“You want to help me?” he said eventually. “Then bury the dogs.”
“Is that all I’m good for?”
“The time may come-”
“So you keep telling me,” Marty said, standing up. He wasn’t going to get any answers; that much was apparent. Just meat and good wine. Tonight, that wasn’t enough.
“Can I go now?” he asked, and without waiting for a reply turned his back on the old man and went to the door.
As he opened it, Whitehead said: “Forgive me,” very quietly. So quietly in fact that Marty wasn’t sure whether the words were intended for him or not.
He closed the door behind him and went back through the house to check that the intruders had indeed gone; they had. The steam room was empty. Carys had obviously returned to her room.
Feeling insolent, he slipped into the study and poured himself a treble whisky from the decanter, and then sat in Whitehead’s chair by the window, sipping and thinking. The alcohol did nothing for the clarity of his mind: it simply dulled the ache of frustration he felt. He slipped away to bed before dawn described the ragged bundles of fur on the lawn too distinctly.