Barking (32 page)

He stared at it. A bullet. That'd explain the holes in his jacket and the paper, but—

Fuck me, he thought. The popping noise. Somebody's shooting at me.

Just in time, Duncan managed to stop himself jumping up. If whoever it was intended to take another shot at him, he'd have done so by now. Besides, it didn't matter. They could hose him down with machine guns, and his werewolf skin would turn the bullets into so many flat copper discs. True, it was annoying, mildly disturbing even, to be caught in somebody's crossfire; but it wasn't his best suit and as for the newspaper—

So many flat
copper
discs. He remembered something and took another look at the tape-measure. The protruding back end of the bullet wasn't copper-coloured. More kind of silvery.

Jesus
, he thought, and dived under the table.

One, two, three seconds passed. No popping noises. He peered round a table leg. Everything seemed normal. People were drinking coffee, eating doughnuts; he watched their reflections in the big, no-longer-fashionable etched-glass mirror that covered the back wall. Nobody taking aim at him, or hurriedly reloading a gun, unscrewing a silencer or trying to hide something under a coat while scuttling furtively for the door. Just a bunch of office workers drinking coffee and eating stuff. He counted, and frowned; then, as he moved his head a little, he saw the lower half of the waitress approaching.

‘You all right?'

He scrambled back into his seat. ‘Dropped my fork,' he mumbled.

‘Would you like a refill?'

‘What?'

‘Coffee. Would you like—?'

‘Just the bill, please.'

You can send an Englishman cryptic notes, carried by crazed ex-dentists. You can lure him to inexplicable trysts and stand him up. You can shoot at him with silencers and silver bullets. Waste of time, if you're hoping to shatter his imperturbable Saxon calm. The only way you'll achieve that is to try and stick him for six pounds seventy-nine for a coffee, a sausage roll and a slice of caramel shortbread.

‘Excuse me,' he said, ‘but are you sure this is right?'

The waitress looked at him, and then at the bill. ‘Mphm.'

‘Oh.' He glanced at the sausage roll and the shortbread, both untouched. ‘Oh, all right, then.' He gave her a ten-pound note and she went away.

Explanations, he said to himself; but what remained of his mental faculties were getting bored with that game. Could be any one of a number of possibilities - she'd set him up, someone else had set him up, the bullet had been meant for someone else entirely, or else it was a novelty tape-measure designed to look like it had a bullet blasted into it, and he hadn't noticed when he picked it up. Did it, he asked himself as he scooped his change from the saucer and stood up, fucking well matter? No, it didn't. What mattered was getting the hell out of there before it happened again, perfectly rational explanation or no perfectly rational explanation. Also worth bearing in mind: the next time he got a life-or-death urgent summons from That Bitch, he was going to lock himself in the toilet with a good book and not come out for at least twelve hours. The only sensible course of action, really.

One last glance at the coffee-shop clientele: no masked gunmen to be seen. Thanks to his trusty tape-measure, no harm done. Even so: nearly seven quid for a coffee and a couple of snacks. Scowling horribly at the world, Duncan stuffed the caramel slice in his mouth, wrapped the sausage roll in a paper napkin, pocketed it, and left.

Back at the office, after he'd had a nice sit-down and a delayed fit of the shakes, he dropped by Luke's office. Luke was on the phone, talking loudly about Mareva injunctions, so he sat down and looked at the pictures on the wall: wildlife photographs - deer, antelope, gazelle, zebra. There was also a shiny brass photograph frame on his desk, but it was empty.

‘Duncan.' Luke had finished his call. ‘You look funny.'

Duncan fished in his pocket for the tape-measure. ‘This yours?'

Luke examined it. ‘No. Hang on, isn't that a—?'

Duncan nodded. He noticed that the sight of the silvery butt-end seemed to bother Luke. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘I was having a coffee in one of those Moondollars places. I think someone shot me.'

‘With—' Marked reluctance to say the words. Understandable, Duncan conceded.

‘I think so,' he replied. ‘It looks like sil—I mean, it's not a normal bullet, is it? They're made of copper or something, aren't they?'

‘Lead with a copper coating.' Luke was practically squirming away from it. ‘Which that isn't. What were you doing in a coffee place in the middle of the afternoon?'

Duncan could feel the truth inside him, hammering to get out. ‘Just felt like going out for a few minutes,' he replied, wondering if he sounded convincing.

‘So you weren't meeting anybody. I mean, nobody knew you were going to be there.'

Not so long ago, Duncan had believed that lying to his pack leader wasn't possible. ‘Wouldn't have thought so,' he said.

‘And was there anything odd going on? Apart from someone shooting at you.'

‘Well, they charged me seven quid for a coffee and a bit of cake.'

He'd meant it as a joke, but the look on Luke's face suggested he was more surprised about that than the murder attempt; not just surprised, more like disturbed. He scowled, crushing his eyebrows together (a duel to the death between two champion fighting caterpillars). Then he shook himself, smiled and said, ‘Well, anyhow, no harm done. Any assassination attempt you can tell your friends about can't be too much of a problem. It was probably mistaken identity. Turf war between crack gangs, something like that.'

Duncan looked at him. ‘Silver bullets?'

‘We're only assuming it's silver,' Luke replied briskly. ‘More likely it's some kind of nickel alloy. Like the crap they make ten-pence pieces out of. After all,' he added, with a quick sideways glance, ‘if nobody knew you were going to be there, it can't have been a planned ambush aimed at you specifically.'

A fat lot of help, in other words. Duncan slouched back to his office feeling vaguely betrayed, though he couldn't think of a logical reason for taking it that way. Of course, if he'd been a sensible, loyal pack member, he'd have told Luke the whole story; in which case, Luke would almost certainly have been able to tell him exactly what was going on and what to do to make it stop. But—

But.

But the fact was - uncomfortable, but needed to be faced - there wasn't anybody in the Ferris Gang who he felt he could talk to, and he was fairly sure he knew why. Luke had said it out loud to his face, and the others would be sure to take the same line: stay away from that vampire ex-wife of yours, she and her kind are nothing but trouble. Which was true, he didn't need to be told that. Excellent advice, but impractical; a bit like saying that the best way of avoiding death is not to be born in the first place.

Nobody here he could talk to, but he had a file. As soon as he was back in his office, he lugged out all the Bowden Allshapes files, stacked them up on his desk until they formed a barrier more than adequate for keeping the Picts out of Northumbria, and started to read.

Bowden Allshapes, deceased. According to the death certificate, Bowden Emma Allshapes, female (all that time he'd been plagued with the bloody file, and it had never occurred to him to wonder whether the dear departed was a he or a she) was born on 17 January 1912, and died on 5 November 2002. Cause of death: old age. Turning to the schedule of assets: just as well she hadn't been able to take it with her, because she'd have needed a fleet of lorries. The late Ms Allshapes had been seriously loaded: land, securities, furniture and art, cash money. Her heirs were all off-relations, scattered across the globe (Australia, Canada, New Guinea, Wisconsin, Penang; name a time zone, there was an Allshapes in it). What else, for crying out loud? She'd lived in a zonking great big house in Surrey; for a moment Duncan caught his breath, but it proved to be a false alarm. The address was on the Surrey-Hampshire border, a long way away from where he'd met the unicorn.

This was getting him nowhere, and Duncan was thirsty and hot. Biting the heads off a few pencils helped a little. He threw the corpses in the bin - all but one, which he pocketed. Of course (he reflected, chewing wood splinters) it hadn't been his file to begin with. He'd inherited it from Petula de Soto, who'd been sacked the year after he'd joined Craven Ettins. She'd done most of the actual work, pretty much everything bar drawing up the accounts. Accordingly, she might just have met some of the family. He checked the correspondence clip, but there were no notes of meetings. It had all been phone calls, letters and e-mails; hardly surprising, given the wide dispersal of the Allshapes clan.

Yes, but at the very least there must've been a funeral, which at least some of the Allshapes must've attended. Splendid. Now, where there's a funeral, there's always an undertaker's bill. He wasn't quite sure what it could tell him, but he might as well check it out. He pulled out the documents folder and began to riffle.

‘Busy?'

He hadn't heard Pete come in. ‘Nothing urgent,' he muttered. ‘Was there something?'

Pete looked away. ‘Thought I'd drop by for a chat, that's all. If you're in the middle of something, I'll clear off and leave you in peace.'

Said almost hopefully, as though Pete didn't want to be there and would be pleased to be told to go away. Duncan stuffed the papers back in the folder and closed the lid.

‘I gather you had a bit of an adventure.'

Surprised, no; disappointed, a tad. Not Pete's fault, really. If Luke had ordered him to investigate, he'd have had no choice but to obey.
Duncan's hiding something, go and find out what it is
. ‘Sort of,' Duncan replied casually. ‘Though the more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to think I've got hold of the wrong end of the stick. I don't think Luke believes anyone was actually trying to kill me,' he added casually.'I rather got the impression he thinks I was being paranoid.'

Pete nodded slowly. ‘That's what he told me,' he said.

‘Well, there you go. I mean, if there was somebody out to get us, Luke'd know about it, wouldn't he?'

‘Bound to.'

Duncan yawned ostentatiously. ‘He seemed more surprised that they charged me seven-odd quid for a tea and a sausage roll.'

‘Well, he would be.' Pete was frowning curiously at him. ‘We don't pay for drinks, remember.'

Years ago, Duncan had been dragged along to visit some boring old relative who built model steam engines in his garage. He recalled the tedious explanation of how the stupid things worked: a wheel went round and round, driving a shrubbery of little cogs and gears. If you pressed a little lever, the mechanism dropped into place and the piston started buzzing up and down, like the back legs of a demented grasshopper. The lever made a distinctive click; and while Pete was talking, Duncan was sure he'd heard that same noise in the back of his mind. It was perfectly true: they went to the pub each lunchtime, drank several gallons of beer, munched at least an outer of pork scratchings and dry roasted peanuts, and nobody had ever asked them for money.

‘I thought that was just pubs,' he gabbled.

‘And restaurants, pizza places, chippies; anywhere that does food and drink.'

‘Even Moondollars?'

‘Yeah, why not?'

Duncan ransacked his mind for a justification for that last question. ‘Well,' he said, ‘they're American, aren't they?'

‘Yes. What's that got to do with it?'

Nothing, obviously. ‘Do they have werewolves in America?' he asked. Not that he cared, but he desperately wanted to buy thinking time. ‘I suppose they must do, if we've got them over here. I never thought of that; werewolves all over the world.'

Pete looked at him suspiciously. ‘You're hiding something,' he said.'You shouldn't be able to do that.'

Not you as well
. ‘Me? No. Open book, honest. After all,' he added, much too quickly, ‘if I was in some kind of trouble, you lot'd be the first ones I'd tell.'

‘Not if it was something you didn't want us to know about.'

Go away
. ‘Sure. Like what?'

‘Something to do with - oh, I don't know. Money, girls, some nasty personal habit. The point is,' Pete went on, ‘it shouldn't be possible. We share stuff, OK?'

‘Sure, Pete. Of course.'

‘Good. So, how are you doing it?'

‘I'm not.'

There are such moments; you're lying to someone, he knows it but can't quite bring himself to accuse you. There shouldn't be, but there are. ‘That's all right, then,' Pete grunted. ‘In that case, I'll let you get on with what you're doing.'

‘Estate accounts. Very boring stuff.'

‘Enjoy.' Pete stopped at the door. ‘See you at the run tonight.'

Oh, that. He wasn't in the mood; maybe he could make an excuse . . . And then he realised. It was still full moon. All that to go through, all over again—

Well, his mother had been right all along. Never sticks to anything, gets bored so easily; one minute it's model trains, then it's computers, next week it'll be something else. So: he was tired of being a werewolf, after so short a time. He didn't want to play any more.

No, he argued with himself, it's not the magnificent heightened senses and superpowers and all that stuff. It's not even the changing into an animal, because that's great. It's them: Luke, Pete, the bloody Ferris Gang. I was right to leave them and wrong to come back. If only I can get away from them for good; New Mexico—