Living Death

by Graham Masterton

  It was a man’s face, lean and sharply chiselled, almost starved-looking, with cavernous eyes and hollow cheeks and a complicated nose. His lips were tightly pursed, as if he were sucking a particularly sour lemon drop.

  ‘How do you feel?’ the man asked him, after a while. His voice sounded small and far away, as if he were trying to make himself heard from another room. ‘Are you feeling any pain?’

  Kieran had to open and close his mouth two or three times before he could remember how to speak. He had to think hard about the man’s question, too. Was he feeling any pain? He was feeling sodden, and nauseous, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t quell the sensation that he was bobbing up and down. But was he feeling any pain? He didn’t think so, although for some reason he was aware that he had been hurt – devastatingly crushed, and recently, too – but he couldn’t clearly recall how. It was like trying to remember what it had been like being born.

  ‘Mo,’ he managed to enunciate. He had meant to say ‘no’ but his lips were too bloated.

  ‘Listen to me, Kieran – are you feeling pain, or are you not? I need to know, so that I can adjust your morphine dosage correctly. You don’t want me to be giving you an overdose, now do you?’

  Kieran slowly managed to turn his head to one side, even though his neck-muscles felt stiff and badly bruised. He could see now that he wasn’t floating on the ocean at all, or that he was even outdoors. The pale green fog wasn’t fog at all, but pale green walls. He turned his head back again, and he could see a fluorescent strip-light on the ceiling, and dark green curtains, and a wallchart, and a picture of trees.

  ‘Do you know where you are?’ the man asked him. His voice was becoming louder and more distinct, as if he had entered the room now and was walking towards him.

  ‘Mo,’ said Kieran.

  ‘I’ll apprise you, in that case. I’m a doctor and you’re in a clinic. St Giles’ Clinic. You’ve had an accident.’

  Kieran tried to take a deep breath but his lungs were too congested and all he could manage was a squeak.

  The man leaned even closer. ‘Do you remember the accident? Do you remember what happened to you?’

  ‘Mo.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you. You stepped into the road without looking both ways and you were hit by a passing car. It ran over your legs so I’m sorry to say that your legs are not in very good shape at all. In fact to be honest with you they’re a mess. You have other injuries too, even more serious.’

  ‘What? What im-juries?’

  ‘You have what we call an “open book” fracture of the pelvis. That means that there was a traumatic external rotation of your hemi-pelvis on the left-hand side. This caused the separation of the left and right halves of your pelvis front and rear. Like a book opening up.’

  Kieran stared at the man blankly. He didn’t understand what he was talking about at all. In fact he wasn’t really listening. He just wished that the bed would stop undulating and that he didn’t feel so sick. What was he doing here? He thought he was on his way home to see his parents in Killarney. Maybe he was still in bed and dreaming and it wasn’t time to get up yet. He mustn’t forget to stop at O’Connor’s Newsagents on the way home and buy his mother a box of chocolates. Lily O’Brien’s chocolate mint cremes, those were her favourite.

  ‘Fortunately, Kieran, you suffered no major damage to your blood vessels or your internal organs. The disruption of your pelvic ring is the worst of it, and I can fix that for you without invasive surgery. I’ll be rigging up an external fixation around your pelvis to keep the halves securely in position while they fuse themselves back together.’

  ‘I have to get up,’ said Kieran.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I have to go home. They’re expecting me.’

  ‘Kieran, there’s no way at all you’re going anywhere. You’re in no fit condition. Both of your legs are pulverised and your pelvis is cracked apart. You’re going to be fixed up with a metal framework screwed into your bones for at least a month, if not longer.’

  Kieran tried to move but all he succeeded in doing was making himself feel as if he were wallowing up and down.

  ‘Later today I’ll be doing what I can to salvage your legs,’ the man told him. ‘I’ll be taking the measurements, too, for your fixation. All you have to do now is relax and rest and try not to get yourself all worked up. Are you thirsty at all? Would you care for some water?’

  ‘I have to go home. They’re expecting me, Mum and Dad. Mum said that she was making her fish pie for me, special. Help me up, will you?’

  ‘Kieran, I told you. You’re too badly injured. I’ll ring your mum and dad for you and tell them what’s happened to you and where you are. How about that?’

  ‘You don’t know their number.’

  ‘It’s on your mobile. Don’t worry, that was recovered after your accident, along with your bag. Like I say, Kieran, all you have to do is rest. You have people here who are going to take the very best care of you, I promise you that.’

  Kieran tried one more time to get up, but this time he sicked up about a beakerful of brownish liquid, mixed with orange sludge, which was half-digested baked beans. It ran down the sides of his neck on to the bed.

  ‘Grainne!’ called the man. ‘I need some cleaning-up here, please! Kieran’s just decided to show us what he had for breakfast!’

  22

  ‘I have to admit that I never met a pet detective before,’ said Katie, stirring her coffee.

  She and Conor Ó Máille were sitting close together on the oatmeal-coloured couches in her office. Rain was trickling fitfully down the windows, and it was so dark and grey outside that she had switched on the table-lamps.

  ‘You never did? Well, that doesn’t surprise me,’ said Conor, still smiling at Katie with that winning smile. ‘There’s not too many of us, to say the least. We could have held an all-Ireland pet detectives’ convention in one of those old telephone boxes, and there would still would have been plenty of room for a pole-dancer.’

  Katie smiled back at him. ‘So, Conor, how did you get into the pet detection business? If you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t look even in the slightest how I imagined you were going to look.’

  ‘No? And how did you imagine I was going to look?’

  ‘I don’t know. Cable-knit sweater. Corduroy trousers. And bald. And smelling faintly of dog.’

  Conor laughed. Katie couldn’t remember when she had immediately warmed to a man so much.

  ‘I kind of got into it by accident,’ he told her. ‘About five years ago my sister’s Labrador went off chasing deer in the Crone Woods in Wicklow and disappeared. She tramped around the woods all day and whistled and called but she couldn’t find it. In the end I contacted Happy Tails in Dublin – they’re pretty much the leading pet detective agency. After two days’ searching with a tracker dog they found her Labby in a ravine. I was pure impressed with the way they did it.

  ‘About six months later my property development business went to the wall – like almost every other property development company in Ireland. So, overnight, I was out of a job. It was then that I thought about being a pet detective. I’ve always had a soft spot for animals, dogs especially. You probably know that the name Conor means “hound lover”, so my parents christened me very appropriately, wouldn’t you say? I also saw that – apart from Happy Tails – there’s not much in the way of competition. So I sold my beloved Jaguar and used the money to pay for a training course in America. Now I’m a fully qualified missing animal response technician.’

  ‘So how’s business?’ asked Katie.

  ‘Brisk, believe me. Mostly in dogs these days – and mostly in stolen dogs, rather than dogs that have just gone wandering off.’

  ‘The last figure I had was a hundred and fifty stolen dogs a week.’

  ‘It’s way, way more than that. The trouble is that a lot of owners don’t report them as missing. The dognappers call the owners almost as soon as they’ve taken their do
gs, and demand a ransom to have them returned. “Pay up, and don’t tell anyone, especially the guards, or you’ll never see your dog again.” So most of the time they pay up. If they don’t, the dognappers can always sell the dog on, so they don’t lose out, whatever happens. But most of the time people pay. I think I’ve only known one case where an owner has point-blank refused.’

  ‘How much of a ransom are we talking about, on average?’

  ‘It depends on the dog. If it’s a show dog, thousands. Even tens of thousands. But people will pay a very substantial ransom for a family dog, too. Can you imagine a father having to explain to his children that he wasn’t prepared to pay to get their beloved Woofy back?’

  Katie said, ‘We’ve contacted all of the owners of the twenty-six dogs that were taken from the Sceolan Kennels. Two of the dogs we’ve managed to retrieve – a German Shepherd and a Viszla. Then there’s four that we suspect have been taken for fighting – a Great Dane and a mastiff and two bulldogs. But as for the rest of them – none of the owners have told us that they’ve been approached to pay a ransom.’

  ‘Do you have a list of their owners?’ asked Conor. ‘Contact numbers, too, if possible. I’ll get in touch with all of them, and I can usually tell when they’ve been asked for a ransom. People will say things to a pet detective that they wouldn’t report to the Garda.’

  Katie called out to Moirin and asked her to print out a list of the stolen dogs.

  ‘That’ll help me to know where to start looking for them,’ said Conor. ‘There are six basic reasons why dogs are stolen, but of course it depends on their breed and their age and their pedigree.’

  Moirin came in with the list and Conor quickly scanned through it. ‘Yes... I’d say that whoever stole these dogs knew exactly what they were doing. The most expensive dogs are usually sold on, mostly to the UK, and at least ten of these look likely candidates. There are two Samoyeds, and you can get at least five thousand euros in the UK for a good Samoyed. Then there’s four Rottweilers and three Akitas and two Egyptian Pharaoh Hounds, and one Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. A first-class Cavalier King Charles Spaniel can go for as much as ten thousand, if you can find the right buyer.’

  ‘What about the others?’

  It had stopped raining now, and a glimmer of sunlight was breaking through the clouds, so that the raindrops clinging to the window sparkled and danced. The sunlight also showed up a few grey hairs in Conor’s beard.

  He looked up from the list. ‘The two bulldogs and the mastiff and the Great Dane – you suspect they might have been selected for fighting?’

  ‘That’s right. We’ve no definite proof as yet but we’ve had a tip-off that they may have been taken up to Ballyknock for training.’

  ‘Oh, Guzz Eye McManus.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Mother of God, I should think so. He’s always in the market for fighting dogs. I’ve traced several stolen bulldogs to Guzz Eye McManus but I’ve never got them back. Either they were dead already or else there was no way at all of retrieving them. I’m a qualified detective but I don’t have powers of arrest, like you do. Taking a dog away from Guzz Eye McManus would be the quickest way to get stabbed in the stomach that I can think of.’

  Conor paused for a moment, and sipped his coffee. ‘Still... it might be worth my sniffing around Ballyknock to see if I can find out who actually has those dogs. That might give you a lead to the rest of the gang.’

  ‘You could do, so long as you don’t think it would be too risky,’ said Katie. ‘I don’t want to be the one responsible for getting you gutted by Guzz Eye.’

  ‘I’ll be all right provided I keep a low profile, but it could prove to be something of a short cut. If we can identify the gang then you can arrest them and interrogate them and at least one of them is bound to tell you where all of the dogs have been spirited off to. It would be quicker and cheaper than trying to trace each dog individually. I can still do that, certainly – track them down one by one – but it could take months, and I do charge five hundred euros per animal for my Platinum Paws search.’

  Katie couldn’t help smiling. ‘Your Platinum Paws search? What’s that?’

  ‘That’s when my clients pay for every available search technique, such as DNA analysis to check for blood and hairs; and pet behavioural profiling. It also includes the use of night-vision cameras and listening devices if necessary; as well as area and trail search; and of course poster and flyer distribution. I have some other tricks up my sleeve, too, like humane trapping.’

  ‘I see. Impressive.’

  ‘Well, it works. I find animals. Cats are the most difficult, they can hide themselves almost anywhere, like under a car bonnet, or inside a tumble-dryer. I once found a cat in a microwave. But I find them.’

  ‘There are three greyhounds on that list. I suppose they’re used for racing.’

  ‘Probably, and there are two lurchers too. They’re always sought-after for the track. But any one of these dogs could have been sold to a breeder. Most of them are young and presumably they’re fit and well looked after.’

  ‘There’s a beagle, and a Bedlington terrier.’

  ‘A farmer or a pest-control operative or a Traveller will pay you a lot for those, because they’re great for lamping – you know, going out at night poaching rabbits and hare. The Bedlington terrier in particular, because they were originally bred for catching vermin, and they’re good and scrappy.

  ‘There’s one more reason why dogs are stolen, although I can’t immediately see any on this list that fit the bill. That’s for medical research. Some perfectly respectable hospitals and pharmaceutical companies will pay a considerable sum of money for a suitable animal for vivisection.’

  A picture of Barney suddenly came into Katie’s mind, bustling up to the front door to greet her every time she came home, his tongue hanging out, his tail slapping against the radiator in the hallway.

  She was about to say something to Conor when there was a knock at her office door and Detectives Scanlan and Dooley came in.

  ‘Ah, grand, you’re back,’ said Katie. ‘Here, we have a visitor. This is Conor Ó Máille, our pet detective. Conor – this is Detective Scanlan who first had the idea of calling you in, and this is her partner Detective Dooley.’

  Both Detective Scanlan and Detective Dooley looked surprised by Conor’s appearance – especially Detective Scanlan, who actually blushed.

  ‘I’ve already informed Conor that he doesn’t look anything like we expected a pet detective to look,’ said Katie.

  ‘I thought he’d be the bulb off Jim Carrey, myself,’ said Detective Dooley. ‘What was that film?’

  ‘Ace Ventura, Pet Detective,’ smiled Conor. ‘Don’t worry, I’m always being ribbed about it. It’s surprising how much it helps, though, if people don’t take me too serious. They tend to let their defences down and tell me things that they would never admit to a garda.’

  ‘We’ve run through the list of stolen dogs,’ said Katie. ‘We don’t have any hope of getting anything out of Keeno at the moment, so Conor thinks that the next best step would be for him to go up to Ballyknock and see if he can locate those fighting dogs, and find out who took them there.’

  ‘That sounds like a plan, like,’ said Detective Dooley. ‘I had a call just now from Sergeant Kehoe at Tipperary Town. He said there’s two main fellows who train dogs for fighting up there, Bartley Doran and Paddy Barrett.’

  ‘Doran I know,’ said Conor. ‘Barrett I don’t. But at least that narrows it down, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ said Detective Dooley. ‘The only thing I’d say, though, is you need to be doggy wide of a fellow called Guzz Eye McManus. If he susses what you’re up to, he’ll rip your lungs out as soon as look at you.’

  ‘Oh, I’m very familiar with McManus,’ said Conor. ‘And his reputation. Don’t worry. I think I can mingle with the dog fighters without being rumbled. I’ve done it before. I make out I’m looking for good fighting dogs to
buy, for breeding. If it’s okay with you, detective superintendent, I’ll go up there first thing tomorrow morning.’

  ‘You live in Limerick, don’t you?’ said Katie. ‘Where are you staying while you’re here?’

  ‘Oh, I’ll probably check in to the Gabriel House Guesthouse, do you know it? On Summerhill. I like the breakfasts there because they keep their own chickens. Fresh eggs, every morning.’

  ‘What about transport? I saw you came in a taxi.’

  ‘My own car’s out of commission just at the moment, being repaired. I had an altercation with a fellow in Mallow who’d stolen his neighbour’s dog, and he rammed me, broadside. I was thinking of renting a car while I was here.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that. We have a car pool here and you can use one of those. Moirin will take you back down to the front desk and you can ask to speak to Sergeant Browne.’

  ‘Thanks a million. That’ll be grand.’

  Conor stood up and held out his hand. Katie stood up, too, and took it. They looked into each other’s eyes and Katie could see that he was telling her something that he wasn’t yet ready to put into words. For a brief moment, he laid his other hand on top of hers, and then he said, ‘You have my mobile number, don’t you, on my card, and you know where I’ll be staying. In any case I’ll call you tomorrow morning before I leave for Tipp.’

  ‘You’re sure you don’t need any back-up? I could send a detective with you, for protection.’

  ‘No, no. It’s better if I’m on my own. They’re fierce suspicious of strangers, these dog fighters, but they know my face, even if they don’t know what I really do for a living.’

  She called in Moirin to escort Conor down to the reception area, and then she turned to Detectives Dooley and Scanlan.

  ‘Well?’ she said, still with a smile on her face.

  ‘Well, he’s not what I expected, either,’ said Detective Scanlan, fluttering her eyelashes.