by Nick Bryan
“Want any help?”
“I’ll be fine. If I remember rightly, he’s got a ton of crap in there, so might take a while. Call Lettie Vole, okay? Get anything she knows about her brother’s killing spree.”
She nodded and reached for her mobile, while Hobson peeled off to start rooting through Lyne’s effects. Then she realised she could save money by making the call on Social Awesome’s line. It took a few rings before Lettie answered, sounding quiet and scared.
“Hello? Who is this, please?”
“Lettie, hi. You okay?”
“Angie? Why are you calling from that bloody office?”
“Oh, sorry, I’m just trying to save my minutes, you know…”
“For God’s sake,” Lettie said, as if normal conversation were beneath her.
“Look, do you have a minute to talk?”
“Yeah, I’d really like that. Come on over.”
“I just meant over the…”
“No, I’d rather do it here if that’s okay, things are a bit… Look, there’s some stuff.”
“Okay, okay. Your mum’s house?” Angelina said, uneasy.
“Yeah.”
“There as soon as I can. See you in a bit.”
Angelina hung up and ran over to Lyne’s office. Hobson was almost up to his knees in boxes of paper, shrouded in darkness thanks to closed blinds. It was enough to make him look scary. She stared for a moment.
“I did warn you,” he said, looking up at last. “The dead bastard kept meticulous bloody records. Maybe we didn’t have anything in common?”
“What?”
“Nothing. What did Lettie say?”
“I have to go meet her, sounds like she’s got something to say. I didn’t even have to mention Pete.”
Hobson nodded, putting down his current plastic wallet. “Okay. Give me a sec to hide the good bits of Lyne’s paperwork, then we’ll get going.”
“Um, she said just me, I don’t think…”
“Choi, I know you want to take down London’s underworld singlehanded, but you’ll need to turn eighteen first.”
“It’s just Lettie! We’re friends! You’re not my Dad!”
“But your parents have spurned you, so I might as well be.” He shoved a few sheets of paper down the back of a filing cabinet, and then started moving towards the lift. “Come on, Choi.”
She stopped to think, but he looked over his shoulder. “Choi, you can’t lose me, I already know where you’re going.”
Angelina sighed and started following after him, letting her feet scrape. This wouldn’t even be anything important or exciting. Hobson was just being stupid.
THIRTEEN
All Together Now
“Just wear the damn earpiece, Choi. This is my only damn condition, I’ll let you go in if you use the mike.”
“No!”
They were standing in the small road turning leading into the square, after lunch on a blowy winter Thursday. Only two or three minutes’ walk away was the Vole family home.
Pedestrians were side-glancing at their argument — a few recognised them and asked about the case. All were shooed away, but refused to disappear. Instead, they hovered at the top end of the road and watched.
Hobson nearly gave them a redirection they’d never forget, but Choi stopped him. It would spread all over Twitter and be bad for business, she said. So he stayed quiet, thinking about the people he’d like to spread all over Twitter.
Not to mention, Choi was providing plenty of heated debate already: “I didn’t want you to come in the first place! I’ll be fine; I’ll just tell you what she says.”
“Come on, look, it might be dangerous. Stick this in your ear, or I’ll go to the meeting instead. Maybe tell Lettie you’re locked in a sandwich shop toilet with the exploding shits.”
“She wouldn’t talk to you. She only wants to talk to me.”
“I’m sure I could trick the tip out of her, but wouldn’t it be better if you wore this black box and behaved yourself, eh?”
There was a silent spell, while Choi glared at him. Not giving an inch, he just held out his hand with the black box and accessories. Slowly, she arranged the wires around herself, clipped the mike inside her blouse, screwed the earpiece into place and gave one last evil look. He didn’t react. Eventually, she turned into the square to knock on Lettie’s door.
Sighing with relief, Hobson leaned against the wall, tuning his own earpiece in. Once he looked up from adjusting the dial, he realised a couple of his fans had crept closer.
Well, no pressure to be polite now she’d gone.
“Okay, show’s over.” He pointed back towards the busy main road. “Fuck off and get a real job. Some of us are trying to do something useful, rather than read about it on Twitter.”
*****
As she crossed the square to Lettie’s house, Angelina did her utmost to look cool, calm and collected.
She mounted the pavement without tripping up, avoided the foliage from the central garden, and noticed residents appearing at windows as she passed. Nonetheless, she kept on track.
Until she was facing the Vole house, wavering over whether to knock on the main door or the lower entrance into the basement. Was she meant to be bypassing Lettie’s mum? Paralysed at the bottom of the steps, she felt oh-so-conscious of how this looked to Hobson and everyone else.
The front door swung open and there Violet Vole stood.
“Angie! You okay? Come on!”
Not hiding her relief, Angelina dashed up the steps until she reached Lettie. Now they were close, Angelina saw her pale skin, even more starkly white next to the red hair, and bloody, tired eyes.
“I’m fine. Are you alright? You sounded weird on the phone.”
“I’m fine too. Come in.” Lettie gestured behind her. “God knows who’s watching out there.”
Not reassured by her paranoia, Angelina slipped through the door into their hallway. It slammed hard behind her. The upstairs entrance hall of the Vole house was musty, old and felt thoroughly lived in. Family photos jostled for space with shoes, coats, keys and bags, yet it didn’t feel cluttered or messy, just used.
Stairs spilled away up and down, the walls were a faded green colour. Indoors, with no windows here and all the lights off, it felt like a haunted house.
“So, um, you said you wanted to talk. What’s up?”
“Yeah, do you want to sit down?” Lettie gestured to the first door on their left, and as expected, it was a living room. More hefty wooden furniture, photos and assorted ornaments, nice-looking sofas and huge TV.
No sign of anyone else in the house, dull winter light streaming into the room. Everything looked washed out, complimenting Lettie’s mood.
Angelina sat on the sofa and remembered how she’d rehearsed this.
“So, I guess you heard what happened to Edward Lyne by now?” she began, talking fast.
“Yeah, I did, I’m, um…” Lettie sat opposite Angelina, squinting for a second, then gestured towards her own ears. “What’s that, headphones?”
“No, this is, um, it’s a microphone thing.”
“So Hobson’s listening to every word we’re saying?”
“Yeah. Um. Sorry, he made me do it.”
“Okay. Take them out, turn them off, whatever the fuck. Cut him off.”
All of a sudden, she wanted to preserve the earpiece badly. “Are you sure? It might help if he knows…”
Hobson’s voice concurred. “Choi, listen, this is fuckin’ dodgy, don’t do it.”
She paused, gulped, nodded, and yanked the recording device off. Untangled all the wires, pulled the black box from her pocket and dropped it on the glass coffee table in front of her with a clunk. After a last hopeful look at Lettie, she reached out a hand and turned the dial at the end, until the small green light clicked off.
“Okay. Let’s talk.”
*****
Hobson shouted “Fuck!” so loud, the rubberneckers dashed out of cover to see if something goo
d had happened. He flicked them a swift middle finger, then moved up the small road to get the Vole house in sight.
Christ. How long should he give it before kicking the door in?
*****
“So, um, you said you know Lyne is dead?”
After a minute of silent staring at the radio box, Angelina wanted the conversation to start up again.
“Yeah, I know. I saw. I… yeah.”
“And I guess you’re pretty happy? Since last time I saw you, you were all hatey hatey rage rage?”
“Yeah, shit, you think many people know about that?”
“Depends if you told them, I guess. Why?”
Lettie still focused her vague eyes on the mess of tangled wires. “Because I, um, killed him. Edward Lyne. After I heard the police just let him go. I went in there and hacked him up and hoped people would think it was the dog guy.”
Angelina’s hand twitched. God. What would Hobson do now?
“Oh fuck.”
“Fuck. Yeah.” Lettie didn’t sound angry, just sad. “It didn’t even feel good.”
“I guess it wouldn’t, I…” Angelina sank back into her chair, wondering if there was some way to get Hobson in here. “So you… I mean, all that stuff Hobson described to me earlier, ripping open his entire stomach, you did… with knives?”
“Yeah. It isn’t much like cutting a turkey.”
“No?”
“No. Messier. Parts slide around and beat at you. Like you’ve stuck your hand into a soft working engine.”
“Did he fight back?”
“He let me in, I don’t think he expected… it was too late by the time he could’ve done something, he just gave up. And then there was blood everywhere.” Lettie leaned forward, her tangled mess of red hair fell over her eyes. The light from the window kept greying her out.
“And he didn’t say anything?”
“He told me he had nothing to do with William and Matt dying. Seemed pretty fucking smug about that. I still think he was lying.”
Lettie looked around and grabbed a cushion, hugging it against her body and burying her face. It was hard enough to understand her already.
Eventually, she tilted her eyes upwards to meet Angelina’s. “Tell me he did it, Angie.”
“What?”
“Tell me it was him and I didn’t kill a guy for nothing.”
“Well, everyone knew he was a bastard. He was conning people, Hobson says there’s dodgy stuff in his paperwork, he looked like the grim reaper’s accountant. I’m sure there’s reasons he deserved to die, y’know?”
Lettie was shaking even with the cushion now. “But he didn’t do it? He didn’t kill Matt?”
“No, I don’t… I mean, Hobson doesn’t seem to think so.”
Lettie choked up, leaned her head into her hand for a while, and finally reared up. Drew her arm back and hurled the cushion across the room. It skimmed along the shelf above the TV, sending a few china figurines smashing to the floor. She crumpled back up in the chair and started crying.
But even then, she wasn’t finished. “Who was it, then?”
“Lettie, I don’t think you need to…”
She unfurled in a flash, whole face red and damp, breathing heavy, and roared into Angelina’s face: “Tell me now!” Then, smirking: “Unless you still haven’t fucking worked it out.”
“No, I mean, we’re not totally sure, but Hobson seems to suspect, um.” Angelina swallowed and said: “Pete. Your brother. He seems to be pretty, um, he’s been acting weird.”
“God. So he’s killing people as well? We’re quite the fucking family.”
“Yeah.”
“I told Pete I killed Lyne, as well. I called him. He said not to tell anyone and he’d be over soon.”
Angelina’s eyes flew wide at that, not to mention the sound of a car outside. “Here? He’s coming here? Right now?”
“Yeah. Guess that means you and your boss can get us both packaged up for the cops.”
“No, I mean, you were trying to help, I’m sure Hobson wouldn’t…”
“You reckon?”
Their eyes flicked up towards the bay windows onto the street. Before either could get up, there was a crash and a few shouts. Angelina couldn’t understand all of it, but she heard her own surname and a few swearwords.
Both Lettie and Angelina dashed over to the window.
*****
A black car rumbled up behind him. It was a small vehicle, but impressive still, consisting mostly of front seats and a decent sized boot.
More interesting, though, was the face behind the wheel. Pete Vole stared back at Hobson, then drove steadily into the square, aiming for the house. Technically, this was his family home, the man had every right to be here.
Still, it was too much of a coincidence and Hobson was twitchy as hell.
Before Vole even closed the car door, his ginger rat-faced head looked up to see Hobson’s huge frame bearing down on him. Pete wasn’t a big man, but there was muscle underneath the coat, Hobson saw. And no shirt, just a stained hoodie, bags under the eyes. Still, he was defensive, rather than cowering.
Hobson stopped arm’s length from Pete and nodded. “Mister Vole. Visiting the family?”
“Yes. Why, does that prove I’m mental?”
“Your sister’s busy talking to my assistant. Mind waiting out here until they’ve finished?”
Pete’s eyes widened, he didn’t even keep talking, just turned and raced up the steps to the front door as if his car was about to explode. Come to think of it, the thing was making a weird huffing noise, but Hobson didn’t have time to investigate that right now.
He paced up the stone steps himself, reached out and locked his right arm around Pete’s neck from behind. “So, Pete — mind if I call you Pete — why don’t you want your sister talking to Choi?”
“I… it’s…”
Hobson squeezed tighter. “She know something about you? You call her to confess killing her boyfriend with your doggy? That it?”
“No… I mean…”
The door to the Vole house swung open. There, at the top of the steps, stood Lettie and Choi, both alive and well. Not injured anyway — the Vole girl looked one sad song away from self-harm.
“What’s happening? Pete?” She sounded terrified. “What’s…”
“Lettie,” he gasped through Hobson’s grip, “don’t say anything, it’s fine!”
“Ah, for fuck’s sake, Vole, give it up.” Hobson pulled Pete around and looked him straight in the eye. “You killed them all. You left the dog at home for Lyne because it was too conspicuous. Admit it before your sister blows her own brains out.”
Pete didn’t reply, just breathed faster. Choi stood there above them all, mouth opening and closing like a confused fish. People emerged from their houses around the square.
“No, you don’t understand,” Lettie finally sobbed out, loud enough for everyone to hear, “it was…”
Pete shoved Hobson with one hand, and this guy really was unexpectedly strong. He sent the bigger detective staggering down to the pavement.
Before Hobson could recover his footing, Pete stormed the front door and forced the two women back inside the house. Choi didn’t seem happy about it, but he grabbed hold of her arm and yanked. Hobson thought he heard her yelling his name just before the door slammed, lock clicked into place. Looked like one hell of a thick door, too.
Alone in the square, staring up at that townhouse, Hobson wondered whether the downstairs basement door was easier to smash open. There was a click from Pete’s car and he turned around, losing his train of thought. Vole must have one of those remote controls for his boot door. As it popped open, the light breathing noise from earlier became much louder.
The back trunk door of the car jerked up from its light sitting position, and the grey, long body jumped out. It growled and stalked towards him. Yalin Makozmo’s fighting animal didn’t seem happy about travelling in the back compartment of a small car. The claws and teet
h were huge, the eyes staring.
The rumours were true: this dog was the size of a jungle predator. All sharp edges and blood-matted fur. Well, Hobson thought, after all this time, he was going to fight a wolf after all. He hoped they appreciated it on Twitter.
It gave one sharp bark, before launching itself towards him.
FOURTEEN
Crazy Like A Wolf
As the door crashed shut, Angelina snatched at it, but Pete caught her around the waist and almost threw her backwards. She hit him in the shoulder with a flailing arm, but still ended up back in the hallway.
She and Lettie exchanged wide eyes, and then turned to Pete.
“Pete,” Lettie started, “what’re you doing?”
“Did you tell her?” Pete indicated Angelina. “About… about him?”
“Yeah, sorry, I just… had to talk to someone.”
“You were supposed to wait for me!”
“You weren’t here!”
“For fuck’s sake, couldn’t you…”
All that bickering was cut off by the loud roar of a dog barking outside, and Angelina found her voice. “Oh God, is that the wolf?”
Pete rolled his eyes. “It’s not a wolf, it’s a wolfhound. A huge one, but still, don’t be so hysterical.”
“Is it about to eat Hobson?”
“That’s what I’m hoping for.”
“Then why shouldn’t I be fucking hysterical?”
Angelina reached for the front door, grasping and clawing for the locks. Once again, Pete kept her back without even needing two hands.
“Into the living room,” he beckoned. “Where we can see what’s happening out there.”
Without much hope of escape, Angelina followed his orders.
*****
Hobson hadn’t fought many animals in his time. Dog, wolf, whichever this was, it scared him. He backed away down the pavement as it dribbled and stalked away from the car.
Panicking, he tried a massive slap towards it, in case it instinctively backed off. Remembering Matt Michaelson’s dissected arm didn’t give him much hope, but maybe it needed a firm hand.
His blow swept through the air, missing the dog’s head, and the black shape took both a swipe and a bite at it, baring hundreds of sharp teeth. It had red, bloody eyes with thin slits for pupils, just like wolves on TV, howling as well as barking. Its grey fur was either naturally red-tinted or still blood-stained because Pete hadn’t bothered washing it.
