Rachel's Coming Home (8 page)

‘See, she's fine, leave her be,' said the man, trying to pull her back so he could close the door.

‘I know that dog,' said Rachel slowly. She lent closer, trying to see if there was a name tag.

‘No you don't. That's my dog.' The man pulled her roughly this time but Rachel was angry now and shook herself free.

‘That's Jinty,' she said in disbelief. ‘I know her owners. They're very protective of her. What on earth is she doing here?'

‘You've made a mistake. She belongs to a friend of mine,' said the man. Rachel immediately noted that he'd changed his story. He moved forward and the dog shrank back. That was enough for Rachel. The driver of the red car had come to stand behind them and she hastily handed over the leads of the other two dogs. ‘Hold these, will you?' She reached forward to open the cage. ‘Here, Jinty girl, come on now.'

At the sound of a familiar voice the little dog crawled forward, almost on her stomach, still eyeing the man fearfully. Rachel whisked her into her arms and held her close. The dog wore no collar but there was no mistaking her beautifully-trimmed coat and gleaming eyes.

‘Give her back,' said the man, making a grab for the animal.

‘Oh no you don't,' said the woman, now apparently fully recovered. Rachel took advantage of the distraction to step away and the woman continued. ‘I don't think that is your dog at all. In fact, I think you have dog-napped her. I happen to know that quite a bit of this has been going on in the area recently. In fact, I've been researching it for my job.' She had found her handbag now and produced a notepad and pen. ‘Now what do you have to say about that?' she said expectantly.

For once in her life Rachel was speechless and had never been so glad to see another car as she was when the police car drew up behind her.

‘You're famous,' said Anthony with something between a grin and a sneer. ‘Quite the local heroine.'

Rachel groaned. ‘How was I to know she was a journalist? I would have been more circumspect if I'd realised.'

‘Excellent publicity for the kennels,' said her father, massaging his leg just above the plaster. ‘And Mr and Mrs Johnston are delighted, they can't say enough in your praise.'

‘I'm just glad I got Jinty back for them.' Rachel shuddered. ‘You know they think the man was heading for the ferry at Stranraer? If he'd got across to Ireland they might never have seen her again.'

Chapter Six

‘Just exactly what do you think you're doing?' demanded a deep voice that was all too familiar to Anthony.

He swung round, immediately guilty although he didn't know why he should be. He and Gemma were just putting up a few posters. The voice belonged to Sergeant MacFarlane, as he had known it would.

‘We're putting up posters,' he said, trying to be polite. Rachel had gone on and on at him about how being polite made life so much easier.

The policeman folded his arms across his broad chest and shook his head at them.

‘Is there a problem?' said Gemma. She sounded scared.

‘I don't see why there should be,' said Anthony.

‘Yes there is a problem.' The policeman sighed lugubriously. ‘Have you ever heard of fly-posting? It's against the law to put up posters on any property that isn't your own and even on your own property there can be restrictions.'

‘But that's ridic …' started Anthony, and then thought better of it. ‘That's really, er, a shame.' He could feel colour rising to his face and he hated that. They had put up at least twenty posters around Boroughbie and the plan had been to do the same in Moffat the next day.

‘I never thought,' said Gemma, chewing her lip.

‘Other people do it,' said Anthony.

‘Yes, and if caught they can receive a hefty fine.' The man glowered at them. ‘Is that what you want?'

Anthony balked. He still hadn't repaid Rachel for the last fine. ‘I suppose we could go and take them all down,' he offered, hoping he could remember where they had put them.

‘We're really sorry,' said Gemma. She sounded mortified and that made Anthony feel even worse. He was the one who had got her in to this. It had seemed such a good idea. And the posters were brilliant, they had used a photograph of the kennels around which Gemma had superimposed picture after picture of happy dogs. It was eye-catching and he had been sure it would bring in those much-needed extra few customers.

‘I had hoped not to come face to face with you for a while, young man,' said Sergeant MacFarlane, looking Anthony up and down. He didn't seem mollified by their offer or apology and Anthony could feel himself losing his temper.

‘Look here …'

‘What's all this about?' said a new voice.

Anthony had thought his spirits couldn't plummet any lower, but he was wrong.

Gemma's father had appeared out of nowhere. Now he was towering over all of them, looking very angry indeed.

‘Hi Dad,' said Gemma, putting a hand quickly on his arm. ‘It's nothing. We were just …' She faltered, which wasn't surprising under the glare her father was giving her.

‘Are you in trouble with the police?' he demanded. ‘And who is this young man?' He turned his fierce dark stare to Anthony. ‘Perhaps you can enlighten me?' he ended, turning to the police officer.

‘Certainly,' said the police officer, his tone noticeably more pleasant. ‘I was just having a chat with these young people, pointing out they shouldn't be putting up any posters in public places.' Now he made it sound as though it was a very minor misdemeanour.

‘So we're stopping right now,' said Gemma quickly, trying to pass the rest of the posters to Anthony. ‘Did you come to give me a lift home? That was really kind but I could have got the bus.'

‘I had to come in to town to see the seed merchant. Thought I'd keep an eye out for you. I didn't expect to see you with a
young man
and certainly not being accosted by a
police officer
.'

‘We were just having a wee chat,' said Sergeant MacFarlane and Anthony shot him a grateful smile. Maybe the police weren't so bad after all.

‘Shall we go?' said Gemma to her father.

Anthony felt he should do something to help her, but he wasn't sure what. She seemed desperate to leave.

‘Not until you've introduced me to your friend.'

‘Oh, this is Anthony. I know him from school.'

‘Anthony?' The man frowned. On Gemma the dark eyes were lovely, but on her father they were definitely scary. ‘That wouldn't be Anthony Collington, would it? From the kennels? I thought I recognised you. I should have known. You're nothing but trouble, your family. Just keep away from me and my daughter, do you hear me? Just keep away.'

He took the remaining papers from his daughter's arms and thrust them at Anthony so suddenly that more than half of them spilt across the pavement. Anthony gathered them as best he could, helped by the sergeant who was now making sympathetic noises. By the time they rose to their feet again Gemma and her father had gone.

Rachel and her parents were at the kitchen table going through future bookings when Anthony appeared. He had been very pleased with himself when he went out that morning, but now he looked thunderous.

‘Hello, dear, how are you?' said her mother.

‘What's happened?' demanded Rachel, and then wished she hadn't. Her parents didn't seem to have noticed anything was wrong. She should have let Anthony slide off to his room and gone looking for him later.

‘Is something wrong?' asked their father, turning slowly to examine his son. ‘What is it, my boy?'

‘Nothing,' said Anthony, looking desperately from one to the other of them. For all his height and deep voice he looked like nothing so much as a young boy in trouble.

‘Do you want a cup of tea?' said Rachel brightly.

‘Come and sit down and tell us about it,' said her father.

Anthony hesitated and then slumped down onto one of the chairs. He slapped down a pile of papers that he had been holding under his arm. ‘It's these.'

Rachel and her parents leant forward to look more closely. They were posters advertising Collington Kennels, bright and quirky and just the sort of thing they needed.

‘But they're brilliant!' she said, surprised. ‘Did you make them?'

‘Yes, with Gemma Smith. That's what we were doing the other day.' Anthony looked slightly mollified by her praise.

‘What a good idea,' said his mother. She turned to her husband. ‘Remember we did a few plain posters just after we started, to put up in the local vets practices? But these are so much better.'

‘So what's the problem?' asked John, still with his eye on his son.

Anthony shrugged. ‘We were putting a few up around Boroughbie and apparently you're … not supposed to. We got told to take them all down.'

‘Oh what a shame,' said Maggie sympathetically.

‘You should have discussed it with us first, surely you realise you can't put up posters just anywhere,' said Rachel.

‘I do now. So I'll just put the whole lot in the bin, shall I?' Anthony looked furious again and Rachel wished her tone had been less critical.

‘Absolutely not,' said his father pleasantly. ‘They're excellent, we just need to find the right places to put them. Vets practices, as your mother said, and maybe that notice board at the newsagent's.'

Rachel managed to bite her lip and not say anything else critical. The posters were very good and publicity was exactly what they needed to get the bookings up to a reasonable level once again. She wondered who it was that had stopped Anthony putting up the posters, but decided to wait until they were alone before she asked him.

The opportunity to ask never seemed to arise which she regretted strongly a couple of days later. She picked up a copy of the twice-weekly local gazette on a trip into Boroughbie and was paging through it as she chatted to her mother over coffee when the article caught her eye.

Local Business Adds to Litter Problem. The
Gazette
's ongoing campaign against litter in our towns seems to have made no impression on local business Collington Kennels, whose posters and leaflets were left strewn about the streets …

‘Oh no,' Rachel didn't need to read further to know this was not the sort of publicity they had been hoping for. She made as if to turn the page so that her mother wouldn't see the offending article, and then realised there was no chance of keeping it from her parents, who both read the paper from cover to cover. And even if she ‘lost' the paper, one of their friends was bound to mention it. She pushed the paper over to her mother with a sigh. ‘Look at that. Just what we didn't need at the moment.'

She hated to see the way her mother's face crumbled as she read. Things had been so much better the last few days, her father definitely on the mend and her mother starting to relax. And now this.

She showed it to Anthony when he came downstairs. He would have to know sometime. For once she felt sorry for him. He had been trying to help, it was such a shame it had turned out so badly.

‘But we didn't leave any litter!' he said heatedly. ‘I tried to collect everything, really I did. I don't know where they got that from.'

‘Maybe you dropped one or two by accident?' said his mother placatingly.

‘If only the paper hadn't started this stupid campaign,' groaned Rachel.

‘It's a very laudable campaign,' said her mother.

‘Gemma had the leaflets in her bag,' said Anthony, remembering. ‘I should have got them back off her. What was she doing throwing them away?'

‘She wouldn't do it on purpose. She's such a nice girl.' Rachel wondered, not for the first time, if her mother ever said anything negative about people.

‘It's the last time I involve her in anything,' said Anthony, jumping to his feet. ‘And don't worry about me causing you any more trouble because I won't. Everything I do goes wrong, so I won't do anything.'

He stormed out of the room and Rachel and her mother exchanged a silent look.

‘I'll talk to him later,' said Rachel.

‘He's a good boy really,' said her mother.

Rachel's move back to the family home hadn't started as well as she had hoped, but she tried to concentrate on the positive. Her father was recovering nicely. All the local vet practices had been happy to take Anthony's posters and a couple of new bookings had come in, possibly as a result. The weather was beautiful and she was enjoying the opportunity to be outdoors. Her parents seemed to think she was doing too much but what they didn't realise was that Rachel needed to be doing something. She revelled in it. It was a pity Anthony wasn't a bit more like her, but she was working on that.

It was a Wednesday morning, a week or so after her visit to Philip Milligan's house, and she was out walking once again, this time with two of the visiting dogs, sensibly on their leads. One was a slightly loopy collie-cross and one a highly strung springer spaniel so leads were definitely a good idea. She let the dogs drag her up the track over the hill to the east, away from Freddy Smith's land, and then dropped back down to the road to do a circuit home.

As she approached the road a little white van came around the corner going rather too fast. The brakes squealed as the driver realised how close he was to the verge and the van swerved then righted itself and accelerated away. Rachel shook her head. Some youngster, no doubt. You didn't often see driving like that out here. She'd have to make sure she kept the dogs close to her on the grass verge, she didn't want anything to happen to them.

A moment later she heard another loud screech of brakes and this time, if she wasn't mistaken, it was followed by a bang. She began to run in the direction the van had been heading, the dogs more than happy to accompany her.