The Stranger Times

by C. K. McDonnell

  ‘Can we just …?’

  ‘Oh, very well,’ said Banecroft. ‘You used to be more fun, Stanley.’ He nodded towards the Dennard building. ‘Tell me about this?’

  ‘What about it?’

  Banecroft blew out a large plume of smoke. ‘A little bird tells me you’ve been pitching it, so what’s the story?’

  ‘Do you mean other than the suicides?’

  ‘Well, yes. The two “supposed” suicides are facts. You’ve never been one for just reporting facts, Stanley. What’s the angle?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  Banecroft leaned against the bonnet of his car. ‘Oh, Stanley, for someone with your experience, you’ve forgotten how this works. I’ve got the dirt on you, so I’ll ask the questions.’

  ‘Fine. Whatever. I was pitching human interest.’

  ‘Really? Not your usual area of expertise, Stanley.’

  Stanley shrugged. ‘It’s a small town – got to work harder for it up here. The first guy – the one a couple of weeks ago – was a fireman and his kid is sick in hospital. Like, terminal. I wanted to do one on the widow – husband killed himself, can’t cope, kid on the way out. Real tear-jerker.’

  Banecroft pulled a face. ‘Christ. You really are something, Stanley.’

  ‘Thanks. Means a lot, coming from you.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  Stanley held out his hands. ‘Look, I told you on the phone it wasn’t much. This meeting is a waste of everyone’s time.’

  ‘You say that, Stanley, but I wanted to see you again. Remind myself that things could be worse.’

  ‘I’d give up going for high and mighty, Banecroft – you can’t carry it off any more.’

  ‘Oh, Stanley, Stanley, Stanley. Dung beetles still look down on you. Now, before I let you get back to whatever truly dreadful thing you’ve got planned for the rest of the day, I need you to do me a little favour.’

  Moretti stood outside the pub and watched Banecroft talking to the fat man. He was too far away to guess at the tone of the conversation, but suddenly the big guy started flapping his arms around, as if the pair were arguing. The two men then pointed over at the Dennard building. They were really shouting now. The fat man stomped across the street, earning honks from oncoming traffic, while Banecroft, with a final wave of his hand, disappeared into the sandwich shop. Moretti leaned against the wall and watched as the fat man approached the security guards at the gate of the building site and proceeded to get into an argument with them.

  Moretti had passed the site earlier. There was a lot of extra security, which wasn’t a surprise. Circumstances had forced him to improvise a lot more than he would have liked this week. His original reasons for using the Dennard building in his attempt to create a Were had been straightforward. While it wasn’t the tallest building in Manchester, the fact that it wasn’t completed and was relatively isolated in its location meant that it would provide them with much-needed privacy. Yes, the height was important too – for the mixture to work, the subject’s adrenalin levels had to spike dramatically, and a long fall was the best way to make that happen.

  In the olden days, subjects had hurled themselves off cliffs to achieve the effect, but sadly cliffs were in short supply in Manchester. When the first subject failed, it had at least looked like a simple suicide, no questions asked. And so he’d used it again with Merchant, and thankfully that time it had done the job. When Moretti had discovered the kid snooping around following the ‘collateral damage’ death of the homeless guy, he’d been forced to think on his feet. The Dennard building had been the first place that had popped into his head.

  He’d expected, as with the first failed attempt to make a Were, that the resultant crater would be chalked up to another tragic suicide, waste of life, blah blah blah. Sure, two suicides at the same location so close together would attract attention, but nobody was going to suspect foul play, not when both jumpers appeared on CCTV entering the building alone. At least that should have been the case, but this Banecroft character seemed determined to make a nuisance of himself. Moretti was just keeping an eye on him, making sure he didn’t create enough noise for it to be an issue.

  The fat man was continuing his argument with the security guards, and two more now entered the fray. It had just dawned on Moretti that Banecroft had been in the sandwich shop for a considerable amount of time when …

  ‘Hello.’

  Moretti turned to find the man in question standing right behind him, holding his hand out and grinning.

  ‘Vincent Banecroft, but seeing as you followed us here from the office, I’m guessing you already knew that.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Moretti. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

  Banecroft smiled. ‘Sure you do. You were driving an Audi TT, and we were a nightmare to follow because my protégée hasn’t quite got the hang of the whole driving thing yet.’

  Moretti shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, you’ve got me confused with someone else. I’m just a tourist visiting for a few days.’

  ‘Yes, because Manchester in March is a big deal with our American brethren. You must really love rain. Now, who are you and what is your interest in Simon Brush’s death?’

  Moretti’s smile twitched slightly. ‘I …’

  People walking by were noticing them now. Moretti tried to change his body language, make it look as if they were two friends chatting rather than two men squaring up to each other.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘There’s been a big misunderstanding. Let me show you something that will clear this right up.’

  He took the gold coin on a silver chain out from the inside pocket of his jacket and, with a practised twist of the wrist, set it spinning. ‘It’s a funny story actually. If you take a look at this, everything will become clear.’

  Banecroft stared long and hard at the coin – then his clear eyes darted back up to Moretti’s. ‘Seriously, if you’re going to start using close-up magic … I’m not a violent man, but I’m willing to make an exception.’

  Moretti pulled back in shock, causing the coin to swing erratically. ‘That’s not possible. How did … Who … Who are you?’

  ‘We’ve covered that,’ said Banecroft. ‘But I would rather like to know who you are and what the hell you have to do with all this.’

  Moretti slipped the coin back in his pocket and looked around nervously. ‘How are you …?’ Without another word, he stepped away from Banecroft quickly.

  ‘Hey, come back here.’

  Moretti walked briskly to the corner and then turned left.

  ‘Hey!’

  When Banecroft came around the corner, he found himself shouting after a man who was nowhere to be seen. There was no doorway – nothing but solid concrete wall. Either the man was an Olympic sprinter or he had vanished into thin air.

  CHAPTER 32

  Ox sat looking at the screen with Grace standing behind him. Neither of them said anything for a very long time.

  Eventually, Grace cleared her throat. ‘Are you sure that is …?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Ox. ‘I don’t know what I’m looking at. I mean … it’s … I can see that it’s …’

  ‘Could it be fake?’

  ‘Absolutely. Only …’

  ‘What?’ asked Grace.

  ‘Only I don’t know how somebody – why somebody – I mean, it don’t make no sense.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It doesn’t feel fake, does it?’

  Grace said nothing in response, just blessed herself.

  They both looked up at the sound of rapid footsteps across the wooden floor in reception. A moment later, Hannah and Reggie walked in, looking flushed.

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Hannah, ‘you are not going to believe this.’

  ‘She’s right,’ said Reggie. ‘I’m not sure I believe it. I mean, I do, but I can’t believe I believe it.’

  The two of them looked positively giddy.

  ‘Right,’ said Ox. ‘Well, we�
�ve found something pretty incredible as—’

  Hannah looked at Reggie. ‘Do you want to tell them or should I?’

  ‘You do it. You found it.’

  ‘I couldn’t have without your help.’

  ‘Oh, stop it. You were positively Sherlockian and you know it.’ Reggie pointed at Hannah and addressed the rest of the room. ‘The kid is a natural.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Ox, ‘but listen. I—’

  Hannah spread her hands. ‘OK, I know this will sound crazy, but hear me out.’

  They all turned as a door slammed loudly and in stomped Stella. She pointed back in the direction from which she had come. ‘That dude is unbelievable. He is stone-cold insane! I can’t believe I got back in the car with him. He just sat in the back, necking a bottle of whiskey, shouting, “Go faster! Don’t hit stuff!” over and over again. He is—’

  The door crashed open and Banecroft too stomped in, as much as was possible for a man on a crutch to stomp. ‘Ah, excellent, you’re all here. Something very peculiar happened.’

  ‘I guarantee it’s not weirder than what happened to us,’ said Hannah.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Reggie. ‘This story is incredible, but it does make sense. Sort of.’

  ‘Ehm, guys?’ said Ox.

  ‘Forget all that,’ said Stella. ‘I want to talk about this lunatic and the mental torture he put me through.’

  Banecroft scoffed. ‘Torture? Nonsense. It was character-building.’

  ‘Character-building?!’

  ‘So, we’re down at the scene of the first murder—’ Hannah began.

  ‘Hannah is an absolute natural at this investigating thing, by the way,’ interrupted Reggie.

  ‘I met with my source,’ announced Banecroft. ‘But more importantly, we were followed.’

  ‘Yeah. It was dead character-building. Why—’

  ‘SHUT UP!’

  The entire room turned as one and looked at Grace.

  She took a deep breath. ‘Right. I appreciate you all have things you wish to talk about, but with the sweet Lord Jesus as my witness, you all need to shut up and listen to Ox.’

  This was met with a selection of nods.

  Grace turned to Ox. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Right,’ said Ox, looking slightly shell-shocked. ‘So, short version: I went over to Simon’s house and, well, I sort of temporarily took his back-up hard drive.’

  ‘Oh, Ox,’ said Hannah.

  ‘I’m only … I’m gonna give it back. It’s just … I remembered he had it and I couldn’t find his camera nowhere.’

  ‘Ox …’ said Reggie, shaking his head disapprovingly.

  ‘It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I remembered, y’see, that his camera backs up to the cloud. I helped him set it up.’

  ‘I have little interest in your petty thievery,’ said Banecroft, ‘but I assume there is another shoe that is about to drop?’

  ‘Well, yeah,’ said Ox. ‘So it backed up like it was supposed to, all on to this hard drive. It’s set up to use that cloud wi-fi that’s in lots of different spots in the city. Whoever had or has it – the camera, I mean – I’m guessing they didn’t know. They must’ve passed a wi-fi hotspot, because it backed up. We’ve got all of Simon’s pictures.’

  ‘And?’ said Banecroft.

  ‘And,’ said Ox, ‘there’s a … Well, there’s pictures that …’ He looked up at Grace.

  ‘Just show them,’ she said.

  ‘Right,’ said Ox, turning his screen around. He pressed a key and a picture of the Dennard building at night filled the screen. They all watched as he pressed another key and a couple more pictures of the building skipped by. Next was a dimly lit stairwell.

  ‘Can we—?’ started Banecroft.

  ‘Shut up, Vincent,’ snapped Grace.

  Ox continued to scroll through the pictures: a few more of the stairwell and then images of Manchester at night, taken from a great height. The rooftop.

  ‘Well, this is all lovely, but …’

  Banecroft didn’t need to be told to shut up this time.

  The picture on the screen changed again – to a blurred shot of what looked like fur.

  Then the angle flipped. The next photo looked as if it had been taken from below. Like the person taking it had been lying on the ground. Above the camera towered a terrifying beast with massive teeth, a protruding snout and wild, red pupils in bloodshot eyes. The pictures moved on.

  Hannah gasped as the point of view altered dramatically once more. The camera was now slightly above the beast, which had its arm extended as if holding the photographer high off the ground, possibly by the throat.

  The final image was of the blurry Manchester skyline, the lights of the city jerky smears on the screen. Then the screen went black.

  Reggie spoke in a whisper. ‘Did we just see Simon’s final moments?’

  Ox nodded. ‘I … I think so.’

  ‘What was … What was that thing?’ asked Stella.

  ‘Whatever it was,’ said Hannah, ‘it matches the description we had of whatever was responsible for the murder in Castlefield.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ said Banecroft.

  Hannah just nodded.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this,’ said Reggie, ‘but didn’t it look a bit like … I mean, if you saw it on a TV programme, you’d call it a werewolf.’

  ‘Could it be somebody in a suit or something like that?’ asked Grace. ‘I mean, Lord knows there are a lot of weirdos out there.’

  ‘If that was a suit,’ said Stella, ‘then it was a seriously expensive one. I mean – it don’t look like no special effects to me.’

  ‘Plus,’ said Hannah, ‘from what we’ve heard about that … thing, it can jump impossible distances, which explains how it got on top of a forty-two-storey building without being seen, but …’

  Banecroft stepped forward. ‘Show me the second-to-last picture again.’

  Ox nodded and pressed a couple of keys, and the image of the beast holding Simon above him reappeared on the screen. It sent a shiver down Hannah’s spine as she looked at it again. Part of her was still trying not to believe it, but somewhere deep down it felt real. Those eyes … She thought of how terrified Simon must have been, coming face to face with that monstrosity. The sheer terror. And despite it all, he had still had the presence of mind to keep snapping pictures. Hannah looked down at the floor and pushed a knuckle into the corner of her eye.

  ‘I thought so,’ said Banecroft. ‘I recognize him.’

  Reggie didn’t attempt to keep the incredulity from his voice. ‘You recognize that? How could you possibly recognize …?’

  ‘I met him an hour ago.’

  ‘That’s bullshit, man,’ said Stella. ‘I was watching you. You met a couple of old dudes. You didn’t meet no werewolf.’

  Banecroft slowly looked at each of them in turn. ‘Really? Well, this is disappointing. A room full of supposed journalists …’

  ‘Vincent,’ said Grace, ‘for once, just stop being so … you.’

  Banecroft stepped towards the screen and pointed at the beast. ‘I didn’t meet that. I think meeting that in the middle of the day would attract some attention, even in Manchester. No, I’m referring to him.’

  To be fair, thought Hannah, what with the monster in the foreground being quite so monumentally distracting, it was easy to miss. The flash of the camera caught mostly the beast – its brown fur, the massive, fang-like canines with ribbons of saliva hanging from them, and those eyes … Those eyes would distract anyone. It was only when you attempted to look past it that you noticed what Banecroft was referring to.

  There, in the background, just over the beast’s right shoulder, was a figure – or at least a partial one. The man was wearing black, which had hardly been picked out at all by the flash, giving the illusion that his head was floating in the air with no body attached. All you could see was half of a face. It was that of a bald man, and he appeared to be grinning.

  Everyone’s a Critic
r />   Researchers studying the Wantaki tribe, one of the few uncontacted peoples left in the world, have made a shocking discovery. In the last two years, the Wantaki have developed their own form of social media. According to Dr Serena Daniels, 38, from Boston University, ‘some members of the tribe have taken to drawing pictures on a large rock at the edge of the village. Every night, other tribespeople then come and look at the pictures and either applaud or throw faeces. Sadly, this has not led to a greater appreciation of art and artists in their culture, but we have noticed that the natives capable of producing the most faeces have started to become dominant.’

  CHAPTER 33

  The bullpen was a hive of activity: Ox alternating furious typing with speed-pumping his stress ball while he read, reread and then, more often than not, deleted; Reggie hen-pecking away at his keyboard at a relentlessly slow but steady pace.

  ‘Where in the hell is …?’ started Banecroft.

  ‘It’s coming to you right now,’ finished Ox.

  The previous four hours had been an intensive crash course in how a newspaper was assembled. Hannah felt as if she was being carried along by a flood. She’d helped Reggie write up what they had learned, in between Banecroft hollering stuff at her, reading and rereading everything being sent to her, correcting the grammar and, in Ox’s case, rationing his excessive use of exclamation marks. Not that the subject matter wasn’t exclamation-worthy.

  Hannah was standing beside Banecroft, who was standing over Stella as she worked at her computer.

  ‘Stop crowding me,’ said Stella.

  ‘I need to see the screen.’

  ‘Well, then, either get some glasses or take a bath. You smell like manky bacon, man.’

  ‘There’s no need to get personal,’ said Banecroft.

  Stella glanced up. ‘Have you met you?’

  On her computer, Stella was running a software package that could format the text into columns around the artwork, slot in adverts and basically do everything that makes a newspaper a newspaper. Occasionally, Banecroft would say something that made no sense to Hannah, and Stella’s screen would become a whirr of activity. Before she knew it the pages would be formatted entirely differently. Pictures and text danced about in a way that would have been almost hypnotic had Banecroft not been shouting in her ear every other minute. When the chaos was over, Hannah would need to sit down with Stella and figure out how on earth she did it all.