A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(216)

“I know you’re cut up about this, son,” his father’s voice said, into his ear so he couldn’t miss the words. “They got the poor thing down the vet’s. They phoned right up. Got your mum at work because someone down there knew whose dog it was and—”

It. His dad was calling Taboo it. Paul couldn’t bear the sound of such a nothing word to refer to his friend, the only person who knew him through and through. Because he was a person, that mangy dog. He was no more an it than Paul was himself.

“. . . so we’ll go right over. They’re waiting,” his father finished. Paul looked up at him, confused, frightened. What had he said?

Mave Fielder seemed to know what Paul was thinking. She said,

“They haven’t put him down yet, love. I told them no. I said to wait. I said Our Paulie’s got to be there to say goodbye so you do what you can to make that poor dog comfortable and you stop right there till Paul’s by his side. Dad’ll take you now. Kids and I...” She gestured back towards the kitchen, where doubtless Paul’s brothers and sister were having tea, a special treat with their mother home to cook it for once. “We’ll wait here for you, dear.” And as Paul and his father rose, she added, “I’m that sorry, Paul,” as he passed her.

Outside, Paul’s dad said nothing more. They shambled over to his old van with Fielder’s Butchery, The Meat Market still visible in faded red on the side. They clambered inside in silence and Ol Fielder started up the engine.

It took far too long to get there from the Bouet, for the twenty-fourhour surgery was all the way over on Route Isabelle and there was no direct way to it. So they had to negotiate the journey to and through St. Peter Port at the worst time of day, and all along Paul was in the clutch of an illness that turned his stomach liquid. His palms became wet and his face became icy. He could see the dog but he could see nothing else: just the image of him running along and barking barking behind that police car because the only person he loved in the world was being taken from him. They’d never been parted, Paul and Taboo. Even when Paul was at school, the dog was there, patient as a nun and never far away.

“Here, lad. Come inside, all right?”

His dad’s voice was gentle, and Paul allowed himself to be led to the door of the surgery. Everything was a blur. He could smell the mix of animals and medicines. He could hear the voices of his dad and the veterinary assistant. But he couldn’t really see and it wasn’t until he’d been drawn to the back, to the quiet dim corner spot where an electric heater kept a shrouded form warm and a drip sent something soothing into that small form’s veins.

“He’s got no pain,” Paul’s father murmured into his ear just before Paul reached out to the dog. “We told ’em that, son. Keep him comfortable. Don’t put him out ’cause we want him to know his Paulie’s with him. That’s just what they’ve done.”

Another voice joined them. “This is the owner? You’re Paul?”

“This is him,” Ol Fielder said.

They talked over Paul’s head as he bent to the dog, easing back the blanket to see Taboo with his eyes half-closed, lightly panting, a needle inserted into a shaved strip along his leg. Paul lowered his face to the dog’s. He breathed into Taboo’s licorice nose. The dog whimpered, and his eyes fluttered wearily. His tongue came out—so weak the movement was—and he touched it to Paul’s cheek in a faint hello.

Who could know what they shared, what they were, and what they knew together? No one. Because what they had, were, and knew was between them alone. When people thought of a dog, they thought of an animal. But Paul had never thought of Taboo like that. Dog, he knew, was God spelled backwards. Being with a doG was being with love and hope. Stupid, stupid, stupid, his brother would have said. Stupid, stupid, stupid, the whole world would have said. But that made no difference to Paul and Taboo. They shared a soul together. They were part of one being.

“. . . surgical procedures,” the vet was saying. Paul couldn’t tell if he spoke to his dad or to someone else. “. . . spleen, but that doesn’t have to be fatal...the biggest challenge...those back legs...could be a fruitless endeavour at the end of it all...difficult to know...i t’s a very tough call.”

“Out of the question, ’m afraid,” Ol Fielder said regretfully. “The cost...Don’t mean to put too fine a point on it.”

“. . . understand...of course.”

“I mean, this today...what you’ve done...” He sighed gustily.

“This’ll take some...”

“Yes. I see...Of course...Long shot anyway, what with the hips crushed...extensive orthopoedic...”

Paul looked up from Taboo as he realised what they were talking about, his father and the vet. From his position, bent to the dog, both of them looked like giants: the vet in his long white coat and Ol Fielder in his dusty work clothes. But they were giants of sudden promise to Paul. They held out hope, and that was all he needed.

He straightened and took his father’s arm. Ol Fielder looked at him, then shook his head. “It’s more than we can pay, my boy, more than your mum and me can afford. And even if they did all of it to him, poor Taboo’d likely never be the same.”

Paul turned his anxious gaze upon the vet. He wore a plastic tag that called him Alistair Knight, D.V.M., MRCVS. The vet said, “He’d be slower, that’s the truth of it. Over time, he’d be arthritic as well. And as I said, there’s a chance none of it would keep him alive in the first place. Even if it did, his convalescence would take months on end.”