by Nick Oldham
Flynn pushed the door open a little further then extended his hand, not too enticingly he hoped. He saw that it would just about fit into Roger’s old jaws very nicely, like a T-bone steak. ‘Good lad, come on.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘That’s a boy . . .’ Roger blinked, his tail wagged uncertainly, his ears flickering. Flynn opened the door a little further, keeping one hand on the knob, ready to slam it shut if necessary. ‘Come on, it’s Flynnie . . .’
Then, as if the dog was shedding a raincoat, his whole demeanour changed and he walked forward, head lowered, tail a-wag, ears back, submissive. Flynn was top dog. He patted him on the head, scratched his ears, then took the risk of fully opening the door and stepping into the kitchen. He squatted low, eyes level, and gave Roger a few hearty slaps, watching for any change of mind, but it looked as though Roger was going to do the decent thing – and not rip Flynn’s throat out.
‘Where’s your mum?’ Flynn asked. Roger’s ears perked up and the big bushy tail wagged enthusiastically. ‘Let’s find her, shall we?’ Flynn stood up and called out Tom’s name – just in case. There was no reply. ‘Come on,’ he said to Roger and walked out of the kitchen, down the hall and into the office.
A quick search did not reveal very much but it did give him some information. A photograph on the wall showed Cathy standing next to a vehicle against the backdrop of the police house. New cop taking up a new beat, Flynn guessed, and the vehicle in question was a short-wheelbase Mitsubishi Shogun, probably the one she used for work and pleasure, part paid for by the county, part paid for by her.
He took out his mobile phone, thinking he would try Cathy’s number again, but there was no signal. He picked up the phone on the desk and called it instead, but there was no reply other than the automated response that told him no one was available. He called another number.
‘Jerry, old mate . . .’ Flynn heard a groan at the other end of the line. ‘Sorry to bother you again so soon.’
‘You are going to get me sacked,’ Jerry Tope said.
‘Just a teensy favour.’
‘Tch!’
‘Knew you’d understand. Just check Cathy James’s duty states again, will you?’ There was a deep sigh and the tapping of computer keys.
‘Rest day, like I said.’
‘And Tom James?’
More tapping. ‘Nine-five. That it?’ Tope asked hopefully.
‘Can you get into the computerized incident logs for Kendleton up in Northern Division? Course you can.’ Another very pissed-off sigh. ‘For yesterday. Can you see if a poacher was reported on land at Mallowdale House?’
Flynn waited. ‘Nothing,’ Tope said.
‘So she didn’t call it in, then?’ Flynn mused out loud, frowning.
‘What?’ Jerry asked.
‘Nothing – thanks matey.’ Flynn was about to hang up when he thought he heard Tope saying something more. ‘What was that?’
‘I just want to confirm something.’
‘What would that be?’
‘Are you talking about Mallowdale House in Kendleton?’
‘Yes.’
‘I assume you know who lives there?’
‘Unfriendly people, I gather. Lord of the manor, I suppose. Shoots commoners just as soon as look at them.’
‘Not quite. An OC target,’ Tope said. ‘A very big OC target.’
‘Organized crime as in . . .?’
‘You didn’t hear this from me.’
‘Just tell me.’
‘Jack Vincent.’
Flynn’s brain cogs whirred. ‘No bells,’ he admitted.
‘Rich, connected, usually operates down below the radar, business fronts mainly in haulage and construction.’
‘Drugs?’
‘Big style. Came into our sights say three years ago.’
‘Which is why I don’t know him.’
‘And that’s all I’m saying – especially on an open line.’
‘I happen to be sitting in Cathy James’s office, using her phone, buddy.’
‘Why the hell are you asking me what shift she’s working, then?’
‘Because she isn’t here. I broke in.’ Flynn hung up quickly, smiling at the wind-up. Then he leaned forward and looked at the message logs, as he thought this through. He knew it wouldn’t be unusual for a deployment at a rural station not to be logged immediately with the control room, although eventually it would be; nor was it unusual for a rural beat officer to turn out on a rest day. That was the downside that came with working a rural beat, you were at the behest of the community 24/7 and rest days were a luxury. Having said that, Flynn would have expected Cathy to inform control room that she was attending the report of a poacher, if only from a health and safety perspective. He frowned, flicked idly through a few days’ worth of messages, some handwritten, others word processed, and realized with shock that he’d made a very big assumption about something. He took out the now very crumpled message he’d stolen earlier that day from the top of the pad, straightened it out and re-read it.
Somehow they managed to make it back up the steep hillside to the track, Henry taking Donaldson’s weight and half lifting, half dragging him. By the time they were back on the narrow track, Henry was seriously exhausted. He settled the big man down and re-checked the mobile phones, shaking his head angrily, again resisting the compulsion to fling the useless items into the snow when they showed no signal.
‘I reckon we’ve got about two miles to go, max, before we hit the village. By my estimation we should be pretty close to an unused quarry which we’ll skirt around and from there we should be able to find a decent road down to the main road, then we’ll be near the village.’
‘Is this good news?’
‘It’s all good news. How’s the foot, ankle, whatever?’
‘I don’t think it’s broken, but it’s a bad sprain.’
‘So it might as well be broken?’
Donaldson shrugged helplessly. ‘Guess so.’
‘We’ll do it bit by bit, yard by yard, eh?’ He patted Donaldson’s shoulder, dreading how hard this was going to be. Henry was big and strong enough, but Donaldson was bigger and heavier and the prospect of keeping him upright for the next two miles across treacherous terrain and against the weather did not fill Henry with glee. The drag back up the hill, only a matter of fifty metres, had been tough enough. ‘All I ask is that you don’t go on any unauthorized excursions again,’ Henry said.
‘Are we going to find your mummy?’ Flynn asked the dog in his most patronizing tone. ‘Yes we are, yes we are.’ Roger barked happily. ‘Are you going to come with me? For a walk?’ Roger’s ears shot up at the ‘W’ word and Flynn could have sworn he smiled and went, ‘Yeah, yeah.’
Flynn had a quick scout around the kitchen and found a selection of leads hanging behind the back door, chunky thick leather ones, ones that looked like chains from a work gang, and an extendable one. Flynn picked a leather one, clipped it to Roger’s collar and looped the handle a couple of times around his hand to keep a firm hold of him, otherwise the dog would probably do just what it wanted to do. Before leaving, Flynn cast his eyes around the room and saw a lady’s headscarf tossed across a kitchen stool. Assuming it was Cathy’s, he grabbed it and stuffed it in his pocket.
‘Come on then, Roger.’ Even before he had completed the sentence the dog lunged for the door, almost yanking Flynn’s shoulder out of its socket. He heaved back. ‘Whoa there.’
It had some effect, but Flynn was still basically dragged out of the door, into the garage and out to the front of the house where the dog made a beeline for a big tree at the bottom of the drive and cocked his leg up. After the relief, Flynn took better command and led the dog to his hire car, opened the passenger door and indicated for Roger to climb in. After a suspicious glance, the dog climbed stiffly in and Flynn noticed for the first time that its back legs were on their way out, as is often the case with German shepherds, or so he had heard.
Flynn went to the driver’s side, got in. R
oger was almost as large as a human passenger and Flynn felt like he was sitting next to Scooby-Doo, the cartoon dog.
‘Ready?’
Roger eyed him, his tongue hanging out, slavering all over the gear lever.
Donaldson did his utmost to help Henry, but it was clear that the pain of the ankle injury and the continuing griping in the stomach from the food poisoning had combined to knock him for six. Henry had Donaldson’s arm across his shoulder, acting as a crutch for his friend, but the going underfoot was slippery and the track hardly wide enough for two to walk abreast. But Henry held on and they made slow progress. The weather did not let up and daylight was fading fast.
Henry had no reason to suspect his estimation of their position was anything other than correct, but they still had to get down off the hill and into the village before nightfall. To be caught even a hundred yards away from the main road would be just as deadly as being trapped on the hill.
Steve Flynn drove up the narrow road. It was filling with snow, which was starting to drift and bank up in various places. He cursed the weather and had another quick flashback to the sunshine he’d abandoned two thousand miles south of here.
With the weather being so bad, he realized he didn’t have time for more than a cursory drive around the roads that formed the perimeter of some of the land surrounding Mallowdale House. It didn’t help that he was a stranger to the area, didn’t know where he was going, didn’t know what he was looking for and was probably wasting his time anyway.
The road dipped, the car fishtailed through some deep snow, then began to rise. On his left was a high security fence and he spotted a sign written in red letters which he guessed warned against trespassing. On a post behind one of the signs, behind the fence, he also saw a CCTV camera. He didn’t stop to read the signs, but drove on another hundred metres and found a wide double gate, maybe ten feet high, but dipping slightly in the centre where the two halves met. He pulled up at it, peered through the windscreen and considered it for a moment. It seemed to be the entrance to Mallowdale House.
‘You stay here,’ he told Roger, who nodded.
He got out and walked up to the gate, which was made of solid wood, reinforced with steel belts, and was electronically operated. On a pole behind one of the gate posts was another CCTV camera, focused on him. There was another sign on the gate itself which read, its tone unfriendly, ‘MALLOWDALE HOUSE. NO TRESPASSING. GROUNDS PATROLLED BY SECURITY GUARDS AND DOGS. BEWARE. KEEP AWAY. CCTV CAMERAS ALSO IN USE.’ Like the sign further down the road, it was written in red. He tried to peer through the tiny gap in the middle of the gate. With one eye he could just about see a curved driveway, with a couple of sets of tyre tracks in the snow, and beyond, behind the snow-laden trees, almost out of sight, a large house, but he couldn’t make out its detail in the fading light. He could also make out some cars parked outside, but again, no detail.
‘Can I help you?’ Flynn jumped as a metallic voice came from an intercom speaker set in the gate post. Automatically he glanced at the CCTV camera again. He gave a little wave, walked over to the intercom and pressed the talk button.
‘I’d like to see Mr Vincent,’ Flynn said, off the cuff.
‘What’s your business?’
Still winging it, Flynn ad-libbed, ‘Police business. I believe he’s had poachers on his land.’
‘Show your warrant card to the camera,’ the voice instructed him.
Flynn made a weedy show of patting his pockets. ‘I think I’ve forgotten it.’
‘In that case, come back when you’ve got it – and make an appointment beforehand.’ The intercom clicked dead.
Flynn toyed with the idea of pressing the talk button again, but decided against it. He got back in the car and looked at his travelling companion. ‘Have you got your warrant card?’ he asked the dog. Roger looked dumbly at him, dipped his head forward to be stroked and dribbled on to Flynn’s lap. ‘Thought not.’
He engaged first gear and carefully started the car, the wheels spinning in the snow. He drove on up the hill. The high fencing with warning signs continued for another quarter of a mile parallel with the road before doing a right-hand turn. Flynn drove on up the hillside, which got steeper and steeper, passing the entrance to Mallowdale Quarry. He wondered if this had any connection with the house, recalling what Jerry Tope had said about Jack Vincent’s legitimate businesses, haulage and construction. The light car became even more difficult to control and the snow seemed to be getting even heavier the higher up he got.
Flynn realized he was driving blind in more senses than one and he might simply be reacting to something that didn’t even exist. Chances were that Cathy was completely safe and unharmed. She’d probably stormed out of the house with no intention of looking for a poacher and was safe and sound somewhere, licking her wounds, phone turned off to stop incoming calls from Tom. Flynn still felt uneasy about the situation and was worried that Cathy wasn’t returning his calls, but he could see there was very little he could do about it and a big part of his instinct was telling him not to get involved. Domestic disputes equalled messy nightmares.
He decided to give it another mile or so then – literally, probably – spin around, slide back down to the village and see how the weather panned out.
The road twisted. The car slid and the steering wheel spun out of his grip, and he almost ended up nose first in a snow bank.
‘Enough’s enough, yeah?’ he asked Roger, who had only just managed to stay seated. Flynn reversed carefully, keeping the revs low and using the clutch tenderly to edge back off the road into a forest track. His intention was to return to Kendleton and, if there was no chance of leaving the village because of the weather, throw his charming self on the mercy of Alison the curvy landlady for the night. He tried not to think about the possibility of laying his weary head on her bosom . . . the car slithered backwards on to the track, making him concentrate on driving again. He braked, went back into first gear and let out the clutch slowly. The tyres spun, not gripping. He eased off and tried again.
It was then he happened to glance in the rear view mirror. Something dark amongst the pine trees had caught his eye. Puzzled, not even sure if he had seen anything, he yanked on the handbrake and looked over his shoulder through the back window, which was covered with big spats of snow. It cleared with a sweep of the wiper blade and confirmed the glimpse. There was a dark vehicle parked some thirty metres up the track, virtually out of sight of the road.
Flynn’s guts felt as though they’d been scraped out as he fumbled with his seat belt, scrambled out of the car and ran up the track.
They staggered towards the remains of a farmhouse, nothing more than a shell of stone and rubble, no roof, most of the walls missing. It looked as though it had been bombed, but it was a good sight for Henry to behold. Breathing heavily, he was close to falling over. Cold pervaded his whole being and his energy reserves had dwindled almost to zero as he fought to keep Donaldson upright, as he had been doing for the last two tortuous miles.
He was relieved to see the building because it was a feature on his map, overlooking the edge of the disused quarry which was also on the map. This meant they were not far from a track that would lead them down to the minor road, thence to the village of Kendleton where they could rest and recuperate and possibly get medical attention. The end was in sight.
He guided Donaldson to the farmhouse and eased him down under the lee of one of the walls that remained standing, blocking off some of the wind and snow.
Henry’s relief was incredible, but tempered by the thought he might have made a mistake in stopping. Should they have carried on? The thought of heaving his friend back up to his feet was demoralizing. Henry stretched his back, muscles he didn’t know he had ached agonizingly. He looked at Donaldson massaging his injured ankle. His tanned face was pale and sickly.
‘Couple of minutes, then we get going again.’
‘Sure thing,’ Donaldson mumbled, not even raising his eyes to look at Hen
ry.
Henry resisted the urge to sink down next to him, knowing he would not want to get back up again and also wanting to give his friend the impression that he was OK, even if he wasn’t. A psychological thing, his desire to keep Donaldson’s spirits up.
Instead he wandered around the building that had once been a large farmhouse, curious as to why it had never been renovated. To Henry it looked like it would have made a stunning house. He wandered around the walls then got the probable answer to the question. Within ten feet of the gable end was a high, wire-mesh fence. Henry walked towards it, slipped his fingers through the mesh and gave it a rattle, reading the Danger – Keep Out sign in red. Underneath these words was written Disused Quarry. And that was why the farmhouse had never been done up, he guessed. Too near the rim of the quarry, although as he peered through the fence he couldn’t actually see this. But he assumed it wasn’t too far away. Once, the farmhouse would have been situated in a stunning location on the hillside, but as the quarry had been excavated and crept closer, it wasn’t so nice.
‘Whatever,’ Henry said, ending his speculation. He turned, had his back to the fence when suddenly the hairs on the back of his neck rose and a very strange sensation rippled down his spine as he became aware of a presence behind him. For a brief moment every organ in his body seemed to seize as the certainty overwhelmed him that somewhere behind him, not too far away, something was stalking him.
He went rigid. Out of the corner of his eye he was utterly convinced he had seen a movement, a shape on the other side of the fence. His mouth opened slightly and he swallowed. Something deep inside him, some long-buried intuition, told him he was being hunted, that he was the prey.
Catching his breath, his neck muscles taut like wire, his nostrils flaring, his mouth now a tight ‘O’, he spun quickly. Was there something? An indistinguishable shape on the other side of the fence? Yes. Then it was gone and there was just the faintest scent in the air. Henry stared dumbly at the fence, at the exact point where he was certain he’d seen something. But there was nothing and he became conscious of how wound up his body had become.