Free Slaughter in the Cotswolds by Rebecca Tope

built-in arrangement which looped off over the heads. Thea considered borrowing the collar from her own dog, but it was too small, and to leave Hepzie untetherable would be too worrying. With her usual determination, she went back to the scullery and rummaged amongst the old macs and donkey jackets hanging on a row of hooks in a vain search for a collar. But there was plentyof plastic bale string coiled untidily in the dogs’ shed. That could be looped and knotted and fashioned into a restraint for a dog, and she acted accordingly.
    Selecting the black and tan one, as being marginally smaller, she pulled her home-made collar over his head. The big ears had to be squashed flat and it seemed rather tight around his neck. The dog looked into her eyes trustingly, and she spent a few moments fondling his handsome head and murmuring sweet nothings to him. ‘I wish I knew your name,’ she said. ‘Can I call you Basil, just for a little while? Would that be all right? Basil!’ she chirruped. The dog wagged its tail tolerantly.
    ‘And you can be Freddy,’ she told the other one. ‘And you have got to behave yourself, OK? If I let you run free, you have to stay where I can see you.’
    Hoping that the plan would work, she set off with the three dogs. Hepzie ran loose, sniffing and zigzagging, pausing to grin at her mistress. Freddy tried to follow her, but his method of covering the ground was so much more direct and quick that he soon gave up any attempt at companionship. For the first quarter of a mile, Basil walked calmly at her side. They were on a footpath, heading well away from the farm that Cedric had warned Thea to avoid. Then, with aflurry and a sudden loud yelping, Freddy must have raised a rabbit. Thea’s spaniel joined the chase, and Basil, appalled at the prospect of being left behind, gave a powerful lunge and easily dragged the end of the lead out of Thea’s hand. In seconds there was no sign of anything canine.
    ‘Oh shit,’ she said, before drawing a deep breath and shouting loudly for her own dog.
    She knew it was futile. Hepzie gave the appearance of obedience only because her wishes generally coincided with what Thea wanted her to do. When these wishes diverged, the dog did exactly what it liked.
    The hope – which she already knew was a faint one – was that the spaniel would eventually persuade the other dogs to give up the chase and return to quarters. There was no real worry that Hepzie would get lost, with her limited sense of adventure. Left to herself she would run round in a few circles, make noisy threats to the rabbit that its days were numbered, and then rejoin her mistress as if nothing had happened. Hepzie was not the worry.
    What she had done was unforgivable. She had arrogantly assumed she knew best what was good for the dogs. She had directly disobeyed an instruction. She deserved to be blacklisted and never allowed to house-sit anywhere again.
    Then common sense kicked in, and she toldherself that the dogs would certainly come home again when they got hungry. They were relatively well-behaved and domesticated, despite their boring outdoor existence. Just so long as they committed no dreadful crimes while they were loose, everything was going to be all right.
    A man was coming towards her, his eyes narrowed with some uncomfortable emotion that looked at first glance like anger. ‘Were those your dogs that just dashed past?’ he demanded, from some distance, his voice raised.
    She smiled weakly. ‘I’m afraid so,’ she said. ‘They flushed out a rabbit and decided to give chase.’
    ‘You’d better catch them quick,’ he advised. ‘Not much tolerance for stray dogs around here.’
    ‘They’ll come back soon,’ she said with feigned confidence.
    ‘I could be wrong, but that huntaway looked to me like Cedric Angell’s. Am I right?’
    ‘That’s right,’ she admitted. ‘I’m the house-sitter.’
    ‘Did he tell you it was all right to release the dogs out here?’ The