Impulsively Piers took a step towards her, stopping dead, a muscle twitching in his jaw, as he saw the way Georgia was looking at him, her expression, her whole body tight and frozen with rejection.
Georgia shivered. Just for a moment she had thought that Piers was going to reach out and touch her... comfort her... That just showed the state she was in—the vulnerability of her emotions. But what was even worse was that for a small space of time she had actually felt impelled to go towards him, to betray by her body language just how much she longed for and needed the comfort of his arms around her, the reassurance of his voice telling her that everything was going to be all right, that Ben was safe, that she had misunderstood.
Both of them tensed as they heard someone ringing the front doorbell.
Predictably, or so it seemed to Georgia, Piers got to the front door before she did, opening it and then demanding quickly as he gestured to the police officer standing outside to come in, ‘Have you found him? Is he...?’
The officer, briefed by his colleagues, had heard how the owner of the expensive car which had been stolen from the town was far more concerned about the fate of the dog which had been in the car than the vehicle itself. He sympathised. He had a dog himself, and two children who would be distraught if anything similar should happen to it.
‘No, I’m afraid we haven’t, sir; however, there is some news on the car. Apparently a lorry driver reported seeing a car that matches the description of yours being driven erratically on the motorway going north. We’ve alerted all the motorway units, but so far none of them have seen anything.
‘You mentioned in your statement that the car had an almost full tank of petrol,’ he added with a faint sigh that fell just short of being gently reproving.
‘Unfortunately, yes,’ Piers agreed, whilst Georgia, who had overheard everything the police officer had said, stood rigidly in the hallway, her face white and her heart thumping.
Piers hadn’t lied to her after all. He had told her the truth. His car had been stolen with Ben in it. She swallowed hard. She obviously owed him an apology.
‘We think we’ve got a pretty good idea of the identity of the pair who’ve taken the car,’ the police officer was continuing. ‘The lorry driver reported two occupants, both of them young males, and we established that two local youths who have a record for taking cars without the owners’ permission and using them for joyriding are missing from their usual haunts in the town. It’s a pity the car had a full tank of petrol; however, on the plus side, the fact that they’ve driven it on to the motorway suggests that they will simply use it for joyriding and then, once the tank is empty, dump it somewhere.’
‘Never mind about the car,’ Piers told him. ‘What about Ben, the dog? Did the lorry driver...?’
The policeman shook his head.
‘No. There was no report about any dog, but...’ He paused and looked uncertainly at Georgia, whose pale, set face gave away her anxiety. ‘The fact that there hasn’t been any sighting suggests...er...that the dog must still be in the car...’
He meant that the youths hadn’t opened the door and pushed Ben out onto the motorway, Georgia guessed, correctly interpreting his coded words. She was a vet, after all, and she had had experience of dogs being thus treated, sometimes by their owners, but that didn’t stop her eyes filling with panicky tears or her hand going up to her mouth to stifle the small sound of pain she could feel rising in her throat.
‘He’s a large, heavy dog,’ Piers said quickly. ‘I doubt he could be easily ejected from the car if he didn’t want to be.’
‘Try not to worry,’ the police officer told Georgia gruffly. ‘Sometimes these joyriders have radios that allow them to listen in to police frequencies, so we’re broadcasting a message that there’ll be a substantial reward for the return of the dog—just as you asked us to,’ he told Piers.
Piers had offered a reward for Ben’s safe return. Georgia could feel her face going scarlet with mortification.
‘You’ll let us know just as soon as you hear anything?’ Piers was requesting the police officer as he turned to leave.
Confirming that he would, he stepped out of the front door, leaving Piers to close it behind him.
As they stood together in the hallway Georgia took a deep breath and closed her eyes, opening them almost immediately as she tried to draw on her rapidly depleting store of inner strength.
‘I’m very sorry about what I said about you...about you hurting Ben and lying about what had happened to him,’ she said, starting her apologies with the words carefully spaced apart, but then rushing over them so that one virtually ran into the other as she finished quickly, ‘I owe you an apology and I...I shouldn’t have said what I did,’ she concluded huskily.