‘People saw me arriving,’ said Patterson and peered out from behind the drape. ‘Listen to them. I have to get out there. This is live TV, remember.’
‘Mr Mayor, sir—’ Walker began.
‘Now listen!’ Patterson turned and stared directly at Walker. ‘Suppose it gets out that I stood here and refused to go on even though the terrorist specialist unit said it was safe to do so, and it gets out that the man I was so afraid of was the stadium janitor. Or let me put it this way, would you want a man like that as your mayor?’ He turned to the man wearing the headset. ‘Tell them to introduce me.’
The man in the headset said something into the microphone as Patterson turned his back on Walker and started rolling his neck again. Walker told himself he hadn’t tripped up, he’d done his bit, said what he had to say, and the mayor had made his decision. Soon he would be going home to eat with his family.
A deep bass voice crackled across the stadium loudspeakers, accompanied by a drum roll that would probably soon give way to the national anthem: ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, direct from city hall...’
Or rather, if Walker were to really cover himself completely, there was one small correction that needed to be made.
‘The suspect is not the janitor,’ Walker said quietly, addressing the mayor’s back. ‘His name is Mike Lunde. He’s a taxidermist.’
‘Here is our city’s mayor, here is everyone’s mayor and good friend to the Second Amendment,’ intoned the voice over the loudspeakers.
Walker saw how the layer of skin pressed up against the collar around Patterson’s neck tensed. Maybe it was the word ‘friend’. Maybe something else. The man with the headset drew the drape aside and they all looked out onto the stadium. As expected the drum roll had segued into the national anthem, which drowned out any whistling there might have been or the absence of applause. Still Patterson stood motionless in front of the opening.
‘Something wrong, sir?’ asked the headset.
Patterson turned. Not toward the headset, but toward Walker.
‘What did you say his name was?’
49
The Masterpiece, October 2016
‘It’s lovely,’ said Jill Patterson as she stroked the dog. ‘Absolutely lovely.’
‘Thank you,’ said Mike Lunde.
The two of them and the children, Siri and Simon, sat in the store in a little circle around Quentin. Jill kept stroking him, she said the Labrador’s coat seemed so glossy and bright. Outside, on the other side of the street, their Chevy stood parked, with their private bodyguard Hector Herrer inside. From where she was sitting she could see that the other one, the extra security man from the JTTF, had taken up a position outside the car and was monitoring the street in both directions. The JTTF man had wanted to come into the store with them, but Jill had explained that Mike said they should always be alone in the store whenever they were looking at Quentin. The JTTF man had said OK, but he asked them not to be too long. Jill hadn’t replied. After all, this might be the last time they would ever see this nice taxidermist, whom everyone in the family had become so fond of. Mike had been to their home in Dellwood and listened as she and Kevin and the children talked about Quentin. The Labrador retriever had been their beloved companion until the day he ran out into the road and got run over by the neighbour’s Lexus. The children had insisted that Quentin be buried in their own back garden, and they had even had a priest for the burial. But so great was the children’s grief that after just one week Jill said to Kevin that they had to do something, the kids wouldn’t leave the grave, they spent every evening weeping there. Kevin’s first response had been that maybe the grave had become a place for the kids to get rid of all their frustrations, that maybe it wasn’t just about Quentin, maybe what was happening was good for them. But Jill said it was grief, and that children shouldn’t grieve, that could wait until later. She’d spoken to a friend who knew a friend who’d had the family’s pet rabbit stuffed and spoke of it like a resurrection. She was the one who had recommended Town Taxidermy to Jill.
Of course, neither Jill nor the children had been present when the grave was opened. After a mere fourteen days the fur was still pretty much unchanged, and Mike had said it wouldn’t be a problem to repair any damage. They agreed to use as much of Quentin as possible, not just the teeth but the whole skull. That way she felt she could tell the children it wasn’t just a copy of Quentin, it really was Quentin. Mike took the dog’s measurements for the mannequin he had to make, and he studied the family’s photographs and home videos showing the animal. The better to capture Quentin’s character and personality, as he explained.
Siri sat next to her mother and began stroking Quentin too. Because it had turned out just as Jill hoped, it really was Quentin. Mike hadn’t just captured the dog’s personality, he’d caught the way he walked and had frozen their beloved pet in mid-stride. And the look in the eyes! It was Quentin’s look exactly. It really was an exercise in pure magic. Simon, their youngest, stood up and ran across to the fox. Felt its teeth. Then ran over to the wolf and tugged at its tail. She hoped he wouldn’t break anything, he was a bit of a handful. But Mike took it all calmly enough. Simon came running back and put his arms around Quentin’s neck.
‘Simon, be careful!’ his big sister called.
Simon obediently let go.
‘But he doesn’t move,’ Simon complained as he stood in front of the dog and called out: ‘Quentin! Wake up!’ He hit the unmoving dog on the snout. ‘Quentin!’
Jill laughed what she herself heard was a slightly nervous laugh. ‘Simon, sweetie, don’t do that. Quentin is a... he’s a... still dog now.’
‘But I don’t want a dog that stands still! Man!’ Simon stood in front of the chair Mike was sitting in. ‘I want a living Quentin!’
Mike cocked his head to one side. ‘You know what, Simon, it’s actually completely impossible to get back someone who’s dead, no matter how much you loved them. You see, death...’
Jill could see that Simon had been about to lose patience and run off again until Mike said that word — death — with such weight. Now the boy stood quite still and stared at Mike.
‘Death...’ said the taxidermist, ‘death is a door with a spring lock.’
Simon blinked.
‘And the pain,’ Mike went on, ‘the pain of losing the one you love, or all the ones you love, well, that’s enough to drive anyone out of their mind.’
Jill was a little shocked at Mike’s choice of words. After all, this was a child he was talking to. On the other hand, he had such a good way with the kids, so maybe he was getting through to him with what he was saying. But no, he had lost Simon’s attention, and now Simon was tearing about inside the store again.
‘Don’t touch that!’ she called as Simon approached the rifle leaned up against the wall directly behind Mike. She’d seen it as soon as they entered, and if it had been anywhere else she would certainly have said something. But here, among all these stuffed animals, it seemed natural, just another of the many tools of Mike’s trade. They had to have used something to shoot that large deer and that bear, she had reasoned with herself. But now that Simon stood staring in frozen fascination at the gun it gave her a bad feeling. She saw his little child’s fists clench and open, could see how he itched to reach out and touch it, dangerous and tempting. What was it about guns that made them so irresistible — and to small boys in particular? It was like the ring in that movie the kids loved, she thought. The Lord of the Rings. Jill got hold of Simon and pulled him onto her lap. He pretended to resist, but she knew how much he liked it when she coddled him. Especially with his sister looking on.