The Day of the Jack Russell (Mystery Man) (13 page)

‘Just saying,’ I said, ‘because I prefer to suss someone out via their website before I actually make contact. It’s much easier, no awkwardness, no pressure. If I were you, I’d get yourself a website. It’s good for business.’

‘Uhuh? Well thanks for sharing that with me. Do you design websites by any chance?’

‘No, I’m a private detective.’

‘Well you must be a crappy one if you’ve time to phone me up and give me a hard time for not having a website. Now fuck off.’

He hung up.

I had meant no criticism, but sometimes people take my well-meaning observations the wrong way. I debated whether to phone him back, but being allergic to confrontation I opted to phone the third of our taxi-dermists, a Michael Streeth. He was much friendlier and actually quite excited to be talking to a real live private detective. We got on well enough for me to ask why he didn’t have a website either and also to mention my brief conversation with William Gunn.

Michael – for we were on first-name terms, although I’d told him I was called Mario, after Mario Puzo; his
The Godfather
happened to be sitting on the counter, and I have a bookselling business and its reputation to protect – laughed at the mention of Mr Gunn and described him as a cantankerous old shit. He explained that local taxidermists had taken their websites down because they were continually being bombarded with abusive e-mails and occasionally viruses by animal rights groups. ‘The phone’s okay,’ he said, ‘because it’s not quite as anonymous; calls can be traced, and anyway, they’re not so brave when it comes to actually talking one on one. Gunny has had it worse than me; his place got its windows put in a couple of times, so yeah, he’s nervous, and touchy, although I think he was a shit to start with.’

I had asked Michael some general questions about taxidermy before pressing ahead with the real reason for my call. Had he at any time – because it was impossible to know how long the animal had been dead – stuffed a Jack Russell terrier for Billy Randall?

Michael let out an exasperated groan. ‘Please, before you go any further with this, and particularly because I know this will lead back to Willy Gunn, don’t ever, ever make the mistake of saying to him what you just said to me. We
do not
stuff animals. We remove the skin, preserve it, then arrange it around a model of the original body. It’s not about stuffing, it’s about anatomy. A good taxidermist is a sculptor, an artist and a naturalist, all rolled into one. And Willy Gunn is the best in the business. If this Jack Russell you’re looking for was done in this country, then Willy’s your man. I don’t touch pets – their owners get too emotional. I do mostly wildlife that’s been accidentally killed or animals that have been legally hunted. It’s all well regulated these days – though there are a few rogues out there offering cheap deals for shit work. Most of them don’t know their arse from their elbow, which is unfortunate, from an anatomical point of view.’

It was also unfortunate that he wasn’t the man I needed to talk to, because he seemed like a decent sort, and we got on well, which for me doesn’t happen very often.

‘I’d call Willy for you,’ Michael said, ‘but I had a fallout with him myself last year. He’s fine, really – just tread easy with the stuffing.’

Michael also ruled out the first name on my list of local taxidermists. I was still working off my out-of-date Yellow Pages, due to a dispute I had with the company, which I need not go into now but which involved them
ripping me off
. Seems Scott Parker had retired two years previously and gone off to live in Spain.

I told Alison of my predicament over lunch in the hope that she’d volunteer to call Willy Gunn on my behalf, but she said no, we should go and see him. She said she was an artist but entirely self-taught and her anatomy was useless and it might be instructive to go and see him at work.

‘We could kill two birds with one stone,’ she said.

‘That’s not funny,’ I said.

I argued with her that all we needed was a couple of questions answered, but she wasn’t having it. She said that if we hadn’t actually gone out to Jimbo’s house, but stayed at home like I wanted, we wouldn’t have found out about the burglary at Pat’s, and hadn’t my sneaky visit to Charlie Hawk paid dividends?

‘He damaged my car.’

‘You heard his alibi.’

‘He vaguely alluded to a Christmas barbecue; it’s hardly an alibi.’

‘He must have thought it was.’ I sighed. ‘So we’re going to go wild in the country, are we?’

‘No,’ I said.

I don’t like the country, with its potholes and cows of winter. I don’t like animals alive, and no better dead. I fear fleas and ticks and bluetongue, mange and maggots and rabies. I detest wildlife, farm animals and pets. I once knelt on a gerbil. The roads weren’t straight. There was black ice. It was a nightmare, especially in Alison’s suspension-free little Beetle.

‘This is a complete waste of time,’ I said, ‘and please keep both hands on the steering wheel.’ She took the other one off. For badness. ‘Please remember, there are three of us in this car.’

She laughed and rubbed her belly and said little Rory was in her corner and I was forced to leave it or there would have been a shouting match, which would have meant her taking her eyes off the road, which was all I needed. So I sat on my hands and applied the imaginary brake and kept my mouth closed while we drove out to William Gunn’s address on the outskirts of Hillsborough. It was only twenty minutes from the city, but that was nineteen more than I preferred. His workshop was a variation of what people of my parents’ generation would have called a Nissen hut. Its curved roof was rusted and moss strewn. Jagged plants grew up the walls and hung down over the entrance and I had to be careful not to get stabbed by thorns and blinded by twigs. Alison opened the door and a bell jangled. We stood on one side of a counter and looked at a dead squirrel. The squirrel was holding a small card in its paws that read:
Please do not ask for credit, as refusal often offends
.

‘What kind of credit could a squirrel give, anyway?’ Alison asked.

‘Nuts,’ I said.

An elderly man appeared from behind a small curtain, rubbing his hands on a towel. He looked annoyed. ‘Yes? I’m just closing.’

Mother could have taught him a thing or two about customer relations. I held my tongue. Alison stepped in. She can be very good when she puts her mind to it. She apologised for calling without making an appointment, she’d heard wonderful things about his work, we have a pet dog who’s on his last legs, and forgive me if this is being morbid, we’d really like to have him preserved, do you do pets, is it possible to see your workshop and examples of any other dogs you might have done, how much does it cost, we’ll pay whatever it takes.

That changed his tune pretty quick. Couldn’t be more pleasant. Please, come this way.

William Gunn led us – slowly, I might add, for he appeared both fragile and arthritic – through the curtain and into the workshop beyond. Long wooden tables were festooned with bottles of chemicals, animal skins were pinned out to dry. There were half-built skeletons and a fox that looked as if the merest spark of electricity might bring it snarling back to life. There were stag heads with antlers mounted on the wall. In one corner there were rats kitted out in little suits and seated around a picnic table. One was wearing sunglasses. It was meant to be cute but just looked odd. The whole place stank of death and formaldehyde and blood and fur and guts and pain. I hated it. I had only recently been researching concentration camps, and this reminded me of the photographs of the hideous experiments crazy scientists had performed with Hitler’s blessing. It was Auschwitz for squirrels. The whole time we were there I was on the verge of throwing up. I was allergic to virtually everything in the room. At any moment my head might swell up even further.

Gunn, though, almost purred with pride. He showed us examples of his work and Alison
oohed
and
aahed
over them while giving me
yuck
looks when he wasn’t looking. I wanted out. We needed to get to the point. I asked him if there were any creatures he couldn’t stuff.

William Gunn’s head snapped towards me. ‘We do . . . not . . .
stuff
. I am a member of the Guild of Taxidermists, a founder member. I have been performing taxidermy for fifty years. It requires the skills of a surgeon, the artistic eye of a great master and the manual dexterity of a craftsman. Please, please,
never
refer to it as . . . stuffing.’

‘Understood,’ I said. I nodded around the workshop. ‘And very impressive, all this. But are there, like, any creatures that can’t be . . . you know, done?’

His eyes held steady on me. ‘No. Over the years, I’ve pretty much done them all.’

‘Have you ever,’ I asked, ‘stuffed a whale?’

‘Do not say
stuffed
.’

‘I’m sorry, my mistake. Could you do a whale?’

‘Do you have a whale you need me to do?’

‘No, of course not. I wouldn’t have anywhere to put it. But theoretically?’

‘Never mind him,’ said Alison. ‘He’s only out for the day.’

He softened a little. ‘No . . . no. It is a good question. Theoretically, yes, I could do a whale, but I would need a whole team working with me. The size. The problem would be the skin – taxidermy really only works well where the creature has either fur or feathers. If there is only skin, it discolours. It does not look . . . well.’

‘Could you stuff a human?’ I asked.

‘Please! Do not refer . . .’ He stopped and sighed. ‘It is a losing battle,’ he said wearily. ‘Seventy-five years of expertise between me and my da, yet it is always stuff this or stuff that.’ His eyes flitted back to me and he pointed. ‘You. Your voice is . . . familiar.’

I just looked at him.

‘That’s because he’s as common as muck,’ said Alison. She laughed. After a moment he laughed too, but his eyes held steady on me until Alison expertly drew his attention back. She said, ‘I’m sorry, we’re just heartbroken about our wee dog; we’ve had him for fifteen years, he’s part of the family. We thought it would be nice to have a reminder of him.’

She looked about to cry. Gunn surprised her, and me, by taking her hand and patting it. ‘Don’t you worry,’ he said gently, ‘you’ll have a fine reminder of him. Please, what type of a dog is he?’

‘A Jack Russell,’ said Alison.

‘Ah, lovely,’ said Gunn.

‘I was thinking, if you’ve done Jack Russells before, maybe I could see one? Just, half of me really wants it, but the other thinks it would be a bit . . . you know . . . strange having him around . . . you know . . . dead ‘n’ all, do you know what I mean?’

Gunn nodded. ‘I fully understand. Absolutely. Now, I’ve done quite a few dogs recently, but no Jack Russells. If you just hold on a minute, I’ll see if my dad remembers doing one. See, I was off on holiday for a few weeks in July, so he might have and just not mentioned it.’

‘That would be great, if it’s not too much trouble?’

‘Not a bit of it.’

Gunn gave me another sharp look before producing a mobile phone and moving towards the far end of the workshop.

‘His dad?’ I whispered. ‘
He
’s about ninety, how old’s the da?’

Alison shrugged. Then she punched me on one of my brittle arm bones. ‘Quit it with the stuffing crap, okay? We’re trying to get some answers.’

I made a face.

She made one back.

We were quite a team.

Gunn closed his phone then crossed to a tall green filing cabinet and pulled open a drawer. He rifled through it for half a minute before finding what he was looking for. ‘I was right,’ he said. ‘Dad did do one in the summer. And we always take pictures of our work.’

He had three photographs in his hand, which he passed to Alison one at a time. She passed them on to me. They showed a Jack Russell. It was difficult to tell if he was alive or dead, but that was as much to do with the quality of the photographs as the quality of the work.

‘They’re . . . a bit distant?’ Alison ventured.

Gunn looked at them himself. ‘You’re right. It’s Dad. As a taxidermist, even at his age, he’s a genius. Not so much a photographer.’

‘Well . . .’

Alison glanced at me, but made sure that Gunn saw it. Realising that he might be about to see business walk out the door, he moved quickly. ‘I’ll tell you what, if you really want to see how the last one worked out, I’m sure I could have a word with the owners, see if they mind you seeing the little fella.’

‘Do you think?’

‘Well, one can only ask. Give me a wee minute.’

Gunn produced his phone again and moved away. Alison winked at me. She was actually pretty good at this game. I had taught her well.

Gunn didn’t look quite so chipper when he returned. ‘Well, it might not be that simple after all. Seems they had a burglary just recently, and amongst other things they went and stole their Jack Russell.’

‘God,’ said Alison, ‘why would anyone do that?’

Gunn shook his head sadly. ‘I’m not even going to tell my dad, with his heart. They’re like his children.’

His
stuffed
children. It was an odd way to earn a living. That and undertaking.

‘The owners are
devastated
,’ Gunn continued. ‘I suppose that’s what happens when you’re a VIP – they target you, don’t they?’

‘A VIP?’ Alison asked. ‘Anyone really famous?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t say.’

But he said it in a way that you knew he could say, and would say, and probably did say on a regular basis. It was a way of promoting his business. He probably told everyone who arrived at his door, including the postman, about his celebrity clientele.

‘Oh go on,’ said Alison, ‘who is it? And you know I’m bringing our wee man here anyway. I’m very impressed.’

‘Well that would be good. And of course I’ll tell you, but you have to promise to keep it under your hat.’

‘Yes, of course!’

‘All right. It’s yer man—’

‘Billy Randall,’ I said.

Gunn looked annoyed at the interruption, but wasn’t fazed by the name. ‘Billy . . .? Oh aye, holiday guy? No, not him. Whatever . . .?’