Read Chapter 6: A Dog's Nose

The digging had started sometime before dawn, a frantic, rhythmic scrabbling that Martha first mistook for a woodpecker with ambitions. She found the source at the back of her garden, where the wild grass met the hedge: a sleek black Labrador, mud-caked to the elbows, excavating a hole with the single-minded passion of a professional.

“Oi, Bertie! Leave it!”

The voice came from beyond the hedge, followed by a man’s head appearing over the top, slightly out of breath. He was in his late forties, with a sun-weathered face and the kind of crinkled eyes that suggested he smiled often, usually at animals.

“Sorry,” he said. “He’s a digger. I try, but—oh. Oh, no.”

The dog, Bertie, had stopped digging. He sat back, tail beating a happy rhythm against the damp earth, and in his mouth he held something limp and grey. A scarf. Woollen, hand-knitted, the colour of old slate. Even from ten feet away, Martha could see the darker stain that ran across its middle, rust-brown and unmistakable.

The man vaulted the hedge with surprising grace for someone his size. “Drop it, Bertie. Good boy. Drop.”

The dog released the scarf onto the grass, panting proudly. The man crouched, not touching it, his expression shifting from mild embarrassment to professional concern.

“That’s blood,” he said quietly. He looked up at Martha. “Old blood, I’d say. Not fresh. But blood all the same.”

Martha felt the familiar cold click in her chest, the one that came when a manuscript’s timeline suddenly collapsed. “May I?” She stepped closer, and he moved aside to let her look without touching. The scarf was well-made, the pattern intricate — a twisted cable that ran its length. The blood was concentrated in a dark smear near one end, as though someone had wiped their hands on it. Or pressed it to a wound.

“I’m James Thorne,” the man said, straightening. “I’m the vet over in Chipping Meadow. This is Bertie — my official sniffer of inappropriate objects.”

“Martha Pemberton.” She shook his hand, noting the calluses, the easy grip. “I’ve only just moved in. My aunt’s place.”

“Edna’s cottage.” He nodded slowly. “Everyone knew Edna. She used to bring me every stray she found in these woods. Said they had more sense than most people she knew.” His eyes travelled over the garden, the overgrown borders. “I was sorry to hear about her.”

There was a pause, the kind that settled on conversations about the dead. Martha’s gaze drifted back to the scarf. “This was buried. Deliberately, would you say?”

James considered the hole. “Bertie doesn’t just scratch at random. Something drew him here — scent, usually. If someone buried this and covered it properly, he’d have had to work for it. That’s not a casual drop.” He tilted his head. “Why? What are you thinking?”

Martha hesitated. In London, she’d learned to keep her theories close until she had the pages to back them up. But here, the rules felt different. And there was something about James — direct, unguarded — that invited plain speaking.

“There was an attack in the woods last week,” she said. “A young woman. Emily Ford. The police are calling it inconclusive, but I found her. The scene didn’t match their version of events.”

James’s face stilled. “Emily. She’s been brought into my practice — well, her dog has. A collie cross, poor thing was shut in the house all day while she was in hospital. I’ve been looking after him.”

Martha felt a jolt. “She has a dog?”

“Bertie’s cousin, temperament-wise. Name’s Jasper.” James’s eyes narrowed, reading her tone. “Why does that matter?”

“The police account said she was out walking alone. Unfortunate fall, according to the first responding officer. But if she had a dog with her, where was the dog when she was attacked?”

James exhaled slowly. “Now that’s a good question.” He looked down at Bertie, who had lost interest in the scarf and was now investigating a patch of nettles with his nose. “Jasper’s a nervous thing, but loyal. He wouldn’t have run off unless something scared him badly. Or someone.”

Martha crouched, studying the scarf’s pattern without touching. “This is hand-knitted. Not machine-made. The cable detail is too regular. And the wool feels old — the dye, the thickness. It could be vintage.”

“Vintage like 1934 vintage?” James asked.

She looked up sharply. “Why would you say that?”

“Because I’ve seen patterns like this before.” He pointed to the cable. “My grandmother knitted this exact stitch. Said it was called the Hepworth Braid — the family from the old estate. They had their own shepherd’s pattern, passed down through the women. When the family died out, the pattern went with them.” He paused. “At least, that’s what she said. She was full of stories, my gran.”

The air in the garden seemed to chill slightly, despite the morning sun. Martha stood, brushing dirt from her knees. “The Hepworth family were destroyed in 1934. Fire, I’m told. The land went to the neighbours — the Fords.”

James blinked. “You’ve been doing your homework.”

“I’m a retired fiction editor,” Martha said. “I spent forty years finding plot holes. It turns out I can’t stop.”

A smile tugged at James’s mouth. “And the Hepworths and Fords both feature in your current manuscript?”

“More than I’d like.” She looked at the scarf again. “This could be nothing. A dog dug up something from fifty years ago, and the blood is animal, not human.”

“But you don’t believe that.”

“I believe the pattern is too convenient. And the burial too deliberate.” She met his gaze. “Emily Ford was attacked a few hundred yards from my garden, in the bluebells. And now, a week later, a scarf bearing the stitch pattern of a family that was ruined by Emily’s ancestors surfaces in my soil. That’s not coincidence. That’s foreshadowing.”

James laughed, a warm, low sound. “You talk about real life like it’s a novel.”

“That’s the trouble,” Martha said. “I’ve been treating it as one for years. But the difference is, in a novel, the author knows where the threads lead. Out here, I’m reading chapters as they happen.”

He studied her for a long moment. “You’re serious about this. About Emily.”

“Someone tried to kill her. The police are treating it as an accident because it’s easier. And I’m the only one who seems to notice the details don’t add up.” She felt the weight of it as she said it — the solitary burden of being the one who reads the footnotes while everyone else skims the cover.

“Then let me help,” James said simply.

“You don’t know me. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Edna did.” His voice softened. “Six years ago, when my wife left and I thought I’d lose the practice, Edna came in with a stray cat and a cheque that covered my mortgage for three months. She said she didn’t believe in letting good things go to waste — animals or people.” He nodded at the scarf. “I figure this is me paying it forward.”

Martha felt something loosen in her chest, a tension she hadn’t realised she’d been carrying. “Alright. But first, we need to know if this blood is human. And if it matches Emily.”

“I can have it tested,” James said. “I know a pathologist in Cheltenham who owes me a favour. Did a Caesarean on his spaniel at three in the morning.” He pulled a plastic evidence bag from his jacket pocket — a vet’s habit, she realised, always prepared for samples. With careful hands, he coaxed the scarf inside and sealed it.

Bertie, sensing the matter had concluded, trotted over and sat heavily on Martha’s foot. She looked down at him. “He’s got good instincts.”

“He finds things that were meant to stay buried,” James said. “Usually bones. Sometimes, apparently, evidence of crimes that aren’t crimes.”

Martha stroked Bertie’s head. His ear was soft, warm. “Or crimes that are very much crimes, hidden by people who thought they’d got away with it.”

James’s phone buzzed. He glanced at it, and his expression sharpened. “Speaking of Emily. That’s my receptionist. She says Emily’s been discharged from hospital this morning — she’s coming by the practice this afternoon to pick up Jasper.”

Martha’s heart quickened. The hospital had called days ago, said Emily was asking for the woman who found her. But life had interven—— no, she admitted to herself. She’d been avoiding it. Afraid of what Emily might tell her, of how deep the story went.

“I should meet her,” Martha said. “She asked for me once. Maybe that invitation still stands.”

James smiled. “Then let’s go. I’ll drive.”

Bertie wagged his tail, apparently in favour of the plan. Martha looked back at the hole in her garden — the dark earth, the disturbance — and felt the chapter turning beneath her feet.

Somewhere, in the tangled history of this village, someone had tried to bury a secret in her soil. And now, with a vet’s help and a dog’s nose, she was going to dig it up.