Marlena said nothing, but he could see the gratitude in her eyes and it unnerved him. For an old lady, she’d always seemed a remarkably tough cookie. Now that toughness appeared to have left her.
Marlena lived on the fourth floor of her converted warehouse apartment block, but fortunately, and relatively unusually in Covent Garden, Sampford House had a lift. Thank God, thought Tiny. It was obvious that Marlena was far too frail to use the crutches the hospital had supplied her with. For the moment anyway. And not even for short distances on the level. But Tiny had already planned how he would get her from the taxi, in and out of the lift and into her apartment, and it was therefore a relief that she seemed more compliant than usual.
When the taxi pulled to a halt he snatched Marlena’s crutches from her, jumped out and propped them in the hallway of Sampford House, ignoring her protests.
‘Right, there have to be some advantages to being the size of a house,’ he said, as he returned to the cab, and with that he lifted Marlena out, settling her easily into his big arms.
‘What on earth do you think you are doing?’ protested Marlena. ‘Put me down at once!’
Tiny ignored her. He didn’t think she meant it anyway. Indeed, he suspected she was relieved, though of course she would never admit it.
‘I’m giving you a lift, Marlena baby,’ he said. ‘And if I was you, I’d shut the fuck up and enjoy the ride.’
Marlena laughed as he carried her through the apartment-block foyer and into the elevator. It was almost her normal laugh. Tiny was surprised by just how much he appreciated hearing it, even though he could not get Daisy out of his head.
On the fourth floor Marlena produced her door key and managed to unlock her front door whilst still in Tiny’s arms. Rejecting his suggestion that he carry her through to her bedroom so she could have a lie-down, she insisted on being placed in her favourite armchair, by the window in the sitting room.
‘What do you think I am, a crippled old woman or something?’ she enquired, twinkling at Tiny as he arranged a footstool for her in exactly the right position.
‘I’ll fetch your crutches, you ungrateful old bag,’ said Tiny.
Marlena beamed her thanks at him. At least coming home seemed to have cheered her somewhat, and maybe he had played a part in that too, thought Tiny, in spite of his inner preoccupation with his missing pet.
At that moment his mobile rang. It was Billy. Tiny took the call at once, praying for good news. There was none. Instead Billy told him about meeting up with George and how Chump was also missing.
Tiny felt his heartbeat quicken. He turned his back on Marlena and moved away from her towards the door.
‘Oh my God,’ he said.
He could feel Marlena’s eyes on him. He opened the door, walked out into the passageway and closed it behind him, still speaking into his phone.
‘Two dogs,’ he muttered, ‘on the same day, and both belonging to members of our little group.’
‘I know,’ said Billy, and Tiny could feel his distress.
‘What do you make of it, Billy?’ he asked. ‘And what does George think?’
‘We don’t know what to think,’ said Billy. ‘Neither does Greg — he’s been helping us.’
‘We have to do something. We should go to the police.’
‘George and I are on our way to the police station now. Greg said he’d wait in the park, just in case.’
After ending the call Tiny carried on downstairs, on autopilot, to collect Marlena’s crutches. His heart was still racing inside his chest when he re-entered her flat.
‘What is it, Tiny, whatever has happened?’ Marlena asked.
Tiny didn’t want to burden her with it. Aside from being fond of dogs, and Daisy in particular, right now she was a frightened old lady with a crushed foot, and all the glitter and the bluster in the world couldn’t hide that. The last thing Tiny wanted was to add to her distress. But Marlena gave him no choice.
‘Are you going to tell me what’s wrong or am I going to have to beat it out of you with one of these damn crutches?’ she persisted.
Tiny told her.
Marlena turned even more pale than she was already.
‘What’s going on, Tiny?’ she asked, her voice frail and bewildered. ‘What in the world is going on?’
Seven
George and Billy’s luck did not immediately improve upon arrival at Charing Cross police station. They were mildly surprised to find one of the big wooden doors standing open, and might have been encouraged by this as they stepped into the lobby of the Agar Street main entrance.
Unfortunately, however, they were dealt with by a civilian public access officer whose never particularly good temper had that day been further frayed by learning that his services would soon no longer be required. He shouldn’t have been too surprised, as the Met were in the process of phasing out civilian front-office staff in favour of a rota of serving police officers, but that didn’t stop him feeling affronted. Michael Carter was a former uniformed sergeant of the old school, and even though he’d been retired from the force for several years he continued to fail to see quite how the Met could survive without him. In addition, Carter was a cat man who had no interest whatsoever in dogs. Indeed, he actively disliked them. He considered dogs to be dirty, disobedient creatures who fouled pavements and every so often lost the plot and bit somebody. Usually a child.
Nonetheless, he dutifully went through the motions of recording all the details of the two missing animals, asked George and Billy if their dogs were chipped, which they were, and said he would file a report.
‘But what will happen? I mean, what can you do? Will you look for our dogs?’ asked George plaintively.
Even Billy, in his state of deep distress, knew better than to believe that the Metropolitan Police Force was likely to conduct a formal investigation into the disappearance of a couple of dogs. But he too stared at Mike Carter with a hope born of desperation.
Carter looked George up and down in a pitying sort of way. However, no sympathy at all for the loss of George’s dog was implied.
‘We will put out a notice to all officers, dog sanctuaries and so on, according to procedure,’ he said, as if reciting from a manual. ‘And should the dogs be found or we discover anything at all pertaining to their whereabouts, you will be notified at once.’
George merely nodded. Billy found some spirit.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘There’s more to this than just two missing dogs.’
‘Really, sir,’ said Carter, sounding totally uninterested.
Billy persisted. He began to relate the series of incidents which had befallen the friends.
The Mr Tickle story caused the corners of Mike Carter’s more or less permanently downturned mouth to twitch. Just a bit. Fleetingly, he glanced at George with a little more interest. By the time Billy had related how Bob’s plants were taken in the night, however, Carter was looking thoroughly bored again. He raised an eyebrow at the slashing of the tyres on Greg’s van, but merely muttered something about wanton vandalism, much as Greg had done in Johnny’s Place.
Then Billy told him about Marlena.
‘It seems almost certain she was hit deliberately by the cyclist,’ he said.
‘Was the accident reported to the police?’ asked Carter.
‘I think so. I’m not sure,’ said Billy. ‘Only we don’t believe it was an accident, do we, George?’
George shook his head.
‘Hold on a minute,’ said Carter.
He retreated to a computer at the rear of the front office and began tapping away.
‘I don’t see how this is helping us find the dogs,’ muttered George. ‘That man doesn’t give a toss, does he? He’s made himself perfectly clear. We’d be better off out on the streets looking for them than hanging round here.’