by JL Merrow
As the last of the light drained from the sky, the temperature dropped. Nick made his way to what cover there was, in a clump of trees a good distance from Fen Causeway. He stripped off hurriedly, shoving his clothes in an Asda carrier bag that hopefully no one would think contained anything worth taking, then steeled himself to transform. The moon was already visible, thank God. Last time he’d focused on Julian to transform, but he didn’t think he could bear doing that now.
Nick fixed his mind on the moon, trying to ignore the fact that it was barely more than half full. In his imagination, he filled it out to a shining silver circle. He concentrated, trying to feel its pull, to let it take him over. The change came with frightening swiftness. As Julian had told him, the pain had lessened considerably. It was like pulling off a scab, this time: intense, but soon over. The ease of it unsettled Nick—it was as if the wolf within him was gaining confidence. Gaining power.
Nick shivered for a moment, standing there on all fours, and then shook himself more deliberately. Julian. That was all that mattered now. Finding Julian. Cautiously, he padded out from the cover of the trees and sniffed at the air.
Nick quickly realized that this was nothing like his little patch of woodland on the Godolphin Estate, haunt of wild animals and the occasional lost rambler every other month or so. Here, close to the city with its people and cars and fast-food outlets, the profusion of scents was overwhelming. His nostrils were flooded with the smells of people—hundreds, no, thousands of them—and of the reeking detritus they left: putrid, half-eaten food; empty beer cans; urine tinged with lager. Nick’s brain whirled with the input, but he searched on frantically, covering the same ground over and over again, desperate to find some trace of his lover.
There was none.
One thing he was certain of, though: the Cambridge News sighting had been neither a mistake nor a hoax. Another wolf had been here before him. Its scent was unmistakable—a foul, feral stench like a rotting canker that sickened him to his stomach and sent him snarling into the bushes, his vision misted with blood, to root out this interloper and tear him limb from limb. Nick tried to follow the stinking trail, track it to its source, but it was everywhere—and worse, it was old, thick in the bushes but washed away by recent rains elsewhere and overlaid with yet more pungent odors from two-footed visitors to the fen.
It was long after midnight when a subdued, hopeless Nick hauled himself back into his clothes (thankfully still where he’d left them) and onto his bike to begin the weary ride back to college. He cursed his own ineptitude, his sheer lack of experience at this sort of thing. What kind of a wolf was he? Julian, he felt sure, would have been able to track the invading wolf to its lair.
Nick wasn’t fit to have a pack. He wasn’t fit to keep a bloody pet poodle.
Chapter Fourteen
NEXT MORNING, Nick rose from his bed exhausted and queasy, having hardly slept. He forced down a cup of tea, but the toast he made clogged his mouth like blotting paper, and he discarded it uneaten. He didn’t have any lectures first thing, thank God. He paced restlessly in his rooms, struggling to think of something, anything he could do that might be even slightly better than useless in finding Julian, bringing him back. Maybe he should ask around at Julian’s old haunts? But what was the point? The police would be doing that already. Nick didn’t have the first clue about interrogating a suspect—and he wasn’t sure he could trust himself if faced with one of Julian’s past conquests. The last thing he needed was an assault charge at a time like this.
Nick stopped in the center of the room and drew in deep, ragged breaths. He needed to stop running around in circles and just think. Going to Coe Fen had been a ridiculous idea. There would have been no earthly reason for Julian to go there of his own accord. Far more likely he’d have headed into town for solace. Nick found his face drawing up into a snarl and forced his breathing to slow. Calm. Focus.
He needed to go into town in wolf form and try to pick up a scent, that was all. Which meant waiting until after dark and then hoping he’d be mistaken for a dog. His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. Perhaps he could persuade Tiffany to pretend she was taking him walkies? She’d seemed astonishingly matter-of-fact about Julian being a werewolf, after all. Nick only wished he could have had half her composure on discovering their existence for the first time.
But what the hell was he going to do in the meantime?
His phone rang, answering his question and sending a physical jolt along his spine with its discordant jangle.
“Yes?”
“Is that Dr. Sewell?” The Master’s querulous tones sounded down the line. “Are you there, Dr. Sewell?”
“Yes, yes, I’m here, Dr. Earle.” Nick hurried to reassure the old man before he started banging the phone on the hook and calling for the exchange. God knew, Cambridge was full of people clinging on to the past with both hands, but the Master’s skeletal grip seemed more tenacious than most. Nick was half-surprised he hadn’t become a High Court judge.
“Ah. Good. I wonder, Dr. Sewell, if it isn’t too much to ask, but as I understand you are, ah, familiar with our unfortunate Mr. Lauder, perhaps I might prevail upon you?”
Nick forced himself to speak calmly. “What can I do for you, Dr. Earle?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Markham arrived in Cambridge late last night. Julian Lauder’s mother and stepfather, you understand. I spoke with Mr. Markham this morning and both he and his wife would like to meet you. If you don’t have any pressing duties today….”
“I….” Nick hesitated. “I have a supervision booked, but I can’t see any reason why it couldn’t be rescheduled.” The students would most likely be heartily relieved.
“Good man. The Markhams are staying at the University Arms. I offered the use of the Lodge for your interview, but Markham seemed to think his wife would find it too, ah, painful.”
Too painful? Or not private enough? Nick could think of several reasons why the Markhams might not want their discussions overheard.
He hoped the true reason wasn’t that, like Detective Inspector Phillips, they’d already decided on his guilt and intended to bludgeon him to death and hide the body.
NICK DECIDED to walk to the hotel rather than cycle. It would give him a chance to grab a sandwich on the way and avoid lunch in college. God knew he had little enough appetite as it was, without having to face the stares of a Hall full of prurient students.
He bought a cheese-and-tomato roll from the baker’s in St. Andrew’s Street and sat to eat it on a bench on Parker’s Piece. On a fine summer’s day this squarish patch of grass would have been crowded with young people from town and gown alike, enjoying the open space and a rare chance to acquire a suntan. Even on this gray autumn afternoon, there were a few hardy students playing an impromptu game of football. Nick envied them their lack of any more pressing worries than whether they’d manage to get their essays in on time or whether their student loans would last out the term so they wouldn’t have to go begging for handouts from Mum and Dad.
Turning up the collar of his jacket against the freshening breeze as it sent its icy fingers playing along his spine, Nick stared across the Piece at the hotel. The Master hadn’t given him a clue how he was likely to be received by Julian’s parents, but they obviously knew about him and Julian. Nick could hardly imagine them being overjoyed about their son’s relationship with a man over a decade older. Perhaps they saw him as some kind of English Schräger, taking advantage of a vulnerable youth? Nick shuddered.
At least Julian’s sexuality couldn’t have been news to them. And they were aware of his promiscuity—Angus Lemon’s comments about Markham proved that. Perhaps, then, they might not be so upset at learning that he and Nick had started a steady relationship?
Nick crumpled up the paper bag that had housed his lunch, and stood. Sitting here putting things off wasn’t helping anyone, least of all himself. Chucking the rubbish into a nearby bin, he set off across the grass toward the University Arms.
THE UNIVERSITY Arms was perhaps not the most exclusive hotel in Cambridge but it did have a certain old-world grandeur. The chandelier in the lobby could have been a stand-in for the one in The Phantom of the Opera, and some of the staff even spoke with English accents.
Nick was directed to a lift of the old-fashioned cage sort, with a plaque commemorating its installation by Waygood Otis in 1927. Nick wondered irrelevantly, as he slammed the iron gate shut, what had happened to names like Waygood. It was probably ripe for rediscovery by modern generations—he could easily imagine a couple of chavs looking fondly at their newborn, one of them saying, “Yeah, Chantelle, he looks way good.” A portrait, presumably of the man himself, stared back at Nick from the lift wall. He didn’t look like he’d have much of a sense of humor about his name or, indeed, anything else. Nick felt a childish urge to make a rude gesture at him, but instead pulled open the gate once more as the lift juddered to a halt.
The Markhams were staying in suite 321, which was the most expensive in the place. Nick straightened his shoulders as he knocked on the door, reminding himself that, as a fellow of a Cambridge college, he had no reason to feel ill at ease in such surroundings.
Nevertheless, it took all his effort not to jump when a stern voice shouted, “Come in.”
As he stepped into the room, Nick’s eyes fell first upon a blonde woman standing by the window, her face pale in the gray autumn light. Julian’s mother, she must be—but Christ, she could have passed for his twin sister: same hair, same slender beauty… same troubled eyes. No wonder Julian had a difficult relationship with his father. There must have been nothing of the man in him.
Markham was a stiff figure at her side, somewhat round-shouldered in the manner of the unusually tall man who spends his life bending down to talk to people. His arm hovered constantly around his wife’s shoulders, but it seemed to Nick more of a protective than a possessive gesture.
“Ah. Sewell?” Markham stepped forward, hand outstretched.
Nick took it mechanically. Markham’s grip was cautiously firm, as if he worried smaller fingers might be crushed by his outsize grasp. “Mr. Markham. And Mrs. Markham. I can’t tell you how sorry I am that we’re meeting under such difficult circumstances.”
Elisabeth Markham gave a wan smile. “You must call me Lili. I know… my son has written to me about you.”
Well, that at least was a relief. Probably. Nick hadn’t been looking forward to dealing with a mother coping with the dual blows of her son’s disappearance and the revelation of his relationship with an older man.
“Oh? He, ah, didn’t mention that to me,” Nick stalled, hoping she’d let slip just what Julian had said about him.
“He finds it difficult, sometimes, to be open with people. He’s just a boy.” She seemed to be struggling not to cry.
Markham stepped in firmly. “Point is, Sewell, the boy trusts you, so we do too. Drink?”
Nick took the glass of sherry Markham poured him from the decanter in the room, although he was rapidly coming to loathe the stuff. They trusted him because Julian did? Nick wasn’t sure that he’d take that as any kind of recommendation. For all they knew, Nick might have been another Schräger.
“Now, we understand you’re aware of Julian’s… unusual background,” Markham began.
Nick shot him a sharp glance.
“He said that you were one too,” Lili put in softly.
Well, this was all just so terribly British, wasn’t it? All of them dancing politely around the elephant in the room, leaving Nick totally confused as to whether it was in fact an aardvark.
Abruptly he couldn’t take it anymore. “You mean a homosexual? Or a werewolf?” Nick’s heart was pounding ridiculously at his having come out and actually said the last word.
Markham gave him a disappointed look, as if he’d caught him cheating at cricket. “Both, of course.”
“Right. Yes.” Nick felt wrong-footed, somehow, as if he hadn’t been the one to try to force the candor in the first place. He made himself look Julian’s mother in the eye. “That doesn’t worry you? I mean, after what happened in the past….” He trailed off as she flinched at his reference to Schräger.
“It is what he needs,” she said in her quiet, musical voice.
Nick’s eyes darted to Markham, but his face was unreadable. What must it be like, to have to accept all this from the outside? Or was it simply that he didn’t really care about Julian? Nick tried to imagine caring for the offspring of the person he loved and another man, and failed dismally. Although that might, of course, have been down to biological impossibility. Remembering the glass in his hand, he took a quick drink.
“We need to know if there’s anything you can tell us. Anything you might not have wanted to say to the police.” Markham’s tone was softer, this time, as if in deference to the woman by his side.
“About where Julian might be? I wish to God there was.” Although that wasn’t exactly true, was it? “I should probably tell you I’ve been in touch with….” Nick hesitated. Saying “Julian’s father” might not go down too well with Markham. “Peter Herrscher,” he finished.
Markham stiffened, his arm tightening around his wife as she paled still further.
Nick hastened on. “He said he would be coming here tomorrow. Actually that’s pretty much all he said, I’m afraid. He was somewhat brusque.”
“Now, see here.” Markham’s voice was tight. “I really don’t see any reason for that man to be involved.”
Nick had been dreading this. “Look, I don’t like it any more than you do, but we may need him.” He was still stalling, he realized. “I think Boris Schräger may have Julian,” he said bluntly.
Lili seemed to crumple, and Markham helped her into a chair, shooting Nick a look of pure loathing that he tried not to take personally. “You’d better have a damn good reason for suggesting that.”
“I don’t, not really. But a friend of Julian’s thought she saw a dark wolf a few nights ago, and Herrscher’s reaction to the name was instant. I don’t think he’d be rushing over here if Schräger was still safely under his thumb in Germany.”
“Damn it!” Markham swore explosively. “You’ll have to excuse me, but the man’s a psychopath. Julian was a damned mess when Lili first brought him to me. Took a good year to get him even halfway straightened out. Wish to God I’d brought my gun. Brute needs to be put down like the animal he is. No offense meant, Sewell.”
“None taken,” Nick said dryly. Lili was still looking like a beautiful marble statue, but she roused herself, showing a hint of the determination that had carried her and her damaged son across Europe. “If he is offering help, you should accept it, Dr. Sewell,” she said in a low, firm voice. “But do not leave him alone with my son.”
Nick nodded grimly. “You don’t need to worry on that score.”
Markham nodded. “Good man. Lili, why don’t you go lie down for a while? I’ll come in and see you in a minute. Just a couple of things I want to talk over with Sewell.”
She gave a wan smile and nodded. “Thank you for coming to see us, Dr. Sewell. I hope that next time we meet it will be under happier circumstances.”
Nobody spoke until the door to the bedroom had closed behind her, then Markham heaved a sigh. “I don’t mind telling you, we’d hoped to hear better news from you. With the news of that murder… well, we’re under no illusions as to Julian’s behavior. Fact is, we rather thought you’d been responsible for the boy’s disappearance.” He held up his hands as Nick rounded on him, shocked. “I may not have your inside knowledge, but I’m well aware that things are done somewhat differently in your world. Can’t say I approve, but, well, there it is.”
Nick’s mind reeled. “You thought I’d… what? Found Julian screwing around, murdered one man, and beaten the other bloody, then hidden him away somewhere until he was fit to be seen? You hoped that?” He turned away to look out of the window, leaning heavily upon the sill. “Christ, don’t even tell me.” This was what the
y thought of him—and yet they said they trusted him? Outside, the skies were grayer than ever, and a fine mist of rain had begun to fall. “You’re wrong. The only ‘world’ I know is All Saints’ College, Cambridge.” And Julian. “I suggest you stop thinking of me as a… a werewolf and start thinking of me as a lecturer in history.”
Markham puffed out another heavy sigh. “Well. Can’t say I’m not disappointed, but I suppose there’s no help for it. Perhaps it’s just as well that damned Herrscher’s on his way.”
NICK WALKED slowly back to college, the rain soaking into his hair and trickling down inside his collar. The footballers on Parker’s Piece had abandoned their game and the place now looked empty and forlorn. Even the people in town now hurried from shop to shop without looking at one another, their heads bent against the rain.
Nick had never been among so many people, yet felt so alone.
Chapter Fifteen
TIFF SAT in her room, staring out of the window. She’d had a rubbish night’s sleep and even her third cup of coffee didn’t seem to be having much effect. Unless you counted making her hands shake and her stomach feel queasy. Everyone said not knowing was the worst bit—but surely it was better to have even the smallest bit of hope? Tiff couldn’t imagine she’d feel relieved if they found Julian’s body. She hugged herself, fighting the sting of tears. God, she was being pathetic. Fat lot of use she was to Julian, wherever he was.
Where the hell could he be? “Think, Tiff,” she told herself aloud, which at least distracted her from her misery by making her feel like a prat. “Think logically.” If Jools was alive, he was obviously being held somewhere, or he’d come back, wouldn’t he? So that meant some kind of building. But how had Boris the Bloody Bastard—if it was him—come up with a building to hold people in? Well, rental was the obvious answer, but only if you didn’t know Cambridge. Halfway through the Michaelmas term was the worst possible time to find anything to rent round here.