Wolfsbane Chapter 1

One: April 3rd 2014

The funny thing is I don’t really know how to start this. I mean where do you begin to describe the last two weeks ? because if I were in your shoes reading this for the first time; there is no way you’d believe a word of it… but its true… every single word. I’m sitting here in what once my side office; and that is now my store room… I can hear the winding chug, chugging throb of the generator in background. Its supplying all the electricity I need; and that’s good… because I don’t know if I am going to be able to finish this before the moon rises. Last night was bad enough… when I saw it rise, full and golden between the rising hills of the sleeping Dragon, as they called it here, I longed to recall the time when I could look at the moon and see a wondrous golden apple shining upon the horizon, full of wondrous promise… Now… The full moon leads to nothing but feelings of dread. My part in this story began two weeks ago… when a body was found on the outskirts of Bridgeton. The papers were full of it at the time… I have on my private wall of weird the first headline from the Sussex echo: “mutilated body found in woods” it says in large black letters, next to that, is a map, with a mountain of pins in all neatly tied with string making an enormous mind map… part of my investigation as to what happened… that and my son’s own journal… But of course none of that matters now…not now…

March 14th 2014.
‘…But none of that matters now…’ Dawkins said, waking me from my musing.
‘yes…’ I began. I could see him shake his head, but I didn’t let him know I’d seen that.
‘The body’s been here-‘
‘-About twelve hours…’ I pointed to the hard blue hand sticking out from the cold damp earth, and the mottled appearance upon the cadaver’s skin. ‘…And it’s been dragged here.’ I pointed to the broken stems of the February flowers that had started to show. ‘Do we have a name…? any I.D at all?’ I looked hopefully up from the half-naked and dismembered corpse upon the ground, and stared into Dawkins large watery blue eyes.
He looked down and shook his head slowly. ‘How do you do it? How could you know that...’
‘Experience…’
‘Shit…’ he coughed ‘It’s more than that… an’ you know it is…’
‘Ahh but can you prove it?’ I smiled and he laughed back, as we paced the scene.
On the whole, It looked like a ferocious animal had killed the man… but… something about it simply didn’t feel right…
We were standing in the damp forest clearing at the edge of Town just by the old Watherfall house. The damp morning dew hung heavily on the old leaves from the previous autumn and the dirty grey looking, receding winter snow; and I was standing by the head and neck of the prone, decomposing body. my breath visible in the cold morning light, looking down and with a distracted stare, -that most people, except police officers , find disturbing- inspected the cadaver’s throat, which had been viscously torn out.
Being a police officer trains your way of thinking. You to begin to see things from an objective point of view; and having worked in Boston for ten years as a detective, I had seen my fair share of inhumanity to our fellow brothers and sisters… That’s why I came here… I wanted to get away from… things like this… I shook my head slowly, as I stared down at the body of a man, who must have been a little over thirty years of age… I looked up and away into the middle distance, making a mental note of the budding blue flowers scattered between the huge, heavy leafless trees.
It felt wrong to see this body in such a pretty place… I could feel myself begin to feel pain… I gulped back my slowly growing feelings; though a single tear betrayed me.
I traced it as it slowly fell down upon the body at my feet, and wondered that perhaps I was just getting too old for the job.
A crack on an old branch behind me made me spin around. It was Donovan, from the Bridgeton Echo. The shit had been listening in on police bands again. I scowled at him, wishing he was a million miles from here.
‘Got a story?’ he asked dryly. His green eyes wide, his pale almost translucent skin clung to the bones of his narrow face.
Donovan was from Belfast, he moved here during the seventies, with his mother and father. He was brought up a catholic but, I knew him too well from the Charlotte arms to know how lapse he was.
‘Been listening in again, have we?’ I asked sarcastically.
‘Oh Come on…I gotta job to do!’
‘-and so do we… your incriminating a murder scene!’
Dawkins suddenly stared up at me, his eyes like pointed stalks.
‘A murder-‘
‘-and that means, by simply by being here, your essentially contaminating the evidence. Now be a good boy and fuck off! I’ll give you a statement later.’
I smiled caustically at Donovan’s slowly reddening face. I could see he wanted to reply, but he knew me far too well for that, so with an embittered shrug of his shoulders, he walked away. I smiled a little coldly as I saw his gangly form stagger and sway between the foliage, like a fish out of water.
‘Murder?’
I shrugged. ‘well it got rid of him didn’t it?’
Dawkins grinned cynically as he started to take photos of the scene.

*
We got back to the station at about three that afternoon. I smiled as I thought that it wouldn’t be long before I could get home. I heard the clickity click of the keyboard coming from my office. I smiled as I thought of Laura typing away.
‘Anything else going on?’ I asked as Dawkins opened his camera and took out the memory chip before sitting down at one of the three computers we had at our disposal in this ramshackle and over cluttered office.
Laura’s voice was flat and uninterested, which meant she was far too busy to talk properly. ‘Ther was a break in at Henderson’s…’ that was the pharmacy; ‘ oh, An Julie called.’
I went to the phone immediately and pressed the buttons to phone home. I never liked mobiles, even when they weren’t able to access your bank, give you money from your account and play super Trojan asteroids all at the same time.
The phone dialled twice. Then Julia picked up.
‘Honey?’
‘Oh Richard…’ there was an awkward pause and then she continued. ‘Oh thank God.’
I felt scared for the first time in ages.
‘Its Simon… darling… he’s been bitten by a huge wild dog.’

*

The road to Bridgeton General was crowded with the usual Friday commuters, so I had to use the siren to split the road. I felt justified, though a little guilty, after all, this was in my own time, if a local police officer could have his own time that is. When I finally got to accident and emergency, I found Julia sitting on her own nervously playing with the sleeves of her jumper. Something she always did since her mother died two years ago.
I walked up to her and gave her a hug. She smiled sadly and almost kissed me, there was a pause and she pulled back, pulling at my heart.
‘He’s with the Doctor now. From what I can gather, he was just coming out of school when this huge dog leapt from out of the trees and bit him, then it ran away.’
I held her tightly. But she pulled back and that hurt again.
‘Apparently he’s been cleared for rabies… ’ her eyes filled with tears.
…‘its ok.’ I sounded like I meant it, but she knew me well enough for her to smile. A moment later the Doctor appeared.
‘he’s a strong boy.’ He said, ‘The wound’s superficial, however, we will need to keep him in for one night, just to be sure.’
I nodded and walked with the doctor back into the main ward.
Simon was sitting up on a stiff cot. His right arm in a sling. I felt pain but hid it well.
‘Here you got bit… you ok Si?’
He smiled and looked down.
‘Just came out of nowhere, I didn’t see it till it was too late and then… he tried to raise his arm.
I smiled and tousled his hair. And, for a brief second it all felt right… everything… Julie Simon, myself a happy connected family… then Steven arrived.
I could see Julia looking away and down, as Steven came over. I wanted to shout at her right there and then, but, I knew that this was neither the time or th place. I shook my head, turned away from Steven and stared at Simon lovingly. ‘Son…I’ll come by in the morning… I have…’ I looked at Julia with ice in my eyes ‘…work to do.’
Julia looked upset, and I was mad as hell as Steven came over and put an arm around her, which she she accepted it just the same. I didn’t wait for a comment, I just shook my head turned and left. After all, I do have some pride.
Two hour’s later and I was in the Charlotte arms opposite Donovan; and I am ashamed to say I was already drunk.
‘ … I mean… why call him… ?’ I could hear the words come out of my mouth, but as usual I had no control.
‘ I dunno… maybe it’s because he’s married to her?’ Donovan said sarcastically.
I really didn’t need to hear that, so I looked away in fury.

Julia and I… I and Julia… we had been happy once, but that was a lifetime ago. Now there was “Steven”, a neat tidy and less complicated lawyer from the heart of the city.
I had been on the programme but it wasn’t working for me… it never had… people there drove me mad. I knew I had a drink problem, and I had controlled it for years… but… the job, the promotion to detective inspector, all had taken their toll. Then came the final straw… the Boston serial rapist and murder known only as “Jack in the box.”
Jack had mauled his way across the city. He started at New road. Leaving his first victim with her throat cut and her vagina so badly mutilated it defied description. The next victim a month later was found in the toilets of Boston’s railway station: again the same bloody brutal cadaver, except this time the words “OH OH… JACK’S BACK!” were painted on the toilet door in the victim’s blood….so… the bodies began to pile up… six of them in all. And with each new victim there had to be new interviews and that was followed by re-interviews and more re-interviews, not to mention the endless watching of sstv camera’s, and that led to late nights and drinking…
Those that say police work is dramatic, really have no idea what he or she is talking about. The made for TV drama is simply that…drama… it’s not nice looking at corpses, it’s even uglier when you know that the shit in front of you at the interview table has beaten his wife or girlfriend, but have no real proof of it then there are the kiddie cases, they simply defy description The crazy ones are simple by comparison, because serial killers follow the same modus operandi they are easy to stage for and to arrest … except for Jack…
Jack was the ugliest not only because of what he did, but because he knew…somehow he knew…that he could get away with it.
It showed intelligence, sure, but limited intelligence and a lot of lateral thinking on his part. I wanted to get the bastard. And that meant looking at every detail, every tiny thing, the things most people don’t even think about, and seeing these things that’s the real tool of the craft, because its only in the detail that the puzzle can be solved , and in the end that’s all it is… a huge fucking puzzle… it’s what I’m good at….Though, it drives me to drink.
What pissed me off even more about Jack was that, in the end we never caught him… Jack vanished as quickly as he arrived… and all we had to show for it, were a pile of cardboard boxes with the words “on-going” written on the side.
Yeah, Jack was the camel that broke me. I was demoted… lost my wife to solicitor Steven, and now I was a cop in uniform in a small town twenty miles, and a million years from everything; for a while things were great here, dealing with the drunk drivers and the petty acts of juvenile violence, simple stuff, and of course helping the local community… Police works isn’t all crime, folks look to the police to bring some sort of order out of chaos… Its that part of the old west mentality that is forever ingrained in our psyche, I guess…yeah, things were smooth, until Julia and Steven moved here…
‘Gotta get you home Dick.’ Said Donovan as he pulled me to my feet. I agreed with him; so I let him take me home.

*

The alarm crashed into my head at eight; making the whole room reverberate. I slowly peeled open one eye and saw Donovan in the leather chair that I placed by the huge window of the rented one bedroom flat.
‘did I behave myself?’ I asked pleadingly.
‘you were a perfect gentleman.’ Her replied drowsily. I arose from the busted leather couch and staggered to the kitchenette just in time to pick up the phone as it started to ring.
‘Hello Dawkins.’ I said gently.
‘Sir…’ Dawkins sounded toubled. ‘…sir I think you better meet me, I’m on the Dragon’s back… there’s been another body found.’
‘ok… ‘ I began. I wanted to cry scream and throw the phone… but I didn’t. I placed the receiver down and, re-joined Donovan in the front room. I was about to hit Donovan with some shit about nothing in particular, but he raised his hand first.
‘I know…’ he said. ‘… I just got the message on my mobile. But I gotta get to the office. ’

March 15th 0900hrs

By the time I got there, Dawkins had already removed the cadaver from the scene… I was just in time to see the ambulance stroll past slowly, so I was pretty pissed at him for that, because now the whole area had been contaminated.
I stared at him stonily when I arrived.
‘oh come on!’ he began. ‘What were we meant to do?’
‘You’re to wait till I arrive at the scene.’
‘Don’t give me that crap!’ He started. ‘I’m the superior officer if no-one else is available… and I had been calling you for hours.’
‘My Arse!’ I sounded cruel and viscous, and regretted the words the moment I heard them. Dawkins looked away feeling hurt.
There was a long awkward silence as I took in the scene. This time the body had been found upon an open piece of open hilly land. The grass had that windswept parched appearance, the trees where the first body was found yesterday were to the left and below me, down the side of the steep hill. In the middle distance I could see the Town and the steeple of the old wooden church and to my right and off towards the horizon were the high rolling hills New England finest scenery… I looked around at the floor once more, and between the long blood soaked grass… I saw it… it was almost inconspicuous, if it were not for the torn stems… and no one would have noticed or even paid attention to it… if it wasn’t for the fact that I had seen them before… at the previous site… they would have been completely ignored… It was the same pale blue flower, the same long blue cup and spindle like leaves , only this time it had been gathered together in a bunch; the stems had been torn.; and they looked so out of place on this grassy hillside… therefore they had to have come from… somewhere else… I looked down the hillside.
‘was this in the victims hands?’
‘yeah… ‘
He stared at me as if I had some sort of magic touch, though it didn’t last, he looked pained.
‘We have a name… Stephanie Porter… Aran and Dee’s little girl… ‘ Dawkins knew the family well, I had even been at an impromptu BB-Q Dawkins had held last year… I even met the girl… she was only fourteen… I sadly looked at Dawkins as he looked away from me.
‘You did a good job here.’ I said trying to encourage him. I put a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged, and mumbled something about wishing he’d been somewhere else.
‘Look…’ I began, still feeling awkward and a little ashamed. ‘… you know Aran and Dee better than I do… It would be better if it came from you. Then, take the rest of the day off… I’ve got the shift covered, and Wallis will be in at three.’
He nodded as he walked slowly away. I wanted to do more, but what could I have done? An hour later and I was back at the station, in front of my PC a steaming cup of black coffee filled my senses and battled the hangover from hell; as I was looking at a picture of the flower I had found at the scene from a website…
it was wolfs bane… why would she pick that? And then the two deaths, in two days… there was no doubt about it… a wild animal was loose, and I was going to have to enforce a local curfew… but it still felt odd and wrong somehow… I closed my eyes, and in the darkness my mind recalled the toilet wall from Brighton station once more… Jack’s back… I shook violently, and opened my eyes… how I hoped that we could end this and find the bloody thing before- the phone rang waking me from my muse, I picked it up and was relieved to hear that Simon had been released and was on his way home.
Lunchtime came upon me suddenly, the door to the counter was slammed and Wallis came in.
Afternoon sarge, anything happening?
‘You need to check up on the burglary at Henderson’s…’ I said absently.
‘You mean go round to Pebright’s again and see if he’s stoked up?’
Joseph Pebright was the closest thing Bridgeton had to a drug problem, if the shop had been done over, guarantee that Pebright was the man behind it.
I looked away from the Pc and stared across the grey walled office, and smiled.
‘Say no more boss…’
‘Say no more…’ I echoed as he turned and was about to leave the room.
‘Oh, before you go.’ I called out
Wallis’s head popped around the door once more. A tired strained look appeared on his face.
‘we are going to have to enforce a nine pm curfew tonight, so get the boys together, for about…say eight? ‘
He nodded, then vanished.
I looked back at the screen…and at a flower that shone there… Wolfsbane… the flower seemed to scream at me, yet I couldn’t hear a word it was saying. I only wish I knew then what I know now.