“Is he in the habit of going away and leaving it?”
“No. He gives my lad charge of it.”
“Your lad?”
“I’ll fetch him. He’s got a key.” The man went swiftly off towards the house next door and returned at once with a boy of about fourteen huddled up next to him under the umbrella. “This is the feller, Clive,” he said. “Says he’s a friend of Mr. McFee.”
Franz saw at once that Clive, unfortunately, was not all there. His father’s words seemed to mean nothing to him and he stared steadily at the ground in front of him.
“Clive is a bit slow, but he loves that dog. Mr. McFee isn’t here to let him in but if you say so he’ll open the door and let it out.”
“Well, certainly, yes, let’s do that.”
The man said, “Go on Clive,” and the boy sauntered away holding the key out in front of him. A moment later the dog burst out of the open door like a flood of bathwater, and squirmed round and round Clive’s legs. The boy knelt down and Rasputin licked his face voluptuously.
“It doesn’t bark,” Franz observed. “Why’s that?”
“Mr. McFee had it operated on, I believe.”
That seemed an odd remark to Franz. “I’d better take a look round in the house, to make sure nothing unfortunate has happened,” he said and, when the man made no objection, he made his way into the bungalow.
The stale smell of Murdock’s cigars hung about the place, particularly the kitchen, which was obviously the room most used. A few small piles of dog shit were scattered about on the floor, which Franz grubbed up with some paper towels. Not as many turds as might be expected but then the dog hadn’t eaten for possibly three or four days. Franz opened the fridge. Not much there either — some wilting salad, a pint of milk beginning to turn blue and a few cheese rinds. Relics of meals. Obviously, Murdock was not a fancy eater. On a shelf next to the refrigerator he spotted some tins of dog food. He eased the lid off one and turned its contents out into a saucer and set it down on the linoleum.
The large table obviously served Murdock for many purposes as its entire area was covered with books, magazine, DVDs, some dirty mugs and dishes, a computer and various other, to Franz, unrecognisable electrical gadgets. Two large scrapbooks of newspaper cuttings contained reviews of Dead Funny Ted, some of them surprisingly ancient, and reports of various disasters, both at home and in distant parts of the world.
Having seen enough of the kitchen Franz set about inspecting the rest of the house for signs of a possibly sick or even dead Murdock, perhaps in the bedroom.
The bungalow was surprisingly spacious, and contained more rooms than Franz had expected. Some of them were completely empty. Murdock hadn’t even bothered to put bulbs in the light sockets, others contained oddments of furniture stacked without thought any which way. Murdock lived a far more desolate life than Franz had imagined. And this from a man who laughed a lot. But not, Franz reminded himself, at particular jokes and incidents. He seemed to find amusement in life itself.
At the rear of the bungalow Franz became confused because someone, Murdock presumably, though he didn’t seem a likely candidate to be a master of DIY, had fitted neat partitions into two rooms to divide them up into a number of smaller spaces. Finding his way round them in the semi-darkness kept Franz fully occupied for some time and he was relieved when he came upon a wooden door which he took to be at the back of the house. He tried the handle, found it wasn’t locked, and hurried through it, only to find himself in a large, windowless room lit only by some slight luminescence originating in what at first he took to be some indoor plants. He stopped to get a better look at them and saw that in fact they were what appeared to be the upper — in fact the topmost — branches of a large tree and, looking down, he realised that they continued down into a space below the bungalow.
Bemused, he ventured forward a couple of steps and peered into what he thought might be a cellar and saw that the space below was too wide and deep to be anything of the kind. He could see a very long way down — so much so that he felt himself reeling. His fear of heights made him almost topple forward and it was with some effort that he managed to scramble back some distance towards the door. He held his right hand up to his brow as his head had for some reason begun to ache and glared again at the branches that protruded through the floor.
He noticed that some of them were beginning to move and sway a little where they were closest together, at the back, and thought he could see a clump of something in amongst them, like a platform, or maybe it was — could it be — a nest? It appeared to be a good four feet across and three or more feet deep.
Yes, he knew then that that was what it had to be, some kind of nest made of branches and the tattered remains of what appeared to be curtains, bed sheets and various scraps of clothing. And the reason that the branches were swaying and bending was because something, some creature, had been aroused by his presence, and was coming out of its nest to investigate the cause of its disturbance.
After a couple of quite violent shudders the nest tipped forwards at the side nearest Franz, far enough for him to get a glimpse of what could have been the top of a large hairless head and perhaps the tips of the fingers of a chubby, grasping hand.
Franz must have fled then, though he had no memory later of going through the wooden door and closing it behind him. He found himself in the partitioned rooms trying frantically to find his way out.
He fumbled and tumbled about in the near darkness for some time then, before he managed to relocate Murdock’s kitchen where he stopped for a moment to listen for any sounds of anything following him. There were no indications of that at all. All around him was perfect silence.
He sat at Murdock’s table just long enough to recover his breath and steady his head, then left the bungalow, slamming the door behind him.
He found the father of the boy who had gone off with Murdock’s dog waiting for him near the front step. The man, still holding his umbrella, looked at him and said. “You’ve cut your hand. It’s bleeding all down your jacket.”
Franz couldn’t think of anything to say to this but he realised it was true. He held the key out to the man who took it and said, “I’ll give it to the boy.”
Franz nodded.
“He’s not in there dead or anything then, Mr. McFee?”
Franz shook his head this time.
“Don’t worry about the dog. My boy will look after him in the meantime.”
This time Franz forced himself to speak.
“Does he go into the house to collect it?”
“My boy? No, never. Mr. McFee wouldn’t want him to.”
“Hum. Does he often go away, Murdock? I mean Mr. McFee.”
“Oh, from time to time, yes. That’s when he tells my boy to look after the dog. Usually he gives him something to buy food for it. We don’t have much money.”
Franz reached into his pocket for his wallet. He had no intention of going back into the kitchen where the tins of dog food were stashed. He held out a note and said, “Is that enough?”
“I should think it will be, yes. Have you no idea when your friend is coming back then?”
Franz shook his head again and went off to his car.
He drove home slowly, cautiously, not really concentrating on what he was doing. His mind was on other things. At one point he drove off the road down a side street and stopped while he sorted through his thoughts. What had he seen back in the bungalow? A hallucination or some kind of tableau devised by Murdock to scare away burglars? It would certainly have that effect but surely it would be better placed in the front of the building instead of hiding away behind a maze of wooden partitions where he, Franz, had only come across it as an afterthought, after searching the whole bungalow.