Walking the Dog Read online

  I called him and explained what I wanted.

  “You’re fishing in bloody deep waters, Mr Booth,“ he told me. “I don’t know about this Travers geezer (Travers was the civil servant) but Charles Brownlock, MP, is a right nasty bastard. And as for Renfrew, you’ve only got to read that rag he calls a paper to know what he’s about. Bloody thing ain’t nothing but porn and attacks on decent people. If you go after him and he finds out, your name will be splashed all over that scandal sheet. Probably accuse you of cheating the taxpayer and throw in some allegations about child-abuse or drugs for good measure. You must remember what he did to Mr Young?”

  I did remember but somehow it didn’t matter what happened to my reputation. Three weeks before it would have bothered me. It didn’t any more. The situation was too awful to let small things like personal reputation get in the way. Anyway, if he were involved, he wouldn’t be in any position to blacken anybody’s name for quite some time to come, if all went according to plan.

  Bernie agreed that he would do some ‘devilling.’ He promised to get back to me as soon as he had something but said I wasn’t to hold my breath. I reported the conversation back to the others and we agreed to let things take their course. There was always the chance that Special Branch would find the shipment before Bernie or his pals dug up anything interesting. All we could do was ‘hurry up and wait’ – as the saying goes.

  Angela, Bill and I walked the dogs. Bill was determined to get Magic to act like a proper retriever but he had little luck. I told him Magic was simply a disgrace to his breed. He was simply too daft to get the hang of it. He treated the whole thing as a huge game. He’d fetch the stick Bill hurled far out into the sea but as soon as Bill approached him to pick it up, Magic would grab it again and be off down the beach. It was hilarious to watch. Bill was getting more and more and frustrated. Just at the point we thought Bill was ready to explode, Magic would drop the stick at his feet. He wanted Bill to throw it again and start off another round of ‘tease the human.’ Angela and I fell about laughing. The look of controlled fury on Bill’s face contrasted perfectly with Magic’s daft grin. He has this habit of curling his upper lip back to expose his teeth. It’s supposed to be a sign of canine intelligence but I reckon Magic was the exception that proved the rule.

  It was a dull, dampish morning with curtains of rain sweeping across the flat grey sea. All the rain seemed to be falling a mile or two offshore so we were spared a soaking. Even so, the damp was penetrating and with it came the cold. We were glad to be back in the warm and we shook out our coats and settled ourselves by the fire. It was far too early to expect to hear from Bernie and there wasn’t much else we could do until we had the missing information. Angela decided to start work on a new sculpture so I went along to watch her. It is one thing hearing a process described but quite another to see it put into action.

  She started to make some sketches of Trotsky. She sketched quickly. She never drew the whole dog, just portions of his anatomy; the curve of his leg, the line of his shoulders and the like. Then she did his face and captured him perfectly. One never thinks of sculptors as being draftsmen but she had real talent. I found myself staring at Trotsky’s face on the paper. She had caught his expression perfectly, slightly disdainful but alert. The artist’s model wandered over as to have a look for himself. He put his head on Angela’s knee and gazed at her soulfully. After a minute or two of ear-scratching he decided his beauty had been sufficiently recognised and had received sufficient compliments for him to go back to his position away from the fire. In all truth he had probably just got too hot but it is easy to ascribe human reasoning to a dog like Trotsky, he’s so damned bright.

  Once Angela had made enough sketches, we went through to the studio and she began to make the clay model that would eventually form the mould. She worked quickly at first, throwing great handfuls of clay into position and roughly shaping them with her hands. Eventually she had a Trotsky-sized mass of wet clay that was only very roughly the shape of a dog. Now things slowed as she shaped and scraped until the outline of a husky was unmistakeable. Suddenly she said something in Estonian that didn’t need translation and crumpled the whole thing back into a lump of shapeless clay. She smiled at me ruefully.

  “It was the wrong proportions.”

  She started over, moistening the clay and her hands from a wooden tub of water she kept nearby for the purpose.

  It was obviously very physical work and soon beads of perspiration appeared on her forehead and upper lip. She paused long enough to strip off her sweater and continued. She was wearing a sleeveless sort of vest under the sweater and now I could see the play of her muscles as she kneaded and pounded at the clay. It was a fascinating sight and I was utterly enrapt. Once more a recognisable husky appeared out of the clay. It was almost as if there was a real dog inside, pushing his way out through the clinging earth.

  Angela’s face was a study in concentration. She didn’t frown as some do. Her expression was grave, her eyes focussed and lively. I felt I could almost see the force flowing out of her hands into the model, bending the wet clay to her will. At length she was satisfied. She had produced a replica of Trotsky in size and outline. Now she began the delicate task of sculpting the detail. She worked with what appeared to be a cross between a spatula and a scalpel. Soon I could see Trotsky’s face appearing under her hands. It was perfect. She captured the flare of his nostrils and the way his blunt muzzle sort of blended into the rest of his broad face. She worked faster; the clay was beginning to dry. I knew this was the critical time.

  We had been in the studio for nearly six hours without exchanging more than a handful of words. The time had flown by. I had risen only once to turn on the lights as dusk fell. I heard the others making dinner but felt no hunger myself. I was utterly absorbed watching the woman I loved doing the thing she was created for. At long last she stood back and plunged her hands in the water butt to wash away the clay. Her face was streaked in sweat and her arms must have been aching like the devil but she showed no signs of slacking.

  “Now we must fire the model,” she said and strode across to the electric kiln to bring it up to the required temperature.

  Her skin was glowing and her eyes danced with a bright and feverish light. She was exalted, lit by the creative fire within. Strangely, I didn’t feel excluded. I felt a part of something wonderful and, to me, utterly mysterious. I had watched some ancient esoteric rite, had seen the goddess summoned and the sacrifice performed. It was, in short, like magic. Angela stalked the model she had made. She stared from all angles, moving closer once or twice to administer the finest of finishing touches. At last she pronounced herself satisfied and asked me to assist in moving the model on its specially designed little trolley into the kiln.

  “Don’t touch it,” she warned me, “push it by the base. Slowly, slowly!”

  We eased the model into the kiln and she gently shut the door.

  “Even the draft from that door can disturb it,” she said. The firing was to be slow at a low temperature.

  If the heat was too fierce, we ran the risk that the clay would shatter or be too brittle.

  “Now we wait.”

  Angela smiled at me and came to rest her head against my chest. I could feel the tension in her back and shoulders so I made her sit in the chair from where I had watched her and began to massage her. Her singlet was soaked in perspiration and she stripped it off. I used my fingers to prod and pummel the knotted muscles and watched her visibly begin to unwind. Her fair skin was smooth and silky to the touch.

  She got up once to dim the lights and then slid back into the chair.

  “Where were we?”

  She murmured dreamily and looked back at me, her eyes soft now, the fierce light dimmed to a residual glow. The depth of my feeling for her consumed me, could there ever have been a more wonderful creature? I moved around the chair and encouraged her gently to lie back. I began to work on her shoulders at the front and then switched my at
tention to the corded muscles of her stomach. It was easy to understand now how she remained so firm and toned. The effort expended had been more than Steph could have managed in a month of workouts. “My legs, also, Martin, please, “ she said and obliged by lifting her hips so I could ease off her jeans. I went and locked the studio door and returned to start work on her in earnest.

  I started at her feet, manipulating each of her toes and massaging the soft balls of flesh beneath each one in turn. She sighed dreamily as I squeezed the insteps of her feet and stroked my thumbs over the soles of her feet. Then I took each leg in turn. I rubbed her calf muscles and kneaded my hands deep into their softness. She was utterly relaxed now, looking back at me with hooded eyes. When my hands reached her thighs, her legs fell open and I worked my way into the soft tissue of her inner thighs. She shifted her bottom forwards in the chair and grinned at me. I leaned up to kiss her lightly on the nose.

  “Don’t stop now,” she said.

  I used a lighter touch to stroke her thighs and gently rubbed the backs of her legs, lifting each one in turn. I was conscious now of the musky scent of her body. Little tufts of pubic hair were showing each side of the crotch of her panties and I made a show of tucking them back in, not quite but almost, touching her sex in the process. We were both now well aware of the game and were playing it with all our might. Her eyes had a misty cast now and a languorous smile played about her full lips; she moistened them with a flick of her tongue and I felt my mouth go dry. I stroked her hips, easing her panties down just a fraction so her pubes just showed above the waistband. Then I worked on her abdominal muscles, gently pressing my thumbs into her yielding flesh. I leaned forwards and flicked my tongue into the sweet hollow of her bellybutton. She sighed deeply and stroked my hair as I trailed kisses over her stomach and chest, pulling up short of her swelling breasts that seemed to be engaged in battle with the straining fabric of her bra.

  Skipping over her bra, I kissed the swelling upper slopes of her breasts and nibbled softly at her neck. I climbed her body like a vine, nuzzled her ears and then our mouths sought each other and we kissed slowly and deeply, our tongues wrestling and competing. I slipped my hands behind her and, after a brief fumble, unhooked her bra. She eased it off with a shrugging motion. Her nipples stood out proudly. I wet my finger and circled it round and round her areola. Her breasts seem to swell visibly under my hands and she arched her back to offer more of them to my touch. Still I stayed away from her nipples and placed a line of silken kisses on the underside of each breast. Each time I would approach her nipples but shy away at the last minute, giving the barest flick with the tip of my tongue.

  Her skin had the tangy taste of salt and I covered every exposed inch with little licks and kisses. I could tell I was really getting to her and her hips began a slow undulating dance of their own. I made a sudden grab then and captured both her breasts in my two hands, stroking my thumbs over the rock-hard tips and she gasped. I caught her breast in my mouth and sucked in as much as I could cram into my eager mouth, flicking her nipple with rapid strokes of my tongue. At the same time I pushed her panties to one side and slipped first one and then two fingers into her wetness. She bucked against my hand and I rotated it back and forth against the swollen nub of her clit. All the while I was sucking on one breast and cupping the other in my free hand. She started to come and I dived between her legs to suck on her clitoris. This drove her over the top and she grabbed my head, pulling my face hard into the junction of her thighs.

  She seemed to be coming non-stop. Her hips were rearing and gyrating furiously and her fingers tore at my hair so hard it made it my eyes water. At length, she pushed me away.

  “No more, please, I can’t stand any more, my Martin,”

  Her skin was flushed and there were bright pink patches at her throat and on her cheeks. Her eyes were wild and unfocussed and her hair was matted with a fresh batch of perspiration. I don’t think I have ever felt so pleased with myself. There is something totally marvellous about pleasing one’s lover to the point of delirium. I lay across her body as she came down, tracing kisses up and down her ribcage until she giggled.

  “Ah, that was wonderful,” she said. “Now it is my turn to drive you mad!”

  I shook my head. I felt no desire at all for myself just then. I had had my satisfaction from hers.

  “Later, my love,” I told her, “That was enough for me just now.”

  And if it hadn’t been, the beautiful smile she gave me then was more than enough for any man.

  Chapter Fourteen

  We waited all the next day for Bernie’s call. There was nothing on the News, no big stories of mass arrests or a conspiracy uncovered. The papers were still running with the car bomb story although there wasn’t much new to report. They had discounted the claims of the IRA splinter group and fingers were pointing towards Bin Laden and his gang. At least they were now fishing in the right pond even if they were still wide of the mark. What we were dealing with was even out of Bin Laden’s league; it had to be State-sponsored in a big way.

  I went through the lists again with Angela to translate those entries in Estonian, Russian and German. The likely picture that emerged was of a core of individuals at the centre of the plot with a lot of others who had been suborned to look the other way or otherwise collude with the schemers. Some probably didn’t even know what they were involved in. A minor official on a border post somewhere paid $5000 to look the other way when certain lorries passed. He probably thought it was contraband of some sort but wouldn’t dream he was turning a blind eye to the deaths of millions.

  Apart from the central characters, it wasn’t easy to see what many of those listed had to bring to the party. Our three prime suspects were a case in point. Perhaps the civil servant could provide false documents to allow stuff move cross border without too many questions but the MP and the tycoon didn’t seem to offer much at all. We puzzled over this for a while until Liam had the idea of looking on the web to see if we could gain any clues from what these two posted on their official web-sites. I’m hopeless when it comes to computers but Liam and Niall don’t go anywhere without a laptop. They plugged into the telephone line and we had the usual www – worldwide wait – while they searched. Renfrew’s newspaper had its own site and we trawled back through its archived stories. These were mostly prurient celebrity tittle-tattle and attacks on the Government, The Europeans, illegal immigrants and single mothers. Most of the site was devoted to softcore images of vapid-looking naked girls with surgically enhanced breasts. A real intellectual, our Mr Renfrew.

  He also had his own web page where he rambled on about his philosophy and the need for freedom of the Press. It didn’t tell us a thing as to why he should be involved but his name was on the list. Charles Brownlock, MP had a strident site. It was full of the usual politicians’ rubbish but with the slant of always portraying Charlie Boy in the best possible light. The most interesting thing to us was a section that contained transcripts of all his speeches. We read the turgid maunderings of this spiteful little man without too much enthusiasm. He had one cause, it appeared: to trample on those who made money. Profit was the root of all evil. He was rabidly anti-capitalist and unashamedly socialist. That wouldn’t make him too popular in his Party, these days.

  Travers, the civil servant, had one of those free-hosted sites with pictures of his prize-winning begonias or something. I’m no gardener but Travers was an absolute fanatic. Nothing political or inflammatory there. They seemed strange bedfellows, the right-wing newspaperman, the left-wing politician and the begonia grower. I couldn’t see a link for the life of me. It was Niall who found it. He flicked back and forth between the various sites. His face was a study in concentration. Finally, he turned to us with three pages cascaded side by side.

  “There, you see?”

  I had to confess I did not and the others looked equally nonplussed.

  “The lapel buttons,” he said. They all have some little flower badge in their
lapels.”

  We all stared hard at the photographs on the websites. Each man had a formal picture of himself in a business suit, smiling at the camera. Each had a little emblem in their lapel. It looked like a carnation or something similar. Angela’s father told us that he he’d seen this badge before. He’d noticed it a couple of times being worn by other people on his list. It hadn’t been worn by everyone and the meaning escaped him. We tried searching under ‘carnation’ or ‘pink’ but nothing helpful showed up on any of the search engines. There is an old saying: ‘once is chance, twice is coincidence and three times is enemy action.’ The little flower obviously had some meaning. We checked out a few more on the list who had websites. We found two others who displayed the badge in photographs of themselves. One was a German politician and the other an American radical who had made a name for himself for attacking big business and tying up major corporations in complicated lawsuits. The German didn’t seem to have done anything much more than get himself elected and was pretty anonymous even in his own country. It was hard to see nay connection between these five other than the little emblems.

  “Could it be an international charity?” I asked.

  Liam shrugged. “If it is,” he said, “It’s bloody ineffective if none of us recognises its logo.”

  “I think it is some sort of sign,” Angela said, ”it helps them recognise each other.”

  Liam agreed. “And if anyone asks, it’s a charity or political club or a branch of the bloody Lions or something. It makes sense but it is insecure.”

  “Not necessarily.” Niall disagreed. “If there is absolutely no other connection. But it doesn’t conform to any normal pattern of the terrorist cell, I grant you.”