Graham Masterton - The Doorkeepers

“OK, then, bring him on in. But make sure you keep his muzzle on.”

“Well, sir, that’s going to be kind of difficult. I brought him in for a tongue abscess.”

At that moment, a police car drew up in the street outside, beside the white picket fence. A dark-haired deputy climbed out of it, and walked toward the front door, around the corner of the house, where all the bougainvillea hung down. Josh heard the doorbell ring and a door slamming as Nancy went to answer it. He hesitated for a moment, curious to know what was going on, but then the bull terrier began to snap and snarl and chase its own tail and he had to take it into the kitchen.

“He slobbers something awful,” said the owner, as Josh heaved it up on to the table. “I wouldn’t mind myself but the wife keeps on about the loose covers.”

“Have you noticed any change in his motions?” asked Josh.

“Can’t say that I have. One leg in front of the other, same as usual.”

“Sit,” said Josh, but the bull terrier only growled at him. “Sit, damn it,” he repeated, and pressed both hands down on its rump.

“He don’t sit much,” the owner remarked. “Not when people tell him to, anyhow.”

Josh lifted one finger in front of the bull terrier’s eyes. The bull terrier snarled and shook its head, so that strings of thick saliva flew in all directions. But then Josh slowly brought his finger nearer and nearer to the bull terrier’s nose, and then he touched it very lightly on the top of its head.

“You will sit,” he said, in a very quiet voice. “You will be calm and well behaved and you will not snarl.”

The bull terrier looked up at him wide-eyed. Then it gave a pathetic, throaty whine and obediently sat down.

“How do you do that?” asked the owner, in amazement. “I could break a stick on his back and he wouldn’t do that for me.”

“Alternative pet management. You use the animal’s natural stupidity against him.”

Josh was about to unbuckle the bull terrier’s muzzle when Nancy came through to the kitchen. Her long shiny brunette hair was tied up in a blue bandanna and she was wearing one of Josh’s checkered shirts and a tight pair of white sailcloth jeans.

“Josh – I’m sorry to break in, but there’s a cop here to see you.”

“Yes, I saw him. Jesus. You run one red light and you never hear the end of it.”

“It’s not that,” said Nancy. “He wanted to know if you had a sister called Julia.”

“Julia? What did he want to know that for?” Josh turned to the owner of the bull terrier and said, “Excuse me a minute, will you? Maybe you could finish taking this guy’s muzzle off.”

The owner stared at him as if he were mad. “Hey, come on now! You’re the animal doctor.”

Josh went through to the living room. It was long and low-ceilinged, with Navajo rugs thrown over the furniture and naif oil paintings of animals on the whitewashed walls. Pigs, cockerels, cows, dogs and even more pigs. The deputy was standing uncomfortably by the window, in a sharply pressed khaki uniform, his hat in his hand.

“Mr Joshua Winward?” he asked.

“That’s right. Is anything wrong?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I’m afraid we’ve received some real bad news. Do you want to sit down or something?”

“No,” said Josh. “Just tell me what’s wrong.” Dad, he thought. His heart’s given out.

“Well, sir, we had a call from London, England. Your sister was found dead yesterday.”

“My sister?” he repeated. “What do you mean, ‘found dead’?”

The deputy consulted his notebook. “Her body was discovered in the River Thames near a place called Kew and was picked up by a police river patrol just after five thirty a.m. London time.”.

Josh reached for the arm of the old colonial rocking chair and awkwardly sat down on the edge of the seat. Julia! He couldn’t believe what the deputy was telling him. He hadn’t heard from Julia in nearly a year now, but he had known why she wanted to escape to England. He had written to her from time to time, with all the latest gossip from Mill Valley, but he hadn’t seriously expected her to reply, not till she was ready. He looked across the room and there she still was, in a wooden photo frame, smiling at him as if everything was fine. It was impossible to think that she was dead.

“Do they know—” he began, but then he had to clear his throat. “Do they know how it happened?”

The deputy shook his head. “If they do, they didn’t say. All they told me was, they’re going to be holding a post-mortem, and they’ll e-mail any further information, if it’s relevant.”

“But what? Did she fall in, was she pushed in, or what?”

“They didn’t say, sir. I’m sorry.”

“Well, is there anybody I can call? I mean, who did you speak to?”

The deputy copied out a name in his notebook and tore off a page. “Here you are – Detective Sergeant Paul, New Scotland Yard. There’s the number, too.”

Josh took the note and said, “Thank you.”

“If there’s anything else we can do, sir, don’t hesitate to call the sheriff’s department. My name’s Rudy Goralnik.”

The deputy hovered a little longer, but when Josh said nothing more, he mumbled an embarrassed goodbye, and left. Nancy closed the door behind him and came back into the living room. Josh looked up at her, stricken. “She’s dead,” he whispered. “They found her in the river.”

Nancy knelt down in front of him and put her arms around him. “Oh, Josh. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

“The British police didn’t tell them how it happened. She wouldn’t have jumped in, would she? She wouldn’t have tried to kill herself? I know she was depressed and everything, but she was very positive, wasn’t she? Very self-protective. She wouldn’t have taken her own life, ever. She would have worked things through.”

“I’ll tell your patients what’s happened,” said Nancy. “You can’t do any more animals today.”

Josh sat up straight. “I’ll tell them myself. They came all this way.”

He made his way back to the kitchen, with Nancy close behind him. The man with the bull terrier still hadn’t attempted to remove its muzzle, and was waiting for him with an expression on his face that was half-sheepish, half-belligerent.

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Josh. “You’ll have to make another appointment.”

“Hey, listen, just because I happen to own the dog, that doesn’t mean I’m skilled in handling him, does it? You think I want my fingers bitten off? I play Hawaiian guitar.”

Josh patted him on the shoulder and said, “Never mind. Just make another appointment, will you? The clinic is closed for today.”

He went out on to the verandah and told the rest of his clients the same thing. “I’m sorry,” he heard himself saying, “but there’s been a kind of family tragedy.” He paused, and suddenly he couldn’t stop the tears from running down his cheeks. “I’ve just been told that my sister has died.”

Everybody came up to him and squeezed his hand or murmured some small condolence. Only the small boy with the box remained behind.

“I’m sorry, kid,” Josh repeated. “I can’t see any more animals today.”

The boy looked up at him in obvious distress. Josh hesitated, and then he went over and said, “Come on then, show me.” He took the lid off the box and there was a cricket lying inside, a cricket with only one leg.

“I just wanted to know if you could sew his other leg back on. I’ve saved it, look.” He produced a carefully-folded piece of Kleenex.

Josh bent down and gently prodded the cricket with the tip of his finger. It tried to hop but it succeeded only in falling on to its side. “I’m sorry, kid,” Josh told him. “Some things are just beyond saving.”