K-9 (26 page)

The Trophy

Tilly didn’t give Darkus the whole truth, nothing but the truth. She gave him enough to make him feel guilty, but not so much that it distracted him from the core of the case. She figured Darkus did the same thing to her regularly. He never gave her the full contents of his mind and frequently withheld his suspicions until he could present the solution to his eager audience on a plate.

The whole truth was that Tilly had managed to hack into Alexis’s mobile phone network and – using data acquired from cellular phone masts in the area – she had triangulated the almost exact location from where Alexis’s fateful last text was sent.

Using a relatively cheap handheld GPS device, Tilly followed the coordinates around the base of Parliament Hill, past various joggers and tourists, and a team of police officers picking through the undergrowth, searching for Alexis. She also overheard a handful of teenage thrill-seekers trudging through the woods, discussing the possibility of werewolves roaming the Heath, and what on earth they would do if they happened upon one.

For Tilly herself, the jury was out on the whole supernatural issue. But she’d brought a set of rosary beads that she’d inherited from her mother, just in case. They hadn’t saved her mum, but maybe they would save her. She’d also brought one of Miss Khan’s ultrasonic dog whistles – to cover all bases.

The path led Tilly 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 meadow. Tilly checked the GPS against a detailed map of Hampstead Heath and realised she was within metres of the spot where Alexis had sent the text message.

She looked around, surveying the landscape, doing a full 360-degree scan, then stopped, seeing a small opening in the bushes directly behind her, leading into the woods. She moved closer, spotting a long, blonde hair wound around one of the thorny bushes that guarded the opening. Tilly plucked it between her fingers and held it up to the dimming light.

‘I’d know that hair anywhere . . .’ she whispered to herself.

Tilly rolled up her sleeves and carefully pried open the thorny gateway to the woods, revealing a lonely clearing.

It was much darker in the shadow of the forest. And colder, and scarier. Tilly felt a chill run down her spine. She observed her surroundings, finding the muddy ground was demarcated by a wall of tall thickets.

She checked her phone and found the signal bars empty.

She suddenly wondered why on earth she was doing this, especially alone. What was she trying to prove? She didn’t care a hang about pushy blonde Alexis Bateman, who had quite clearly brought her fate upon herself, whatever fate it was. Was Tilly doing this in order to score points against Darkus? Or to earn his admiration and possibly martyr herself in the process?

The wind picked up, blowing the dead leaves through the air and somehow making the clearing even darker than it was already. Tilly shook her head and thought better of the whole thing.

‘Forget this –’ She turned around and marched towards the gap in the hedgerows, until . . .

A hoarse whisper stopped her – it was one word, spoken in a series of croaks, coming from somewhere deep in the wall of thickets. Tilly turned around and shuddered. She couldn’t work out what it was, or what it was saying. It was the sound of someone who’d had the life choked out of them.

‘Wa-a-aiit . . .’ it said, struggling to gain volume.

Tilly bent down and approached the sound, coming face-to-face with a tall barrier of branches, vines and leaves. She ran her hand over it and realised it was a makeshift door, fabricated to look like part of the wilderness.

‘Wa-a-aiiit, pleee-ase,’ the voice insisted.

‘Alexis?’ Tilly whispered through the wall.

‘Yeeee-es.’

Tilly grabbed hold of the door and pulled it to one side. A cloud of black flies swarmed out, hitting Tilly in the face and getting caught in her hair.

She screamed, swatting at them and spitting them out of her mouth, until the flies dispersed, the buzzing subsided and the full horror of the hunting lodge was revealed.

Tilly crept inside, seeing the ghoulish creatures hanging with their eye sockets gaping and their jaws yawning in pain. Tilly blocked out the nightmarish trophy gallery and focused instead on the small, still living creature huddled in the corner of the lodge.

At first, Tilly didn’t even think it was Alexis. This creature was too frail and old. Her clothes were shredded, her face was drawn into itself and her once beautiful blonde hair had completely faded to grey. Whatever she had witnessed had quite literally scared the life out of her – and aged her by decades.

‘Hee-elp . . . me . . .’ she whispered through cracked, dry lips.

‘It’s OK, I’m here to get you.’

Tilly checked her pulse. Alexis’s heart rate was over a hundred and fifty beats per minute but she was still breathing, just about. However, her wrists and ankles were bound with thick rope, wound so tightly that it had broken the skin. The rope was looped around two massive trees to ensure there was no escape.

Tilly instantly pulled a small metal gadget from her backpack and pressed the button on the top. Alexis visibly jumped as a blade shot out of the handle. Tilly angled the flick knife on the rope around her classmate’s wrist and started sawing through it. The outer strands began to fray but the rope was too thick. Tilly sawed faster, but it was no good.

Tilly checked her phone again but the signal bars were still empty. She tried to look out through the wall of thickets but the daylight was fading fast and they were too deep in the woods to cry out.

‘I need to go get help,’ said Tilly.

‘No!’ Alexis cried out. ‘Don’t leave me. Please-please-please-please. She’s coming back . . .’

‘Fiona Connelly?’

Alexis nodded quickly.

‘OK, but you’ll have to be patient.’

Alexis nodded and winced as Tilly angled the knife on the rope again and continued to saw.

Chapter 25

Bampot
(t
ranslation: person of unsound mind
)

Uncle Bill was walking on a cloud. Not only had he met the woman who might be the love of his life, but they appeared to share so many of the same interests. In the past few hours they had consumed almost a whole bottle of fine wine and three packets of choc­olate digestive biscuits. Several retrievers lay prostrate around Fiona’s living room. The sun was sinking in the sky, the conversation had never dried up for a moment, and he felt quite certain romance was just around the corner.

Then his secure phone rang and he glanced at the screen:
Alan Knightley
. He swiftly placed one of his exceptionally large hands over the display so as not to alert Fiona, who was sitting across from him with her legs neatly crossed.

‘Sorry, Fifi . . . It’s the office.’

‘I understand,’ she replied.

Bill glanced at his huge coat and homburg hat, which were draped over a chair nearby, and hoped he wouldn’t have to put them on again quite yet – perhaps not until taking a walk of shame to his waiting Ford saloon. Casting these thoughts aside, Bill palmed the phone and raised it to his ear.

‘Uncle Bill ’ere,’ he grunted. ‘Aye. Aye. Aye-aye . . . Aye.’ He lowered the phone, looking crestfallen. ‘As I suspected, Fifi. I’ve been called away on urgent business.’

‘What a shame,’ she purred. ‘I thought you might stay for
dessert
 . . .’

‘Well, I . . .’ Bill mumbled. If they’d consumed choc­olate digestives for their main course, he could only imagine what she had in store for dessert.

‘I was just going to pop upstairs,’ she added, ‘and slip into something more . . . comfortable.’

Bill’s cheeks inflated involuntarily. ‘Christ on a bike, zarrafakt.’

‘Are you all right, Monty?’

‘Nae problem, Fifi,’ he said, regulating his breathing. ‘One of mah men . . . is waiting . . . in a car ootside the gate. They’ll make sure yoo’re perfectly safe.’ He scooped up his heavy coat and hat and headed for the door, feeling positively woozy.

‘Wait . . .’

She grabbed Bill’s meaty arm and drew him into a lingering kiss on the lips.

‘Until we meet again,’ she whispered.

‘Mammy . . .’ Bill wheezed.

‘Sweet dreams,’ she responded and sent him on his way.

‘Aye.’ Bill backed out of the doorway, doffing his hat and nearly tripping backwards over Fiona’s Hunter boot collection. ‘Cheerio for nou.’ He half fell on to the gravel driveway as she closed the door behind him.

Bill straightened himself out, hoisted on his coat and hat and found himself all alone. The electric gates whirred open, ushering him out. He marched indignantly through them and scanned the street for the Ford saloon, feeling the sobering effects of the cold.

Behind him, the Knightleys emerged from the shadows, giving him a start.

‘Aye mah auntie!’

‘It’s OK, Bill,’ whispered Knightley, moving him out of sight. ‘We had to get you out of there to begin the next phase of the operation.’

‘What?’

‘Moby Dick’s parked just round the corner,’ added Darkus, holding Wilbur next to him on a short lead attached to the K-9 tactical vest. ‘They’re watching the building.’

‘What operation . . . ?’ asked Bill, still trying to regain his senses.

Darkus took out his secure phone, opened the email from Tilly and tapped on the link. An activity wheel revolved on the screen, as the signal was sent.

‘OK. Let’s hope she doesn’t disappoint,’ Darkus murmured.

He glanced up at the security camera pointing down on the gate. Its red light winked once, then went black. Darkus approached the biometric fingerprint sensor by the intercom. He gently pressed his forefinger against the pad and it illuminated green. The electric gates quietly whirred open, granting them access. Darkus led Wilbur through the gates and on to the driveway.

Knightley gave Bill an earpiece and put one in his own ear also. Then he handed the Scotsman a brown paper bag filled with coffee beans.

‘Would ye mind tellin’ me what’s going on?’ Bill demanded.

‘Ask
him
,’ said Knightley, nodding towards his son.

‘Dad and I are carrying them too,’ explained Darkus. ‘It’s to put our opponents off the scent.’

Darkus and Wilbur led the way, taking cover behind a tree and surveying the front of the Gothic-looking house. Knightley and Bill huddled behind them. A light flicked on in a second-floor bedroom surrounded by dense ivy and wisteria branches. Fiona entered the lit bedroom and quickly closed the thin voile curtains. Her silhouette moved casually back and forth across the room.

‘All right, Bill, it’s simple. Don’t let her out of your sight,’ said Darkus. ‘We’ll be in radio contact at all times. If she leaves that room, you must let us know immediately.’

‘I cannae see anything from doon here,’ complained Bill.

‘Then go a little higher,’ said Darkus, pointing at a drainpipe leading straight up past the bedroom window.

‘Aye, and then yer bum fell aff,’ blurted Bill, indicating that he thought Darkus was joking.

‘It’ll give you a bird’s-eye view,’ agreed Knightley.

The Scotsman raised his eyebrows. ‘This feels wrong,’ he muttered, then ambled off towards the drainpipe. ‘I could ne’er live with mah self.’

Bill grabbed hold of the drainpipe, then positioned his orthopaedic loafers on either side of it. He started breathing heavily, similar to a champion weightlifter prior to a raise. He tested his weight on the fittings, then miraculously began shuffling up the pipe at a surprising rate of speed.

The ivy and wisteria branches shook violently as he crawled up the side of the house, looking like he was threatening to pull the entire wall down.

Fiona walked to her window and peered between the curtains.

‘Hold on, Bill –’ Knightley whispered into his earpiece, as he and Darkus watched unseen from the shadows.

Fiona looked around, finding nothing of note, then left the window again.

‘All right, Bill. Proceed,’ instructed Knightley.

Bill continued his shuddering ascent, leaving a growing pile of leaves on the ground below him.

‘We don’t have much time,’ said Darkus and led his father briskly towards the front door of the house.

Wilbur whined anxiously, sniffing the air.

Knightley stopped his son’s arm. ‘OK. But would you mind telling me exactly what’s afoot here?’

‘It’s too early to say –’

‘Ah-ah,’ snapped Knightley. ‘I think it’s precisely the right time to say.’

‘OK,’ conceded Darkus. ‘On this rare occasion, you and I are in agreement. The lunar cycle does affect the tides, the elements, possibly even people’s emotions. Many things in fact. And I fear we will witness a terrifying transformation of some kind before the full moon.’

His father glanced up at the bedroom window. ‘You’re not telling me Fiona Connelly is a werewolf
 
. . . ?’ demanded Knightley. ‘You’re more certifiable than
I
am.’