The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [109]
“YAPYAPYAP!” exploded through the night, and my heart leapt along with my body. My shoes lost their precarious hold on the bucket rims and I fell, onto the shrubs with one foot inside the rotten bucket. My fall set off an even louder volley of yelps from somewhere in the vicinity of my heels.
“Bubbles!” came a woman's cry from within. I ripped the bucket from my foot and kicked soil over its tell-tale imprint, then snatched up bucket and bag and sprinted for the back of the house, Bubbles roaring hysterically along behind me.
At the out-houses, I kicked open the shed door, grabbed the madly shrieking handful of fur, and tossed it in, drawing the door shut behind it. With luck they would think that Bubbles had been chasing a rat and been trapped inside.
Then I disappeared into the night, moving at a fast limp.
Some investigator: routed by a lap-dog named Bubbles.
My ankle felt as if I'd stepped into a bear trap, but a thorough feel around my nearly-dry trouser leg reassured me that I might die of tetanus, but not from blood loss.
From deep in the rhododendrons, I watched people begin to stream out of the door and around the house. The stout woman in the flowered dress pressed to the fore, attracted by the sounds of distress from the back; eventually a light went on over the yard; the barking stopped. They were back there for some time, no doubt debating the puzzle, before returning to the house.
I was not surprised when a short time later, three people came out of the front door, including the woman, her dog Bubbles, and the man who looked like her brother. They climbed into a car and drove away, veering onto the grassy verge and over-correcting again. Others followed, two and three at a time.
I stayed where I was. Sure enough, when everyone else had gone, two men, The Master and his muscle, came out with a torch to examine the ground under the window. My brief kick was not enough to cover the signs completely by daylight, although I hoped the torch might not pick them out, and indeed, there seemed no consensus of opinion that there had been a spy outside.
They went in the house. I sat down beside my bag, to see what developed.
Nothing happened for some time, except that the upstairs room drew its curtains against the night. I wanted badly to creep back up to the house, but something about the big man's attitude suggested that he was not misled by a scatter of kicked soil, and that he would be expecting a second approach.
So until the lights went out and stayed out for a long time, I would stay where I was.
The village church bells ceased ringing at ten o'clock. Half an hour later, with no warning, light spilt out of the front door and three men came down the steps, carrying luggage.
Except that one of them, a tall, slim man with a full beard who had not been with the others earlier, turned, as if to cast a last look at a beloved home. He faced the house and its light for five long seconds, plenty of time for me to identify him, and to see that what he held to his chest was not a suit-case, but a sleeping child. Plenty of time to change everything.
Before I could react, the man in the black suit spoke, and Damian climbed into the car; The Master got behind the wheel.
I was on my feet, the shout in my throat strangling as I noticed the stance of the man in the grey suit: The reason his suit-coat had been cut loosely was because it concealed a hand-gun.
I waited until he, too, got inside the motor, and then I sprinted along the grass towards the drive to intercept them. The engine turned over and caught, and the driver put it into gear, spewing gravel behind him with the speed of his start. I ran, but reached the drive too late to catch anything but the last two digits of his number plate.
With no motor-car, not even so much as a bicycle, there was little point in charging after them. Instead, I turned back to the house, used my pick-locks,