Nicola Barker - Darkmans

‘Yes!’ Dory grinned.

‘But I don’t think there’s quite enough room , Dory,’ Beede cautioned him.

‘Really?’

‘No. It’s just a little…a little cramped in here for all that.’

‘Oh.’ Dory relaxed again.

They both stared, in silence, at the matchstick cathedral.

‘La Berbie,’ Dory muttered dreamily.

‘I’m sorry about the scaffolding,’ Beede repeated, glancing nervously towards the window.

‘Are you?’ Dory smiled.

‘Yes.’

Beede pointed to the lamp. ‘Maybe you should turn that off?’ he suggested.

‘What?’

‘The lamp.’

‘The lamp?’

‘Yes. It looks rather hot.’

Dory peered over at the lamp. It was precariously balanced on a couple of cushions.

‘That damn boy ,’ he muttered furiously, striding over towards it, ‘I keep telling him not to move it, but he simply won’t listen …’

‘Fleet?’ Beede asked.

‘He throws shadows with it.’

Dory knelt down in front of the lamp, as if intending to lift it from the cushions and turn it off, but instead he twisted his hands together and threw a shadow of his own.

‘Look who’s here!’ he chuckled, peering at Beede, mischievously, over his shoulder.

Beede took a couple of steps forward to try and see what Dory was doing. He blinked.

He saw a bird. A small, black bird, shivering miserably against the skirting-board.

‘Aw! ’ Dory murmured softly, cocking his head, poignantly. ‘But he doesn’t look well , does he?’

The bird opened its beak to squawk, but nothing came out.

‘We can’t hear you, my little friend!’ Dory cooed.

Beede turned away, disturbed.

‘So is that your dog, Dory?’ he asked, keen to distract the German.

‘Is it new? I haven’t seen it here before.’

‘The dog?’

Dory scowled. He dropped his hands. Then something seemed to click back into place inside his head.

‘God, yes …the dog.’ He sprang up. ‘I have to return the dog.’

He barged past Beede and darted down the hallway. ‘I’d forgotten all about that. I’m in a ridiculous hurry. I really must …’

Beede followed him into the kitchen.

‘I was packing everything together,’ Dory said, scratching his head. He peered into the box. ‘I’ve got her cart, her litter tray, her lead, her water bowl…’ he scowled. ‘What else?’

His eye alighted on her food bowl.

‘Her food bowl…’ he went over to grab it. ‘Would you mind having a quick look in the fridge, Beede? See if there’s a can of dog meat in there?’

Beede walked over to the fridge and opened the door. Inside he saw a half-eaten tray of dog meat, neatly sealed inside a plastic bag. He removed it. He closed the fridge. He paused. Still inside the tray was a spoon, an old teaspoon. He peered at it, closely–

Hospital Issue

He blinked.

‘Okay,’ Dory was saying, ‘that’s it. I think we have just about everything…’

He began hunting around for his car keys.

‘I need my keys…’ he murmured.

‘You’re going to drive?’ Beede asked, horrified.

‘Yes.’

Dory reached into his back pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. He unfolded it. It was a Missing Dog poster.

‘This is the address,’ he said, pointing.

‘Perhaps I might come with you?’ Beede asked, passing over the tray of food.

‘Really?’

Dory placed the food into the box.

‘Yes. Just for the ride.’

‘Are you sure ?’ Dory looked confused. ‘I mean it won’t be terribly…’

‘Yes. You just seem a little…uh…a little tired . I thought you might appreciate the company.’

Dory frowned as he straightened up.

‘Your keys are on the table…’ Beede pointed. Dory turned, spotted his keys and grabbed them. He peered around him. ‘Did you turn off that lamp?’ Beede asked. ‘The lamp in the dining-room?’

‘No.’

Dory threw him the keys, but Beede was unable to catch them. His responses were way too slow. He bent down to retrieve them, wincing, as Dory sprinted off to the dining-room. When he arrived there he saw that the lamp had actually fallen, that it was lying, bulb-down, on the carpet. His nostrils twitched at the slight aroma of singeing fibre.

He quickly crouched down next to it. But instead of picking it up, he manipulated his hands in front of the small remaining segment of emerging light and threw a quick shadow with them.

Flames. Tiny flames, flickering against the wall. Next he threw the injured bird, cowering, terrified. Then back to the flames again.

He chuckled.

‘Dory?’

He heard Beede’s voice, calling from the kitchen, ‘Are you all right in there?’

Dory coughed, waving his hand in front of him to try and dissipate the encroaching cloud of dense, foul-smelling smoke. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘ Great . Just coming.’

Kane snatched a magazine from the top of an unsteady pile in the surgery’s cramped — and rather unprepossessing — reception area, then quickly took his seat. He rested the magazine on his lap, pulled out his phone, turned it on, saw that he had over sixty messages, shuddered, turned it off again, and then shoved it back, hastily, into his pocket.

He wondered if he’d be allowed to smoke. He looked around for a sign–

Nothing

— then he looked around for an ashtray, and his eye alighted on a sign–

No Smoking

He scowled and peered down at the magazine. It was a copy of The Wound—

Eh?!

— a specialist, nursing publication. He opened it up, randomly–

JEEESUS!

— and then promptly slapped it shut. He felt ridiculously jittery–

Why?

He closed his eyes for a second–

Guilt?

‘Would I even be here,’ he wondered, ‘if he hadn’t expressly asked me not to?’

Answer—

(In words of only one syllable…?)

Uh…

Hell, yeah.

‘Beede?’

Kane almost jumped out of his skin–

‘Kane? Kane Beede?’

His eyes flew open.

The receptionist was pointing, encouragingly, towards the angular, open-plan stairwell. ‘First floor,’ she informed him (with a brisk smile), ‘second door on your left.’

Kane threw down The Wound and bounded upstairs (moving as quickly as he possibly could without breaking into a sprint). On reaching the designated door he clenched his hand into a fist and prepared to knock, but then paused for a second, his eye settling on a neatly typed card (slotted inside a small, metal frame which was screwed into the wood).

He drew closer:

ELEN GRASS

Chiropodist

he read–

Grass?

He unclenched his fist and lightly touched the card. As he applied a slight pressure to it, the card shifted. He pushed his finger to the right and the card shifted still further. Soon it was out of the frame altogether and resting in his palm. He smiled, closed his hand around it, and slipped it, softly, into his coat pocket. He drew a deep breath, then he knocked.

‘Come in.’

Kane entered the room with as much confidence as he could muster but was then immediately confounded by the ludicrous size of it. It was minuscule — a large cupboard, at best — barely 6 foot in width. Much of the space was taken up by a large, red, leather chair (centrally positioned), a grey, metal bookshelf-cum-desk-cum-supplies cabinet (pushed up against the left-hand-side wall), a couple of open cardboard boxes (partly hidden behind the chair) and a small sink (in the back, right-hand corner) which was barely even broad enough to support a medicated soap dispenser and a thick wad of paper towels (which had been propped up, lop-sidedly, behind the tap).