The young man with the baton didn’t see Albert or hear what he said, but he saw the dog coming. He had his hands on the man’s briefcase when he first spotted the dog hurtling his way. At that point, Rex was just entering the alley and still twenty-five yards away. The dog would close the distance in no more than two or three seconds, and sensing that, the attacker abandoned his attempt to get the briefcase.
However, as he let go, so too did the man in the suit. Inevitably, the briefcase fell to the ground, striking the cold stone with one corner and bursting open. To Albert, who was hurrying toward the alley as swiftly as his legs would carry him, it almost looked as if the man in the sky-blue suit had chosen to let it go, perhaps accepting that the contents were not worth injury or worse.
Coming into the alley, Albert passed the same man Rex had, throwing him a quick glance as he silently questioned why it hadn’t occurred to him to help the hapless victim twenty yards away. The man was a big unit, broad at the shoulder and with a shaved head that tapered to his trapezius muscles without feeling the need to include a neck.
The man stared open-mouthed at the drama unfolding at the other end of the alley, but when he saw Albert looking his way, guilt at his lack of social responsibility overcame him. He snapped his mouth shut, turned, and walked the other way.
Albert thought about slinging an insult, but there was no time, and his eyes were drawn to the sight ahead. The man in the suit was on the ground now, trying to avoid dirtying his fine clothes while at the same time scrambling to collect all the bundles of money which had spilled from the briefcase onto the stone pavement.
His assailant was running, Rex powering along behind him, and though Albert could see his dog would soon catch the man, he was already at the mouth of the alley and about to vanish from sight. Albert shouted, ‘Rex, stop!’ even though he doubted his command would achieve much. He wanted the mugging to stop and that was already accomplished. Catching the young man was secondary, and though desirable, the alley opened to a road on the other side where cars were going by every second. If Rex chased the man … well, Albert remembered what happened when Rex chased a man into traffic in Biggleswade and felt no desire for a repeat performance of that event. Worse yet, it could be Rex who got hurt this time.
The young man barrelled into a pedestrian as he came out of the alley. Albert got to see the whole thing, including the part where he grabbed the startled pedestrian, a young woman, and threw her roughly to the pavement to block the dog’s path. She cried with shock and threw out her arms to protect herself, screaming something as she pitched forward out of control.
Albert hobbled down the alley as fast as he could muster. Initially, he was chasing Rex and going to the victim’s aid. Now there was more than one person in need of help. The man in the business suit, now free of his attacker and the danger he presented, was scooping his money back into the briefcase. No doubt he was reeling from the shock and consequent adrenalin, but he looked to be unharmed which made Albert refocus his attention on Rex and the still-screaming woman.
The young man vanished from Albert’s sight, turning left along the pavement. Less than two seconds later, Rex also disappeared, rounding the corner going many times faster than the young man. Rex had to dodge around the woman, who was on her knees now and tearing at her coat to get it open.
‘Stop!’ barked Rex. ‘Or don’t stop, it’s your choice. But you cannot outrun me, so your only hope to not get bitten on the backside is to lie down and make yourself look defenceless.’ Rex loved chasing humans; it had been his favourite part of police dog training. He was aware that at times he could get a little overexcited and rarely bit the exposed padded limb the human target offered him. He knew what he was supposed to do, but where was the fun in that? That was training, and though fun, it was nothing like the real thing when there were proper criminals to chase and catch. They would try to run away, and he would get to run and leap and bite.
Ahead of him, the young man was veering toward the road, heading toward a gap between cars parked along the kerb. Rex could see that his target was going to make it to the gap, but only just because Rex would be on him by then.
With a final bark of, ‘Got you!’ Rex leapt into the air.
Cheating
And hit nothing.
The sneaky human had grabbed a lamppost at the very last moment and swung himself around it. The chunk of flesh Rex had been about to sink his teeth into zipped away just as his teeth snapped shut. With a snarl of disbelief, Rex swung his head around, but his body sailed onward through the air to land in the road between two parked cars.
The human had bought himself an extra couple of seconds, nothing more, but as Rex spun himself back around to give chase again, the man swung onto the back of a moped. The moped
