So He Takes the Dog - Jonathan Buckley

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of any consequence,’ he says, and gives the scratches in the table top a quizzical look, as if distracted for a moment by the problem of how the table came to be scratched. ‘Well, you can tell me if it’s of any consequence, can’t you?’ he continues. ‘I was sitting here, last Sunday, in this very seat, last Sunday lunchtime. It was shortly after one o’clock. I know that, because the news had just started. On the radio. I was sitting here and I looked over that way, towards where that boat is.’ He points steadily towards the horizon, leaving his finger in mid air until we have both looked in the indicated direction. What had caught his attention was a kite, a bright-pink kite, that had come loose and was flying across the beach. Then he saw this young man, a rather unkempt character, walking very slowly, round and round the same spot, close to the sea wall, where Henry sometimes used to bed down for the night. Round and round he went, examining the ground, as though he’d dropped something, then he sat down on the parapet and stayed there for quite a time, looking out at the sea, which was also a bit peculiar, Tom thought, because it wasn’t a nice day. Lightly raining, in fact. After that he walked off, around the headland. An hour later he came back and resumed his search of the sand. This went on for another ten minutes or so. Quite odd behaviour, Tom thought, but in itself perhaps not worth remarking on. ‘Some folk like the rain, don’t they?’ he adds. ‘I quite like it myself.’

      It would be difficult to be more long-winded than Tom Gaskin, and we know that this conversation is going to yield nothing that could not have been relayed to us over the phone. And that’s the reason for all the words, to disguise the fact that our presence isn’t strictly necessary, not for us, anyway. Tom Gaskin is the loneliest man in town.

      ‘Unkempt?’ asks Ian, applying a full stop with an audible tap that he hopes will convey a need for greater momentum.

      ‘That’s right. But the thing is,’ Tom resumes, dragging his chair closer to the table, ‘on Tuesday, after lunchtime, soon after 1.30, I saw the same young man, on a bicycle this time, one of those mountain bikes. He was riding on the sand, and he stopped in the same place and stayed there for a quarter of an hour I’d say, looking around, before he went off towards Straight Point. And again he was gone for an hour or so.’

      ‘Definitely the same person?’ Ian enquires. ‘I mean, it’s quite a distance down to the beach. I don’t think I could positively identify someone from this range.’

      It was unequivocally the same person, says Tom, and to support his certainty he pulls back the curtain to reveal a huge pair of binoculars on the sill. He used to be a teacher, he explains, a schoolteacher. Biology was his subject, and zoology was always his great love, ornithology in particular. He does a lot of birdwatching, locally and all over the country and abroad, since Helen died, which was eight years ago now, almost. Last year he went to Spain, for the migration, and the year before that as well, he tells us, adjusting the curtains, then he notices the fleeting impatience of Ian’s expression. ‘I’ve wandered off the point,’ he observes, shaking his head. ‘That was always my problem. At home and in the classroom. Always meandering. But where was I?’ he asks with a smile for Ian in which there seems to be dismay, bordering on alarm, at his own incoherence.

      ‘Definitely the same person.’

      ‘Oh yes. It was. No question about it. And on Thursday he was there again. The middle of the day, on his bicycle, same place. The same young man. Definitely the same person. Three times within five days, that’s what you’d call a pattern of behaviour, isn’t it?’

      ‘It’s certainly notable,’ says Ian, making a note.

      Tom waits for the pen to stop moving. ‘And four times in a week, that’s suspicious, I’d say,’ he adds, and is gratified to see the upturn of Ian’s eyebrows.

      ‘He was there yesterday?’

      ‘He was. Two o’clock. Same chap. But on this occasion he went that way,’ he says, pointing to the path across the High Land.

      ‘Could you describe him?’

      Indeed Tom could describe him. Most eyewitnesses can give you two or three points, if you’re lucky. Even if they’d had a good clear look, a long look, by the following day it’s likely that all that’s left in the memory bank is ‘blue eyes’, ‘tall’, ‘well-built’. And when you bring the suspect in, he has blue eyes all right, but he’s five-nine and no more well-built than Joe Average. But he has a finger missing from one hand, which nobody noticed. You could point someone in the direction of a particular person for five minutes, tell them to memorise what they are seeing, and twenty-four hours later not much would remain. Tom, though, he gives us height, narrowness of shoulders, approximate weight and age, hairstyle and colour, colour of jacket, colour of trousers, make of trainers (‘the ones with the tick’), colour of laces (‘bright blue’), oddity of gait (‘hunched, flatfooted, listing’), general demeanour (‘very agitated’), size of hands (‘unusually large’). No eye colour, but otherwise all you could hope for.

      There’s so much detail that Ian is struggling to keep pace. ‘This is a very precise description, sir,’ he says, turning the page.

      ‘Birdwatchers tend to be observant people,’ Tom replies, but he lets Ian finish his notes before adding, with a little grin for himself: ‘I followed him, you see.’

      ‘You followed him?’

      ‘I did. I was curious. I wanted to find out what he was up to,’ says Tom forthrightly, giving each of us a level look.

      ‘And what was he up to?’

      ‘Well, he walked over the headland, to the steps, and he went down to the beach. He walked part of the way to Straight Point, then stopped, and seemed to be searching again. Going round and round in circles. That’s what prompted me to call you,’ Tom says, and now he reaches back and takes from the sideboard a large-scale Ordnance Survey map. He spreads it open on the table, turning the south side towards us, and places a finger with care on the midpoint of the bay. ‘He was standing there. For two or three minutes I observed him and he didn’t move more than a few yards from that spot. Looking on the ground, he was, scraping at the sand with his foot. Then he was staring out to sea for a while and after a minute or so it seemed to occur to him that he might be being watched, which is when he saw me.’

      ‘How did he react when he saw you?’

      ‘I couldn’t see any reaction of any kind. He seemed to notice me and then he carried on looking at the sea. He didn’t move from there,’ he says, tapping the map. ‘This is where your chap was found, isn’t it? So this person might know something,’ Tom suggests, almost childishly pleased at the possibility that he may have helped, and we agree that this would appear to be likely. We ask him to phone us right away should another sighting occur. ‘Of course, of course,’ he replies keenly, looking out at the hill with anticipation, as if it were a stage on which a show was soon to begin. ‘If he comes, I’ll see him. I have nothing better to do on a Sunday,’ he jokes, but he means it, and there’s a small fading in his eyes that tells us that he knows that we know that he means it. He allows us to regard him for a moment. We look at him and at the underused room, a room that smells of furniture polish and tedium. It’s easy to imagine the Sundays here: read the papers, a cup of tea and sandwich for lunch, an hour or two sitting at the table, watching the hills and the sea, an hour or two with a book before a microwaved meal for one, a bit of TV, perhaps with a glass of something, then bed. Dead Henry and the shifty lad are a godsend for Tom. ‘Well,’ he says, with a questioning undertone, slapping his thighs lightly, acknowledging that our conversation is concluded while inviting us, tentatively, to share our thoughts with him. We can do nothing more than thank him and ask him again to call us. He gives his thighs another slap, impelling himself to stand.

      ‘Did you find the girl?’ he asks abruptly at the door, as though startled by the sudden recollection of what he’d told us on our first visit.

      ‘Yes, we found her.’

      Putting his hand over his heart, Tom releases a tremulous breath. ‘Oh good, good,’ he says, so relieved you’d think we were talking about a girl who’d been kidnapped. ‘Can she help you?’

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