Sixteen Horses by Greg Buchanan (readict TXT) 📕

‘And you did this yourself?’

‘The vet did it,’ she said. ‘I – I’m not good with needles.’

‘Which one?’ he asked.

‘Kate. I . . . I don’t know her surname, though . . .’

Alec felt her eyes on him as he wrote in his notebook. ‘You said you didn’t know they were gone until morning.’

‘Yes . . .’

‘So you didn’t check on them the night you came back?’

‘We don’t normally,’ she said.

‘They’re kept right by the entrance. It wouldn’t have been difficult?’

‘We’ve never had problems before.’ She hesitated. Her nails, long, chipped, dirty light blue, dug into the soft white fabric on her arms. ‘Why are you—’

Cooper put her cup down. ‘He’s asking because he’s wondering why someone who cared enough about her animals’ fear to pay for intravenous drugs wouldn’t take a minute to see if they were OK.’

‘You tried to make your insurance claim before you’d even spoken to the police,’ Alec said, calmly. ‘Why?’

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Louise Elton said she had not tried to make an insurance claim, no matter what the company had reported, no matter how the transcript sounded. She’d just been enquiring about their position. It had been a precautionary measure – she’d wanted to know if they’d be OK. Other owners had already messaged her. What did it matter, raising the alarm? Their animals were gone. But they still needed a roof over their heads.

‘The thing about my – my family,’ she tried to say, ‘we always try to do our best. We always try.’

‘Which family?’ Cooper asked, and Alec turned.

The stable owner did not understand. Neither did he.

‘The one you married into or the one you were born into?’ Cooper went on.

‘The one I made.’

Louise explained and explained, a bird moving along the rotten windowsill outside, the sky bluer than her nails. Neither colour felt real. Neither colour felt right.

She kept trying to explain.

The last few years had been difficult, for both of them.

Most lies are mundane. Most people don’t even know they’re doing it, and if they’re caught, they rationalize their deceit. Cooper understood this. She did not like it.

She was up for some minor rule-breaking as much as the next person – she’d been quite the illegal downloader at university, and there’d been some weed sometimes, too, and an almost-expulsion, and a little attempted suicide, but who didn’t try to kill themselves when they were twenty, you know? There was a difference between living in pain and living in lies.

And this man – this temporary partner – this Alec, he was a man who lived in lies.

Not in his work. Not in his job, or what people might think were the important things. Not like a criminal.

It was something in his voice, the movement of his eyes, the hidden fire of each impulse, cut off.

He was not a man who lived authentically. He was not honest with himself about who he was, about how he really wanted to be.

She felt sorry for Alec, the more she watched him. The more he spoke, needy, endlessly deviating from protocol. Wanting to be liked, and disliking in return.

‘I need to go,’ Cooper said. ‘I—’

‘What?’ Alec seemed surprised.

‘Where’s your bathroom?’ She turned to their host.

Mrs Elton told her it was through the kitchen.

‘Can’t it wait?’ Alec asked.

She shook her head. It was a real tragedy.

She shut the door behind her as she left the hall. She heard their muted talking, Alec’s deeper grumbles, Louise’s half-shrill croaks.

Unwashed plates were scattered throughout the kitchen. Cooper took her time as she moved towards the next door. The calendar didn’t have much on it, a circled visit Danny crossed out, the date of a film further down. They hadn’t even changed it from October, yet. There was nothing in November.

There were letters near the kettle, sorted into two piles. Cooper picked some of them up.

FINAL NOTICE.

Overdue balance.

The fee will be applied to your account on 28 December.

Your application has been refused.

Overdue payments may affect your credit rating for a period of six years.

County court judgements may affect credit availability.

Card declined.

FINAL NOTICE.

Balance: -£15,468

Credit cards: -£89,421

FINAL NOTICE.

Please contact us to discuss a voluntary credit arrangement. The direct debit has been cancelled.

Beneath the letters, there was something glossy, almost plastic in its edge. Cooper looked over her shoulder. No one was there. The house was still and quiet, but for the noise of Louise’s breakdown in the lounge.

Cooper pulled the letters away from what lay beneath.

There on the counter sat a photo of a brown Labrador, a polaroid. The light was dark in the image, the camera struggling to catch it.

The dog’s eyes were not open.

Its paws had been separated from its body, a small three-inch-long section laid out next to each leg.

Cooper returned to the lounge.

Alec turned to her as she sat down, and then he quickly looked away again.

He had done that a few times.

Louise Elton was going through the names.

There were no strangers who had taken an interest in horses, no weirdos lurking in the woods.

Louise’s concerns were those of hate.

She told them about everyone.

It might have been one of them.

Every client who might hold a grudge. Everything people had said to her. Everyone who had not paid, who had complained about their animals, about their kids, about cancellation fees, about anything and everything. Everyone who had not been kind to her.

‘I never had any children,’ Louise said, shaking her head. ‘I loved those horses. I did. I loved them. I loved . . . I love Charlie. But this . . . all of this . . .’

She was silent for a moment.

‘It might have been someone who knew us,’ she said, quietly.

Cooper opened her bag and removed one of the missing animal posters she’d shown Alec at the diner.

Louise froze when she saw it.

Cooper made sure it was on her lap for a few moments before she put it in her notebook and shut it away.

Louise opened the table drawer and pulled out a small plastic bottle, trying to empty pills into her hand, but there were none. Her eyes clenched shut. ‘I’m sorry. I—’

She got up and left