Death Dogs

by Andy Emery

  ‘So, it seems your original nightmares concerning your Afghan experiences have now been joined by those about Mr Rondeau’s death?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ He shook his head. ‘But I really feel these sessions with you are helping. I’m starting to feel more in control.’

  Raistrick was about to reply when there was a sharp rap on the front door.

  He got up to answer it, and returned a few moments later, holding a letter in one hand and rubbing the stubble on his chin with the other.

  ‘It was just the last post. The boy knocked because it’s marked urgent, and it’s for your attention, Lucas. Look.’

  Gedge took it from him, tore off the envelope and scanned the letter. As he read, his brow furrowed.

  Raistrick narrowed his eyes. ‘Something wrong?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave. Just when we were starting to get somewhere. But it can’t be helped. This is from that police inspector I told you about. Jack Cross. Something’s turned up that could connect to the murder of my old friend Rondeau.’

  ‘Really? In that case, of course you must go back to London, post-haste. But does he say what he’s found?’

  ‘Yes. He’s received a cryptic note from someone purporting to be a member of a secret society, referring to crimes committed on their behalf. The note’s adorned by sketches with an ancient Egyptian theme, including beetles, or scarabs as they call them.’

  ‘Ah. I see the link. Well, it’s too late to get a train this evening. I’ll make us a hearty dinner with the rabbit that Bill the poacher brought round.’

  As Raistrick busied himself in the kitchen, Gedge pondered his host. He was an enigmatic man, with few visitors. Those who Gedge did notice had not been introduced; they arrived quietly and departed with a similar lack of ceremony.

  Gedge appeared to be Raistrick’s only client at the moment. The doctor spent many hours at the top of the rambling house, in a room that was usually kept locked. Gedge had only once had a glimpse inside, where he saw a desk piled high with papers, a wall adorned with sheets of paper covered in strange inscriptions and diagrams, and shelves bearing large glass bottles containing indeterminate objects suspended in cloudy liquid.

  Raistrick was obviously a man with many interests, and Gedge reasoned that if he wished to keep his hobbies to himself, that was his own affair.

  He returned to studying Raistrick’s garden, allowing himself a smirk when he heard the doctor, a creative but chaotic cook, spit out the word ‘shit!’ as he dropped a pan on the floor.

  The next morning was fine. Rays of sunshine penetrated the clouds and illuminated the white chalk cliffs of the Seven Sisters. A gentle breeze riffled Lucas Gedge’s hair as he stared eastwards along the coast. Not many miles away, and only a few months ago, he’d spent the night at a cottage in Dungeness, listening to stories of abduction, subjugation and murder.

  A woman emerged from the back of one of the coastguard cottages on the cliff edge and began to peg out her washing. Gedge heard the bark of a dog from the other direction. It was a familiar sound, and he turned to see the figure of Raistrick being pulled up the grassy slope towards him, by his wire-haired fox terrier, Crichton.

  ‘Lucas!’ Raistrick arrived, puffing and blowing.

  Gedge bent down to make a fuss of Crichton, allowing the older man to recover. ‘Even with the assistance of this determined fellow, it’s a long walk from Alfriston, Howard.’

  ‘For a man of my age, you mean? Pah! I told you, I used to do it all the time. Bracing, as they say.’ For a few minutes the two of them looked out to sea, while Crichton nosed around in the grass. ‘It’s good to finally feel that spring is here, especially after that dreadful winter.’

  Gedge smiled. ‘You’re telling me. My stay with you has been good for me in many ways, but as you say, sunshine always seems to lift the spirits.’

  ‘At least in this godforsaken country, where it’s all too rare. But going back to the winter, you’ve still not talked much about your experience up in Spitalfields. Down here, I was more or less cut off for weeks, but I’d got plenty of supplies in. Did things come to a halt in the city?’

  Gedge sighed. ‘No sooner had we rescued my daughter from her kidnappers, we were plunged into arctic conditions. I spent most of the time helping the police and other local officials clear ice from the roads and pavements. It was coming away in slabs, inches thick. But what I hadn’t appreciated before then was the scale of the poverty, just yards from my familiar haunts. In Dorset Street, for example, people are jammed together in hovels with little means of keeping warm. Normally the children go barefoot all year. This last December, I helped to pull dozens of dead bodies from places like that. Some of them perished from disease. But others, they were just frozen rigid.’

  ‘My god.’

  ‘Not something I want to see again. And as you know, it set off another bout of the nightmares, and led me to your door.’

  Raistrick bent forward to pet Crichton. ‘Let us hope my approach is starting to help you over those problems. At least you can now see the value of reliving your traumatic experiences. The very opposite of what seems natural in the circumstances.’

  ‘Oh, I am heavily in your debt. This fortnight has opened my eyes. I feel I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.’

  ‘Feel free to come back any time. There are some other techniques we can explore.’

  ‘I was just wondering, how about you coming up to Spitalfields next time? You did say you’d like to visit London again.’

  Raistrick’s eyes lit up. ‘That, if I might say so, is a capital suggestion!’

  Gedge groaned. For an otherwise serious character, Raistrick had the liking for an occasional pun, or a comment that polite society would have thought of as ‘off colour’.

  ‘It’s agreed, then. Just let me know when it’s convenient. These things that I’m remembering from my days in Afghanistan. There are some disturbing aspects. I seem to be recalling more about the man I think was behind the torture. Nothing’s really clear, but I think in a few weeks’ time I’ll be ready for another session.’

  ‘Just let me know and I’ll make the journey. Only about an hour and a half until your train departs now, Lucas. We’d best be heading back.’

  Crichton strained on his leash as they walked back northwards, to the west of Cuckmere Haven and away from the coast, towards Raistrick’s home.

  4

  Sir John Soane’s Museum, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London

  9.40pm, March 17th 1891

  Herbert Greatorex stared down at the sarcophagus and imagined himself in ancient Egypt. In his mind, the air was hot, humid and pungent with spices.

  He was in the middle of a crowd of people celebrating some religious event. Above the excited chatter of the multitude and the cries of street vendors, a priest boomed out incantations.

  The holy man ceased his recital and the crowd hushed. Silence. Then, gradually, a rhythmic throbbing sound rose in volume, like the breathing of some huge animal. As the noise grew louder, Greatorex could hear shrieks from the edge of the crowd. And then it appeared, looming over the horde: a figure some dozens of feet tall. A man but yet not a man. Dressed in a similar way to many of those now in thrall to it, with loin cloth and bare chest and carrying a staff. This titan scanned the crowd, from side to side, glowering. But it was the creature’s head that set Greatorex’s heart pounding in his chest, and had him on the point of screaming out. It was covered in grey fur, with tall pointed ears and a muzzle with foam-flecked, gnashing teeth. It turned its gaze to look directly down at him, and threw its head back with a shrill sound that he imagined was a sarcastic cackle.

  Greatorex found himself falling. He grasped the railing overlooking the museum’s basement crypt and steadied himself. He looked around; it was silent again. Around him were the familiar shelves bearing dusty antiquities from foreign shores, and below, two floors down, was the sarcophagus of King Seti I, centrepiece of the Egyptian display. Both
basement and ground floor ceilings had apertures allowing the weighty relic to be viewed from above.

  It had just been a daydream. Despite there being nobody about, he felt a hot wave of embarrassment. He raised one hand to his pomaded hair, smoothing a few loose strands back into place, and straightened his cravat with the other. He looked at his watch and gulped air. His throat was dry.

  In the little staffroom-come-kitchen on the ground floor, he poured himself a glass of water from the tap. As he sipped it, he thought he heard something. A dull thud. Then a high-pitched tinkle. He dropped the glass into the sink, smashing it.

  Oh, dear lord. Already?

  His thoughts immediately flew to those items he felt were under his personal protection: the Egyptian collection. He propelled himself, at a faster rate than he normally considered wise, to the stairs, and after stealing a quick glance in the direction of the rear door to the museum, scurried down them, his white spats twinkling below him in the dim light.

  The basement was lit only by a few small wall sconces, and their gaslight flickered weakly, adding to the planned impression of an ancient burial chamber. The sarcophagus loomed large in the centre. Hewn out of a massive piece of limestone, its outer surfaces were covered in hieroglyphics, the pictorial script of the ancient Egyptians. Greatorex had chuckled when he’d first learnt that the piece was purchased by Sir John Soane in 1824, after the larger and more wealthy British Museum had refused the asking price. For a moment, he seemed to forget his fears of a break-in and leaned over the edge of the sarcophagus to stare at the faint but elegant image of the sky goddess Nut, which was painted on the interior surface.

  A scraping sound behind him. He whirled around, almost losing his balance again, and a snigger came from one of the three figures he could only just about make out in the shadows at the edge of the room.

  How had they got there so quickly, so quietly?

  The trio advanced on him, quietly now. He could hear their breathing, and again the blood pounded in his ears. As he edged away, the side of the sarcophagus digging into his back, flickering light fell across the men’s faces.

  Or what should have been men’s faces.

  In a grotesque parody of the daydream he’d experienced not twenty minutes earlier, before him were the faces of three dogs or wolves. Pointed ears, snouts and slavering teeth bore down on him. Yet out of those mouths came peels of laughter with a familiar cockney cadence.

  Greatorex swallowed hard and, stealing himself, turned his back on the intruders. Again he stared down at the goddess, but only for a second, before a starburst of pain exploded at the back of his head and his world turned black.

  5

  St Petersburg, Russia

  November 17th 1873

  Nicolai Volkov wipes away the condensation covering the window of the train carriage, and looks out at the dreary suburbs of St Petersburg. Tightly packed terraced houses, smoke drifting skywards from thousands of chimneys. Snow-covered roofs. When he gets the occasional glimpse of a street, he sees people hunched over, struggling on their way to work through the early morning chill, wrapped up in their heavy winter clothing.

  He leans back in his seat. Opposite him, a thin fellow with a neatly trimmed beard and moustache has been regarding him for much of the journey. His appearance is not in accord with this third class carriage: too well groomed, too expensively clothed. The other occupants of the crowded compartment are labourers or clerks. Not this one. He’s almost certainly a watcher; one of the thousands employed by the state to spot anything untoward, any potential source of unrest, any criminal tendencies. It bothers Volkov that a regular cross-country train would warrant the attentions of such an individual, but he is confident that his route from England has been as clandestine as possible. It will be necessary to give this lackey the slip at the station, but it’s not an unexpected development. Did the fools think he was born yesterday?

  The train draws into St Petersburg station. Huge gouts of steam are caught under the glass and steel canopy and billow along the platform.

  As they come to a stop, everyone in the compartment rises from their seat.

  Volkov smiles at the man opposite, opens the door and gestures towards it. ‘Please, go ahead.’

  This takes the watcher by surprise, along with everyone else in the carriage. Why doesn’t this idiot get out, they must be thinking.

  The watcher shakes his head. ‘No. After you.’

  At this, the big red-bearded man next to Volkov gets up and pushes through to the door. ‘For god’s sake! Some of us have jobs to get to.’

  The other five occupants of the carriage move to follow him, but Volkov sees his chance, and bolts out behind the redbeard. ‘Sorry. You’re right. I shouldn’t hold everyone up.’

  The watcher is too slow. He curses as he’s forced to wait for the other passengers before emerging.

  Then he’s in the crush for the ticket barrier. A second train has arrived on the next platform, and several hundred commuters inch their way towards the bottleneck caused by just three or four station staff checking tickets. Perfect.

  Volkov glances back. The watcher is now well behind him, craning his neck to see over the milling heads. Volkov is tall, so he isn’t difficult to pick out, but there’s now useful distance between him and his pursuer.

  He reaches the barrier and the yawning official waves him through. The crush abates as the crowd fans out onto the terminal’s concourse, all heading in separate directions, and mingling with incoming passengers who are stomping their feet to remove the snow caked to their boots.

  He spots two soldiers, rifles at their backs and grey greatcoats over their uniforms, surveying the multitude with little interest. Volkov picks up his pace, turns sharply right and dives into the newspaper seller’s shack. There are no customers, and he slips behind the counter, behind the man serving there, who ignores him, and opens a small sliding hatch under the counter. Volkov crawls into the space and slides the door closed behind him.

  Pitch black. He can just make out the muffled sounds of the station beyond. One tap on the counter above him. The watcher is in the vicinity. Maybe just looking into the shack as he passes by, or perhaps he has entered it and is making more of an effort at a search. After a few seconds, two taps. That means the man is gone, but Volkov should wait there another five minutes to make sure the coast’s clear.

  Finally, he slides the hatch open and emerges, aching, behind the counter, still crouching down out of sight. The cashier permits himself a brief glance down at Volkov. He nods; all the acknowledgement that’s needed. Behind a tattered curtain, a door leads in the opposite direction, away from the concourse. Volkov opens it a crack and looks out. He slips out onto the freight road at the rear of the station, and straight into the back of the covered wagon that’s waiting there.

  Again, darkness.

  A few seconds later, an unseen driver grunts a command to the horses and the wagon moves off, jolting over the cobblestones. Volkov is startled by a match flaring in the darkness as another man, just a few feet away from him inside the wagon, lights a cigarette. The orange glow is enough to illuminate a nose, whiskers and a pair of hands.

  The voice is familiar. ‘Here. You might like one of these. Welcome back to your motherland, cousin.’

  6

  A Photographer’s Studio, Fashion Street, Spitalfields

  8am, March 18th 1891

  Alright, that’s it. You can put your clothes back on now.’

  Leo Cotter turned away from his model and removed the plate holder from the rear of his camera. But he didn’t hear the soft sounds of Ruby Brown replacing her underwear, and glanced back to see her still standing there, naked and bold as brass, one hand on her hip and a broad smile on her lips. ‘What?’

  ‘All business, ain’t you, Leo?’

  ‘I’ve told you before, as my old dad used to say—’

  ‘Oh, Christ! Don’t tell me. “Don’t mix business with pleasure”? How many times have I heard that? You
need to learn to relax.’ She sidled up to him and fingered his collar, pouting.

  ‘Give over, Ruby. You know I like you, but this ain’t a good idea. And I do know how to have a good time. But not now. I’ve got to get these developed for starters. Go on now.’

  She sighed and started to get changed. ‘I wonder who’s gonna see them? I like to imagine who they might be. An actor, maybe. A grand duke. What about a prince? That’d be something.’

  ‘What’s the point in thinkin’ about that? It doesn’t matter who they are. All we need to know is that the punters are payin’ a pretty penny for this sort of stuff at the moment, so let’s just make hay while the sun shines.’

  ‘You’ve got no romance in you, you haven’t. Same time Friday?’

  ‘Yeah. Thanks Ruby. Mind how you go now.’

  She opened to door to leave, and was surprised by a tall man, with receding hair and an aquiline nose, who had been in the act of knocking. Ruby giggled, squeezed past him and ran down the stairs. The newcomer raised his eyebrows at Cotter.

  ‘Inspector Cross. What a lovely surprise. Come in, mate. I’m just finishin’ up.’

  ‘Not so much of the “mate,” Cotter. Was that young woman helping you with a still life or something?’

  A smile spread across Cotter’s freckled face. ‘She’s certainly alive, and she was still for the most part. Wouldn’t want the exposure to be all blurry, would we? But I thought we’d agreed. I help you out with your so-called crime scene pictures and you won’t look too closely into the other areas of my business.’

  Cross nodded. ‘Your photographic services are valuable to us.’

  ‘Yeah. Because I’m at least as good as those other mugs and ten times as fast, right?’