The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill Page B

she would have seen or heard something. She had been out walking theday Skippy had disappeared, she had seen Jim, even looked back over her shoulder as he had whistled and called.
    He stood, trying to get his breath now, desperate to speak to her.
    She was not a pleasant-looking woman. She was large and aggressive and wore a huge, heavy sheepskin coat and a hat with ear flaps, and there was something haughty about her expression. She listened with impatience asthe Dobermanns pulled at their leads.
    ‘I know you’re always up here, you were here that day, I’ve been waiting to catch you again. Did you see anything, did you hear anything? You know what he looks like.’
    ‘Yes, ratty little thing, they all are, can’t stand tiddly dogs. But no, I’m afraid I didn’t and I haven’t and really do you wonder? Let one of those off the lead and they just disappear.Run over, trodden on, down a hole. Let that be a lesson for when you get another. Have a decent-sized dog.’
    She strode off briskly behind the yelping Dobermanns and when she had gone a few yards, looked back over her shoulder, in the same way she had looked back as he had shouted for Skippy.
    ‘Sorry.’
    Jim Williams felt himself begin to shake. He should have been angry, perhaps even taken herup for being so rude, but all he felt was crushed and tearful. She was right, he was to blame, it was his own fault.
    ‘Oh Jim, honestly,’ he heard Phyl say. He watched the back of the Dobermann woman going out of sight towards the trees. He wanted to rush after her and beg her that if she saw Phyl not to tell her, not to give him away.
    He took out his handkerchief, wiped his eyes and blew hisnose. What was he thinking about? What made him want to do that? Phyl was dead, and in any case the Dobermann woman would not have known her.
    He was still shaking as he went slowly down the sloping path towards the road.
    But later, having calmed himself with a good breakfast, he went out again, first to the office of the free newspaper, where he placed an advertisement, then to the telephonekiosk, where he called Radio BEV, who logged his message about Skippy’s disappearance. After that, he went to Lafferton Police Station.

Twelve
    Jake Spurrier took a long time to put on his outdoor shoes and zip up his jacket, partly because everything took ages these days because he felt tired, partly because he was hating the idea of a visit to Mr Sharpe.
    ‘Jake, it doesn’t hurt.’
    ‘It did hurt. When I went for my sore throats and he stuck the needles into my neck it mega hurt.’
    ‘You didn’t have another sore throat afterwardsthough, did you?’
    ‘I’ve got one now.’
    ‘Hm.’
    But as he turned away, Jenny Spurrier looked anxiously at her ten-year-old son. He had never been especially robust, unlike his brother Joe who was fourteen and had barely had a single day off school for illness in his life. Jake had been the one with a wheezy chest and constant ear infections, the one who caught mumps and chickenpox and was ill fora month with them, the one who went down with the first head cold in September and did not finish having them until the end of April.Lately, he had been complaining of tiredness, and he was paler than normal. His sore throats had returned, and he had even had a couple of sties on his eyes, which children simply didn’t get nowadays.
    Jenny Spurrier was against antibiotics in any form, though occasionallyshe had given in when nothing else would get to the bottom of Jake’s earaches, and if she took him to see Dr Deerbon, she knew she would have the usual battle about it. Not that this practice was as bad as the one she had transferred them all from, five years before. There, antibiotics were handed out like sweets as a cure-all for every sniffle and headache; you had been able to get themby making a phone call to the receptionist without the trouble of making an appointment to see the doctors. Things were better at Dr Deerbon’s surgery, no