by Diane Saxon
‘There’s always a choice.’
‘I have no regrets. My only regret was the bloody awful waste of coffee all over the floor. I could have had one of those. My fix for the day.’ His mouth pulled down at the edges in a classic Mason sulk. ‘Now I'm going to have to wait till we get back to the station.’
‘I did buy you one.’
‘It was bloody cold. Nothing worse.’
Jenna flicked her gaze up to meet Ryan’s in the mirror. His cheeks dimpled as he raised the cardboard cup in a salute and took a gulp of the cold liquid.
Jenna took pity on her partner – after all, she could barely function without caffeine. ‘We'll call and get you one on the way back if you want.’
Easily consoled, Mason grinned.
‘I'll have one.’ Ryan piped up from the back seat and made her grin. If there was one thing Ryan brought to the party it was his boyish enthusiasm and exuberance.
They pulled up outside the address and before Mason could get out the car, Jenna reached out to stop him.
‘Hold on a moment. Let's just look at what we're taking on.’
23
Monday 20 April 0730 hours
Jenna scanned the outside facade of the building. Typical new town Telford build. Red brick, red roofing tiles, lifeless. Windows flat. Built in the 1970s to accommodate the influx of people from the surrounding areas. The overspill of Birmingham and Wolverhampton. Rabbit hutches that served the purpose of a utilitarian house with none of the attractiveness of the current new builds.
Jenna squinted as she studied each of the flat unattractive windows, checking for any movement behind curtains that hung limp and lifeless as though they’d been dragged back in haste that morning.
A movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention and Jenna turned her head to watch the approach of a handsome Dalmatian high-stepping along the street towards them on the end of a jaunty red lead.
Three additional dogs by his side failed to catch her attention so fully. Dalmatians had that effect. Once you had one, you would always immediately have your attention drawn by the sheer beauty of the breed, the elegance, the powerful presence.
With a small jolt of recognition, Jenna gawped for a split second longer, a frisson of electricity flowed through her and stopped the breath in her chest.
She lowered herself down her seat and tugged at Mason’s jacket sleeve. ‘Shit, shit.’
Mason’s eyes widened before he hunched his shoulders and slipped down in his seat, his knees giving a hard knock against the steering wheel as he scrunched himself into the smallest space he could.
‘Fuck! It’s Domino.’
His brows pulled low as he peered over the steering wheel, his neck stretching as he took a quick peek at the fast approach of the woman and four dogs.
‘It's bloody Lena, the dog walker. What the hell is she doing all the way over here?’
Confused, Jenna ran a quick hand through her hair as she considered her options. With suspicion dominating, Jenna met Mason’s bewildered gaze.
‘Don't let her see us.’
Aware of Ryan’s silence in the back of the car, Jenna glanced through the gap between the two front seats to see Ryan stretched out, coffee still in hand.
Jenna peeked out of the front window again as the dog walker paused while the big black Labrador squatted. Lena fished a bag out of her pocket and hunkered down to perform a very efficient one-handed scoop of the poop. As the woman looked down at the bag while she tied the handles in a knot, Jenna raised her radio to her lips.
‘Chris, where are you?’ From where they’d parked, she couldn’t see the dog van.
‘Just stopped around the corner from you, by the field. I thought the boy might want a quick run and a pee before I brought him in. Clear his nasal passages and keep him on point.’
‘Good. Could you stay there? I have a bit of a strange situation. Domino’s here with his dog walker. I don’t want to spook her if she sees the dog van.’
‘Your new dog walker? What’s she doing here? It’s a long way off your patch.’
‘It certainly is. That’s what I’m hoping to find out. I’ll let you know when I have something interesting to tell you. In the meantime, let Blue have his run.’
‘No problem, I’ll join you when he’s done. I’m in the unmarked van today.’
‘Great.’
Jenna turned the volume down on Airwaves, so instead of the harsh crackle it was a low buzz while she considered her options. She could get out of the car and approach Lena, but everything about the situation screamed at her not to. She stayed low and frowned as the group of canines headed towards their vehicle again.
Jenna blew out a breath. ‘I don’t know why, but I have a bad feeling about this.’
‘Me too. What the hell is she doing here? She must have driven. Why would you walk dogs in an entirely different part of Telford?’
‘Maybe she got her schedule mixed up and had to juggle things.’ Ryan shuffled forward to poke his head in between the seats. ‘Perhaps she had an emergency to cover, someone else let the team down. One of the other walkers has gone sick.’
‘Maybe.’ Jenna agreed. ‘Doesn’t sit right though.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper as though the woman could hear every word she uttered. ‘Would you recognise her car if you saw it?’
Mason raised his head again and searched the street. ‘Yep. There it is.’
24
Monday 20 April 0740 hours
‘Ryan, can you see? Have a look out.’
Ryan shuffled around in the back seat, nudging his bony knees into the back of Jenna's chair hard enough to have her oofing out a lungful of air.
‘Watch where she's going.’ Jenna kept her voice to a low hiss. Instinct had her slipping lower in her seat and hitching up the collar of her jacket in case the woman happened to glance over as she passed by.
‘What’s she doing, Ryan?’
The pressure on her kidneys was miraculously relieved as Ryan shot back up behind her.
He scooted over to the other side of the car for a better view while Jenna kept low. ‘She's crossed the road, and she's… Oh, shit.’
Tempted to leap up, Jenna held still. ‘What? What?’ She wriggled around to look through the gap between the front seats at Ryan. ‘What’s she doing?’
Ryan turned his head to meet her gaze, confusion streaking through his eyes. ‘She's going down the pathway to number 33.’
‘You're shitting me.’ Jenna shot upright and twisted around. Unable to believe it, she squinted out of the rear window.
Lena Alexander strode along the path with a determined, jaunty bounce to her stride and four prancing dogs by her side. Her long ponytail swung in a synchronised pendulum with the wagging dog tails.
As the woman approached the house, she dipped her hand into a small dog treat pouch strapped to her hip, took out a key and slotted it in the lock. Before she pushed open the door, she glanced both ways as though she was checking if anybody was watching and Jenna ducked down again.
The quick kick of adrenaline from the cold coffee had her heart thrumming in her chest as her mind whirled with unanswered questions.
Questions that she feared she wasn’t going to like the answers to.
As Lena slipped inside with the four dogs on their leads, Jenna, Mason and Ryan bobbed back up in their seats, with Mason rubbing at his abused knees.
‘What the fuck is she doing?’
Mouth open, Jenna stared at Mason while she shook her head. ‘She's supposed to be walking Domino local to our house, not all the way over here.’ As a thought occurred to her, she stabbed her finger in the direction of the garish blue door Lena had taken the dogs through. ‘We’re paying her for exclusive one-on-one walks, she’s not supposed to be walking him with other dogs. She must be making a bloody fortune out of all of us. Cheeky mare. And now she’s taken Fliss’s dog into a drug pusher’s house. What the hell is going on?’
Mason stared over his should
er and then turned back to Jenna. ‘Maybe she made a mistake with her schedule, mucked up. Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt and see if she’s picking up another dog or dropping off one of the other three. It could just be coincidence.’
Doubt circled in her mind. ‘No, something isn’t right.’ She tapped her fingers against her lips as she studied the door.
Ryan shuffled forward and pushed his face between the two front seats. ‘What’s her connection with Lamonte Junior? Is she just his dog walker?’
‘I don’t know, but I suspect we’re about to find out. Who knew we’d be investigating the secret life of a dog walker?’
Jenna twisted the rear-view mirror and trained it so she could keep a visual on the house behind her.
Mason snorted as he turned around to face forward, crossed his arms over his wide chest and relaxed back in his seat. ‘Let me know when there’s movement, kiddo.’
Ryan huffed out a breath and flung himself back to look out of the rear window, making the car rock under his bouncing weight.
Jenna patted her pockets and fished out a tissue. She gave her nose a quick blow while she stared at the entrance to the house. Lena had been in there what felt to her an interminable length of time, but was possibly only a matter of minutes.
Mason turned his head to meet her gaze. ‘What do you want to do? Should we go in?’
At the white flash of movement in the mirror, Jenna changed its angle to watch as Chris Bennett pulled the dog handler car alongside the kerb twenty-five metres behind them.
‘No, no, I don’t think so.’ She flicked her gaze back up to the mirror. ‘I’m going to have a word with Chris, see what he has to say.’ She flashed Mason a smile. ‘Back in a moment.’
She slipped from the car and shot down the road to the white unmarked dog van. Her heart raced as she kept a close eye on the front door of the house, willing it not to open, because if Lena came out and spotted her, she was either going to look very stupid, or she was going to have to act fast.
Breathless, she wrenched open the passenger door of the dog van and jumped in.
A quiet whine came from the back of the van and she turned her head to give Blue a quick smile. Not that a smile from her would make any difference.
Chris’s weathered face screwed up, deepening the lines around his mouth as she bounced around to face forward again.
She slipped down in the seat. Covert operation it had now become, and excitement coursed through her veins. This was the very reason she’d become a police officer. The tension and exhilaration. The sheer exuberance of being on a job. Her second that day and she still hadn’t come down from the high of the first.
They were just rolling in.
‘So, what the hell has Domino got himself involved in?’
Jenna snorted out a laugh and wriggled in her seat so she could see the front door of number 33 past the solid form of Chris and through his side window. She shook her head. ‘I don't know what the hell is going on.’
Chris reached over and patted her hand, but the little chugs of laughter rattled his chest. ‘If you ask me, it looks like your dog might be pushing drugs.’
‘What do you mean pushing drugs?’ A zap of confusion hit her. In all the scenarios she’d run through her mind, a drug-pushing Domino had not filtered through.
Chris nodded at the front door. ‘Give her another five minutes. When she comes out, we’ll have a look what’s on those dogs’ collars.’
Ashamed at her naiveté, Jenna gawped at him. ‘They do something to the dog collars?’
‘Yeah. Little baggy rolls that most normal people attach to the dog’s collar, so they carry their poop pouches themselves. Well, this is a different kind of shit. Yeah?’ He nodded and a bitter grin flitted across his face. ‘Fill one of those with a little bit of white stuff. You’ve got yourself a transporter.’
Chris settled back in his seat, so Jenna had a better view of the closed front door. The little flutter of her heart turned to a hammer.
‘Okay, let me think. I wasn’t expecting this. We were supposed to go in, inspect the place, gather bloody evidence. Not run a whole operation.’
She glanced at him and despite his laughter, she knew she could rely on him without question. The same rank as her, he was by far the more experienced officer, but he’d let her take the lead in this case. With the knowledge he was behind her all the way, Jenna’s heart steadied. This was a job, like any other job. It may involve her sister’s dog, but that didn’t detract from the fact that something was going down, and she needed to decide based on the facts she currently had to hand.
She could pull back and hand it over to the Drug Squad. But by the time they were in place, Lena, the dogs and the evidence would most likely have disappeared.
‘Right. Assuming Lena is about to come out of that house with dog drug-couriers, I’m going to leave you and Mason to wait for her to clear the place and then conduct a search of the house for drugs.’
Serious now, Chris nodded his agreement.
‘Ryan and I will follow Lena. We’ll watch where she makes her drops.’
‘Well, don’t be too hasty. Let’s just check first if there’s something on their collars once they come out the door.’
As the time ticked away, Jenna deferred to Chris’s experience and wisdom. It didn’t make her any less fidgety, though. ‘What she's doing in there?’
Relaxed, Chris smiled at her. ‘She could be finding the drugs. Loading them on the collars.’
‘I think she’s cutting them herself.’ Jenna slapped the heel of her hand against her forehead. ‘How the hell did I let this get past me, Chris?’
Chris chuckled. ‘She could be dropping off his dog, after an innocent dog walk, having a cup of coffee. She'll come out soon. She has four dogs to walk.’
Jenna glanced at the time on her phone. ‘She better do, I swear we pay her for a two-hour walk, which means she has about forty-five minutes left. It’s not much of a walk, stuck inside someone else’s house while she has a bloody cup of tea, or whatever.’
‘You mean the whatever being loading up your dog’s collar with drugs so he can push them for her?’ Chris’s humour rumbled out of him in a deep laugh.
‘I wouldn’t care but she knows I’m a police officer.’
‘That’s a bloody slap in the face then. Brazen bugger.’
About to reply, Jenna scooted down in her seat so she could peer over Chris’s shoulder as Lena slipped out of the front door with the four dogs walking to perfection. Two on the left, two on the right. The sweet little shih-tzu trotted with her mouth open as she gasped for breath, trying to keep up with the others.
Jenna sank lower in her seat again as Lena walked the four dogs towards the car. If she saw Chris, it wasn’t such an issue. A man in his car. But if she recognised Jenna, the game would be up.
Chris pointed, keeping his voice low. ‘Can you see them?’
Jenna stretched her neck so her eyes were just above the level of the bottom of the window.
On each of the dogs’ collars hung a small barrel-shaped holder which could be mistaken for poop bag holders. Genuine shock rippled through Jenna despite the suspicion. Until the moment she saw them, she’d held out hope that the young woman was purely carrying out her job.
‘Oh God, I’d hoped it wasn’t true.’
‘Looks like her resumé didn’t cover all her activities.’
‘She came so highly recommended by one of the other teachers at Fliss’s school.’ Jenna glanced at the shih-tzu. ‘I’m pretty convinced that’s the teacher’s dog as well. I’ve met her over at Dale End Park a few times and I think that’s little Lily. I can’t remember her mum’s name, but I bet she doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.’
Chris’s body vibrated with laughter as she leaned against his shoulder to get a better look. ‘I bet she doesn’t know poor little Fifi’s being walked to death to deliver drugs.’
‘I hope to God she doesn’t – and it’s Lily, not Fif
i. I’m pretty sure she wouldn't have recommended Fliss use the dog walker if she’d been aware or involved. She knows I’m a police officer. But obviously questions will have to be asked. We’ll need to interview the owners as the dogs can’t speak for themselves.’
Jenna held her breath as Lena crossed over the road and walked past on Jenna’s side of the car. Jenna hunched her shoulders and turned so her back was towards the side window. As Lena walked past with Domino and the other three dogs, an amused grunt came out of Chris's mouth.
‘What happened?’ Jenna swivelled around.
‘Nothing.’ He grinned. ‘But take a look at that.’
Jenna watched the rear view of Lena and the dogs as they marched along the street. Domino no longer walked to heel but looked backwards at Chris’s car.
Chris pointed at the Dalmatian. ‘He knows you're here.’
‘No.’ Jenna wriggled upright. ‘He surely can't know.’
Domino stopped and pulled Lena up short as he refused to go any further. Impatient, Lena jerked the lead, but Domino leaned into it, dragging back towards the dog van, his nose in the air.
‘Shit. You’re right. He knows I’m here. How can he?’
Chris jiggled his shoulders. ‘They’re not stupid. He can smell you. Your scent will be all the way from your vehicle to mine and he’s had no problem picking it up. Good lad.’ Chris’s voice vibrated with admiration.
‘I hope she doesn’t look back.’
‘She won’t. She’s got her hands full, look.’ The plump black Labrador yanked in the opposite direction and almost took Lena off her feet. Irritation streaked across the woman’s face as she gave a good hard snap at Domino’s lead. Reluctant to leave, he continued to send quick glances behind him as he followed her, with Lena giving short, sharp tugs on the lead every couple of steps until they were almost out of sight at the end of the long road.
‘You know if I wasn’t on a stake out, I’d get out and poke her in the eye for that. I’d say it’s abuse. Would you?’