The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan

Author:Ruth Hogan
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-12-27T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 26

“I think he needs the biscuit,” said Sunshine, tenderly stroking the bundle of fur and bones that ought to have been a lurcher. He watched her with frightened eyes that mirrored the beatings he had endured. Tired of their torture, his tormentors had kicked him out to fend for himself. Freddy had found him the previous evening lying on the grass verge outside Padua. It was raining hard and he was soaking wet and too exhausted to resist when Freddy had picked him up and brought him inside. He had been clipped by a car and had a superficial wound on his rump that Laura had cleaned and dressed while Freddy had held him shaking and wrapped in a towel. He refused to eat anything but drank a little water, and Laura stayed up with him all night, sleeping fitfully in an armchair while the dog lay inches from the fire, wrapped in a blanket and never moving. As the first wraithlike light of the winter dawn seeped through the lace panels of Anthony’s study, Laura stirred. Her neck was cricked and complaining after a night spent folded awkwardly into a chair. The fire was reduced to a few struggling embers but the dog hadn’t moved.

Please, God, she thought as she leaned forward to check for the rise and fall of the blanket that would prove her prayer had been answered. Nothing. No movement. No sound. But before the tears that had filled her eyes could spill, the blanket suddenly twitched. There was a ragged intake of breath, and the sonorous snoring that Laura had somehow managed to sleep through resumed.

Sunshine had been ecstatic when she had arrived that morning to find that they had a canine guest. It was the most animated that Laura had ever seen the normally rather solemn and serious Sunshine. Between them, they had coaxed him to eat a little cooked chicken and a slice of bread and butter. Sunshine had gently examined his skeletal frame and was determined to feed him everything she could.

“We mustn’t feed him too much at once. His stomach will have shrunk, and if we overdo it he’ll be sick,” Laura warned.

Sunshine pulled a face which admirably communicated her disapproval of vomit.

“Maybe he needs another drink?” she suggested hopefully. Laura could understand her eagerness. She was desperate to do something to make the creature better; fatter, fitter. Happy. But sometimes not doing anything was what was needed, however hard that might be.

“I think he just needs to rest,” she told Sunshine. “Just tuck the blanket round him and leave him in peace for a bit.”

Sunshine “tucked in” very carefully for about ten minutes before Laura finally persuaded her to come and help with the website. Freddy arrived earlier than usual and found them all in the study.

“How’s the poor fella doing?”

Laura couldn’t bring herself to look up from the screen.

“A bit better, I think.”

Since the episode in the pantry, the awkwardness between Freddy and Laura hung in the air like smoke.

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