The Dog Who Came in from the Cold by Alexander McCall Smith Page B

la Hay half an hour before he was due to be in the park. As always, Freddie was delighted at the prospect of a walk and sniffed the air appreciatively as they set off from Corduroy Mansions.
    “They were very insistent that you should come along, Freddie,” William explained. “That’s why you’re here.”
    Freddie de la Hay glanced up at his owner. He was aware that a remark had been addressed to him, but of course he had no idea what it was. He was a well-mannered dog, though, and he wagged his tail in that friendly way dogs have of encouraging their owners. Freddie de la Hay valued William highly, not simply because he was his master, but because Freddie was what the Americans refer to as a
pre-owned
dog, and as such he had a distant memory of somebody else who had not been as kind as William; who had made him eat carrots and use a seatbelt when he travelled in the car; who had forbidden him to chase cats and squirrels, lecturing him sharply if he set off in the pursuit of either. It had been a world of un-freedom, a world from which all joy and canine exuberance had been excluded, and he did not want to return to that dark and cold place. William was to be valued for that—for rescuing him from bondage, from durance vile.
    They caught a taxi in Ebury Street. The traffic was light, and in just a few minutes William and Freddie completed the short journey to Birdcage Walk. As they alighted from the taxi, Freddie sniffed again, raising his muzzle and taking in the air, which to a dog’s sensitive nose was very different from the air in Pimlico. He gave a low growl of anticipation; he could already smell the squirrels and, rich and tantalising, the lingering scent of an urban fox. Deep inside him, the dog’s heart leaped with joy; it was only St. James’s Park, but Freddie might have had the whole Serengeti at his feet, or the rolling fields of the Quorn, so great was his sense of anticipation.
    William looked about him. It was mid-morning on a Saturday, and such people as were out and about in the street were in casual attire, rather than in the uniform of the civil servants who abounded in those parts during the week. A small group of visitors sporting rucksacks emblazoned with the Australian flag passed him on the pavement. One of them bent down to pat Freddie on the back.
    “Nice dog, mate.”
    William smiled “Yes, he is. Thank you.”
    “What’s his name?”
    “Freddie de …” William stopped himself in time. He had been about to give Freddie’s full name, but he realised how odd it would sound, particularly to an Australian. The Australians were always—mistakenly—accusing the English of stuffiness, and he could just imagine the reaction that the name Freddie de la Hay would provoke when the story was told back home.
    “Even the dogs in London have got surnames,” the traveller would report. “We met one with an incredibly posh moniker. Freddie de la Hay. Would you believe it? No, I swear we did. We really did.”
    “Good on yer, Freddie,” said the visitor, and moved on.
    They made their way into the park itself. William was experiencing a curious sense of anticipation—not an unpleasant sensation—but mixed with foreboding. He had not felt like that for a long time, and now he tried to remember what it reminded him of. It was elusive. It had been something like this before he sat examinations at school, but on reflection he decided that it was different. And he had felt rather like this when, as a boy of sixteen, he had been taken up in a glider by a friend of his father’s; it had seemed such a flimsy machine, spun gossamer in the currents of air, and he had closed his eyes in sheer terror. But again the sensation he felt now was a bit different; it was more a state of astonishment that he, William French, wine dealer and quinquagenarian (just), should be doing something quite as foolhardy as this.

19.
Pericolo di Morte
    H E FOUND THE BENCH without any trouble. It had not occurred to him