Aaron Elkins - Unnatural Selection

They were passing the Turk’s Head Pub that he’d mentioned to their pilot (Turk’s Head being a common name for pubs, deriving either from a type of seafarer’s knot or, with more grim connotations, from the Crusades, depending on whom you asked) and a couple of men, sitting at an outdoor table over their pints, waved.

“See who’s here, Alf. What brings you to our fair part of the world, Constable Sergeant? A bank robbery? A triple murder? An anarchist plot to blow up the parsonage?”

“Just out and about enjoying the fresh air, lads,” Clapper said pleasantly. “Lovely day, innit?”

At the Turk’s Head they turned left off the road onto a footpath that skirted the low bluffs above the beach. “Shorter this way,” the sergeant said. “Now where was I? Well, I myself first met Trus, oh, about five years ago. I called him in on a case when I was…” He faltered. “Well, you see, this was-”

“When you were a detective chief inspector in Plymouth?” He was getting along well with Clapper, and he thought this might clear the air even more.

Clapper tucked in his chin but didn’t break stride. “Someone’s been talking out of school,” he muttered. “PC Robb, would that be?”

“He’s proud of you, and proud to be working with you, Sergeant. And I understand why. You’ve had a hell of a career.”

“And did he tell you why I’m spending the remainder of this illustrious career as a sergeant in the most remote outpost of England?”

“He implied there’d been, uh, differences with administration.”

Clapper laughed, not disagreeably. “I’d say that describes it.”

Gideon responded in kind with one or two humorous accounts of his own struggles with administration in the groves of academe, and by the time they arrived at another modest “Bed-and-Biscuit Canine Boarding Establishment” sign at the head of a curving lane, they had slipped without noticing into first names.

The lane curved down toward the water and ended at the front steps of a green-roofed, white farmhouse on a gorse-and heather-covered bluff, below which was a small, white beach strewn with driftwood and edged by grassy dunes. The small sign on the front door said, “Please ring and enter. Be sure to close door behind you.”

They did as instructed, finding themselves in a small foyer at the foot of a half-flight of stairs, and bringing instantly down on themselves a pandemonium of frenzied barking, yapping, and yipping-moderated by a single wise, resonant whooof -that seemed to come from every corner of the house. There followed the patter of many feet on wood flooring, and a pack of eight or ten small dogs-terriers, pugs, toy spaniels-threw themselves in what seemed like pure, noisy, gleeful ecstasy against the baby gate at the top of the stairs, barking away. A second later a huge Great Dane padded up behind them-the whoofer-and towered over them, adding his own deep voice to the chorus.

From down the hall came a soft, neutral voice: “Quiet.” Nothing authoritative or threatening, not really a command at all, just a courteous request, but the barking stopped the way a switched-off radio stops. “Sit.” And with an audible thump, as abruptly as if their back legs had been swept out from under them, every one of them went down on its haunches (the Dane accidentally sat on a Yorkie, which caused a brief commotion) and stayed there, heads smartly turned to the left, from whence the voice had come, as if posed for a cute doggie calendar photo.

A moment later, a mild-looking man of seventy appeared behind the dogs, preceded by the sweet, cloying odor of pipe tobacco from the ancient briar that was held loosely between his teeth. Gideon’s immediate impression was that he was looking at someone who was about as contented as a human being could get. With his gray, thinning hair, his polished-apple cheeks, his schoolish spectacles, and his not-so-expertly hand-knitted vest, in the neck of which the knot of a plain blue tie was visible, he might have been a retired Oxford don. From the way he smiled down at his charges, it couldn’t have been more clear that he was living his sunset years exactly as he wished to, surrounded by the companions of his choice.

He plucked the pipe from his mouth and smiled kindly down at them. “Mike Clapper! Sergeant Mike, the very man, as I live and sneeze. Come all this way just to cheer up his poor old mate, struck down by the cruel and remorseless hand of age.”

“Come on business, Trus,” Clapper said briskly.

Hicks rubbed his hands together. “Well, then!”

“Not that there’s any money in it for you, you understand.”

“The story of my life,” Hicks said with a sigh. “And this young fellow must be the renowned Professor Oliver, whose monograph on exhuming skeletal remains has been my bible on the subject for many years.”

“Thank you,” said a flattered Gideon. “Actually, it was more Walter Birkby’s monograph than mine. I was the junior author on that one.”

“Modest too. Very becoming. Come in, gentlemen.”

He unclicked the baby gate-the dogs stirred, but didn’t dash for the opening-and let the two of them in, and men and dogs followed him in a line down a hallway to a comfortable but undistinguished linoleum-floored living room with a matched set of 1960’s-style department store furniture. Hicks sat Gideon and Clapper on the sofa and, without asking, went to get them tea, while the dogs, each apparently with its preferred place, clambered into the seats or onto the arms of the chairs. Some curled themselves like cats over the chair backs. The Great Dane laid himself down, Sphinxlike, in front of the fireplace.

When Hicks had returned with the tea things on a tray and had squeezed himself into an armchair between three look-alike black spaniels, two of which clambered into his lap, Clapper briefly laid out the facts.

“One of those little cove beaches up north, eh?” Hicks said. “Those would be, what, a hundred, a hundred-and-fifty yards wide?”

“Something like that,” Clapper said. “No wider, anyway. Want to have a go?”

Hicks dug the bit of his pipe against his cheek. “Well, sand isn’t the easiest medium in the world, you know. It’s too porous, you see, too many ways for the scent to escape. You get a huge scent pool, and the dog has to work extremely hard to pinpoint. And then, of course, sand is notorious for shifting, so there’s the added problem of… mm…” The pipe bit went back in his mouth. Absently, he stroked the ears of one of the spaniels on his lap.

“You don’t think it can be done?” Clapper asked, his disappointment showing. Gideon imagined his own was showing too.

Out came the pipe. “Body’s been there a good five years, you say?”

“Probably less,” Gideon said. “More than one, though.”

Hicks pondered. “Well, that might be stretching things a bit, but yes, why not? We can certainly have a look-see. The dog will enjoy a run on the beach, in any case. What say we do it tomorrow morning?”

Gideon and Clapper readily agreed.

“Good-o.” Hicks thrust the pipe back into his mouth and got to his feet, spilling dogs onto the floor. “These you see are all guests and house pets. My old working dogs prefer living outside. Come and meet them.”

“Do you still have Heidi the Wonder Dog?” Clapper asked, getting out of his chair.

“Why, Mike, what a thing to say. Of course I still have her. I’d never give up Heidi. I’d never give up any of them.”

“Well, yes, I only wondered if-that is, I thought perhaps-”

“She’s alive and well,” Hicks said, “and no doubt eager to see you.”

When they left the room, the dogs started to scramble after them, but Hicks murmured, “Down. Stay,” over his shoulder, and down they went and down they stayed, after practically screeching to a halt.