Never Too Late Read Online Free PDF Page B

down for the night.”
    Before PC Whitlow could protest at the potential hazard she had opened the rear of the van and was fitting the collar round the dog’s neck. A click from the spring release hook and the lead was on too.
    “Come on lad, no point staying here now.”
    The dog made no resistance at all to being led to Liz’s van and obediently jumped in when told.
    “You’ve certainly got a way with dogs,” he commented admiringly.
    Liz was looking concerned. “He’s in shock at the moment. At least he’s not injured. We probably won’t be able to do a full assessment for at least a week, but hopefully he’ll be back with the family before that.”
    She closed up the van, signed for receipt of the dog, then reached into the glove compartment. She turned back to PC Whitlow and gave him her card. “There’s my mobile number – use that rather than the landline as I’m not often in. I want to know anything you can find out about him as soon as you know.”
    “Certainly,” he agreed. “I’ll make sure someone gets in touch as soon as possible.”
    “And anything that belongs to him,” she added. “A blanket, toys, anything like that. If they could be brought over it will help tremendously.”
    She got into the driver’s seat. “Oh,” she suddenly remembered and opened the window. “Words of command. Ask Mrs Williams which words her son used so we can keep some consistency for him. He’s suffered enough without having to learn a new vocabulary.” With a wave out of the window she drove off.
    PC Whitlow watched her go, then settled back in his car to await the recovery vehicle. Now how would that go down, he wondered? “Sorry for your loss, Mrs Williams, now would you write a list of commands for the dog?” At least Family Liaison had the right training and no doubt would manage it sympathetically. It would have to be done, though, or he could imagine Liz going herself and demanding to know!
     
     
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~
     
     
    April
     
    The clocks had changed, but even this earlier hour had found Maggie wakeful and restless. Sleep was eluding her more frequently of late. She had not lain in bed long, listening to the liquid trills of the blackbird that nested every year in the lilac, when the growing chorus from her garden residents had tempted her to join them.
    Passing through her small wood she noticed the teeming new life. The willows draped their tresses over the banks of the stream, sheltering a pair of sooty grey coots and their nestlings. She saw new frog spawn lying on the bottom of the water, the jelly not yet having absorbed enough water to float to the top for the warmth of the sunlight. Silver birch catkins peeked out from the leaves, and the rowan leaf cones were unfurling.
    In the meadow at the far end of the garden Maggie stood, totally still, awed by the beauty of the dawn. She watched as the vast red globe of the sun lifted above the horizon, turning the wispy cloud to raspberry ripple. The redness morphed into orange and then yellow, the clouds returned to white, then melted away in the growing power of the sun’s rays.
    She could make out the acid yellow of rape coming into flower in a distant field, and nearer pasture was lush with new growth. The bleating of ewes with their lambs was clear on the still air, and she watched a vixen trotting along a hedge-line. The leaves seemed to have leapt a week in a day, vibrant green now where there had only been bare thorny twigs, and blackthorn blossom frothed in creamy clusters.
    She turned away, the sun too bright to look at any longer, and wandered back to the garden. She paused to admire the creamy, pink-tinged magnolia blossom, but also spotting less welcome growth.
    I must get on top of that bramble coming through the hedge before it spreads too far.
    She bent to pull out some bindweed from one of the beds, regretting having to destroy such delicate, almost translucent, beauty of leaf, but knowing well what a bully it would soon