Inside, it was not clear if the place was supposed to be an amusingly retro take on a shabby eatery or a bold affirmation of terrible British cuisine. Tara decided to err on the side of caution and ingest nothing. She nodded to the girl behind the counter and joined the men at a small table. Mortlake introduced the stranger as Detective Inspector Rob Westall. The name rang a bell.
“People bursting into flames?” she said.
“My fame precedes me,” he said affably. “Yes, that was when I met the prof here. Haven’t been able to shake him since. We’re like Mulder and Scully, only I’ve got longer legs than Gillian Anderson.”
“Do you want a cuppa?” asked Mortlake, gesturing at a small, stainless steel teapot. As well as the inevitable British “cuppas”, the two men had had a full English breakfast. Two nearly empty plates were swimming in grease and egg yolk. Tara shook her head.
“I’m good.”
Westall was pleasant enough, but he clearly expected to go over the attack again. Tara bridled at this, pointing out that she had given Mortlake all the details.
“Yeah, I know it’s tedious and irritating,” Westall conceded. “But it’s also a very common practice. If a person makes up a story, they tend to say the same detailed stuff over and over with little variation. An honest recollection is always going to be incomplete, messy, even contradictory in some ways. Just the opposite of what you might expect, in fact. Honest people are much less consistent than practiced liars because memory is a bit treacherous. So, will you tell me what happened?”
Tara was mollified and did her best to recall her ordeal. Westall focused more on times and places, and she got the impression he was well up on the area where it happened. Then he focused on her escape, going over and over why the beasts had taken down Josh but somehow let her go.
“I don’t know!” she said several times.
“I have a theory about that, if it might help,” Mortlake said.
He produced his phone and showed her a picture of a blue flower, asked if it looked familiar. Tara took the phone, peered at the picture, then shrugged.
“Could be. I remember some wildflowers, they were blue… Yeah, that looks like them. Why?”
Mortlake looked from her to Westall. The detective sighed and leaned back in his chair.
“Okay, I know I won’t like this,” said Westall. “Tell me it’s a magical herb, straight from the realm of the pixies.”
“Not exactly,” Mortlake said. “It’s actually a very poisonous wild plant called Aconitum or monkshood. But it does have another name.”
He paused, obviously for dramatic effect. But he paused just a heartbeat too long.
“Wolfsbane,” put in Westall. “Sometimes called the Queen of Poisons, or Plant Arsenic.”
Seeing Tara’s expression, he laughed.
“History of crime—one of my little hobbies, if you can call it that. Poisoning was a popular crime in the old days, I’ve read a few books about it. Before modern medical science, aconitum was a good way for a wife to get rid of a troublesome husband—or vice versa. Brew up a few plants, slip it in his porridge. Nowadays, very few people try it—march of progress and all that.”
Mortlake looked deflated at having his dramatic revelation stolen from him.
“Wolfsbane indeed,” he said. “I forgot your fascination with the crimes of the past.”
He turned to Tara.
“Try this working hypothesis—you fell into a patch of the stuff, and that wildflower protected you. According to folklore, it’s far more toxic to lycanthropes than people. You got a rash that cleared up in a day or so, they would have suffered far worse.”
“That makes sense, I guess,” she said, handing the phone back to Mortlake. “But I’ll bet the Inspector here doesn’t believe in werewolves running amok in England.”
“Better to say I don’t want to believe in them,” Westall corrected her. “Apart from anything else, how can you charge somebody with a crime committed while they were transformed into a different species? The Crown Prosecutor wouldn’t touch that and he’d be quite justified. It’s my job to catch criminals, so I’d rather believe we’re dealing with hunting animals of some kind, and that makes their owners guilty of any number of serious offenses.”
“You think Tara saw some kind of exotic hunting animal?” Mortlake demanded. “How likely is that?”
“As a police officer,” Westall replied, “I would say it’s more likely than lycanthropy. But… I’m sure there is something going on down there at Gonfallon’s family home, and it’s damn peculiar. One of his employees contacted me, and before I could get much out of him, he was dead. Guts all over the place. Dog attack—that’s the expert opinion. Teeth and claws. But it happened in the middle of London, and nobody saw any dog. But I did see a van, and when I checked the partial plate I got, sure enough, it matched the registration of a van owned by the Mordaunt estate.”
Tara thought this over.
“So Gonfallon took one of his pet werewolves to London to kill a guy who was going to blab?”
“Can we stop calling them werewolves, please Tara?” Westall pleaded. “Just hunting beasts. Exotic predators. Any expression that keeps the paranormal at arm’s length.”
They talked some more, Westall admitting that his superiors did not want to antagonize someone as well-connected as Gonfallon. The van’s presence at the scene had been confirmed via CCTV. But cameras covering the area around the alley seemed to have malfunctioned for just a few minutes at the vital time.
“Not unheard of,” Mortlake remarked. “Paranormal phenomena mess up digital technology. I’ve often wondered if it isn’t some kind of quantum effect.”
Tara rolled her eyes.
“An idea doesn’t become scientifically valid just because you throw in the word ‘quantum’,” she pointed out. “Maybe his lordship has friends in high places who made sure the tapes were erased?”
Westall disagreed with that. There were too many tapes from various businesses, and the people who examined them were trustworthy staff, not senior officers with political cronies. The conversation went back and forth. But Westall ultimately declared that, without more hard evidence, there was nothing he could do but keep an eye on the situation.
“If Gonfallon knows he’s being watched,” said Tara, “he’ll not do anything for a while, right?”
Westall shrugged.
“In my experience, very rich people tend to assume they’re above the law,” he growled. “And that’s because they often are. I wouldn’t be surprised if he carries on with his nasty little pastime.”
***
“Shoes?”
Barry Foster looked up, bleary-eyed, at the bulky figure looming over him. It was late, definitely after midnight. The cold, wet weather meant there was hardly anyone about, but Barry could hear some noise from the main drag a few streets away. The pubs were closed, but the nightclubs were still open. Between midnight and three, then.
“Yeah, we got all sizes,” said the stranger. “You look like, what, a nine? Deffo got those. You want to take a look? Come on, mate—free shoes!”
Barry was suspicious. He had been living on the streets for over three years and he had learned to be wary of all sorts of people. He was just young enough at twenty-eight to be singled out by some of the pervs. He didn’t sell himself, though he’d been tempted a few times.
“What’s the catch?” he asked, peering up at the stranger.
“No catch,” said the big man, showing him a photo ID badge strung around his neck. “Name’s Steve, by the way. And you are…?”
Barry couldn’t read very well, but the ID looked official. He gave Steve his name.
“It’s just charity,” Steve went on. “These shops, online retailers, they can’t shift a lot of end of line hiking boots, stuff like that. So, we get them dirty cheap and pass them on. Think about it—tons of footwear that would just go to landfill! What a bloody waste! You guys need proper shoes, right?”
“Righ
t,” Barry said wearily.
He got to his feet, which were currently encased in a pair of filthy trainers that were close to disintegrating. They were a size too big, and he’d crammed them with newspaper, which also served as insulation. He was more or less dry in his favorite doorway, but a steady November rain had been falling all day. Now it was late at night, and he knew that walking for more than a few yards would let the damp in.
“Why you leave it so late?” he asked, rolling up his bedding. “More of us homeless about in the daylight.”
The stranger shrugged.
“Easier to park the van—any other time, it’s a nightmare, this part of London,” said the big man. “Also, we’re prioritizing guys like you—ones with nowhere to sleep. You need decent footwear the most, right?”
“Right,” Barry echoed. “Okay, I’ll give it a go.”
“Great,” said Steve. “It’s not far.”
He left the doorway of the wedding shop and followed the stocky man past the bank and the fast-food place. All of the places where Barry had slept at night, or tried to. The bank had been fine at first, but then they had put two-inch metal spikes in their doorway. He’d moved on to the burger joint, but it had gone to round-the-clock opening and customers had kicked him, puked on him, or been otherwise unpleasant. The wedding shop’s doorway was too shallow to protect him when the weather was wet and blustery, but it was the best he had at the moment.
“It’s just around the corner—we can fit you up with something from the back of the van.”
Barry thought Steve looked tough. He dressed in dark, good-quality outdoor clothes—big jacket, boots, waterproof trousers. Charity workers came in all shapes and sizes, but this one looked like a nightclub bouncer. Broad-shouldered, shaven-headed, powerfully built. Normally, Barry was wary of anyone who could clobber him, preferring to deal with women do-gooders. Shoes, though, were a massive incentive. People never thought about the effect life on the streets had on your feet. If some new charity was dealing with that problem, it was an early Christmas miracle.
“Look sharp,” said the charity worker, “we’re on the clock—lots of visits to make. And you want to get out of the rain, right?”
The stranger was almost running, urging Barry to keep up. It was odd because charity workers usually did the opposite, kind of shepherding you along where they wanted you to go. Despite his bulk, Steve was moving quite fast, and Barry had to jog to keep up.
They rounded another corner, and the bright lights faded. They were in a side-road that led to an area of graffiti, warehouses, and heaps of garbage. The working girls came here with their johns, and Barry had bought some drugs on occasion. A dark van was parked a few yards away, rear doors open. Another man in dark clothes was waiting by the vehicle. There were shoeboxes in the back of the van. Barry felt like a man in a desert who’s just found an oasis. He was already wondering if he could wrangle two pairs, or maybe three.
The first guy slowed down a bit and called ahead to his colleague.
“This one’s a nine, I reckon.”
“Nine?”
The second man turned and rummaged, pulled a pair of black, lace-up boots out of a box, scattering tissue paper. The first man took one and asked Barry to sit down on a little folding chair. It was a weird scene, Barry thought, as the guy held the sole of the boot against his foot.
“Yeah, that looks right, wanna try them on?”
“Sure!”
Barry’s reservations vanished as he pulled off his decrepit trainers and pulled on the brand spanking new walking boots. They looked like real leather and fitted perfectly.
“Have a walk up and down in them,” said Steve. “Make sure they’re right for you.”
Barry, smiling at his good luck, walked to the mouth of the alley, turned back, and strode to the van. He was thinking of a way to get his hands on another pair, and how he might keep them safe. He smiled at Steve.
“Thanks! These are great! I’ll tell everybody about your charity. You’re doing good work! What’s the name of your outfit, anyway?”
Steve exchanged a knowing glance with the other man. It was, Barry thought, like two blokes sharing a joke. He had the sudden feeling it might be a joke about him. But the boots on his feet were real, and warm, and dry. That was what mattered.
“Footprints,” said Steve. “Nice simple name, easy to remember.”
“Footprints,” Barry repeated. “I’ll pass it on.”
He was turning to go when a large hand landed on his shoulder.
“Don’t run off just yet, mate,” Steve said. “We have another little treat for you. A trip to the country, a nice weekend break from London.”
Alarm bells were sounding now. This was not the way charities operated, in Barry’s experience. He started to protest, but the other man had moved swiftly up behind him. He struggled, tried to kick, but Steve and his pal were too strong for someone who had not eaten properly in days.
“Get off me!”
A cloth reeking of some chemical was clamped over his face. He heard Steve say something about being careful, not wanting a dead body to get rid of. Barry’s limbs became heavy, and the world swirled around him. He stopped struggling, slumped, and felt himself lifted into the van and thrown casually into the heap of shoeboxes. Then someone began tying his wrists together while the double doors clanged shut. Barry tried to cry for help again, and the cloth was clamped over his mouth and nose again.
He lost consciousness and awoke later feeling nauseous. He had been gagged, and now his ankles were bound as well as his wrists. The van was in motion. It felt like it was going fast, and the radio was blasting out some classic rock. A time check told him it was five-thirty. The darkness told him it was still a.m. Steve and the other man were talking, a few words audible over “Hotel California”. Steve was the more garrulous of the two.
“Gotta wonder what diseases these buggers have… rather them than me…”
The other man asked a question Barry couldn’t make out.
“Oh, I don’t know—twenty minutes, maybe more? Thing is, they’re quite fit considering, but they’ve got no stamina.”
Another inaudible question.
“Good idea… mention it…”
Barry edged his way down the van toward the rear doors. If he could kick them open, he might roll out onto the road. But as soon as he started driving his brand-new boots against the door, Steve pulled over, and they drugged him again, adding a smack on the side of the head and a warning.
“Next time, we’ll break something. You won’t be needing your fingers, so sodding well keep quiet!”
He awoke to daylight and a glimpse of blue sky beyond the windshield. The repeated doses of chloroform or whatever it was had given him a headache and nausea. If his stomach hadn’t been empty, he’d have thrown up in his gag. He was grabbed by the legs, dragged out, dropped roughly onto gravel.
“Well, at least this one is young,” said a new voice, very posh and arrogant. “The pathetic specimen you brought last week was barely able to walk let alone run. No real sport at all.”
The owner of the posh voice was looking down at Barry. He was clean-shaven, fair-haired, with the look of a man who’d never worried about his next meal. His expression was hard to read. The posh man looked at Steve.
“Has he had anything to eat?” he asked.
“No, boss, we just brought him straight here.”
“Bloody hell,” said Posh Bloke. “How is he going to run if he’s got no energy? Think it through, man! Get him into the outhouse and feed him. Pizza, fish and chips, whatever these people like.”
The two big guys grabbed Barry and hoisted him to his feet.
“God, you pong a bit, mate,” said Steve. “We’ll get you in the shower first.”
Barry felt a strange sense of gratitude, wondering if Steve wasn’t, in fact, a total villain. But then the posh man stopped and shouted back at his men.
“No! Don’t clean him up. We need a strong scent for the
hunt.”
Barry started to struggle again.
Chapter 4
“The west of England,” said Marcus Mortlake, “has rightly been celebrated in song, poetry, prose, and classical music. And all those TV shows about murders in country houses, of course.”
“It’s cold,” observed Lonely Jones. “And it’s still raining.”
They were sitting in a rented SUV on a hilltop overlooking Wyebridge. A few yards away was a small picnic area, deserted and forlorn in late autumn. The town, picturesque in summer, was gray and miserable under a November sky. It was nearly midday, and Mortlake had driven down early.
“Don’t be downhearted,” Mortlake said. “Although, I know that’s like telling a squirrel not to think about nuts.”
Lonely Jones was the downbeat character Mortlake knew. The bookdealer and general snoop was a small, rat-like man—five-eight on a good day—with a perpetually unhappy expression. Mortlake valued Lonely because he had contacts, mostly criminal, and was extremely good at gathering information. But he also had a less than fastidious attitude to personal hygiene. That fact had become all too apparent during the two hours they had been sitting in the car.
Mortlake looked out at the landscape. The windshield was cleared of raindrops every few seconds, but the wipers were fighting a losing battle. However, over to the east, he could see a patch of blue. It had not been there a few minutes ago.
“The skies will clear, and we will be able to launch,” he said firmly.
“Launch?” Lonely gave a mirthless chuckle. “What do you think this is, NASA?”
“Better than NASA!” Mortlake insisted, checking his phone. “We don’t have to announce anything, just lift off when it suits us. But while we’re waiting, give me the gen on his lordship. What do people say about Lord Gonfallon around here?”
Wolfsbane: Supernatural Suspense with Scary & Horrifying Monsters (Mortlake Series Book 1) Page 5