Deception in the Cotswolds by Rebecca Tope

the foot of a large beech, jumping at a tantalising squirrel safely out of reach. Something was occupying her attention enough to prevent her from obeying her mistress’s orders. Not that she was overly obedient, it had to be said.
    ‘Where are you?’ she shouted. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Now she was cross, as a bramble snagged her ankle on the single inch of vulnerable skin between trousers and shoe. She had to jump down a small vertical cliff almost three feet in height, landing on an invisible root and hurting her foot.
    Suddenly, she could see the dog. It was sitting staring at a clump of vegetation growing next to a fallen tree which must have been left for the benefit of wildlife. A young holly tree and the drooping leaves of bluebells had been flattened to reveal an entrance to a cave-like hollow beneath the tree trunk. ‘Is it a badger?’ Thea asked the dog. ‘Be careful, Heps, if it is. They’re rather fierce if you annoy them.’
    Hepzie squeaked anxiously, her gaze never shifting from the shadowy cavity. Thea moved forward for a better look. She met two brown eyes and a moist black nose. ‘Oh! It’s a dog!’ she exclaimed. ‘Hello, darling. What are you doing here?’
    She assumed the animal had become snared or stuck in some way, hunkered down to die in the makeshift shelter. It growled as she approached. ‘I won’t hurt you,’ she soothed. ‘I want to see if you’re all right.’
    A peculiar sound merged with the growls. Amusical squeal that was like nothing she had heard before. ‘What’s that?’ she said. Hepzie added her own worried cries to the chorus.
    Gradually, the scene beneath the log came into focus, as Thea’s eyes adjusted to the gloom. A black and white dog was curled up, squeezed into a small space. Something squirmed and heaved further into the cavity, and it was several seconds before Thea understood what she was seeing. Small bodies were in there, along with the dog. ‘Puppies!’ she finally realised. ‘You’ve come out here to have your puppies! What a clever girl!’
    It was a collie type. Clever girl seemed to be a familiar phrase, and the head came forward at this suggestion of friendly praise. But when Hepzie stepped forward to share in the new rapprochement, the mother dog snarled angrily and the spaniel retreated. Like several collies Thea had encountered, this one appeared to be more comfortable with human beings than with her own species. But something was wrong if she had to crawl away into the woods to produce her babies. If she was a working dog, then it was quite possible that her owner would drown all the pups at birth, as Thea knew from experience did happen from time to time. Perhaps it had already happened in the past to this one, and the intelligent animal had worked out a way of avoiding such a cruel loss again.
    ‘Don’t worry, I won’t betray you,’ Thea assured her. ‘But you’re going to get terribly hungry out here, evenif you can nab the odd rabbit. I’ll try and bring you something tomorrow morning – OK?’
    The dog grinned at her, but made no further move. The squealing pups had subsided into near silence. Curious to see them, Thea knew better than to stretch a hand into the burrow. Perhaps if everything went well for the next week or so, she would earn enough trust to be able to handle them.
    With a careful check for anybody watching, Thea withdrew from the scene, dragging the spaniel after her. ‘You’d better not come with me next time,’ she said. ‘You’ll only give the whole game away.’ Which was what Hepzie had done already, she realised. ‘But it was quite bright of you to find them, I must say.’ And if a visiting cocker spaniel could do it, so could other dogs, she thought. What chance did the poor outlaw have of bringing her offspring to any kind of independence? Feral dogs were certainly not going to be tolerated in the neat and tidy Cotswolds, even if they could manage to feed themselves, which she