by Amy Cross
"And where did this werewolf come from?" I ask.
He shrugs. "I guess they must have always existed, but they kept to the margins of society. At some point, I intend to go back over unsolved deaths covering the past century. I'm sure I'll find more evidence to show that these creatures are real." He pauses. "And that's why I wanted to talk to you today. I can't do this alone. I need someone to help me, someone smart who can point out my mistakes but someone who can also open her mind to the possibility that some of what I'm saying might be true. If I keep on doing this alone, I think I'm going to go crazy."
I sigh, trying to think of a way out of this. To be honest, despite the fact that he's a police officer, I'm starting to think that Stuart's crazy. Not like some kind of mass murderer, but someone who has become separated from reality. I mean, can he really think that werewolves are real? The idea of a human turning into a wolf is just insane. "I don't know that I'm the best person to help you," I say. "I'm sure there are other people who might -"
"Please," he says, "just help me for one week. Give me that long. In your spare time. Let me bounce some ideas off you. I need to talk to someone who I know won't be making fun of me."
I open my mouth to argue with him, but I can feel myself starting to accept that this is happening. I really, really don't want to be helping Stuart deal with his werewolf issues, and I feel as if getting involved in any way will just lead to more problems. At the same time, for whatever reason, the guy seems to desperately want me to help him, and I figure at the very least I'll be able to get the inside line on the death of that girl in the park. Suddenly my cold, professional side takes over and I realize that it doesn't matter whether Stuart's right or not: this could be my big break. All I have to do is tolerate Stuart's rambling about werewolves, get the scoop on the murder investigation, and then weigh up all the job offers that are bound to come in from the big London newspapers. And if by some bizarre coincidence it turns out that Stuart's right, and there are werewolves, I'll probably win the fucking Pulitzer Prize.
"Deal," I say. "I'll help you out. How do you want to work?"
"I need to speak to these guys from Yorkshire first," he says. "I need to know what evidence they've got from the other killings. I'd better do that alone, I wouldn't know how to explain your presence. You'd better keep a low profile. Maybe you can take a look through the newspaper archives and see if there's anything that might help us?"
"Sure," I say. "Anything else?"
"Can we meet tonight?" he asks.
I pause, worrying slightly that in some way Stuart has romantic intentions here. I'm happy to work with the guy, but there's no way our relationship is going to be anything other than professional. "Sure," I say, "how about we meet back here in the pub at eight?"
"It'll be too noisy," he says. "Can we meet at your place?"
I bristle slightly at how forward he's being, but then I realize that Hazel will probably still be at my place since we're planning to go for a drink tonight, so at least I wouldn't be alone with Stuart. There's something slightly creepy about the guy, after all. "Sure," I say, "but can we make it seven? I think I'm supposed to be going out with a friend tonight, so I don't want to have to keep her waiting too long."
For a moment, Stuart seems a little annoyed, but then he smiles. "Sure," he says. "I'll knock on your door at seven on the dot."
"I'll give you my address," I say, searching in my bag for a pen and a piece of paper.
Stuart laughs as he finishes his pint and stands up to leave. "I already know your address," he says. "See you later." He turns to walk away, but then he looks back at me. "I'm sure I don't have to tell you that this is all strictly confidential."
"Scouts' honor," I say.
As soon as he's gone, I let out a sigh of relief. There's something kind of creepy about him, and I'm pretty sure he's full of shit, but at the same time I figure I have to at least give it a try. After all, Watergate probably started out with a couple of people having a chat in a bar about improbable things. You never know, I might get the inside scoop on real live werewolves, or - more realistically - the story of a sad, deluded police officer who manages to turn the investigation into a girl's murder into a travesty of stupid theories. And that, I guess, is the important thing to remember: at the bottom of all of this, there's still a dead girl, and I seem to be getting the inside line in the struggle to solve the case. This time tomorrow, I could be sitting on a front-page exclusive.
Jess
Sunday
I wake up with a start, and for a moment I can't quite remember where I am. Looking around, I see that I'm in my bedroom, at home in my apartment, but how the hell did I get here? I take a deep breath and feel my head start to pound. Great, another hangover. The last thing I remember is getting ready to go out with Hazel last night. We got dressed up to go down to Zonez again, and then when we got there it was dead. We hung around for a while, drinking far more than we should ever drink, and then the place started to fill up and... Damn it, everything after that's a blur. Sitting up, I realize I'm still wearing my dress from last night, and I stink of sweat. Great. I have such a glamorous life.
It's only when I slowly ease my creaking, tired body out of bed that I remember the other thing that happened last night: Stuart Alexander's visit to discuss the werewolf case. Or rather, the lack of his visit. He was supposed to show up at seven, and I really expected him to arrive exactly on time. There was no sign of him, though, and I made Hazel wait with me until it got to eight o'clock and I figured he wasn't coming. God knows what dragged him away from coming to see me, but I guess he'll show up at some point. Maybe he got eaten by a werewolf?
I walk around the apartment, hoping I might find Hazel sleeping somewhere. She's nowhere to be seen, though, which means she must have gone home without me. I sigh, realizing what that means: Hazel only ever goes home without me when she's got a man. Although I don't remember much of what happened last night, I'm pretty certain that I probably tried to dissuade her from following some guy, and she must have given me the slip, and I must have walked home alone and annoyed. I find my phone (eventually - it's on the floor in the bathroom) and give her a call, but it goes straight to voicemail. Rather than leaving a message, I hang up and spend the next few minutes vomiting into the toilet. I have to admit, I'm a little worried about Hazel, but she's usually okay. She'll probably show up later today, embarrassed and ashamed and sore, and in need of emergency contraception.
When I'm done vomiting, I slowly head into the kitchen and find, to my relief, that my bag is on the side. I open it and find that, surprisingly, I still have £5 left from last night, and all my make-up, and what seems to be a small piece of paper with...
I pause.
My jaw almost drops to the ground.
It can't be.
I stare at it.
It really, really can't be.
But it is.
Fuck.
It's a phone number. Written in someone else's handwriting. And underneath, there's one name: Duncan.
I take deep breaths as I turn the piece of paper over and find that it's a receipt from the convenience store. Checking the time, I see it was 2:15am, so I must have gone in there on the way home again. I must have talked to that hot Duncan guy again, and this time - somehow - I got his number. But...
I stare at it for a few more seconds.
"Argh!" I shout out, unable to contemplate the true extent of how embarrassingly drunk I must have been last night. I never have blackouts, not unless I'm blind drunk, which means I must have been completely wasted when I met Duncan last night. I bet I made a complete idiot of myself oh God oh God oh God. "Fuck it!" I shout, slamming the piece of paper down. I can't go back to that convenience store. Not ever. Not ever ever ever. Not after whatever I did last night. I'm banning myself; that's if he didn't already ban me. I know what I'm like when I'm drunk. I talk absolute crap. I get flirty. I once, many years ago, even flashed my breasts at a guy. If I was that drunk last night, I c
an't ever face Duncan again.
I take some more deep breaths and, finally calming down, I look down at the piece of paper again. If I was so drunk and so awful, why did he give me his number? It's a good question. Perhaps he just wanted to get me out of the shop. That sounds like something that could happen: I probably pestered him for his number until he finally gave it to me in order to get rid of me. Hell, that's probably not even his number. Not that I'm ever going to find out, of course, because there's no way I'm ever going to call him.
"Oh well," I mutter to myself. I go to the fridge and find that my carton of milk has turned sour, so I throw on some clothes and head to the door, with the intention of going to get some from the store. It's almost midday, so Duncan won't still be working, which means I can go in without being embarrassed. I find some sunglasses, put them on, and open the front door.
"Good morning," says Stuart Alexander, who was about to knock on the door.
"Hi," I say, completely started.
He looks down at my rather unusual outfit: I'm wearing pajama bottoms and a t-shirt, with flip-flops on my feet. "Going somewhere?" he asks, smiling.
"Milk," I say, still stunned and not really able to think properly.
"I'm sorry I didn't make it last night," he says. "I got held up with a case. I'm sure you can imagine what it's like. I tried to phone you at about 10pm, but you didn't pick up."
"Oh," I say. "Sorry. I didn't even know you had my number."
"Please," he says, laughing. "I'm a police officer. I can find out what song you listened to on your iPhone this morning." He pauses. "Sorry, does that make me sound creepy?"
"A bit," I say, stepping back to let him in. "There's no milk, so I'm not sure what we'll have to drink. And we'll have to make this quick, because I feel like hell and I'll probably need to nap later."
He smiles as he steps inside. "I quite understand," he says. "You need your beauty sleep after a big night out."
"Thanks," I say, rather unimpressed with how he phrased that. "Go through to the kitchen, then."
As I make us each a black coffee, he spreads his files on the kitchen table. I inwardly groan when I see how much paperwork he's brought with him. If he really thinks I'm going to be able to go through all of that with him, he's got another thing coming. I can barely stay awake long enough to get the coffee ready.
"This is everything I've gathered so far," he says. "It's not conclusive proof of werewolves, obviously, but there's enough here to join the dots. I've gone through the case files as far back as 1980, and on the national level I've found eighteen deaths that could be werewolf-related."
I set his coffee next to him and sit down at the kitchen table.
"I know this must seem hard to believe," he continues, "but if you'll just bear with me." He pulls some large black-and-white photos from a folder. "From your reaction to the dead body the other day, I'm going to assume that you're not squeamish, but I should probably ask you first if you're okay with seeing these images. They show some quite gruesome injuries."
"Shoot," I say.
He puts the photos down in front of me. It takes me a moment to work out exactly what I'm looking at, but suddenly the various shapes resolve to show part of a woman's head. "When's this one from?" I ask, transfixed by the image.
"That one's from 1995," he says. "Near Edinburgh."
"Was it chewed?" I ask. "Like the woman yesterday."
"Yes," he says.
I look up at him. "I forgot to ask," I say, "did you get any new information about the new death?"
"We got a name," Stuart says. "Cathy Henderson. We've been unable to contact the parents so far, we think they're in London for the weekend. Again, you must keep this information to yourself. It can't get out. You can imagine how it would be for the parents if they learned of their daughter's death from the media rather than from us."
"Of course," I say. "What about the cause of death?"
"We're waiting on the autopsy results," he says, "but my colleagues from Yorkshire say that the injuries are entirely consistent with the kind of thing they've seen before in these cases."
"But they still don't think it's werewolf-related?"
"Their minds are closed," Stuart says, leaning towards me with a manic glint in his eye. "They can't see past their own prejudices."
"Right," I say, sitting back a little. His breath doesn't smell great: it's like a cross between stale food and beer. Is it possible he's been drinking already, on a Sunday morning? "Was there any sign of sexual activity?" I ask.
"None so far," he says.
"Any drugs or alcohol in her system?"
"The autopsy's tomorrow," he continues, looking down at the photos.
"Okay," I say, "I get that these people have all died, and I get that there are some similarities. But I still don't get why you think a werewolf is responsible."
He pauses. "It's like I said yesterday. I've seen... things. Things that make me receptive to the possibility of strange creatures. I've seen..." He takes a deep breath. "I've seen a werewolf. Once. Ten years ago. Quite close to town. I know it sounds crazy, but you have to believe me. I saw it."
"I see," I say, starting to confirm my suspicion that this guy is crazy.
"I can see the look in your eyes," he says.
"There's no look in my eyes!" I say.
"There is," he continues, "and it's fine. I'm used to people thinking I'm insane. But I know what I saw." He pauses again. "It was late at night. I'd been called out to investigate a report of a man who'd tried to grab a girl in an alley. All pretty routine. The girl was upset and crying, but there was no sign of the guy. Anyway, I tried to calm her down, and eventually I sent my partner off to take a look around while I walked the girl home. When we got to her door, I gave her the whole speech about how she shouldn't get too scared and how police officers would always be around to protect her. That's when I heard the scream." He pauses, as if he finds it difficult to tell the story. "I found my partner a few streets away, in a dark side-street. There was this... man... or whatever... ripping open my partner's guts and chewing on them. I froze when I saw him, and there was a moment where we were just staring at each other. Then, all of a sudden, the man turned and, I know this is going to sound insane, but I swear to God he turned into a wolf and ran away."
I look down at my coffee. I don't really know what to say: the story about the werewolf is obviously rubbish, but it seems Stuart was genuinely affected by the death of a partner. This is a tricky combination of sad and weird, and I have no idea how to respond. "Well... I'm really sorry that happened," I say cautiously.
"That's not the worst part," he continues, as if he didn't hear me. "The worst part is that I couldn't look at my partner. I couldn't look at what had happened to her. And then I heard her moaning, and I realized she was still alive. With her guts spread out across the ground, she was still conscious. I should have gone to her. I couldn't have saved her, but I could have held her hand and helped her feel less alone for those final couple of minutes before she died. I didn't do any of that. I just turned and ran, and called for back-up. I sent her to take a look for the attacker, and then I let her die like that."
"It's not your fault," I say. It's a pretty useless thing to say, but it's all I've got right now.
He takes a deep breath. "I guess you can see why I'm so interested in werewolves," he says, forcing a smile. "I mean, I know what I saw. I don't know how I can persuade you, but I know what I saw and it was... I have to see it again. I have to prove to myself that I'm not crazy. Do you know what it's like, walking around and knowing that there are things you believe, things you really believe, that other people think make you sound nuts?" He stares at me for a moment. "Hell, maybe I've lost my fucking mind, you know? Maybe..." He pauses, clearly becoming agitated. "Maybe everything's wrong," he says, "but I have to find out, right? I can't just let it gnaw at my mind like this. I have to find out if what I saw was real."
I smile, trying to work out what to say. It's pr
etty obvious that Stuart's in a very strange state of mind. He seems to be completely obsessed with what happened to his partner, and I can't help thinking that maybe he's got some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder. "Has it occurred to you," I say, picking my words carefully, "that you can't prove a negative?"
"What do you mean?" he asks.
"I mean... if you find a werewolf, you can prove it's real. But if you don't find a werewolf... you just keep looking. You can never prove that werewolves don't exist, because you can always tell yourself that there's one just hiding around the next corner. And then the next. And the next."
"I know," he says, nodding. "I know what you're saying, and you're right. It's just... I feel like I haven't got started yet. I feel like I'm just at the start of this journey." With trembling hands, almost as if he might start to cry, he sorts through some of his papers and eventually finds one particular item, which he pushes over to me. "Have you ever heard of Greystone?" he asks.
"No," I say, but then I pause. The name Greystone does mean something to me, though I'm not sure what. It's almost as if there's a part of my memory that's become a little foggy, or as if something's been scooped out of my mind. I felt the same way the other night when I met that Duncan guy in the shop. "No," I say again, deciding not to indulge Stuart. "Really no."
He stares at me for a moment, as if he's trying to work out whether or not he believes me. "Greystone was a covert ops group that specialized in things like this," he says. "They were never officially acknowledged, and from what I can tell, they were disbanded some time in the last few years. Why that would be, I don't know, but I'm certain that some other agency will be covering the same turf."
