It's a Vet's Life: (32 page)

‘The first page,’ I admit. ‘I like owners to be well-informed but that amount of information was ridiculous, especially as most of it was wrong.’

‘Well, I hate to say it, but that’s how it is nowadays. The world’s gone mad and I don’t wish to be part of it any more, so …’ Old Fox-Gifford stabs the next bill onto the spike. ‘That’s it. I’m done here. Apart from chasing the Pitts for the last quarter’s money, Alexander won’t have to worry about the accounts until the end of the month.’

‘So, is that all you wanted to see me for?’ I ask, wondering if I should get back to check on George. I don’t like the idea of him waking up to find himself alone, although Sophia would probably be of the opinion that it’s good for him.

‘Not quite, Maz.’ Old Fox-Gifford picks up the gun, checks the barrels, then snaps it shut.

‘Shouldn’t you do that outside?’ I say, nervously.

‘You sound very much like Sophia. Why would I take this little beauty outside when I want to make use of her indoors?’ Old Fox-Gifford turns the muzzle towards his face, resting the stock on a heap of old journals that are on the table, and my heart misses a beat.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ And then I think, he’s winding me up. ‘Oh, stop messing about. You haven’t loaded it.’

‘I loaded her up last night, but I had things to do, affairs to settle.’

‘You’re serious?’

‘Dead-ly.’ He smiles. He actually smiles. ‘You aren’t laughing, Maz.’ He shrugs. ‘I never was much of a one for jokes, unless they were made at someone else’s expense. I apologise for dragging you into this, but I have one last favour to ask—’

‘And I shall refuse it,’ I cut in quickly.

‘You won’t because it’s about old Hal. The others can look after themselves, but this dear boy, well, he’s special.’ Hal beats his tail against the floor as if he’s in total agreement. ‘I want you to take care of him. He likes you.’

‘You’ve called me here to ask me to look after your dog?’

‘Indeed. You will, won’t you?’ His eyes grow wide and beseeching. ‘If you decline,’ he goes on, as though reading my mind, ‘I shall shoot myself anyway.’

‘I’d do it for Hal’s sake, but you aren’t going to kill yourself.’ He’s bluffing. He has to be bluffing. But he’s serious, a voice says in my head. My heart seems to stop altogether. Suddenly, I’m completely focused on
the
muzzle of that gun, and on where Old Fox-Gifford’s hands are, relative to the trigger.

‘You have so much to live for.’ I don’t know what to say, but I have to say something to buy more time, if nothing else. ‘The decision to kill oneself shouldn’t be made on impulse.’

‘Here we go,’ he sighs.

‘It’s never all that bad …’ I begin, thinking, how can I stop him? I’ve been in some difficult situations before, but nothing in my experience has prepared me for this.

‘Maz, tut tut, that’s a platitude. I thought you of all people, an intelligent young woman, could come up with something better than that.’

‘What about Sophia? Alex? Your grandchildren?’ I can’t believe how cold and controlled he is.

‘They’ll be better orf without me.’

‘What about Fifi, and your friends in town?’

‘They’re always after something: a judge for the show, a donation to Animal Rescue, a contribution to the repairs to the bell tower.’ He shakes his head. ‘I shan’t miss any of them.’

I pull out my mobile and start touching the screen.

‘What are you doing? Put that down!’

My thumb hovers over the ‘call’ icon.

‘I said, stop or I might just end it right now.’

‘I thought you could have a word with Alex, I mean, Alexander,’ I say. ‘Your son.’

‘Yes, yes, I know very well who he is,’ Old Fox-Gifford says, his sideburns seeming to bristle with his characteristic impatience, and I feel encouraged by this spark of fight that’s appeared from beneath the layer of defeat that seems to lie over him, like the covering of dust that lies over everything in the surgery. I lay my mobile down on the windowsill beside me.

‘You’re a coward, you know,’ I say, my voice rising uncontrollably.

‘It isn’t what I would have chosen,’ he admits. ‘However, one or two of my contemporaries chose suicide as the way out. It’s something to do with being a vet, I suppose, having the means and knowledge of how to do it.’

I know about the figures, but I’m not going to feed his compulsion to kill himself.

‘Would you mind breaking the gun again?’ I say, trying another tack.

Old Fox-Gifford smiles again. ‘You’re afraid I might aim it at you?’

‘Can you blame me? You shot Hal by accident once.’ I try turning the conversation around to his dog. If he won’t have second thoughts for his family, perhaps he will for Hal.

‘I was going to … When it came to it though, I couldn’t do it …’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Hal. This morning. I took him down to the copse. I couldn’t go through with it.’ I watch him eye the gun keenly, and I think, this isn’t over yet. I take a small step towards the desk. Old Fox-Gifford slams one hand down. ‘Get back!’

The softly-softly approach isn’t working, and I wish I’d watched a few more detective dramas. I get angry instead.

‘If you go through with this, it will only prove that you’ve never cared about anyone except yourself.’

‘There, and I thought I was a member of a caring profession,’ he says acerbically. ‘I was once. It’s all gone now though. The profession no longer looks after its own. They’re about to throw me to the lions.’ He
thrusts
a piece of paper, a printed letter, across the table. ‘Look at that.’

I duck forward and pick it up, stepping away again when he glares and lifts the muzzle of the gun just enough to be a threat to himself. I read as he continues, ‘Nothing can save me now. It’ll be all over the veterinary press by tomorrow. I’ll be a laughing stock.’

‘It isn’t the end of the world …’ The letter’s a follow-on from the one I found in the flowerpot. It was sent by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons with the date of the preliminary hearing: alleged negligence over the vasectomy of a teaser ram at Headlands Farm. ‘Anyone could have made the same mistake.’

‘Anyone didn’t,’ he says more gently. ‘I did, and I’m tired. I’m too tired to fight any more. This is my choice. I’m not doing it out of spite to hurt anyone. I’m doing it for the family practice, to save Alexander’s reputation being tainted when I’m struck orf the register. I can’t live with the shame of it.’

‘You won’t be struck off. You might be suspended for a few months, and ordered to do some extra CPD.’ All vets are obliged to do some Continuing Professional Development, attending courses and reading journals, to keep abreast with current thinking in veterinary practice. Old Fox-Gifford does go to a few local meetings, but it’s to meet his cronies, not to learn anything new.

‘I’ve sailed close to the wind, but this time, I’m caught up in a maelstrom and I’m going down.’

I make to move forwards again, but Old Fox-Gifford lifts his hand, leans across the table and stretches his arm towards the trigger of the gun.

‘It’s too late. Tell Sophia there’s a letter for her – it’s
tucked
behind her jewellery box. And don’t talk badly of me in front of the … young ones. Let them know that I loved them …’

‘I’m not going to let you do this,’ I say, refusing to give up. ‘If you love Lucie, Sebastian and George, you will break that gun, get up and walk out down those stairs. Can you imagine how Lucie will feel if you go ahead with this? She adores you. You’re her grandfather. And Sebastian – he looks up to you too. And George – well, you’re part of his life …’ I pause for breath. ‘How do you think Alex will feel, having to tell them, having to explain what you did?’ I watch Old Fox-Gifford ponder, my heart thudding hard. At last, he picks up the gun and breaks it.

‘Happy now?’ he mutters. ‘All right, sod orf and leave me alone.’

‘Wouldn’t it be better if you came outside for some fresh air?’

‘Don’t you trust me?’

I stare back at him.

‘Look.’ He shows me the gun. I move to take it from him, but he snatches it away and rests it across his lap. ‘I’m thinking about the grandchildren,’ he confirms.

Reassured that he’s changed his mind, I turn and head back down, thinking that I’ll go and fetch Sophia from the stables so she can have a word with her husband and decide what to do. He needs help, and I wonder about suggesting that Sophia calls Ben on his behalf. However, Sophia is on her way up to the surgery anyway, and I meet her at the bottom of the steps.

Before I can open my mouth to speak, my eardrums explode with the sound of a single blast. I turn and scream, ‘No … You bastard. No!’

Sophia pushes past me as we both try to go up the steps at the same time.

‘Fox-Gifford,’ she calls, ‘I’ll have your guts for garters. You’ve gone and spooked all the horses.’

‘Sophia, stop!’

‘How many times have I told you not to fire that gun indoors? Fox-Gifford?’

‘Don’t … Don’t.’ I try to pull Sophia back, grabbing at her jacket, but it’s too late. Ears ringing, I stand at her side, gazing at the terrible scene. A tiny wisp of smoke rises from the barrel of the gun, and what’s left slumped across the desk doesn’t look like Old Fox-Gifford any more. There’s blood everywhere.

I feel as if I’m watching from outside and he’s in a film. I don’t know why I move past Sophia to check his pulse. Force of habit, I expect. I don’t know what drives me, but I reach out for his hand, the one that’s fallen from the trigger to lie warm and claw-like across the paperwork on the desk. I give it a squeeze, but there is no answering pressure.

From the state of him, there’s no chance he’s alive. He’s gone. Old Fox-Gifford is dead.

‘I can’t believe it,’ I mutter to myself, as I stroke his fingers. ‘Why? Nothing can be so awful that you had to end it like that, surely?’

I’m trembling with shock and guilt for not being able to stop him. I step back, keeping my eyes on the body. Hal, who’s probably too deaf to have heard the shot, remains at his master’s feet, settling himself back across them, and resting his head on his paws. I choke up with grief for Hal, and Alex, and Sophia and the children.

Will I mourn Old Fox-Gifford’s passing? I don’t know.

I don’t feel anything except a hollow sensation in my belly and rising anger at this pathetic old man for putting me through this, because he’d made the decision way before I walked in through that door. What was it? Some kind of revenge? Some way of convincing himself that he was in control right up to the end?

Did he ever think of anyone apart from himself? He was selfish and self-obsessed.

I bite my lip until I can taste blood and I’m not sure if it’s mine or his, and a wave of nausea rises through my gullet, acid hitting the back of my throat. I throw up in the wastepaper bin, and then I stand there, my fingers all thumbs as I try to wake up my phone.

I also try to entice the dog over, but Hal, faithful to the end, remains with his master as the warmth of his body begins to ebb away. I turn back to Sophia who is standing, staring at her husband, her face drained of colour and her fingers pressed to her mouth as if she’s stifling a scream.

‘Sophia.’ I reach out and slide my hand around her back. ‘We should go and wait outside. Come on.’

She lets me guide her down the steps, and across to the bench alongside the side wall of the Manor, where I snap a few twigs of vegetation that have overgrown the woodwork, so she can sit down.

I call the emergency services, then Alex.

‘Alex, you need to come home.’ My voice wavers, and it’s only now that I start to cry.

‘Are you all right, Maz?’

‘Yes … No, not really. It’s your father.’

‘What’s he done now?’

‘Come home, Alex,’ I plead. I don’t want to have to
tell
him over the phone. I’m used to breaking bad news, but not this.

‘Maz, you have to tell me why,’ he says, although from the flat tone of his voice, I suspect he’s guessed.

‘Your father is dead,’ I say quietly. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m on my way.’

‘Take care,’ I add, but he’s cut the call already. ‘Alex is on his way,’ I tell Sophia, but I doubt that she hears me. I call Ben who’s walking Miff down by the river. He promises to come straight away.

Soon, the yard is filled with flashing blue lights, a couple of police cars and an ambulance. I can’t understand why they’ve sent two police cars – I thought Talyton St George merited only one. Ben arrives too. Mrs P and Lisa set up a point for making restorative mugs of tea, resting a tray on the mounting block outside the stables. Fifi Green turns up as well, offering support from the local community. I don’t understand how she found out, but I’m grateful because she offers to sit with Sophia while I go and check on George.

I call Otter House on my mobile, as I make my way back to the Barn. The baby monitor in my other hand starts to flash and snuffle.

‘Otter House Vets. How can I help?’ It’s Frances.

‘It’s Maz. Can I speak to Emma, please?’ My hands are shaking so violently I feel as if I’m about to drop everything. ‘It’s urgent.’