High Moor 2: Moonstruck (14 page)

She passed a row of houses, curtains open and faces seeming to peer from every window, before heading back into the open countryside. It was then that she saw the crime scene for the first time. The front of the tunnel beneath the train tracks was covered in a heavy white sheet. Halogen lamps blazed from inside the tunnel, and she saw the outlines of the forensics officers, in their white suits, working within. Dozens of police officers stood around at the periphery of the crime scene, while a helicopter roared past them, flying to the north to search for Simpson in the fields and nearby woods.

She parked her car behind an ambulance and got out. The two paramedics stood by the rear of their ambulance, smoking cigarettes in trembling hands. That wasn’t a good sign. She made her way towards the largest group of officers, when Rick noticed her and stepped forward to meet her.

“How bad is it, Rick? I heard some things over the radio and it sounded like a fucking disaster.”

Rick shook his head. “It’s beyond a disaster. So far we’ve got six confirmed dead and there’s no sign of Simpson.”

Olivia’s mouth fell open. “Six? Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah. The two guards in the prison transport were torn apart in the back of the van. And I really do mean torn apart. The forensics guys are struggling to work out which part goes with which body. The driver was found with his throat torn out in the woods past the tunnel, along with some poor old bastard who’d been out walking his dog.”

She frowned. “That’s only four. What about the other two?”

“They are about a mile up the road, in the ruins of Finchale Priory. One of them…one of them had his lower jaw torn off and part of his digestive tract pulled out through his neck. The other one was on the bridge. Well, half of her was. We think the lower half must have fallen in the river and been washed away, towards the city. Oh yeah, and both of the bodies at the Priory were found stark, bollock−naked.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, my thought’s exactly. Best we can tell, Simpson took off over the footbridge into the woods. The chopper crews are searching for him with the IR gear, but they’ve not found anything bigger than a badger yet.”

“Is Phil here?”

Rick motioned towards a riot van with his head. “He’s in there. Using it as a temporary control room. He’s not in a very good mood.”

Olivia let out a long sigh. “He’s not the only one.” She reached over and put her hand on Rick’s arm. “Why don’t you go and get a cup of tea or something? You look like shit. I take it your team was on point again?”

Rick’s face contorted into a grim smile. “What do you think. Apparently, because we were lucky enough to bring Simpson in the first time, that automatically means that we’re the most experienced. I’ve got to tell you, Liv, I wish that I’d just put a bullet in that cunt’s face when I had the chance. I can’t believe that one bloke could do those things to another human being.”

Olivia hugged him. “I know that you’ve been through it the last few weeks. If you need anyone to talk to, you know where I am.”

Rick gently pushed her away. “Won’t Matt mind?”

“Matt will be fine. He knows that we are ancient history, and he knows that sometimes coppers need to talk about stuff to other coppers. I mean it, Rick. Give me a call if you want to talk.”

Rick gave a small, sad smile. “Thanks, Liv. I appreciate it. Now, you’d better not keep the boss waiting.”

She smiled at him, then turned and walked towards the riot van. As she approached, Phil got out from the rear doors, took out a cigarette, lit it, and inhaled about a quarter of it in a single drag. That wasn’t good either.

“I thought you quit those years ago.”

Phil looked up and, for a moment, looked like a schoolboy caught smoking by his parents, before his face darkened once more. “I did. As of today, I’m taking them up again, and if you breathe a word of this to Sharon, then I’ll make sure you never hear the end of it.”

She shrugged. “Fair enough. They’re your lungs, just don’t do it anywhere near me. I don’t want the baby getting poisoned by your bad habits.”

Phil looked at the lit cigarette, took another long drag from it, then dropped it into the earth and ground it under his shoes. “Did anyone tell you what we’ve got here?”

She nodded. “Yeah, Rick filled me in on the gory details. I’m sorry, Phil, but something’s not right with this situation.”

Phil’s right eyebrow arched at the comment. “Well, of course there’s something not bloody well right about it. There’s no way that van crashed without some outside assistance, which either means that Simpson has someone working with him, or that someone wanted him dead so badly that they didn’t care about how many people they killed to get to him.”

“And judging from the trademark naked corpses, I’d say the latter is more probable. Oh hell, I forgot to tell you…”

Phil’s phone rang and he raised his hand to silence her. “What? Say that again? You have got to be fucking kidding me. Well, check your bloody security tapes. It’s not like he just got up and walked out of there on his own. Yes, call me when you find something.”

He hung up the call and clenched the phone so hard that Olivia thought he might shatter it. “Do I dare ask?”

“It seems that Steven Wilkinson has gone missing from the hospital, and his whereabouts are currently unknown. According to the officer that was supposed to be guarding him, there’s some evidence of a struggle in his room, and the window’s broken. There were also two brass nine millimetre casings on the floor. We now have officially no suspects in custody, no witnesses and no fucking leads. Oh yes, and apparently Franks is on his way over here, just to put the icing on the fucking turd.”

Olivia stood silent for a moment, to absorb the new information, then looked up at Phil and in spite of the circumstances, managed a sly smile. “Well, I wouldn’t say that we don’t have any leads. You know your mysterious, red−haired woman? I think I might have found her.”

***

12th December 2008
.
Secure Storage Unit, Newcastle on Tyne. 19.00.

Marie glanced over her shoulder, half expecting to see Connie’s eyes shining out from the shadows. She typed a six digit number into the keypad beside the heavy shuttered door. The keypad chirped as she entered the final digit, while the red light above the keys turned green. She reached down and pulled the shutters up to her waist, then ducked inside. She struggled to find the light switch in the darkness, feeling a momentary sense of panic as her hand groped the cinderblock wall. She still was not used to the loss of her night vision. Before, it would have been a simple matter to bring her wolf up to the surface of her mind so that her senses were enhanced. Now, she felt as if she’d gone blind and deaf. Steven Wilkinson hadn’t just come close to killing her. He’d maimed her. Taken away a part of herself. A part that she’d come to depend on more than she’d realised.

Her hand found a cold metal tube on the wall, and she traced it down until she found the light switch at its end. Two banks of fluorescent tubes flickered into life, flashing a cold, lifeless light across the storage unit. Feeling much happier now that she could see, Marie pulled the shutters closed behind her.

The storage unit was piled high with heavy duty cardboard boxes, the detritus of her mother’s life. When she’d gone into the home, Marie had stored her things here, hoping that one day she would recover and be able to live on her own again. That hadn’t happened. Joan Williams had wasted away in the care home, not responding to anyone, or anything. The few times that Marie had managed to visit, her mother had not even registered her presence. The old woman, with the stench of death about her, had stared out of the window, where the care assistants had left her that morning. She’d been like that since her father had died. Well, since Marie had killed him, anyway. The doctors said it was a heart attack, but Marie had been the cause of her father’s fatal cardiac arrest, and to this day she felt no guilt about it, save for what it had done to her mother. The bastard had it coming.

This would be the last time that Marie came here. She supposed that the police would find out about it, sooner or later. Even if they didn’t, Michael knew that the storage unit existed, if not the exact location. It would be too dangerous to ever return. In many respects, she was taking a hell of a risk by being here now, but it was not like she had a choice.

She tore open one of the boxes and retrieved a large leather satchel from within. Her escape kit − a completely new identity: passport, driver’s license and credit cards, all in the name of Suzy Neale, along with around twenty thousand in cash, split evenly between US dollars, pounds and euros. While she used fake identities as a matter of course when on missions for the pack, this one was something that she’d set up herself, just in case she ever had to disappear. She’d never intended to leave the pack or do anything to betray their trust. They’d taken her in when she was a lost soul in her teens, wandering around Europe in search of other werewolves. The pack had saved her from the moonstruck that she’d blundered upon. They’d given her a home, reunited her with her brother and had become the family she’d always yearned for. The pack was home, and that was another thing that Steven Wilkinson had taken from her. She could never go back. Not now that she was human. Michael would argue with the others, demanding that her life be spared, perhaps even jeopardizing his own in the process. There was no hope for John, either. Oskar’s team were as efficient a group of killers as she’d ever met, and that meant that he would already be dead. Cut down in a hail of silver bullets while chained up in a prison van. She had no−one else to turn to. She was alone again, and the surge of emotions almost brought her to her knees.

She slapped herself across the face. “Sort it out, you silly bitch. This is no time to be feeling sorry for yourself. You’ve got what you came for, now let’s get the fuck out of here.”

She held her breath for a moment, then, as she turned to leave, something caught her eye in the open box. She reached in and took out a faded Polaroid photograph. Five children, jostling each other, with innocent, happy smiles spread across their faces. David stood in the middle of the picture, his arms folded and a serious look on his face that never reached his bright eyes. Michael was pulling a face, while John had his arm up behind her brother’s head, making a pair of antennae with his fingers. She was squeezed in between John and Michael with a huge grin on her face, and a gap where one of her teeth was missing. They’d taken this picture with David’s camera, on the afternoon where she’d officially become part of the gang. The day she’d kicked Malcolm Harrison in the balls. The day that David was torn apart by a moonstruck werewolf, in the woods near their home.

Shaking away the flood of memories, she dropped the photograph into her bag, opened the shutters and turned out the light. When she brought the steel shutters down again, there was a sense of finality to the loud clang of metal against metal. Slinging the strap of the bag over her shoulder, she hurried back to the car. Newcastle airport was a little over five miles away. With any luck, in a few hours she’d be airborne and far away from the police and the pack.

She put the bag onto the passenger seat, fastened her seatbelt and started the engine. The radio came to life as the engine caught.

“The police are still refusing to comment, but unofficial sources have said that there are at least three people confirmed dead, and that John Simpson appears to have escaped from police custody. Police advise the public not to approach Simpson, and to call the police immediately if he is sighted. He is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous.”

Marie turned the radio off. Could John have gotten away from Oskar? Might he still be alive? She opened the glove compartment and took out an ordinance survey map of the area. If John had escaped, then the chances were that he’d be wounded. The police would expect him to behave like a man, and would end up looking for him in the wrong places. She might not have her wolf anymore, but she’d had years of training. Years of experience hunting moonstruck werewolves. She traced her finger along the lines of the map and made some rough calculations. The moonstruck would try to get back to its territory, so that it could lay low and allow its injuries to heal. It would avoid any built−up areas, so would most likely follow the patches of woodland around to the north west before cutting back south, towards High Moor. It wouldn’t get there before dawn, but it would not be far away when the sun came up, and she had a pretty good idea which route it would take.

She sighed. It was stupid for her to even consider going after John. Even if he’d gotten away from Oskar’s team, they would not be far behind. It was an unnecessary risk. She should stick to her plan, drive to the airport and not look back.

Marie’s shoulders slumped. She couldn’t leave. If there was a chance that she could save John, then she had to take it. She’d been alone before, and the thought of it brought a damp sparkle to the corner of her eyes. Tomorrow morning, when the sun rose, she’d intercept John and get them both to safety. Before she did that, though, there were other arrangements that she’d need to put in place. It was going to be a busy night.

***

12th December 2008
.
Durham Train Station. 20.00.

Gregorz and Daniel were the first to arrive at the rendezvous point in the far corner of the car park, away from the glare of security lights. The station was on the top of a hill, overlooking Durham city centre, and was relatively quiet at this time of night, with only a couple of taxis parked in the bays. Most of the commuters were safely home, and only occasional groups of young men and women arrived at the station, for a night out in the glittering city below. Sirens still rang out in the night, and the roads beneath seemed to be filled with flashing dots of blue and red light. The moon loomed large overhead, and Gregorz could feel its influence, tugging at a deep, primordial part of him. He held the beast in check. From what he’d heard on the news report, Oskar’s mission had been even less successful than his own. They would have to work out their next moves, and unfortunately they would have to report the situation to Michael. That was not a conversation that he was looking forward to.