Read Online Hotel Midnight by Simon Clark - Free Book Online Page B

it in his stride. He even broke off tending the wound to retrieve the squeaky doll from the middle of the lawn.
    ‘He’s fine,’ I stressed, ‘but it wouldn’t hurt to take him to the vet to have him checked out.’
    ‘Can I come?’ Admar asked. He didn’t want to let Woody out of his sight for a while.
    ‘’Course you can, champ. Want to get his lead?’
    ‘Wood-heee! Wood-heee!’ He used his distinctive call to attract the dog’s attention. ‘Car! Walkies! Wood-heee!’
    The dog dropped the toy to come bounding toward the boy. His wagging tale gave my knee a meaty whack as he ran by. The animal’s ebullient mood had to be a good sign.
    Piet patted me on the back, grateful I wasn’t going to downplay the dog’s injury. ‘I’ll get his blanket for the back of the car.’ She followed the pair into the house.
    I took a moment to check that there was no one lurking in the garden. These days it’s not the done thing to be tough on intruders , but, by God, I promised myself to twist the thug’s arm until he squealed. Admar had said Woody’s attacker had somehow ‘spat through his hand’ to hurt our pet. I guessed the weapon had to be an air pistol. The thought made me clench my fists. What if the idiot had fired wide? What if the pellet had struck Admar?
    I walked back across the lawn. Near where the squeaky toy lay there were some drops of blood amongst the scattering of daisies in the grass. The grass needed cutting, so formed a wiry green fuzz. I crouched down to examine the spots of glossy red. I knew a dog’s instinct would be to grip whatever’s hurting it with its teeth and pull it out. I was searching for a grey airgun pellet. Instead, I saw something that although I recognized it for what it was I’d never seen its like close up before.
    I pinched the object between my finger and thumb, and then plucked it from the blades of grass that partially concealed it. A bare description of the missile would be: a needle-sharp splinter of bone, partly wrapped in a slender tendril of vine that had been stripped of its leaves, then attached to a bird’s wing feather. The artifact had been assembled with consummate dexterity. Despite my anger, I had to allow that. Its appearance was suggestive of a scribe’s quill. But instead of a nib there was that splinter of bone, sharpened at one end. The bone was perhaps half the length of my little finger, and stained with Woody’s blood, while the whole missile was no longer than my hand from fingertip to wrist. I use the word ‘missile’ with confidence because I knew what I was seeing. Without doubt, it was the distinctive type of dart that would be fired from a blowpipe. Hence, Admar’s description of the attacker spitting through his hand.
    As I stood there holding the dart, looking every inch the homeowner who’d picked up a filthy syringe from his garden, I glared out over the meadow. At that moment, I began to ask myself questions . If a man used such a weapon, where was he from? Why did he attack us? What would he look like?
     
    As the clock in the hallway downstairs began its midnight chimes I switched off the bedroom light. With it being so warm Piet lay beside me with the duvet up over her legs only as far as her hips. The dog was in his bed in the kitchen. He was at peace with the world and had been happily snoring when I left him. The vet had given Woody a clean bill of health, merely washing the wound with an antiseptic solution. I decided it would only complicate the situation if I mentioned the dart I’d found on the lawn. Admar was fast asleep too. He’d opted to leave the windows wide open so they fluttered in the nighttime breeze. He sprawled face down on top of his Lunar landscape duvet. Aptly, he’d snuggled his head into the pool of light grey that marked the Sea of Tranquility.
    After kissing Piet goodnight I lay flat on my back, my eyes open. My bare feet I left in the open air, complete with their big toes that had never known a