K-9

by Rohan Gavin

  As Bogna let them into the house, Darkus already sensed that his father was absent. The frenetic energy of his presence was lacking, and the place felt lonely despite being immaculately well kept.

  ‘OK, Mister Troubles, you’re coming with me,’ Bogna instructed Wilbur, who obediently followed her into the kitchen. ‘I hope you like goulash,’ she added.

  Satisfied that Wilbur was in good hands, Darkus climbed the stairs to the top floor and crossed the short landing to the heavy oak door with the engraving: Alan Knightley, BA, MA, Private Investigator. Darkus slowly turned the handle and entered his father’s office. The wood-panelled room was exactly as he remembered it, the shelves weighed down with books, the broad, mahogany desk sitting at the front window with the globe and the slightly dated computer facing the leather office chair.

  Darkus approached the desk and ran his hand over the empty chair back, imagining his father in it and divining what he might be working on. The desk was covered in scraps of paper and receipts – mostly for Pizza Express. Not wishing to pry, Darkus surveyed the debris from a distance rather than sorting through it or ‘processing the scene’ – which would have been too much of a breach of privacy, even though the subject in question was his father. However, in clear sight among the clutter were several train tickets, each with the same words printed on them: Hampstead Heath. It was a sprawling urban wilderness located in north London, popular with romantic couples, ramblers and tourists; but what his father wanted with it was a mystery.

  Finding nothing more of note, Darkus heeded the call of nature and crossed the landing to the bathroom. He closed the door behind him, then approached the toilet, only to see a book left open on a small table within arm’s length of the seat. The book looked to be at least fifty years old, and was tattered and torn, its spine broken and bent. The page it was left open at displayed a large, ink-drawn illustration of a gigantic dog of some kind, its fangs bared, its tail arched and its claws raised in attack. Most noticeable though were its eyes: monstrous, glittering eyes that were the very personification of evil. Darkus visibly recoiled from the image, folded the corner of the page to mark it, then slammed the book closed. It was then that he saw the front cover, and the title, in ancient, Gothic script:

  Chapter 4

  His Father’s Footsteps

  Darkus arrived at Hampstead Heath overground train station just after noon and climbed the steps to the exit. He took several minutes to get his bearings, imagining himself to be his father, and seeing the world the way he would have done.

  Darkus noted a modest fruit stall, a zebra crossing, several mums pushing prams, a row of shops and a nearby supermarket. To his right was the entrance to Hampstead Heath itself. The huge, ancient park was located on a high ridge overlooking central London. The only guide was a small welcome map displaying an extensive jigsaw of shapes and paths. The eight-hundred-acre wilderness featured dense woodland, numerous parks and meadows, several ponds and a palatial estate called Kenwood House – not to mention the legions of devoted Londoners, joggers, hikers and dog walkers who protected their rural oasis with pride.

  According to his research, ‘The Heath’, as it had become known, dated back well over a thousand years to the reign of King Ethelred the Unready, and was the property of various monarchs and their cronies, before being handed back to the general public in the mid-twentieth century. Beneath the trees, grass and mud lay a band of London clay, a network of underground watercourses and a host of scuttling, burrowing and foraging creatures who also called it home.

  Darkus observed his surroundings again and felt his catastrophiser begin to warm up. Much of the time this mental device was a curse that made everything around him part of a dastardly plot, which, admittedly, was often pure fantasy. Until recently that was, when the plots had become reality. For when the catastrophiser was correct – and it was with increasing regularity – it gave Darkus an almost clairvoyant ability to read the signs that were dotted around him. Signs that almost everyone else in the world was blissfully unaware of.

  As he glanced past the fruit stall, he remembered his father’s particular fondness for satsuma oranges – and his unusual habit of skinning the orange with one small, vertical incision while leaving the rest of the orange peel completely intact. Darkus deduced that one or two of these small oranges would have been too few for a walk like this; four would have been sufficient; but six was a satisfying round number that rolled off the tongue as ‘half a dozen’. Therefore, Darkus concluded that his father would almost certainly have bought half a dozen of these small oranges from the fruit stall before embarking any further. This was pure speculation of course. Imagination, even. But imagination was the basis of detective work, until the facts arrived to support it.

  Darkus gave a brief description of his father to the fruit seller, who told him he couldn’t possibly remember every customer – despite the fact that this particular customer would have been wearing a distinctive Donegal tweed ensemble. Darkus accepted the seller’s answer, bought half a dozen oranges and divided them among the pockets of his herringbone coat, then walked up the gentle incline and through the gates on to Hampstead Heath.

  He followed a tree-lined path towards the first expanse of grass, which overlooked two ponds, speckled with ducks and the occasional swan. He passed a wooden bench, which had an engraving calligraphed on it:

  Other memorial benches were positioned at scenic viewpoints throughout the park.

  Darkus observed a few couples strolling along, a handful of avid joggers, some dogs leading their owners, but nothing more intriguing than that. He walked further, his mind wandering the multitude of footpaths to guess which one his father might have taken. To anyone else, it would have appeared an impossible task. But to Darkus it was a soup of possibilities.

  Then he saw the first sign.

  A laminated photograph was attached to the pillar of a small fence. It showed a medium-sized dog with shaggy, light brown hair. Darkus identified it as a Labrador-poodle mix: a Labradoodle as they had become known. This one had what breeders called a cappuccino coat. Its curly hair had been shorn to resemble an unusually soft-hearted lion. Hampstead Heath was evidently its Kalahari. Below the picture was a faded word written in large letters:

  Below that were the words:

  Darkus deduced from the description and the age of the sign that Trixy’s chances of survival were extremely slim.

  Troubled, he spotted another sign a few metres away on the same fence. This laminated photograph showed a Jack Russell terrier. Judging by its taller than average ears, Darkus deduced it was not pure-bred, but a corgi mix. It was a kind, even comical-looking dog. The caption below it also read:

  This was more troubling. Jack Russells were known for their intelligence as well as their good humour. They could also be aggressive when provoked. This was not the kind of dog one would normally expect to go missing.

  Darkus felt a dull ache in his heart, remembering the pain he’d felt when he thought he was losing Wilbur. Captain Reed’s words returned to him: People let you down . . . but dogs, they never do.

  Darkus walked on, seeing several more laminated signs dotted along the fences. He counted over a dozen missing pets. Judging from the condition of the signs, they had all vanished within the past four to six weeks.

  Certain that this was no coincidence, Darkus’s mind began to construct possible scenarios for what his father might be pursuing. He thought about the werewolf book and wondered whether (once again) his father had become preoccupied with the supernatural at the expense of a rational explanation. Darkus focused on the matter at hand. First he had to find his father, and hopefully, along the way, he could make sense of the clues that had clearly eluded Knightley Senior to this point.

  Darkus turned away from the missing pet photos and found himself at a junction of three footpaths all leading in different directions. A large concrete bin was located at the intersection. Darkus picked up a stick, peered inside the bin and delved through t
he assortment of rubbish until he spotted a small orange peel, which was almost completely intact. Without doubt, it had belonged to his father. Darkus surveyed the three options, and guessed that his father would have taken the larger, more trafficked footpath that led between the ponds and up into an area of woodland. A fitting habitat for any predator.

  Darkus followed the footpath, past a few fishermen camped by the pond, then climbed a steep incline, flanked by dense woods and tall, elderly trees. The shadows were deep and dappled with only occasional rays of sunlight that merely served to illuminate a tangle of creepers and a carpet of dead leaves. Although he was near the centre of London, there was a sense that almost anything could lurk in this terrain, virtually unnoticed. He could only guess how it felt at night, when the animals reclaimed their kingdom, foraging for whatever was left behind; and only the brave, foolhardy or misguided human would dare venture on to their territory.

  A row of elegant, Victorian semi-detached houses loomed through the undergrowth, tucked away safely behind high fences. Their only contact with the unknown would be foxes scaling the perimeter in the dead of night to hunt for scraps. That is, unless it was one of their well-heeled pets who had gone missing.

  Darkus reached the top of the wooded footpath, finding another intersection: one path curved to the left, leading further into the woods; another led to the right, revealing the base of the vast, grassy ridge known as Parliament Hill.

  He chose the well-trodden path leading to Parliament Hill and soon spotted a concrete bin ahead. After probing the contents with the stick, he was rewarded with another almost intact piece of orange peel: he was on the right track. Feeling emboldened, Darkus plodded up the steep slope, which seemingly led straight into the clouds, for there was nothing else beyond the horizon. Reaching the top of Parliament Hill, the landscape unfolded to reveal the full scale of the park, stretching in all directions; and below it, a vast swathe of the capital, which at this height had been reduced to a miniature play city, complete with the Shard, the Gherkin and the London Eye. Darkus remembered reading that this was where Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators had planned to watch the Houses of Parliament explode during the Gunpowder Plot on the fifth of November, 1605. Darkus had to admit it would have been the perfect spot. Fortunately that plot had been thwarted, the Houses of Parliament survived, and Fawkes, unfortunately for him, was sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered – although, being quick-witted to the last, Fawkes had thrown himself from the scaffold, swiftly breaking his neck, to avoid being alive for the drawing and quartering section of his punishment. A very logical decision.

  Darkus turned away from the stunning view and approached another concrete bin – which would hopefully provide confirmation of the route. He poked around inside. There were several confectionery wrappers, some dog refuse bags, but no sign of an orange peel. Disappointed, Darkus reached in his coat for a small pair of binoculars and surveyed the Heath from his new vantage point. He panned past several walkers, one of whom glanced back and obviously thought Darkus was spying on him, for he pulled up the collar of his Barbour jacket self-consciously and limped away. Darkus continued panning, zeroing in on another concrete bin at the base of the hill by the edge of the woods.

  He pocketed his binoculars and trudged back down Parliament Hill, hoping his earlier blunder would be absolved. After a few minutes he arrived at the bin and smiled, spotting a telltale orange peel – and knowing that his powers of deduction were also intact.

  He followed the path around the base of the hill, through a gap in the undergrowth, revealing a lush meadow with a view of a spire in the distance. A fallen tree lay dramatically across one side of the field. Darkus arrived at the next concrete bin – but it held no reward.

  Foxed, Darkus retraced his steps and studied the terrain again, noticing a small opening directly behind him, leading back into the woods. Attached to the branch of a thorny bush guarding this opening was a small strand of fibre waving in the wind. Darkus fished out a pair of tweezers and approached the fibre, which was so fine it was almost translucent. He carefully unwound it from the thorn and held it up to the light, comparing it to his own jacket sleeve. The fibres were the same: this was undoubtedly Donegal tweed.

  Darkus pocketed the strand, then used the tweezers to pry open the thorny gateway to the woods, revealing a clearing.

  The ground was demarcated by a wall of tall thickets, and lying in the centre of the clearing was another orange peel. However, that was not the only clue left behind.

  For beside it was an incredibly large, but unmistakable, paw print. Whatever had left it was a canine of some kind. A gigantic one. The paw print was heading in the direction of a muddy patch of ground where any other prints that might have been there had long perished. A quick survey confirmed there were no matching markings anywhere in the clearing.

  Darkus got out his phone, along with a small plastic ruler. He laid the ruler on the ground beside the paw print and photographed it from several angles to show scale.

  Then he spun round, hearing a rustle from somewhere in the undergrowth. His catastophiser started gyrating and rattling, threatening to fall out of its imaginary cradle. He felt his bladder weaken a little and tasted that familiar metallic feeling in his mouth as the adrenalin was released to fuel that most primitive of responses: fight or flight. Then a small bird hopped out of a tree and flew off through the narrow gateway back into the daylight. And the rustling noise was gone.

  Darkus steadied his breathing and decided to follow the bird’s lead, heading away from the clearing, which had suddenly taken on a sense of foreboding, even terror. But before he left, he spotted a small, silver reflection coming from behind a hedgerow. He approached it slowly, then knelt down and used his tweezers to pick up a dog tag with a small shred of leather collar still attached to it. It had a phone number and a single word engraved on it: Bertie.

  Darkus returned the way he’d come, dialled the number and regretfully informed the elderly male owner that Bertie had seemingly fallen foul of an indigenous mammal or bird, and was, almost certainly, deceased. Darkus offered to leave the dog tag by the fence below the missing sign, for the owner to retrieve that afternoon. Darkus felt this was essential for achieving a sense of closure. Overcome with emotion, the owner thanked him and hung up.

  Having found no more orange peels and no further clues to his father’s current location, Darkus walked into Hampstead Village to find a sandwich, preferably a triangular one. He explored the high street, which was lined with coffee shops, boutiques and mobile phone stores, all of which felt a million miles from the wilds of the Heath, even though it was only a few minutes away. He passed a line of tourists queuing up at a French crêpe seller, then continued uphill, past the Tube station, until he stopped and silently cursed his foolishness. Just ahead of him, nestled among the row of shops, was a Pizza Express.

  Darkus approached the entrance and saw his father, Alan Knightley, waving to him from a window table. Darkus straightened up in surprise, then bowed his head and entered the restaurant.

  ‘You took your time, Doc,’ Knightley declared, beckoning him to the table. ‘I hope you don’t mind, I started without you.’

  Darkus saw what looked like the remains of an ‘American Hot’ on his father’s plate. His father was wearing his trademark tweed ensemble, but instead of a herringbone coat, a waxed Barbour jacket was slung over the back of his chair, and a matching hunter hat perched atop it. Sitting at the opposite place setting was a slightly cold-looking ‘Pomodoro Pesto Romana’: Darkus’s favourite.

  ‘How did you know I was here . . . ?’ Darkus marvelled, taking a seat in front of the cold pizza.

  ‘I saw you on Parliament Hill. You really ought to be more careful.’

  ‘The man with the limp.’ Darkus recalled the distant figure turning up his collar.

  ‘Yours truly,’ Knightley said with a pizza-eating grin.

  ‘You ought to be more careful yourself,’ Darkus replied.

&nbs
p; ‘I knew you’d find me. I just thought you’d do it a little faster and more efficiently.’

  Darkus grimaced. ‘And what if I hadn’t found you?’

  ‘I suppose I’d have had an extra pizza.’

  Darkus looked down at his plate, troubled. After the roller coaster of events that had formed their first adventure he had stupidly believed that his father now considered him an equal partner, someone to be trusted and relied upon. But in fact the world had inexplicably turned back in time to the bad old days when his father saw him as little more than a curiosity. Following Knightley Senior’s four-year coma and his attendant memory lapses, Darkus had served as a reference manual for his dad’s earlier exploits, which were now stored like trophies in his thirteen-year-old head, in the form of ‘the Knowledge’. The Knowledge was the collection of case histories mapping his father’s twenty-year career as London’s top private detective – even if recently Knightley had come to rely more on his son than he cared to admit. The Knowledge was what had got Darkus into this pre­­dicament in the first place, giving him a near-encyclopaedic understanding of crime, criminals and how to appre­­­hend them using the powers of deduction. And Darkus firmly believed that his exclusion from the family business was the very reason Knightley was floundering with whatever this present case turned out to be.

  Knightley nodded towards the pizza, a little guiltily. ‘You’d better hurry up. It’s not getting any warmer.’

  Darkus picked up a knife and fork, cut a slice and folded it into his mouth. Although it was cold, the pizza tasted good, as it always did.

  ‘So what were you doing on Hampstead Heath?’ Darkus asked in between mouthfuls.