Deception by Ken McClure Read Free Book Online

that age, aren’t they?’
    ‘ Daft as a brush,’ smiled Moira. ‘All energy and no brains.’
    ‘ Are you taking him up by the canal?’
    ‘ Moira said that she was.’
    ‘ You must have heard about the three kids along in Blackbridge?’
    ‘ I certainly did, Weil’s disease; can be quite nasty apparently. Damages the liver. I was speaking to one of their mothers, coming back on the bus yesterday. She’d been in at the hospital. She was saying that they’ve all been through a bit of a bad time but at least, her boy was getting better. Unfortunately the same couldn’t be said for the laddie who’d been bitten.’
    ‘ I heard about that. Which one of them got bitten?’
    ‘ Mrs Ferguson’s son. He had to have an operation on his foot: it was torn quite badly apparently. I hear he’s still very ill; some complicating factors to do with the bite becoming infected, I think.’
    ‘ Dirty things, rats, makes me shiver, just thinking about them. Mind you, who in their right mind would want to swim in the canal? It’s all green slime apart from anything else.’
    ‘ What were we saying about all energy and no brains? I think it applies to young boys as well as young dogs.’
    The neighbour laughed and conceded the point. Moira continued her walk. She joined the canal towpath and took off Sam’s lead. He was off like a rocket but a rocket with little or no sense of direction. He gave every indication of wanting to run in all directions at the same time. Moira introduced some purpose to it all by picking up a small stick and throwing it along the towpath. As she continued with the game it occurred to her that she was enjoying herself as much as Sam. The sun was low but still warm and the wind had dwindled away to nothing. The air was full of the smells of late summer, only marred a little by the smell of the algal bloom on the surface of the canal.
    Sam paused in the game to do his business and Moira took the chance to look up at the sky, thinking to herself how much nicer it would be if Scotland had more of this kind of weather. There were so few occasions when proper clothing was not a major consideration. She was very glad that she had not bothered with a jacket. The cool of the evening on her bare arms was very pleasant. The insects hovering above the surface of the still water and the drifting ‘wishes’ from the willow herb made her think of Peter Pan and fairies.
    Sam looked up at her expectantly and she launched the stick again. ‘Go on, then, you daft mutt,’ she encouraged. She tried to throw the stick further this time and lost direction a little. It landed in the water. Sam bounded along to the spot but Moira did not want him plunging into the stagnant water so she called out to him to stop. Sam paused unsurely at the edge, his basic instinct being challenged by his partial training.
    ‘ Good boy,’ Moira called out as Sam settled with his rear end in the air and his nose pointing down at the water.
    ‘ There’s a good boy. Just you wait there,’ said Moira as she walked towards him.
    Suddenly Sam let out a yelp of pain and Moira saw him start to throw his head feverishly from side to side. She thought at first that he had something in his mouth – her first thought was that he had tried to pick up a hedgehog and was learning the lesson but as she got closer she could see that this was not the case at all. A small animal had attached itself to Sam’s face by sinking its teeth into Sam’s snout. Her blood ran cold when she saw that it was a rat.
    Moira desperately wanted to help Sam – wanted to free him of the vile vermin that was causing him such pain, but she found herself unable to through her fear and loathing of rats. Her arms moved like the sails of an uncertain windmill as she tried to approach but was forced to draw back through sheer revulsion. The nightmare moved up a gear when a second rat scampered up on to the bank and attached itself to one of Sam’s front paws. Moira screamed