K-9

by Rohan Gavin

  Wilbur had been a gift from Darkus’s father, Alan, after their first assignment. It was fair to say that this recent addition to the family hadn’t gone down brilliantly with Darkus’s stepdad, Clive. It had only been a matter of months since Clive suffered under the hypnotic powers of the villain Morton Underwood and had an embarrassing on-air meltdown while filming his TV series, Wheel Spin – which was then taken off the air. And now an emotionally fragile police dog had moved into his house, leaving unexplained puddles (or worse) in the garage and sitting in his favourite La-Z-Boy chair. For some reason, Wilbur’s post-traumatic stress disorder only ever seemed to affect Clive’s belongings. Darkus, Jackie, and Clive’s daughter, Tilly, were all immune. Their clothes never went missing and their things were never chewed or found their way to the bottom of the garden. Clive, however, was fair game for all of Wilbur’s less sociable habits and there was no end to the missing gloves, hats, boxer shorts and DVDs that he would complain to Jackie about.

  Darkus and Jackie talked in private about the fact that Clive’s mind hadn’t been the same since his own trauma – and he seemed to routinely forget where he’d put things. So perhaps the objects that were going missing weren’t all Wilbur’s fault. Naturally, Clive was convinced that the Schweinhund (German for pig-dog) was responsible for everything that was wrong in the house. Jackie had relented and tried a local dog trainer, with no success. After that she hired a ‘dog whisperer’, but the words fell on deaf ears. Next, Jackie tried an even more alternative therapy and visited a friend of a friend who specialised in natural remedies, including herbal extracts and flower essences. Wilbur tried taking what was known as a ‘rescue remedy’ with his morning meal, but the only discernible effect was that he trotted around the house for the rest of the day with his tail between his legs, peeing uncontrollably.

  ‘How was school?’ enquired Jackie, bringing Darkus back to the present.

  ‘The usual,’ Darkus replied, then put on his tweed walking hat and patted Wilbur on the head. ‘Attaboy,’ he whispered.

  Wilbur wrinkled his jowls and lifted his whiskers in a half-smile.

  Doyle appeared through the school gates, tightening the strings of his hoodie and flashing a gang sign of some kind at Darkus, who smiled and waved by way of reply. Wilbur growled protectively, straining on the lead.

  ‘Easy . . .’ Darkus reassured the mutt. ‘Nothing I can’t handle.’

  Tilly appeared through the gates next, in a leather jacket with her hair in purple dip-dyed pigtails. ‘What up, fam?’

  ‘We’re fine, thank you, Tilly,’ said Jackie, and led the motley-looking group towards their waiting estate car.

  Darkus tapped his stepsister on the shoulder, leaving Jackie to put Wilbur in the back of the car. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but were you watching me on the playing field?’ he asked.

  ‘Me?’ Tilly snipped. ‘No. Why would I be doing that?’

  Despite the easing of relations on their first case, Darkus was reminded that Tilly’s default setting would always be defensive since losing her mother, Carol – who’d been Darkus’s father’s assistant.

  ‘Never mind,’ he said, puzzled.

  At that moment, a blonde female classmate darted out of the school gates and approached them. Tilly instinctively moved to block her: ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘My name’s Alexis,’ the blonde introduced herself. ‘Friends call me Lex.’

  ‘I know who you are,’ said Tilly disdainfully, giving her the once-over. ‘Editor-in-chief of The Cranston Star.’

  ‘And chief photographer,’ added Darkus, who couldn’t help observing Alexis’s slender legs, against which a long-lensed camera dangled from a strap over her shoulder. She was a year older than him, but at this age, it felt like an aeon.

  ‘Guilty as charged,’ replied Alexis, her lips curling into a cockeyed smile. She plucked a small twig from her blonde tresses, then flicked it away.

  ‘You were watching me on the playing field,’ deduced Darkus.

  ‘Sorry if I distracted you,’ she answered.

  Tilly looked from Alexis to Darkus, unsure if she was detecting chemistry.

  ‘If you wanted a photo, you only needed to ask,’ said Darkus and shrugged on his herringbone overcoat.

  ‘I wasn’t after a glamour shot, Darkus. Or should I say . . . “Doc”. The truth is, I’m breaking a story.’

  ‘Really?’ Tilly interjected. ‘And what’s the subject matter?’

  ‘It’s autobiographical, really. You see, I was on the Piccadilly Line last October, over half-term. Dad was taking me to a matinee . . .’ she said coyly. ‘I don’t remember what film to be honest.’

  ‘So?’ demanded Tilly. ‘For a journalist you certainly take a long time getting to the point.’

  ‘I witnessed a unique air pressure phenomenon while we were underground,’ said Alexis flatly. ‘A freak tornado. You may’ve heard about it?’

  Tilly and Darkus glanced at each other, realising that what she had actually witnessed was their climactic battle with the Combination.

  ‘You must have been seeing things,’ Darkus answered.

  ‘Well, that’s the funny thing,’ said Alexis. ‘What I was seeing was you, Darkus.’

  ‘A reflection of one of the other passengers perhaps,’ he countered. ‘A trick of the light.’

  Tilly remained quiet.

  Alexis continued: ‘The person I saw was around thirteen years old, standing on a disused Tube platform, wearing a tweed hat, and a herringbone overcoat. He was accompanied by a scrawny-looking female around the same age.’

  ‘What d’you mean, “scrawny”?’ snapped Tilly, then fell silent, before trying for a save. ‘I mean . . . Tube lines run at over fifty miles per hour so it must’ve been hard to tell.’

  ‘Oh, she was scrawny, all right,’ Alexis confirmed, as Tilly’s heavily mascaraed eyes went wide. Alexis turned to Darkus. ‘Is it true your father was the renowned London detective . . . Alan Knightley?’

  ‘Not was. Is,’ Darkus responded, even though he hadn’t heard from his dad in almost a month, and had no idea what he was currently working on. His father had clearly forgotten the success of their first investigation and was now operating on his own – although Darkus wasn’t convinced his dad’s reasoning powers were up to the job. His dad had recovered from the four-year-long coma inflicted on him by Underwood, but had proved he was still liable to return to that unconscious state at the drop of a tweed hat. In the absence of any clues as to what Knightley was really doing, Darkus could only speculate.

  Alexis continued her line of questioning: ‘Then I suppose it’s not too big a stretch to assume your father might have been investigating something on the tracks?’

  ‘Kids?’ Jackie called over from the car. Wilbur whimpered as the boot was closed.

  ‘I don’t comment on my father’s work,’ said Darkus. Tilly grabbed him by the coat sleeve and dragged him towards the car. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse us, Lex,’ Darkus said over his shoulder, ‘we’re late for tea. Have a pleasant weekend.’

  Tilly muttered to herself as she slung her rucksack in the back seat and got in. ‘Lex . . . I mean, who can take someone with a name like that seriously?’

  ‘She certainly has a very analytical mind,’ Darkus commented as he got in the front.

  ‘Analytical my –’ Tilly slammed the door and Jackie accelerated away.

  Chapter 2

  A Temporospatial Problem

  When they got home to their mock-Tudor house on Wolseley Close they found the Jaguar coupe parked half off the driveway, splattered with bird sap and looking distinctly less cared for than it used to. Its owner, Jackie’s husband, Clive, sat in the living room in his favourite chair, engrossed in an episode of an Australian soap opera.

  ‘Hello, sweetie –’ Jackie ventured.

  Clive snapped his fingers loudly to signal absolute silence. Tilly shook her head in dismay and went up to her room. Wilbur duly walked around the sofa, blocking Clive’s
view of the TV, then wagged his tail, knocking a vase off a side table.

  ‘That hound from hell – !’ Clive exclaimed. ‘Raus!! Schnell!’ he cried out in German, for no apparent reason.

  Wilbur slouched into a hunting position, then crawled under the sofa and started clawing at something beneath.

  ‘Nein!! Watch the parquet flooring! For crying out loud . . .’

  Wilbur reappeared with his favourite chew toy in his mouth: a rubber Kong with a black and white chequered band – symbol of the Metropolitan Police.

  ‘Give – !’ Clive wrestled Wilbur for the toy, also for no apparent reason. Then his phone rang and he dug in the front pocket of his nylon shell suit and answered it. ‘Yes . . . ?’ Clive spun to face Darkus and Jackie. ‘Shhhhhhhhh! It’s my agent.’

  ‘We didn’t say anything, darling,’ whispered Jackie.

  ‘Zippit! No, Veronique, not you, luvvie,’ he warbled. ‘Shoot . . .’ Clive continued grappling with the dog toy, having forgotten why he was playing with it in the first place. He listened for several seconds, his face dropping under the force of gravity. ‘A reality show? In Albania? Well, what’s it paying? OK. OK. OK. Ciao.’

  ‘Everything OK, darling?’ Jackie enquired.

  ‘Bloody awful as a matter of fact,’ Clive grumbled. ‘Ever since this beast arrived in our home, my luck’s gone from bad to terrible –’ He tore the chew toy away from Wilbur and waved it around, spraying himself with dog slobber, although he didn’t appear to notice.

  ‘Darling?’ Jackie interjected.

  ‘Let me finish!’ Clive barked, then waved the saliva-soaked toy around again, proclaiming: ‘I could’ve been a contender . . . Maybe even the host of my own panel show. Now I can’t get on telly anywhere in the developed world. And this . . . this odorous furball.’ Clive dangled the toy over Wilbur’s snout. ‘My one consolation is the fact that Alan obviously couldn’t afford a real dog. And fortunately, this one looks like it’s only a few good walks from the pet cemetery –’

  ‘Clive!’ Jackie snapped.

  ‘Well, it’s true.’

  Darkus winced, but he had to admit that, like everything he received from his father, Wilbur was unusual and to some degree damaged. But that didn’t make Darkus love Wilbur any less; in fact it made him love the dog more.

  ‘Come on, boy,’ said Darkus, but Wilbur remained hypnotised by Clive’s offer of the toy.

  ‘Want to play, do you?’ Clive told the mutt, then got to his feet and stalked to the front door. With one quick motion Clive ran out on to the driveway and hurled the toy across the road and into a nearby field. ‘Go fetch!’

  Darkus watched in horror as Wilbur shot through the open doorway and galloped into the road – straight into the path of an oncoming car.

  ‘Wilbur!’ Darkus cried out.

  Wilbur stood frozen on the spot as the motorist slammed on the brakes and skidded towards him. Then at the last possible moment the dog yelped and swerved out of the way, hopping over the fence into the neighbouring plot.

  Darkus raced out into the road after him.

  ‘Doc! Watch out!’ Jackie called after him, as he ran in front of the motorist who was still at a halt in the middle of the road, looking left and right, waiting for his path to clear.

  ‘Wilbur!’ Darkus continued to yell, but the German shepherd was now deep in the tall grass of the overgrown field.

  Darkus took hold of the fence and climbed over it, tearing the hem of his overcoat without a second glance. He entered the tall grass after his dog.

  ‘Here, boy . . .’ he called out, but only got a distant whimper in return.

  The grass moved ten metres in front of him but he still couldn’t see Wilbur.

  ‘It’s OK, boy. Come home,’ he said softly, but loud enough for the dog to hear.

  The grass continued to move further and further away from him, until he saw Wilbur’s bat-ears appear on a small bluff in the centre of the field. He had the chew toy in his mouth but wouldn’t budge.

  ‘Come home!’ Darkus called to him. Wilbur whined and shook his head, waving the toy. ‘It’ll be OK, I promise,’ he pleaded, but Wilbur’s ears vanished into the grass again, retreating further into the field.

  Tilly watched the scene unfold from her bedroom window, sadly.

  Darkus waded over to the bluff, climbed up it and spotted the dog lying in the grass some way off. Darkus knelt down, reached in his pocket and fished out the secure phone that Uncle Bill had given him on their last investigation. Then he fished out the stainless-steel business-card holder his father had given him, and flipped it open to reveal the stack of cards lying untouched inside, all displaying the words: Knightley & Son. He turned the top card over to find the small, embossed symbol of the ‘evil eye’: a symbol of protection as well as fear. Darkus dialled the 0845 number on the front of the card and waited while the line rang. There was a short pause as the call was redirected, then after a few moments, his father’s Polish housekeeper picked up.

  ‘Knightley’s Investigations? This is Bogna in Admins?’ she answered in her broken English.

  ‘Bogna, it’s Darkus.’

  ‘Doc! Is everything OK?’

  ‘Where’s Dad?’

  ‘On assignments. He not tell me what.’

  ‘But he’s OK?’ enquired Darkus. ‘No more “episodes”?’

  ‘You mean unconscious coma state? No, nothing like that.’

  ‘I see . . .’

  Darkus furrowed his brow. Not only was his father not available, he was on a case that he hadn’t bothered to share with him – his son, heir, and most importantly his partner. Darkus’s deepest suspicions were proved right: the partnership with his dad was for demonstration purposes only; it was merely a way to pacify Darkus, rather than the genuine article. After waking from his coma, his father had accepted his help, made the promises, printed the business cards, but in reality Darkus was as in the dark as he’d ever been.

  ‘When d’you expect him back?’ asked Darkus.

  ‘You know Alan. Could be any times.’

  ‘OK, thanks, Bogna. Please let him know I called.’

  ‘Affirmatives, Master Doc.’

  In the kitchen, Jackie and Clive were engaged in a Mexican stand-off. Jackie poured hot water over a teabag, then slid the mug across the counter towards Clive with the ferocity of a bartender in a Wild West saloon.

  ‘He loves that dog,’ she said accusingly.

  ‘Not my fault it nearly got itself killed,’ Clive replied meekly.

  ‘He doesn’t love many things, Clive. Not after losing Alan for all those years.’

  ‘Again . . . not my fault if his dad’s a nutjob with a tendency to fall into strange, coma-like trances. And now the man’s awake, he’s not exactly the most attentive father. They may talk the same and dress the same, but Alan hasn’t been round in months.’ Clive dumped the teabag in the sink and splashed the milk in.

  ‘Life hasn’t dealt Doc the easiest of hands, but I want him to be able to love. And to trust again. Do you understand me, Clive?’ He didn’t answer. ‘Do you . . . ?’ Jackie trailed off, seeing her son standing in the doorway, without Wilbur.

  ‘He won’t come home,’ said Darkus, pretending that he hadn’t just overheard the conversation. ‘He won’t listen to me.’

  ‘Give it time, sweetie,’ Jackie consoled him. ‘How about a jam sandwich? Triangles not squares?’

  Darkus couldn’t raise a smile; instead he glanced through the kitchen window to see dusk falling and the field sinking into foreboding shadow.

  Behind him, Clive started patting down his shell suit, searching for something. ‘Now, where’s my ruddy phone?’ He tried several zipped pockets but none bore fruit. He slammed his mug down on the table and pushed back his chair. ‘Right! That. Is. It. The hellhound has eaten it.’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s a temporospatial problem with your statement, Clive,’ Darkus suggested.

  ‘Come again?’ said his stepdad.

  ‘
You were speaking on the phone only moments before you threw the toy across the road. Wilbur couldn’t have had time to take your phone before running across the road.’

  ‘Doc’s right,’ agreed Jackie.

  ‘And I suppose you think it just –’ Clive made a mushroom cloud gesture – ‘vanished into thin air?’

  They were interrupted by a light rap on the kitchen door. Darkus darted over and opened it to reveal Wilbur sitting there with his paw raised. The chew toy was lying discarded by his side, and balanced in his mouth was a small handset in a dayglo orange case, which Darkus instantly recognised as his stepfather’s phone.

  ‘Ha!’ accused Clive. ‘The truth is out!’ He marched forward and yanked the phone from Wilbur’s mouth. ‘Well, my furry nemesis . . .’

  ‘Er, Clive?’ Darkus interjected.

  ‘What is it now?’ he hissed.

  ‘If you examine the handset you’ll see there are no signs of chewing. A good deal of saliva, I’ll warrant. But no bite marks,’ Darkus pointed out. Clive turned the sticky phone over in his hand as he listened. ‘Instead you’ll find a small clod of loose earth embedded in the edge of the case, which is consistent with the fact that when you threw the chew toy into the field, you also dispatched your mobile phone at the same time.’ Darkus stated it plainly for him: ‘You threw them both.’

  Clive unconsciously dropped the phone on the floor, and his eyebrows arched with fury.

  ‘Wilbur didn’t take your phone,’ Darkus concluded. ‘In fact, he returned it to you.’

  ‘Prove it!’ Clive yapped.

  ‘I just did,’ Darkus replied.

  ‘Not well enough,’ declared his stepdad and lunged at Wilbur, who dodged round him and headed off into the living room. ‘Come back here, you infernal beast!’

  ‘Clive, really . . .’ Jackie reasoned.