Sixteen Horses by Greg Buchanan (readict TXT) 📕

again later, maybe. See if any of their supplies have been taken, which farms or properties they’ve brought these phot – photeto – what was it?’

‘Fetotomy wires.’

‘Could anyone else have had access to these tools? Anyone likely to have used them on a frequent basis?’

‘Like who?’

‘Like stable owners.’

Cooper shook her head. ‘Even if they bred animals, you wouldn’t risk doing a fetotomy in a mare by yourself. You’d call the vet.’

He nodded. ‘Anything else?’

‘One thing . . .’ She opened her bag and pulled out a folder. Inside there were print-outs of message boards, missing animal posters, and more.

‘What’s this supposed to be?’

‘Cats and dogs,’ she said. ‘I—’

‘I can see that. How’s it relevant?’

‘I wanted to see if there were any heightened abuse cases in the last few months, any evidence of other animal attacks,’ she said. She took a final gulp of her coffee. ‘I didn’t find much – they don’t always come to the notice of vets, let alone cross police desks. They’re voiceless.’ She wiped sleep away from one of her eyes. ‘So I decided to look for reports of missing animals – both in the local database and online. And it was mostly normal: cats who never came home, dogs who ran off in parks, et cetera et cetera. But if you look at the frequency compared to other months . . .’ She pushed some of the papers in front of Alec. ‘You’ll see they’ve been rising. And fewer of the missing have been found, whether at shelters or otherwise.’

‘So let’s say there’s a connection. What would it be? The killer is graduating to larger prey?’

She did not know.

Alec kept on pushing for explanations she could not give. She didn’t know who would do a thing like this, but at the same time, everyone knew, didn’t they?

Everyone spoke to hollow people every day.

People who made you want to say goodbye.

People you wanted to run from or hurt.

CHAPTER TWENTY

There were twenty, maybe thirty deer out in the fields.

They looked like they might flee at any moment, all caught on the edge of some final stampede.

They watched the car until it left. Alec looked back at them in his mirror.

He drove on. He tried to make sense of his temporary partner.

Cooper’s eyes were sharp, almost glaring, no matter her mood. She had a slight unintended intensity to every smile, every frown. He had only rarely known people like this. Sometimes he found it hard to talk to her, just like he found it with everyone else. Sometimes she felt like an old friend, like he’d always known her.

She had agreed to come with Alec to this interview, to assess the way the stable owners had run their business, to help him understand whatever truths, lies and evasions they might offer.

They talked about the case for a while, about the area, about the community. Cooper asked about the island fire – she told him the vets had mentioned it.

Alec just nodded. He told her he hadn’t been on the case, that he didn’t know much about it.

He told her it wasn’t all as dramatic as she’d heard, though. It had been an accident.

He moved off the topic quickly.

He wanted to know how she’d entered this line of work, and so they talked about their jobs for a while instead, about why they did what they did. She had not been a vet for very long before she had turned towards crime scenes and forensics. He did not get to hear much about why or how this change had occurred, or whether she missed her old career.

She shifted the subject towards Alec, wanting to know how he had started on his own path.

There was no tragic backstory. Nothing he tried to avenge, no wrong the world had done to him, no grand excuse for all he had done in turn. It was just one of those jobs that children think they’ll do – fireman, doctor, policeman. Everyone thinks they will save people. That’s why they like stories. In Alec’s case, he just kept going with his. He was good at it. He vanished into the role.

He asked Cooper if she’d ever considered becoming a doctor instead. She just laughed without explanation or elaboration.

‘Did you ever think about joining the police?’

She shook her head, putting her phone back in her pocket. She had a faintly amused look.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘I’d have imagined you’d be valuable.’

‘I like travelling to new places. Choosing what I do.’ She opened her window slightly. ‘Working by myself.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘You can do a lot of that in the police.’

‘You can choose where you go? What you want to do?’

‘You can transfer, yes.’

‘And you wanted to transfer here? That was your choice?’

‘Fresh start.’ He tried a big broad grin he didn’t really believe in. ‘I always wanted to live by the sea.’

‘Why?’ She twisted round to adjust her headrest.

‘Doesn’t everyone?’

They were around eight minutes from the stables. It was a little after one in the afternoon. The air was almost humid. It felt like more than twenty Celsius, more than they said it would be.

‘What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?’ he asked, suddenly.

‘What?’ She turned to him.

He looked ahead. ‘Just . . . just small talk.’ He paused, sheepish. ‘I’m not very good at it.’

Cooper looked back at the road. ‘I scratched up a car once.’

‘Why?’

‘I was thirteen, on a paper round. I saw a man kick his dog. I wanted to teach him a lesson. I took my house key – I’d just been given it, my dad had picked me up from school before he moved away, but now, you know, I was walking myself back, so my mum gave me one. I took the key and I dragged it along the dog-kicker’s paintwork.’

‘How did it feel?’

‘Great.’

‘Did you get in trouble?’

‘Not really.’ Cooper frowned. ‘But . . .’

‘But what?’

‘It turned out I got the wrong car.’

They both laughed at that, and caught each other in a smile.

‘Is that really the worst thing you’ve done?’

‘No,’ she said.

The sign was a faded