PC Sophie Hendrix had spotted the fire chief and was grabbing his arm already. ‘Can you bring the ladder back down?’ she shouted urgently. But then her jaw dropped open. ‘Oh, my God. What is the dog doing?’
Rex wasn’t entirely happy about going up the ladder, but he sure wasn’t going to let the human get away for a third time. He started slowly, his front paws finding a balance point on the lower rungs. Angrily, he told his back legs to stop shaking with fear, and pressed on, pursuing his target to a chorus of oohs and aahs from the crowd.
Lee Oliver swung his head around to see what might be causing the crowd’s excitement and almost lost his eyes when they bugged right out of his head.
The dog was following him!
‘Yeah, puny human!’ Rex barked triumphantly seeing the human’s fear. ‘That’s right, dogs can climb ladders. Just not vertical ones.’
‘I’m not going to lower it,’ yelled the lead firefighter, leaping into action. ‘The rungs passing each other might trap their hands or feet. I’m going to swing it around away from the roof!’
It took Albert more than a minute to get outside to see where Rex had gone. Gary was inside arresting Alan Crystal, and everyone wanted to know what the heck was going on because only Albert seemed to have a clue. However, he wasn’t answering any questions while Rex was out there chasing a man he believed to be a murderer.
What he saw, when he made it through the press of other people all keen to see what was happening outside, stole his breath away.
Rex was halfway along a fire ladder, forty feet in the air and climbing with Lee Oliver brandishing a knife in his face. As Albert watched, the ladder was swinging around, away from the marquee but a fall from that height would kill Rex no matter where he landed and Albert struggled to find a breath as he watched the aerial standoff advance toward a terrible conclusion.
Lee Oliver couldn’t believe it when the ladder started moving. That they might slew it away from the museum roof had not occurred to him and now he was stuck between the angry looking dog with his rows of nasty teeth and a fall to certain injury.
He had to get rid of the dog and get back down to the fire truck. His priority to escape had switched – now he was trying to stay alive as the ground looked a long way down from his current height. The dog wouldn’t stop advancing though. It was slow, checking each paw before he put the next one down, but the gap, which had been thirty feet, was now more like ten and Lee didn’t want to go any higher up the ladder.
He swore at the dog, uselessly hoping it might convince him to go back down. Then he tried shaking the ladder, gripping tightly with his hands, something he knew the dog couldn’t do, he threw himself around. Side to side and then up and down, attempting to shake the dog loose.
It almost worked.
Rex hunkered down to the ladder when it started to move. Biting a rung to anchor himself a little better and hooking his front paws around a rung as best he could, he held on until the human gave up. Then he started forward again.
Back on the ground next to the fire truck, Hendrix and Wilshaw were joined by Chief Inspector Doyle who heard the ruckus and sent his constable to see what was going on. The answer made him run to see for himself.
‘Mr Smith,’ he addressed Albert, picking him from the crowd just as he sent Jones and Washington to relieve Gary and cuff both Alan Crystal and Mr Oliver senior. ‘I thought Mr Oliver was the hero who saved Mr Crystal.’ It was posed as a statement but sounded like a question, CI Doyle voicing openly how confused he was by the turn of events.
Gary came to stand beside his father. A little out of breath, he said, ‘Well that was invigorating. I haven’t physically arrested anyone myself in years.’
Chief Inspector Doyle acknowledged his superior’s efforts with a nod. ‘I find myself at something of a loss,’ he admitted with a trace of irritation showing. ‘Would either of you be so kind as to tell me what is going on.’
Albert didn’t take his eyes off the ladder. ‘Just as soon as my dog is safe,’ he replied. Albert’s heart was beating at twice its usual pace, which he doubted was good for him. If Rex fell, he wondered if it might just stop.
On the ladder, Rex advanced again, creeping forward another rung. He was too high off the ground and refusing to look down because he knew it would make him feel ill. The target was ahead, that was all that mattered, so he focussed on that and went up yet another rung.
Lee Oliver couldn’t shake the dog loose and could see the gathering crowd surrounding the fire truck. Filled with rage that he had been caught just when he was onto the biggest score of his life, he wanted to lash out and hurt something. He wouldn’t win any points killing the dog in front of an audience, but he didn’t care. The old man fingered him as Jordan’s killer so he was going to jail for life anyway. Killing the dog might give him some satisfaction.
He’d have to do it quickly though, they were lowering the ladder now, dropping the angle rather than retracting it and soon he would be low enough to jump.
The dog came closer – five feet, then three, and Lee readied himself. He was going to kick the dog, let it bite his boot and swing the knife. The dog might think itself to
