Doctor Who_ Warchild - Andrew Cartmel [131]
‘Did it work?’
‘No. By trying to communicate I got his interest all right.
But all I achieved was getting him to use me for research.’
‘You mean as an experimental animal?’
‘Well,’ said Jack. ‘No electrodes or anything like that, thank God. He simply put me into enclosed areas with a lot of other dogs. It wasn’t like the lab near Canterbury.’ Jack shuddered. ‘Compared to that it was a holiday camp. We had a few acres to roam, inside wire-fenced enclosures.’
‘It sounds like Vincent got organized.’
‘He had a government grant by then. And the security was too damned tight. By trying to communicate I’d just managed to make myself a prisoner. He knew I was something special so he didn’t give me a chance to escape. It took me years to get away. By then my body was getting old, slowing down. But that didn’t matter, of course. I had perfected the means of manipulating the pack by then. Not just the pack though. Any dog. All dogs. I tried to conceal as much as I could from Vincent. But he learned a great deal from me.’
Redmond checked the map on the car’s computer. ‘Not far now,’ he said. ‘Keep talking. Where does Ricky come into it?’
‘That’s what I meant about fate. When Vincent began to notice the alpha male characteristic in Ricky he knew exactly how to develop it. He had considerable insight into how it operated.’ Jack sighed again. ‘All I achieved by trying to communicate with him was to give him the means for his vengeance.’
Redmond didn’t reply. He was peering ahead with a look of intense concentration. ‘What the hell is that?’
Jack couldn’t understand what he was talking about, then suddenly he saw it, in the gutter near an intersection.
‘A body,’ he said as the car swept past. ‘Someone lying in the street.’
‘Dead or alive?’
‘Couldn’t tell,’ said Jack worriedly.
‘There’s some more up ahead. Couple of men and a woman.’
Redmond stepped on the accelerator and Jack only got a glimpse of the bodies as they swept forward. He saw a brown bag beside the woman, spilling groceries on to the sidewalk.
Eggs had rolled out of a carton and shattered on the pavement.
‘How far to the train station?’ asked Jack.
‘Just around this corner,’ said Redmond, his voice so tense it sounded funny. The tyres squealed as he threw the car into the turn.
‘I didn’t see any blood,’ said Jack. Not on any of those bodies. Maybe — Jesus Christ!’
Redmond stepped on the brakes and the car shuddered to a screeching halt. For a long moment neither of the men said anything.
The train station was a tall building, wrapped in a big curving art deco façade. Its pocked white walls were turning a dusty pink with the onset of the city evening, as the sun dropped slowly among the angular black shoulders of the skyscrapers.
A crescent of road ran around the rear of the building, allowing buses, taxis and private cars to set down and pick up passengers from the station. Painted lines guided the vehicles to their designated areas.
But now everything was in chaos. Two big buses were jutting across the painted lanes at sharp diagonal angles, forming a jagged V that blocked the whole parking area. Cars were nosed up on to the sidewalk, and one taxi had run all the way up on to the apron of the grand stone staircase that curved around the corner of the building.
There were bodies everywhere, apparently lying where they’d first fallen.
Jack and Redmond got out of the car, slamming the doors. The sound was unnaturally loud in the strange silence.
It was the kind of silence one might find in a cathedral at some hushed momentous point during a ceremony.
Jack and Redmond looked at each other, uneasy in the eerie stillness.
‘I can smell diesel fumes,’ said Redmond. His voice seemed shockingly loud and he dropped it to a whisper. ‘I think that’s