Bad Cow (Oræl Rides to War Book 1)

by Andrew Hindle

  “I dunno,” Tunthorpe admitted. “Doesn’t look like burned bodies, does it? Looks more like dust than ash. I was thinking some sort of acid might do it, but that’d eat the clothes too.”

  “Look at all this stuff though. None of it makes sense. The place has been smashed open – like, literally, smashed open – the owners have all gone bye-bye, and all this stuff – there’s thousands of dollars’ worth of gear here – and none of it got pinched?” Gail shook his head for what felt like the tenth time. “If it’s not spontaneous human discombobulation, it’s a bloody hoax made to look like it, and I can’t even imagine why anyone would do that.”

  “Maybe,” Tunthorpe said, clearly feeling his way over dangerously speculative ground, “there was some damage or robbery or evidence in here, like a kidnapping or a murder, and they smashed up the rest of the place and filled some clothes with gunk just to make it look like a – a – look, I’m just going to say it, it looks like a bunch of Draculas just got stakes in the heart, alright?”

  “Vampires,” Gail said, although he was relieved Tunthorpe had actually said it. Of course, it wasn’t much of a stretch when you started putting together the rest of the evidence. “Dracula was a Vampire, there’s not a thing called a Dracula. But alright, point taken,” he added as Tunthorpe bristled semi-good-naturedly, “it does look like something out of a horror movie, especially when you look at the whole layout of the apartment with the windows and all, and the luggage … and you could be onto something, anyway. Maybe they’ve done the whole place up to look over-the-top, to hide something small that would otherwise have stood out. Like maybe one of the bodyguards accidentally shot Mister Canon and they’re trying to cover up the evidence, or…” he spread his hands helplessly and waved the file. “But it’s just … I don’t know what to tell you, mate. There’s no place to start. And even if there was a crime scene here, it’s a week old already.”

  “And a fake scene like this, just in case they needed to hide something that you might be able to hide in a scene like this, it’s just so much bloody setup, y’know?” Tunthorpe said. “I can’t … there’s no way they’d bother with something so convoluted … is there?”

  “Shit, mate,” Gail said, “this guy was loaded. There’s no limit to what rich people will do for a laugh – and no logic to it. It’s not our job to fill in those blanks.”

  “Way above our pay grade,” Tunthorpe agreed fervently.

  Some of the neighbours had complained – fairly timidly and non-insistently – around midnight the previous Monday when several loud explosions had been heard and felt from the upper levels of the apartment complex. Mister Canon and his ‘staff’ had been living in the suite of penthouse apartments for a couple of weeks already with no disturbances at that stage – indeed, no real sign that they were there at all. In fact, the complaints had been more like queries, since Mister Canon was the landlord, and the explosions had been the first disturbance of any kind from the upper levels that anybody could remember. It certainly hadn’t come to police attention until later on, when Mister Canon was missed at a social event over the weekend. Then, and only then, had the handful of calls been added to the laughable ‘dossier’ of case information.

  The police had finally been called to investigate, and from the moment they arrived on the landing of the penthouse level evidence of a break-in was stupendously clear. The massive doors at the top of the building that led into Mister Canon’s private suite had been blasted inwards so violently that no piece of wood larger than a toothpick was to be found anywhere inside – but pieces smaller than toothpicks were to be found everywhere. The destruction had continued from the landing, in a path of dust-laden designer clothing, to the wall of Mister Canon’s bedroom, which had been demolished in the same manner as the door.

  The bedroom door, as a matter of interest, hadn’t been opened at all. The intruder had barrelled in a direct line through the wall, as if the Roadrunner was about to get away and there was no time for faffing around.

  Gail and Tunthorpe walked back out of the bedroom and down the corridor, which led outwards to the rooms, unlike the master bedroom, that had windows. This area seemed to be deserted … except for five empty coffins of modest-to-middling value neatly stacked in the corner of one of the rooms. One of them stood open and empty, the rest were piled up with the lids on.

  There was yet to be any satisfactory explanation as to why Mister Canon would have such articles in his possession. Not that such a rich man actually needed to explain himself, and certainly not to the likes of Gail and Tunthorpe. The remarkable coincidence of five chip-board coffins, five bundles of dust-ridden old clothing and an apartment in which most of the living areas seemed to be located in rooms without any windows, did not seem worth making a fuss about, although it probably paid to get all the Dracula jokes out of the way now. Before they had to stand in front of their superiors, who were almost certainly in Mister Canon’s pocket, with nothing in their report but Well shit, it definitely looked like Dracula died of stake poisoning in there, Chief.

  In terms of criminal investigations, the coffins and ashes and interior design choices weren’t as remarkable as an apartment loaded with state-of-the-art home entertainment and security systems, and a fortune in antiques, apparently breached with the violence of a Special Air Service Regiment incursion but none of the expended ammo, without setting off any alarms unless the explosions counted, and they probably didn’t, and nothing actually stolen. And the fact that it had been standing wide open to anyone with the initiative to ride the elevator all the way to the top floor, for a week, and nobody had said a bloody peep.

  “Shit, man. It’s got me,” Gail said, looking out of the window at the sunset. It was a million-dollar view. Probably closer to ten million. “And nobody downstairs saw anything. All week.”

  “And they didn’t see Mister Canon’s associates or staff either,” said Tunthorpe, glancing meaningfully but not particularly helpfully at the stack of coffins. “Not since they arrived. Apparently they all got a chance to see Mister Canon himself, when he came downstairs the first night to say good evening to all his rent-payers. And up to the past week, a couple of the residents said they saw him coming and going a couple of nights. Even that, I’m surprised we got. Cases like this, usually nobody saw or heard anything. I think even the complaints about the explosions were a mistake, the residents probably thought it was coming from outside or they never would have even called. They certainly didn’t follow up on it.”

  “So,” Gail said. “They arrive in a private jet, sweep in here in limos with no paper trail, and settle in with nary a peep. Two weeks go by.”

  “And then there’s a bunch of explosions and a week later the place is trashed and there’s ash-filled clothes and nothing missing,” Tunthorpe continued.

  “Except for whatever they were carrying in these,” Gail said, stepping over to one of the sealed coffins and flipping it open to reveal a battered velvet-padded interior. Then he stepped back, gagging. “Jesus, that stinks.”

  “Like they actually held bodies?” Tunthorpe frowned, took a few paces forward but then stopping, pale, as the stench hit him. “Oh Jesus.”

  The same sleek, soundless ventilation system that had dealt with most of the dust, and may actually have covered up the most noticeable gunpowder-and-explosives evidence days ago, now kicked in and sucked up the worst of the stink from the coffin. It wasn’t corpse stink, though, Gail thought. There was rotten meat in there, certainly, or at least some sort of spoiled food … but it wasn’t corpse. Not exactly.

  “Luggage,” he snorted again, stepping back to join Tunthorpe. “Who carries luggage in coffins?”

  “Well like you say, he was rich,” Tunthorpe said. “I mean he is rich, of course. And I guess … coffins have a bit of built-in padding, and … look, I don’t know about you, but I was sort of assuming all these electronics and shit was what came in the coffins. There’s no record of their purchase or presence in the suite before Miste
r Canon arrived, and why would he have a beautifully stocked penthouse in Sydney just standing empty for twenty years, occasionally upgrading the entertainment system as…”

  As the decades go by, Gail thought with a chill, knowing exactly why his friend had trailed off. This is way above our pay grade and I want to go home.

  “You’re right,” he said when Tunthorpe made it clear he was done following that particular path and wasn’t even going to bother making up some alternative conclusion to his statement. “The gear was in these coffins. It even makes sense, right? People at shipping companies see boxes of antiques and stereo equipment and Hell, they might decide to make some of it fall off the back of the delivery truck. But you don’t do that shit with coffins, do you? I hesitate to say he transported his gear in coffins to avoid attention, but … maybe it’s just something he got it in his head to try.”

  Of course, they both knew perfectly well that antiques and electronics didn’t make their packaging smell like that. And that no packaging that smelled like that would ever be used by a self-respecting lover of fine things, because the fine things would wind up stinking like a rubbish tip. And the clothes lying around the apartment could be tested, and they would almost certainly find strands of coffin-velvet on the clothes, and they’d find strands from the clothes inside the coffins, and it was looking more and more likely that they were going to end up standing in front of an inquiry panel and saying the word vampire.

  “I just don’t get it,” Tunthorpe growled. “Why did they wait so long? A rich guy, this high-profile, no way is he only missed because he doesn’t come to a party. He’s got a private security firm watching him all the time. He’s never off their radars. Why aren’t they here?”

  Gail shook his head yet again, as the sun finally descended below the skyline. Getting information out of the apartment complex management board, and the delivery and limousine services, not to mention the company under which Mister Canon had registered his aircraft, had so far proven beyond the resources of the NSW Police Force. The closest they’d come to progress was a phone call this morning to one or another of the interconnected private firms that helped Mister Canon’s life to run smoothly and pleasantly as only untrackable, obscene quantities of money could enable. Tunthorpe and Gail had not been privy to the call but they’d been told it had run along the lines of When Mister Canon doesn’t want to be disturbed, he gets to vanish off the face of the Earth and it’s your job to say ‘welcome back Mister Canon’ when he reappears.

  In a rare show of courage the NSW Police had, in another conversation to which Gail and Tunthorpe hadn’t been invited, made the idle threat of an investigation concerning Canon’s strange fascination with coffins. No fewer than seven of the things had been unloaded from his jet according to airport security, even if there were only five in this room. Apparently the only response had been the casual forwarding of contact details for a lawyer so expensive it probably would have cost the equivalent of this entire apartment building for him to even answer his telephone. Not that he would ever answer his own telephone.

  “Maybe we’re on the wrong track,” Gail said. “This could be a kidnapping. A man like Mister Canon probably had a lot of powerful enemies, you know? Maybe we should just get a forensics team in here, get everything bagged up and sent to the lab–”

  “Can I help you gentlemen?”

  Gail and Tunthorpe whirled to see a young man standing in the doorway.

  Dressed tidily but not particularly richly in an ill-fitting dark suit and one of those white shirts that don’t have a collar for a tie but button right up to the chin with stylish little black buttons, he appeared to be about twenty years old. He appeared to be, but was far more poised and somehow wealthy-looking – even considering the poor fit of the suit – than any man of twenty could possibly have been. His hair was plaited at the back, a thick tapering braid that hung between his shoulders. His eyes were dark green, and as incongruous in that young frame as the suit and the bearing.

  “Who the Hell are you?” Gail demanded, his hand dropping from the butt of his gun to dangle hopelessly by his side. Just looking at the mysterious young man had convinced him, in some unidentifiable way right down in the ancient lizard-part of his brain, that going for his gun was futile. Tunthorpe was looking at the stranger as if he was a rabbit rather than a police officer, and the stranger had ISUZU written across his forehead and had headlights for eyes.

  “I am Canon,” the fellow said, and stepped towards them. He produced a stylish black leather wallet from his inner pocket and pulled out a number of dazzlingly official-looking cards, as well as something that looked suspiciously like a diplomatic passport, except Gail had never seen one before so he couldn’t be sure. He was, however, sure that the document entitled the young man to travel, live, and probably hunt people for sport pretty much anywhere on the planet. “I live here. Now, if you gentlemen would care to leave…”

  The officers blinked simultaneously. “Sir, you had a break-in,” Gail began, as Tunthorpe said, “Your apartment has been demolished.”

  “Nothing seems to be missing. And I will be putting a door in here. It is so inconvenient, walking all the way around to that door every time I wish to use the bedroom,” Canon laughed as if at some private joke. “Now, unless you have a warrant to invade my premises, I’m afraid I will have to ask you to leave.”

  Gail and Tunthorpe stood where they were, knowing something was very wrong with the situation but knowing just as surely that they would be riding the elevator back down to the complex lobby in less than five minutes. Only one sort of person saw their house was trashed, and then asked – let alone expected – the police to leave. The other sort of people called the police, and hovered anxiously until the police gave them papers to sign.

  Canon was not hovering.

  “Sir, we were concerned,” Gail said in as conciliatory a voice as he could. “Your apartment seems to have been ransacked, and you yourself went missing, probably a week ago. We suspected foul–”

  “Did you say ‘probably’ a week ago?” Canon – he didn’t seem to use honorifics, which was probably some sort of artsy postmodern European thing, fucker probably had ennui as well – interrupted Gail politely. The guy looked confused, but only briefly. His face returned to pleasant blandness so smoothly Gail wasn’t even sure he’d seen the uncertain expression. He wondered if Canon was on something. Aside from the ennui, of course.

  “Um…”

  “What I mean is, you don’t actually know if I was missing?” Canon tilted his head in a way that shot impulses right down into Gail’s brain-stem and made the ape in his genes want to climb the nearest tree.

  “I – you were reported absent from an event over the weekend–” Tunthorpe attempted.

  “Is that a matter for the police?” Canon asked, entirely justifiably. Again there was that flicker of confusion, again smothered instantly. “Did any of my tenants complain?” he asked, when neither officer could answer him.

  There was no emphasis on the term my, nor on the term complain – but Gail and Tunthorpe knew it when they didn’t hear it. They knew the way the wind was blowing. “No, Mister Canon, I mean Canon,” Tunthorpe said, “it’s–”

  “Mister Canon is fine.”

  “Mister Canon,” Tunthorpe said, “they merely expressed concern–”

  “Excellent. A first-class group of tenants, and you have done a first-rate job of protecting and serving. As you can see, there has been no foul play, this mess has all been the result of a rather silly series of high-spirited pranks, and I am not pressing charges against anybody at this time. I thank you.”

  “Culpam poena…” Gail mumbled, then trailed off as Canon’s polite smile turned on him.

  “Excuse me, officer?”

  “Our motto is culpam poena premit comes,” Gail said, not quite believing he was saying it. From Tunthorpe’s expression his partner couldn’t believe it either, and yet he was too fascinated to try to get him to stop. “That p
rotect and serve thing is the yanks…”

  “Ah, indeed,” Canon’s smile widened horribly. “Punishment swiftly follows crime, yes? Well, there has been no crime here, officers, so I must wish you a very good evening.”

  In less than five minutes, Gail and Tunthorpe were riding the elevator back down to the complex lobby.

  Neither one of them ever heard from Mister Canon again, nor did they like to talk about him. Men like Mister Canon could put normal people out of a job. Even police officers. Especially police officers, really. They could do it on a whim, Gail and Tunthorpe told their buddies. But secretly, they both knew why they’d let the matter of the Canon house-break drop. It wasn’t because their superiors had told them to – although they had, quite unnecessarily, first thing the following morning. It wasn’t because they’d taken any sort of a bribe – neither Gail nor Tunthorpe saw a cent for their diligent blind-eye-turning and conscious circumvention of hard work.

  No. It had been because Canon – Mister Canon – had scared the ever-loving bejesus out of them. There had been something about him that had made the officers feel like prey, for the first time in their lives.

  It was not a feeling to which city-bound human beings were accustomed.

  THROUGH SHADOWS

  Canon strolled through his shattered apartment, kicking idly at the remains of his henchmen. He stopped in the hallway outside his bedroom, where the wall had been blasted inwards as if by some giant fist. Across the hall a set of smart, tailored clothes lay in a heap, covered in dust. His clothes. And the ash inside them was his body. Or had been.

  Canon looked at the pile of wreckage for some time, then walked through the hole in his bedroom wall and across to the ornate dresser. A grossly expensive china decanter stood on the mahogany benchtop. The decanter was a four-hundred-year-old work of art worth almost as much as an apartment in this very complex, to the right collector. It had not held water, wine, whisky or port since Canon had purchased it almost a hundred and fifty years ago – Canon did not habitually drink such things, and blood did not keep at room temperature. Now, he took the decanter back out to the hallway, crouched beside his suit and began scraping up the dust. He filled the decanter, stoppered it, and stood. There was still a lot of former Canon lying on the floor, but this ought to be enough for remembrance’s sake.