Barking (14 page)

‘Plans for this afternoon, anybody?' Luke said. No reply, and Luke didn't seem to have been expecting one. He went on, ‘I thought we might have half an hour up on the roof, then do the bill reminders. I've got clients coming in at three-fifteen.'

General nodding, putting Duncan in mind of the little furry toy that used to hang from the rear-view mirror of his Uncle Norman's Cortina. ‘I'm in court at four,' Clive said, ‘so that suits me. It's only an interlocutory, so I'll be back in plenty of time for the run tonight.'

Run, Duncan thought; compulsory corporate keep-fit? But that was fine. After all, running is one of life's greatest pleasures, isn't it? He considered that, and it occurred to him that he hadn't run more than ten yards since 1989. God, what he'd been missing.

‘You'd better be,' Luke was saying; both mock-stern and serious at the same time. ‘We can't hang around waiting for you. Pete, when's lighting-up time?'

‘Ten to five,' Pete answered promptly. ‘I checked on the Met Office website. It should be properly dark by five-thirty.'

Luke nodded. ‘Let's say quarter to six, then. Kevin, beer.'

Six more pints, drunk swiftly and in silence and followed by six more. Since nobody was talking to him, Duncan let his mind drift. Why the deathly hush? That wasn't hard to guess. Twenty-odd years of living in each others' pockets meant there was nothing much left to say that hadn't been said already. A bit like a marriage, really, except that they didn't bicker. And why the massive alcohol intake, when the stuff clearly had no effect whatsoever? Might as well be drinking tea, or water. Also, nobody had said anything about getting something to eat. On the other hand, he didn't feel particularly hungry, so maybe werewolves simply didn't do lunch. The important conclusion, though, was that none of it mattered terribly much. The strange, quirky little details were mildly interesting, but they weren't taking the edge off his pleasure in what he'd just become. On the contrary: for the first time since childhood, there were all sorts of new and interesting things for him to find out about himself. Just one example: swilling down a pint of Guinness in one go isn't nearly as hard as it looks. You've just got to open your mouth wide, relax your throat and sort of breathe it down, as though you're a fish.

‘Well.' Luke had been lolling back in his chair. Now, quite abruptly, his back was straight and his head slightly lifted. He twitched his nose a couple of times, then said, ‘I'm going back to the office.'

Four chairs scraped simultaneously and for about half a second, Duncan was the only one still sitting down. It was half a second of excruciating embarrassment, a bit like farting just as you're about to make your Oscar-acceptance speech. He jumped out of the chair, forgetting for a moment that he was now in the tall buildings/single bound category. Very briefly he hung in mid-air; then he landed half on and half off the table they'd just been sitting at. He could see an empty beer glass apparently rushing to meet him; he saw it break as his forehead slammed into it.

He'd been told that if it doesn't hurt under such circumstances, it's probably very bad indeed. It should've hurt, he knew. Quite apart from the broken glass, he'd hit his kneecap on the edge of the table, rolled onto the back of a chair, smashed it and dropped three feet to the floor. If he couldn't feel any of it, the only logical conclusion was that he was dead.

He stood up. Everybody in the pub had turned to look, but instead of staring at him they were looking puzzled, as if they couldn't see where the noise of breaking wood and smashing glass had come from. Luke, on his way to the door, hadn't even turned round. Pete gave Duncan a very small wry grin, a don't-you-hate-it-when-that-happens sort of look. Apparently he wasn't the tiniest bit dead.

All
right
, he thought, as he quickened his step to keep up with the others. Until then he hadn't really believed in the invulnerability thing: too perfect, his inner sceptic had sneered, too Marvel Comics. But he'd seen the glass break with his own eyes. In fact—He paused, tweaked the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb, and from the corner of his eye he retrieved a splinter of glass shrapnel about the size of a small shirt button.

There are those moments when you realise how very close you came to doing yourself a really horrible injury; your stomach muscles crimp, and everything you ever learned about toilet training threatens to slip away like mist through a sieve. He stared at the bit of glass, balanced on the tip of his forefinger, then quickly flicked it away.

Of course, he tried to explain to himself as he followed the others back to the office, I wouldn't have fallen on the table and bust the glass if it hadn't been for the amazingly enhanced strength, so really I wasn't in any danger . . . But even a lawyer, even the incredible superlawyer he'd now become, couldn't kid the jury into going along with that. On the other hand (the realisation seemed to burst up into his mind, like a rose forcing its way between two paving stones) Luke hadn't been exaggerating about the invulnerability business. It worked.

Duncan tried to think about that, but it proved to be too big for his head; and besides, they were back at the office. In the lift, nobody spoke; but Micky leaned across him and picked another glass shard out of his hair. When the doors opened, the pack dispersed, leaving him standing by the front desk.

The little old man, he noticed, was looking at him furtively. He gave him a friendly smile. ‘Hi,' he said. ‘I'm Duncan Hughes. I've just joined the partnership.'

The little old man's eyes opened wide, and he shivered a little, as if he'd just been caught by a chilly draught. Maybe he said something, but all Duncan heard, even with his amazing new hearing, was a vague little squeak.

Even so. ‘Luke Ferris told me your name,' he went on, ‘but I'm ashamed to say I've forgotten it.'

No reply. The little old man was completely motionless, like a rabbit caught in the glare of headlights. Duncan wasn't quite sure what to make of that, but it seemed fairly obvious that the little old man wanted him to go away, so he smiled vaguely and headed for his office. Halfway down the first long corridor he realised that he couldn't remember how to get there, but he found it quite easily by listening out for the distinctive tick of his wall clock.

While he'd been out, someone had collected his post tray. There were also two yellow while-you-were-out notes, stuck to the receiver of his phone.

Please call Imogen Bick, Crosswoods, urgent
; followed by the number.

He frowned. He'd been warned off having anything to do with Crosswoods, hadn't he? Even werewolf concentration couldn't clarify that one, so he looked at the other note.

Felicity Allshapes, re Bowden Allshapes deceased
.

Odder still. The Allshapes file was part of his ridiculous, pre-transformation past. Mostly it was a set of estate accounts that refused to balance, along with a gang of beneficiaries who didn't seem to care a damn that years had gone by and they hadn't had a penny of their money. Felicity Allshapes, he remembered, was one of these. He'd never met her or spoken to her on the phone; he'd sent her interim bills, which she'd dutifully approved by return of post, but that was all he knew about her. He reached out and tapped in her number.

‘Thanks for calling back.' She had a nice voice, anyway. ‘I gather you've left Craven Ettins.'

‘Yes.' He felt an urge to confess that he'd been fired, and only just resisted it.

‘A bit sudden, wasn't it?'

‘A rather good opportunity came along,' he said.

‘Oh, splendid. Congratulations. Anyhow,' Ms Allshapes went on, ‘I've been talking to the other beneficiaries, and we all think it'd make much more sense if you carried on looking after Uncle's estate for us, since you've done all the work on it so far. I mean,' she went on, ‘where's the sense in someone new having to read all the letters and stuff, when you know it all already? Besides, you said in your last letter that it was all very nearly sorted out, so—' She paused, apparently expecting enthusiastic agreement. ‘What do you think?'

‘Well, yes,' Duncan replied. ‘If that's what you want, then yes, fine' Being a werewolf didn't seem to have improved his people skills. Pity. ‘Of course, you'll have to get Craven Ettins to send us the file, and I imagine there'll be a final bill to settle.'

‘Oh, that's no problem. Can you write us a letter we can all sign to ask them to give you the paperwork? I'll just give you my address.'

Should be flattered, he thought; for some reason, they like me, or at least they think I'm competent. (But now, of course, he really was competent. Quite possibly, his werewolf superpowers would make him able to balance the bloody accounts.) Even so, there was something about it that disturbed him, and he felt hackles rise on the back of his neck; a bit like an ache in the tooth you had out last year.

Which left the other message. He read it again.
Crosswoods. Urgent
. Oh well, he thought; if I can't be bruised by tables or blinded by smashed glass, I don't suppose there's an awful lot Crosswoods can do to me.

He dialled the number, and they let him listen to music for a while, which was nice of them, before putting him through to Ms Bick.

‘You left Cravens, then.'

He sighed. ‘Actually, they fired me,' he replied. ‘But I got lucky. An old school friend, actually. Gave me a partnership in this outfit. Seems all right, though it's only my first day, of course. What can I do for you?'

A silence at the other end of the line gave him a clear impression of what Ms Bick thought about divine justice. ‘Fell on your feet, didn't you?' she said, but there was a sort of cautious awe in her voice. ‘Well, that's neither here nor there. It's not about work, actually. I wanted to know when you last heard from Sally.'

Sally. Sally? Oh, yes, right. ‘Actually,' he said, ‘she rang me. Night before last, I think.' He grinned. ‘It's been a busy few days, so I'm a bit vague about details.'

‘The night before last,' she said. ‘Damn.'

‘Is something the—?'

‘Well, I thought I'd try you just in case, you being the ex. But—' Sigh. ‘Sorry to have bothered you, then.'

‘What's happened?' he said, just a bit louder and more forcefully. Practically a growl, in fact.

Ms Bick sighed impatiently. ‘If you must know,' she said, ‘she's disappeared.'

I
t was a last-step-of-the-escalator moment. ‘What do you mean, disappeared?' Duncan said.

‘Gone. Not there.' At the other end of the wire, Ms Bick clicked her tongue, and Duncan instinctively sat up straight in his chair. ‘I don't mean vanished in a puff of smoke or put on the Ring or anything like that. She left the office at a quarter past ten yesterday morning, telling Reception she was just nipping out to buy a pound of liver, and that's the last anybody's seen of her. She's not at her flat, her mobile's switched off and she's not answering texts or e-mails, and her car's sitting in the underground car park in Bat Street with a big yellow ornament on its front offside wheel.
That
sort of disappeared.' Pause, while Ms Bick refrosted. ‘We thought she might have been to see you,' she said quietly.

‘Me?'

‘She's been talking about you,' Ms Bick said. ‘Quite a bit, lately. More than usual.'

You can do it in several different ways. You can stick a sheet of six-inch-thick glass across the fast lane of a motorway, or you can breed pterodactyl-sized pigeons and train them to precision-crap on people's heads from a thousand feet; or three little words can have the same effect.

‘More than usual?'

‘Yes. So we thought, well, maybe you two had sort of got back together . . .'

(If only they'd stop messing about with nuclear physics and putting men on Mars, and knuckle down to the job of perfecting the video phone; then Duncan could have seen the look of embarrassed revulsion he knew Ms Bick was wearing when she said that.)

‘Well, no,' Duncan replied. ‘Sorry.'

‘Oh.' Long pause. ‘In that case, sorry to have bothered you.'

‘No problem.' He hesitated. ‘Quarter past ten yesterday, you said.'

‘That's right.'

‘Does she do that sort of thing? Go off suddenly, I mean.'

‘No.' She made it sound as if he'd implied something disgusting. ‘And she's got a diary as long as your arm, and she's really conscientious about appointments. That's what's so—'

‘I see.' Duncan unleashed the full power of his werewolf brain. ‘You don't think she's been in an accident, do you? Have you—?'

‘Tried the hospitals, yes. And the police, and the airports and the ferry terminals.'

That gave him pause for thought. ‘Ah. What about—?'

‘And the leading health spas, rehab clinics, monastic retreats, all that. And the Air Force.'

Duncan blinked. ‘Air Force?'

‘For reports of unidentified flying objects, in case she's been abducted by aliens.'

‘Oh,' Duncan said. If he'd been a cartoon character, a little halo of singing birds would have circled his head at that point. ‘Right. No joy there, either?'

‘No. Anyway, you've been a great help, good—'

‘Hang on.' Not quite sure why, but: ‘When she turns up, could you let me know?'

Two-second Ice Age. ‘Why?'

‘Well, I'm concerned, naturally.'

‘Oh.' Three seconds. ‘All right, then. But don't call us, all right? Wait till we call you.'