Barking (43 page)

Duncan nodded guiltily. ‘I thought you were Sally,' he said.

‘Ah, fine. Anyway, I heard what you two were saying about Bowden Allshapes, and Sally not really being on our side all along. Actually, we had our suspicions, but it seemed so hard to believe: one of us, working for the enemy. The other enemy, of course, not your lot.' She sighed. ‘It's all a bit confusing, if you ask me. Still, she as good as admitted that she wanted to hand you over to the zombie people. It had to be that, or why was she trying to kill you? Dead, you'd be no earthly use to us, but of course it's as broad as it's long to them.' She smiled. ‘Once I'd worked that out, I didn't really have any option. Hence the unseemly display of energy. That cow,' she added, frowning, ‘has broken two of my fingernails. I've a good mind to do something spiteful and vindictive in return, like giving her a purple rinse while she's still out cold. Everybody'd assume she'd done it herself, and it could be days before she found out. Happy thought,' she said, ‘but I suppose I'd better not. I've got to work with her, after all.'

That one hit Duncan like a slap across the face. ‘What, after you've found out - well, that she's a mole for Bowden Allshapes and she was going to—'

Veronica shook her head. ‘It's not like we've got any choice,' she said. ‘Like it or not, we're stuck with each other. Even if she wasn't a partner, even if she was just, you know,
staff
, we could-n't just fire her. She's one of us. Trouble is, not all of us are nice.' She paused for a moment, then clicked her tongue. ‘No, I imagine Caroline'll give her a thorough talking-to - and don't pull faces, you've never heard Caroline when she really gets going. Given the choice between an earful from our senior partner and being buried at a crossroads with a stake through my heart, at the very least I'd have to give it some serious thought. After that, I guess we'll just have to keep a very close eye on her, for ever and ever. Tiresome, but that's how it is. Besides,' she added, ‘she's the only one who knows how to make broadband work. That's a giggle, by the way, it really is; for us, I mean, being in on the secret. I mean, imagine what it's like calling the twenty-four-hour helpline and
knowing
that the voice at the other end is an unnaturally resurrected corpse, instead of just suspecting—'

Duncan resisted the urge to frown. Was she
flirting
with him? He wished he knew a bit more about the subject, but he'd had precious little experience. Sally hadn't flirted, in the same way fish don't climb mountains. But if she was, then why? Not because she liked him, so it had to be some dark and devious tactic, part of all this stuff he was supposed to be running away from. It occurred to him that he hadn't done much running away lately, even though it should've been the Christmas fairy perched on the very top of his agenda.

‘I'll go now,' he said. He didn't move, though.

‘Oh.' Veronica looked at him. ‘You sure? Wouldn't you be better off staying here? What I mean is, out there you've got the werewolves, who were trying to kill you, and the zombies, ditto.' She looked away. ‘Whereas we've got a vested interest in keeping you alive.'

‘Have you?'

She nodded. ‘You were saying. After she started throwing the furniture about, but before she went in for the kill. You'd figured it out. The secret.'

‘Oh, that.' He'd forgotten; in fact, he had to ransack his mind for the residues of that sudden flash of enlightenment. Fortunately, they were still there. ‘It's just a theory,' he said. ‘Nothing concrete. I mean, it's not really something I could trade with.'

She shrugged; a bit too couldn't-care-less-one-way-or-another to be entirely convincing. Did vampires get to meet a lot of men, he wondered. If werewolves were anything to go by, grim comradely celibacy was the general rule.
Stop thinking about all that stuff
, he ordered himself. ‘You may as well give it a go,' she said. ‘Unless you've got scruples about betraying your pack, even though they did turn really nasty on you.'

His turn to look away. ‘Should I have?'

‘God, no. I mean,' she went on quickly, ‘by the looks of it they're convinced that you've already double-crossed them, and I doubt there's anything you could say that'd change their minds. So, in that case, you've got nothing to lose by it, have you?'

He pulled a face. ‘I can't stay here for ever,' he said. ‘Can I?'

Veronica looked thoughtful, as though it hadn't been a rhetorical question. ‘We can always use another probate lawyer,' she said. ‘But I guess it might be awkward, you working in the same building as Sally. I don't think Caroline'd go for it, no. Pity, though. It'd have been - well, interesting. I mean, they're a great bunch of girls and we get along pretty well most of the time, but—' She shook her head. ‘No, it wouldn't work. Forget I suggested it.'

‘Right. In that case—'

‘But maybe you should stay here for now,' she said, rather quickly. ‘Regroup. Figure out your next move. We'll help you.'

Odd effect those three words had. Four, if you counted the ellision. ‘Would you?'

‘I will, yes.'

Strange thing to say, Duncan thought. Still, it had to be better than going out into the werewolf-and-zombie-filled night. He didn't know a lot about the persistence levels of zombies, but he knew Luke and the gang. Not quitters; and they must have a pretty good idea of where he'd ended up, after that spectacular rescue. At the very least, it'd be sensible to stay out of their way till moonset and sunrise.

‘Fine,' he said. ‘In that case—' Suddenly he grinned. ‘You know,' he went on, ‘there's something I've always wanted to say and I never thought I'd ever have the chance, but this situation is absolutely tailor-made for it. May I?'

Veronica gave him a puzzled look. ‘Sure.'

‘You won't sigh or click your tongue or anything?'

‘Not if you don't want me to.'

‘Splendid.' He stood up, smiled, and took a deep breath. ‘In that case,' he said, ‘take me to your leader.'

She blinked. Then she sighed and clicked her tongue. ‘That's it, is it?'

‘Yes.'

‘All done now?'

‘Yes.' He scowled at her. ‘You promised you wouldn't—'

‘Caroline's office is this way,' she said.

Stairs, landings, corridors. They arrived at a door. She knocked, then went in without waiting for an answer.

There are strict and universal rules about the expression of status by means of office furniture, even when the furniture in question is a coffin. Sally, he remembered, had had light oak with brass handles. Caroline the senior partner, by contrast, had exquisitely figured burr walnut with silver handles, resting on a pair of trestles of turned rosewood. The effect was slightly spoilt by the fact that, when Caroline sat up, she had a grey mud pack on her face and curlers in her hair.

‘Sorry to barge in,' Veronica said, fooling nobody. ‘We'd like a quick word.'

Her choice of pronouns wasn't wasted on Caroline. When she peeled the slices of cucumber off her eyes, there was a quizzical look in them. ‘He's still here, then,' she said.

‘Yes. Sally tried to kill him. You were right, by the way. She's working for the Allshapes consortium.'

Caroline sighed, as if to say how very tiresome. ‘Where is she now?'

‘Front office. Asleep. I, um—'

Caroline did a quick lift of the eyebrows that said
how many times have I told you girls not to play rough games?
‘I suppose we'd better put her in disgrace till the morning,' she said. ‘The key's in my desk drawer.'

Veronica nodded and went to the desk. With the key she unlocked a big old-fashioned safe. From it she took first a pair of rubber gloves, tongs and a thing like a welding mask, second (using the first) a string of garlic. Holding it at arm's length, she left the room.

‘Now then,' Caroline said. ‘To what do we owe the extended pleasure?'

‘What?' Duncan recalled his attention from the direction of the doorway. ‘Oh yes, right. You know what we were talking about earlier?'

She nodded. ‘You told me you didn't know.'

‘That's right, I don't.' Deep breath. ‘But I think I may have figured it out.'

He had her attention. ‘This is - well, a guess, right?'

He nodded. ‘But, um, she thought—'

‘Veronica,' Caroline said promptly. ‘Vee, not Ronnie. Go on.'

His face felt annoyingly warm. Perceptive bloody woman. ‘Veronica thought you might want to hear it anyway. In return for . . .'

Caroline nodded. ‘Asylum,' she said. ‘Which is a pretty fair description of this place during office hours. It's a deal. Well?'

It'd have been nice, Duncan thought, if she'd asked him to sit down. The omission, he felt sure, wasn't accidental. ‘I suddenly remembered,' he said, ‘about something that happened when Luke Ferris and I were at school together.'

‘I see.' Very slight frown, signifying that he still had most of her attention, but if the building caught fire or got ripped out of the ground by a freak tornado she'd probably notice. ‘Feel free to reminisce,' she said. ‘Try not to be too long about it, because Veronica'll be back in a few minutes, and I'd rather keep this between ourselves for now.'

Duncan nodded, and tried to order his thoughts; a bit like taking someone else's seventeen greyhounds for a walk through a free-range chicken farm, but he did his best. ‘We had a homework rota,' he said. ‘It was based on good Marxist principles: from each according to his abilities. Pete did all our French and German, because he was good at languages; Mickey did all the science, Clive did the geography and the—'

‘You, of course,' Caroline interrupted, ‘know who all these interesting people are.'

‘Sorry, they're other members of the gang. Luke didn't actually do anything except organise, which meant looking very fierce if it wasn't done on time. When I joined the gang, they elected me maths specialist, because all of them hated maths. I told them I was no good at it, but—' He shrugged. ‘Anyhow, the first time we were set maths homework, I went away and did it all, and brought it in so that everybody could copy it out, and then we handed it in.'

Duncan paused for a moment. ‘Well?' Caroline said. ‘Straight As, I trust.'

‘Not exactly, no. Actually, it was more like Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest. The thing was, it was equations, and since I was doing them for everybody, I took real care over it. And with equations, as you know, you can check them afterwards to see if they've come out right, and I was sure I'd got a hundred per cent. I was really pleased. But when we got our books back, we'd all scored zero. Luke was not pleased—'

‘Is this story going somewhere, or are we still doing background and character development? Because—'

‘Useless,' Ferris shouted, kicking the nearest chair over. He sounded like a dog barking. ‘Completely fucking useless.' He slammed his maths book down on the desk as if he was trying to put it out of its misery. ‘And bloody Whitworth's going to know we cheated. How could you be so
stupid
—?'

Ferris was scary enough at the best of times
.
That was the whole point. Nobody was going to give you a hard time if someone as scary as Ferris was your friend
.
This, though, wasn't the best of times for a scariness masterclass. For one thing, it was just the two of them. The rest of the gang had been sent away, told to wait by the tennis court while Ferris dealt with the situation. There was, of course, no point trying to argue the toss. You might as well plead with a mudslide or a volcano. But it's hard to stay still and quiet when the most terrifying boy in the school is coming towards you with that terrible, efficient look on his face.

‘I did my best, honest,' Duncan said. ‘I checked them over, three times. They all came out just right. Look, I'll show you if you—'

Not the right thing to say. ‘I don't care about the bloody equations. I couldn't give a stuff about them, otherwise I'd never have let
you
do them for me. That was coursework, you cretin, it goes towards our exam grades. Thanks to you—'

Duncan retreated behind a desk. All that achieved was to make it possible for Ferris to act very scary indeed. He picked the desk up and threw it an impressive distance across the room. Duncan had never seen him actually hit anybody; nothing had ever been allowed to get that far. Being hit hurts, sometimes quite a lot, but fear controls you.

‘I'm sorry,' Duncan said. ‘Really, really sorry. But—'

He'd backed up as far as he could go. There was a wall behind him, and it wasn't going to get out of the way just to let him escape. Ferris took the step that brought him within arm's reach.

He hesitated.

It was one of those moments . . . Once, when Duncan's dad had been driving them all home from gran's house, he'd swung out to overtake a slow lorry, and there'd been a car coming straight at them on the other side of the road. Duncan could remember the moment quite clearly. He'd thought,
we're going to hit the other car, very hard; probably we'll all be hurt or even killed
.
Oh well
. In that fraction of a second, before dad hauled his wheel one way and the other driver hauled his the other, and the two cars scraped past each other and the swearing started, Duncan had faced death and seen it for what it was: the end of everything, certainly, but so what? Because it had come briskly, efficiently, not dragging out or playing the scene for all it was worth, he'd understood what it actually meant; that tomorrow there'd be a world without the Hughes family in it, or there might not be a world at all. But if that was the worst that could happen - well, not so scary, after all. It was only later, when mum screamed and dad started yelling at her for screaming, and Duncan had burst into tears, and they'd pulled over onto the verge and there'd been several minutes when nobody was under control at all, that he'd been frightened. But then he'd been very frightened indeed, mostly because his parents were acting like lunatics or wild animals, which wasn't supposed to happen. It was as though they'd changed, from humans into something else. Monsters—