Bedfordshire Clanger Calamity

by steve higgs

  Rex understood the desire to mate; it was hardwired into him much the same as every other living thing on the planet. Humans made it unnecessarily complicated. Smell available female, go to available female, if female is with another dog, either wait turn or fight dog. Then, get the job done, move on, and forget what the female even smelled like because you can already smell another available female. What was so hard about that?

  Pushing his thoughts on the obscurity of human behaviour to one side, he needed to tell his human about the two humans who had been here.

  Albert had wandered to the kitchen at the back of the house. From memory, the detective claimed there was blood found there – another mark against Kate. He couldn’t see it, but Kate would have cleaned it up whether guilty or not. Cleaning it wouldn’t prevent the crime scene chaps from finding it; they did such things with clever scopes these days. He was about to start opening drawers when Rex found him.

  ‘What is it, Rex?’ His dog was making bark/whine noises at him in an excited way again. It was clear the dog wanted to impart a message, but Albert could not decipher what the sounds Rex made were supposed to mean. He tried to guess, ‘You can smell gravy bones and think you are overdue a treat?’

  ‘Did someone say gravy bones?’ asked Hans, skidding to a stop, and barking gleefully. ‘They are in that cupboard there.’

  Rex licked his lips and tried again. ‘There were two bad men here. They were in the café yesterday and outside it again last night. Plus, they were following us, or maybe Hans and the other human he was with this morning.’

  ‘Gravy bone, yes?’ said Albert, his voice taking on an excited edge to see if Rex would react and let him know he was on the right track.

  ‘That cupboard there!’ squealed Hans. ‘Right there!’

  Albert started opening cupboards, certain Kate wouldn’t mind that he’d fed her dog a biscuit.

  ‘No, right there,’ barked Hans, pointing his head and eyes at the right door and wondering why the human was looking everywhere else.

  ‘Ah, here we are.’ Albert found a box of dog biscuits and doled out one each.

  Rex was miffed that he couldn’t get his human to listen to his clear and simple message and knew that if he took the gravy bone, which he dearly wanted, the old man would assume he’d got it right and that would be that. He turned his nose up at the treat and focussed his gaze on his human’s eyes.

  Hans, having scoffed his biscuit in under a second, snatched the other one the man still held in his hand and started crunching that too.

  ‘Hey!’ snarled Rex, swearing under his breath. The dachshund was licking up crumbs when Rex moved his front right paw and accidentally trod on the smaller dog’s left ear. Pinning his head in place, Rex then leaned his weight that way to ensure the dog couldn’t move and the old man couldn’t see him. ‘Now, where was I? Oh yes, I remember. OPEN YOUR NOSE!’ he barked loud enough to make his human jump. ‘You’ve got two humans following us around and a human who was murdered. They were all in this house together!’

  ‘What’s got into you, Rex?’

  Han’s couldn’t get his ear out from under Rex’s paw and couldn’t turn his head to bite him either. His only option was to let out a soulful whine, the type a human couldn’t hope to resist.

  ‘You’re standing on Hans.’ Albert had to get hold of Rex’s shoulder and shove him backwards. Even then, Rex tried to keep his paw in place on top of the dachshund’s ear.

  ‘Keep pushing your luck, sausage,’ he growled, watching Hans play the part of the wounded dog. Hans was clinging to Rex’s human as the old man lifted the smaller dog into the air for a cuddle.

  ‘Am I going to have to shut you in the garden?’ Albert asked, looking down at Rex with an accusing stare.

  ‘Me?’ Rex couldn’t believe his ears. ‘You think I’m the one to blame. Well, that’s just perfect. I hope the two of you will be very happy together.’ Angry that the dachshund was winning, Rex took himself out of the kitchen to wait by the front door. He didn’t want to have to look at his human giving the annoying sausage dog the affection which Rex felt was rightfully his.

  ‘Did the nasty big dog hurt you?’ Albert asked Hans, getting a lick on his chin in reply. ‘Yes, I bet he did. What a brute he is.’

  Albert’s baby talk as he petted Hans reached Rex’s ears as he sat facing the inside of the front door. If they were at home, or even back in their room at the pub, it would be one of those occasions where he accidentally widdled in a certain someone’s shoes.

  Albert put Hans down to continue his search. There had to be something here that would exonerate Kate. If she had been here alone all evening waiting for Joel to get home, then surely there would be some evidence to prove she hadn’t driven her lover’s body to Wales.

  He found a tower computer. Unable to tell if it was hers or Joel’s, it didn’t really matter because he doubted he would be able to access it. However, he had to wonder if Kate had maybe used it on the evening in question. Would a computer forensic scientist be able to prove that it was Kate using the machine?

  To get an answer, he called Randall.

  ‘Hey, Randall,’ he jumped in as soon as he heard his son’s voice. ‘If a person were using their computer, doing social media whatnot and the like, could one of the forensics guys tell who was using it just from the profile being accessed?’ Albert wasn’t certain he had the terminology right. He didn’t do social media; to him it was all a bit odd to be sharing everything with everyone, but he expected Randall would understand what he meant.

  ‘You mean look at entry of passwords and the keystroke record to determine that the messages on a person’s social profile were sent from a particular computer? Yeah, sure. No one under the age of fifty uses a computer to do that though, Dad. Everyone uses their phone. Plus, if I understand your question, you want to prove a person was in a certain place when the messages were sent but that won’t work.’

  Grimacing because his ray of hope had proved so fleeting, Albert asked, ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it would only show that the computer was the one used. It wouldn’t prove who used it. Passwords can be obtained, or even shared willingly. It would never stand up in court.’

  Disappointed, Albert thanked Randall for taking the call and disconnected. He moved on, poking in the waste bin, then lifting the lid to get a better look. He found takeaway cartons amid the torn-up envelopes, apples cores, and teabags. Going through bins could yield results but he wasn’t of a mood to try that now. He opened drawers and poked in cupboards, scratched his head, and tried to think of things that would show she was here and not somewhere else murdering Joel Clement.

  He finished his tour of the house in the master bedroom. Feeling like a peeping tom as he went through her underwear drawer, he was now sitting on the foot of the bed and wondering what to do. After an hour of searching, he’d accepted defeat: it was time to try something else.

  The only problem with that approach was that he couldn’t come up with anything else to try. Trudging back down the stairs, he found Rex still facing the front door though the dog had laid down at some point and was asleep. Hans was on the couch, most likely in his usual spot, and fast asleep also.

  ‘Come along, dogs. I think it’s time we checked on the café and Victor. Maybe he is nearly finished.’ Hans opened an eye but didn’t move. Further encouragement by Albert only succeeded in getting the dachshund to open his other eye. He was comfortable and saw no reason to go outside. It was getting dark and it smelled like the rain was back.

  Unable to get the sausage dog to move, Albert went to him, clipping the lead to his collar and then lifting him from the couch to the floor where the dog finally gave in and started using his paws. Rex was on his feet, keen to leave having had enough of being ignored by his human. There would be a reckoning later, or there would be an edible treat of sufficient value for his human to earn forgiveness. Rex wasn’t sure which he hoped for most.

  Albert paused in the doorway, makin
g sure he had all the things he came in with, especially the spare key to Kate’s house which he had to search for. It was in his right front trouser pocket, buried beneath a folded handkerchief.

  With a dog lead in each hand, he set off back to the centre of town. The rain was back, but it was fine misty droplets. Enough to dampen his clothing and leave a sheen on the dogs’ coats. But not enough to make him hurry.

  More than a mile ahead of him, Victor was getting ready to lock up. He and the rest of his colleagues at the café had done the best they could. It had been a testing week with one thing and another, a fire in the bakery was really just the cherry on top of what had been a run of terrible events they all wanted to forget.

  Someone joked that if bad luck ran in threes, they were already onto number four or five depending on how one chose to count. Someone else commented that April storming out was a good luck omen not bad. With a vote to go to the pub as they were forced to close the café early and they felt it was needed, the crowd of café staff trudged away through the rain which was beginning to pick up its pace.

  Victor stayed behind to lock up, promising to meet them there in a few minutes and placing his beverage request. Across the courtyard behind the café, once the staff had rounded the corner, a muscular shadow in combat fatigues detached from the wall and held a weapon aloft.

  Dead in the Gutter

  The rain was beginning to come in sideways by the time Albert made it back to the B road that ran through the centre of town. It was late afternoon and the sun had all but set, making the temperature drop yet further. At the edge of the road, he had to wait for a gap in the traffic before he could cross and got even wetter from the rain being splashed up by the passing cars. Heavy trucks and vans were among the cars going past, reminding Albert of back home before they built the Kings Hill bypass. This town clearly needed a ring road too.

  Both dogs had their heads down, hiding their faces from the rain and powering on to wherever they were going while hoping it would be somewhere dry. Periodically, one of the dogs would pause a step to shake their coat, ejecting a shower of water onto the pavement all around them but also onto Albert’s legs so he now had one very wet left ankle from Hans and one very wet right outer thigh and calf where Rex’s superior height and coat length had ejected water that hit everything on the side up to and including his eyebrows. Discouraging Rex from shaking himself seemed to just make the dog do it more as if he were purposefully lining himself up to get Albert wet.

  Rex was muttering under his breath. It was the second day in a row he’d been taken for a walk in driving rain. Once was bad enough; the second time was just an insult and it came on top of a bevy of insults already delivered. At least the rain was getting the dachshund too who was having a devil of a time trying to avoid the puddles which were over the top of his paws in places.

  Wishing he had timed things a little better, Albert pressed on. The option to seek refuge in a public house until the rain passed or eased was no longer viable – he was just too wet. He would have to drop Hans back with Victor and carry on to his room in the Leather Bottle. There he could get dry and find a change of clothes. The investigation was supposed to be a welcome distraction, not a chore, and that was how it was beginning to feel. Rex was soaked he could see and that meant he would have to beg the landlord for some old towels once they got inside. He dared not take the shaggy-coated dog up to his room until he was dry; the mess Rex made in the café yesterday stood a stark warning.

  The light in the café was off when they turned the final corner and could see its frontage. In fact, there was no sign of life at all. Albert skewed his lips to one side in thought; he might have to call Victor. Had the man gone home after his day too tired to remember Hans?

  At the entry door, both dogs waited for Albert to push it open, Rex twisting his head around to glance up when they remained outside.

  Albert gave the door an experimental push but, as expected, it was locked, the closed sign not there just to tease him. ‘I think we’ll have to go around the back and try there, chaps,’ he said aloud as rain continued to drip from his head down past his collar. The top of his shirt and sweater were already soaked.

  He didn’t know how to get around to the back, and when a glance to his left and right revealed no clues, he guessed. Thanking the Lord that he got it right first time, he found a narrow passage that led around to the rear of the parade of shops. It passed between two premises to reach a courtyard behind. Albert hoped to find a sign of life in the back offices, but as he entered the small loading and car park area, his eyes were drawn to the two men putting Victor through the side door of their van.

  A pregnant pause ensued where the two men, one holding Victor’s arms, the other his legs, looked at Albert and Albert looked at them. Victor was completely limp and therefore unconscious or possibly dead. Albert hoped for the former over the latter but had no way of knowing which it might be.

  The men were dressed very differently to each other. One wore dark combat fatigues but even in the dim light behind the shops where there were no streetlights, Albert could see the other man had on a jacket, shirt, and tie. It was the well-dressed man who spoke first, yelling, ‘Get him!’ as he flung Victor’s limp body into the van. The other man wasn’t as fast to react, failing to throw Victor’s feet so their victim flopped half in and half out of the van and then fell out onto the wet ground as gravity took over.

  Rex’s ears were up the moment they came around the corner and he could smell the two humans. ‘It’s them,’ he murmured to himself, sniffing the air and looking with his eyes as he tried to pinpoint their location. The rain was playing havoc with his olfactory system; sniffing deeply meant getting a load of water up his nose which then made him sneeze. He hadn’t been paying attention either; too grumpy to bother until the familiar scent smacked him in the nose.

  A car blocked his view, but when Hans started barking and snapping, and Rex’s human shouted, ‘Rex go!’ he didn’t need to know where they were to know that it was time to attack. They had to be ahead of him somewhere, so the moment the tension in his lead came free, he leapt onto the bonnet of the car that blocked his view, and there they were; two humans, with a third human he knew lying on the ground between their feet.

  Oh, yeah! It was chase and bite time.

  Eugene had just started forward, breaking into a sprint to get the old man because he couldn’t see the dog. He got two paces before the dog jumped onto the front of a BMW and was very suddenly staring right at his face. Eugene swore loudly and reversed direction, his feet slipping on the tarmac as he tried to fight his inertia.

  He went down to the ground, landing painfully, but he saw the dog leap and had no time to question if he was hurt. He needed to get into the van right now. He had a knife there, tucked into the cubby hole under the dash. He knew he ought to keep it on his person, but it spoiled the line of his jacket.

  ‘I’ve got this one, wolf!’ yelled Hans, whipping around the side of the car to find Eugene on the ground. He could see Victor – a human he knew well – lying on the wet ground and he could smell his familiar scent. He didn’t understand what was happening, but a primal instinct told him he needed to attack now.

  Francis was getting away. He was still dropping Victor’s feet when the giant dog appeared and got to see Eugene fall. It was clear his colleague wouldn’t be able to get away before the dog got to him, so he used that to his advantage, sacrificed Eugene willingly, and ran. All he had to do was get around the other side of the van and into the driver’s seat. He would drive away, escape the town, and ditch the van in a multi-story carpark somewhere. Eugene would get caught by the police, but he wouldn’t talk.

  Rex jumped down to the ground. The human on the ground was helpless now. He could bite and tear but the shout from Hans changed his mind. The tiny dog might be a handbag accessory, but he was still a dog with two rows of teeth and therefore better than any human. He leapt over the stricken Eugene to pursue the other human who ha
d just vanished around the back of the van.

  Hans had never bitten a human before. It was a concept disciplined out of him when he was very young. So young, in fact, that he didn’t remember it, only that it was a terrible thing for a dog to do. Now was the right time to overrule that instruction which he did by sinking his teeth into the human’s ankle as he tried to get up.

  Eugene cried out in pain. He saw the German Shepherd coming and shut off every other thought other than escape. He had to get to the van! When the bite came, he’d been telling himself to expect it and to fight to get free. He could be stitched up later, but there was something wrong with the bite he felt and when he swung his free leg around to kick the large dog away, it connected with thin air.

  Hans ripped his head from side to side, yanking at the human’s flesh and growling for all he was worth. He would show the wolf just what a smaller dog was capable of.

  On the other side of the van, Francis grabbed the driver’s door handle, yanked it open and dove inside. He tugged the door closed and whipped his feet out of the way so it would slam shut. Half a heartbeat later, something heavy smashed into the other side of the door.

  He’d made it! Now he could get out of here, running the old man and the dog over if he got a chance. Francis had no idea where Eugene had gone. Since the dog was chasing him, it clearly hadn’t gone after Eugene, so why wasn’t his partner in the van?

  When the dog’s head appeared at the driver’s side window, barking insanely and suggesting that he might bite through the glass or just rip the door open with its teeth if he hung around, Francis gave up on Eugene and grabbed for the ignition key.

  It wasn’t there!

  Outside on the wet ground, Eugene rolled around so he could look down the length of his body. It wasn’t the great brute of a German Shepherd at all. He was being mauled by a sausage dog! It hurt like the blazes, but if Francis saw him, he’d never live it down.