Free Year of the Talking Dog: A Hana Walker Mystery (The Hana Walker Mysteries Book 2) by Patrick Sherriff Page A

thoroughly miserable. I turn my attention from the stage to the audience, looking for any sign of the masked man. There are many men. Many with masks on. There are a loud bunch of men in the crowd standing around the raised stage. And there are others, older men who must be in their 40s, wearing messages in kanji on their heads.  
    The lights go down and the stadium roars. Firefly jumps and holds my arm. Glow sticks wave in the darkness, piercing the bad air of a stadium of salarymen. Then two dozen girls file past us and run onto the stage, waving like schoolgirls spotting a panda or a foreigner.
    The tune is familiar. And the poses, too. I must have seen them when they were advertising coffee or something. Then the spotlights are on them and they strut to the music like children who have over-rehearsed for the school play. They are dressed in golden shirts, black-and-white mini skirts and gold high heels. They all have microphones, but I can’t tell who is singing, or if any of them are really singing. It could be a backing tape; I don’t see any instruments or a band. A movie camera on a little track beside the stage goes up and down following the girls as they prance forward as one, and then the crowd releases a throaty roar as they form a circle on the little stage.
    More dancers file past me and then the whole troupe of them, four dozen teenagers shimmy back and forth showing their legs to a stadium of men. Firefly doesn’t know where to look. Neither do I. I wonder what their names are. What kind of a name is Aoi? Blue? Just as sensible a name as Firefly, I suppose. But who is she? And why did Steve write her name on the sketch? Then strobes begin flashing ultra-violet light. They pick up anything made of white and turn it into dazzling reflections. People’s shoelaces, T-shirts and hair bands. And a mask.
    Someone in the backstage behind me and Firefly is wearing a mask. I look again. Tall. Male. Close. He’s coming for us.  
    A flash of light dazzles me.
    I look away and back again. A silhouette is running at Firefly. I push him to the ground. And I see two hazy eyes. A mask. And a blade raised above my head. I roll to one side and feel the air rush as the blade lands beside me. I jump to my feet and run. Away. The only place there is any chance of not being followed. I run straight for the stage. The next moment I’m in a sea of light surrounded by darkness. I’m on stage and look behind me. The masked man hasn’t followed me onto stage, I don’t think, but to be sure, I head for the centre of the stage.  
    I look around me. Lights like UFOs stare me in the face piercing through the dark of the stadium. I try to do what the others are doing, which is smiling insanely and wiggling one leg to the beat of the music. I can do that. I move to one side and hope that my intrusion will be forgotten about. But the camera keeps zooming past me. I look up on the screen behind the stage. I try to see if I can see myself from this strange angle. It takes a while to figure out. Then it hits me. I’m being videoed and my image beamed onto screens at the back of the stage and on the right and left.
    The camera is off me now as the core group of dancers are walking around in a circle on the centre stage, flashing their legs again. But I’m not looking where I’m going and I crash into one of the singers. Her microphone flies from her hand onto the stage but there is no change to the soundtrack, her voice continues singing. Two men in black run from where I entered the stage. I pick the girl up, mumble “sorry”, and spin round looking for another exit. There is shouting all around the stadium. I run for the other side of the stage but trip over the track for the camera and fly straight into the lens. I’m about to pick myself up when a dozen men’s hands grab me. I’m heading to the nearest stage exit and my feet don’t even touch the ground.

CHAPTER TWELVE

    “So let’s get this straight. You stole an