screeched to a halt in front of the kennels.
“Ditch the mutt. Go.”
Finn took a deep breath. “Come on, Yo-yo.”
The dog sprang out of the back seat and followed Finn up to the kennels, excited by the other doggy noises and smells. Once shut inside his cage though, Yo-yo sat on his haunches and howled.
Mum had got him for Finn as soon as she realised she was ill. It was obvious therapy, but it had worked.
Finn touched his chest. Scratched the stone. Although he couldn’t get his head round the concept of his mum’s ‘soul’, he’d long ago decided that if there was such a thing then it lived in the stone that hung from a leather tie around his neck. It looked dull and ordinary, but in fact it was a rock called spharelite that his mum had always worn. When you scratched it – with your fingernail, with anything – it would literally glow. Triboluminescence it was called, but not even science could tell you quite how it worked, or why. Which was in part why Finn loved it. It was mysterious and it was scientific and it had been his mum’s and it had a great name. If he ever had children, one of them was going to be called Spharelite Triboluminescence.
Finn reached in and gave Yo-yo’s neck one last rub.
Yo-yo thought the cruel ‘lock-up-your-dog’ game was over and rolled on his back, offering his tummy to be tickled.
What an idiot.
It was at times like this that Finn remembered his mum’s third and final Big Rule, delivered in her last days alive when she hadn’t seemed like she was dying at all and had showered him with affection and practical instruction.
“If you’re ever in doubt, work out what feels right in your heart of hearts then, whatever happens… just keep going.”
Al watched, appalled, as a minute later Finn marched out of the kennels – followed by Yo-yo.
“What…?”
Yap!
Finn got in the front, Yo-yo hopped in the back.
“Mum…” Finn started to say – and Al knew what was coming: “Mum wouldn’t just leave him like this.”
“Why you little…”
It was an emotionally loaded, totally absurd unwritten rule between them that, if either Finn or Al invoked his mother, the other had to obey. The rule was stone crazy and wide open to abuse (“My sister would’ve loved you to make me another cup of tea…” “My mother would have loved FIFA 14 on PSP…”), but it was not one Finn ever felt he could revoke. It needed Al to be the grown-up and break the spell, to put an end to the madness, but that just wasn’t Al.
So, six minutes later, they found themselves outside the church.
Christabel Coles, vicar of the Church of St James and St John in the village of Langmere, Bucks, had been fond of Finn ever since – in the middle of his mother’s funeral, aged eleven – he held up his hand to bring the service to a halt and demanded to know exactly what a ‘soul’ was and if it did exist then exactly where was his mother right now? Christabel had paused, then said, “Good question,” and sat down in her vestments, ignoring the packed congregation, to discuss it with him. It had been interesting, illuminating and inconclusive, though it had helped both of them to get through the day and they’d become great friends and indulged in many such conversations since, often in the company of this… blessed dog, which Christabel didn’t have the heart to tell Finn she found among the most trying of all God’s creatures.
Finn argued that he could no more leave Yo-yo locked in kennels “than you could lead rich men through the eye of a camel or whatever it is. Y’know, Christabel? Will you look after him? I’ll come to church next week, honest…”
She caved in. “I’ll do my best.”
“Brilliant! Wet food in the morning, dry at night, and just give him a blanket to lie on. Oh and walk him when you can, but it’s just as easy to let him wander.”
“And don’t kill it,” added Al.
“But I will have to tell your grandmother about this!”
“Don’t worry, Al will do that. He’s in enough trouble as it is.”
She watched Finn jump back in beside his unreasonably handsome uncle and gave a little sigh.
Al put his foot down and the Mangusta razzed off, Yo-yo chasing them halfway down the lane.
Trust yourself.
Be yourself.
Just keep going.
It wasn’t much of a legacy, but it was all he had.
“Can we go on holiday now?” asked Finn.
“We can go on holiday now,” replied Al.
The sun was shining and they were roaring through the English countryside in an Italian sports car, headed for the continent on a school day in possession of various bits of scientific equipment, a tent, two fishing rods, half a tube of Pringles and not a care in the world.
Could things be more perfect…?
The beast whipped at the flank of the sow badger again and again and again.
It was an attack so frenzied, venom leaked from the beast’s abdomen, spattering the animal’s hide.
The effects of the cold store and anaesthesia had left it sluggish most of the morning, but the moment it had locked its barbed extendable jaw into the badger flesh, rich blood overwhelmed the beast’s senses and only one thing flashed through its crazed nervous system –
Kill kill kill kill kill kill…
Three Tyros 1 watched.
Two stood well back in Kevlar bodysuits. Fully masked.
The eldest, who couldn’t have been more than sixteen, stood close by in just a hoody and jeans.
It was he who had positioned the badger, crippled but alive, on the north side of the wood. A farm animal would have served just as well, but in the remote chance a walker happened across the body, a dead cow might have given cause for concern and a phone call to a farmer, whereas a dead wild animal was just… nature.
He’d held the beast as it woke. He had touched it: him it would taste, but not attack.
He had released it carefully, directly on to the badger’s side. Now he watched as it drank its fill.
After eight minutes, the beast unhooked its jaws. The sow badger was unconscious.
