The Walking Dead

On exercise, under supervision that required about half a telephone directory of completed forms, live explosives were brought to the site by the army's people and little caches were hidden under stones, or in plastic bags, which were buried under rubble in the corner of a derelict building, or wrapped with tinfoil and pocketed by a stooge suspect. Then the dog, on the long leash or running free, was urged to locate the caches. She always did, and she'd sniff, find, rock back on to her haunches lift her head and bloody bark for his attention…as she had been taught, as she was doing right now in front of the Asian boy on the bench.

But this was not an exercise and his time, and hers, was up. He whistled hard.

The dog, Midge, did not respond.

He cursed, then strode forward.

'Come to heel, Midge. Come. To heel.' He yelled it, full voice.

0n exercise, when she located the ounce or so of TNT, Semtex — whatever had been hidden for her to find — the reward was a biscuit and loving words. The bag of biscuits was in the van…The spaniel came half of the way back to him, but looking behind her every two, three yards. He was about to grab her.

He called to the boy on the bench. 'Sorry about that. She's a young'un, but not normally daft. Hope she hasn't mucked your clothes…' He bent to take the loose chain collar and had the leash catch in his hands…What struck him, there was no response from the boy: not a wave of acceptance for the apology, not a protest at the mud smeared on his jeans by the dog's paws, and the head stayed down…His dog was as agile, at that age, as a bloody rabbit, and it was gone again. The dog raced over the grass and back to the bench, but did not sniff the hands again. The dog, a yard in front of the Asian boy, barked with ever-increasing intensity.

So, the handler had a problem. Had those long months of training been wasted? The barking rang in his ears.

The handler was a proud man, and his pride rested securely in his belief that he had the best dog in the force. Because of his own efforts, Midge always found the minute caches of explosives on exercises, and he had never known her — at the East Midlands airport, or at Derby's main railway terminus — settle herself in front of a passenger and make that bloody noise. He was also an obstinate man and he did not care to believe that all of that training time was wasted.

He caught his breath.

Then, pride and obstinacy ruled him.

The handler had few doubts, but those he harboured were sufficient for him not to call out an armed-response vehicle. He would do it himself.

Walking with a good step, but with his heart pounding, he went to the bench. The Asian boy never looked up, didn't seem to see his approach, didn't kick the dog away. It fitted no pattern that he had learned on exercises.

Beside him, the spaniel's tail thrashed in excitement.

He said softly, 'I am a police officer. Please, sir, would you stand up? That's right, sir, now turn away from me and put your hands together at your back.'

The handler was obeyed. The boy stood, huge and muscled but without an iota of fight in him, and the handler could not tell whether it was rain that ran down his cheeks or tears. He snapped on the handcuffs, then patted down the body and found nothing. His breathing eased. He told the boy why he had arrested him, quoted from a host of anti-terrorism legislation, and cautioned him.

Then he murmured, 'I hope to God you're bloody right on this one, Midge. We're for the high jump if you're not, and it'll be a bloody high one.'

The dog's eyes were on the cuffed hands, and still she barked.

He called in on his radio. Gave his name and call-sign, his location point on Rose Hill as nearest to Grove Street, requested the cavalry get here and soonest — Special Branch and Forensics — and said, 'He's clean, not wearing any form of improvised explosive device. I'm just going on what my dog tells me, and the dog's telling me his hands are contaminated. Over, out.'

The handler knew that, by lunchtime, he and his dog would either be the laughing stock of the force or front-line celebrities.

'Won't be long, sir, then we'll have you in the warm and dry.'

* * *

He left the taxi in the forecourt with the meter running and hurried into the hotel foyer. After trying three times to ring the room number, Dickie Naylor had diverted the taxi into Belgravia. Should have been a short run from his club — actually, not a club in the grand sense of the West End, more of a dingy hostelry for retired military officers — to Riverside Villas, but he'd embarked on this course of action and was now down fifteen pounds. It would be twenty when he was dropped, with Hegner, at the side door beside the Thames. He'd slept in central London, just too damn tired to face a night journey back to the suburbs, and he'd been on the pavement, the rain cascading off his umbrella, searching for a vacant taxi when his pager had gone.