K-9 (9 page)

Darkus and Wilbur watched as the two dogs came to a halt in the circle of light under the street lamp located outside number 27. The dogs turned to look at each other, as if they were in some sort of silent conver­sation, like co-conspirators – they appeared almost human in the subtlety of their expression. Both dogs directed their gaze upwards to the office. Darkus immediately flicked the light switch off, so he and Wilbur could observe unseen.

‘What are they
doing
here . . . ?’ Darkus uttered under his breath. ‘What are they sniffing around for?’

Wilbur let out a low growl and his tail sank fearfully between his legs.

The dogs gazed up at the office for another full thirty seconds, then appeared to nod at each other and trotted away with identical purpose, but in opposite directions. Darkus squinted to check his eyes hadn’t deceived him.

Within moments, the dogs had exited from opposing ends of the street.

Darkus took a moment to process this nonsensical evidence, then confidently re-entered the office, closely followed by Wilbur.

His father was in mid-speech: ‘I promised once, and I’ll promise you again, Jackie. I won’t let any harm come to him . . .’

‘Dad, I need to speak to Mum,’ Darkus interjected with certainty.

‘Hold on a tick –’ said Knightley, attempting to bring her to a halt. ‘Doc wants to speak to you.’ He shrugged and passed the phone guiltily back to Darkus.

‘Mum, I’m sorry to do this . . . again,’ he admitted, knowing how unfair it was on her. ‘But in the light of recent events I am now convinced the game is – once again – afoot, and Dad needs my help . . . more than ever.’

Her voice came through the handset. ‘Darkus, I know how loyal you are to your dad, and I respect that. But you’re still a child –’

‘Mum, listen to me. For the moment, my being at Wolseley Close is not safe, not for
me
 . . . not for
you
, Clive or Tilly. Something is going on, and until I work out what it is, I’m staying in London with Dad.’

‘And I suppose I have no say in this?’ she argued.

‘You trusted me once. Just trust me again.’

‘What d’you expect me to say, Darkus?’ Jackie’s voice wavered with emotion. ‘If I agree I’m putting you in harm’s way, and if I refuse –’

‘You’ll be doing the exact same thing,’ Darkus answered for her.

‘So what am I meant to do?’ she asked helplessly.

‘Call Cranston on Monday. Be as convincing as you can. Tell them I’m suffering a bout of seasonal influenza, my temperature is fluctuating between thirty-nine and forty-one degrees, my glands are up and you’ve confined me to bed rest for the next few days. At least until the full moon.’

Knightley raised his eyebrows, realising his son was now, without question, on the case.

‘Until the full moon . . . ?’ Jackie asked, incredulous.

Darkus realised he’d said too much. ‘Yes. I believe I will have completed my work here by then. Thanks for understanding, Mum.’

‘Wait, Darkus –’

‘The trail is getting cold, Mum. I love you. I’ll keep my phone on whenever I can, as long as it doesn’t compromise the investigation. Bye for now.’ Darkus winced and ended the call, then looked up at his dad.

‘She’ll understand,’ said Knightley in an attempt at reassurance. ‘It’s me she won’t forgive.’

‘I’m more concerned by our current predicament,’ said Darkus. ‘Have you noticed a pair of dogs conducting surveillance on the office?’

‘Dogs? Conducting surveillance?’

‘I believe so, yes,’ said Darkus.

‘I’ve seen nothing of the kind.’

‘Then I must assume they’ve either eluded your attention, or they have somehow followed me from Wolseley Close – incredible as that may sound.’

‘You saw them there as well?’ asked Knightley, astonished.

Darkus nodded. ‘Last night . . . And they’re no ordin­ary canines. They appear to be a particularly aggressive-looking Rottweiler mix.’ Darkus hesitated, before proceeding with testimony that he knew full well would provide a lit match to his father’s most explosive and far-fetched ideas. ‘I only have visual evidence, in poor light, but I believe – irrational as it sounds – that these dogs are able to communicate with each other, possibly in an operational capacity.’

‘You mean they’re “smart” dogs?’ Knightley’s ears pricked up.

‘It would appear so. The question is . . . what do they want with us?’

‘The question is . . .’ Knightley weighed in, ‘are we in fact dealing with more than one werewolf . . . ?’ He pondered a moment. ‘Think about the attacks on the police. The missing pets on the Heath.’

Darkus shook his head. ‘I would prefer to stay in the realm of reality, not the supernatural. We don’t even know that the cases are linked.’

‘The evidence will determine which one of us is residing in reality, Doc,’ said Knightley, then sat back in his chair and massaged his brow, as if waiting for an answer to present itself. ‘Well, what are your theories?’ he submitted.

‘Based on the evidence, Dad,’ Darkus began, ‘the paw print we found at Hampstead Heath cannot be a match for the prints of the dogs that have been watching us. The print from the Heath was far larger in size and far more unusual in toe spread and angle of footfall. Therefore, I can conclude that these two lines of investigation are – so far –
un
related.’

‘It’s too early to make that assumption,’ Knightley reprimanded him. ‘The soil may have been corrupted. The Heath is three hundred and twenty hectares large. There must be more prints out there.’ Knightley’s eyes lit up wildly. ‘Given time and resources, we may be able to find them.’

Darkus realised he was yet again engaged in the same old dispute with his father: namely, would the five senses account for every unexplained incident in the world; or, in some cases, does the occult provide the only solution, however improbable it might seem?

‘As you say,’ Darkus continued, ‘the Heath is the size of a small town. It would be like looking for a needle . . . in a small town. Besides, I see no reason to force the square peg of a mythical werewolf into the round hole of this investigation. So far, there is no empirical connection. Our immediate problem is that we appear to be under surveillance by a pair of very clever canines.’

‘So what d’you recommend we do about it?’

‘Simple. We use counter-surveillance,’ Darkus replied.

‘You mean cameras?’ Knightley remarked. Darkus shook his head in response. ‘Then what . . . ?’

Wilbur trotted into the middle of the room and sat perfectly upright.

‘You’re looking at him,’ said Darkus, nodding to the dog. ‘Wilbur can tell us when they’re here,’ Darkus announced. ‘He can
smell
them.’

‘Your reasoning is sound,’ admitted Knightley.

Darkus steepled his fingers and narrowed his gaze. ‘Once he has the scent, we might even be able to
track
them.’

Chapter 8

An Early Morning Walk

Later that evening, the Knightleys found their senses overpowered by the characteristically pungent aroma of Bogna’s traditional Polish cooking. After a meal of
bigos
(hunter’s stew) consisting of boiled cabbage, boiled sausage and boiled onions, which could have fed an army, and required several hours to digest (Darkus feared some ingredients would never be fully digested), Knightley ordered his son to set aside the case for the day.

Darkus suspected his father was still holding something back from him, but he couldn’t work out what it was; and Darkus knew that if he confronted his dad, he would only clam up further.

The Knightleys retired to their respective bedrooms – Darkus’s being the chaise longue in the office. Wilbur opted for the armchair opposite.

Darkus and his dog both slept fitfully, with each of them flinching and emitting mumbled communications that were more the result of the unconscious than the conscious. At around five in the morning, Wilbur slipped off the armchair and leaped to his feet, causing Darkus to do the same. Darkus tuned his hearing to cover all possible frequencies, finding one wavelength that contained the rumbling, bronchial snores of Bogna; and another that appeared to contain muffled footsteps descending the stairs and quietly closing the front door behind them. Having superior powers of hearing, Wilbur had already darted to the office window; and when Darkus joined him they saw Knightley striding down Cherwell Place towards the alley with the row of garages – one of which contained the black London cab.

Before Darkus could assemble his thoughts, he heard his father’s cab stutter, then fire up on all cylinders, exploding into life. Seconds later it accelerated out of the alley and vanished down a side street. Darkus pressed the speed dial on his phone, but, as he suspected, his dad’s mobile was switched off. He opened an application on his phone and hailed a black cab online. Then he threw on his clothes and descended the stairs. As he took the collar and lead from a coat hook, Wilbur cried with excitement, until Darkus hushed him, for fear of alerting Bogna. Fortunately her rumbling snores were undisturbed.

Darkus closed the front door behind him and led Wilbur towards the waiting cab. He was tempted to say ‘Follow that car’, but realised his father was already long gone.

The cabbie leaned out of the window and pointed to Wilbur. ‘He soils the vehicle – you’re paying.’

‘I give you my personal guarantee, he’ll do nothing of the sort,’ replied Darkus. ‘Now please take us to Hampstead Heath as quickly as possible.’ He led Wilbur into the cabin and was thrown back in his seat as the driver hit the accelerator.

During the ride, Darkus thought he saw his father’s cab some way ahead, racing through shadowy intersections in the predawn light. But it was too far away to tell if it was Knightley or just another black cab in a hurry, like the one Darkus was now travelling in. Wilbur raised his nose to the half-open window, drinking in the motley array of smells that circulated around the capital in the early hours.

The cabbie drove them up a steep hill, past the Hampstead Heath overground station, arriving at a car park overlooking the fields and ponds. Even at this elevation, the sun was still below the treeline and the capital was veiled in an ominous blue shadow. The cabbie’s headlights picked out the empty gravelled lot until, sure enough, Darkus spotted his father’s Fairway cab parked diagonally in the corner nearest the park entrance. Whatever the purpose of his early morning visit, his dad clearly wasn’t wasting any time.

The rest of the Heath, for as far as the eye could see, was deserted.

Darkus paid the driver, nearly cleaning out his wallet in the process, and led Wilbur out of the rear passenger door. At once, Wilbur raised his snout to the air like a chef distinguishing between minutely different ingredients, then bobbed his nose around as if searching for one scent in particular.

‘Dad . . .’ prompted Darkus. ‘Can you smell him?’

Wilbur cried, trying to reply.

Darkus licked his finger and raised it to the dark sky, feeling the saliva evaporate. ‘We’re downwind. We’re in luck,’ he reminded himself. ‘Wind carries sound, and smell . . .’

Wilbur barked a response, then led Darkus towards his father’s black cab.

Darkus waited patiently, as Wilbur sniffed around the driver side of the car, then the dog’s tail stood upright and he started tugging on the lead, urgently pulling Darkus towards a large meadow that spanned the length of the ponds.

Darkus found himself being dragged, running behind Wilbur as they made a beeline across the grassy expanse towards a long, dusty track. Barely able to keep up, Darkus reached down for Wilbur’s collar.

‘Wilbur, listen to me. If I let you off the lead, don’t lose me, OK, boy? OK . . . ?’

Wilbur replied with a two-tone whimper that almost sounded like ‘OK.’

Darkus unclipped the lead from the collar, and Wilbur bounded through the long grass, which almost submerged him, except for his tail, which remained bolt upright. He was on the hunt. The dog leaped over the larger patches of undergrowth with what looked like unadulterated joy. Darkus suddenly imagined him as a puppy, surging forward without limitation, without anxiety or fear – as if the world, however big, couldn’t contain him. The scared, nervous Wilbur was, for now, a figment of the past. Darkus sprinted to keep up with him, watching the erect tail cut effortlessly through the wilderness like the periscope of a fast attack submarine.

Wilbur appeared on a bluff in the distance, triumph­antly raised his snout to the air again, then veered off to the right, joining the dust track that was now clearly in view, leading into a particularly dark cluster of woods.

Incredibly, as Darkus crested the bluff, he saw his father two hundred metres ahead on the same track, his distinctive tweed hat and overcoat blowing in the breeze. As if sensing their presence, Knightley turned around and waved, before shouting out:

‘Call him off, Doc. And you too!’ His voice carried on the wind.

‘Why?!’ Darkus shouted back. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Looking for more prints of course. This is my case, Doc, leave it to me! I promised your mother I wouldn’t let any harm come to you.’