No Going Back (19 page)

Was this the knife that had scarred Marika? Suddenly Daniel felt certain it was, and in the same instant feared that he knew who the girl on the moor was. If Patrescu suspected that Marika had helped Katya and Daniel escape that night at the house, they would no longer be able to trust her. Macek was doing Patrescu's housekeeping: cleaning up the loose ends that posed a danger to their operation. Marika had been one, and he – Daniel – was another.

It crossed Daniel's mind that he could just keep moving and leave Macek and the car behind. His mobile, frustratingly, was lying in the coin tray of the car, and it would be a longish walk to the nearest phone, but he might still have considered it if it hadn't been for Taz.

With his fear of dogs, there was no way Macek would risk opening the back of the car to tackle Taz face to face, but if Daniel slipped through his fingers, what was to stop him torching the car with the dog inside?

Moments later, as if the Romanian had read his mind, Daniel saw the flare of a lighter flame in his hand. Macek held it out towards the car and waved it gently to and fro.

‘Say goodbye to the doggie,' he taunted, raising his voice above the furious barking from within.

It wasn't the goading that galvanized Daniel into action but the knowledge that in order to activate the lighter, Macek had passed the knife to his left hand. If Daniel was going to make a move – and at some point he
was
going to have to – there probably wouldn't be a better moment than now.

Bending to scoop up a handful of grit and pebbles, he lunged forward and threw it in the Romanian's face, following with a punch that held all the weight of payback.

He was aware of the big man staggering back, the expiring flame of the lighter describing a brief orange arc as it fell, but he saw it on the periphery of his vision, all his attention fixed on opening the back of the Merc and releasing the dog. As soon as the catch on the inner guard slid free, Taz barged out, knocking Daniel aside in his haste to get at the Romanian.

As Daniel recovered his balance, he heard the fence on the far side of the drive shake violently as the Romanian launched himself at it.

Taz was only inches behind him, his teeth snapping on empty air as Macek scrambled over. For a moment he continued to bark furiously, his claws raking at the wooden panels, and then yipped and whined a time or two before running off down the drive towards the back of the building.

Daniel hurried to the front of the car to kill the engine and retrieve his torch. By the time he turned round and switched it on, he was alone in the drive. Presumably Taz had wriggled under the fence where he had before and had taken off across the adjacent field in pursuit of his quarry.

His guess was borne out when he heard the shepherd start barking once again, a little way off, a sure sign that he was confronting his adversary.

Macek was shouting now, perhaps in an attempt to intimidate the dog, but Daniel knew Taz wouldn't be turned. As he prepared to tackle the fence and go to his partner's aid, there came some ferocious snarling, a muffled yelp and then a worrying silence.

Daniel's blood ran cold. He knew of only one thing that would silence his dog when he was tackling a suspect.

‘Taz!' he shouted, then stood listening hard for some sound that would tell him the dog was OK. As he waited, his heart thudding with fear, he heard a car door slam, followed by the revving of an engine and the screech of tortured rubber as a vehicle pulled away along the lane beyond the field.

It seemed Macek had gone, but what should have been a huge relief was cancelled out by Daniel's fear for Taz. It wasn't the first time the dog had faced a knifeman, but there was always a risk, and the Romanian was, undeniably, a very powerful man.

Putting two fingers to his lips, Daniel whistled, pausing afterwards to listen.

Silence.

Panic rose sharply. Taz was just about the only constant in his life at the moment and the thought of losing him was bleak indeed.

He tucked the torch into his waistband and, gauging the height of the fence, took a step back, then two quick strides forward and leaped at the panelling.

Dropping to the ground on the other side, the first thing Daniel saw was a tiny gleam of reflected moonlight down at his feet. He bent to look more closely, parting the rough grass. Macek's knife. In his hasty scramble over the fence it must have slipped from his grip and he'd been too afraid of the dog to risk stopping to search for it.

A quick examination revealed that the weapon was a single-action flick knife. Straightening up, Daniel slid the blade back into its haft and slipped it into his pocket. Switching the torch on, he swept the beam across the field. The grass was long – the untidy remains of an uncut hay crop from last year – and the torchlight yellow and fading with the need of a new battery. There was no sign of the dog.

Daniel shouted again with no success and then tried to calm himself and apply logic.

There was a gate in the hedge on the far side of the field and if Macek had parked in the lane beyond, he would surely have been heading for that when Taz had caught up with him, so the sensible plan of action would be to search along that line. Walking at a brisk pace and sweeping the torch beam from side to side ahead of him, Daniel set off across the field, desperate to find the dog, yet conversely afraid to.

He was nearly at the gate when he spotted a dark mound in the grass to one side. The torchlight picked out dark fur, and with an incoherent moan, Daniel dropped to his knees beside the dog, his heart contracting with fear.

Taz was lying tumbled in a heap, partly on his belly, partly on his side. He looked lifeless, but placing a shaking hand on his ribcage, Daniel detected a slight movement and sent a quick word of thanks winging upwards. He put the torch between his teeth and carefully straightened the dog out, searching all the while for signs of injury.

It was when he put his hands gently under Taz's head that he found the root of the trouble. The dog was bleeding copiously from a gash between his left eye and ear, and the area was already badly swollen.

‘It's all right. Good boy. It's OK,' Daniel said, even though the dog couldn't hear him.

He rubbed the warm fur of Taz's shoulder and looked back across the darkness of the field, his mind racing. First things first. He had to get the dog to the car – or rather, he amended, thinking of the impossibility of the panel fencing – the car to the dog. Thanks to the proximity of the lane, that was fairly easy, and with more words of reassurance to his unconscious partner, he stood up and started back over the rough grass at a run.

In less than five minutes, Daniel brought the Merc to a skidding halt in the lane outside the field gate. Killing the engine, he leaped out and threw open both tailgate and guard, ready to receive the injured dog.

Lying on the tarmac level with the gate was a length of wood, and pausing briefly to shine the torch on it, Daniel saw a broken fencing spar, some 3 feet long. A tuft of fur adhering to a bent nail on one edge labelled it as the weapon the Romanian had used on the dog, dropped as he made for his car.

When Daniel reached Taz, he hardly dared look, but the dog's condition seemed unchanged, which was both a blessing and a worry.

He was deeply concerned. Macek wouldn't have held back. What if the blow had fractured the dog's skull? He could, even now, be haemorrhaging into his brain; there was no way of knowing.

Daniel forced his mind away from the unthinkable and concentrated on carefully working his hands under the dog to lift him. Gathering him into his arms, he staggered upright with Taz's 40-odd kilos hanging limply in his grasp.
A dead weight
, Daniel's brain unhelpfully supplied as the dog's head lolled over his arm.

He carried him to the car and laid him gently on the blankets in the back, spreading one over his still body to keep him warm. In the dim light provided by the car, the dog's condition looked no more encouraging, and fishing for his mobile phone with fingers slippery with blood, Daniel searched his memory for a directory enquiries number. God, he heard the adverts on the radio all the time; they drove him mad! Why couldn't he remember the bloody numbers now, when he needed them?

Fred Bowden, he thought with a flash of inspiration. Fred's wife had a dog; they'd know where to find a vet and they lived closer than either Hilary or Tamzin.

Daniel's hands were shaking so much it took him two attempts to key in his boss's home number, and when the connection was made, it seemed to ring for ever.

‘Come on, Fred. Pick it up,' Daniel begged. ‘Please don't be out . . .'

He rubbed the dog's soft fur. ‘Hang on, Taz, d'you hear me? You damn well hang on!'

‘Hello?' Bowden sounded as though he might have been asleep.

‘Fred, Taz has been hurt. I need a vet quickly.'

‘Right. Hold on. I'll get the number. Are you at home?'

‘Yes.'

Daniel waited, silently blessing Bowden's quick, quiet efficiency. His army training, he supposed. The last thing he'd needed just now was questions.

‘OK.' Bowden was back. ‘We go to a vet on the north side of Tavistock, but Meg says there's one closer to you. I'll hand her over while I ring ahead on my mobile and tell them you're coming.'

The next moment, Fred's wife came on, also blessedly brief and to the point, giving Daniel the name of the practice and the necessary directions before wishing him luck and ringing off.

Daniel leaned close to Taz and told him, once again, that he was a good boy and that everything would be fine, and then shut the back down, wiped his hands on his jeans and got into the driver's seat.

His left palm stung a little, still oozing blood, and for the first time since it happened, Daniel became aware of the knife wound. There was no time to stop and bind the injury properly. Irritated at the delay, Daniel grabbed a cloth from the pocket in the car door and hastily wrapped it round his hand, tucking in the loose end.

That taken care of, he reversed the car into the field gateway, pulled back on to the tarmac, changed gear and accelerated hard, wishing he could see the dog from where he sat.

‘It's all right, lad,' he said over his shoulder. ‘We'll soon have you sorted. You hang on, OK?'

Daniel drove as fast as he could without giving Taz too rough a ride in the back, desperately hoping he wouldn't have the bad luck to be stopped by a roving police patrol on the narrow back roads.

Thanks to Meg's efficient instructions, he reached the vet's surgery in just under ten minutes, drove right up to the building and ran the car to an untidy halt on the pavement outside the lighted glass door.

This was opened immediately by a slight, blonde female in a green uniform bearing the name of the practice.

‘Daniel Whelan?' she asked.

‘That's right.' Daniel went straight to the back of the car and lifted the tailgate, consumed by the fear that it would be already too late, but, incredibly, as the light came on, Taz's eyes were open and he lifted his head slightly.

Even though he knew Taz was by no means out of the woods, the relief brought tears to Daniel's eyes, and he buried his face in the dog's fur as he leaned forward to pick him up once more.

‘Bring him straight in,' the blonde said, pulling the door wide. ‘You were lucky. I had another emergency and was already here. So, what's been happening with this chap?'

‘He tackled a burglar.' As he lifted the dog out of the car, Daniel gave her the story he'd prepared on the journey. ‘He gave chase, and when I found him, he was unconscious. He's got a nasty wound on his head. I think he was hit with a piece of wood.'

‘In here,' the vet said, holding open an inner door as Daniel followed her across the reception area with the dog in his arms. ‘Pop him on the table. When did this happen?'

‘About fifteen or twenty minutes ago.' In the consulting room, Daniel carefully lowered Taz on to the rubber-topped table, wincing as the dog whimpered slightly. Although he was lying still, his eyes were open and black with fear. Daniel stroked the thick, soft fur.

‘It's a good sign that he's coming round. I'm Emma, by the way.'

The vet got straight down to business, lifting one of the dog's eyelids to examine his pupils and his lip to assess the colour of his gums. ‘That looks OK. You did the right thing in keeping him warm,' she added as she reached for a stethoscope. ‘Let's have a little look at him.'

Daniel murmured reassurance to Taz, while Emma carried out a thorough examination and then gently cleaned the ugly wound on Taz's head with some moistened cotton wool.

‘We'll get him X-rayed to rule out fracture and check for internal bleeding. You're a good lad,' she added, ruffling the dog's fur.

‘Is he going to be all right?' Daniel had gone through such agonies of anxiety on the journey that he hardly dared to hope.

‘I can't give you a positive until I've seen the X-rays. There's always a risk with head trauma, as I'm sure you're aware. I'd be happier if he was showing a little more willingness to move, but his vital signs are looking OK and his reflexes are normal, so that's all encouraging.' She broke off as the door opened and a round-faced girl with a shock of ginger curls came in, wearing a thick fleece over her uniform.

‘Ah, Sarah. Good. Just in time,' Emma said. She introduced Daniel and explained the situation. ‘Obviously he's going to need stitches and there's also a broken tooth that'll have to come out. I'll give him a painkiller and a shot of antibiotics for now, and then we'll keep an eye on him for half an hour or so before we anaesthetize, just to make sure there's nothing else going on.'

After forty tense minutes, Taz was taken in to surgery. Left alone in the waiting room, Daniel spent the time beating himself up over the events of the last hour or so.

How
could
he have been so stupid, he demanded over and over again, as to have been caught out like some rookie by what was practically the oldest trick in the book?