Barking (56 page)

‘Thank you,' Bowden Allshapes said gravely. ‘Actually, I'm not. I'm well over seven hundred. And, of course, I've never died.' She lowered her voice. ‘Between you, me and Man's Best Friends over there, the certificate wasn't come by honestly. When I told them I was dead, I was fibbing.'

‘Doesn't matter,' Veronica said. ‘It's what's on the register that counts. Besides, if you aren't dead, how can Duncan have been winding up your estate all this time?'

‘But that's not the clever bit,' Luke said, and Duncan was - well,
touched
to notice that he was using his best leader-of-the-pack voice. ‘You're a lawyer. Tell us what happens when somebody dies without leaving a will.'

‘Mr Ferris—'

‘Oh, go on. It'll be more fun if you tell us.'

She scowled at him, but said, ‘His property—'

‘Or her property,' Luke put in. ‘If it's a woman, I mean.'

‘Indeed. His
or her
property goes to the next of kin, according to the intestacy rules. I'd have thought you'd have known that, Mr Ferris. After all, you're a lawyer too.'

‘Oh, I am. All lawyers together. And what happens if all the dear departed's relatives died before she did?'

Just the faintest flicker in Bowden Allshapes's bright, clear eyes. They were brown, Duncan realised. Never noticed that before. Or maybe, before, they hadn't been any colour.

‘Maybe you don't know, so I'll tell you,' Luke went on. ‘If there's no will and no next of kin, everything goes to the government. The whole lot, right down to the shoes you're standing up in. Though, of course,' he added with a nice smile, ‘you can't be standing up, because you're dead.'

‘That would be the position,' Bowden Allshapes said, her voice as brittle as glass, ‘if I hadn't left a will. But I did, and a very good will it is, too. I drafted it myself.'

‘Quite right,' Duncan said, pulling a thick document out of the desk drawer. ‘Beautiful piece of work. Interest in possession trusts, protective trusts, nil-rate-band discretionary trusts: you're clearly a very trusting person—'

‘Well, of course,' Luke muttered. ‘She's a lawyer. And if you can't—'

‘And plenty of named beneficiaries,' Duncan went on. ‘I can remember their names quite well without even having to look. God knows I should do, after the hours I spent doing all those sums. But the thing is,' he continued, ‘they're all dead. Every single one of them. And their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, everybody who'd be entitled to inherit in their place. All gone to their everlasting reward, and quite some time ago, too. Centuries. Oh, I expect you could make a few phone calls and in they'd all come, happy, smiling, healthy people. I mean, you can't get healthier than a walking corpse, can you? They never get ill, not even colds. But not alive,' he added with obvious pleasure, ‘in the eyes of the law. Not when we've got office copies of their death certificates. More to the point, not when the public trustee's got office copies of their death certificates. You know who the public trustee is, don't you? Nice man, with an office in Kingsway. It's his job to wind up estates that pass to the government for want of an heir.'

‘Heir today, gone—'

‘Quiet, Luke.' Duncan realised some time later that he'd said it in a Luke Ferris voice. ‘We took the whole lot round to him a few days ago. He didn't really know what to make of it all, but the court order seems to imply he got the hang of it after we'd left. Of course, I feel bad about giving him so much work to do. I expect he's understaffed and underpaid, like all these government lawyers. But he'll get there in the end, I'm sure of it. And when he does—' Duncan paused, allowing himself to savour the moment: the unicorn, finally brought to bay. ‘He may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he can add up. In Base Ten. And when he does, what do
you
think'll happen?'

Bowden Allshapes was staring at him. Duncan was rather ashamed to say he knew that look. He'd seen it in the eyes of a few small, insignificant animals - squirrels, rats, urban foxes - when the pack had run them to a standstill. If he'd been quite human, maybe it would have bothered him rather more than it did; because humans can't help feeling sorry for the hunted animal, the small and furry, the sleek, slender and beautiful, the underdog. But he wasn't human, not any more. And besides, he was an underdog, too: leader of the underpack, maybe, but that didn't really change anything. Besides, every dog must have its day.

‘I'll die,' Bowden Allshapes said. ‘Is that what you want? To kill me?'

Duncan looked at the other two, who nodded. ‘Yes,' he said.

‘Oh. That seems so—'

‘Quite.' ‘Pretty bloody brutal, is the way I see it. Of course,' he went on, ‘it had to be a lawyer's way of doing it. Stakes through the heart and silver bullets and garlic poisoning and even being hunted down and torn limb from limb by savage wild animals are all very well, but they're so - what's the word I'm looking for? Unofficial, I suppose you could call it. Taking the law into your own hands. Not on the register - and in the end, that's what really counts. Just killing the body's no good at all, when there's someone like you out there who really can deliver on a fate worse than death. But you can't argue with a court order, can you? I mean, it's got its little printed crown on it and everything.'

‘Red in tooth and law,' Luke said, and this time Duncan didn't shush him. He had the feeling Luke had been saving it for a special occasion, and the moment certainly qualified as one.

There was a brief, icy silence, and then Bowden Allshapes seemed to pull herself together. ‘How very naive you are, Mr Hughes,' she said. ‘For a lawyer, I mean. You know perfectly well that I can fight this. We'll appeal, naturally. We'll take it to the House of Lords, Strasbourg, the whole tedious, interminable grand tour. It'll take years.'

‘Oh, absolutely,' Duncan said. ‘I'd hate to think I hadn't given you time to set your affairs in order. It'll be a good, long hunt, I'm sure of it, before they finally run you down. But that's the joy of getting the government involved. I mean, they aren't like
people
. They've got infinite time and infinite money; sooner or later they'll have you, and until then it's the thrill of the chase, isn't it? I have it on good authority that that's what a
real
lawyer lives for. Of course, I'm not a real lawyer, not inside where it matters, I just got bitten by one at an early age. I think you're going to have the time of your life over the next few years, now that there's actually something at stake at last. Nothing like putting your life on the line for helping you get into the spirit of the thing. And when it's all over and you've lost - well, you know what they say. Death and taxes.' He grinned, showing all his teeth. ‘An extra big helping of both, in your case. And you'll have the added satisfaction of knowing that everything you've worked so hard for, all your very long life, will eventually go to build a bypass somewhere, or finance a war for a whole week. You won't be around to see it, of course, but I expect you'll feel so much better knowing it'll be there when you've gone.'

Bowden Allshapes looked Duncan in the eye for a very long time. Then she smiled. It hit him like a slap across the face, but he knew there wasn't really anything behind it, not any more.

‘See you in court,' she said, and left the room.

‘I'd better go after her,' Veronica said quickly. ‘Just to make sure she doesn't set fire to the building or anything.'

Duncan nodded. ‘I have an idea she may be a bit of a sore loser,' he said. ‘Just a feeling, you know. If she offers you something to eat, don't forget your rubber gloves.'

She went away, leaving Duncan and Luke together.

No reason why there should be any awkwardness. Not between such old friends.

‘Well,' Luke said. ‘I suppose this is it, then.'

‘Yes.'

‘Final parting of the ways.'

‘I suppose so.'

Luke jumped up - always so full of energy - then sat down again. ‘This is a bit bloody silly, isn't it?' he said. ‘I mean, after all these years. The big goodbye scene. Melodrama. I thought you didn't like melodrama.'

‘I don't.'

‘Well, then.'

‘As a rule.'

They looked at each other: eye to eye, man to man, werewolf to werewolf. Then Duncan said, ‘You take care, all right? Look both ways before crossing the road. Don't go chasing horses with pointy bits sticking out of their faces. That sort of thing.'

Luke frowned. ‘The others—'

‘Give them my . . . Say hello to them from me,' Duncan said. ‘Especially Pete.' He paused, then added, ‘I always liked Pete.'

It took a moment for that to sink in. ‘Ah,' Luke said. ‘And the rest of us—'

‘Bit like family, really. Whether you like them or not doesn't enter into it. They're always there, like the sun or the sky, so when they aren't around any more the world changes. It's like a whole slice of your past life has suddenly vanished into thin air. Liking them's a bonus, if it happens. But I always liked Pete. Couldn't tell you why.'

‘We'll miss you.'

Duncan nodded. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘I expect you will.'

‘And her?' Luke's eyebrows suggested where a scowl might be. ‘You think it'll all be different and right this time. With her. Because of her. I mean, you hardly know the woman.'

‘That's perfectly true,' Duncan said. ‘But what the hell. If not her, someone else.'

‘Anybody so long as it's not us.'

‘Yes.'

Luke nodded. ‘Ah, well,' he said. ‘A solo werewolf. Can't see it myself. You'll forever be an unpaired sock in the laundry basket of eternity. And to be honest, I don't see it working out - you and Little Miss Eyeshadow there. After all, there's Them and there's Us. Brave, upbeat words don't change anything. The jury's heard it all before.' He stood up; wearily, no spring in his step this time. ‘I think I'd better go now, before I say something nasty. Take care of yourself, Duncan. You know where to find us.'

‘Yes.'

The door closed. Duncan shut his eyes and counted to fifty, listening to the sound of Luke's footsteps, tracing his scent through the corridors. His oldest, best friend. His past. Oh well, he thought. And the others . . . But they'd never really been
friends
, had they? Too close for friendship.

He opened his eyes, made an effort to unclench his clenched muscles, sighed, sat down. It was only when he was leaning back in the chair with his feet on the desk that he realised he'd turned round three times first. Can't be a lone wolf, he thought, they just don't happen. Not a human being any more. Not anything, really. It'd be nice to be something, though.

The phone on the desk rang. He frowned, then picked it up.

‘Me again.'

He caught his breath. Bowden Allshapes. Now he really
hadn't
been expecting to hear from her. ‘Hello,' he said.

‘I forgot to mention,' she said. ‘You do know I've got the power to turn you back into an ordinary human being again, don't you? Easy as pie. For me, not for anybody else.'

Duncan tried to breathe out, but something had got itself stuck. ‘Really?'

‘Oh yes. I was going to mention it earlier, but then you ambushed me with your nasty, spiteful trick, and that drove it clean out of my mind. So sorry.'

‘You mean—' Pulling himself together took an effort that was nearly beyond his strength. ‘You could really do that? Put me back the way I was.'

‘Absolutely. No more superpowers, of course, but so what? Everybody else makes do without them. And everybody else - practically everybody else - is happier than you. Now if I was a small-minded, petty, vengeful person who bore grudges, I'd say no, the hell with him, he'll just have to get on with it. Why should he have his nice old life back again, after what he's done to me? Especially since there's nothing you can do about it, now that that dreadful Mr Eddison's taken charge of the case. A lot of people in my position might think that way, wouldn't they?'

‘Well, yes,' Duncan said quietly. ‘I suppose so.'

A theatrical sigh. ‘I suppose it means I'm a small-minded, petty, vengeful person,' she said, ‘because as far as I'm concerned you can stay a werewolf till you die of mange. Just thought you ought to know what your precious revenge has cost you, that's all. Straight back to the office, George, and don't take any notice of those silly red-and-green lights. Life's too short for traffic signals.'

The line went dead. Slowly and carefully, Duncan put the receiver back. Shit, fuck and bugger, he thought, but on the other hand, never mind. It'd only be really bad for a few days each month. (And if women could cope with that sort of aggravation, so could he, probably.) Apart from that; well. There may be troubles ahead, but while there's moonlight and howling and love and romance, let's face the music and chase lorries.

‘Where's Luke?' Veronica was back in the room. Her office, after all. He looked up and caught sight of the coffin. A vampire: he was in love (probably) with a vampire. Marvellous. Then he noticed that there were picture postcards Blu-Tacked on the side of it: white hotels standing out against royal-blue skies. Did the secretaries remember, when they sent holiday postcards to everybody at the office, that
having a great time on the beach soaking up the sun
wasn't the most tactful message, in context? Apparently not. It was, after all, just an office. If you like your boss, it's only polite to send her a postcard . . .