one. I felt like crying: I kept thinking of the force of that gate swinging open, and the poor dog’s head just cracking likea nut. It was as if I’d personally heard the noise; been there myself when it happened. The J-Dog had been dead before I got here! And all this time I’d been imagining he was safe, even enjoying himself, in a jolly space ship, hovering over the Solent. Up on the wall, Roger was still watching, not moving.
The policeman made to leave. “I’ll find out if she took the dog’s body to a vet’s anywhere. This could explain why she left in such a hurry,” he said. “Although it doesn’t explain why she didn’t take the car.”
He turned to me and gave me a searching look. “It’s a shame you didn’t notice it before,” he said. “And it’s even more of a shame that you didn’t do anything useful with that phone.” It was the first hint of unfriendliness in his tone.
“I’m sorry.”
“Mr Caton-Pines, I have to say this. You haven’t done anything to find out what happened to your sister, have you?”
I thought of all the hours I’d spent since I got here, listening to Roger, thinking about Roger, writing about Roger, when I could have been focusing properly on finding Jo. In a way, what he said was true.
“I’m beginning to think you’re not telling my everything.”
I didn’t have to answer because I was throwing up again. But not telling him everything – oh God, he was definitely right about that.
Interpolation, with apologies
I promised I would allow the Wiggy files to tell their own story without any unwelcome “editorialising,” but something has happened that has made me change my mind. Yesterday, having reached a natural break in this batch of transcriptions, I left the cottage for the first time and drove to Norwich. I imaginedI would go shopping for food, possibly catch an improving matinee at the art cinema, and (if time allowed) spend a few moments at an internet café, checking on Wiggy’s appearance schedule at the theatre in Coventry. In fact, I spent four hours at the internet café, and was so upset I had to come back at once. I now shan’t bother with the file entitled “Roger Dream.” It doesn’t add much, except that in his dream Wiggy keeps being led to look at that peg in the hall – the peg that usually has the keys to next door but on which nothing was hanging when he arrived at the house. His subconscious mind has worked things out, even if he hasn’t. If the keys to next door are missing from the usual peg , his exasperated inner self is asking, what do you think that means?
But that’s enough of WIGGY’s slow mental processes. The bare facts of what I discovered are these:
1: Will Caton-Pines ( Wiggy to his friends ) did appear in See How They Run! The Coventry Bugle review is exactly as he gives it. The play ran at the Belgrade just two months ago.
2: He is now at the centre of a gruesome investigation into the death of his sister. The noted watercolourist Joanna Caton-Pines, who had been missing for three weeks from her cottage near Littlehampton, was found in the first week of December in the cellar of an adjoining house, with the corpse of a dog whose head had apparently been crushed. Both she and the dog had been partly devoured by rats. She was alive when she entered the cellar but the dog was not. She died, says the preliminary report, of “dehydration, asphyxiation and (possibly) rat-induced dementia.”
Her brother is the chief suspect, mainly because much of his behaviour is inexplicable. For example, he evidently showed signs of “inappropriate amusement” when the mobilephone belonging to his sister was found to have been disabled. He also withheld from the police the fact that he had heard scratching from beyond the party wall for several days after his sister “went missing.” Those scratchings were, of course, the sound of his sister clawing at the bottom of a heavy cellar trapdoor. After he eventually
The policeman made to leave. “I’ll find out if she took the dog’s body to a vet’s anywhere. This could explain why she left in such a hurry,” he said. “Although it doesn’t explain why she didn’t take the car.”
He turned to me and gave me a searching look. “It’s a shame you didn’t notice it before,” he said. “And it’s even more of a shame that you didn’t do anything useful with that phone.” It was the first hint of unfriendliness in his tone.
“I’m sorry.”
“Mr Caton-Pines, I have to say this. You haven’t done anything to find out what happened to your sister, have you?”
I thought of all the hours I’d spent since I got here, listening to Roger, thinking about Roger, writing about Roger, when I could have been focusing properly on finding Jo. In a way, what he said was true.
“I’m beginning to think you’re not telling my everything.”
I didn’t have to answer because I was throwing up again. But not telling him everything – oh God, he was definitely right about that.
Interpolation, with apologies
I promised I would allow the Wiggy files to tell their own story without any unwelcome “editorialising,” but something has happened that has made me change my mind. Yesterday, having reached a natural break in this batch of transcriptions, I left the cottage for the first time and drove to Norwich. I imaginedI would go shopping for food, possibly catch an improving matinee at the art cinema, and (if time allowed) spend a few moments at an internet café, checking on Wiggy’s appearance schedule at the theatre in Coventry. In fact, I spent four hours at the internet café, and was so upset I had to come back at once. I now shan’t bother with the file entitled “Roger Dream.” It doesn’t add much, except that in his dream Wiggy keeps being led to look at that peg in the hall – the peg that usually has the keys to next door but on which nothing was hanging when he arrived at the house. His subconscious mind has worked things out, even if he hasn’t. If the keys to next door are missing from the usual peg , his exasperated inner self is asking, what do you think that means?
But that’s enough of WIGGY’s slow mental processes. The bare facts of what I discovered are these:
1: Will Caton-Pines ( Wiggy to his friends ) did appear in See How They Run! The Coventry Bugle review is exactly as he gives it. The play ran at the Belgrade just two months ago.
2: He is now at the centre of a gruesome investigation into the death of his sister. The noted watercolourist Joanna Caton-Pines, who had been missing for three weeks from her cottage near Littlehampton, was found in the first week of December in the cellar of an adjoining house, with the corpse of a dog whose head had apparently been crushed. Both she and the dog had been partly devoured by rats. She was alive when she entered the cellar but the dog was not. She died, says the preliminary report, of “dehydration, asphyxiation and (possibly) rat-induced dementia.”
Her brother is the chief suspect, mainly because much of his behaviour is inexplicable. For example, he evidently showed signs of “inappropriate amusement” when the mobilephone belonging to his sister was found to have been disabled. He also withheld from the police the fact that he had heard scratching from beyond the party wall for several days after his sister “went missing.” Those scratchings were, of course, the sound of his sister clawing at the bottom of a heavy cellar trapdoor. After he eventually
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