Death Dogs

by Andy Emery

  Volkov waved at Gedge and let go of the rope. He dropped to the ground, onto the pile of mattresses in the small garden to the side of the doorway. He bounced off his soft landing pad and within a few steps he grabbed the woman, one arm wrapped around her throat, the other wielding the pistol. He forced her onto Grosvenor Road.

  Darius reached the window. ‘It looks like he’s making for the embankment.’

  ‘There’s a small steam launch alongside one of the jetties. It’s probably waiting for him, under steam and ready to go. We’ve got to get after him. Polly, are you alright?’

  ‘Yes. I’m coming with you.’

  They turned to see Hawthorne sobbing and picking the grimoire out of the grate with a pair of fire tongs. The delicate pages had caught fire immediately. The charred remains wouldn’t be giving up any ancient secrets now.

  46

  Gedge thrust the door open and threw himself down the steps, just in time to see Volkov hauling his hostage onto the opposite pavement. Luckily, she was struggling and making it difficult for him, otherwise Volkov would already be on the jetty. But he was still close to the steps leading down to it.

  Polly and Darius emerge from Hawthorne’s house, behind Gedge.

  Volkov was a yard from the gate at the top of the steps down to the jetty, when Polly called to him. ‘Wait, please!’

  The Russian stopped and turned. His hostage broke free from his grip and staggered a couple of steps before falling to the ground. In trying to keep hold of her, Volkov’s pistol slipped out of his grasp and it skittered several yards away across the paving stones.

  Gedge levelled his own revolver. Polly and the female hostage had given him just the time he’d needed.

  ‘It’s over, Volkov. I’m a damned good shot and I’ll hit you however quickly you try to get down those steps. Time to give up.’

  A smile played across Volkov’s lips. ‘I’m not sure it’s quite over, Mr Gedge. I don’t doubt your accuracy with that gun, but there are other factors you may not have taken into account.’ He looked to Gedge’s right, where Polly was still standing on the steps outside Hawthorne’s house.

  She shouted again. ‘Lucas! Don’t shoot. There must be another way.’

  ‘All he has to do is move away from the jetty and hand over the bag.’

  Volkov shrugged. ‘Or you’ll shoot me? I’m unarmed, Gedge. Surely killing me would be against your moral code?’

  ‘You’ve no idea about my “moral code”. And I’m not sure you should be the one to lecture on that subject.’

  ‘I know this about you, Gedge. Like me, you are appalled by the evil in the world. That, and the monstrous apathy towards it that is displayed by the majority of the populace.’

  ‘Being appalled is one thing. It’s what follows that counts. In your case, you use it as an excuse to justify anything in the name of your cause. Including the abandonment of your own daughter. Now your plans include mass murder.’

  Volkov continued to look on, the smile still fixed.

  ‘In truth, you actually believe you’re the only one who can save Russia, don’t you? By any means, however deranged.’

  Volkov scoffed. ‘Deranged, Gedge? That is a serious allegation, coming from a man whose brain is addled by nightmares brought on by his military experiences. Yes, Polly has spoken of you. Oh, was that meant to be confidential? So sorry.’ He laughed.

  Gedge glanced back at Polly, who looked down at her feet. His heart felt a stab of pain, a pinprick of betrayal. But he snapped his attention back to the Russian.

  ‘Mind games, Volkov. Those nightmares are no secret, and they do not shame me. But we can trade insults all day. We’re still left with a choice for you to make. Give yourself up, or I’ll shoot you.’

  Polly came closer. ‘Lucas, you can’t shoot an unarmed man! You don’t even know that he’ll succeed with whatever his plan is. All he has now is a bag of money.’

  ‘Unarmed? Volkov, what about that unstable grenade you flourished at the museum?’

  ‘I used an old technique known to those involved in clandestine activities down the ages, Gedge. I lied. The grenade was in fact totally inert.’

  But Gedge knew that whether Volkov was armed or not, if he reached the boat they would not be able to catch him. He’d almost certainly have his escape route mapped out, at some point transferring to a larger, faster vessel that could whisk him away to one of dozens of ports and harbours on the French side of the Channel, and then on to his motherland. There, he would have the chance to murder hundreds of his own countrymen in the name of freedom.

  Polly was now at Gedge’s side. She rested a hand on his left arm, while the pistol in his right hand still pointed at Volkov.

  ‘Gedge, it seems that you also have a choice to make. However badly I have treated my daughter, you have underestimated the bonds of family. I may have strained them to breaking point, but perhaps not beyond. Are you willing to take the chance?’

  All was silent for a second. The river lapped at the bank behind the Russian. Gedge’s heart pumped in his chest.

  Volkov let out a hysterical yell and threw the gate open.

  Darius, silent all this while, shouted. ‘Lucas! Take the shot!’

  Polly tightened her grip on Gedge’s left arm. ‘No! Lucas!’

  As Volkov put his foot on the first step down to the water, Gedge fired.

  The bullet caught the Russian in the chest. He seemed frozen for a moment, his grin still in place. He pitched backward, his free hand flailing for a handrail that wasn’t there. He fell, the satchel dropping from his grasp as he did so. Two splashes from below.

  Gedge reached the top of the steps and looked over. The steam launch had pulled away and was already ten yards from the bank. Volkov’s body lay face up on the water surface, still smiling. The bag could not be seen, but Gedge guessed that a trail of bubbles breaking the surface just feet from Volkov indicated where it had sunk.

  The body of the Russian also started to sink. First the legs descended, then the body. Water swirled and eddied around the shoulders, the luxuriant black beard. Polly caught up with Gedge just as her father’s head sank out of sight.

  Darius ran up. ‘Maybe the police can catch that boat?’

  Gedge shook his head. ‘They can try, but I don’t fancy their chances.’

  Polly brushed past Gedge and started to run down the steps. Her face was a mask of despair, her eyes focused on the spot where Volkov had been.

  Gedge reached out for her. ‘Polly, come away. There’s nothing you can do now. I’m sorry.’

  She looked back at him, her eyes cold. ‘You’re wrong, there is something I can do. I know exactly what I’m going to do.’

  She walked back up the steps, brushing past Gedge, then turned and headed for the embankment, in the direction of the Houses of Parliament.

  Darius joined Gedge and they both watched her go. ‘You should go after her. It looks like this has affected her badly.’

  ‘And that’s why there’s no point in me talking to her now. I’ve just killed her father, Darius.’

  ‘You had to. You know that, and she’ll come to realise it. You know what she always said about never wanting to know anything about her real father. Well, she was right all along, it would have been better if he’d stayed as some sort of myth. Are you alright, Lucas?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course. It’s just that I suddenly feel like I’ve lost my closest friend.’

  47

  A Week Later

  In the early morning, Gedge walked down to the Thames foreshore at Wapping Steps. The tide was out and the oily water lapped a few feet away from his boots. He stood on the shingle, amid the washed-up detritus of the city: bottles, cans, a dead dog. A hundred yards to his right, a shambling mudlark rummaged about in the filth, in search of some lost trinket to sell.

  He looked across the river to the Bermondsey side, taking in the granaries, wharves and docks.

  He had two envelopes in his pocket.

  He to
ok one of them out and looked at the letter within. It was the note he’d received from Bellhouse. The death of his former boss had come as a shock, even though he felt he’d disowned the Major.

  But one thing nagged at him.

  Do not believe all you hear about me.

  What had he meant by that? He put that letter away and took out the second one.

  He ran a forefinger gently over the handwritten address. Polly’s familiar curly hand. He’d never asked her if she’d trained in calligraphy. It looked like it, and it wouldn’t have surprised him if she had been taught by Claude, the man he still thought of as her father. He had been an expert in so many fields.

  The postmark indicated the letter had been posted in Milan, Italy, four days ago. He, and everyone else had assumed that Polly would have headed for Russia.

  He slit open the envelope and removed a piece of notepaper.

  Dear Lucas,

  I am writing as I believe I need to explain my sudden disappearance on that dreadful day a few weeks ago. I’m sure you and my other friends in Spitalfields must wonder what has become of me.

  I just had to get away, Lucas. As you can imagine, the whole experience of the last few weeks has been almost impossible to bear. My birth father appearing like that, especially after teasing me with his notes and gifts, then finding out that he was not only involved in the very plot we were investigating, but that he was a revolutionary intent on causing mayhem back in Russia. Despite my oft-repeated protestations that I did not care about my real father, I actually softened towards him, and began to see his point of view.

  Perhaps you even thought I was going to go away with him? I never would have, but of course events spiralled out of control. To think that my father was shot dead only three weeks after I met him, and by one of my best friends! That night, by the Thames, I hated you for a while, Lucas. I couldn’t help myself, despite knowing in my heart of hearts that the balance of Volkov’s mind had been damaged, and that he would never have been any kind of father, in comparison to my dear Claude.

  After a while, I began to accept that you had to act, that you gave him every chance. I still sometimes think you could have shot to wound him, and thereby capture him instead, but he probably would have gone even further out of his mind if he’d had to rot in a British jail. I don’t hate you any more, Lucas, but I can’t be near you either, nor stay in Spitalfields.

  As you know, after Claude died, many people came to the house, from all round the world, to pay their respects. It’s extraordinary that in so many countries the common people suffer horribly under tyrannical regimes. Claude’s contacts are the ones who are trying to do something about that. I’m convinced I can help them do so, without turning myself into another Nicolai Volkov. So that’s what I’m going to do.

  I don’t know where I’ll end up. The network is huge, but it is under constant surveillance and harassment by the authorities. You’ll see I’m in Italy now, staying with one of Claude’s friends, a wonderful man called Amilcare Cipriani, and I’m learning a lot. I know the new life I have chosen for myself will be harsh and dangerous. I will risk imprisonment or execution. But the cause is just, and I am brave.

  Lucas, please do not try to come after me. I know what I am doing, and I don’t need to be saved from myself. In any case, this is a peripatetic lifestyle. This week in one city, next week another, I know not where.

  There’s the practical matter of Claude’s files. I will arrange to have them shipped to me. I’ll just have to try to find another expert cryptographer to decipher them, unless I can work something out with Miss Fowler. Perhaps she would like to live abroad and continue to help me with them? I know she is good with languages as well as codes!

  Well, Lucas, I have waffled on for long enough. Please look on me with at least some degree of favour. It’s funny. I did think at one time that there might be something more than friendship between us, but I suppose you didn’t feel the same way?

  I fervently hope you get over your demons, the nightmares and so on. Think of me sometimes, won’t you?

  Your friend,

  Polly Rondeau

  Gedge read the last few lines again. He swallowed and shook his head, then folded the letter and placed it back into the envelope.

  He turned and climbed the steps back up to street level, and, tears coursing down his cheeks, made his way back towards Spitalfields.

  Back on the foreshore, the man who had been probing through the mud stood up, removed his flat cap, revealing closely-cropped blonde hair, and rubbed a hand over the scar on his chin. He took off his spectacles and cleaned the thick lenses with a handkerchief, then pulled out a small notebook and wrote a few words. Tucking it back in an inside pocket, he smiled and shook his head, before striding off towards the steps Gedge had ascended a few minutes earlier. His sack of scavenged objects lay abandoned in the mud behind him.

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  Lucas Gedge will return in Rogue Agent.

  Also by Andy Emery

  Blood Tribute

  The first book in the Lucas Gedge Thriller series.

  London, 1890. A former soldier and secret agent returns home, intent on settling down to a quiet life. But he is soon drawn into a world of abduction and murder. When his daughter is placed in deadly danger, he must use his special skills to save her and bring the criminals to justice.

  Contents

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  Part I

  Part II

  Part III

  Part IV

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  If You Enjoyed This Book

  Also by Andy Emery

  Acknowledgments

  Acknowledgments

  Again I’ve benefitted from the services of three excellent professionals. Thank you once more!

  Andrew Lowe - Content and copy editing

  Katherine Stephen - Proofreading

  Stuart Bache - Cover design

  Copyright © 2018 by Andy Emery

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Content & Copy Editing: Andrew Lowe

  Proof-Reading: Katherine Stephen

  Cover Design: Stuart Bache at Books Covered

  Cover photographs © Shutterstock

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