No Birds Sing

by Jo Bannister

  ‘It isn’t him,’ she said hoarsely. ‘Frank, look. Look at the head. Under the henna rinse, that isn’t black hair, it’s blond. It isn’t Donovan.’

  When he made himself look closer Shapiro saw she was right. Donovan was six foot, this boy inches shorter. And he was only a boy, Shapiro thought; and now there was no chance of him ever being anything more.

  ‘Then where is he?’

  It was Liz. Shapiro looked at her blankly for a moment, his mental processes numbed by what they had found. ‘Hm?’

  She shook his arm fiercely. ‘Donovan. Where is he? What happened here? There were three of them, and three dogs. This must be – what did Patsy call him? – Andy. So where’s Donovan, where’s Gates, and where are those bloody dogs?’

  Andy’s mistake was in kicking not one of his own dogs, that associated him with nice things like food and walks, but Brian Boru, who didn’t. It was an easy mistake to make – in a mill of agitated dogs one over-muscled backside looks much like another – but that moment’s carelessness cost him his life. Brian had run the gauntlet of men’s boots since he was a pup, didn’t know there was such a thing as a friendly kick. Goaded to attack, he chose his own target.

  Any one dog would probably have sunk its teeth somewhere soft, registered the resultant yell with a smirk and left it at that. But there were three of them, and three dogs is a pack. A pack doesn’t behave in the same way as a single dog. It has no inhibitions, lacks that judicious combination of foresight and self-interest that serves dogs, and many people, as a conscience. It has no sense of fear.

  A single dog will rarely bite because it feels about people the way most people feel about the police: they’re strong, they have long memories and they never forgive. But the same dog in a pack situation is like a man on speed. Nothing scares him. He can’t see that he’s making trouble for himself: all he cares about is being in the thick of things, showing what he’s made of. Mutual reinforcement escalates the situation until the pack has a nature and purpose of its own and all the well-trained, nice-mannered, thoroughly reliable dogs within it have shrugged off the trappings of civilization. By then it’s out of control.

  Brian’s attack pressed the pack buttons in Gates’s dogs. Swept away on a surge of adrenalin they forgot that the boy filling the air with screams and the scent of blood was their friend. As pack members their only allegiance was to each other. In the excitement of the moment instinct and training meshed so that they reacted as they always did to something struggling and shrieking and bleeding: they dragged him down and went for his throat.

  Donovan cringed against the back wall, his eyes saucering, his forearms over his ears to muffle the sound. He made no attempt to intervene; nor would he have done had his hands been free; nor, he truly believed, had the victim been not a boy who’d tried to kill him but a casual bystander, even a friend. Afraid to his heart’s core, he didn’t think he could have waded into that frenzy to save his very soul.

  He thought when they finished with Andy they’d turn on him, that his only hope was to get past while they were still fully occupied and before Gates shut the door. He dragged his eyes away from the mêlée and saw Gates watching too, gape-mouthed, through a six-inch gap, like a child watching something scary on TV from behind the couch.

  There was a chance if Donovan moved now: if he left this corner running and hit the door before Gates could shoot the bolt.

  The boy was quiet, dead or dying; though his body still jerked under the dusty bulb, that was the dogs worrying at him. If they lost interest in him and looked round… But waiting could only make things worse. Donovan tore himself out of his corner and made a determined assault on the world sprint record.

  Gates saw him a moment too late. He should have bolted the door as soon as Andy was beyond help. But the dog hadn’t come near him, and by the time he realized the danger was not the animals, Donovan was two strides away. With a wordless howl he dropped his pitchfork and slammed the door.

  But Donovan’s shoulder hit it as it closed and he was travelling fast enough to burst it wide, flinging the smaller man half-way across the yard before he too stumbled and crashed in the dirt.

  The vehicles. Inside one he’d be safe. The van was nearest: Donovan lurched to his feet and yanked at the door. But he’d locked it: he hadn’t thought there was anything inside that could give him away but he didn’t want anyone poking through it just in case. The 4x4 then.

  He peered towards the shed. The weak light inside was enough to show him the broad-shouldered bulk of a dog standing in the doorway. He caught his breath and shrank back. But the frenzy was over, at least for now. It swaggered out like a boxer, unhurried, the big head swinging from side to side, scenting for him. The dark was no shield – it knew he was there, it would smell him out.

  He didn’t know where the other dogs were. But the longer he stayed here wondering, the more likely one of them was to find him. It didn’t matter if they saw him as long as he reached the 4x4 first. He filled his lungs, cursed Gates’s belt that he hadn’t time to worry loose from his wrists, and ran.

  Silhouetted against the light the dog’s head came up as it saw him. Then it headed for him – not at speed, in a steady powerful lope. It could have caught him if it had tried but he reached the car with metres to spare and was already venting a relieved sigh as he reached for the nearside door.

  It didn’t move. He tried the handle again, anxiously – none of the dogs was more than a few seconds away – but still the door resisted him.

  He scrambled round to the back – he hadn’t realized how long the damn thing was! – and grabbed for the tailgate. The handle moved just enough for him to think he was safe, then stopped. Too scared now even to curse he kept going, down the long side to the driver’s door.

  A dog’s head, raised in interest, appeared round the back of the vehicle.

  Inside the light came on. For a fragment of a second Donovan thought it was because the door was opening. But someone inside had turned it on.

  Gates had had the same idea; better luck or a sharper memory had brought him to the 4x4 first, and once inside he’d locked the doors. His elfin face was in profile; Donovan rattled the handle urgently but he didn’t look round. He’d turned the light on only so Donovan could see that it was not luck that had defeated him. Then he turned it off again.

  Donovan tugged at the door hard enough to rock the car, but he knew he was wasting time. A second dog joined the first at the rear of the vehicle, watching him. Breathing lightly, keeping his eye on them, he backed away round the bonnet. He threw a hunted glance towards the kitchen door, caught the hint of a stealthy movement. God, they had all his bolt-holes covered! Was it just luck or were they stalking him?

  If he could reach the road, sooner or later a car would come. Sooner or later was too late. His eyes returned to the van. He must have had the keys: what happened to them? He patted his pockets, without success.

  Still slowly backing he came against the broken fence and almost fell. One of the dogs bounded forward at that, just a single bounce that ended as Donovan righted himself. That would be the end. If he went down they’d have him.

  He didn’t want to go into the wood. Against other men he’d have held his own in there; against dogs he had no chance. But they were driving him that way. He didn’t dare advance on them, they were bound to take that as a challenge. He picked his way carefully over the fence, still with his face to the dogs, and after a moment the green hem of the wood lifted for him.

  He thought, I can climb – even with my hands tied I can climb six feet up a tree. They can’t. If I can get higher than they can jump I’m safe, I can sit them out – for frigging days, if need be!

  The last thing he meant to do was run. The dogs were curious about him, were trailing him at a distance – he could see the glint of eyes in the darkness – but there was no overt aggression about their movements yet. If he did nothing to make himself a target, like running, they might decide he was no fun and curl up f
or a snooze instead.

  He backed steadily, and before the branches closed round him he could see the distance between them stretching. The dogs were staying with the familiar smells of the cottage yard. The broken fence, that they could have sailed in an instant, seemed to mark the limit of their territory.

  Another moment and he’d have been out of sight. But then one of the dogs seemed to realize he was escaping. It let out a sharp bark, hurdled the remains of the fence and bounded through the tangle of briars and long grass towards him, the others on its tail.

  Donovan turned and fled. There was no sense in it – he didn’t think he could outrun them, not in the open and not among the trees. But nor could he stand and wait for them. He ran as fast as he could with the branches whipping his face and the black trunks looming out of the darkness almost, and sometimes entirely, too late for him to avoid them. Twice he fell, rolled and was on his feet and running again before the impetus of his flight was lost. He could hear the dogs crashing through the undergrowth, couldn’t judge how close they were.

  The third time he fell he knew it was over before he hit the ground. More than the pain, he heard his ankle break. He couldn’t run any further, or climb, or defend himself. Andy’s death had bought him a little time, nothing more. Instinct made him grope, on his hands and knees in the leaf-mould, for a tree to put at his back; when he found one he turned towards the sounds crashing towards him, just in time to catch the gleam of errant filtered moonlight off a sleak-coated, surging body sweeping down on him out of the blackness. He threw up his arms, and yelled once, and then it was on him.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  ‘Sir.’ PC Stark was standing beside the 4x4, shining his torch inside. ‘There’s someone in here.’

  Though he knew Donovan wouldn’t be lurking in a darkened car, Shapiro found himself hurrying. There was no need: the man inside wasn’t going anywhere. With the doors locked and the windows up, what he was sitting in wasn’t so much a get-away car as a bunker. Despite the torches playing on his face he stared ahead almost without blinking, and Shapiro thought that if they hadn’t come he’d probably have sat there until he starved.

  ‘Shock?’ asked Liz.

  Shapiro nodded towards the shed. ‘If I’d seen that happen I’d be pretty shocked, too.’

  ‘Is it Gates?’

  ‘I think so. He fits the description, plus he’s the only one unaccounted for.’ He tapped on the window. ‘Mr Gates, you can come out now. It’s quite safe.’

  Gates looked at him then, his head turning slowly, mechanically. His eyes were glassy and he seemed quite disconnected from reality. He neither spoke nor reached for the door. After a few seconds his eyes slid forward again.

  Stark said, ‘Shall I open it, sir?’

  Shapiro nodded. ‘He can’t stay in there forever.’

  ‘Ask him about Donovan,’ Liz said edgily, playing her torch round the yard while they waited. ‘Better still, let me ask him.’

  Shapiro’s glance was faintly amused. ‘You’ve been watching Dirty Harry films again. Calm down a minute. Let me talk to him. A minute won’t make any difference at this stage.’

  ‘No?’ she shot back. ‘Well, Donovan’s missing and so are those dogs. If they’re together, a minute could make all the difference in the world.’

  Stark had the door open. Shapiro leaned his hand on the wheel. ‘You’re Tudor Gates, aren’t you? Sergeant Donovan told me. And the boy inside is your friend Andy.’

  At that, something flickered in the vacant eyes.

  ‘There’s an ambulance on its way,’ Shapiro said gently, ‘but I think he’s dead. The dogs killed him, did they?’

  That, finally, got a response. Puppet-like, Gates nodded. ‘The dogs.’ His voice was a broken whisper.

  ‘Where are the dogs? Andy’s in the shed but the dogs aren’t there now. Where did they go?’

  ‘Ask about Donovan,’ hissed Liz.

  Shapiro hissed back, ‘I am!’

  Gates whispered pathetically, ‘My poor boy,’ and a tear slid down beside his nose.

  ‘They turned on him, didn’t they?’ Shapiro said softly. ‘Then what? They took off? We have to find them before they attack someone else. Did Sergeant Donovan go after them?’

  Gates blinked his eyes clear, intelligence creeping back; his head came up and the gaze that met the policeman’s was haughty. ‘No, Superintendent Shapiro, he did not.’

  ‘Then where is he?’

  Gates indicated the wood.

  ‘And the dogs?’

  ‘The same.’

  Shapiro frowned. ‘You said—’

  Gates spat his hatred like venom. ‘You think I’m lying? Why on earth would I bother lying to you? I said your spy didn’t chase my dogs into the wood. You’re the detective: you work it out.’

  Liz already had. ‘He wasn’t chasing them,’ she said briefly, already heading for the fence, ‘they were chasing him.’

  Shapiro wanted to lead the search. But someone had to stay with Gates, and pragmatically it had to be him. ‘If things get hairy in there, seniority won’t hold a candle to the ability to shin up a tree,’ said Liz.

  That earned a grim chuckle. ‘I’ll stay till the firearms get here and I can pass this’ – he couldn’t find a suitable word, shook a finger at Gates instead – ‘on to someone else. Be careful, Liz. Stay close together. Don’t even try to catch the dogs, just find Donovan. If he’s hurt, stay with him and wait for us. We won’t be far behind.’

  Powerful torches turned the black wood into architecture, ranks of trunks receding into the shadows like columns, arching branches forming a vault like the undercroft of a great cathedral.

  They spread out across a front thirty metres wide, close enough to bunch up if danger threatened, far enough apart to search a useful swathe of woodland. They weren’t looking for a carelessly discarded cigarette butt, they were looking for a man, possibly injured, possibly worse. Speed was more important than precision. They moved at a pace between a strong walk and a jog, and they called and every thirty seconds they stopped and listened.

  They’d been searching for a few minutes when Stark heard something. He didn’t know what – a hoarse cry, the bark of a dog or fox, the grunt of a badger, maybe only an old tree groaning as the night grew cold. No one else heard it at all. But they wheeled in the direction he indicated. In the benighted wood one way was as good as another, and there was at least a chance that what Stark had heard was the missing man.

  A minute later a shout came from that end of the line, and when she looked Liz saw that the beam of light from the furthest torch had stopped panning through the colonnade of trees to rest at the base of one of them. ‘I think it’s him, ma’am!’

  Not until she was beside him could she see what Stark had seen. Grey on grey in the flat light of the torch, a shapeless heap among the roots of the tree, it didn’t look much like a man. Her heart stumbled and she hurried down the track of Stark’s torch.

  ‘Ma’am!’ The sharp note of warning brought her up short. From behind the bole of the tree another grey form was emerging. It moved deliberately, its massive head low. The light gleamed greenish off its baleful eyes. Less interested in her than in the man on the ground, it was already within one good bound of him. There was nothing they could do as quickly as the dog could reach Donovan.

  Liz was breathing through parted lips. ‘Everyone stay still, we don’t want to alarm it.’ Alarm it? Three divisions of Panzers wouldn’t alarm that dog! ‘Unless it goes for him, in which case we’ll have to rush it.’ Tightening her grip on the stave she edged forward. ‘Come here, boy, come and talk to me. There’s a good dog. Leave the nice man alone and come and talk to me.’

  The average Labrador would have been putty in her hands, but this was no household pet. It made more sense to think of it as not a dog at all but a wild beast, savage and unpredictable. It responded to her blandishments by fluttering the lips over its scimitar teeth and emitted a growl like the starter-motor on a power
-shovel.

  She advanced a step at a time, her voice rhythmic, talking by turns to the dog and the men behind her. ‘Good boy, take it easy. He doesn’t like me this close. There’s nothing to get excited about, old fellow, only me and this fence-post I’m going to beat your head in with. If he comes at me, somebody get to Donovan. Come on, there’s a good boy, you don’t want to take chunks out of the nasty policeman – he’ll taste of engine-oil and antifouling.’

  Finally, the heap under the tree stirred. A pale hand sketched a weary salute, and a voice thick with accent and frail with pain said, ‘Boss – that’s my dog.’

  Liz sent two of the uniforms to find the paramedics; Stark stayed with her and Donovan. She sat by the tree and leaned the injured man against her, cushioning him. She took off her jacket and spread it over him. Stark took off his and put it round her shoulders.

  She was content to wait for help, but Donovan couldn’t rest. Wasted by pain and shock, awareness waxing and waning as if with fever, he couldn’t let go of the horror, returning to it as if haunted. ‘Did you see – in the byre?’

  She nodded. But he couldn’t see her face so she said aloud, ‘Yes.’

  ‘That should have been me.’ With an effort he lifted his hands from his lap. Stark had untied him but they were swollen, clumsy and too painful with returning circulation to do whatever he had intended. He lowered them again, defeated. Under Liz’s tweed jacket his thin body shivered.

  She held him against her, sharing her warmth. ‘Don’t think about it. It’s over.’ By his side Brian Boru sat like a dog carved in jet.

  ‘I can’t stop seeing it,’ said Donovan, his voice husky. ‘Hearing him. They meant for that to be me. I was doing my job, and they wanted to see me torn apart for it.’

  Anger stirred in Liz’s breast – for him, for all of them. ‘They’re sick,’ she gritted. ‘They’re sick, and they’re vicious, and now one of them’s dead and the others are going to prison. And you’re going to be fine. Come on, Donovan, you’ve been hurt worse than this. Little old ladies of ninety-three get over broken ankles.’