By a Narrow Majority by Faith Martin Page B

thought sadly. Not that his sharp claws, fierce hissing or brave heart would have helped him much in the end.
    ‘He looks as if he were real a character,’ Hillary said truthfully . She liked cats. She liked dogs. In fact, there weren’t many animals she didn’t like.
    ‘He was,’ Percy Matthews confirmed, his voice cracking. ‘Ten years old he were, when that was taken, and he was top cat around here, I can tell you. He fathered some kittens.’
    Hillary nodded sombrely. ‘I know what happened to him, Mr Matthews,’ she said, hoping to head off a graphic description . Without, of course, any luck.
    ‘They came down this field, out back, see,’ Percy said, glancing out the window to where a field of winter wheat stretched to a short horizon uphill. ‘Following the hawthorn hedge down, in case the fox tried to cut across the main road into the gardens yonder.’ He pointed to one side, where, across the road, was a small cul-de-sac of well-built council houses. Not that Hillary supposed many of them still belonged to the council now. ‘But there was no fox, see, and those bloody dogs saw our Wordsworth. Even in the dead of winter, he liked to be out, watching the birds, or looking for queens in season. He were out by the bird bath,’ Percy added, nodding at a rather small, bowl-shaped stone basin set almost into the ground. ‘Had nowhere to go, did he? No way out. The bastards cornered him between the house here and the wall of the barn. I heard ’em, oh yes, and ran out, but I was way too late.’
    Percy Matthews swallowed hard and took a much-needed breath, his small wrinkled face pursing in dismay as hatred and outrage gave way to a gulp. His eyes brightened suspiciously , and Hillary knew he wasn’t far off tears. Beside her, she felt Janine stir nervously.
    ‘It must have been an awful thing,’ Hillary said, and meantit. ‘You buried him in the garden?’ she asked, knowing he’d have to get it all off his chest before she could even begin to talk about Malcolm Dale.
    ‘Arr, what was left of him. Planted the little tree on top of him, as a remembrance, like. But you know what that bastard Dale said, that day? When he finally came prancing down here on that stupid black beast of a horse he rides, to see what was holding up his precious hunt?’
    Percy was sat on the edge of the armchair now, his face pinched and tight, his eyes blazing. His hands, she noticed with a touch of unease, were knobbly with arthritis, the fingers and one thumb curled in, as if he couldn’t help but make a fist. Would those hands have been able to hold tightly on to a blunt instrument? And if so, would they have had enough force to crush a man’s skull?
    ‘Just imagine it – there I was, Boxing Day it were, the day after Christmas, with his bloody dogs boiling around in my garden making that hair-raising howling racket, and with my poor Wordsworth, like a hank of grey wool, all mangled and unrecognizable in my hands. And you know what he says, from up on that bloody horse of his, all dressed in scarlet, and looking like the biggest muckety-muck you ever saw? “Couldn’t be helped, Mr Matthews” he said.’ Percy shook his head, his thinning white hair flopping around his ears. ‘Couldn’t be helped?’ His voice had risen almost to a hysterical pitch now, and Janine visibly winced.
    ‘Percy,’ Rita Matthews said, a weary warning in her voice. ‘Take it easy, love.’ It made Hillary wonder, with a sudden surge of sympathy for the woman, how many times she’d had to say that in the last few years.
    ‘Well, it makes me sick,’ Percy said defiantly. ‘It couldn’t be helped – what kind of rot was that? Course it could be helped – if they knew what they were doing. Bloody Heyford Hunt – just a few stupid idiots looking for an excuse to dress up and play real gentry, if you ask me. Only been formed for a year or two. Think they can make out they’re someone a cut abovethe rest. That so-called master of