The Calling (34 page)

Bixby hurries to the door.

The neighbour is shouting for Luther to let him go, that he’s only a dog. That he didn’t hurt no one.

Luther ignores her. He grins at Bixby.

‘Where is he?’

An agitation passes among the hoodies in the playground. Howie follows it to source. She looks up.

From where she’s sitting, it looks very much like DCI Luther is dangling a dog off a high balcony and threatening to drop it.

The gaggle of hoodies call out, make the hand gestures and half-dance moves that remind Howie of rap videos. Except the kids are white and the jeans hang low off their skinny arses. It just looks wrong.

‘Hurry up,’ Luther says. ‘I can’t hold it much longer.’

Bixby jiggles on the spot like he needs to piss. He wrings his hands. He says, ‘Please.’

Drawn by the neighbour’s protest, a small, inquisitive crowd is beginning to assemble on the concrete walkway.

‘Police,’ he says. ‘This dog is dangerous. Until the animal control officers get here, I need you to clear this walkway.’

It’s a lie. It’ll look good on YouTube. The crowd doesn’t believe him.

‘Please,’ says Bixby. ‘Please.’

Someone says, ‘Let the poor fucking animal go.’

Then they’re all saying it.

Luther just dangles the dog over the edge and holds Bixby’s gaze as the sullen, fractious crowd begins to swell, fed by communicating stairwells and walkways.

‘Please clear the walkway until an Animal Control Unit arrives,’ Luther says. ‘Thank you.’

The dog is too terrified to struggle. It just gazes unhappily at the concrete far below.

‘He’s getting really heavy, Steve. My arms are hurting. My hands are shaking.’

‘Please,’ Bixby says.

‘I can’t hold him,’ Luther says. ‘I can feel my hands slipping.’

‘All right,’ says Bixby. ‘All right. Come in. Just don’t hurt him.’

Howie watches the group of kids condense like a storm front. Not a crowd. Not yet. But soon.

Already the mobile phones are out. Soon Luther will be up there on Facebook and YouTube, dangling a dog fifty feet in the air.

She can see he’s shouting something. God knows what.

She rolls her eyes. Swears. Makes sure she’s got her pepper spray, ASP, radio. Gets out of the car.

‘All right,’ she says, approaching the kids. ‘All right. Break it up. Move along.’

They turn to her with pale grinning ratboy faces. Shove each other. Turn their phones on her.

She presents an air of weary detachment. Actually, she’s terrified.

One of the kids says, ‘What’s your mate doing with that dog, Miss?’

Miss
, as if she were a teacher.

Howie gets a few seconds’ reprieve as his grinning mates roast him.

She looks up. Sees the crowd gathering on the balcony. Pressing closer and closer to Luther.

And the poor dog, dangling down like a bag of kitchen rubbish.

She gives up. Returns to her car, calls in backup. ‘You might want to hurry,’ she says. ‘Officer in peril.’

Then she sits at the wheel. She watches and waits.

Luther pulls in the dog. His hands are numb. The dog wriggles into him. He holds it tight. It wants him to love it. He loves it.

He cuddles the dog, pats it. He can feel its heavy heartbeat. It licks his face.

He forces its tongue away from his skin. Hugs it to his chest. It nestles there, grateful and terrified. It’s heavy, like an ingot of metal. Luther’s arms are numb. His fingers hurt.

He follows Bixby into the flat. Sets down the dog.

It scampers into the kitchen. Luther deadbolts the door. Makes sure the curtains are closed.

There is a silence outside before someone bangs on the door and cries out in some kind of protest.

Bixby looks at it all in dismay, tugging at his throat.

Distantly, the sound of approaching sirens.

Outside, the crowd gets louder. Someone kicks the door again, harder this time.

Luther grabs Bixby’s shoulder and hustles him into the kitchen. Sits him down.

The dog quivers by the fridge, regards him in abject terror.

Luther says, ‘I haven’t got much time.’ He puts his back to the flimsy kitchen door and folds his arms. ‘So hurry up.’

‘All right,’ Bixby says. ‘He did come round.’

‘When?’

‘Not long ago.’

‘A day? A week?
When?
’

‘About an hour.’

‘An
hour
? So what did he want?’

Bixby mumbles.

‘I can’t hear you.’

Bixby mumbles again, looks away.

‘Steve,’ says Luther.

Bixby’s eyes flare with shame and fury. ‘He said he had a girl to sell me. All right?’

‘To
sell
you?’

‘He wanted ten grand. I said, I haven’t got ten grand. He said, okay seven grand. I said, I haven’t got it.’

‘Why does he want the money?’

‘To get out of London.’

‘And were you tempted? To buy her?’

‘What do you want me to say? Yes? Do I look totally mad to you?’

‘What did he say to you? Exactly. Exact words. What did he say?’

‘That she’s very pretty. And loving.’

‘Loving. Jesus.’

‘And she could be all mine.’

‘Did you see her? Did you actually set eyes on her?’

‘No!’

‘But she was alive?’

‘She’d have to be.’

‘How well do you know him, Steve?’

‘Not that well. I’d just see him at the fights. He was always there.’

‘Dog fights?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And that’s where he first approached you – at a dog fight.’

‘Yeah.’

‘He told you he wanted to buy a child.’

‘Not straight away. Months later. But eventually, yeah.’

‘So you were friends?’

‘No. I just saw him at the fights.’

‘And after a few months, you put him in contact with Vasile Sava. Then with Sweet Jane Carr.’

Bixby nods.

‘What about since then?’

‘Nothing really. I see him now and again at the fights. We say hello.’

‘What’s he doing at all these fights? Is he a punter, an owner, what?’

‘He’s a breeder. And he’s a vet. He works mostly for a bloke called Gary Braddon.’

‘So let me get this right. You’re not friends.’

‘No. He’s always been pretty clear that he hates people like me. People with my problem.’

‘So if he came to you, he must’ve been desperate, right?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose so.’

‘Don’t suppose. Tell me where else he can go to sell the girl?’

‘I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. But even if there was someone, which I doubt, they’d be mad to get involved with him right now, wouldn’t they? With him all over the telly. Nobody’s that stupid.’

Luther calls Ian Reed.

‘Ian,’ he says. ‘You need to pull in a bloke call Gary Braddon. Organizes dog fights. Put the strong arm on him. He’s a dog lover, right? These are sentimental people. If you tell him a little girl’s been kidnapped, he’ll sing in a second. Use photographs of Mia.’ He glances at Bixby. ‘Pretty ones.’

He hangs up, waits for backup to arrive.

Howie passes through the crowd at the tail end of a riot squad. She’s wearing a luminous police vest, baton in hand.

She watches from a distance as the riot squad pulls Bixby and Luther from the flat, which is being mobbed by irate residents.

A few bottles are thrown at a few shields. Half a dozen arrests are made. They’ll be charged with affray and given community service sentences.

Luther and Bixby are marched out under protection. Bixby is bundled into the back of a van along with his dog.

Luther and Howie make their way to the Volvo. Get in. A bottle smashes against the rear windshield.

Howie says, ‘And how often does this happen?’

Luther says, ‘I’ve never actually started a riot before.’

As Howie reverses out, eggs explode against the bodywork, the windows. She ducks instinctively with each impact. And then they’re on the road. Luther doesn’t say anything to her. Just calls Benny Deadhead.

‘Benny, mate. How’re we doing on Madsen’s adoptive parents?’

‘Jan and Jeremy Madsen,’ Benny says. ‘She was a pharmacist. He was a vet.’

‘Address?’

‘Finchley,’ Benny says. ‘Same house they’ve lived in for forty years.’

Reed sits himself down in Luther’s chair and calls the Status Dogs Unit. The call is taken by Sergeant Graham Cooke. Reed introduces himself, briefly outlines the situation.

Cooke says, ‘Does this have anything to do with that little girl?’

‘It may do, yeah.’

‘Then let me sit down a minute. Close the door, get a pen.’

Reed waits. Then Cooke comes back to the phone and says, ‘What do you need to know?’

‘Let’s start with, who is he?’

‘Gary Braddon. Born Caerphilly, 1963. History of association with the far right.’

‘And he likes dogs, does he?’

‘Well, it depends what you mean by “like”. He’s got previous: keeping a dog for fighting, causing unnecessary suffering to a dog by failing to seek veterinary care for its wounds. Also convicted of possessing equipment associated with training dogs to fight. Five counts of illegally owning pit bull terrier-type dogs for the purposes of fighting.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘Meaning, he’s not allowed to keep dogs. So he keeps them off site. We never established where.’

‘Well, I think I might be able to help you out there. The name “Henry Madsen” mean anything?’

‘Not off the top of my head, no.’

‘He’s Braddon’s vet. And corner man.’

‘Braddon’s vet goes by the name of Henry Mercer.’

‘That’ll be our boy.’

‘Allegedly runs the best training yard in London, although we never tracked it down. He’s a very secretive boy, Mr Mercer.’

‘He is that,’ Reed says. ‘So is there money in this game? Because money’s an issue right now.’

‘There’s plenty. Your dog wins three fights, it’s a champion. Five, it’s a grand champion – that’s what they aim for. So they put the dogs through a training regime, get them down to an agreed fighting weight, just like a boxer. That means treadmill work, diet, stamina, running around. And steroids, so you can get them completely lean, no fat.’

‘Do you think Henry could go to Braddon for money?’

‘You think he’s the man who kidnapped Baby Emma and that other little girl?’

‘We’re pretty sure, yeah.’

‘Then not in a million years. Braddon’s a right-wing nutcase. And he’s a dog lover. Two inches to the right of Mussolini. That’s a dangerous combination for a man who kidnaps children. Mercer, Madsen, whatever his name is, Braddon would cut his balls off and feed him to the dogs if he ever showed his face.’

‘All right,’ says Reed. ‘So this is the problem we’ve got: our man’s gone to ground somewhere in London. And you’re right, he’s very secretive. He’s got no friends to speak of, and he’s got no money. He needs somewhere to hole up.’

Cooke hesitates a moment then says, ‘Braddon’s dog fights tend to be held in any one of a number of vacant properties. Mercer, or Madsen, he’d have keys to them all.’

‘You know the locations?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Can you send us a complete list, soon as? And any other material you might have to hand that’s going to help expedite a warrant to search.’

‘Plenty of that,’ says Cooke.

Reed says, ‘What do you drink?’

‘I don’t mind a whisky.’

‘There’s a bottle on the way,’ Reed says. ‘We owe you one.’

Cooke asks Reed to give him a little time.

Fifteen minutes later he comes back with a list of five properties used by Gary Braddon as venues for holding dog fights.

Within the hour, Search Team One, with DS Justin Ripley acting as Police Search Adviser, arrives at the first address on the list.

It’s an abandoned kitchen interiors shop in Lewisham.

They find cupboards have been removed and converted to make a dog-fighting pit, much like a boxing ring.

A comprehensive search proves the property to be unoccupied. Search Team One finds no indication that Mia Dalton or Henry Madsen have been present.

Search Team Two, headed by DS ‘Scary’ Mary Lally, stumbles upon an extemporized dog fight in progress behind a tyre-replacement garage in Deptford.

Watched by a dozen men, two pit bull terriers quietly maul each other in a pit fourteen feet square and three feet high.

Diagonal ‘scratch lines’ are drawn on opposite corners of the pits. These are the lines behind which the dogs must remain until the referee commands them to be released.

Four arrests are made. Two of the dogs will later be destroyed.

They find no evidence that Mia Dalton or Henry Madsen have been present.

Luther and Howie drive to Finchley.

On Royal Drive, they pass the site of the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, now converted into high-end apartments. The Asylum used to be home to Aaron Kosminski. Luther’s pretty much convinced that Kosminski was Jack the Ripper.

Jeremy and Jan Madsen live in a gabled, semi-detached Edwardian house in a Finchley cul-de-sac.

Jan Madsen comes to the door. She’s an imposing presence: chiselled jaw, strong cheekbones. Greying pre-Raphaelite hair. She’s seventy-two, a retired pharmacist. She gives Luther a regal once-over and says, ‘Is it about my son?’

Luther nods. Tucks his badge into his pocket.

She invites them in. Brisk with anxiety.

The house is clean. In the living room are knick-knacks and family photographs, a TV that was top of the line when it was acquired, twenty-five years ago. Fruit in a blue and white ceramic bowl; the coral skeleton of recently eaten grapes. An old HP computer is plugged into the wall, screen black. Two credit cards on the table. A cup of milky tea on a coaster next to it. Evidence of cats, although no cats are to be seen.

Jan faces Luther and Howie, her son a spectre between them. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

Howie smiles agreeably. ‘No, thank you.’

‘There’s plenty in the pot.’

‘Honestly. But thank you.’

‘Coffee?’

‘Thank you, we’re good.’

‘Water? Something to eat?’

Howie smiles. ‘Really. We’re fine.’