He stopped outside the police station, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Decision made, he got out and went up to the front door and pounded it with the side of his fist. Roger the dog responded as before, barking angrily. Flynn kept up the pounding, standing back and checking the windows for any signs of Tom avoiding him. Nothing happened. The dog, from somewhere inside the house, continued to bark.
Flynn then saw there were tyre tracks and footprints in the snow at the garage door, almost filled in again by the snowfall. He walked across to the garage, turned the handle and found it to be unlocked. He pushed open the up-and-over door, which rose easily on its runners and revealed an empty space. Tom’s car had gone and the tracks had obviously been made by the vehicle reversing out down the drive. Maybe he had gone to work.
Flynn stepped into the garage and saw there was actually an inner door at the back that led through to the house, into the kitchen. He went to it and heard the snuffling of the dog at the gap along the bottom of the door. Flynn’s hand went to the handle, turning it slowly, opening it just a crack and peeking through, seeing the dog’s eye.
‘Roger,’ he cooed softly. ‘Roger… it’s me, Flynnie.’ The dog reacted by going frighteningly still. He opened the door another inch. ‘Hiya, Roger… good lad.’ The dog shuffled back a few inches, its eyes watching Flynn intently. Its hackles were up and for an old dog, it looked nasty to Flynn. ‘Roger, good lad… it’s me… remember me?’
Roger’s ears twitched uncertainly, the beast not knowing what to do — attack or roll over and expose its tummy.
Flynn pushed the door open a little further then extended his hand, not too enticingly he hoped. He saw that it would just about fit into Roger’s old jaws very nicely, like a T-bone steak. ‘Good lad, come on.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘That’s a boy…’ Roger blinked, his tail wagged uncertainly, his ears flickering. Flynn opened the door a little further, keeping one hand on the knob, ready to slam it shut if necessary. ‘Come on, it’s Flynnie…’
Then, as if the dog was shedding a raincoat, his whole demeanour changed and he walked forward, head lowered, tail a-wag, ears back, submissive. Flynn was top dog. He patted him on the head, scratched his ears, then took the risk of fully opening the door and stepping into the kitchen. He squatted low, eyes level, and gave Roger a few hearty slaps, watching for any change of mind, but it looked as though Roger was going to do the decent thing — and not rip Flynn’s throat out.
‘Where’s your mum?’ Flynn asked. Roger’s ears perked up and the big bushy tail wagged enthusiastically. ‘Let’s find her, shall we?’ Flynn stood up and called out Tom’s name — just in case. There was no reply. ‘Come on,’ he said to Roger and walked out of the kitchen, down the hall and into the office.
A quick search did not reveal very much but it did give him some information. A photograph on the wall showed Cathy standing next to a vehicle against the backdrop of the police house. New cop taking up a new beat, Flynn guessed, and the vehicle in question was a short-wheelbase Mitsubishi Shogun, probably the one she used for work and pleasure, part paid for by the county, part paid for by her.
He took out his mobile phone, thinking he would try Cathy’s number again, but there was no signal. He picked up the phone on the desk and called it instead, but there was no reply other than the automated response that told him no one was available. He called another number.
‘Jerry, old mate…’ Flynn heard a groan at the other end of the line. ‘Sorry to bother you again so soon.’
‘You are going to get me sacked,’ Jerry Tope said.
‘Just a teensy favour.’
‘Tch!’
‘Knew you’d understand. Just check Cathy James’s duty states again, will you?’ There was a deep sigh and the tapping of computer keys.
‘Rest day, like I said.’
‘And Tom James?’
More tapping. ‘Nine-five. That it?’ Tope asked hopefully.
‘Can you get into the computerized incident logs for Kendleton up in Northern Division? Course you can.’ Another very pissed-off sigh. ‘For yesterday. Can you see if a poacher was reported on land at Mallowdale House?’
Flynn waited. ‘Nothing,’ Tope said.
‘So she didn’t call it in, then?’ Flynn mused out loud, frowning.
‘What?’ Jerry asked.
‘Nothing — thanks matey.’ Flynn was about to hang up when he thought he heard Tope saying something more. ‘What was that?’
‘I just want to confirm something.’
‘What would that be?’
‘Are you talking about Mallowdale House in Kendleton?’
‘Yes.’
‘I assume you know who lives there?’
‘Unfriendly people, I gather. Lord of the manor, I suppose. Shoots commoners just as soon as look at them.’
‘Not quite. An OC target,’ Tope said. ‘A very big OC target.’
‘Organized crime as in…?’
‘You didn’t hear this from me.’
‘Just tell me.’
‘Jack Vincent.’
Flynn’s brain cogs whirred. ‘No bells,’ he admitted.
‘Rich, connected, usually operates down below the radar, business fronts mainly in haulage and construction.’
‘Drugs?’
‘Big style. Came into our sights say three years ago.’
‘Which is why I don’t know him.’
‘And that’s all I’m saying — especially on an open line.’
‘I happen to be sitting in Cathy James’s office, using her phone, buddy.’
‘Why the hell are you asking me what shift she’s working, then?’
‘Because she isn’t here. I broke in.’ Flynn hung up quickly, smiling at the wind-up. Then he leaned forward and looked at the message logs, as he thought this through. He knew it wouldn’t be unusual for a deployment at a rural station not to be logged immediately with the control room, although eventually it would be; nor was it unusual for a rural beat officer to turn out on a rest day. That was the downside that came with working a rural beat, you were at the behest of the community 24/7 and rest days were a luxury. Having said that, Flynn would have expected Cathy to inform control room that she was attending the report of a poacher, if only from a health and safety perspective. He frowned, flicked idly through a few days’ worth of messages, some handwritten, others word processed, and realized with shock that he’d made a very big assumption about something. He took out the now very crumpled message he’d stolen earlier that day from the top of the pad, straightened it out and re-read it.
Somehow they managed to make it back up the steep hillside to the track, Henry taking Donaldson’s weight and half lifting, half dragging him. By the time they were back on the narrow track, Henry was seriously exhausted. He settled the big man down and re-checked the mobile phones, shaking his head angrily, again resisting the compulsion to fling the useless items into the snow when they showed no signal.
‘I reckon we’ve got about two miles to go, max, before we hit the village. By my estimation we should be pretty close to an unused quarry which we’ll skirt around and from there we should be able to find a decent road down to the main road, then we’ll be near the village.’
‘Is this good news?’
‘It’s all good news. How’s the foot, ankle, whatever?’
‘I don’t think it’s broken, but it’s a bad sprain.’
‘So it might as well be broken?’
Donaldson shrugged helplessly. ‘Guess so.’
‘We’ll do it bit by bit, yard by yard, eh?’ He patted Donaldson’s shoulder, dreading how hard this was going to be. Henry was big and strong enough, but Donaldson was bigger and heavier and the prospect of keeping him upright for the next two miles across treacherous terrain and against the weather did not fill Henry with glee. The drag back up the hill, only a matter of fifty metres, had been tough enough. ‘All I ask is that you don’t go on any unauthorized excursions again,’ Henry said.