The Dark Master of Dogs

by Chris Ward

  The door opened to reveal a girl still only partially dressed. Patrick ran back into the living room and lifted a corner of the drape to look outside.

  Five DCA agents had climbed out of the van and were approaching the front path.

  He ran back into the hall. ‘There’s no time!’ he hissed up the stairs. ‘They’re coming!’

  Suzanne came bounding out of another upstairs door, a bundle of clothes under one arm as she pulled Kelly along with the other. The girl had underwear and a blouse on, but no trousers or shoes. Patrick, figuring the girl was with them now whether he liked it or not, and that without decent footwear they’d all be caught, grabbed the nearest child-sized pair of shoes off a rack behind the front door which the dead man had tilted against the wall.

  As Suzanne and Kelly came down the stairs, he hurried for the back door.

  It led out onto a wide garden with a well-mown lawn and a little pond in the centre. A privet hedge made a border, and through a sheared gap a little gate led out onto a public park.

  Patrick pushed the girls ahead of him and clicked the door shut. He risked one glance back through a side window beside the door and saw the first DCA agents attempting to push through the door obstructed by the body. The first one realised what it was, pulled his gun, and began aiming it through the doors around him. Patrick dropped back out of sight.

  The girls had reached the gate. Patrick waved them through as he dashed across the lawn.

  ‘Across the park,’ he said. ‘There are other residential streets. We have to lose them.’

  ‘Hey!’

  He looked up. A DCA man was leaning out of the back door, looking at Patrick. He started to lift his gun.

  Instinctively, Patrick lifted his fingers in a gun motion, pointed at the DCA agent and shouted, ‘Bang!’

  The childlike ruse worked. The DCA agent flinched back, caught his foot on the lip of the back step, and tumbled over backward.

  ‘Run,’ Patrick told the girls. ‘Don’t look back.’

  The park covered several hectares and contained small hillocks, stands of trees, open play areas, and a central boating lake. Patrick caught up and took the lead, taking them on a windy route that would put as many obstructions in their way as possible. He had no idea whether the DCA men would give direct chase or simply call for backup, but he heard no sirens, saw no men, and heard no gunshots.

  Soon, however, Kelly was struggling.

  ‘She needs a rest,’ Suzanne said, pulling up as they reached the back of a line of houses and ducked down behind a hedgerow creating an enclosed passage for a footpath that ran behind the houses and alongside the park.

  Kelly looked up at her, gasping. ‘Are we safe?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Suzanne said. ‘We need to find somewhere to hide out. Do you have a friend, someone you would trust completely, who lives near here? Anyone who might take you in but keep quiet about it?’

  Kelly frowned, then shook her head. ‘No one … but we could go to Dad’s cabin.’

  ‘Cabin?’

  ‘Yes; he has a small summer house up by the reservoir. He likes to fish there in summer. We haven’t been there this year, but I remember it always had food in the cupboards.’

  ‘Do you know how to get there?’

  ‘We always drove. It took about half an hour.’

  ‘Probably about ten miles,’ Patrick said. ‘That’s a long walk. A shame we can’t take a bus.’

  ‘Why can’t we?’ Kelly said.

  ‘We don’t have any money.’

  Kelly reached into the pocket of the trousers Suzanne had brought and which she had since put on. She withdraw a small pink pouch that looked like it had been recently washed.

  She held it up. ‘I do,’ she said.

  Her few coins of pocket money was enough to get three tickets on a town bus which stopped a short walk from the reservoir outside Cheddar. They sat awkwardly, certain that the DCA would pull up alongside the bus and drag them off, but the farther the bus trundled away from Kelly’s house, the safer Patrick felt. Finally, they were driving through quaint farmland, pulling up at a stop beside a farm gate. Across the field, the water was visible behind a stand of trees.

  They climbed down. Kelly still looked ashen-faced but Suzanne was smiling. As the bus pulled away, Kelly pointed at a track leading into the trees.

  ‘I’m not sure where it is, but if we go over there I can probably remember.’

  They started walking again. Kelly was limping, so Suzanne put an arm around her shoulders. Patrick, feeling a strange twinge of jealousy, hung at the back, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to look out for cars or any signs of pursuit.

  After fifteen minutes of walking, the road ended at a forested area with small dirt trails leading inside but branching off in several directions. Patrick saw the shadows of several wooden huts sat at intervals in the woods, some expansively large, others barely more than a single room.

  The reservoir had appeared through the trees when Kelly suddenly pointed and said with a delighted squeal, ‘That’s it! That one over there.’

  The cabin was an overlarge summerhouse, single-floored, with a veranda out the front on which stood a wooden table and three chairs.

  Kelly squatted down and peered under the veranda. She turned over a rounded stone and stood up, brandishing a key.

  ‘He always leaves it there,’ she said.

  Patrick made a move to climb up the couple of steps onto the veranda, but Suzanne was still staring at Kelly.

  ‘Why didn’t you say?’ she said, pointing at Kelly’s back.

  Sheepishly, Kelly lifted the back of her blouse to reveal a bloody gash a few centimetres long. It had tried to scab over but had broken open again during their flight.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Kelly said.

  ‘It’s a stab wound.’

  ‘I caught myself when he knocked my arm,’ Kelly said. She looked about to say more, but her eyes had taken on that faraway look which suggested she was reliving the fight all over again.

  ‘Let’s just get inside,’ Patrick said. ‘Then we can think about what to do next.’

  They went into the cabin. It was compact and cozy, well-stocked with food and other supplies, as though Don had been stockpiling for something a little more expansive than a simple lakeside holiday. Suzanne helped Kelly down onto a sofa. Patrick took a chair opposite.

  ‘Let me have a look at your wound,’ Suzanne said to Kelly, who reluctantly rolled over on her side. ‘Patrick, find me some water and a cloth.’

  He went through into a small kitchen. The taps worked, although there was no hot water. He found a cloth in a cupboard under the sink and returned with it.

  Suzanne had Kelly lying on her side, her blouse pulled up. Patrick handed Suzanne the cloth and she began to clean the wound. Patrick went back into the kitchen to look for medical supplies but found only a small box of plasters, gauze, and a tube of antiseptic cream that was a couple of years out of date.

  When he returned again, Suzanne had cleaned the wound. It was as long as his hand, deep at one end where the point had gone in. The flesh around it was red and inflamed.

  Patrick handed Suzanne the supplies he had found. ‘That’s all I saw.’

  ‘It’ll help, thanks. Keep looking.’

  Patrick went out again. This time he carried out a more extensive search of the kitchen area, but besides the food stocks, there was little else of use.

  When he returned again, this time empty-handed, Suzanne had lain Kelly down on the sofa and pulled a blanket over her. Kelly was already snoring softly.

  ‘What do you think?’ Patrick said. ‘Can we stay here for long?’

  Suzanne’s eyes were filled with sorrow. ‘That wound is bad,’ she said. ‘She can’t travel like that. Not on foot. But how long can we stay here until they find us? Eventually they’ll figure it out. Don must have left some clue behind, or else he’ll talk when they interrogate him. We’re living on borrowed time, Patrick.’

 
He looked out of the window at the lake, a short distance down a pine-needle slope, its waters serene and calm, barely troubled by the wind.

  ‘I know,’ he said.

  22

  Urla

  The man stepped out of the car, his face still hidden in shadow beneath a wide-brimmed hat.

  ‘I’m glad you could make it,’ Urla said. ‘This way.’

  She led the man across the parking area to the small warehouse building, opening the door with her own key. As she glanced back to see if he were following, she resisted the urge to scan the surrounding forest with her eyes, aware that Justin’s men would be hidden there, keeping watch in case things went awry.

  ‘It’s in here,’ she said, holding the door for the man to step through.

  Still he said nothing, but that was no surprise. He probably still wondered why he had been called here, rung up in the middle of the night and asked to meet with a woman he hadn’t seen in twenty years.

  Urla lifted a torch, illuminating the corridor with a single patch of light. She walked ahead of the man, her heels clacking on the tiles until she stopped outside a metal door. Another key opened it and she went inside, this time switching on a light which bathed the room in a pale glow.

  The remains of a creature lay strapped to a gurney in the middle of the room. The stench of its decaying flesh was pungent, despite the refrigeration system designed to keep it intact. As Urla approached, wrinkling her nose, she saw that indeed it had not begun to decay, but something else entirely: the flesh where it had been torn apart was slowly beginning to knit back together.

  She gave a slow shake of her head. Sorcery. She had refused to believe what her scientists had said until she saw it with her own eyes.

  ‘This thing attacked a DCA checkpoint and killed two men,’ she said. ‘A third is in a critical condition, unlikely to survive, but he managed to shoot it through the head.’

  ‘What is it?’ The man’s voice was cold, but now that he had finally spoken, Urla could be sure it was him.

  ‘It’s something designed for killing,’ she said. ‘It’s part human, part machine.’ She stepped up to its head end and pulled a plastic sheet away from its face. ‘And someone added a dog’s snout for good measure.’

  The man said nothing, but beside her, Urla could sense his distress. She had felt it herself upon first entering this room.

  ‘This thing is deadly, but imagine if there was a whole army of them, and they were on our side instead of against us? All these pointless riots and uprisings, quelled in an instant.’

  ‘They would carry an element of fear that a man with a gun doesn’t have.’

  ‘Right. I want you to find out where this came from. I know someone in the underground is behind it. Get me a name, and you’ll be paid better than you could ever know.’

  She turned to look at him, saw the strong features beneath his hat, his hard eyes staring at the thing lying on the gurney, at once frowning and widening as he tried to make sense of it.

  Twenty years since they had last met, but Urla had never forgotten the first man to take her to bed as a teenager. Now he worked as a firefighter by day, but she knew what he did by night, helping to hide people, smuggle goods, weapons. She had caught him once, but swayed by those eyes and a refreshed memory of that strong, muscular body, she had let him go … on the condition that he turn informant.

  In the years since, although they had never met in person, the man calling himself Dave Green had provided her with information on anyone getting too big in the underworld, and in return had seen many of his underground business practices slip by unnoticed.

  ‘This is dangerous for me,’ he said. ‘You want me to expose some of the biggest names in the underground. If they find out about me … no DCA confinement could be worse.’

  She walked over to him, holding his gaze while one hand reached down between his legs, stroking his penis through his trousers.

  ‘I have enough dirt on you, Dave, that I could have this big dick of yours cut off and fed to you.’ She smiled. ‘But I wouldn’t want to waste something so wonderful without a proper goodbye.’ She squeezed tighter, feeling it grow hard. ‘How about we go somewhere more welcoming to negotiate further?’

  He nodded, but didn’t smile. He didn’t need to.

  ‘I think we can work together,’ he said. ‘But let’s get to know each other better first.’

  Urla smiled. She turned to the door, pulling him along by the rocket in his trousers. As she reached the doors she refused to look back at the dead monstrosity lying on the gurney.

  There was nothing that might quell her rising passion like the corpse of a man with a dog’s snout sewn onto his face.

  23

  Patrick

  Dawn light was streaking in the front windows as stringy carrots boiled in a pot on the stove. Patrick stood by the window, peering out at shadows of the trees receding from the reservoir’s surface as the sun slowly rose. Suzanne and Kelly were still asleep in the little bedroom, but the sun had reached Patrick where he slept on the sofa and woken him early.

  He opened the window a crack and let warm air inside. He liked it here. Don had stocked the cupboards with enough food to last them several weeks. As well as an assortment of tins, there were items Patrick hadn’t even known existed: cartons of powdered milk, mashed potato mix, boxes of instant noodles, items that would last for months before spoiling.

  Don had planned for this very event, although expecting the occupants to be himself and his family. When the DCA had finally come, though, they had caught him unawares.

  Eventually, though, the food would run out, and they would be back to where they started.

  On the run.

  In the end, they would be caught. The police and DCA were too numerous, and there was nowhere to hide.

  They needed a plan.

  The only safe option was to get out of the country, but that was hard enough when you weren’t a fugitive. When you were, it was next to impossible.

  Unless you had special help.

  Uncle Tommy.

  He was Patrick’s only hope, even though Patrick couldn’t be sure whose side his uncle was on after seeing Race with a dog’s snout sown over his face. Patrick’s anger burned whenever he thought about it, but Tommy still presented their best chance of getting out of Britain alive.

  He was just thinking to wake the girls when the bedroom door opened and Suzanne appeared. Rather than a hug like he might have hoped, she went straight to the sink, pulled a cloth from underneath, and began soaking it in water from the tap.

  ‘Kelly’s wound is inflamed,’ she said. ‘She’s feverish. We need to get her to a doctor or she could get worse.’

  ‘A doctor? How?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I can’t watch my little sister die. I’d rather face the gallows again.’

  Patrick shook his head. ‘No, there must be something else we can do. She needs antibiotics, right?’

  ‘I imagine that would fix it. And where do you get those? From a doctor.’

  ‘What if I go and steal some?’

  Suzanne paused. She turned and looked at Patrick, cocking her head. ‘Since when did you become a master criminal?’ she asked, giving him a thin smile.

  ‘We’re only a few miles out of town and I can move much faster on my own. It would be better for you and Kelly to stay here while I went and found something.’

  Suzanne came forward. She took his hands and pulled him close, giving him a light kiss on the lips.

  ‘This is important,’ she whispered. ‘If you don’t come back, what do we do?’

  ‘I’ll be back,’ he said. ‘But if I’m not, you’ll figure something out. You’re the bravest person I’ve ever known.’

  Suzanne pulled something from her pocket and put it in Patrick’s hand. A wallet. ‘I found this in the bedroom last night after Kelly went to sleep. It was taped to the bottom of one of the drawers. This wasn’t just Don’s summer retreat, but a bolt hole in case the DC
A came after him.’

  ‘I was thinking the same thing.’

  Suzanne patted the back of his hand. ‘I really don’t think he or my mother would mind us using this money to help Kelly.’ She swallowed, and Patrick saw the hint of a tear in the corner of her eye. ‘To be honest, by now they might be beyond caring.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘We’ve both been in there, Patrick. You know what could happen.’

  ‘We have to stay strong.’

  ‘And we have to stay alive. So, if you can bribe someone to get that medicine without getting the DCA on your trail, then do it.’

  Patrick nodded. ‘I love you.’

  ‘And I love you too, and as soon as we have a little time to ourselves, I’ll show you how much.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Now, go.’

  Patrick pulled on his shoes and went out. He gave Suzanne one last smile before closing the door, then he ran for the road without looking back.

  It might have only been a few miles by car, but on foot it felt like several days’ walk back to civilisation. Patrick had only been walking for a couple of hours when he decided to give up on staying out of sight and head for the nearest place he could catch a bus.

  There was a tiny village set into a shallow valley calling itself Teeswell according to a polished sign on the outskirts. Patrick found his way to the main road and discovered a bus stop outside a village green. He waited, and within an hour he was sitting at the back of a deserted hopper bus as it bumped slowly over the gravel that now made up the main roads. The driver, constantly cursing and flapping his hands, expressed the frustration that Patrick felt as their progress slowed to a crawl.

  The town of Glastonbury with the tor overlooking it was in view when the roads reappeared, the driver banging on the windscreen and hurling abuse through the side window at two men standing beside a construction vehicle gradually pulling up the tarmac and loading the pieces on to the back of a truck. Patrick wondered what they did with it. He had heard a rumour they were building a perimeter wall around London, but that sounded absurd.