Wolf

by Mo Hayder

  Ian the Geek puts his cup down. He comes and squats next to the intestines. He isn’t as hygiene conscious as Honig is and he thinks nothing of putting his bare hands into the mess. He digs around with his fingers and pulls out the object. ‘Shot,’ he says, going to the doorway and chucking it into the bushes.

  ‘Shot?’

  ‘Yes.’ He squats and wipes his hands clean in the dewy grass. ‘Yes – shot.’

  ‘You told me you trapped the fucking thing.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I…’ Ian the Geek pauses, thinking about it. ‘Well, it might have been shot by someone first – I dunno. That’s probably how come it was easier to trap.’

  ‘So you lied.’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘OK – you were economical with the truth.’

  ‘Does it matter? I had a lot to set up. I thought I got it quite good.’

  ‘It only matters because if someone shot the fucking thing before you got to it, they might still be wondering where it is.’

  ‘No. It happens a lot round these places. A deer gets shot, but it gets right up and carries on. Half the deer around here are walking around with bits of lead in them. You see it all the time.’

  Honig shakes his head. ‘OK, OK – but tell me you weren’t lying about what you did with the rest of the body?’

  ‘I swear.’ He puts a hand on his chest, leaving a wet handprint on the fleece. ‘I swear – in a canal. Miles and miles away.’

  ‘Because people find a deer that’s been disembowelled and they’re likely to go around screaming about devil worship. And while you might feel free to be careless, I do not. I am not going to screw this job up because of you. Get it?’

  Ian the Geek frowns. He seems to be trying to find a retort, but in the end thinks better of it. ‘Yes,’ he says obediently. ‘I get it.’

  ‘Good. And what about the housekeeper? What’s her name again?’

  ‘Virginia Van Der Bolt. She’s happy.’

  ‘Happy? Because what? Because you paid her a visit?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you told her you were …?’

  ‘Working for Oliver. I said the family didn’t need her for two weeks. She seemed to believe me.’

  ‘Seemed to believe you? Is that believed you or seemed to?’

  ‘Believed me,’ he says definitively. ‘She especially believed me when I paid her for the time off.’

  Honig shakes his head and makes a tutting noise. He turns and picks up his cup and saucer. ‘Dear, oh dear. What some people will do for money.’

  The Peppermint Room

  THERE’S A SMALL bar of yellow light showing under the door. All night Matilda has been expecting one of the men to come in. But they haven’t.

  Bear has gone. Yesterday afternoon the men were down in the scullery searching for her – one of them even whispered something unintelligible up the chimney – but she is quite sure that Bear has fled with the note attached to her collar. From time to time Matilda pictures her injured and feels briefly panicked, but then she reminds herself of the time the dog fell off the sea front in Lyme Regis and landed unhurt. The drop down the chimney wasn’t as far as that fall, so she tells herself over and over again Bear will be OK. And she will have run; knowing Bear, she’ll have run as far away as she can from The Turrets. It will only be a matter of time before someone finds her and gets the message.

  The men are moving around downstairs. They’ve been in the scullery again, and she’s heard them talking in the garden, now they’re back in the kitchen running taps and opening cupboards. Having breakfast probably. The sun has crept up over the side of the hill and is burning shapes on the dusty ceiling and walls.

  Since sunrise she’s been thinking about Ginny Van Der Bolt. Ginny has a key but she always knocks. Matilda wonders what she will do when the door isn’t answered. She’ll have seen the Anchor-Ferrers’ car parked on the driveway below the house, as it usually is, but if no one comes to the door will she have time and the sense to realize something is wrong? Or will the men be too quick for her?

  A door opens downstairs and footsteps sound on the stairs. Matilda’s eyes begin to water. She has to cough and shake her head to stop her neck seizing up. She moves around a bit, shifting awkwardly, trying to get her legs tucked under her so she feels less vulnerable. It’s Honey coming, not Molina. She can already tell the differences in their footfalls. Honey moves faster and more heavily than Molina, who moves with slow deliberation. As if he’s got all the time in the world. She doesn’t know which one she’s more scared of.

  The door opens and Honey comes in. He’s dressed in black waterproof trousers and a black blouson jacket. The outfit has vague, unsettling echoes of a Nazi uniform. He goes to the middle of the room, the foot of the bed, and stands, arms folded, scanning the room. He bends and looks behind the cot, under the bed. He even makes a show of lifting up the duvet. He goes to the window and peers out. Down on to the patch of land next to the scullery.

  ‘Mrs Robinson? Something you want to tell me?’

  ‘My name’s Anchor-Ferrers.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Robinson, is there something you want to tell me?’ He turns and smiles pleasantly at her. ‘Have you got something to tell me? Something happened to your little lapdog?’

  She doesn’t answer. She locks her attention on a space in mid-air, just in front of his face.

  ‘Come on. You’ll feel better when you apologize.’

  ‘You were going to hurt her.’

  Honey’s smile fades. ‘Hurt her? Of course we weren’t.’

  ‘You were going to kill her.’

  ‘No.’ He has the slightly surprised, slightly incredulous look of a man who’s been accused of a crime he hasn’t committed. ‘That wasn’t going to happen at all. Now let’s not make a fuss. I’m only asking for an apology.’

  She stares at him, unsure. Then, in a small, cracked voice, she says, ‘I apologize.’

  ‘I beg your pardon. Didn’t hear you.’

  ‘I apologize. I’m sorry.’

  Honey scratches his neck. ‘I’m not sure – you don’t sound that sincere.’

  ‘I am. I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s OK.’ He gives her a smile. ‘I forgive you.’

  He comes over to her. Her hands reach up instinctively to defend herself, but he crouches and unlocks the cuff. He’s got a faint smell to him – not of cigarettes like Molina, but of some sort of chemical, like an antibacterial spray. And under that scent something more wholesome. Baking and fabric softener. She sees then that under the jacket he’s wearing Oliver’s sweater, the blue knitted one she’d bought him in Skye, and realizes it’s this she can smell – the comforting, warm smell of her husband.

  ‘Where’s Oliver? Is he OK?’

  Honey pretends not to have heard. He unlocks her cuff and she massages her leg, getting the blood flowing again.

  ‘Where is my husband?’ she repeats, still rubbing her leg. ‘Is he OK? It’s hard for him – he’s not well, not well at all.’

  Honey still doesn’t answer; he just keeps smiling. She thinks she’s never seen anything as scary as that smile in her life. He lets his eyes rove down over her chest the way he did yesterday when he was posing as a detective, describing the woman with the breasts cut off. She doesn’t break his gaze, but subtly hunches her shoulders down. He’s a young man and she’s a much older woman. But things like that only matter in places where the rules still count.

  Something bad is going to happen. She can feel it.

  ‘Please tell me who you are. What are you going to do?’

  He smiles. Puts out a hand and strokes her hair gently. She flinches but she can’t twist away from him, so she just shrinks her head into her shoulders.

  ‘You’re going to kill me. You’re going to kill us all.’ A tear rolls down her face. ‘I don’t know why you’ve chosen us, but I do know you’re going to kill us all. You’d have started with Bear.’

  Honey pulls his hand back, surprised. ‘Oh oh oh oh
oh!’ He puts his head down and shakes it, laughing to himself. ‘No no no no no. That’s not it at all.’

  ‘It is. You said you’re going to scare us, but that’s not where it’s going to end. You’re going to kill us, and you know it.’

  He stops laughing at that. There’s a long pause, then he raises his chin. His smile has gone completely. ‘Actually,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right. That is what’s going to happen. We’re going to kill you.’

  There is a long, shocked silence.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ he says soothingly. ‘It won’t happen quickly. It’s going to take a long long time. Days probably. Maybe even weeks.’

  The Vet

  NOT FOR THE first time in his career Jack Caffery has become a reluctant dog sitter. He likes dogs, but wouldn’t ever keep one. The sense of responsibility for another living creature would sit like a spider in his head. But Bear is more than just a dog, she’s the key to getting the Walking Man to speak to Derek Yates in prison. First thing in the morning he takes Bear to the vet for a chip scan and a check-up. He leaves her with a nurse and goes for a coffee at a greasy spoon, infuriating himself by worrying about what the dog is thinking. Whether she thinks she’s been abandoned.

  ‘She’s got injuries.’ When he comes back after half an hour the vet is waiting in the doorway of the consulting room, holding the dog by a lead. She wags her tail when she sees Caffery and pulls at the lead, her feet scratching excitedly on the floor. He avoids her eyes. ‘Superficial injury to the feet, but from an accident – not abuse. In fact, she’s been rather well looked after.’

  ‘A chip?’

  The vet shakes his head. ‘Nothing. Ran the scanner over every inch – there’s nothing there. She’s been spayed and she’s had money spent on her teeth. This definitely isn’t a neglected dog.’

  ‘The accident – what sort of accident was it?’

  ‘Hard to tell. At first I thought she’d been dragged by a car, but she hasn’t got any other symptoms I’d associate with that. If you want my guess, I’d say she’s fallen from a height. Landed badly.’

  Caffery frowns. He looks down at the dog, who looks back up at him. Falling? Falling from what? And no chip.

  ‘Jesus,’ he mutters. ‘It was never going to be easy, was it?’ He sighs and feels in his pocket for his wallet. Pulls out his credit card. The vet looks at it.

  ‘Don’t you want to know about the jewellery?’

  Caffery lowers his chin and purses his mouth. ‘The jewellery? What jewellery?’

  ‘You’ll have to come and look at the X-ray. This dog is about to pop with all the stuff she’s got crammed in her stomach.’

  The Wolf

  OLIVER ANCHOR-FERRERS has spent the night in some discomfort. He’s been able to move his body round so that he was facing the door, ready to wake if anyone came to the room, but that necessitated crossing his arms over his chest at an awkward angle, causing more pain. He slept for a few hours and now he lies, half asleep, half awake, blinking vaguely at his surroundings. The men are moving around the house. He can hear faint shuffling sounds, whispers in the hallway.

  He sits up groggily, moving his tongue around the furred inside of his mouth. The red-skull curtains are open. Beyond the turret the trees seem to float above the mist. A thin morning light comes through the panes and falls on the blunt features of Patty Hearst.

  Patty Hearst. He wonders if Lucia will end as a similar figure. Targeted for the profile of her father.

  He isn’t proud of it, but for a long time Oliver was one of the world’s foremost scientists in the international arms industry. It’s the place his fascination with Minnet Kable led him.

  Kable. A man with the face of a predator. A wolf. You can see it in the police photographs at the time of his arrest. Something yellow about his eyes. He disturbed Oliver, but inspired him too. In the wake of the killings, Oliver converted his love for the science of light into a deadly weapon.

  The ice pick travelling on from one body into another. It was this image that stuck. Oliver developed an application which has made him rich. A smart torpedo, capable of waiting silently beneath the waves, only springing to life when its specific target passes overhead. Its sensitivity is extraordinary: the data algorhythm is loaded remotely using free space optics – Oliver’s area of expertise. This innocent MP3 file carries a unique sound signature, a way of recognizing the subtle variations and anomalies of an engine so it can identify not simply a type of sea vessel, but an individual boat. The system is so sophisticated it can carry the signature of more than one vessel. Crucially it can be programmed to pass through one hull, crippling it, then keep going for a second, even a third target.

  It is known in certain circles as The Wolf.

  It has made Oliver rich and irreplaceable. For years he had his pick of companies – often being head-hunted in an R and D capacity. And yet, there was no pretty way of stating it, of dressing it up to be anything other than what it was: he had become an arms dealer. And when you walk in the weapons industry there is danger every step of the way.

  When, thirteen months ago, he had the heart attack which would eventually lead to the operation, Oliver made the immediate decision to leave the business. He stepped away, suddenly sickened and regretful of the role he’d played. Secretly he pictured the heart attack as Minnet Kable, the Wolf, somehow reaching his unwholesome claw into Oliver’s chest and squeezing the life out of him. Punishment. And the situation with the men downstairs? Punishment too. They are here because Oliver has unwittingly upset someone in the course of his work. He is sure of that – he just doesn’t know what or who.

  In this last year of waiting for the heart valve op he wrote his autobiography: Luciente: A Life in the Light. The book is currently with an agent in London. His first thought was that the men were working for someone who is worried about appearing in the autobiography. What secrets Oliver might give away. But he’s dubious – he and the agent have gone to the greatest lengths to keep the contents secret until they have found a publisher. Oliver hasn’t even told Matilda. There’s no way the book could have leaked.

  Nevertheless something has gone wrong with someone connected to the Wolf system. No doubt. But until Oliver can work out who is behind it and why, he can’t even begin to bargain with these people.

  The Wait

  THE VET DOESN’T want to let the dog go – he thinks she needs to be kept under observation until she passes whatever is in her stomach. Caffery, however, makes a decision and eventually the vet relents, warning him to call if she exhibits any signs of pain. Any swelling of the abdomen, vomiting or bleeding from either end. But the dog shows none of those symptoms – in fact the only symptoms she shows are of making herself at home in Caffery’s cottage, even pattering into the bedroom when he goes upstairs, and sitting expectantly on the floor until he relents and lets her get on the bed.

  ‘Disgusting habit,’ he says, scratching the dog’s right ear. She leans into his hand, her back leg twitching and half lifting in her desire to join in the scratching. ‘Disgusting animal – I’ll have fleas for ever. This is the last time it happens.’

  He takes a shower and when he comes back Bear is still there, contentedly yawning and blinking at him, licking her chops. Caffery’s known guys to give dogs all manner of names: Psycho and Chaos and Ripper. Gonner for rescue dogs, and Cluedo for dogs with a mystery father, because ‘no one knew whodunnit’. But Bear? Why Bear?

  He feels Bear all over, palpating her stomach, but she feels pretty regular-dog-shaped. The X-ray was impressive, he has to admit. He knows what dogs are like, that they’ll eat all manner of things, things that’ll kill them stone-dead. But jewellery? That’s a step outside the normal. Could it be that the Walking Man has set all this up? If there’s one thing he likes it’s putting out hoops for Caffery to jump through. Or could it be this dog is part of something bigger? Maybe she’s been used to smuggle this jewellery into the country.

>   He gives her a plate of cold sausages from under foil in the fridge and watches her eat. Then he nods at the garden. ‘Time for some doggy action, old girl? Time to do what you all do best?’

  But when Bear goes into the garden and squats, all she produces is urine. She trots back inside, yawning to herself, and sits at Caffery’s feet, looking up at him as if to say, OK, what next?

  ‘What next? What next? Well, next we go for a drive around the place you turned up. We go and knock on doors and you get to do your best profile. Smile. Smile?’

  He uses his forefingers to push up the corners of his mouth. Bear watches him steadily, her head on one side.

  ‘Yeah, well,’ he mutters. ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine on the night – someone’s bound to recognize you. And in the meantime, if you could see your way to, you know, having a crap, I’d be heartily grateful.’

  John Bancroft

  OLIVER IS A rational man and instead of fighting the reality in which he finds himself, he progresses beyond it. He conjures an image; a police officer who, in some vague, conjectural future, will come into The Turrets and find their bodies after the men have tortured and killed them. His body, in this room. Then Matilda’s. And then Lucia’s.

  Rather than dwelling on what will come next, he focuses hard on what evidence will be left when it’s all over. He decides the cop will be male, though his pedantic mind takes the time to question this and wonder if that’s just his stick-in-the-mud patriarchal attitude assigning the role to a man. Rationally it might be a woman, that is how the world runs now; nevertheless it’s a man Oliver envisages. Someone bored in his job, perhaps, suddenly brought to life by the case. Someone physically capable and alert. Not someone who eats drive-in McDonald’s and tells long stories of his escapades at the bar in his local pub. This man is someone who gets fired up by the old-fashioned battle between what is right and what is wrong.