Håkan Nesser - The Living and the Dead in Winsford

Soblewski, of course. The professor’s house is not far away — certainly no more than a three-hour walk. He and Martin had sat talking and making plans for half the night, so even if Martin wasn’t actually looking for a comrade-in-arms, Soblewski’s must have been the first name to occur to him, and his first move after getting out must have been to return to Soblewski’s house.

What would the implications of that be? What exactly are the implications of this way of thinking?

Despite my predicament it’s not all that difficult to answer that question. It would quite simply mean that Martin and Soblewski are fully acquainted with all the e-mail correspondence that has taken place since I came to Exmoor.

Furthermore: that Soblewski’s own messages to Martin are fictitious, invented with the aim of not making me suspect anything. In particular I am not supposed to suspect anything when Soblewski, almost in passing, mentions that a dead body has been found not far from his home.

Surely this must be a possible set-up?

Yes indeed, I’m forced to concede that it is indeed a possible set-up.

And it also produces a link — a series of threads — between the various facts I scribbled down on that sheet of paper.

How many people in the world would Castor voluntarily go off with if they shouted for him?

I crunch up that sheet of paper and throw it into the fire. There is thunder inside my head. Are there any more false e-mails in addition to those from Soblewski? What’s the situation with those more or less aggressive messages from G, which have dried up over the last few days? Might they also have been written by my husband and his accomplice?

It dawns on me that I haven’t been out to shout for Castor for quite a while, and — to demonstrate to myself that there is a credible and possible alternative to the conclusions I’m close to drawing — I get dressed and go out to shout for him for at least half an hour.

In various directions, but without leaving the garden.

In my mind’s eye I can see how he has sunk down so deep into a quagmire out on the moor that only his head is still above ground. He’s trying to turn it so that he can see from which direction his missus is coming to rescue him: but in the end he accepts that any such solution simply isn’t going to happen. It’s better to just close your eyes and give up your miserable dog’s life. It’s better to abandon any such vain hope.

Or else. . Or else he’s lying and licking his chops on a bed in a guest house somewhere not far away. Dunster or Minehead or Lynmouth, why not? Lying there and watching his master, the man sitting over there in the armchair with a glass of beer and a newspaper, who has just materialized out of nowhere. .

In neither case is there much point in his missus standing out there in the dark shouting for him in a voice that increasingly resembles that faint scraping of a knife on the bottom of a saucepan.

But you go on shouting even so. You do that. As long as you have something to do, no matter how useless it is, you carry on doing it: because that’s how you stop yourself from going out of your mind.

You shout and shout.

And when I’ve finished shouting I fall asleep on the sofa yet again.

There’s a knocking on the door that wakes me up.

I pull the blanket off me and sit up. Check that I am dressed, and run my hands through my hair. Confused images are helter-skeltering through my mind, hammer blows are pounding away behind my eyes. I probably look like a witch, and am not sure if I should go and answer the door or not.

Then I recall the situation and decide that it doesn’t matter if I look like a witch. Nothing matters any more — most probably nothing has mattered for a long time now, but it is time for me to face up to that fact. To take it seriously.

More knocking. I stand up and go to open the door.

It’s Lindsey, the new waiter at The Royal Oak: several seconds pass before I manage to identify him. It’s been snowing during the night, just a thin layer that is no doubt starting to melt away already: but the landscape is still white, and that comes as a surprise.

As does Lindsey, of course. Nobody has never knocked on the door of Darne Lodge while I’ve been living here. He is stamping in the snow rather nervously with his low shoes, and apologizes.

‘Tom asked me to drive up here. I have to return straight away — we’ll be opening for lunch shortly and we’re expecting a biggish group. .’

‘What’s it all about?’

‘Your dog, madam,’ he says. ‘We have your dog at the inn. He was sitting outside the door when Rosie came downstairs. So we let him in and have given him something to eat — I assume he ran off from here earlier this morning, did he?’

I stare at him but can’t produce a word. He shuffles uncomfortably and throws out his arms as if he still wants to apologize for something.

‘I must be getting back. But you can come down and fetch him whenever it suits you. Rosie and Tom asked me to tell you that.’

‘Thank you, Lindsey,’ I manage to say at last. ‘Thank you so much for coming here to tell me. He’s been missing ever since yesterday evening, in fact. It’s so worrying. .’

I don’t know why I reduce the length of his absence by a whole day.

‘Anyway, that was all I have to tell you. .He’s a lovely dog, madam.’

‘Yes, he is lovely. Tell Rosie and Tom I’ll be there in an hour.’

‘Thank you very much, I’ll do that,’ says Lindsey and returns to his Land Rover that is chugging away on the road.

I get undressed, stand in the shower and reel off the whole of the Twenty-third Psalm. This time without being interrupted.

*

He comes to meet me as I walk in through the door. I sink down onto my knees and throw my arms around him — I had been determined to retain my dignity and not do any such thing, but there was no chance of that. He licks my ears, both my right one and my left. He smells a bit, not absolutely clean but not the way you would stink after spending two nights and a day out on a muddy moor.

‘The prodigal son has returned, I see.’

It’s Robert, sitting in his usual place with a pint of Exmoor Ale in front of him.

‘Dogs,’ says Rosie from behind the bar. ‘They’re nearly as bad as men.’

‘I don’t follow you,’ says Robert.

Rosie snorts at him. ‘If you can’t find them at home, you’ll find them at the pub. But it’s great when they come to the right place. He’s had a bite to eat and he’s slept for an hour in front of the fire. Lindsey says he’s been missing since yesterday evening.’

‘That’s right,’ I say, standing up. ‘I don’t know what got into him. I let him out to do his business, and he was off before you could say Jack Robinson.’

‘No doubt he picked up the scent of something that took his fancy,’ says Tom, who appears next to his wife behind the bar.

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying,’ says Rosie. ‘Just like a man.’

‘Haven’t I stood by your side for thirty years?’ sighs Tom, winking at me. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. A Merry Christmas, by the way! It looks as if it might be a white one — but you’re used to that, I suppose?’

‘I certainly am,’ I say. ‘But I don’t suppose this will stay.’

‘The main thing is that you do,’ says Rosie.

I don’t understand what she means, and they can tell that by looking at me.

‘To eat lunch here, that’s what I mean. We have a carvery today. There’ll be a big crowd coming in about half an hour, but you’ll be able to take the best bits if you sit down now.’

‘You promised me the best bits, have you forgotten that already?’ protests Robert, raising his glass.