Barking

by Tom Holt

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s a quarter to six. You usually go at half-five.’

  This time he did smile. Her accusation was well founded. Duncan never stayed late if he could possibly avoid it, and Jenny Sidmouth, in common with her partners, held the view that people who downed tools and walked out at five-thirty on the dot ought really to be rounded up and burned alive in wicker cages, as an example.

  ‘Thought I’d polish off these accounts tonight, while it’s quiet,’ Duncan replied cheerfully. ‘You know what it’s like trying to concentrate with the phones ringing all the time.’ He took a surreptitious breath, then added, ‘I always reckon the real working day doesn’t start till five-thirty.’

  She stared at him as though he’d just sprouted wings. ‘But you’re always the first one out of the door—’

  He nodded. ‘I take work home with me,’ he said. ‘I find it’s easier to pace yourself in a less formal environment.’

  She narrowed her small, vicious eyes. ‘You take work home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What in? You haven’t got a briefcase.’

  If it hadn’t been for the thought of Luke and the boys shivering in the frosty darkness below, that would probably have beaten him. Instead he shrugged. ‘Big pockets,’ he said, and although it was obviously blatant drivel, the words came so freely and easily to him that they must have carried conviction, because Ms Sidmouth frowned and said, ‘Oh.’

  ‘That’s all right, isn’t it?’ Duncan went on. ‘Of course, I never take important documents or stuff like that out of the office, just photocopies.’ Just the right modulation of self-doubt, as if it was something that had been preying on his over-conscientious mind. He could see from her expression that he was doing well.

  ‘I suppose,’ she said. ‘I mean, obviously we prefer it if you do your work here in the building, otherwise there’s not much point having an office, is there? But,’ she went on, ‘if you feel there’re some things you can do more productively at home, on your own time—’ Baffled, Duncan decided, like a terrier that can’t quite reach the rat. ‘It’s entirely up to you,’ she said after a pause. ‘Just so long as the work gets done and the staff’s happy, we don’t mind in the least.’

  That’s the thing with lawyers and lies, Duncan thought. They lie so often and so fluently, it can only be because on some level they can make themselves believe what they’re saying; as if they had the power to reshape the world with a few words. Ms Sidmouth was a very good lawyer, and when she said the words there was a tiny part of Duncan that couldn’t help believing them, just for a fraction of a second; in which time, perhaps, a small, sealed universe in which they were true came suddenly into being, glowed for an instant intolerably bright, and then went out, like a shooting star.

  ‘Great,’ Duncan said. ‘Oh, while I think of it, that Sudowski file you were asking about the other day. Should have it wrapped up this week, and then if it’s OK I’d like to have a word with you about the bill. I was thinking, we can probably justify charging the full five per cent value element, but I’d be glad of your thoughts on that.’

  For a moment, Jenny Sidmouth almost glowed at him. Then she left; and he thought, there must be some truth in it after all. Because, for a split second there, I really believed that there’s an ice lolly’s chance in hell of getting Sudowski sorted out this week; and when I said it, for another split second she believed me, even though she knows it’s a complete fuck-up that’d have all the king’s horses and all the king’s men quitting the service and moving to the private sector. Between us, we made a little bit of magic that actually existed for a while. Like antimatter. Of course, it wouldn’t get the mess sorted or bring him any closer to the point where he could ram in a gigantic bill and close the file: that was where the magic failed, he presumed, and why the whole world wasn’t run on it.

  Any hopes he might have had that the enchantment might have extended itself to the Allshapes estate accounts withered quickly. He added up the figures four times and got four different results. Since he had a bit of time on his hands, he decided to experiment a little. He worked out the discrepancies between the four different totals and averaged them, eventually arriving at a figure of 4,337.97. He wrote it in big numbers in the middle of a blank sheet of A4, and stared at it for a while. Then he added up the columns four more times, resulting in four more completely different totals. He was about to start averaging them too when the door opened again.

  ‘Oh.’

  This time, though, it was only a cleaner, who muttered something under her breath and withdrew almost immediately. Duncan scowled at the closed door for a moment or so, then sighed. It was, he realised, half past six, and he was still in the office. No magic could make that into a good state of affairs. Did the Ferris mob have the endurance to hang about in the dark and the cold for a whole hour? Chances were, no. He packed away the Allshapes accounts - that was another five minutes - tidied his desk, sharpened a few pencils; put down an hour and a half on his timesheet (nobody would ever know, after all, that he hadn’t stuck it out for the extra thirty minutes), put on his coat and went down to the front office. Nobody around to see him leave, which was a pity; it’d have been nice if all the partners had chosen that moment to come out of a meeting and see him, but no such luck—

  Which told him, he realised as he let himself out into the street, what he needed to know. His decision had been made; because if he still cared about sucking up to the bosses, it meant he’d decided to stay at Craven Ettins, instead of obeying the call of the Ferris Gang. Until then, he hadn’t really been sure.

  Nervously he peered up and down the street, scanning for shadowy forms in doorways. It felt like a silly thing to do, and it occurred to him that a busy, successful lawyer (which was, apparently, what Luke Ferris had morphed into, at some point when Duncan’s back was turned) probably had better things to do after all than stand around in the street waiting to offer a job to a loser who ran away from him while he was buying him a drink - Duncan shook his head and started to walk to the Tube. His head always seemed to be full of shit these days. Some of it came from the job, sure enough, but not all of it.

  Because it was that much later, of course, the Tube wasn’t quite so hellishly jam-packed: another advantage of working late, he realised, and he began to wonder if maybe, just possibly, there was a greater lesson in there somewhere. Maybe (just possibly) his life was wretched because he fought it so much. Think: he made a point of leaving at five-thirty sharp because he had an inalienable human right to his spare time, but he spent those precious hours of freedom watching TV game shows and sleeping, so what was the point? As a result of his obsessive reverse punctuality, his bosses had reached the quite reasonable conclusion that he wasn’t partnership material, and despised him accordingly. As a result, his time at work was nothing but trouble and sorrow. Now: if, instead of sitting bored and lonely in his grotty flat, he could bring himself to sit bored and lonely in his grotty office till, say, quarter past six every weekday, he’d soon come to be regarded as a dutiful predator and made of the right stuff; they’d start giving him the decent jobs instead of the garbage, he’d begin making them some decent money and they’d promote him—

  More of the same magic, he realised, a lie that’d slowly make itself true. But that didn’t really matter. In the country of the lawyers, the selectively sighted man is senior partner; and if you can work the magic and make yourself believe, quite soon what you’re seen as turns into what you are. It was rather like what he’d told Reception when he’d come back from lunch: picture it in your mind, it’ll help you sound convincing. Once you saw it in your mind, seeing was believing. And, on top of that, he’d get to arrive home in three dimensions rather than two, not having been squashed flat by ninety million people all trying to occupy one Underground carriage at the same time.

  Win/win scenario.

  Usually, as he walked from the Tube to his flat, he tended to huddle, as if braced against a mighty wind. Ton
ight he practically strolled. It clarifies things tremendously once you’ve finally figured out who your worst enemy is, particularly if it turns out to have been yourself all along. And Sally, he realised, didn’t really enter into it at all. True, she’d ruined his life and left him feeling about as valuable as a bounced cheque, but that wasn’t the reason he was a miserable failure in the office. All his own work, that was.

  So: tomorrow, he’d throw himself into it, make believe that all the daily garbage - the accountants and the clients and making sure the bills went out on time and getting the accounts to balance - actually mattered, and that the stuff he did all day was worth doing and a valid use of his lifespan. Only believe; only in faith lies salvation.

  He unlocked his door and moved his hand up the wall towards the light switch. Then he realised that the lights were already on. Bloody fool, must’ve forgotten to turn them off before he left that morning; except that he distinctly remembered having done so. But here the lights were, distinctly on, so his memory must be—

  There was someone sitting in his chair: feet propped on his battered coffee table, shoulder-length white-black-grey hair just visible above the back of his chair. Before he could react, the intruder stood up, turned and faced him.

  Luke bloody Ferris.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘You’re late,’ Luke said. ‘Never mind. Come on in, sit down. Have a crisp.’

  On the coffee table, a packet of crisps, savagely torn open. ‘What the hell do you think you’re . . .’

  ‘Just the one chair,’ Luke said, tightening the corners of his mouth in a small grin of scornful compassion. ‘I take it you don’t entertain much.’

  ‘How did you find out where I live?’

  Apparently Luke hadn’t heard him. ‘I was expecting bachelor squalor,’ he said. ‘Obviously she got you well trained before she left. Not a sock or a styrofoam tray full of cold chips anywhere to be seen.’

  ‘That’s none of—’

  ‘A little palace, you might say,’ Luke went on, looking through Duncan at something clearly far more interesting - the wall, say, or the windowsill. ‘A little palace that’s been burgled by professionals and stripped of all its contents, but a little palace all the same.’ He drew a long forefinger across the top of the coffee-table. ‘You don’t dust, do you?’ he said, and there was a hint of genuine awe in his voice, mixed with the barely repressed amusement. ‘Bloody hell, mate, my mother used to dust.’

  The instinct is to fight, but giving in is often easier. ‘All right,’ Duncan said. ‘Sit down if you want to.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Luke smiled, turned back to the chair, turned round three times and sat down. Duncan noticed that the top pocket of his suit jacket was lined with pencils, all heavily chewed. ‘You’re a bastard, you know, sneaking off like that. I had to drink your beer for you.’

  ‘My heart bleeds.’

  ‘So it should. Oh, don’t stand there like a butler, sit down. It’s hurting my neck peering up at you.’

  Duncan scowled at him, then got down and sat on the floor. His master’s voice, he couldn’t help thinking.

  ‘The answer’s no,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry?’ Luke replied, ‘Don’t quite follow. Answer to what?’

  ‘The job offer. I’ve thought about it, and it’s really kind of you, but I think I’ll stay where I am.’ No sudden violent interruption; Luke was looking over the top of his head. ‘No offence,’ he went on, ‘but I’ve come to the conclusion that—Look, would you mind bloody well not doing that?’

  For a moment, Luke seemed puzzled. Then he seemed to notice that he’d picked the TV remote up off the coffee table and started chewing it. He lowered it, but didn’t put it back. ‘That’s daft,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to stay there. You told me yourself, the whole gig sucks like a Dyson.’

  ‘I exaggerated.’

  ‘Balls.’ Luke stood up, and Duncan saw that he’d left a few white hairs on the chair-back. ‘I’ve heard all about Craven Ettins,’ he went on. ‘Typical London law firm. They treat you like dirt, pay you peanuts, the only reason they don’t sell their grandmothers to the glue factory is that you don’t make glue out of grandmothers—’

  ‘Yes,’ Duncan said. ‘But—’

  ‘Well?’

  And Duncan smiled as he said, ‘But at least they’re not you.’

  Luke’s body slammed into the back of the chair as if he’d been shoved, and his bushy eyebrows shot up like house prices. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘They’re not you,’ Duncan repeated, amazed at how calm he felt. There now, he was saying to himself, that wasn’t so bad, was it?

  For the first time - yes, dammit, for the first time since he’d known him, Luke seemed genuinely bewildered, as if he didn’t know what to do. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really. Bloody hell, Dunc, you make it sound like you don’t like me.’

  And Duncan smiled. ‘Don’t call me Dunc,’ he said pleasantly.

  ‘What? Oh. You don’t like—’

  ‘No.’

  Pause. Luke was watching him, like a cat at a mousehole. ‘I didn’t know that. You never said.’

  ‘I did, actually. You never took any notice.’

  ‘Didn’t I?’

  Duncan shook his head. ‘You never do. That’s your trouble, you hear things but you don’t listen.’

  ‘Oh.’ Luke had his head slightly on one side. ‘Right, fine, I won’t do it again if it bothers you.’ He paused, frowning. ‘Is that it, then?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Whatever it was that was bugging you,’ Luke said. ‘The name thing. Was that why you said you don’t want to—?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’ He saw Luke’s eyes grow very big and wide, and if he didn’t know better he’d have thought he heard a very low, faint growling noise. ‘It’s not just that. The name thing was just the tip of the iceberg. It’s—’

  ‘It’s what?’

  Luke, he realised, genuinely didn’t know; which made it next to impossible to explain. It was like trying to tell a five-year-old about the causes of the Seven Years War in three sentences. ‘It’s everything,’ he said; and then he added, ‘Oh screw it, you wouldn’t understand.’

  Luke frowned. ‘It’s not just dusting, is it?’ he said. ‘You even talk like a girl these days. She must have—’

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud.’ Then Duncan realised that he was sitting on the floor, in his own flat. It struck him as a really stupid thing to be doing, when he had a perfectly good chair, the only problem with which was that it was currently full of Luke Ferris. He stood up. ‘How did you get in here?’ he snapped.

  Luke shrugged. ‘Climbed,’ he replied.

  That made no sense. ‘Are you kidding? It’s the fifth floor.’

  Luke grinned. ‘Piece of cake,’ he said. ‘I went round the back and saw you’d left your kitchen window open; so I shinned up next door’s drainpipe to that little balcony thing, and jumped across onto your windowsill. Really, you should be more careful with your windows, there’s—’

  ‘You jumped?’ In spite of everything else that was going on in his mind, Duncan was doing mental triangulation. From the third-floor balcony of the building next door to his kitchen windowsill: easily thirty feet. ‘Bullshit,’ he said. ‘That’s not possible.’

  ‘I’m good at jumping.’ Luke was nibbling at the TV remote again. ‘Don’t you remember at school—?’

  ‘Look.’ Duncan pulled himself together. ‘Forget how you got in. All I’m interested in is how you’re getting out again. How quickly, actually.’

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘Leave.’

  Immediately, Luke put the TV remote back on the coffee table, but stayed in the chair. There was something about that; a point that Duncan felt he was missing, but was too annoyed to clarify. ‘Steady on,’ Luke said. ‘There’s no need to go working yourself up into a state. Calm down, get a grip, stop looming over me and tell me what’s bo
thering you. I mean,’ he added, sounding a bit like God forgiving the ninety-seven-billionth sin of Mankind since breakfast, ‘how am I supposed to know what the matter is if you won’t tell me?’

  A sort of reckless fury filled Duncan’s mind, sweeping away a lifetime of careful training and programming in the ways of peace and non-violent persuasion. He leaned over the table, grabbed a handful of Luke’s jacket lapel, and tugged. But Luke didn’t move, and cloth, even the really expensive stuff that Luke could apparently afford these days, isn’t that strong. Something tore, and Duncan staggered back. There was something in his hand.

  He looked down at it. Out of context, it was practically unidentifiable: a triangular piece of cloth, neatly seamed on two sides, frayed and ragged on the third. If it had been dripping with blood, Duncan could hardly have felt more guilty. He opened his mouth but nothing came out of it, and all he could think of was, I’m going to be in so much trouble—

  ‘Duncan?’ he heard a voice saying. ‘Are you all right?’

  Duncan, he noted: both syllables. ‘What?’

  ‘Are you OK? You look like you’re about to have a fit or something. ’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he mumbled. How much did a suit like that cost? Not a hope of getting it mended so the damage wouldn’t show. He tried to remember how much he had in his bank account. ‘Luke, I’m really sorry, I’ll pay—’

  ‘Your phone’s ringing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Telephone.’

  For a moment, he couldn’t remember what a telephone was. ‘Oh, right. Sorry. Would you excuse me a minute?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Duncan stumbled into the bedroom, still holding the scrap of cloth. It looked very much like an ear. Hadn’t there been a long and bloody war fought once over someone’s severed ear? Or was he thinking of Van Gogh? He groped for the phone and picked it up.

  ‘Duncan?’

  A female voice. ‘Who’s this?’

  Pause. He’d said the wrong thing; in which case, it could only be—

  ‘Sal?’

  ‘Please don’t call me that.’ Yup, it was her all right. He wondered how he could possibly have failed to recognise her voice; the only possible explanation was that when she said his name, she was sounding reasonably civil. ‘Look,’ she went on, ‘were you talking to someone from our place this morning?’