The Werewolf of Wottenham Wood

by Rupert Harker

  “Surprisingly, Adam actually had a knack for it. He wrote loads of songs, mostly about girls and stuff, but after a while he got into death metal and started writing about death and blood and war and that. He was in a couple of bands but they were proper shite.

  “I wasn’t into music. I liked doing stuff with my hands; taking my bike apart and putting it back together, building a treehouse out of an old table, that sort of thing. After school, I went to college and learned carpentry and got a job with one of the builders working on that big new housing estate over at Scrumblington. The other lads showed me stuff, how to wire a house, do plumbing and that. All in all, I was pretty handy. I got into lifting too, no steroids or cheating, just hard work at the gym.

  “Eight years ago, Mum got cancer and died. A year later, Dad had a heart attack, and Adam got the vicarage. We’d both been a bit wild, but when we got the house to ourselves, we just went mental. Adam would bring girls home nearly every night, sometimes two at a time, and I went out drinking and fighting.

  “I liked a bit of puff, and sold a bit on the side, but with Mum and Dad out the way, I started growing my own, just small at first. I set up some UV lights in the attic and bought an electric heater, but I was growing too much to smoke myself, so I started selling to friends, and things went from there.

  “Around when Mum died, Darren started up his band. They were pretty good, Darren’s a good guitarist, but after a year or two, the singer moved up north with his girlfriend, and that’s when Adam joined the band.

  “Adam was a proper mentaller on stage, cutting himself and fighting with the crowd, and the gigs got really popular. He wrote loads of songs, and they made a demo and started playing all round Cambridge. There wasn’t many other death metal bands around here, not good ones anyway, and they found a local agent, Rosie, and she got them a three-album deal with this independent label, Mudflap Records.

  “Once he had a bit of money in his pocket, Adam didn’t know what to do with himself. He got bored really easily. He even got bored of girls. When one girl was boring, he’d get two. When that got boring, he got into S&M. When that got boring, he got into cutting himself, then hitting the girls, then tying them up, and it just got weirder and weirder. He got into black magic and Satan worship. He used to talk about sacrificing a girl during sex, or drinking blood and other mental stuff.

  He had weird hobbies too. One time, he took up golf; that lasted about a week. Then it was the violin, then foreign films, then God-knows-what else until one day I came home, and he’d gone and bought this bloody great snake and an iguana and a couple of geckos. He looked after them for about two weeks, then one day he came home with Teejay, though he was called ‘Mustang’ back then.

  Teejay must have been newly hatched, because he was only about twelve inches long when he arrived, but he grew quick. I asked Adam where he got him, but he just said not to worry about it and not to tell anyone, so I kept it to myself. After a few months, Adam was bored of the whole thing and just chucked him out into the woods with the snake and the geckos. I was pretty angry about it, but Adam owned the house, and if I ever said anything he just threatened to kick me out, so I just shut up and put up.

  “About three or four days later, I was out in the woods looking for somewhere to set up my new skunk farm when I found Teejay. He was in a bad way; it looked like he’d had a run in with a fox or something. His front leg was all mangled and twisted, and he couldn’t hardly walk. I took him back to the house and cleaned him up and got him some chicken and decided to nurse him back to health. Adam thought it was hilarious, and started calling him ‘Tripod Jack.’ I wasn’t laughing. I really love animals, and it made me sick what he’d done. We had a punch up over it, and I busted up two of his ribs and knocked one of his teeth out; happy days! He got into a strop and said that Teejay had to be out of the house, or I’d be out with him.

  We’ve got a couple of old outbuildings in the woods, so I took them over and fixed them up, made them comfortable. I managed to find a couple of old caravans, and a mate helped me tow them up, and I set up the generator and started up the farm.

  “I did a good job on Teejay. Darren nicked some antibiotics from his dad’s shop, and I crushed them up and fed them to Teejay in his food. Pretty soon he was up on his three legs, but he couldn’t get about much until I got the idea of making him a wooden leg. I got an old chair leg and cut it to size and bolted it onto a dog harness from the pet shop, and it was brilliant.

  “I was making loads of money from puff, and I’d branched out into speed and pills, so I bought a fridge and a washing machine and did the barn out so I could look after Teejay properly. We had a bit of trouble with some of Adam’s fans sniffing around, but I gave them a good hiding, and word soon got about that it wasn’t a good idea. Adam managed to buy a few acres of woods off the council, and I nicked a load of fence panels that were meant for the new estate and made an enclosure, about half an acre in total. It’s not all fence panels, a lot of it is just wire fencing ‘cos crocodiles can’t jump or climb, especially with only three legs.

  “Adam never came round the farm. He was more interested in black magic or banging prozzies or gigging. I don’t think he even knew that I kept Teejay. I think he thought that I had got shot of him or something, but I never did.

  “It’s not cheap feeding a crocodile. They eat a lot, you know, but that was alright. I gave Adam puff instead of rent, and I was making loads from the gear and the whizz, going round the local pubs and clubs and fighting off the competition. I got a couple of heaters in the barn, lagged the ceiling, put some straw down and fitted a swinging door so that Teejay had somewhere to shelter. I dug out a massive pond at the edge of the enclosure for him to swim in, but it was too cold in the winter, so he spent most of his time in the barn, ‘til one day I was in one of them charity shops in town and I spied this big old fur coat and I got the idea to put it on Teejay.

  “Teejay liked to hunt a bit; there were muntjacs and rabbits and foxes coming into the enclosure, but after about three years he was pretty big, about six feet, and I had to feed him more and more. He really likes chicken, so I mostly gave him roast chickens, two or three every other day. I wanted to train him to come back at feeding time and I was going to use a whistle, but because of the Tripod Jack thing and the Werewolves, I thought it would be funny to train him to come to the sound of the wolf howl. Crocodiles are clever, you know; he got the hang of it in no time.

  “Once a fortnight, I stuff his chickens with a load of skunk leaves to chill him out so I can change his coat or mend his leg. I was worried about him getting frost bite in his feet, so I started wrapping his feet with towels or sheets, and he’s been coming on brilliant; he’ll be fully grown in a few years, but when we had that storm last weekend, the wind brought the fence down and he got out.”

  *

  “I didn’t mean for him to hurt anyone.” Cain Upstart sighed and closed his eyes.

  I heard sirens approaching, and within a minute or two, the familiar flashing blue lights illuminated the clearing with their reassuring strobing. I left Cain with Urban-Smith and went to brief the paramedics on the current situation. Oddly, they seemed rather reluctant to enter the barn.

  “Is that a crocodile?” asked the elder of the pair.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “He’s well secured. Just keep close to the walls and don’t pet him.”

  “We’ll have to call the police.”

  “They’re already on the way.”

  “If it’s all the same to you, we’ll wait for them to arrive before we go past that thing.”

  “That’s fine,” I conceded. “The patient’s quite stable for now, but he’ll need a spinal collar when you move him.”

  Teejay had tired of the proceedings and was curled up in the centre of the barn with his eyes closed, although I am given to understand that it is never safe to assume that a crocodile is asleep. I edged around him and returned to Urban-Smith and Cain Upstart.

  “The ambul
ance crew won’t come in until the police arrive,” I explained.

  “Inspector Mallow should be with us soon,” replied Urban-Smith. “I telephoned him directly so as not to alert PC Worthy. He assures me that he shall be discreet.”

  “Kelly,” groaned Cain. “How could she do this to me?”

  “What happened, Cain?” asked Urban-Smith. “What happened between you and PC Worthy?”

  ◆◆◆

  27. A Light Bite

  “I met Kelly about six months ago at Ignition. She wanted some gear, and I sorted her out. I didn’t realise she was a copper at the time, someone told me the next day. She came back a few days later, and I had it out with her because I thought she was setting me up, but we ended up back at her place. It was weird.

  “We got on really well, and we kept seeing each other, but we kept it hush-hush because it wasn’t good for business if people knew we were an item.

  “It worked out well for both of us; I gave her gear, and in return she kept the Old Bill off my back. We hooked up once or twice a week, and it was all good, but after a few weeks, she started asking about Adam; what he was like, what did he get up to? I thought she must be a fan, but I didn’t push it. Then, about two months ago, Adam said he was moving to Los Angeles; going to sell the house and rent an apartment over there. I couldn’t go with because of my record, so I was out on my ear, and that was the end of my business. No job, no income and no home.

  “I was in a right state. I didn’t know what to do. I told Kelly all about it, and she said that I should get rid of him. I thought she was joking at first, but then she told me what he’d done to her. I couldn’t believe it. I knew that he was a bit kinky and liked it rough, but a rapist? I couldn’t get my head round it, but Adam kept going on about selling up and moving, and I just couldn’t see any other choice. It wasn’t just me either; what about Teejay? Where was he going to go?

  “So I agreed. Kelly came round the house when Adam was out and looked around. I had a key to the cellar; I’d nicked Adam’s keys and had a copy made. Kelly looked around the cellar and looked at his insulin and stuff, and she came up with the idea. She said it would look like natural causes, and with the door being locked from the inside, nobody would suspect anything.

  “I ordered some glucagons for Adam, said the others were out of date, then said that the prescription was lost and had the surgery redo it. On the night we did Adam, I spent the evening with Darren Forshaw, then turned up back at his flat again in the early hours. I told him that I’d given some bloke a good pasting and I needed an alibi, so he let me stay the rest of the night and he went along with it. He didn’t know anything about what we did to Adam.

  “When you turned up and started sniffing about, Kelly told me to keep my mouth shut. She said there was no way that anyone would work it out, but I wasn’t so sure, then when you turned up again this morning, I knew something was up. Kelly rang me and told me you’d be coming to snoop around tonight, so we set a trap for you.” His eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed in puzzlement. “How’d you get out of it?”

  “Are you familiar with the ancient art of Yandra, Cain?” asked Urban-Smith.

  “Dunno. Is it like Karaoke?”

  “Yes. Just like that.”

  “Mr Urban-Smith?” Inspector Mallow had arrived and was hovering at the barn entrance with two uniformed constables. I remained with Cain Upstart while Urban-Smith greeted the Inspector and brought him up to speed with the night’s events.

  With the Inspector’s reassurance and chaperoned by his officers, the paramedics agreed to collect Upstart from his resting place at the rear of the barn, and soon had him away to be deposited at the Accident and Emergency department of Wottenham District Hospital, where he was to remain under police guard until fit enough to be taken into custody.

  And so, just the four of us remained; Urban-Smith, Inspector Mallow, Teejay the crocodilian and yours truly.

  “Do you believe that Worthy will return to the scene of the crime?” asked Inspector Mallow.

  “I am certain of it,” said Urban-Smith. “She has no guarantee that Teejay will dispatch all three of us. If necessary, she will finish the job herself. What time does her shift finish?”

  “Seven.”

  Urban-Smith checked his watch. “With your permission, Inspector, Rupert and I shall return to my brother’s cottage to shower and change. Would you be able to drive us, please?”

  “Certainly. And then when Worthy returns; bam!” He drove the edge of his fist into his open palm. “We shall have her, bang to rights.”

  “That we shall, Inspector. That we shall.”

  *

  We left Teejay secured in the barn, and Inspector Mallow returned us to Ulysses’ cottage, promising to return at five a.m. While Fairfax and I performed our ablutions, Ulysses prepared some sandwiches and coffee, and the three of us sat around the kitchen table, eating and speaking of the night’s developments.

  “You must tell me, Fairfax,” I insisted. “How were you able to deduce the true nature of the beast of Wottenham Wood?”

  “It is a classic example of the practical application of misinterpretological methodology. Our initial hypothesis of the existence of a werekangaroo was based on a number of false assumptions.

  “Despite your justifiable scepticism, I allowed myself to give too much credence to the documented reports of the Tripod Jack murders, and assumed our culprit to be bipedal with an extra limb rather than a quadruped with one leg missing. As a result of this initial error, we proceeded on the basis that a walking stick or crutch was responsible for the peculiar pattern of footprints.

  “Then, of course, there were the wolf howls that accompanied the beast’s nocturnal ramblings. It was not until we were assailed by the same howl in The Cock, that I considered that the sound had another explanation. My initial thought was that somebody was using the sound to obscure the killer’s true nature; an auditory extension of the naaldlooshii akee be-ki-asz-jole, if you will. As it transpires, it was Cain Upstart searching the woods for his lost companion and attempting to summon it back to its lair.

  “Our misinterpretation continued when your report of a fur-covered creature caused us to seek a mammalian predator, but when I saw the artist’s impression based upon your description, my impression was that of a giant lizard wearing a toupee.

  “I had continued to entertain the possibility of a lycanthropic entity, but I knew that if our monster presented itself tonight, a full week after the full moon, that the most probable explanation was that of a three-legged crocodile that had been furnished with a wooden leg, fur coat and stockings.” He smiled and shook his head with a chuckle. “I can scarcely believe that I didn’t see it sooner. Looking back on the evidence available, it seems so absurdly elementary that a schoolchild could have deduced it.”

  “Hmm,” I murmured. “A clinically insane schoolchild on a steady diet of hallucinogens and sensory deprivation, perhaps. I worry about you, Fairfax.”

  “I agree,” said Ulysses. “No normal individual could have come to this conclusion.”

  “Well,” conceded Fairfax with his usual unassuming modesty, “in my capacity as the World’s first and only private consulting paranorensicologist, I am something of a unique phenomenon.”

  “And so say all of us.”

  *

  The three of us turned in at around midnight. Fairfax and I set our alarm clocks for four-thirty, and were dressed and recaffeinated when Inspector Mallow arrived at five o’clock to return us to the Upstart vicarage to await PC Worthy.

  “You are sure that she will return?” asked Inspector Mallow.

  “Unless she has been alerted via yourself or the ambulance service, she will come back to move our bodies.”

  There was a heavy fog collecting, and we had to exercise caution as we made our way around the house and along the dark track that led to the brick barn and the caravans that were the nerve centre of Cain Upstart’s herbal franchise. Thick tree roots and low branch
es loomed from the brume and the haze to pluck at our trousers and jackets as we passed.

  Teejay remained curled in the centre of the barn, one eye opening at our approach. There was a single low growl from deep in his belly as we made our brief inspection, but he made no move in our direction, nor we in his.

  Urban-Smith closed the barn door. PC Worthy would have no choice but to investigate from close proximity, allowing us to corner and apprehend her.

  Twilight was to be upon us by half past seven, and we would have to conceal ourselves carefully; early detection would allow our quarry to flee in almost any direction. Fortunately, the undergrowth was dense and capacious, and it was an easy matter for us to conceal ourselves only a few metres from the barn, Inspector Mallow and I at each flank, readied for a pincer movement, and Urban-Smith a little further back in case PC Worthy should manage to break away.

  The dawn chorus was well underway, and an orange glow was creeping over the treeline when we heard the sound of footfall upon the track. A few moments later, PC Worthy appeared in the clearing, clad in her police uniform and clutching her baton. She stopped and checked to her sides and rear to ensure that there was no movement that might herald an ambush from the resident reptile. Seeing none, she cautiously made her approach to the barn and gently pushed open the door, and that is when we sprang, I from her left and Inspector Mallow from her right.

  “Alright, Worthy,” growled Mallow, “the game’s up. You’ve been caught in the act! Apprehended red handed! Collar felt! Bang to rights!”

  PC Worthy spun about to face us and crouched like a cornered stoat, looking anxiously from left to right, seeking an escape route but finding none. She brandished her baton and backed away from us into the garage.

  “There’s no way out, Worthy,” shouted Mallow, crowding the barn’s door. “You’re nicked! Nabbed! Grasped! Clutched! Clenched! Acquired! Fingered! I advise you to come quietly, peaceably, with decorum and without bellicosity or truculence.”