The Ice King (The Witch Ways 0.5)(11)
“Possibly.”
They were reaching their stalemate.
“You will not concede?” Professor Folds asked in the tone of a man who knew the answer.
“Not ‘will not’ Professor… I cannot.”
Dr Lachlan Laidlaw’s standing invitation to Thursday tea at the Folds residence was duly rescinded as Lachlan loaded his boxes into a wheelbarrow he’d borrowed for the purpose and moved in above Todber and Murnhall.
It was Todber who first noticed the black dog.
“Whose is the dog?” he asked, clearing the supper things into the kitchen one evening. Lachlan had been working on a haunting at a local pub, writing a report on the changes in temperature he had recorded on a recent field trip and researching the history of the building which was long and complicated. He was hoping to find where lines of time might cross.
“Mm?” Lachlan was only half listening, thinking of the lure of a whisky glass and wondering if tonight he would fall asleep in the chair again. Todber emerged from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a dishcloth “The big black dog in the yard. Did you let it in?”
Lachlan looked out of the window and down into the twilight below. As he did so a vast black dog lifted itself from the shadows and nosed its way out through the gate.
“Murnhall’s left the gate open again…that’ll be it. Murny?” Todber turned out of the kitchen, his voice echoing down the hallway as he headed downstairs. There was chatter and a few moments later Todber and Murnhall entered the yard, clattered about by the bins and could be seen arguing over the security of the gate.
The next morning, as Lachlan waited for the kettle to boil he glanced down into the yard. Once again the big black dog lifted itself from the shadow of the wall and, nudging gently at the gate, padded off. From his vantage point Lachlan could follow its progress down the back lane. He was wondering which other gate it might turn in at but it did not turn in, at the end of the lane it halted, looked back for a moment at Lachlan before turning into the street. The kettle whistled, insistent.
The next morning Lachlan was heading back to the haunted pub. He had suspected that the only reason the young landlady had called him in was because she rather fancied him. He had no proof other than an instinct but his field studies had yielded nothing useful. He had another new commission in place and he could not afford to waste his time. He was interested in the idea of the history of the place perhaps knitting incidents and memory into the fabric of the building, but he was not interested in the landlady and so, his studies there would have to cease. He was going to go over there and tell her so. There would be no more ghosthunting, at least not in that particular place. It disappointed him.
It disappointed her. Where Lachlan thought he was being polite and careful in his dealing with this matter, the landlady, Milly, was insulted and embarrassed.
“You calling me a liar?” she bellowed “How dare you?” the tirade went on, the landlady’s face growing redder and redder. If there had been no ghosts in the pub before then Lachlan felt sure she had certainly raised some with the sheer force of her outrage.
He returned his books to the library and after a desultory hour or two with his head in other volumes Lachlan was tired, packed up his notebooks and decided to head home.
He saw the black dog first in the reflection in the butchers shop window. He had glanced at the array of chops and joints on the white marble display and seen the black dog printed onto the glass. He turned. The street was busy, people crowded past on their way. There was no dog.
At the furniture shop the black dog’s reflected image was standing, ghostly, by an occasional table. Lachlan looked round. The street once again, was crowded with shoppers and passers-by, he watched and he waited for the crowd to thin but, there was no dog.
He didn’t eat his supper, instead he stood vigil by the kitchen window. Todber came up to clear the dishes.
“You not hungry?” he asked. Lachlan shook his head.
“You expecting someone?” Todber asked moving to stand on the opposite side of the window. He glanced down. “Only I’ve locked the gate.”
He looked at Lachlan, Lachlan nodded.
“Was it locked the other evening?”
Todber looked at him for a moment and before nodding.
“I could fetch you a dram while you’re waiting?” he suggested.
“I rather think I need a clear head tonight.” Lachlan confessed. Todber agreed and made a move to the kitchen door.
“You need anything, you give me and Murny a shout, eh?”
Lachlan listened to Todber’s footsteps as he made his way downstairs. At the last footstep the black dog lifted itself from the shadows below.
When Lachlan arrived in the yard, the gate was locked, and the black dog was gone.
The following evening Lachlan Laidlaw was waiting in the lane, hiding in the shadows himself. When the black dog emerged from the back gate of Todber and Murnhall, he followed it.
It was an interesting creature, the size of a wolf or a deerhound, it padded through the gate like an apparition and yet its form was solid in appearance, a muscular, meaty black hound, the sound of its breathing carrying back along the lane to Lachlan. At the end of the lane it turned left into the street as before. Passers-by stepped aside from the hound’s path without paying much attention. It was, to Lachlan’s eye, as if they did not see the dog. Lachlan hurried along on the opposite pavement, half running to keep up and then breaking into a run at the corner of The Close by the thin parish church of St Margaret Martyr. The dog trotted up the path and paused. As the doors opened to allow out a crack of light and the sound of the choir practising, the dog slipped into the church and out of sight.