Barking (34 page)

‘Hang on.' She was staring at him. ‘Estate accounts. That's when someone's died, right?'

‘Come on, Sally, you went to law school. It's the final stage in winding up an estate, when you figure out—'

‘Bowden Allshapes isn't dead.'

Well, she must be, or we wouldn't have been . . . He was about to say that, but he didn't. It was like shrill white noise inside his head, drowning everything out. She's right, he thought. Because if she's right, it makes
sense
.

‘How would you know?' he mumbled.

‘Because I spoke to her just this morning.'

- Because if Bowden Allshapes was still alive, still spending her money - pair of tights here, loaf of bread and packet of ham there, nothing much, just a few quid now and then - it'd explain why the fucking accounts never stayed still from one day to the next. Not that that was possible; the banks and building societies and company registrars had closed all her accounts and transferred her shares into the names of the executors; nobody could touch a penny without Duncan Hughes, solicitor in charge of the file, knowing about it. And Duncan Hughes would know straight away, like a shot, because the accounts wouldn't balance—

‘Shit,' he said. Not anger or despair. More a kind of reverent awe, inspired by the majesty of his own stupidity. ‘But hold it a moment,' he said, more to himself than her. ‘It doesn't have to be her, it could just be the executors or someone fiddling the books. No,' he corrected himself, ‘because all the money's frozen in our client account, I'd have to sign a pink slip, so it can't be that.'

She was looking at him again. ‘Duncan,' she said. ‘What are you talking about?'

Then his delayed-action memory finally clicked into place. ‘You saw her this morning?'

‘Yes. She's Jacky Hogan's client. Divorce. Messy. So she can't be dead—'

‘You're sure it's a woman?
'

‘Well, yes. Long hair, tits, the works. I notice stuff like that.'

‘Bowden Allshapes is
dead
.' He waved a furious, ineffectual hand. ‘It says so on her death certificate.'

‘No, she isn't.'

My patience is infinite, he told himself, my patience is infinite, my patience . . . ‘Look,' he said. ‘Are we talking about the same person?'

Shrug. ‘I don't know. You were the one who brought her up.'

‘Yes, but—'

‘Then it can't be the same person, can it?'

Except - except that the unicorn had been female. No question about it. Female voice, big soft eyes, habit of buggering up people's lives for them. Sally wasn't the only one who noticed things. And now she was kebabbing him with her sharpest stare. ‘All right,' she said. ‘Tell me what you know about Bowden Allshapes.'

And why not? So he did; and people trying to get down to the platforms had to squeeze round them for quite a while. They muttered quite a lot, but went unheeded.

He told her about the unicorn (single-handedly responsible for the extinction of British wolves) and how it was the only thing on earth that Luke Ferris was afraid of; how he'd met it twice, chased it, talked to it. He told her about the accounts that wouldn't balance, and how Felicity Allshapes had come to see him in the office—

‘Describe her.'

He thought. ‘I can't.'

‘Why not? Official Secrets Act? Cat got your tongue?'

‘Can't remember what she looks like,' he admitted. ‘I mean, all I can remember is she was quite nice-looking. But—'

‘That's her, then. Same woman.'

Much the same effect as a slap round the face with a mackerel. ‘Excuse me?'

‘That's her,' Sally repeated. ‘That's Bowden Allshapes. You know it's her because you can never remember what she looks like. Two minutes after she's left the office, you can't even say what colour her hair is, or her eyes, or anything. All you can say is,
God, I wish I looked like that
. But that's all.'

All. Allshapes. All manner and every kind of shape: now a unicorn, now a pretty girl, and possibly even a dead woman, for the benefit of a doctor and possibly Her Majesty's coroner. ‘So if that was her, pretending to be her own cousin or niece or whatever,' he said slowly, ‘then who's the dead woman with all the money?' But of course, she wasn't dead. Any of her. ‘Screw that,' he said angrily. ‘That's me all explained out. What's it got to do with
you
?'

She tried to close up, like the window at the Post Office after you've been queuing for half an hour, but something made her hesitate. ‘She's a client of ours, like I said just now. Divorce. Her husband's huge in mobile phones, it's a nice fat—'

‘Client,' Duncan repeated. ‘Yours? I mean, are you handling the file?'

She opened her mouth, closed it and nodded. ‘I inherited it from a girl who left,' she added quickly. ‘It was just a case of sorting out the finances—'

‘You know her. By sight.'

‘Yes, though if only you'd listen to what I tell you occasionally, you'd know that that's pretty well meaningless. I've met her dozens of times, but I wouldn't recognise her if I passed her in the street.'

‘All right.' There was a hell of a lot more that she wasn't telling him, for some reason, but time was short. Next item. ‘Why did your lot try and kill me?'

Finally he'd done it; left her speechless.

‘I know it was your lot,' he went on, casual as he could manage. ‘It was in a Moondollars coffee shop. You sent me this note.' He fished out the yellow sticky, unfolded it and held it where she could see but not quite reach. ‘Your handwriting. I went along, just like I was told. Someone shot at me with a silver bullet.' I know it had to be one of your lot who shot at me,' he added airily, ‘because I looked for the shooter in a big mirror nailed to the back wall. Of course, I didn't see anybody with a gun; but there were twenty-seven people in the café, not counting me, and twenty-six reflections.'

Sally was looking at him with eyes big and round as saucers. ‘Oh Christ,' she said. ‘Duncan, I'm so sorry. I never meant—'

‘What?' He hadn't meant to grab her shoulders. People were staring. ‘What didn't you mean?'

‘It wasn't my fault. Nobody ever tells me anything. Anyway, how could you be so utterly stupid, to walk straight into an obvious ambush like that? If you can't be bothered to look after yourself, why the hell should I have to? You know what, you've got no consideration for other people.'

That was Sally; never more ferocious than when in the wrong. ‘Just tell me,' he said. ‘Why do your lot want to kill me? Is it because of Bowden—?'

‘I don't know, do I? I was just doing as I was told.'

Also typical Sally; when she was lying, she went pink. ‘That's not true.'

‘Look.' She'd raised her voice. Several passers-by had stopped to watch. ‘I haven't got time right now, and neither have you. Have you got any idea how you're going to get out of—'

Of course he hadn't. ‘Of course I have. Easy. All I've got to do is stay underground till it's daylight again. It'll be a bit boring, but no big deal. I can ride round on the Circle Line, like the tramps do.'

‘You can't.'

‘'Course I can. The trains run all night, don't they?'

‘No.'

Oh, Duncan thought. Fancy me not knowing that. You can live in a city all your life, and not know the most basic things about it. ‘Well, I expect I can find somewhere. I mean, I've got the whole bloody Underground network to hide in, must be thousands of places. Don't change the subject.'

‘For crying out loud, Duncan, it's not that easy. They've got guards, security patrols—'

‘I'll smell them long before they see me.'

‘CCTV.' She scowled at him. ‘Dogs.'

‘Ah. The company of like-minded life forms.'

‘Be serious for just ten seconds, can't you?' Sally was practically shouting now. ‘If you get caught, it could be really bad.'

‘Nah. I can take care of myself.'

‘Oh really? They arrest you and take you outside to put you in a car. One second in the moonlight, that's all, and then there'll be bits of minced-up policeman all over central London. I don't know about your lot, but mine prefer a rather lower profile.'

He'd never liked Sally much when she was in the right. ‘Let me worry about that,' he said firmly. ‘All I want from you is a straight answer. Bowden Allshapes. What exactly—?'

‘Oh
shit
.' She gave him a glare that would've stripped varnish, then threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

Opinions differ. Even among the songwriting community, there's a sharp divergence of opinion. Some practitioners reckon a kiss is just a kiss, others would have you believe it can be a blow-your-head-off spiritual experience. If he was honest with himself, Duncan would have to have admitted that he hadn't collected enough hard data to form a reasoned opinion. Certainly, when they were married, kissing Sally had been mostly quite nice, but not—

More to it than met the lips. Duncan couldn't put it into words, and anyhow he was far too preoccupied to try; but suppose Captain Kirk had landed on a planet where writing and speech were unknown and they could only communicate by snogging; and suppose the prettiest girl on the planet had been assigned to recite to him the whole of their version of the
Encyclopedia Britannica
, complete with footnotes, index and alphabetical list of contributors, in three seconds flat. Something like that. Nice, but confusing.

‘All right?' he heard Sally say; and then, while he was still struggling to snap out of it, she was walking away. That made no sense whatsoever. He started to run after her, but she was on the stairs that led to the street; a few more steps, and she'd be out of cover and exposed to the full fury of the moon - he called her name, but she couldn't have heard him. She'd gone.

Duncan looked round. To say that people were staring at him would be an understatement; in fact, his viewing figures were so high, he wouldn't have been surprised if major companies had come rushing up pleading to be allowed to advertise on him. He growled and moved away towards the ticket barrier.

All in all, then, a failure. He hadn't found out what was going on, or how Sally fitted into it; he'd managed to drag out a few tantalising scraps of information, but really, they just made things more confusing than ever. In return, he was in deep, possibly permanent shit with the rest of the pack, and he had somehow to get from the Tube station to his flat without turning into a wolf and killing somebody. Even by his standards, a poor evening's work, and he had every right to feel unhappy and depressed. Odd thing was, he didn't.

Why not? Three guesses.

Only took one, didn't it? Because Sally couldn't have kissed him like that if she hadn't, at some fundamental, subatomic level, meant it. In which case - well, there may be troubles ahead, but while there's moonlight and laughter and love and romance, he was entirely prepared to face the music and run like buggery.

Duncan should've been formulating a plan of action all the way home. Instead, his mind insisted on deconstructing every aspect of the kiss - a foolish exercise, but every time he tried to be worried or scared, a little voice kept telling him that it really didn't matter, everything was going to be just fine, because . . . and there the little voice tended to mumble, so he couldn't make out anything specific. But it sounded like it knew what it was talking about, and the stress melted like blowtorched snow. So Luke was going to be a bit vexed with him in the morning. So what? Besides, that'd only happen if he went into work, and when you thought clearly about it, he didn't have to do that. So they might come looking for him at the flat. No big deal. London's a big place, and even their noses couldn't track him through its vast polyodorous crowds. As for getting from the station to his own front door - actually, he'd have liked to hear what the know-it-all little voice had to say about that, because he didn't have a clue. Furthermore, it had just occurred to him that not only are wolves inadequately equipped to turn keys in locks, but also (if last night was anything to go by) his clothes and other portable possessions had simply gone away somewhere when he transformed, and returned automatically when he changed back. Even the little voice had to admit that that was an awkward one; he'd have to stop just inside the station entrance, put his key on the floor, go outside in the moonlight, change, come back, somehow pick the key up in his mouth—

But what the hell, it'd be all right. Even if it wasn't - even if he had to spend the whole night slinking around in the shadows of parked cars, trying very hard not to bite anybody or anything - he was somehow reassured that it must be possible, and if it was possible he could do it. It was only impossible things (like getting someone to be in love with you when they didn't want to be) that merited worrying about, and right now, if he was asked to compile a list of impossible things he desperately needed to do, he wouldn't be able to think of anything to put on it.

She kissed me, Duncan thought. True, she swore at me first, but if memory served that wasn't unprecedented. She didn't have to do that, but she did it anyway. In which case—

The train stopped. He looked up, saw the name of the station, and scrambled to get out before the doors shut. In which case - he carried on musing - the really big, important question was how could he get to see her again, and when? There was no doubt in his mind that one more interview was all that was needed to do the trick. Damn this stupid werewolf thing, because otherwise he could go round to her place right now, bash the door down if needs be - no, couldn't do that, didn't know her new address. But it had to be possible to find it; policemen and private investigators find out people's addresses every day, so it can't be all that hard. So: once he'd got that, it'd just be a case of—