Mike Donald
CHAPTER 2
ONE MONTH EARLIER
Marsha Brochell drove the dark blue Range Rover out of the Euro shuttle carriage before leaving the docks behind at Calais and heading for Bruges in Belgium.
It had taken Marsha a week by ship to travel from New York to Southampton. Once there she’d picked up a hired car before heading to the Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone. Her license plate was scanned and the machine spat out a ticket which she hung on her rear-view mirror before driving to passport control. There was a moment’s hesitation as the man studied her picture and details. Satisfied, he moved on to check the pet passports. Marsha had assumed there would be an alert out for her and was using her backup identity details and passport. The man handed back the passports and waved her through. She drove up to the parking area outside the terminal and after feeding the dogs took them to the small dog area and made sure they were comfortable for the short journey beneath the channel. There was a man already there with a small poodle on an extender. He shot them a nervous look when he saw the size of her charges. She said ‘It’s alright, they’re harmless.’ The man gave a tense smile and hurried his dog out of the enclosure. Marsha walked back to the car and gave them a chew bone each before heading into the terminal. The large electronic boards in the car park indicated her train was boarding in twenty minutes. Ample time to freshen up, grab a bite to eat and have a cup of coffee. Fifteen minutes later, refreshed and with her appetite sated she walked back to the car park. The departures board indicated that it was time to board. She left the car park and drove towards the boarding area following the instructions on the overhead signs. She needed to make sure she was in the right lane because of the height of her vehicle.
She didn’t want to draw unwelcome attention by ending up in the wrong queue. Within twenty minutes she was driving up the ramp and into the claustrophobic confines of the train carriage.
With the one-hour time change she would be in France by lunchtime. As the carriage doors closed and the train gathered speed she could finally relax.
On board ship Marsha had passed the time amusing her fellow passengers with palm and Tarot card readings in the various bars and restaurants. They had no idea she was soaking up their credit-card and bank details as she smiled and dealt their cards along with tales of imaginary futures full of tall dark strangers and knights in shining armour. By the time they disembarked at Southampton her account held over a million Euros.
The authorities had frozen Roman’s business accounts along with hers, and she’d barely made it to New York with his precious dogs in time for her departure. They were Dogos Argentino, brother and sister. He’d named them Argos and Laelaps after the mythological Greek dogs, but they never responded to anything she called them. Marsha had spent a long time tracking them down after they went missing in Spirit’s Swamp. They’d been terrified by the flames and explosions in the swamp and run away from their master’s car. Eventually she’d found them cowering at the side of the causeway, and managed to coax them into her vehicle with pieces of raw meat.
She travelled through the featureless countryside of France letting the Sat Nav do the work.And after leaving Dunkirk behind was soon crossing the border into Belgium before picking up the E40 motorway to Bruges. An hour and a half later she reached the R30 ring road on the outskirts of the city. The medieval city of Bruges was known locally as ‘the egg’, because of the shape formed by the canals surrounding it.It had a fiendishly complicated one-way road system set out in a loop arrangement.There was only one way to access each specific street and if you got it wrong you had to circle back round the city on the ring road and start again. Luckily, she had been accompanied by Roman the last time she came and was prepared for the nerve wracking level of attention one had to pay to the route. She peeled off the ring road, headed up Zuidzandstraat into Steenstraat, past Sint Salvator’s cathedral before circling the market square and heading off towards the canal and her final destination.The dogs sat in the back, sniffing at the insulated oblong container that gleamed with moisture despite the fierce air conditioning that blasted out of the vents surrounding it.Marsha turned to look at them. ‘You won’t be seeing him for a while yet, so you may as well settle down.’ The dogs whimpered and pawed at the chest, muzzles flecked with drool, their eyes a glistening deep mahogany brown. It was if they could see into the container at the essence of what would soon become their master once more.Marsha wondered if the reverse was true and the spirit of Roman was aware of their presence. In the same way that the relatives and wives of coma victims were encouraged to sit by their beds and talk to them. Maybe there was some strange symbiotic connection of the souls. After all, she was infinitely aware of the spirit world, and could both pass through and co-exist within it. But she had always believed that as animals first walked the Earth they must possess as much, if not more of nature’s power within them. Maybe the Dogos superior eyesight, speed and sense of smell might also have an elevated spiritual sense. As if aware of her thoughts the dogs settled down and stared mournfully at the container.