The Drowned Man (41 page)

Peter bought Jasper without papers but no one could doubt her pure breeding, and that she was his dog, loyal and true. He liked the distance she kept from other people, Maddy excepted; it was not an aloofness but rather an even-temperedness that suited him. Joan, when Peter and Jasper started up their dog-and-master walks, silently falling into rhythm, said to Sarah on the porch one day, “Those two are too much alike. They'll never have to talk, they're already telepathic.”

“You'd understand about that,” Sarah replied, and Joan swatted her.

He could only guess the dog's age but when he threw a stick she gambolled after it, and she never seemed to tire. Every morning and early evening they traipsed along varied routes through the downs and farmers' lanes until it seemed a logical time to return. It was seldom necessary to keep her on the leash. He would only hook her up when there was a prospect of traffic, or when they headed onto unfamiliar paths. Someone had trained her to heel; even then, her obedience appeared to be natural, a sign of intelligence. The dog would occasionally meet another and her response was always the same: she sat down and waited for the new friend to come to her.

On a weekday afternoon in May, Peter took Jasper for a long hike into new territory more than two miles from the cottage. These days Peter brought with them a mobile phone, dog treats, and a leash; he didn't bother with a walking stick, though he might need one soon. The spring weather had ushered in a rare phenomenon: more sunny days than rainy ones. The pair had become explorers with a shared taste for new vistas and chance encounters with farmers, hikers, and birdwatchers. And so it was that day.

Their morning walk had been postponed by two phone calls from Bartleben seeking advice. The Carpenter and Malloway deaths had largely been cleaned up thanks to Tommy Verden, and public scandal averted. The cricket sting and the interminable voicemail-tapping incidents hung on in nasty ways. The press criticized the Yard daily for its dilatory approach to laying charges against the Murdoch tabloid in the face of clear invasions of privacy. What seemed straightforward became complex, with the parliamentary inquiry chronicling every alleged voicemail invasion, their hearings peaking with revelations that the
notw
had abused the privacy of one grieving family of a murder victim. As for the cricket transgressions, the sport's regulatory bodies stumbled along in the face of Scotland Yard's criminal inquiries. The potential for British prosecution of the Pakistani bowlers receded. Peter helped out by running liaison with Indian and Far Eastern police authorities but the infamous Sword went to ground.

Their sojourn took them to rolling countryside that Peter had forgotten. Joan had hiked with him to this part of the county ten years ago, he recalled. The sudden memory of his relative youth lured him farther than he might have gone on a normal day. Jasper never faded; Peter gave her water from a plastic bottle and she was fine. After two hours, they found themselves on a straightaway section of a wide country road that he didn't recognize. A rank of linden trees, dark-leafed and freshly in bloom, formed a windbreak that obscured the fields ahead, while dense hawthorn bushes hemmed in the immediate edges of the road on both sides. The thick growth darkened the path, a bit of Constable overlaid with Brontë gloom. The lane curved out of sight to the left about two hundred yards along.

The air was still. Peter heard a plaintive voice calling “Brute!” Or perhaps he heard “Brit!” or something else entirely. From around the turn a purebred Doberman galloped into view. He was young and unrestrained, as well as collarless, and he stopped in the middle of the dusty road when he saw Peter and Jasper. Peter had hooked the retriever to her leash in case a farmer's lorry suddenly appeared. Now, she did something he did not expect; instead of sitting and waiting, Jasper pulled away from him towards the young dog. Peter unsnapped the clasp. Jasper walked to the exact centre of the dusty path but did not sit down. She showed no panic; her positioning was strategic. He watched her go into a crouch, no deference given to the Doberman. Her posture left no doubt about what was going to happen. The young dog, in feral mode, trotted to within seventy-five yards and began to range back and forth, always returning to the centre of the road.

The Doberman barked twice and fell into a deep growl. Judging the coming fight, Peter sensed that the opponent, lithe and muscled as he was, was not trained to the pit. Peter had encountered pit fighting — a surprisingly widespread criminal activity — where the dogs are driven by bait and prods to attack ceaselessly until one combatant is dead or maimed. On the other hand, he had never heard of a brawling golden retriever.

Peter could have deterred the battle by re-chaining Jasper but for the moment, feeling the anger of the dogs building across the seventy-five yards, he simply walked over to the retriever and paused. In the silence Peter sought clarity of purpose. On other days, he had chosen reason in the face of violence, the law as his response to savagery. But his beloved dog was decided, had been from the first sight of the Doberman.

Peter leaned down to Jasper's ear and said in an inflection that was almost American, “Go get 'im.”

Peter knew that dogs let into the pit run straight at each other like jousters in the lists. To the touts observing, they often appear to start spinning in a vortex of chaotic biting. The animals are seeking the hold, the body part that can be seized to effect in their powerful jaws. The trained attacker will latch on and shake the victim, seldom changing grip until the opponent becomes exhausted or bleeds away. The defender does the same. The best targets are the vulnerable throat, leg arteries, and underbelly; these are taken out by choking, hamstringing, and evisceration, respectively. A dog will sometimes be taught to go for the snout, a carryover from the unmourned days of bull baiting.

The body of a dog contains most of the same functional organs and skeletal features as a human and it is not too much of a stretch to compare a dog fight to a knife fight, with sharp teeth and claws serving as the blades. Jasper should have been at a disadvantage. She was smaller than the Doberman and no one ever bred a long-haired retriever for the pit. Her one defensive virtue, her thick fur, was diminished by the season; her coat was not as thick as it would be in the autumn.

She held her ground as the Doberman launched himself.

The attacker made the mistake of first seizing Jasper at the shoulder, where the fur was thickest. Canines differ from people in an important respect: their shoulders consist of flexible joints held in place by an articular capsule anchored by ligaments that allow them to stretch and torque their bodies in ways impossible for human physiology. At the same time, they remain vulnerable to tearing and separation of the joint. A clamping grip at the shoulder keeps the victim out of position, while potentially ending the fight on the spot if the teeth bury themselves too deep. Jasper's crouching stance prevented the Doberman from getting at her stomach or throat. The shoulder attack was the only lethal course open to the young dog. Jasper was ready. Though his teeth did puncture her shoulder fibre, the Doberman had made a tactical error. She moved under the adolescent dog and planted her teeth in his femoral artery. The pain caused the Doberman to give up his purchase.

The dogs rolled and fought for a disabling bite. Jasper did not let the Doberman retreat. The young dog seemed surprised that she kept coming. Jasper's strategy was to avoid being pinned by the Doberman's superior bulk and Peter could see that she had fought before, although he had never found scars on her body. As they spun, the other dog's left haunch seemed to drag by a millisecond, although Peter saw that its power to slash and in-fight remained impressive. Jasper took bites to her right forepaw, which was the same leg the attacker had gripped at the shoulder, and to the skin on her forehead.

She broke off the fight, not in concession but to see if the younger dog was limping or bleeding out. And then they were back at it. Jasper's new approach was to snip at the extremities of the younger animal, inflicting painful punctures on toes, ears, and chest until the dog yelped and retreated. They regrouped. Blood flowed into Jasper's eyes, like a cut boxer. The Doberman surprised Jasper with a third attack on her front leg, holding on and trying to shake her to the ground. But this was a frontal attack and Jasper, with her right leg askew, dipped under her opponent and put her teeth into his throat. She pulled, ripping out the jugular so swiftly that the Doberman's rictus grip held fast to her leg and only released when Peter intervened and pried open the jaws.

The owner of the dog, a young man with sandy hair, came around the corner and stopped ten feet from his dead pet, while Peter cradled the retriever and held her apart from the canine corpse. All three of them were coated in red. The young man, confusion on his face rather than anger, meekly approached; he seemed stunned. Peter, glancing at him, saw that he could hardly tell which dog was which. The blood kept him back from the tableau.

Two farmers who had heard the fight came out from an access trail behind the stand of linden trees. Practical men accustomed to animal blood, they both understood that the Doberman was lifeless. One farmer put a hand on the other owner's shoulder. The one comforting the young fellow looked over at his mate, who nodded and went back down the trail in silence. Peter took a handkerchief and mopped blood from Jasper's face. The remaining farmer, needing to do something, proffered his own kerchief. Peter requested the bottle of water sitting by the roadside by Jasper's leash. As the farmer retrieved the water, Peter saw him look at the lead and then at the sandy-haired man, who carried no leash. He kept silent.

In a few minutes, the second farmer appeared with a small lorry with an open bed. Peter hoisted Jasper onto the back and climbed in with her. The farmer headed up the country road, while the other man stayed behind to deal with the stunned owner of the Doberman.

As best he could, Peter counted Jasper's pulse; he roughly estimated 120 beats per minute and he guessed that his dog might be going into shock. The wounds on her legs and forehead were beginning to clot but the blood at the shoulder joint continued to ooze. The best sign was her steady breathing.

The country vet smiled kindly when he saw the dog and his owner, both saturated with blood, enter his reception room. Living in the middle of hundreds of farms, he had seen every kind of animal wound, and so perhaps he was allowed to be philosophical. Even now, he maintained his affable nature. Peter sized him up as the kind of cheerful vet would some day self-publish his cheerful memoirs.

“So, what we have here is the winner,” he said as Peter carried Jasper into the surgery at the back of the farmhouse. In a perfect imitation of Bruce Willis, he added, “You should see the other guy.”

“The other one is dead,” Peter retorted.

“And what breed was he?” the vet said, not contrite at all.

“Doberman.”

“Not the one I would expect to win. For that reason, I will save your dog.”

The veterinarian asked Peter to assist. This wasn't sentiment; his assistant was out dosing a horse for colic and he judged Peter to be in control of himself.

“You're a policeman, aren't you?” the doctor, who was about Peter's age, asked. Peter, exhausted, grunted.
Why does everyone peg me as a copper?

Peter later described the vet as self-possessed, obviously a man of immense experience. In fact, Peter thought, he was a lot like a good policeman:
when you have seen every kind of tragedy, you compliment the victims by being good at your job.
They washed Jasper with a small hose and swathed her in towels. The evident priority was the shoulder injury, which the vet stopped from bleeding with antiseptic and masterfully quick sutures. He injected her with amoxicillin. The bigger problem, he proclaimed, was the knee joint and the carpus of her front leg, where the other dog had bitten through to the bone.

“The shoulder will heal but the broken leg can result in a bad limp. Choices to be made, Inspector.”

In the midst of this chaos, Peter could not help asking, “How did you know I'm a policeman?”

“Inspector, you have lived in this county a long time. Not as long as I, but never mind. Everyone knows you by reputation or from seeing you on your strolls. The famous Chief Inspector Cammon and his dog. Now, here's what we are going to do. We will repair the cruciate ligament . . .”

Peter's mobile rang in his blood-soaked pocket. He flipped it open while the veterinarian began the procedure.

“Dad, It's Michael. Maddy's in labour, short contractions. We're at the hospital.”

“I should be there,” was all Peter could manage.

“The nurses say it may be hours, or it could be fast. You don't have to rush to get here.”

“I promised her, Michael. I said I would be there.”

Peter broke down in tears in the middle of the clinic. The vet pretended not to notice, but to signal the urgency of Jasper's condition he pulled out an apron and draped it over Peter's shoulder.

Peter recovered sufficiently to explain to his son about the dog fight.

“Stay with Jasper, Dad.” Michael's voice was firm and implied that Peter needed instruction on his priorities. Five times, Peter promised to drive up to Leeds as soon as possible.

He hung up reluctantly and told the doctor about the baby. The man nodded, not so much in sympathy but to get Peter back to the table. Peter struggled into the apron as the vet tossed a clean towel to his new assistant.

“Swab the wound whenever it floods.”

The veterinarian had put Jasper under anaesthetic but he talked to her, rather than Peter, as he worked. He leaned close to the dog's ear. “I could say something about the Lord taking away and giving back. . . . Bark once if you agree.”

The two men worked steadily through to late afternoon. Putting down his instruments, the vet turned to Peter and grinned, but this time it was a proud smile. “This dog will fully recover. You can take that to the bank.”