Chapter Fourteen
“I wish you’d woken me up so I could have come too,” said Clive.
“So do I,” said Holly. “It was awful.” And she hadn’t even told Clive the full story. He thought her most awful moments had been hiding from the wolves and then hearing them get shot. Neither of those events had been the worst, however.
She had tried to describe the unnamed thing that came so close to her in the tunnels: but what was there to say? She had felt its breath and smelt its rank, sour odour; but she’d seen nothing, heard next to nothing – only sensed that heavy presence, and as with Lexie she could not find the words to fit. Anyway, Clive was more interested in wolves.
“I’m going to ask Lucinda about them,” he said.
“Lucinda?”
“You know, the vet. She worked in a zoo once, so I expect she knows a bit about wolves. Do you want to come with me?”
“I can’t,” said Holly. “Nan’s coming home.”
“Oh, good! That is good, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
Nan did not seem to know either. She looked as if she’d shrunk in hospital. She seemed restless and bewildered to be back home. Once Mum and Dad had lifted her into bed, she sat propped up by too many pillows and kneaded at the duvet as if she was trying futilely to shape it into something else.
It made Holly sad. Why was growing old so unstoppable? Why could time not just pause, and leave Nan as she had been before the stroke, brisk and bright and chatty? Or, better still, go back to when everyone was young and fit, including Pancake?
Time was cruel. It would not leave you alone. It pushed you towards High School and exams and monthly periods and growing up when none of these were things you particularly wanted.
And now it was pushing Nan. Although Holly read out bits of the newspaper to her, Nan wasn’t listening. She did not want the TV turned on either. She kept looking round for something.
“Do,” she said. “Doo.”
“He’s out by the back gate,” Holly said. “Shall I bring him in?”
“Do.”
When Holly went out to fetch Doofus, he was not sprawled across the gateway in his usual manner. He was standing, looking up the road towards the moor with intense concentration, and took no notice of her. The hair on the back of his strong neck was slightly raised.
“Doofus? Nan wants you.”
She did not expect him to move, but he immediately turned and trotted into the house and up the stairs.
Nan’s face lit up when she saw him. There was no other term for it, thought Holly: like a flickering candle that grows strong again when it’s sheltered from the draught.
Doofus seemed pleased too, although he was not a bouncy dog, and had never even licked Holly until that time in the tunnel. She steered her thoughts away quickly, watching Doofus wag his tail twice as Nan clumsily caressed him. That was effusive, for Doofus.
Nan looked much happier. Holly felt dreadful. She sat by the bed and leaned her head against Nan’s shoulder, so that Nan would stroke her too.
“I’m sad, Nan,” she said, although she did not tell Nan why. The trembling hand fluttered across her hair, and then reached for the notepad on the bedside table.
Holly put it front of Nan, and fastened the pencil between her stiff fingers. Nan drew a smiley, and a heart.
“Yes, Nan,” said Holly. “I know. I love you too.”
Nan looked at Doofus, and drew a dog’s head, which was not unlike him. Then she drew a fish, perhaps a shark, above the dog.
“A flying shark,” said Holly.
“Doo,” said Nan. Doofus nuzzled at her fingers and then trotted off again, down the stairs.
“Yan danner,” said Nan, gesturing at the window.
“You want to see out the window?”
“That’s a good idea,” said Mum, coming in with a cup of tea. “We’ll move your bed so you can look out. It’s such a lovely summer’s day.”
Nan seemed quite excited to be by the window. Mum found yet more pillows so that she could sit right up and enjoy the view of rooftops, trees and hills. From here Holly could see the far end of the garden, where Doofus was back on guard, standing by the gate.
“Dooo,” repeated Nan. She seemed to be trying to lengthen the word, to finish it. “Dooo. Dooom.”
It went through Holly like an electric shock. Doom. Was that what Nan was trying to say? Doom. It thudded through her brain.
The dog of doom stood like a statue, gazing out at nothing; or at everything.
Mum was plumping up Nan’s pillows. “Isn’t that nice? Now you can see everything that’s going on,” she said, although not much was, apart from Clive haring up the road towards them. “And Uncle Ted will be here next week. That’ll be lovely, won’t it?”
“Af,” said Nan. That seemed to be agreement.
Clive was waving at them vigorously. Holly ran out into the garden to meet him.
“I’ve been talking to Lucinda,” he said, patting Doofus, who ignored him.
“You mean you’ve been interrogating her?”
“I don’t need to interrogate her!” protested Clive. “She likes me. She wouldn’t tell me everything she knows, but she told me enough.”
“Enough about what?”
“The wolves. Jarvis Turnpike called the police,” said Clive, “and when the police went to his farm and saw the dead wolves, they called in the vet, because they thought they must have escaped from a wildlife park and they’d have electronic tags.”
“And do they?”
“No. No tags. But that’s not all!” Clive was bursting with his news. “Lucinda said these wolves weren’t like the ones she used to work with.”
“Well, I expect there are different species.”
“But she doesn’t know what this species is. They’ve taken the bodies off to Sheffield University and they’re calling in an expert to identify them.”
“They’re wolves,” said Holly, puzzled. “Does it matter what sort?”
“They need to know where they came from,” said Clive. “And Lucinda said there was something strange about the third wolf, but she wouldn’t tell me what.”
“What third wolf?” Holly stared at him. “Only two got out before Jarvis Turnpike killed them.” She could still hear those two sharp gunshots in her head. Two shots; two wolves. Doom. Doom.
Clive shrugged. “Well, there were three bodies. Another one must have got out too.”
“So what did it die of? Did it get crushed when the hole was filled in?”
“It can’t have, I think, because Lucinda said there was something odd about the way it had been killed.”
Holly turned to look at Doofus. Could he have…? But if he’d killed a wolf before he found her in the tunnel, surely he would have been spattered with its blood.
She remembered that Doofus had howled only twice from the farmyard: a howl for each of the wolves that Jarvis had shot. Once Doofus was far enough away, though, he wouldn’t howl for a death. So maybe the third wolf had died – or, rather, had been killed – later on.
“I’ve asked Lucinda to keep me up to date,” said Clive. “Did anybody come and see you yet to hear your side of the story?”
Holly shook her head. “Not yet.” She was beginning to think that Jarvis Turnpike might not have given her name and address to the police after all. She hoped not: she dreaded being interviewed. And, of course, there was the little matter of her cycling up to the moor on her own, which she had not mentioned to Mum or Dad. They had no knowledge of her expedition.
So when a policewoman did call round that afternoon, unannounced, to take a statement from her, Holly had to tell her parents for the first time too.
She kept her story as simple as she could. Sitting on the sofa with her hands demurely folded in her lap, she told the policewoman that she’d been for an early morning bike ride with her dog. She had fallen down a hole, and when she climbed out she met Mr Turnpike, who had helped her; and then
she had a cup of coffee with Lexie and played with the baby.
Holly insisted that when she was down in the hole, she had seen nothing, which was after all quite true: and that she hadn’t actually seen Mr Turnpike shoot any wolves, which was also practically true. She hadn’t seen the wolves fall. She acted shy and ignorant, and the police officer, who didn’t know her, was satisfied that she’d been there by sheer accident.
Her parents weren’t. They were appalled.
“You went out in the middle of the night?” said Dad, aghast. “On your own?”
“It was already light,” said Holly. “It wasn’t the middle of the night, it was morning. I woke up early, so I just thought I’d go for a spin on Matt’s old bike. I told Matt.” However, Matt didn’t even remember her waking him up.
“And why did you go to Barges Bridge, exactly?” demanded Mum. “Where those wolves just happened to be? What really happened, Holly?”
“Nothing. Like I said. Lexie was nice.”
But the upshot was a ban from going out at night; and, in fact, from leaving the house at all for the rest of the holiday, unless she was with somebody, and Told People Where She Was Going Beforehand. On the whole, Holly felt that she had got off lightly.
Throughout all this, Doofus was barely mentioned. Her parents still had no idea that there was anything unusual about him, other than his size. She had left out nearly all his part in the night’s events.
And Doofus did nothing to draw attention to himself. When the policewoman gave him a pat as she left, he barely seemed to notice, but continued standing by the gate, as impassively alert as a soldier in a sentry-box, gazing over to the hills like Nan from her window above.
As far as Holly could tell, however, there was nothing for them to gaze at apart from camera crews in fluorescent jackets. These had arrived like exotic migrant birds that now dotted the hillsides in bright flocks. They seemed to have no idea of camouflage.
Within two days, the TV crews had eaten every Bakewell pudding in the village. They spent the evenings huddled in the pub, grumbling about the lack of wolves. Nobody had managed to film any, or had even seen any wolves for certain, despite an abundance of rumour. Holly’s Dad learned all this when he got talking to a disgruntled cameraman over a pint.
“He said they all traipsed four miles across country to look at a dead deer,” Dad reported with some glee, “and it turned out to be a wild goose chase.”
“What? You mean the deer had turned into a goose?” said Matt.
“Oh, there was a dead deer all right, but no reason to blame wolves for it. It probably got knocked down by a car,” said Dad. “And then the body had got mauled by foxes. But would you believe some nutcase reported seeing a cougar in the area?”
“But cougars live in America, don’t they?” Holly said.
“More to the point, the wildlife park has never had a cougar or anything like one. People panic, that’s the trouble, and start imagining all sorts of weird things. You wouldn’t believe the other stuff that’s being reported.”
“Like what?”
Dad grinned at her. “Apparently in the last two days there have been sightings of a polar bear, a lion, and – get this – a walrus, all spotted within five miles of Whitten Moor.”
“A walrus?”
“I know.” Dad shook his head. “It’s mass hysteria. They’ll be seeing hippos next. Anyway, I don’t think you need to worry about rampaging walruses.”
So Holly tried not to worry. She still had a week of holiday to come, although she was not allowed leisure to enjoy it. Since she was grounded, she thought she would practise her bowling in the garden, but Mum roped her in to do the cleaning. With Uncle Ted due to arrive soon, Mum seemed intent on scrubbing and polishing the entire house as if for a royal visit.
Admittedly Matt’s room, where Uncle Ted would sleep, was in dire need of cleaning. Mum said the crusty socks under the bed must have been there for years. Matt would be sleeping on an airbed in the dining room. He and Holly pumped at the airbed for an hour, trying to blow it up, before discovering it had a puncture.
Then there was Nan to read to, and food to buy for her coming birthday party (though there would be only a dozen people there), and a cake to make in the shape of a bluebell, Nan’s favourite flower, which unfortunately did not lend itself to cakehood in either form or colour, so that although Holly had volunteered to bake it, she needed several attempts; and then there was Doofus to take for walks around and round the playground till it drove her mad. For this purpose she was allowed to go to the local park, but no further.
Meanwhile Clive was out and about in the sunshine on his rattly old bike, with his notebook and giant binoculars and his collecting jars in a backpack. Holly was jealous, even though he only came back with beetles.
“I’ve got a devil’s coach-horse!” he told her proudly, waving something black and monstrous in a jar.
“Lovely. No, don’t get it out,” she said. “Will you be coming to Nan’s birthday party?”
“Am I invited?” He looked surprised and pleased.
“She’s eighty-four,” said Holly. “There won’t be any dancing. There’ll be a blue cake.”
“I’d like to come,” said Clive. “What sort of present should I get her?”
“I don’t know. Nothing expensive.” Holly knew that Clive had very little money. She thought it wise to add, “She’s not too keen on beetles.”
“I’ll have a think. I went to see Ailsa today about some bats.”
“Cricket bats?”
He gave her a look. “Brown long-eared bats. Ailsa thinks she’s got some in her barn. Anyway, while I was there, she told me there were workmen and diggers up by Barges Bridge for a full day. They dug out the bodies of two more wolves from Jarvis Turnpike’s hole.”
“There should have been more than that,” said Holly, frowning. “There should have been about ten. It was a big pack.”
Clive did not dispute this. “I suppose the other bodies were still buried. And if they weren’t then, they are now. The hole’s been filled in with tons of earth and rubble, Ailsa said, so that nothing else is ever going to come out of there alive. She reckons we can stop worrying.”
“Dad said to stop worrying too.” Holly looked over at Doofus, standing alertly by the gate. He was still on guard.
But what was he on guard against? Was he waiting for the dead wolves, she wondered, unaware that they would not return? Had they, after all, been his friends? When he led them away from the houses and their sleeping inhabitants, whom had he been protecting? Wolves or humans?
She still did not know. She only knew that whatever Doofus was – Shuck or Shriker, Gurt Dog or Guytrash – he was more than ever now. His shadow spread across her thoughts. Nobody else seemed to notice. They were used to him; and he was so quiet that they just took him for granted.
Stop worrying. But with Nan so ill and Doofus always watching by the gate, how could she stop worrying?
None the less, she tried. And Doofus did not howl. Even his sighs were softer and less frequent now. Her diary had not recorded anything higher than a 2 for days. As long as Doofus did not howl, she told herself, then everything would be all right.
For another day, it was. And then, that night, she heard the full, heart-stopping ten.
That was the night Bill Barton’s shy retriever died.