Read Online The Doorkeepers by Graham Masterton - Free Book Online Page A

a high, piercing whistle. It stopped and stared at him with bulging amber eyes, one ear floppy and the other pricked up.
    â€œHere,” called Josh. He pointed his finger at the dog, and then drew it downward to point to a place by his side. The dog looked around with a querying expression on its face, as if it were asking the crowds of people in the station entrance what the hell this was all about, all this whistling and pointing. But Josh repeated his gesture and the dog obediently walked up to him.
    â€œSit right there,” Josh ordered, and it sat. “I don’t know what you’re doing, running around on your own without a leash, but that’s pretty heavy traffic out there. You try crossing that street in that little coat of yours, you could end up looking like a sheepskin tortilla.”
    Nancy hunkered down beside the dog and stroked him. “Hi, little fellow! He’s cute, isn’t he? What breed do you think he is?”
    â€œYou mean, what breed do I think he
isn’t
?”
    Nancy took a bag of dried apricot slices out of her pocket and held one up in front of the dog’s nose. “You want some organic fruit? Hmmh? Do you know how to say please?”
    Josh pointed at the dog’s right leg and gave the animal a curt, beckoning gesture. “Lift your paw. That’s right. Lift it right up. Now bark. Come on, woof.”
    The dog barked, but at that moment a young black woman in a black beret pushed her way out of the station entrance and said, “Hey! What are you doing? That’s my dog!”
    She came up to them indignantly and tried to open the dog’s mouth. “What did you feed him? You shouldn’t feed other people’s dogs!”
    â€œCome on,” said Nancy, confused and embarrassed. “It was only a piece of dried apricot.”
    The woman stood up straight and looked at Josh and Nancy with a frown of almost ludicrous severity. She was not tall, only 5ft 4ins or thereabouts, but she had extraordinary presence. Josh could sense a kind of
drama
about her, an invisible cyclone of self-possession, as if she were the ringmistress and the world around her was her private circus. Her beret was studded with enamel pins and glittery glass brooches and her hair was plaited with colored beads. She wore a blackvelvet-collared cape and a very short black dress, with thick black leggings and black boots.
    â€œDried
apricot?”
she said, wrinkling up her nose.
    â€œNancy’s into … organic food,” Josh explained.
    The woman looked down at her dog, which had finished the fruit and was licking its lips for more. Then she said, “OK. But I have to be careful, you know what I mean? People give him all kinds of rubbish, you know, like bits of old chicken tikka sandwich.”
    â€œSorry,” said Josh. He was already learning that “sorry” was a very useful word in England. If somebody bumped into you in the street, you
both
said “sorry”, for some inexplicable reason.
    â€œOK, no harm done.” She reached down to clip a leash on the dog’s collar, and as she did so she glanced at the posters of Julia pinned on to their windbreakers. “You’re looking for
her?”
    â€œThat’s right,” said Josh. “I’m her brother, and this is my girlfriend. We’re trying to trace anybody who might have known her.”
    â€œI knew her.”
    Josh stared at her.
“You
knew her?”
    â€œYeah. Daisy, we always used to call her, because of her tattoo. I couldn’t believe it when I heard that she’d been murdered.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you call the police?”
    â€œWhat was the point? I hadn’t seen her for ages. Besides, you know.” She gave an eloquent shrug which showed that she didn’t like the idea of having anything to do with authority.
    Josh said, “For Christ’s sake, any little piece of information might help.”
    â€œYeah,