No Birds Sing

by Jo Bannister

  ‘Do you know,’ murmured Superintendent Giles, ‘Mr Shapiro said exactly the same thing about his ram-raiders? Any sign of them yet?’

  Liz exercised restraint. ‘Not so far as I know, sir.’

  ‘No,’ he said thoughtfully. To be fair, he wasn’t blaming her. He was responsible for making the best use of police resources, both human and financial: in his position she’d have been getting twitchy too. ‘A difficult job, drawing out a rapist. When you’ve only a loose idea of where he might be and none at all of who he is. Well, you did your best, but I think we have to leave it there for now. Of course, if there’s another incident and we have more to go on…’

  Liz made a last effort, knowing as she did that it wouldn’t sway him. ‘Another incident means another victim. A woman who’s been raped can’t make good the loss with a cheque from the insurance company.’

  ‘I do realize that,’ Giles said, a shade frostily because it shouldn’t have occurred to her that he needed telling. He was aware that he had yet to gain the full confidence of these people. They were polite enough, at least to his face, but somehow related to him as if he were not another police officer. As if he were an accountant. ‘I don’t think you’ve been wasting your time, Mrs Graham, I think you were right to try. But we can’t go on forever. If we can narrow down some of the variables we’ll try again.’

  She wished she could argue, or even feel sure that he was wrong. Resignedly she nodded. ‘Sir.’

  Scobie and Morgan were plainly relieved though they affected disappointment for Liz’s sake. Donovan heard her in silence, his narrow face impervious. When she’d finished he looked idly out of the window and, apparently changing the subject, said, ‘I’ve got a dog.’

  Liz blinked. ‘Have you? How nice.’

  ‘Well, I’m looking after it. Mean big bastard; needs some walking.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Thought I might start taking him up the tow-path every night. Say, about midnight, after everyone’s gone home.’

  Liz felt herself beginning to smile. ‘Sounds a good idea. I quite like a walk about then myself. Perhaps I’ll see you around.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ he said. ‘But I’ll be there.’

  That evening when he went to feed Brian Boru he found a note under the garage door. It was short on detail but told him all he needed to know. ‘Tonight, same time, same place.’ There was no signature.

  Donovan perched on the work-bench like a dyspeptic vulture, watching the dog. It ate as if against the clock, as if something even bigger and nastier might come along at any moment.

  He was planning his next move. To keep the rendezvous, obviously; that was why he’d borrowed the dog in the first place. But alone? With back-up? – remembering that Shapiro wasn’t yet aware of his line of inquiry? With the dog? – knowing that without him he’d probably be turned back but if he was there he might have to fight? Brian Boru was not a family pet, but being a thug didn’t mean he could hold his own against professionals. His opponents would be fitter, better trained, expertly handled. Brian Boru had only his natural savagery, and in class company it wouldn’t be enough. Donovan was aware that if he took him he might have to watch him torn apart. He wasn’t a nice dog, but that was a bad end.

  Ultimately though it didn’t come down to how nice Brian was, or even how nice Donovan was. The dog was his entry to a vicious subculture. He was risking his own neck, and even if he’d liked the dog he wouldn’t have prized its skin above his own. Without a dog he’d get nowhere. The animal faced destruction anyway: Donovan thought it likely, if there was any way to ask, that he’d sooner go down fighting than submit to the kindly humiliation of euthanasia.

  But taking the dog meant going alone. What he was proposing was illegal. It might be possible to get clearance, in the way that Drugs Squad were allowed to use proscribed substances in their operations, but he couldn’t get it before eleven. If he asked Shapiro he’d be told to wait.

  Inspector Graham, on the other hand, owed him a favour. If he could cover her unofficial activities she could cover his. He went home to call her from the narrowboat where he lived on the canal.

  Even as she answered, though, he thought better of it. Asking favours of a senior officer was a minefield. If she thought he was too far out of line she’d pull him up short. She had to: once she knew what he intended she had to either approve or forbid it. Better if she didn’t know.

  With an ease born of practice he moved into lie mode. ‘Sorry to bother you at home, boss, but I’m going to be out late tonight – I don’t know how late but probably till tomorrow. Can we walk the dogs some other time?’

  She didn’t suspect. ‘Yes, fine. I wouldn’t mind turning in at a decent hour for once.’

  Donovan drove the van out into The Levels, making for the wood beside the river. The van was no more his than the dog was, but there’s only one way to carry a dog on a motorcycle and he’d no intentions of stuffing Brian Boru inside his jacket. Before he got there two men in a car waved him over. ‘Follow us.’ Over the next several minutes they became a small convoy of vehicles, mostly large battered cars with a few large smart ones among them. Once when they paused someone walked back to check he had a dog. If he’d left Brian in the garage his inquiry would have ended in the ditch beside the road.

  He tried to remember the way but they wove from lane to lane across The Levels and when they finally pulled into a yard beside a big barn they could have been anywhere inside a five-mile circle.

  Mick strolled over, Thor beside him now restrained by a lead as thick as his thumb. He nodded at the back of Donovan’s van. ‘You brought him then.’

  In these surroundings edginess came naturally. ‘I don’t know about this. Some of these dogs’d make light work of a buffalo!’

  Pleased, Mick chuckled. ‘Don’t worry about the heavyweights – that’s Thor’s class, nobody’d expect a novice to face them. The freshers fight one another while they learn the game. If he’s no taste for it you can take him home and no harm done.’

  A shade reassured, Donovan patted Brian Boru’s shoulder – twice, before Brian made it clear he should stop. ‘He’s a desperate dog but I wouldn’t want to lose him.’

  ‘No danger, not at this point. Dogs get killed in the big money matches, but to start with the only people interested are the owners and maybe a talent scout or two. If the dog handles himself you might get an offer for him.’

  ‘I couldn’t sell him,’ Donovan said hastily; which was true enough because he didn’t own him. ‘Show me what happens.’

  They pushed through the gathering crowd of men and dogs. Inside the barn were a number of wooden structures. At one end there were two of them, roped together from sheep hurdles – they could have been calf pens or any other small unit of agricultural containment. ‘That’s where they try the freshers,’ said Mick.

  ‘Freshers?’

  ‘Freshmen – novices.’ The man grinned. ‘Stupid, isn’t it? I don’t know if they call them that everywhere.’

  In the other half of the barn was a ring about four metres across, built like a section of a giant barrel, chest-high vertical lathes locked together by broad metal bands. Looking closer Donovan saw it was made in four pieces that bolted together – so it could be dismantled and taken between venues, he supposed. Any farmer could provide a few hurdles and a barn but the ring was custom-made and could have no other purpose. It was the pit that gave the pit-bull terrier its name.

  Stout chains ran along the sides of the barn with shackles to which the dogs were being tied. Close-coupling prevented them from tearing one another apart for no profit, but nothing could stop them trading threats. As the barn filled the furious barking made conversation a matter of hands cupped round ears. But Donovan noticed an odd thing. The most noise came from the young dogs. The scarred old pros eyed each other in speculative silence, saving their energy for when it would do them most good.

  Mick reappeared. ‘Bring the dog, I’ve got him a match.’

&
nbsp; Somehow, Donovan hadn’t expected to have to go through with this. He’d thought he could use the dog as a passport but avoid fighting him. He’d expected to have a little time to see how things worked, maybe spot a few faces in the crowd, before having to commit himself. Being taken in hand like this was a stroke of luck for a genuine novice but the last thing that Donovan needed. ‘Er…’

  Mick gave his amiable grin again. ‘Don’t panic, I told you, he won’t get hurt. Just a taste for both of you, see if you like it. Same for the other dog – it’s his first night too. I’ve got a fiver on you for luck.’

  If there’d been a way out he’d have taken it. But he couldn’t leave for the chaos of vehicles in the yard, and a choice between fighting Brian on equal terms and having the crap kicked out of him by angry men faced with the loss of their money, their dogs and their freedom was no choice at all. ‘What do we do?’

  There was nothing squeamish about Cal Donovan. A childhood on a smallholding in a gritty little mid-Ulster town – it would have been called a village anywhere else in the British Isles – left him with few expectations and finding himself alone at the age of nineteen killed those too. He’d come to England with his brother in the early eighties after losing their parents and sister to a bomb in a chipshop. Within two years Padraig too was dead, taking second prize in a drag-race between a Metropolitan police car and a stolen Porsche. Padraig always wanted to be a policeman while Caolan seemed destined for other things. The Donovans were never mentioned in Glencurran now without someone observing that it’s funny how things turn out and someone else muttering about dead men’s shoes.

  So Donovan had seen things most people hadn’t and been involved in things most people only read about, and if they hadn’t made him callous he had at least learned pragmatism. Fresh teeth-marks in Brian Boru’s bull neck seemed a small enough price for safeguarding his own.

  But he wasn’t prepared for the undiluted savagery of the next several minutes.

  The average dog-fight in the park over who found a bone first is high on sound, fury and flying fur and low on actual damage. By the time the terrified and embarrassed owners have prised the protagonists apart it can be quite hard to find who bit who where.

  This was different. For one thing the handlers – not the owners but two men experienced in the job – far from breaking up the fight were encouraging it. Before they released them the animals were foaming with rage, their eyes bulging redly, their muscles knotted. When they were slipped, to a rumble of almost sexual excitement from the men gathered round, they met like clashing armies and the flash of their scimitar teeth through the flying spit, and a little later the flying blood, was like a battle with fixed bayonets.

  For a short time neither contender had a clear advantage. They came together like Sumo wrestlers, their combined weight enough to snap a plank when they hit one of the hurdles. The vast jaws snapped and locked and disengaged and snapped again, and but for the fact that the other dog was fawn Donovan would have lost track of which head belonged to which.

  After a few minutes’frenzied sparring the contest began to favour Brian Boru. He was no heavier than the other dog, might have been rather taller; mostly what he had was the desire to win. Match fighting, as distinct from the bare-knuckle stuff any dog high on testosterone can try his paw at in any back-alley, was a new experience. But he learned quickly and within minutes had the fawn dog on the defensive, an hystetical note creeping into its barking as it gave ground.

  A minute after that a streak of blood appeared on its neck. ‘That it then?’ said Donovan tersely, readying the lead he could have moored his boat with.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Mick, amused. ‘Got to give the other chap a chance to get his own back. He might just be a slow learner.’

  In fact the fawn dog was a fast learner, had soon realized that being a hard man in the ginnels of The Jubilee didn’t qualify him to go head to head with a genuine if untutored talent. He backed round the makeshift pit as quick as he could. Only the fear of exposing his flank stopped him turning tail.

  ‘Ah, jeez,’ said Donovan disgustedly, ‘what more do you want? He’s beat, take him home.’

  Mick raised an eyebrow at the other owner. ‘Is that what you want – to chuck in the towel? He might still come good.’

  He was an older man than Donovan, shorter but powerfully built, a man who worked with his muscles and liked his dog to do the same. But he was as new to this as his animal. He eyed Mick uncertainly. ‘You reckon?’

  ‘Sure. He’s not getting hurt – I’d give him a bit longer.’

  ‘All right then,’ said the man doubtfully.

  It may have been the sound of his owner’s voice that distracted the fawn dog. He turned aside, looking for a way out. Instead he gave Brian a way in. In an instant the black dog hurled him down, great jaws closing vice-like on flesh and bone, worrying it like worrying a shoe. The fawn dog screamed.

  Donovan had Mick by the shirt-front. ‘Stop it. Now.’

  Mick’s eyes flared. ‘I’m not going in there!’

  Donovan grabbed one of the handlers. The man was leaning on the hurdle, watching the mayhem with every sign of enjoyment. Blood sprayed in a fine arc, spattering his face. It also spattered Donovan’s but there was no time to wipe it off. He dug his fingers hard into the man’s arm and shouted over the baying of beasts and men. ‘Break it up! Before he kills him!’

  The man shook him off, unconcerned. He explained like explaining to a child: ‘This is what it’s about.’

  Donovan had a great strength and a great weakness. His strength was that if something needed doing enough he would do it without thought for the possible consequences to himself. His weakness was the same. Almost before he’d decided to, certainly before he knew how or why, he had his leather jacket wrapped around his left arm. The thick lead doubled in his right hand like a truncheon, he vaulted the side of the pit. ‘Brian, you bastard, that’s enough!’

  He expected the dog to round on him, hoped a mouthful of leather would hold him long enough to grab his collar. He hoped its owner would then have the guts to rescue the injured dog. He hoped he’d do it quickly because he didn’t know how long he’d be able to hold the blood-crazed Brian Boru.

  But Brian didn’t go for him, was satisfied with the quarry he had. When Donovan tried to drag him off he found himself hauling at two dogs, the second gripped in the teeth of the first. The fawn dog was on his back now, wailing as Brian chewed on his throat.

  In the end Donovan wrapped the short lead round Brian’s neck and twisted, tightening it until Brian ran out of air and his eyes glazed. Even then it looked like he’d die with his teeth in his opponent’s throat rather than let go. But the mist got into his eyes and his brain, and finally he gave a little choking grunt and shook his head, the fawn dog felling from his loosening jaws. Donovan wasted no time fussing over either of them. He had the muzzle on Brian’s bloody face before the dog had a chance to recover his wits.

  There was blood everywhere: on the fawn dog’s throat and belly, on Brian’s face and chest, on Donovan’s hands and on his clothes. Deep scratches laced his wrists – not from Brian’s teeth, but from the other dog’s claws as it fought for its life. Its owner was in the pit now, trying to get his dog up. ‘I think his leg’s broke.’

  ‘Then bloody well carry him,’ Donovan panted savagely. ‘And bloody well look after him, or I’ll be round your place some night when you’re not expecting it and I won’t be alone.’ He jerked the thick lead meaningfully.

  It was an empty threat but the man didn’t know that. He couldn’t carry the dog alone. He organized some help to take it out to his car.

  Donovan was still panting – with reaction, fury and deep humiliation at what he found himself party to – trying not to hate the strutting dog beside him who’d done no more than he’d been asked to, when a light tenor voice at his elbow said, ‘I like that. I like a man who cares about the dogs. They’re not machines, they deserve to be looked after, even in d
efeat. Did they hurt you?’

  ‘I’m all right,’ Donovan said wearily, turning to see who he was talking to. The man’s face meant nothing to him, he didn’t think they’d ever met. He was a slightly built individual with a pointed face and curly brown hair, probably rather older than he first appeared – mid forties maybe. A pleasant manner for such an unpleasant gathering. An owner? Or maybe a punter; he had a dog with him but it wasn’t a fighting dog, not on that lead. Donovan’s eyes followed the pale blue shoe-string down from the man’s wrist to his pet.

  And the little dog, naked except for an effusive topknot and a tassel at the end of its tail, gave Donovan a disdainful yawn, revealing toothless gums.

  At seven on Friday morning Liz walked down to the stable, kissed Polly on the nose, then went into the adjoining storeroom to prepare the three buckets and two haynets that would fend off starvation for another day.

  Fifteen minutes later she let herself quietly into the kitchen. Brian was still asleep upstairs and she trod softly to avoid disturbing him. She went to the phone and called Shapiro at home.

  She must have woken him because he sounded woolly and disorganized for a moment. ‘Liz? What time is it?’

  ‘Seven-fifteen,’ she said carefully. ‘Frank, will you come over? Now?’

  That got his brain moving. His voice over the phone was both sharp and concerned. ‘What’s the matter, Liz? What’s happened?’

  She didn’t answer directly. ‘And will you organize a team? SOCO, Dr Greaves – anyone you can think of. Oh,’ she added as a fresh thought struck her, ‘and did we ever get round to doing what the Son of God said and designating a rape victim support officer?’ She began to laugh. At least, it was mostly laughter, though Shapiro could hear something like despair sobbing in the depths of it. ‘Oh, Jesus, Frank – it wasn’t me, was it?’

  Part Two

  Chapter Ten

  It was four in the morning before the dog-match broke up. Donovan got Brian Boru back to the garage by half-past five, swabbed both of them with disinfectant, then removed the muzzle and fed the dog. He tucked in like a new Lonsdale Belt taking breakfast for the cameras.