Free Country Lovers by Rebecca Shaw Page B

disinfected myself before I went to Bridge Farm.”
    â€œThey say it’s because of your going straight there, you could have carried it.”
    I’ll ring Bridge Farm straightaway. There’s absolutely no need for that flock to be slaughtered. I’ll tell them I’m standing up for them. It’s wholesale murder it is.”
    Before Joy could stop him, Dan had phoned Bridge Farm and told them his position. He followed that with a call to Bryan Buckland and another to the Veterinary Service. By the time he came off the phone, he was boiling with temper. “It is sheer blind stupidity. Sheer stupidity. I don’t know when I’ve been more angry. Think of all the people who’ve visited, all the lorries that have delivered to Crispy Chickens in the week since I was there. They’ve all to be traced. It’s criminal. Absolutely criminal. There could be an epidemic. What’s the point of reporting a notifiable disease if they can’t recognize it when they see it?”
    Joy tried to calm him down. “Dan! Dan!” By now he was pacing the staff room like a caged lion, planning terrible revenge.
    â€œThere’s one thing for certain—they’re not culling all those chickens at Bridge Farm on my account. I’m not having it. Definitely not.”
    â€œI don’t see how you can stop it.”
    â€œNeither do I at the moment, but something must be done.” Muttering threats of drawing and quartering Mike Allport and hanging Bryan Buckland from his extractor fans, Dan stormed out to start his calls.
    â€œDan! Don’t do anything stupid, will you? Speak to Mungo first. Right?”
    She heard him call out, “I will.” And hoped to heaven he wouldn’t do anything too damaging. Joy followed him out into the car park. “Look here. Mungo will decide on the right course of action when he’s had a chance to talk things through with you. Don’t whatever you do go to Crispy Chickens, will you?”
    â€œNo, because I might murder Buckland. A whole week! God!”
    â€œExactly. So…leave it with me. Right? I mean it!” She began to return indoors but turned back to say, “And whatever you do, don’t go to Bridge Farm either. Do you hear me? Mungo will know what action to take. OK?”
    â€œOf course, you’re right. But it’s dammed urgent if we’re going to stop them. First, I’m going to see Phil Parsons’s new bull.”
    Dan went off with his list of calls, in no mood to suffer fools gladly. As he turned onto the track that led to the Parsons’s Applegate Farm, he determinedly pushed his anger to the back of his mind. He parked in his usual place, on the track and not in the yard, and changed into his boots before he got out. The farm was just as muddy and chaotic as it had always been, but there was Phil leaning on the gate waiting for him, grinning cheerfully. “Wait till you see this one, Dan! He’s a beauty.”
    Phil’s cat came running to greet him, and Dan bent down to stroke her. “Morning, Scott. Morning, Phil. Well, lead me to this magnificent beast.” Phil led him across the filthy yard into the barn he’d renovated with such loving care for his old bull, Sunny Boy. The barn was still immaculate, a fitting setting for a prize bull. The new bull graced it equally as well as its previous occupant. He was young but already showing the signs of a perfectly splendid adult. There was a sheen to his black coat, which only good breeding and good food could have brought about. He was restless, moving about and stamping his feet with a kind of pent-up vigor that was a pleasure to witness.
    Dan leaned on the wall and admired him in silence.
    Anxious for an opinion to corroborate his own, Phil asked, “Well, what do you think?”
    â€œI think he’s a prime specimen. Indeed. Yes. A prime specimen. Where the devil did you pick him up,