I needed, in this order: another car, preferably one that wouldn’t be missed for a while; clothes to disguise me; and possibly some petty cash and/or a meal. Because I hadn’t eaten since either yesterday or the day before (sad that I couldn’t recall), and my stomach was whining in hunger as well as fear, though it was getting hard to tell the difference.
Making my way out of the trees, I tried to walk as casually as possible. I was up on a high approach to the village, and it seemed likely someone was going to see me at some point. There I’d be, a police officer strolling down out of the heights. I wanted to try and make it look casual, no big deal, just out on patrol without a police car anywhere in sight. To that end, I didn’t run, I just walked like I had all the time in the world, because furtive movements would do a lot more to give me away than casual action. The entirety of Scotland was now in a manhunt for Sienna Nealon. Watching a lady cop walk out of the hills was weird, but it would be a lot less weird than seeing one come darting out of the hills like she was trying to play spy. That kind of thing got the cops called on you, even if you were a cop.
I strolled down into the backyard of the nearest house and vaulted the fence lightly like I owned the place. I’d read that in Scotland there was something called the “right to wander,” which meant you could basically cross private property without consequence so long as you didn’t mess with someone’s cattle or do something similarly dickish, and so I just kept my hands at my sides and walked like I had nothing going on this morning as I strolled toward the small blue house ahead.
Other houses were a ways off, probably fifty yards to my left and right. There were only about ten homes in the entirety of the village, so if someone saw me, I was under no illusions about how fast word of my appearance would travel. Hell, it was probably already fully spread through this place.
Coming up to the somewhat ragged back door of the house, I gave a polite little knock, then tilted my head to look at the picture window to the right of the door. A dog barked inside, and I could hear its claws drag the carpet as it scampered toward the back door to…I dunno, lick me to death or something.
Once again, I looked to my left, to my right, and then behind me. I couldn’t see the houses on either side, and behind me there was only a slow hill climb up to the woods, so…this was about the best I was going to get, especially since there was no sound of a human from within the dwelling.
I reached down and broke the door, cracking the mechanism right out of the frame and pushing it in slowly. I didn’t want to turn Fido into a skidmark on the entry carpet, so I took my time and the dog yelped, skittering around and barking furiously. I debated letting the pup out, but instead I slipped inside and then closed the door behind me.
Greeting me was a pug that was probably no bigger than a double burrito from Chipotle. His barks were low, and a little wheezy. “Hey, big guy,” I said, and he sniffed my pant leg, putting aside the barking. Dogs liked me, and I had little idea why, because I was pretty neutral on them. Maybe it was all the meat I ate, oozing through my pores. This is a kindred spirit and meat sister! they’d be thinking, and then try to lick me until they got all the good stuff. That was the only explanation I had.
This pup was no exception, and he dutifully followed me around after I stooped down and offered him my hand, fist closed, extending it for him to give a lick or two. He backed off first, then trudged forward experimentally and gave me a couple of sloppy, cool slurps with the old tongue. After that, the barking was done and we were fast friends.
I was pretty sure no one was home, judging by the fact that no one answered the door. That was hardly conclusive evidence, but I’d also not heard anyone, and given my super hearing, that was a little closer to proving my thesis correct. I made my way through the house quietly just in case, sweeping from the hallway next to the rear door and into the main living area. I listened carefully, trying to hear over the pup scampering along the wood paneled floor behind me.
The whole house was dark, but, judging by the outside, not terribly big. I’d assembled a mental sketch of it from the exterior, and it looked long and linear, all the rooms built sideways with the front facing the street, and the back, obviously, facing the wilderness I’d trekked through to get here. I’d entered on the left side, and there didn’t seem to be much room for anything other than a bathroom and a coat closet on this side of the house, which I quickly confirmed as being the case before turning right and entering a small kitchen and living room combo.
There wasn’t a light on, and the place smelled of stale cigarettes, which made me cringe. I hated the smell of smoke, and it doubly bothered me because of my meta sense of smell, which enhanced almost everything, allowing me to partake in secondhand smoke (fortunately not a health risk to me, just stinky) from what felt like miles away. I’d caught a whiff of this from outside, but what else was I going to do? It was the house best angled to prevent people from seeing my B & E, and it didn’t seem like anyone was home…
That changed quickly. I heard something stir in the bedroom, and for a brief second I hoped it was another dog; just another pup, happy and friendly as this one, but more lethargic. Getting some zzzs, maybe. I froze halfway across the living room, my tiptoeing act coming to an abrupt stop so quickly that the pug following behind me collided with the back of my ankle. It would have been comical if the little shit hadn’t surprised me in doing so.
I squelched the desire to let out a yelp of surprise, but the dog did not. He caught my calf and Achilles tendon right in the face, and although it couldn’t have hurt much, he seemed offended by it, and let me and whoever else was in the house know it with a series of barks.
If there was someone stirring in the bedroom, they were either hiding—possibly having called the actual police before doing so—or else they were the heaviest sleeper in the history of man. “Archie! Shut the hell up!” someone bellowed in a heavy Scottish accent. It took my brain a second or two to translate that.
Archie took off, apparently so offended by my sudden stop and his own clumsiness that he was going to run to his master. He shot around the corner, yelping all the way, like a kid going to tattle to mommy. “Traitor,” I muttered low enough that only the dog and I could hear it. I was probably the only one who could understand it.
The dog jumped on the bed with a squeak, agitating his master further. Heavy Scottish brogue that I couldn’t make head nor tails of came from behind the bedroom door across the way, and I tiptoed across the living room in the interim, wondering how best to solve for this problem. I could have left, I supposed, but this problem of mine related to clothing wasn’t going to go away anytime soon, and—as the Brits might say—in for a penny, in for a pound. Hell, Americans said that, too.
“Police Scotland!” I announced, trying to throw on as general of an Edinburgh accent to my words as I could. “Come out with your hands up!” I said it bullhorn loud and forceful, and it produced an immediate reaction from inside the bedroom.
Archie let out a fury of barks as he hit the floor, preceded by a yelp that suggested he’d gotten bounced from the bed in his master’s haste to exodus the tangled sheets. The smoke smell was even heavier over here, and my already uneasy stomach was moving toward queasy. A burst of furious Scottish came out the open door to the bedroom, and I took a second to loosely translate it as, “What the hell?” It didn’t really sound like that, though.