Blood Hound (8 page)

“So what do we do now?” asked Graham, sitting down on a wall and pausing to catch his breath.

“We’ve got no choice,” I told him. “Let’s call the police now. Tell them what we overheard, at any rate. Where’s your phone?”

Graham plucked his mobile from his pocket but we were out of luck. After informing him that its battery was dangerously low, the mobile died with a soft, despairing bleep.

“Stupid thing!” I exclaimed crossly. I fought the urge to stamp on it. “We’ll have to drop the dogs off and call from home, then.”

Graham paled. “But your mum won’t…”

“I’ll distract her – you make the call.”

Graham reluctantly agreed and we set off again. Cutting down a side street, we soon reached the alley that came out about a hundred metres from my house. We were only halfway down it, however, when a shadow fell across the exit. A man stood there, blocking our path.

The light was behind him and his hood was up. We couldn’t see his face, but there was no mistaking the hellhound drooling on the end of its chain.

I’d talked to him earlier and he’d seemed OK. I told myself firmly that there was no reason to assume
he
knew that
we
knew about him. Kyle turning up right here, right now was just a harmless coincidence. I decided to ignore his threatening posture and attempt friendliness.

“Hi Kyle,” I called hopefully. “OK, then?”

He didn’t answer but squared his shoulders as if preparing for a fight. Then he murmured to his dog, and the beast started growling and straining impatiently, eager to attack. There was no doubt at all that he was on to us.

Graham and I froze. Malcolm and Stanley whimpered. Bertie barked, just once. We must have stood there for a good ten seconds, images of a painful death flashing through all of our heads, and then I had an idea.

“Back off,” I whispered to Graham. “Nice and slow. We can get out the other way. He won’t attack us when we’re in the street. Too many witnesses.”

Keeping our eyes firmly fixed on the slavering, snapping hellhound, we took a step back. Then another. We hadn’t retreated more than three paces when we heard more growling, this time from behind us.

Unwilling to take my eyes off the killer dog in front of me, I snatched a quick glance over my shoulder.

“What on…?” I gasped. My heart plummeted into my shoes. A cold prickle of terror swept through me. Terror and confusion. Because Kyle was also standing behind us, hood up, hellhound snarling at the end of its chain.

“Graham,” I said faintly, “there are two of them!”

Graham’s jaw dropped. “What…? How…? I don’t understand!” he squeaked.

But I did. Suddenly it all made sense. I wanted to kick myself for having been so stupid. All this time I’d been looking so hard for a connection, and yet there wasn’t one.

That was the whole point.

“Horrible Hoodie was telling the truth!” I wailed. “I should have trusted my instincts. He must have come in through the side gate while we were watching Grant and Sprinting Woman. The guy we saw going into the bushes wasn’t him! Same hoodie. Same breed of dog. Different man.”

Graham looked from one advancing figure to the other and swallowed nervously. “So which of these is really Kyle Jacobs?”

“Neither of them,” I said. “The police thought Mumsiewumsie was being absent-minded – that maybe she’d got the wrong day – but she wasn’t. She saw Gabbie’s murderer leaving through the back gate. That’s why she got knocked down. They wanted her dead.”

The dogs were closer now. Flecks of spittle hit the fences on either side of the alley. “Which one of you is Dermot?” I yelled.

For a second, both hounds and men stopped. The dogs strained at their leashes, but at a single command they both dropped to the ground. The man who had given it shook back his hood and smiled a charming Irish smile.

“Sure, you were right,” he called to the second man. “They’ve worked it out. We should have been more careful.”

“Let me guess.” I turned to the other man and pointed an accusing finger. “You’re Grant, right?”

Slowly, reluctantly, Grant Robinson peeled back his hood.

“No wonder Alexandra felt like you were using her,” I said. “She must have come in very handy when you needed an alibi.”

“Yeah, well…” Grant shuffled awkwardly from one foot to the other. At least he had the grace to look guilty.

Graham was working hard to catch up. “So where does Kyle fit in?” he asked.

“He doesn’t,” I said. “He’s got nothing to do with any of it. Well, apart from maybe sending out those bags of dog poo. The first lot, anyway. I’ll bet you did the second round, didn’t you?”

Dermot smiled. “It helped muddy the waters,” he said with a wink. “Confused the police a treat.”

I was furious with myself. “Why didn’t I see it before – it was so obvious!”

“What was?” demanded Graham.

“Two men
just happen
to lose their wives in tragic circumstances, and both of them are perfectly innocent because they
just happen
to have perfect alibis?” I glared at Dermot. “No wonder you didn’t want to cover the poo package story. You didn’t want any kind of link to be made between the two of you, did you? And if it hadn’t been for Kyle’s stupid little joke, no one would have known you two had ever met.”

“But,” said Graham, mystified, “I don’t get it. Who’s Mr X?”

“He is.” I jerked my head towards Dermot. “It’s true, isn’t it? You killed Gabbie Robinson.”

“Sure I did.” Dermot sounded quite proud of himself. “You know, I couldn’t see quite how to do it at first. Then I spotted that young lad. Distinctive hoodie? A mastiff just like mine? Perfect! The solution was so simple!”

“So that’s why you lied about keeping dogs…” Graham looked thoughtful. “With the hood pulled over your face no one recognized you. We all assumed you were Kyle.”

I looked from one man to the other. “You swapped murders, didn’t you? You planned two killings committed by people so unconnected to their victims that the police would never solve them. You were total strangers, weren’t you?”

“Strangers?” queried Graham. “Surely people don’t hatch plans like this with people they don’t even know?”

“Look at the way Alexandra was with Mum,” I reminded him. “A bit of tea and sympathy and she was telling her whole life story.” I turned back to Dermot. “So where did you first meet? On a train? In a pub?”

“In an airport lounge, actually.” Dermot grinned. “The plane was delayed. We got talking. Found we had some problems in common. Wives: holding us back, getting in the way. Of course, I had the foresight to get mine well insured…”

“And you?” I glared at Grant. “Was Gabbie the same? Did you do it for the money, or what?”

“No!” protested Grant. “It wasn’t that! I just didn’t love her any more, that was all.”

“Excuse me,” said Graham politely, “but if that was the case, wouldn’t a simpler solution have been to divorce her?”

A dark cloud of fury suddenly contorted Grant’s handsome surfer-boy features. “She would have taken Jessie away from me.”

A tug of love over a golden retriever? It seemed so ridiculous I almost laughed out loud. But hey, we were in a parallel universe. Somehow, on Planet Dog, murdering someone over a canine figured.

“Hang on, though,” Graham objected. “I thought we’d decided Gabbie wasn’t supposed to get killed. When Grant was on the phone, didn’t he say…?”

“No,” I interrupted with a tired sigh. “I was wrong about that, too. He wasn’t talking about Gabbie. He was talking about Kathryn Hughes. A young mum arrested. Two small kids at home.” I eyed Grant. “You felt bad about it, didn’t you? That was what you were about to say. It wasn’t ‘nobody was supposed to get
killed
’; it was ‘nobody was supposed to get
caught
’. You felt guilty about her being charged.”

“It was a good plan!” cried Grant. “Flawless. No one else was supposed to get hurt.” He looked at Dermot accusingly. “No one was supposed to get arrested!”

I detected friction between the conspirators. If we could use it, we had a slim chance of survival.

Dermot broke in on the conversation. “There’s nothing we can do to help Kathryn,” he said. “She’ll be convicted. The Braithwaite woman will die – I’ll see to that. And you two… Innocent kids killed by strays? Urban dogs are such a menace! You know, I might just do a feature on it. Let’s get on, shall we?”

We’d been standing in the alleyway chatting like dog walkers on a Sunday afternoon. But now Dermot bent down to the hellhound at his side and slipped the chain over its head.

I swung around to face Grant. “Are you going to let him do this?”

Grant winced. In a voice husky with emotion he said, “We can’t let you go. I can’t end up in prison. Who’d look after Jessie?” He slipped the other dog off its chain.

Death came a heartbeat closer.

But if I’d learned one thing during all those strolls in the park it was that dog owners like to talk about their pets. Frantically I asked Dermot, “What’s his name?”

“Bruno,” replied Dermot smoothly. “And behind you is Frazier.”

“Oh?” Graham chipped in helpfully. “They’re both yours, are they?”

“They are.”

“Did you use the clicker method?” asked Graham. “Only, they seem far better trained than Kyle’s dog.”

“Oh, they are.” Dermot smiled. “They’re trained to attack.” He grinned another cheeky grin. And then calmly, clearly, he commanded his dogs: “Kill.”

Bruno and Frazier leapt forward. The shih tzu fled, yelping.

A gust of hot, flesh-eating breath. A flash of tearing teeth. Blood-chilling snarls. I couldn’t help it – I dropped Bertie and grabbed Graham. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. All we could do was shut our eyes, hide our faces in each other’s shoulders and wait to be torn apart. It wasn’t going to be quick and it wasn’t going to be painless. Frankly, I whimpered. We both did. I’ve never been so scared in my life.

But I hadn’t reckoned on Bertie.

The King of Charisma was None Too Pleased about being dropped, but luckily for us his deep suspicion of Graham and me was a thing of the past. He’d decided that we were his Personal Property. Nothing and no one was allowed near what Bertie considered rightfully his.

He pulled his Oriental lips back into a contemptuous sneer. Then he growled.

The mastiffs literally turned in mid-air. As they crashed to the ground you could almost see the puzzled doggy thought bubbles pop out of their heads. Bertie growled again.

It wasn’t what you’d call impressive. He was a fraction of their size and there were two of them. They could have swallowed Bertie in one gulp. But the supreme self-confidence gleaming in his bulgy eyes together with his total lack of fear had an astonishing effect. Both killer dogs suddenly clamped their tails between their legs, took a step back and let out a confused whine.

“Kill!” This time Dermot’s command was neither calm nor clear. It was panicked. The dogs didn’t move. “Kill! For God’s sake, kill them!” He was getting desperate. The TV reporter waved his arms, flapping them up and down furiously and making his dogs even more anxious and confused. Clearly he hadn’t read Graham’s
Complete Dog Maintenance Manual
. The more he yelled and flapped, the less control he had over his dogs.

Bertie stood looking calmly from one dog to the other. Grant seemed about to burst into tears but Dermot was incensed. He’d killed Gabbie without any qualms. He’d knocked down Mumsiewumsie without a second thought. Disposing of two children should have been all in a day’s work. And if the dogs weren’t going to do it, he would.

When the charming Irish reporter came for us, all we had to defend ourselves with was the doggy go-kart. It was no use as an escape vehicle, but as a weapon it proved surprisingly effective.

As Dermot lunged, Graham smashed the skateboard into his head, leaving a gaping wound.

Maybe it was the smell of blood. Maybe the dogs were wound up by Dermot’s frenzied commands. But when he reeled backwards and trod on Bruno’s paw, Bruno yelped and snapped at him. His teeth connected with the reporter’s hand and he screamed. Frazier – not wanting to miss out on doing what he’d been trained for – sprang at him. Graham and I were knocked aside. Dermot’s shriek of alarm was cut short. And suddenly there was an awful lot of blood.

Grant turned and ran. Big mistake. The mastiffs threw back their heads and bayed, then gave chase. Tongues lolling out, the dogs bounded past us. Grant was brought down before he’d even reached the street.

Right in front of our eyes, both men had their throats torn out like ancient Aztec warriors.

There’s not much to add, really. Dermot and Grant died of their injuries and sadly the mastiffs had to be put down: the RSPCA said that once they had developed a taste for blood, they couldn’t be trusted not to attack again.

Mumsiewumsie recovered from her accident and was soon back walking Malcolm and Stanley twice a day in the park. Jessie was rehomed and ended up living with the Ball Obsessed Collie. Kathryn Hughes was released without charge.

No one ever did get prosecuted for sending out the poo packages. I was pretty sure Horrible Hoodie had done it, but I wasn’t going to say anything. You see, Graham and I became quite friendly with Kyle Jacobs in the end. He still looked scary – and so did his dog – but we discovered that they really were both as soft as butter underneath. And Kyle had been telling the truth about Tyson’s ear – it had been ripped in a fight, but there was nothing illegal about it. Gertrude the dachshund had bitten him and Tyson hadn’t even retaliated. As for Kyle’s criminal record and the theft he’d been tagged for, it turned out that he’d nicked some doggy treats from the local pet shop. Not entirely honest, maybe, but not exactly a Major Crime, either.

Graham and I carried on walking Bertie until Mrs Biggs’s leg healed, which wasn’t until a few weeks into the new school year. By then, I’d become quite attached to him. Well, you can’t help liking an animal that’s saved your life, can you? Even if it does look like a hairy maggot.

My name is Poppy Fields. I never
believed in ghosts – until I stayed on
a remote Scottish island, and people
started dropping dead all over the
place. Was a spirit taking revenge?
When Graham and I investigated, we
began to see right through it…