by Matt Haig
‘I’m so sorry, I really am. But I had no choice, not after what you told me.’
Falstaff looked at me, his eyes filled with hurt and the threat of attack. He held this look for what seemed like forever, before collapsing on the floor and rolling on his back in a fit of panted laughter.
‘What’s so funny?’
He stared up with his upside-down head, and eyes now completely free from hurt. ‘Your face. That’s what’s so funny.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Quelle surprise, madwag. Quelle surprise.’
‘But I thought -’
‘Oh, come on. Did you really think I would be bothered?’
‘That I killed your master? Well, to be honest, yes.’
Falstaff stood up, sniffed me in disbelief, and said: ‘You really are a mad wag, aren’t you?’
‘But you hid things from me, to protect Simon.’
‘To protect you, you idiot.’
‘To protect me? From what?’
‘From yourself, madwag. From your stupid belief-system. ’
‘But I thought it was about Charlotte. I thought you told me because you cared.’
He sighed. ‘I told you because you wouldn’t give up, madwag. No matter how many times I tried to persuade you to enjoy the finer things in life - smell-heaps, chasing squirrels - I had to admit you were a lost cause.’
‘But you must miss him?’
‘Who? Simon?’
I nodded.
‘Simon, in case you hadn’t noticed, was a human being. Human beings are too stupid to have real feelings, they just borrow them from their television programmes, so why have real feelings for them?’
‘Because he looked after you.’
‘Looked after me, madwag? Oh, by feeding me meat and biscuits once a day? Ha! And anyway, he didn’t even do that, it was always Emily. No, madwag, humans don’t care for us, not really. And Simon cared the least. I may not be a pure Springer, but I believe they’ve got a point. Humans just hold us back from our true instincts. They chop off our bollocks, well your bollocks, they try and take away our scent and then, at the first sign of weakness, they take us to Nice Mister Vet to “put us out of our misery”. We’re just stuck in the middle, you know, like they say, the rope in the tug of war between man and nature. No, I tell you. Humans fuck you up. They may not mean to, madwag, but they do and Labradors are the last to realise.’
‘That is one way of looking at it.’
‘And what’s the other way, madwag? Enlighten me.’
‘The other way is to realise that without our masters we wouldn’t even exist and so, in protecting them, we are protecting our right to be here.’
‘Well, I’m sorry for failing to see the bigger picture, madwag. But right here, at ground-level, it seems to me that the more you care the more you get shitted on . . .’
He carried on talking, but I became distracted by the sight of Adam and Emily, sitting on the park bench. Emily had a hand to her face, she was crying. Adam was speaking to her, offering words of comfort, but keeping his distance.
‘What has she said?’ I asked, but Falstaff gave me a look of blank incomprehension. ‘Emily. What has she said, about, you know, Simon?’
‘Listen, madwag. You may have got me before, but there’s no way I’m giving you any further information. You see: no Emily, no meat and biscuits, and Falstaff trots off to the dogs’ home.’
‘I’m not going to kill Emily.’
‘No of course you wouldn’t, madwag. Of course you wouldn’t. What was I thinking?’
‘I’m not. Honestly.’
And then Falstaff spoke in a voice which I suppose was meant to resemble mine, but in actual fact bore no similarity at all: ‘I must protect the Family. Emily must be sacrificed. She must be killed before she corrupts my master again. My poor, helpless master. He did not realise what he was doing . . .’
I raised a paw. ‘All right, all right. Very amusing. I’m a Labrador, I can take it. I am well aware that I must appear ridiculous to you . . .’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘. . . but I just want to know that she is not going to try and take Adam away, or blackmail him.’
He hesitated. ‘OK, but before I tell you let’s have one last sniff, just for old times’ sake.’
And so, reluctantly, I followed him over towards the smell-heap, keeping an eye on Adam and Emily as we went. When we got there Falstaff dived straight in and stayed under for quite some time.
‘That stuff just keeps on getting stronger,’ he said, when he came back out.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘About Emily . . .’
‘One sniff of that pong-pile, madwag, and the last thing you’ll be bothered about is our masters.’
‘But you said you’d tell me.’
‘Sniff first.’
And so he had me again. I was there, faced with the nightmare stench of the smell-heap, so heady and pungent it rippled the air above it. But then, as my nose entered the rotting heap of dirt and leaves, I had an incredible thought (incredible for a Labrador, at any rate). The thought was this: I want to get out of my head. The reasons for this thought were, I justified to myself, very simple. It would help me forget. It would help to ease the pain, if only momentarily. I would lose myself.
Furthermore, my previous barrier to pleasure-sniffing - that it breached the Pact - was no longer applicable. The Pact had already been breached. So when I reached the strongest smelling part of the smell-heap I inhaled deep. All the smells I had smelled before - rich earth, leaf juice, worm blood, squirrel droppings - they were all still there but at an even stronger intensity.
Again, I had a feeling of weightlessness, as if my body was dissolving into the park itself, only this time it was coupled with something else. A feeling of absolute control. No, not control - power. As if all the wild and natural forces suppressed in the park were rising up within me, or I was rising up into them, it was hard to tell.
‘OK, madwag, you’ve earnt your information,’ he said, while I was still under. ‘Emily’s not going to take your master away, she’s taking me away. She’s selling the house and going back to London. She’s probably telling him now. There. Has that put your mind at rest?’
Strangely, it hadn’t.
As I pulled my head out another smell hit me, just for a second, but sharp enough to make me feel sick.
‘Something’s wrong,’ I said.
‘Overdone it eh, madwag?’ chuckled Falstaff, cocking his leg against the side of the smell-heap.
‘No. There was a smell.’
‘Uh-huh.’
My mind sharpened and I felt myself return to my own body. ‘No, a weird smell. Didn’t you smell it? Not like last time.’
‘You know, madwag, I think you’ve finally lost the plot.’
‘No, come here. Smell.’
Falstaff trod slowly over and lowered his nose to the exact area I indicated.
‘Can you smell it?’
He didn’t say anything, which itself was an answer. I sniffed at it again, and followed its trail. It led to an area behind the smell-heap, under tangled wood, past crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, towards the darkest corner of the park.
I started to dig.
‘Madwag, what are you doing?’
‘Falstaff, there is something I should have told you before. There have been strange things happening in this park. An old friend of mine, Joyce, a wolfhound, she was murdered. Her throat ripped out. Her body was found under the bushes.’
‘Oh great, so now we’re hunting for corpses.’
I dug further and the smell grew stronger.
‘There’s definitely something.’
‘Oh well, I’ll leave you to it.’
I turned to see Falstaff’s head become swallowed up by the smell-heap, then carried on. The smell was horrific. Not strong, but terrifying. Terrifying because I instinctively knew what it meant.
It meant a dead body.
A dead human body.
brakes
Car brakes screamed beyond the park wall.
soil
My paw hit something hard, then flinched away.
It was a head. A face. The skin detectable beneath the cover of soil. I pawed gently to see further.
A woman.
Although filled with earth, her mouth was open. As if it was trying to whisper the story of her muddy death. My heart beat faster. ‘Falstaff!’
He didn’t answer.
‘Falstaff!’
Still nothing.
‘Falstaff! Come here!’
His head withdrew from the smell-heap.
‘I hear you, madwag. I hear you.’ He made his way over, his bloated body cracking twigs as it travelled.
He looked down at the body and then back at me.
‘It’s a body,’ he said.
For once, Falstaff was unable to laugh away the situation.
‘We’ve got to do something,’ I told him.
‘We? We do nothing. This is human business.’
‘We need to make sure humans know. Families are at risk, we have to pull the body out of the ground.’
‘Listen, madwag, with all due respect, you killed my master. You can’t have it both ways. I didn’t get worked up about that so why on earth should I get worked up about this?’
‘Because this death is pointless.’
‘We’re dogs. Our whole existence is pointless.’
‘Listen, you get our masters while I start to pull her out.’
But he didn’t move. He just sat there watching me as I pulled at the woman’s coat with my teeth.
‘Madwag, you need to think this through. If we get our masters involved they could be implicated. You know what human justice is like.’
He had a point. If I got Adam involved, it could place the Family in even greater danger. But then, if the body was left unfound, the killer would probably never be caught.
‘OK, OK, let me think,’ I said. ‘What if we pulled the body out so it would be discovered eventually, but not by our masters.’
Falstaff desperately searched for an objection to this plan, but couldn’t find one. ‘Listen, you crazy Labrador, this is the last time I ever do anything to help you and your stupid mission. And remember: I’m doing this out of loyalty to my species, not to humans.’
‘Thanks, you’re a good friend.’
‘And you can cut the sentimentality as well.’
‘OK. Let’s get to work.’
We had to act fast. Any moment Adam and Emily would be calling our names, ready to take us home. We took a coat shoulder each and pulled backwards, trying our hardest to block out the scent of death.
Her head fell back, onto the surface soil, banging the ground hard. Earth slid from her face, revealing the grey skin beneath.
I looked at the park wall, only a short distance away. ‘Someone will find her here,’ I told Falstaff.
‘Yes, they will. Now come on, before our masters find us.’ Falstaff clearly couldn’t take the sight or smell any longer. But I was thankful. Despite his complete disregard for the human species, despite his attempts to pretend nothing matters he had proved to be a true friend.
We clambered back through the twigs, passed the smell-heap and back into the open. Adam and Emily were still talking on the bench, both staring at the ground, then they looked up and spotted us.
‘I won’t see you again,’ said Falstaff. ‘We’re going tomorrow. To London.’
‘Oh,’ I said, remembering what he’d told me while I’d been submerged in the smell-heap. ‘That soon.’
‘I’m bad at goodbyes, madwag, I really am,’ he said, sniffing me awkwardly. I felt he wanted to tell me something, but couldn’t, something he’d clearly held within for a long time.
I looked back over towards the far corner of the park, where the body of an unknown woman lay waiting to be discovered.
‘Me too, Falstaff. Me too.’
news
I watched the news eagerly that night, praying no one would change channels. Charlotte had the controls but, unusually, wasn’t flicking to see what else was on.
Bad things were happening, on the screen.
Men were running through dust in a ruined town, firing machine-guns.
As always, Grandma Margaret’s commentary remained the same: ‘There are some wicked people in the world. Wicked people.’
As always, everybody ignored her. Well, everybody apart from Hal, who tutted his disapproval.
Anyway, I waited and watched as the news got smaller, or bigger, waiting for the picture and the writing. BODY FOUND. But nothing came. It was too early, I told myself, much too early.
The weather girl came on to read the weather.
‘Oh, I like her,’ said Grandma Margaret. ‘She’s lovely.’
killer
The next morning (of all mornings) Charlotte said something she had never said before in her entire life.
She said: ‘I’ll take the dog for a walk.’
Her parents looked at each other, in mutual shock. Cereal boxes hung motionless in the air. Hal stopped chewing.
For everyone else, this was progress. For me, it was the worst-timed piece of bad news imaginable.
A killer was on the loose.
A killer whose activity centred around the park.
And now Charlotte was about to head there.
What if she found the body? What if the murderer was at the park, waiting for the next victim?
No. Paranoia, I told myself. The body would be well out of view, beyond the smell-heap. And the park was no more dangerous than anywhere else in this town. And anyway, Charlotte was often beyond my protection. At least, this time, I would be with her.
But still, a bad feeling remained. The night before the park had offered up a dead body and now, for the first time, Charlotte was going to walk me there.
So when she came to clip on my lead I tried to resist by running upstairs. She eventually found me in the bathroom and, as I’m not as fast as I used to be, she had me cornered. I tried Falstaff’s old reverse-out-of-the-collar trick but remembered that Adam had tightened it since the rope-chewing incident.
I suppose I could have tried harder. I could have dug my heels into the carpet or lain down on the floor so she would have had to drag me but I didn’t. And anyway, Charlotte seemed determined to show how far she had come and I didn’t want to completely spoil her goodwill gesture.
‘Come on, Prince, you stupid dog,’ she said, not without affection, as she tugged me out of the front door.
I soon discovered she wasn’t a natural. By the time we reached the end of the road, she had already swapped sides three times and nearly tripped over me once. I never knew walking with me was so hard. I didn’t realise the immense skill involved in getting the four-leg-two-leg rhythm just right.
I suppose I wasn’t making it any easier. As every stranger we passed was a potential suspect, I sniffed their crotch for signs of danger. I sniffed the ground also, trying to find some sort of coherence amid the cigarette ends and human spit. But nothing connected. It was all chaos.
We passed a collie and her owner.
‘Have you just been to the park?’ I asked her, pulling back on my lead.
‘Yes, yes. I have, yes. Yes.’ I detected from her enthusiasm that she had only just turned full size.
‘Was there anybody there?’
‘No, no. Nobody. No.’
We were dragged our separate ways but I had got the information I wanted. And when we got to the park I realised she was right.
Nobody.
My plan was simple. Piss, shit and get Charlotte safely home. But then, as I watched her go over to the park wall, I thought: it wouldn’t take me long. Just one quick look. Just to check.
So I headed over, past the flowerbeds, the big trees, the bushes which had hidden Joyce’s body, the smell-heap and the tangle of twigs, towards the darkest corner of the park.
I turned back and saw Charlotte. Still there
. Sitting on the wall. Still safe.
Then I looked down at the drag-trail curving in front of me, the taste of her jacket coming back. And then, nothing. A shallow outline.
No body.
I looked around but there was no sign. Someone had taken her. The killer was close by. But then I noticed something else. There was another drag-trail, a more recent one, leading towards the smaller trees on the other side, beyond the densest area of vegetation.
I followed the flattened plants and long grass until I reached the dark clearing with the smaller trees. I had never been to this part of the park before and felt strangely vulnerable, almost as though I had stepped into a new world.
I saw the muddy corpse of the woman on the ground, twisted to the side, as if in the middle of an uncomfortable night’s sleep. She was lying next to a shopping trolley. My nose twitched. There was another scent. Another human scent. I sniffed the ground, but realised the scent smelt further away. And so, instinctively, I looked up.
The sight I was faced with was too bizarre to absorb all at once. A man, floating in mid-air, his feet twisting in slow circular movements above my head. Only, when I stepped backward and looked again, I realised the man wasn’t floating. He was hanging.
I jumped up to get a closer sniff but couldn’t believe what I was smelling.
It was Mick, Henry’s master.
As I landed back on my feet I lost my grip and slid further back. From this new vantage point, I could now see how it had happened. He had tied Henry’s dog lead around the branch of the tree and used the shopping trolley to help him climb up. Once he had managed to tie the lead around his neck he must have kicked the shopping trolley away.
But while I could understand how, I still couldn’t comprehend why. Was Mick in some way connected to the dead woman on the ground? Was he responsible? Could a man go bad so quickly after his Labrador had left him?
These were questions I did not want to contemplate for long, so I turned around and headed back to Charlotte.
But then as I passed one of the bushes I heard a voice. I looked at the bush but couldn’t see or smell anything.
‘Prince, wait.’
I recognised the voice, but at the same time knew my mind must be playing tricks. The bush shook, and struggled. Twigs snapped as a creature emerged. My mind was definitely playing tricks.