‘Oh, Jesus,’ Paula gasped. ‘Robert! What the hell are you doing here? Get him off me, will you? I’m freezing to death.’
‘Maybe that’d be the best thing all round,’ Robert Crosbie said. ‘If you freeze to death underneath Hardy, who’s found dead with a bullet in the back of his neck.’
‘Don’t be an idiot. Tell him to get off me.’
I could smell him close behind me but I couldn’t tell exactly where he was. He’d moved the gun a fraction so that I wasn’t sure where it was either.
‘Shut up, bitch!’ His voice was nasally harsh. ‘I knew he’d come and anyone with half a brain’d know a fucking dog wouldn’t stop him. If it was anything like the first Rudi, the world’s a better place for it being dead.’
Fury beneath me-squealing, wriggling, heaving.
‘I can’t hold her, Crosbie,’ I said.
He laughed. ‘You’ll hold her, and you’ll do exactly as you said. Get her scarf and tie her up.’
‘Robert!’
She protested but it was me he swiped with the gun. I felt the muzzle cut my scalp and I wanted to get up and take him on, but I didn’t. Tying her up seemed like a good idea. I yanked the scarf free and made a good job of it, lashing her wrists together and making the knots hard and tight. I risked a glance behind me as I did it, but Robert was in control. He’d backed off a metre and his right hand was nicely extended and balanced.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘She’s secure.’
‘Right. Now take off your parka.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t talk, just do it. I learned this in the Reserves. Use the environment to make your enemy as uncomfortable as possible. I’d call this environment cold, wouldn’t you? Strip it off! Left arm first.’
I did it slowly, trying to give myself time to resolve a dilemma. If he felt the weight of the parka he’d know there was a gun in it. I’d only seen his gun out of the corner of my eye, but it might have been a. 38 which meant it might be mine. And that was a one-shot gun at best. Unwise to give him another eight rounds. I slipped out of the parka and threw it away. It landed noiselessly in the grass.
‘Now get off her.’
I eased myself up and turned slowly to face him. He was wearing a balaclava, padded jacket and thick pants tucked into fur-lined boots. The pistol was scarcely visible in his gloved hand. Maybe a. 38, and maybe mine, but only maybe.
He moved very quickly. Before I had time to think about evasion or attack he’d slipped behind Paula and hauled her to her feet. The pistol was jammed into her ear.
‘She’s what you came to find, isn’t she? What you’ll get paid for?’
‘Yes.’
‘Bastard!’ Paula hissed, but at which one of us it was impossible to tell.
‘Well then, do as I say or all you’ll give that old bastard is another funeral to go to. Did you kill the dog, Hardy?’
I was acutely aware of the woman standing like a statue in Crosbie’s grip. Another dilemma. If I admitted to killing the dog she’d almost certainly react and he’d kill her.
‘What dog?’ I said.
Crosbie chuckled. ‘She said you were covered with dog’s blood.’
I was shivering violently. The wind was still blowing hard and without the parka I felt as if it was freezing my marrow. I slapped my arms against my sides. ‘This is crazy,’ I said. ‘Let me get my coat.’
Crosbie’s gun hand didn’t move a millimetre which showed me that he knew what he was doing.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I think we’ll go to the kennels. Paula likes dogs so much, let’s see how she likes being in a kennel.’
He laughed and nudged Paula into movement. We walked slowly along a cement path away from the house, away from my Colt, towards madness. Paula went without a struggle, which surprised me. The thought came to me that it was all an act, something being staged by the two of them to control me. It was a tempting thought, but I had to reject it. Crosbie’s voice and the grip he held Paula in were for real. Accepting that, I began to worry even more. My. 38 has a very light action; if Crosbie stumbled or sneezed, Paula could be history. I thought of telling him so, but the calm assurance of his movements was one of the things that prevented me. Another was the certainty that fear would show in my voice. I was very scared.
And cold. The wind seemed to be separating my ribs and blowing through the gaps. I wrapped my arms around my chest and kept moving. The path ended at a long low building, something like a stable. It was made of brick and divided into compartments, each with a heavy grill gate about a metre high. Above the gates, reaching to the roof, the front of each compartment was made of timber. There looked to be a dozen or so of these stalls; the gates of the first three stood open.
Crosbie stopped at the first gate. ‘Bend over, Hardy, and get in there.’
‘No,’ Paula said. ‘That’s Rudi’s house.’
‘Do it, Hardy. Or I swear I’ll kill her on the spot.’
It was now or never. I had to do something. ‘You won’t kill her.’
‘I’ve killed three people already. What difference will one more make? Or two for that matter.’
I bent and turned slightly, ready to jump at him, but he was still too far away and too poised. ‘I’ll freeze to death in there.’
Again the laugh, sounding slightly crazy now. ‘Old Rudi must’ve had a blanket. Might be a few fleas in it but you’ll be OK. Move!’
I bent double and went through the gate. He kicked it closed and I heard a lock click solidly into place. There was a scuffling noise and the sound of a slap. Then his boot hit the next gate and the lock engaged. I crouched by the gate, looking out at the bricked yard in front of the kennels. Crosbie had put the gun away somewhere and was straightening his clothes.
He looked extremely pleased with himself. I suppose he had a right to be.
‘How did you get here, Hardy?’
‘I flew.’
He disappeared from my sight. I heard a sound I couldn’t interpret and then a stream of icy water hit me in the chest. I banged my head on the low roof as I retreated to the back of the kennel and Crosbie played the hose through the grill, searching for me. I tripped over something on the concrete floor and fell. My head hit the brick wall.
‘Now you are in trouble. I think I’ve wet your blanket.’
‘Robert, Robert, don’t leave me here, please. I’ll do anything you say.’ Paula’s voice trembled and broke.
Crosbie chuckled. ‘You’re a lousy actress, Paula. You always were. You never fooled anyone except that fucking father of yours.’
Paula moaned. ‘If only I had Rudi. I’d like to watch him eat your eyes.’
‘Your cell-mate killed him, remember? I think I’d better go and collect your vehicle, Hardy. You’re a predictable sort of bloke. I think I’ll be able to find it.’
‘I’ll kill you, Robert. I swear I’ll kill you.’
‘You had your try at killing, Paula. You fucked it up the way you fuck up everything. Just wait around a while, I might let you kill Mr Hardy here.’
He threw the hose down and stamped off the way we’d come. My shirt and pants were wet and the cold was numbing me. I flapped my arms and skinned the knuckles of my left hand on the bricks. My head hurt, my back hurt and my pride was grovelling in the dirt somewhere. Bent over, I explored the kennel. It was solid brick; the timber planks in the front were morticed into the brick pillars. The iron roof had been nailed down by an expert, there was no give in it at all. In the back wall there was a section of thick glass bricks to admit light. They were as solidly mortared as the rest of the structure. I picked up the sodden blanket and wrapped it around my shoulder. It smelt of dog, but it afforded some warmth.
‘Paula.’
No answer.
‘Paula, talk to me. He’s crazy. You know that. Tell me just one thing. Is that my gun he’s got?’
‘What does it matter, arsehole?’
‘It matters. If it’s my gun it’s probably only got one bullet in it. See the point?’
Even through her anger she couldn’t fail to understand that.
‘It could be your gun. I left it in my car. Robert might have found it. It could be the gun I tried to kill my father with.’
‘We won’t go into that now.’ I rattled the gate to my cage. ‘Christ, these things are solid. Why did they have to build them so strong?’
‘You think any old shitty place’ll do for animals, don’t you? You fucker.’
‘Paula, shut up! We have to think of something. You heard him, he’s killed three people. When did he turn up here anyway? I take it you’ve been here since you…’
‘Since I shot Dad. Yes. I don’t know when he got here. The first I knew was when he put that fucking gun to your dumb head. This is a big place, there’s a couple of other buildings to shelter in. What three people did he kill? Who’s dead?’
The flat, uninvolved way she spoke worried me. It was as if she’d lost interest in the human race. It was hard to know how to answer. Instinct told me to hedge.
‘What was your connection with Patrick Lamberte? I saw a photo you took of him. You’d… disfigured it.’
‘I hate him! Oh, he was charming for a while. We came out here and looked over the place. And then do you know what he did? He threw the man who was caring for the animals here out and he let the dogs die. Ten of them. A couple got loose and went wild, after being starved till they went mad. I’ve loathed him ever since then.’
‘You took a picture of him here, and did a painting.’
‘That was when he was being nice. When he first bought this place. I thought he was going to preserve it, make it happy again and take care of the dogs…’
She broke off and sobbed. I shivered in my wet blanket. The hose, still running water, was lying on the bricks close to the gate. I wondered if I could stick my arm through and get it. What was the point?
‘Lamberte’s dead,’ I said. ‘He died in a fire up at Mount Victoria. Karen Livermore died with him. Remember Karen?’
‘You’re pronouncing it wrongly,’ she said dully. ‘It’s Kah-ren. Sure I remember her. Stupid to the bone, like her mother. Did Robert kill them? Good. Who else, Hardy? This is good. Who else? I’ll bet it wasn’t Verity. Not Verity.’
‘Why d’you say that?’ I was straining my ears for the sound of a motor which is a hard thing to do when your teeth are chattering violently.
‘Robert wanted to fuck all of us-me, Kah-ren, his real sister Nadia. Everyone except Verity. He tried, too. I had to fight him off a couple of times. Nasty, pimply little twerp. He was at it again recently, too.’
I was beginning to get a handle on it at long last. Sir Phillip Wilberforce and his wives had brewed up a deadly mixture. ‘What was special about Verity?’
‘She hated Dad as much as Robert did. Robert hated his own father, too, but Verity loved hers like I…’
‘I think he killed Nadia.’ I hadn’t meant to articulate the thought, but it came out anyway.
‘Jesus, no,’
‘You were going to say that you loved your father. Why did you shoot him?’
We were both up at the front of our stalls, near the gates, gripping the bars and staring out at the moonlit brick-paved yard. I moved sideways until I was separated from her only by the width of a brick wall.
‘I’m insane,’ she whispered. ‘Paranoiac, depressive, schizophrenic. My life is a running stream of shit. I’ve tried… I’ve tried lots of things. I tried to talk to people. I tried. I wanted to be interested in them. Do you know why I had to leave Lindfield?’
‘No.’
‘The council passed a law that you couldn’t have more than one dog.’
I didn’t say anything and she went on, ‘But I just couldn’t… cope with things. I was interested in you, but you turned out to be another bastard. Just another bastard. Aiming your fucking gun at that poor dog. I went to see Dad to ask him to buy this place for me. I was so happy here. I could have got it going again, taken care of the dogs. Dogs are the only creatures…’
‘Paula,’ I said. Your father hired me to find you. He loves you.’
‘He said no. He didn’t understand. I had your gun and I shot him.’ Her voice mounted into a scream of pain and rage. ‘I’d shoot you if I could. Oh, I’d shoot you, you murderer. You killed my beautiful dog. We would have been so happy here, Rudi and me. We were happy. He caught rabbits and…’
My patience gave way. I rattled the bars trying to pull them from the mortar. Not a chance. I didn’t want to die in a dog kennel. I cursed her and her father and every other member of her family. I yelled at her that they were all a pack of degenerates. She laughed and agreed.
‘You killed my darling Rudi.’
The blanket had slipped from my shoulders during my outburst. I was cold and shivering; my skinned knuckles throbbed and my bruised and bleeding head ached. I sat down on the cold concrete, exhausted and drained. ‘He sprang at me like a fucking tiger,’ I said. ‘That big yellow bastard was a killer and it was a matter of me or him.’
‘What did you say?’
‘You heard me. I had to kill him. I didn’t like doing it but I had no choice.’
‘What did you call him? ’
‘A tiger, a yellow…’
Her voice, which had been harsh and off-key, became soft, melodic. ‘Rudi’s not yellow,’ she said. ‘He’s a beautiful black and tan.’