“Maybe, but I think it looks more like a pony, or a miniature horse.”
He turned it slowly in his hands and all three of them watched the skull moving in the torchlight. They had expended so much pain and effort digging it out of the ground that it seemed to hold secrets beyond those of its mere existence.
“So Billy did witness a burial,” said Strike.
“But it wasn’t a child. You won’t have to rethink your theory,” said Robin.
“Theory?” repeated Barclay, and was ignored.
“I don’t know, Robin,” said Strike, his face ghostly beyond the torchlight. “If he didn’t invent the burial, I don’t think he invented—”
“Shit,” said Barclay. “She’s done it, she’s let those fucking dogs out.”
The yapping of the terrier and the deeper, booming barks of the Labrador, no longer muffled by containing walls, came ringing through the night. Without ceremony, Strike dropped the skull.
“Barclay, grab all the tools and get out of here. We’ll hold the dogs off.”
“What about—?”
“Leave it, there’s no time to fill it in,” said Strike, already clambering out of the dell, ignoring the excruciating pain in the end of his stump. “Robin, come on, you’re with me—”
“What if she’s called the police?” Robin said, reaching the top of the dell first and turning to help heave Strike up.
“We’ll wing it,” he panted, “come on, I want to stop the dogs before they get to Sam.”
The woods were dense and tangled. Strike had left his walking stick behind. Robin held his arm as he limped as fast as he could, grunting with pain every time he asked his stump to bear his weight. Robin glimpsed a pinprick of light through the trees. Somebody had come out of the house with a torch.
Suddenly, the Norfolk terrier burst through the undergrowth, barking ferociously.
“Good boy, yes, you found us!” Robin panted.
Ignoring her friendly overture it launched itself at her, trying to bite. She kicked out at it with her Wellingtoned foot, holding it at bay while sounds reached them of the heavier Labrador crashing towards them.
“Little fucker,” said Strike, trying to repel the Norfolk terrier as it darted around them, snarling, but seconds later the terrier had caught wind of Barclay: it turned its head towards the dell and, before either of them could stop it, took off again, yapping frenziedly.
“Shit,” said Robin.
“Never mind, keep going,” said Strike, though the end of his stump was burning and he wondered how much longer it would support him.
They had managed only a few more paces when the fat Labrador reached them.
“Good boy, yes, good boy,” Robin crooned, and the Labrador, less enthusiastic about the chase, allowed her to secure a tight grip on its collar. “Come on, come with us,” said Robin, and she half dragged it, with Strike still leaning on her, towards the overgrown croquet lawn where they now saw a torch bobbing ever nearer through the darkness. A shrill voice called:
“Badger! Rattenbury! Who’s that? Who’s there?”
The silhouette behind the torchlight was female and bulky.
“It’s all right, Mrs. Chiswell!” called Robin. “It’s only us!”
“Who’s ‘us’? Who are you?”
“Follow my lead,” Strike muttered to Robin, and he called, “Mrs. Chiswell, it’s Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott.”
“What are you doing here?” she shouted, across the diminishing space between them.
“We were interviewing Tegan Butcher in the village, Mrs. Chiswell,” called Strike, as he, Robin and the reluctant Badger made their laborious way through the long grass. “We were driving back this way and we saw two people entering your property.”
“What two people? Where?”
“They entered the woods back there,” said Strike. From the depths of the trees, the Norfolk terrier was still frenziedly barking. “We didn’t have your number, or we’d have called to warn you.”
Within a few feet of her now, they saw that Kinvara was wearing a thick, padded coat over a short nightdress of black silk, her legs bare above Wellington boots. Her suspicion, shock and incredulity met Strike’s total assurance.
“Thought we ought to do something, seeing as we were the only people who witnessed it,” he gasped, wincing a little as he hobbled up to her with Robin’s assistance, self-deprecatingly heroic. “Apologies,” he added, coming to a halt, “for the state of us. Those woods are muddy and I fell over a couple of times.”
A cold breeze swept the dark lawn. Kinvara stared at him, flummoxed, suspicious, then turned her face in the direction of the terrier’s continued barking.
“RATTENBURY!” she shouted. “RATTENBURY!”
She turned back to Strike.
“What did they look like?
“Men,” invented Strike, “young and fit from the way they were moving. We knew you’d had trouble with trespassers before—”
“Yes. Yes, I have,” said Kinvara, sounding frightened. She seemed to take in Strike’s condition for the first time, as he leaned heavily on Robin, face contorted with pain.
“I suppose you’d better come in.”
“Thanks very much,” said Strike gratefully, “very kind of you.”
Kinvara jerked the Labrador’s collar out of Robin’s grip and bellowed, “RATTENBURY!” again, but the distantly barking terrier did not respond, so she dragged the Labrador, which was showing signs of rebellion, back towards the house, Robin and Strike following.
“What if she calls the police?” Robin muttered to Strike.
“Cross that bridge when we come to it,” he responded.
A floor-to-ceiling drawing room window stood open. Kinvara had evidently followed her frantic dogs through it, as the quickest route to the woods.
“We’re pretty muddy,” Robin warned her, as they crunched their way across the gravel path that encircled the house.
“Just leave your boots outside,” said Kinvara, stepping into the drawing room without bothering to remove her own. “I’m planning to change this carpet, anyway.”
Robin tugged off her wellies, followed Strike inside and closed the window.
The cold, dingy room was illuminated by a single lamp.
“Two men?” Kinvara repeated, turning again to Strike. “Where exactly did you see them coming in?”
“Over the wall at the road,” said Strike.
“D’you think they knew you’d seen them?”
“Oh yeah,” said Strike. “We pulled up, but they ran into the woods. Think they might’ve bottled it once we followed them, though, don’t you?” he asked Robin.
“Yes,” said Robin, “we think we heard them running back towards the road when you let the dogs out.”
“Rattenbury’s still chasing someone—of course, that could be a fox—he goes crazy about the foxes in the woods,” said Kinvara.
Strike’s attention had just been caught by a change to the room since the last time he had seen it. There was a fresh square of dark crimson wallpaper over the mantelpiece, where the painting of the mare and foal had hung.
“What happened to your picture?” he asked.
Kinvara turned to see what Strike was talking about. She answered, perhaps a few seconds too late:
“I sold it.”
“Oh,” said Strike. “I thought you were particularly fond of that one?”
“Not since what Torquil said that day. I didn’t like having it hanging there, after that.”
“Ah,” said Strike.
Rattenbury’s persistent barking continued to echo from the woods where, Strike was certain, it had found Barclay, struggling back to his car with two kit bags full of tools. Now that Kinvara had released her hold on its collar, the fat Labrador let out a single booming bark and trotted to the window, where it began whining and pawing at the glass.
“The police won’t get here in time even if I call them,” said Kinvara, half worried, half angry. “I’m never top priority. They think I make it all up, these intruders.
“I’m going to check on the horses,” she said, coming to a decision, but instead of going out through the window, she stomped out of the drawing room into the hall and from there, as far as they could hear, into a different room.
“I hope the dog hasn’t got Barclay,” Robin whispered.