Moondog and the Reed Leopard

by Neil Mach

  ‘Does he dabble in voodoo?’

  ‘No, of course he doesn’t… Where do you get such fanciful notions? You need to get a life young lady. Get out more.’

  ‘Probably.’ Hopie went away to sit and think.

  *

  After she’d completed searches on variations of his name, Hopie unearthed their Stephen Ruis. She did a search on Google Maps to locate his surgery. ‘Hmm! It’s near to where the dog’s heads were discovered?’ she said to Sarah-Jane. But her friend seemed in a world-of-her-own and studied her computer screen with blank eyes.

  ‘Sarge,’ Hopie shouted. ‘I am taking this afternoon off. It’s cleared with the Chief...’

  ‘Is it? You might have run it past me. Why didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s what I’m doing now, I am running it past you, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah, except that now it’s fait accompli. I wish you kept me in the circle of trust…’

  ‘Whatever that means.’ Hopie rose to grab her coat.

  ‘You’re going now, are you?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Hopie,’ Sergeant Moyes whispered, as she passed his desk. ‘Can I have a short meeting in the corridor… before you go?’

  Hopie sighed, ‘If you must...’

  Sarah-Jane gave them both a look of disapproval as they left.

  Outside the office, Hopie stood with one knee bent, ready for the reprimand she was no-doubt about to receive. But Moyes looked at his boots, moved his knees from side to side, coughed twice and said: ‘Have you seen Sarah-Jane’s shiner?’

  ‘Yes, I have, as it happens,’ replied Hopie. She felt pleased the discussion wasn’t another lecture about the chain of command…

  ‘Would you ask her, off the record if you want, if she can give a clear explanation for the injury?’

  ‘I already did. She said she knocked herself in the eye whilst decorating.’

  ‘And you believe her?’

  ‘Well, it’s a kind of an explanation, isn’t it? What do you think happened? ‘

  ‘She’s been acting strange, recently hasn’t she? For a while now, hadn’t you noticed? Maybe you are too wrapped up in the Mister Moon Dog thing. I’ll be glad when it’s all over.’

  ‘I offered to chat with her, but she said she had no time. Would you be able to give us a joint lunch break? So, me and her can have a heart-to-heart?’

  ‘Er? I suppose so. Leave it with me. I don’t like to be alone in the office you see, in case something comes up. I’ll have to think about it and get back to you.’

  ‘Very well, Sarge.’

  *

  Outside the police station Hopie located her phone. She needed fresh air to think before she made the most important call of the day. It’s why she’d left the building to make it. She found herself standing opposite the vagrant, the one who had been posted by Moondog to watch over her. He emerged from his hidden position. Though he pretended to look inside a bag while she viewed him from across the way.

  ‘Hey, Mum? It’s me Hope. We haven’t spoken for a long while. It’s busy here at Hugh-Lupus. I need your advice. Uncle sends his love. I’m thinking of coming back home for a bit. Would that be okay? Things have turned a bit upside down here. I was going to ask Uncle for a transfer back to the City. But I wanted your advice first. Ring me when you get this message. I miss you. I love you...’

  She narrowed her eyes, pinched her lips, then gave the vagrant across the road one of her firmest, no-nonsense looks. After she’d tucked her phone away, she marched off, arms folded across her chest, in the direction of Charleywood Road.

  It became a long walk, and it took over twenty minutes, but she aimed for the address she’d written in her diary. She realized that she’d chosen entirely the wrong footwear for a long trek, she only had her tight boots right now, but what option did she have? All her possessions were in the rotten cottage.

  When Hopie got close to the surgery, she started looking for a gold nameplate or some other sign of a veterinary practice and began counting down the numbers. She had a vague idea what she was would say when she entered, but she knew she should rehearse her patter before she arrived at the Voodoo Vet’s. She knew she’d succeeded in finding the right place when she saw a large Victorian building with a name plate on a wall and hours of operation on a sign. One or two cars were parked in the front garden and a light was illuminated over a large porch. She was about to go in but remembered she ought to rehearse her lines. That’s when she saw the man across the road.

  She hadn’t noticed him earlier because he’d crammed himself into a tight ball and pushed his body close against a post-box. Another vagrant? Did Moondog predict she’d come to find the Vet? There was only one way to find out. Hopie crossed the street and made a beeline for the vagabond.

  As she approached, he pushed out a tin and said, ‘Spare any change miss?’ He used the feeble-shaky voice they all seemed to adopt when they saw the chance of a penny-in-the-pot.

  ‘Did he put you up to this?’ Hopie demanded with a glare.

  ‘Please help miss. I’m homeless.’

  She looked at him with narrowed eyes and tapped her boot-tip onto the ground. He looked much older than the one she saw before, in front of the station. This one was possibly in his fifties, although it’s hard to say. He had milky white hair, ivory skin and a grizzled beard. His main distinguishing mark was that he only had one working eye — the other one remained hidden beneath a filthy sticking plaster. ‘What did he pay you?’ she shouted.

  ‘Miss?’

  ‘How much did he give you? Twenty? I bet he gave you twenty. If I give you twenty-five, will you leave me alone? ‘

  ‘Miss?’

  ‘Why do you do this? You are not a slave. He’s not a slave-master. What do you get out of it? What’s he got over you? Why are you in his network?’

  ‘Miss?’

  ‘I know I’m wasting my time asking. I just wanted to know… Why you don’t you people have any self-respect? Why don’t you have dignity? Here’s a pound for your cup... I give in.’ She tossed the coin onto his blanket.

  As she turned away, she heard him cough. Then the man spoke, ‘It’s the social scale isn’t it? We’re all on a scale, miss. I’m at the bottom, down low beneath everyone else. Even travelers look down at me.’

  She turned to say something, but he gazed at the mess around him and wouldn’t look into her eyes.

  ‘It’s the chain of command, I suppose’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes, miss. It’s the natural hierarchy of all things. We have a place in the stratum. You and me. I am in my place, I’m at the bottom. You are in yours and he is in his. I take bids from him, not you, because he’s closer to me in the natural order. That’s the way of things. None of us can do much about such things because it’s the law. It’s Mother Nature’s law.’

  The Voodoo Vet

  After he had left Hopie by the front door of the police station, Moondog had taken the taxi to a point near her lodge, Porter’s Cottage.

  He asked the taxi to wait at an old slate-yard, then he alighted, to double-back the way they’d arrived, but this time on foot, about two hundred meters. The taxi driver waited in the concealed entrance, quite content, reading the morning paper.

  When Moondog got closer to his target, he climbed a stone wall then dropped into someone’s front yard. He padded slowly down their side alley. He waited at the end of the passage, listening for dogs, then prowled the length of a mid-height garden wall, paying attention to new sounds. At a natural fissure, where a thin tree pushed through stonework, he made another athletic leap, and this diversion took him down a little-used path littered with sharp, soft, pine needles. The evergreen leaves dampened the sound of his boots as they hit the track. Now Moondog was almost directly opposite Hopie’s cottage, but more importantly, he found himself flanking a new Vauxhall car.

  Moondog waited, on hands and knees, barely ten meters from the shiny Vauxhall. He listened to the sound of the car stereo and felt the heat of the exha
ust manifold. He crawled forwards, dragging his body close to the ground. A van passed by and created a boisterous racket. Two cars followed. He decided to bide his time to wait for the next significant sound that would mask his move.

  In the distance a dog yapped, a paperboy whizzed past on his bicycle, then finally, after a minute or so, Moondog heard the approach of a large commercial vehicle. He could sense the sound of the heavy wheels as they rumbled on asphalt and a huge engine as it growled closer. When the vehicle thundered past the cottage, with a clatter, Moondog snapped at the Vauxhall door.

  ‘What the —’

  The man inside was too slow. He looked at the ignition — but in one silky movement — Moondog had twisted his keys away from the steering column and hidden them from the driver’s view. The engine ceased, the radio silenced, and the man sat motionless, with bulging eyes and tense, throbbing, tendons.

  ‘Now listen carefully,’ whispered Moondog. ‘I’ll be gone in an instant, vanished in the blink of an eye, so you’ll only get to hear this once. You’ll need to concentrate, Jimmie-lad...’

  ‘Give me my keys back...how do you know my name?’

  ‘I know it’s you, Jimmie-lad because you can’t stay away from her, can you? Listen now, this is the important part — she doesn’t love you, she never has, and you need to get that into your skull. She’s not for you. She’s a part of your life that is now officially over.’

  ‘What’s it you, gypsy-boy?’

  ‘Now, now, Jimmie. You’re not paying proper attention, are you? What did I tell you about the need to concentrate?’

  Moondog moved his thumb and index finger over Lavery’s face and pressed hard into the man’s bottom lip. He squeezed the flappy skin against a row of teeth until the pain became almost intolerable. Jimmie could do nothing about the nerve-pinch, though, because he found himself trapped by a fastened seatbelt— effectively pinned to the car-seat. ‘Stop being a naughty boy,’ Moondog hissed. ‘Try to use your ears and grey-matter — for a change.’

  Lavery nodded to stop the pain. So Moondog relieved his grip on the pressure-point but did not remove his hand entirely. ‘I’ve come to give you advice, Jimmie-lad. But advice doesn’t come cheap, does it? Nod if you are listening...’

  Lavery made spasmodic movements with his head but could only whimper.

  ‘She does not want you back, Jimmie-boy. You must not block her light anymore. That means you mustn’t pester her any longer. I don’t want to hear about more badgering and weaseling, do you get me?’

  Lavery nodded again, then took a wheezy breath.

  ‘If I hear you’ve bothered the girl again, I’ll come after you, Jimmie-lad. I will arrive at night when you least suspect it, I will enter your bedroom, and I’ll crack your windpipe. I will snap the bone so swift you won’t know it’s done — but your last breath will sputter through the puncture anyhow. Are you smart enough to take good advice? You savvy?’

  ‘Yeargh.’

  ‘Good lad.’ Moondog pushed his jaw up and down as if the man was nothing more than a ventriloquist’s doll. He intended to make a monkey out of him. Then he released his grip and retreated a metre back, although he remained in combat position, just in case.

  Jimmie Lavery looked at the gypsy and tried to regulate his shakes. ‘Now, one good deed deserves another, as my Daddy told me,’ continued Moondog. ‘Here’s a tip for you, Jimmie-lad. Do you want a good arrest? I possess information about a drug dealer working your patch. I will give you this one on a plate, Jimmie, as part of our deal. You must listen, though, because I will only supply this information once. You need to get a search warrant for 23 Redland Court; Woo Hoo Ram is the tenant. Make sure you do an early morning raid on his place, not after seven. You’ll find enough opiate on the premises to charge him with possession with intent to supply — plus an assortment of other narcotics, too numerous to mention. You’ll need to go in hard because this guy flashes weapons and violence. He’s a nasty critter. When you swear out your warrant, you can cite me as an informant, if you must. But otherwise I want nothing to do with it, so keep me out. He mustn’t know it’s me that spilled the beans. Savvy? You must agree to these terms like you did before, Jimmie, you need to nod that you understand...’

  ‘I’ll get you for this...’

  ‘Did you write the address down? Because I didn’t see you record the information, I just gave you in your notebook...’

  ‘Er, I —’ Jimmie Lavery looked at his glove compartment, where he kept his police radio, then glanced back at Moondog.

  But the gypsy had already gone, vanished into thin air.

  Lavery waited twenty seconds, took several breaths, but did not dare move his head. When he felt confident the gypsy had actually departed, he unbuckled his seatbelt, pressed his stiff legs out of the car, and fell onto hard concrete. He thought he might vomit because his abdomen hurt like crazy. What's more, he needed the bathroom urgently. ‘Where are they?’ Jimmie snapped. ‘Where are my damn keys?’

  After deeper breaths, he stood full height and looked around. The gypsy had disappeared, but where? Then Jimmie saw his car keys. They sat boldly on the roof of his Vauxhall. ‘I’ll bloody get you for this if it’s the last thing I do...’ he screamed into the morning air. An early morning shopper passed by and gave Lavery a look of genuine surprise.

  Moondog watched all this from the shadow of a giant fir tree. He shook his head and allowed a smile. Then he climbed over the wall to tiptoe back to the cab at the slate yard.

  *

  Moondog dog’s next stop was the Quorndon Downs hunt. He was there to see a man about the Ferrer’s chain hounds. His cab arrived in good time at the kennels. He saw the first whipper-in arrive by van, so Moondog assumed the other huntsmen were already on site. But Moondog wanted to see the first whipper in particular. Folk told him he was the most approachable man at The Hunt.

  As the whipper-in grabbed a bag from his van, Moondog buttonholed him by the door. ‘Best of the day to you, sir. Might I have a quick word.’

  ‘What do you want?’ The man avoided eye contact with the gypsy to return a bad-tempered frown.

  ‘You can see what I am sir, so you know I do a bit of coursing. Here and there, sir. Never around these parts. I travel with a pack of sight-hounds...’ Moondog drew his elbows in then pushed his shoulders back, ready to be scrutinized.

  The whipper-in pushed leaned forward to gaze at the gypsy, rubbed the pockets on his tweed jacket, and said, ‘So?’

  ‘I’m in the vicinity, and I need to find myself a good vet-nary — someone reliable who won’t tell a living soul about my dogs. I’m sure you’re with me. I need a vet who prefers cash payment, you understand?’

  ‘Get to the point,’ grumbled the man.

  ‘You know just the man, don’t you? You know such a veterinary— one what’s reliable, I mean. I’m not suggesting you know any dubious-type, please don’t mistake my meaning…’

  The man nodded and wrinkled his nose, ‘Do you want the vet to do something specific?’

  ‘Other than disposal, you mean?’

  ‘You know what I’m getting at,’ the man remarked in a flat tone.

  ‘Well you see, my poor lad, a grand old fellah, he’s too slow for the chase now… Though I love him all the same...’

  ‘You want a keepsake?’

  ‘Something to remind me what a grand fellah he’s been. He means the world to me. So sad to see him go. Yes, I do.’

  ‘You’re in luck; we normally use Stephen Ruis, He’s down in the town. That’s Hugh-Lupus, I mean. He does that sort of thing for cash. He’s a good guy, and he won’t tell a soul. He works confidentially...’ The whipper-in tapped his nose and gave a wink.

  ‘That’s more than perfect. It’s all I need from you today. Thank you, sir. I’ll take my leave.’

  ‘Good day to you...’ said the man, prodding his bag to make sure he had everything he needed from the van.

  Moondog turned away but paused to look over his shoulder. ‘Be
fore I go now, sir, and just out of interest, how many hounds do you pack here?’

  ‘Ninety couple. Now it’s a mixed pack of nearly two hundred modern hounds all with Welsh blood. Why do you ask? We don’t have any jobs going if that’s what you think...’

  Moondog raised an eyebrow, ‘Lost any recently?’

  ‘Only the usual drop off. Lost a couple two month back, a bitch before the New Year. Most hounds last a six-year… We keep a good healthy pack here.’

  ‘Best of the morning.’

  *

  At around about the same time that Moondog left the kennels at the Quorndon Downs hunt, Hopie prepared herself to enter the Voodoo Vet’s surgery in town. She’d pushed her fingers through her hair and marched into the building with easy confidence, her head thrown back and with a glint in her eye. The place smelled of cheap disinfectant and wee-wee. The waiting room was bright with fluorescent light, and the reception desk was attended by a stern woman who wore a pair of blue-rimmed glasses to go with blue dyed hair.

  ‘Can I help?’ said the woman as she gave Hopie the coldest, thinnest smile possible.

  ‘It’s about my dog. I need to see Mister Ruis.’

  ‘Mister Ruis is not available without an appointment. What’s wrong with your dog, perhaps I can help?’ The woman’s left eye sputtered so Hopie guessed she suffered from spasms.

  ‘I prefer to discuss it with Mr. Ruis if it’s all the same...’

  ‘Where is the animal now?’ The receptionist’s eye trembled as she made a show of looking around the floor for a dog basket.

  ‘That’s what I want to discuss...’

  ‘You didn’t bring the creature?’ The bitter-faced woman sniffed. ‘You need to make an appointment,’ She opened a day-by-day diary.

  ‘I need to make an appointment for a chat. That’s idiotic. It will only take two ticks...’

  ‘That’s how things are done,’ said the woman with another sniff, ‘I can get you in next Tuesday evening, six.’

  At that moment, a middle-aged man came through a back curtain and passed some notes to the blue-haired battle-axe. The man pushed back the sleeves of his medical jacket and gazed through gold half-rimmed glasses at Hopie. She immediately recognized him as Stephen Ruis. She’d seen his picture on Google News holding a big certificate awarded by the local chamber of commerce.