressing the wad firmly to the cut, she turned his hand over to reveal a similar wound on the other side.

‘This needs stitching.'

Daniel didn't answer; he had known it did.

‘If I didn't know better, I'd say this was a knife wound.'

‘It does look a bit like it, doesn't it?' Daniel agreed.

Emma gave him a long, hard look, then asked, ‘Can you still move your thumb?'

He could, and demonstrated it.

Emma shook her head in disbelief. ‘Well, all I can say is you've been bloody lucky! It looks as though the blade slipped between the muscles, for the most part. Does it hurt very much?' She scrutinized his face as she asked the question.

‘It throbs a bit,' Daniel told her. ‘Will you stitch it for me?'

‘Me?' Her grey eyes widened. ‘No way! I'm a vet, not a doctor. I could get into a lot of trouble.'

‘I won't tell if you don't.'

‘I'm sorry, I can't. What if it became infected? They'd want to know who stitched it. Look, I'll run you to hospital, if you like. It needs to be properly checked out and you ought to have a tetanus jab.'

Daniel shook his head. ‘You know what they're like. I'd be there for hours. I'm up to date with tetanus, and anyway, I'm not going anywhere while there's any doubt about Taz.'

‘Sarah will be here. She's very capable.'

‘Thanks but I'll wait. Perhaps you could let me have a cleaner bandage, though.'

‘That wouldn't be difficult. Here, hold that in place. Press hard – we need to get the bleeding stopped,' she instructed, before fetching two cellophane-wrapped rolls, scissors, a dressing strip and some more cotton wool.

Halfway back to him, she paused, wavering. ‘Look, if I did stitch it, you'd have to swear not to tell a soul . . .'

Daniel awoke with a start, his mind filled with the chaos of the familiar nightmare. He was sweating, his heart racing, and in those first waking moments had no idea where he was, but as the logical part of his brain started to function, memory seeped back by degrees.

Milky early-morning light shone through a gridded window on to shelves holding sacks of dog food, rolls of fleecy bedding and all the non-drug supplies needed by a busy veterinary surgery. He was on a camp bed in the storeroom next to the kennel area where Taz was recovering from his injuries.

There had been a short altercation about Daniel's stated intention of keeping watch over Taz.

‘You're not really allowed in the kennel area,' Emma had told him. ‘Health and safety, you know how it is.'

Daniel had raised his eyebrows. ‘I think we've probably gone a bit beyond that,' he had observed, holding up his bandaged hand, and with a narrow look, she'd had to concede the point.

He had sat with Sarah for some time, battling increasingly heavy eyelids, before finally giving in to her suggestion that he should try and get a couple of hours' sleep while she watched over the dog. She had promised faithfully to wake him if there was any change.

Now there was a tentative knock on the door and a voice spoke his name. He sat up, the springs of the bed creaking and twanging as he moved. He was still deathly tired, and his body felt much like the camp bed sounded, letting him know in no uncertain terms that it had been abused.

The door opened a little further and Sarah's curly head peered round.

‘Taz is waking up,' she told him.

‘Thanks.' Daniel got stiffly to his feet. ‘How does he look?' he asked, as he followed Sarah through to the kennel area.

‘See for yourself,' she suggested with a smile.

Daniel approached the cage and was greeted by the sight of Taz sitting up, his eyes bright and cognizant. His face was still swollen, and the flesh around the sutures looked painfully inflamed, but he wagged the end of his bushy tail enthusiastically as Daniel came into view.

Mindful of the need to keep the dog calm, Daniel suppressed the surge of joy he felt, merely saying quietly, ‘Hello, lad. How you doing?'

His partner had made it and suddenly anything seemed possible.

By eight o'clock, when the surgery was beginning to wake up for the day, with staff arriving and the telephones ringing almost continuously, Taz had eaten a little breakfast and drunk some water. Emma, who had arrived early to see her patient, pronounced herself cautiously pleased with his progress.

‘I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to move your car,' she said then and Daniel remembered it was still parked on the pavement outside the door.

‘Of course. I'll shift it straight away.'

‘Look, Taz will be fine. There are loads of people here to keep an eye on him. Why don't you go home and get some proper sleep? I'm sure you didn't sleep much last night. I promise to call you if there's the slightest change in his condition.'

‘OK, thanks,' Daniel said. He couldn't explain to Emma that going back to the flat now that it was on Macek's map could prove to be little short of suicidal, but neither could he hang around the surgery all day without being very much in the way. ‘Thanks for everything. I'll pop back later.'

‘Are you sure you'll be all right driving with that hand?' she asked doubtfully.

‘Yeah, you've done a great job. It's as good as new,' Daniel lied, flexing his thumb and fingers. Under its swathe of crêpe bandage and bright-pink Vet Wrap, his hand was decidedly sore but serviceable. He had a sneaking suspicion the pinkness of the self-adhesive outer layer was Emma's way of getting her own back for the corner he'd forced her into.

In spite of a game effort by the sun, the air outside was still bitterly cold, and in the shade of the building, the Merc had a thick coating of frost. Daniel scraped away the worst of it with a credit card and slipped into the driver's seat, blowing on chilled fingers and wondering where to go.

Ahead of him, two doors down on the other side of the street, a bakery café was just opening its doors, the proprietor bringing out an A-frame board that promised a full English or Continental breakfast.

The decision took all of five seconds.

Reversing the car off the pavement, he located the nearest car park and paid for three hours before heading for the warmth of the café with its heady aroma of freshly baked bread.

As he took a seat by the window, Daniel's mobile began to vibrate in his jacket pocket and he fished it out.

Bowden. He'd rung earlier to enquire after Taz and to tell Daniel not to worry about getting in to work that day.

Daniel had been more grateful than he could say. He had intended taking the day off, anyway, but to be able to do it with his employer's blessing took a weight off his mind, and perhaps because of that he'd been a little more forthcoming with information about the previous night's attack than he would normally have been.

He hoped this second call didn't signal a change of mind.

‘Hello?'

‘Daniel, could you come to the house this evening? Say about eight?'

‘As long as Taz goes on OK,' Daniel said cautiously. ‘Is there a problem?'

‘Can't talk now. Got to get on. See you later.'

Daniel sat staring out of the window with a slight frown. What did Bowden want? Was he to be given his marching orders, after all? The request had been brusque, to say the least.

He shrugged inwardly. If that was the case, then so be it. He could ill afford to lose the job, but there was no way he could abandon the two girls or, for that matter, Hilary, who was now almost as deeply involved as he was.

The waitress appeared and he put the matter to the back of his mind while he concentrated on more immediate concerns.

NINE

F
red and Meg Bowden's house was a white-painted Victorian building standing back from a tree-lined road on the outskirts of Tavistock. As Daniel parked the Merc on a tarmac drive bordered with ornamental brick edging, an outside light came on, illuminating flowerbeds stuffed with shrubs, drifts of snowdrops and clumps of early-flowering daffodils. Someone was a keen gardener, and somehow he couldn't imagine it being Fred, although appearances could be deceptive: he'd once known a tough duty sergeant who liked nothing better than a spot of knitting for relaxation.

The front door opened as Daniel approached and he was met by a slim, fiftyish lady in faded jeans, a beaded silk top and an ankle-length purple mohair cardigan. She wore her long, salt and pepper hair in a loose knot from which wisps had escaped to hang around her face, and could have been no more than 5 feet 2 in her bare feet, which was how she was at that moment.

‘Daniel? Hi, I'm Meg,' she said and leaned forward to kiss him lightly on the cheek.

If Daniel was a little taken aback by this familiarity, at least it boded well for his job security. It was hardly the welcome you would expect from the boss's wife if you were on the point of being sacked. Come to that, it was hardly the welcome you expected from the boss's wife full stop – not on a first meeting, anyway.

‘Come on in. Fred's in the kitchen, cooking. We're eating late tonight. You'll have some supper with us, won't you? Or have you eaten?'

‘No, I haven't. I'd like that. Thanks.' Things were definitely looking up, but if he wasn't being dismissed, why was he here?