Thaumatology 05 - Disturbia Read online

  Broadstreet climbed to his feet and produced a couple of moderately sized books from his pockets. He dropped one in front of each of his students. ‘Ladies,’ he said dramatically, ‘I’d like to introduce you to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, aka PACE.’

  Ceri looked around at Lily. ‘Ladies?’

  Lily giggled. ‘He doesn’t know us very well, does he?’

  Kennington

  ‘And how was your first day?’ Twill asked as she busied herself in the kitchen. Around her, knives chopped vegetables and pots filled themselves with water before settling onto the hob.

  ‘Boring,’ Lily replied.

  ‘Informative,’ Ceri said, ‘but, yeah, my brain went to sleep after about twenty minutes of arrest procedures.’

  ‘Doesn’t that mean you’ve missed most of it?’ the fairy said, looking around with a frown on her tiny face.

  Ceri waved the comment away dismissively. ‘Twill, I went to university. I’m used to sleeping through lectures.’

  ‘You’ve heard of sleep learning, right?’ Lily added.

  ‘Besides,’ Ceri said dropping her PACE book on the table, ‘we have revision material.’

  Twill looked disapprovingly at them and then at the book. ‘That does not look like it will keep you occupied for two weeks.’

  ‘Next week we go into SCEA instead,’ Ceri explained.

  ‘Do you think it’s like “ski” or like “ski-ah”?’ Lily mused.

  ‘I’m going with “ski.”’

  ‘It’s something to ask. We should have questions. It’ll make us sound intelligent.’

  ‘I have a PhD, I don’t need to sound intelligent.’

  ‘If you’ve got it,’ Lily said emphatically, ‘that just means you have something good to flaunt.’

  ‘She does have a point,’ Twill commented.

  ‘It’s easy for her though,’ Ceri replied. ‘If she wants to flaunt what she’s got she just has to wear a lower cut dress.’

  ‘Hey!’ Lily exclaimed. ‘That’s mean.’ Ceri smirked at her.

  ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ Twill asked, breaking into the flow of banter.

  ‘Role-playing,’ Ceri replied, still grinning. ‘We’re supposed to do some interviews and we get watched…’

  ‘And they’re supposed to tell us what we’re doing wrong,’ Lily finished.

  ‘That sounds like it should be… interesting,’ Twill said, not sounding like it would be.

  ‘Yeah,’ Lily agreed. ‘Should we cheat?’

  ‘Oh, totally,’ Ceri replied, giggling.

  Westminster, August 10th

  ‘All right, here’s the brief,’ Broadstreet said. They were standing outside an interview room, one of the screened ones with silver-iron mesh in the plaster and the observation window. ‘The man inside is David Crane. He’s a necromancer we think sent a zombie to kill someone. We need you to talk to him and see what you can get out of him. He’s previously been interviewed by two detectives. He knows what we suspect him of and denies everything.’ He handed Ceri a brown folder. ‘This is what we have. It’s not much.’

  ‘Pulling out all the stops for this trial then?’ Lily said, smiling knowingly.

  ‘Got to make it as real as possible.’

  ‘Well, let’s do this then,’ Ceri said, her gaze on the notes in the file. Lily opened the door and they filed in while Broadstreet headed for the observation room.

  Ceri did not look up from the notes as she walked over to the table, placing the notes down on the table and pouring over them, ignoring the man sitting opposite her. There was a click as Lily turned on the tape recorder at the side of the table. The machine beeped loudly several times.

  ‘Special Advisors Lily Carpenter and Ceridwyn Brent interviewing David Crane,’ Lily said for the recording. ‘Interview begins at eleven-sixteen. You have been cautioned, Mister Crane?’

  ‘You aren’t cops.’

  Ceri looked up for the first time. She wondered how he had guessed. Perhaps it was the thin, clinging mini-dress Lily was wearing. Maybe it was Ceri’s LMU T-shirt. Just as likely he had seen the visitor badges they were wearing. Of course, in practice, he knew since he was really a cop playing a murderer for their benefit. He was in his forties, the early half, but his face showed too many lines across the brow; he worried too much. There was a hint of arrogance about the set of his jaw as he glared across the table, and his dark brown eyes had a hint of malice in them. He was a good actor for a cop. He had probably been attractive in his youth, but age had not been particularly kind and his body was running to fat, slowly, but with gathering pace. There was even a hint of jowl and the start of a double chin.

  ‘As my colleague said,’ Ceri told him, ‘we’re Special Advisors. We’ve been asked to take a look at your case.’

  ‘There’s no case,’ Crane said. ‘I didn’t do anything.’ Ceri identified the accent; Birmingham educated away as far as he could manage it.

  There was a slight feeling of warmth from Ceri’s side and her scalp tightened; Lily had kicked in her defensive aura at a barely perceptible level. ‘You’re accused of using a zombie to kill…’ She glanced down at the report for the name. ‘…Raymond Chong, the proprietor of a Chinese takeaway.’

  ‘See? That’s just ridiculous.’ Ceri had to agree; who had come up with this scenario? ‘I was one of Ray’s best customers. He made the best Chow Mein in Hackney.’ Well, that explained the expanding waistline.

  ‘You argued with Mister Chong a week ago,’ Ceri went on. ‘The night of the third. Witnesses say it was “heated,” and you left threatening to “kill that slanty-eyed bastard.”’

  Crane looked across the table at her. The anger in his face was weakening as Lily’s aura lulled his mind into calmness. Lily was getting really good at controlling it; when she had tried a similar trick on Cheryl she had lulled her into becoming a happy drunk. Crane clearly had no clue what was happening to him. ‘I did some work for him,’ Crane said, ‘and I was supposed to be being paid in free meals, but he backed out on me.’ The story got crazier every minute.

  ‘What work, Mister Crane?’ There was no indication of this in the notes. Actually there was not much in the notes aside from that Chong had been killed by the corpse of his dead grandmother and that Crane, a necromancer, had been seen arguing with him.

  ‘His grandmother’s ghost was pestering him to marry some girl, I mean any girl. Said she couldn’t rest without knowing he had married well.’

  ‘So you laid her to rest?’

  ‘Yeah. Simple job. You know the deal, standard ritual over the grave.’ Ceri did indeed know the ritual, having studied some defensive necromancy. It also meant he had known where to find the body.

  ‘And then the old lady climbed out of her grave and strangled him. Which would mean you didn’t do a very good job. Perhaps that’s why he didn’t want to pay you.’

  Crane blinked slowly trying to work out whether he was being insulted through the desire to feel happy Lily was forcing on him. ‘Maybe I did it wrong,’ he admitted.

  ‘Or maybe, since you would be the only necromancer who could, you raised her and sent her after her grandson?’

  ‘No!’ Crane snapped. ‘She was a revenant, that’s what she was.’ Lily yanked away her aura and Crane leaned forward unconsciously, reaching to follow it.

  ‘The forensic necromancy team went over her,’ Ceri said, ‘they found traces of necromantic magic. Besides, why would she strangle him? She wanted him to marry, not die.’

  ‘Sh-she was angry at him for getting me to plant her.’ Ceri suppressed a grimace; “plant” was such an offensive term for laying a spirit to rest.

  ‘That seems a little unlikely. I’d imagine she would come after you as well.’ She sighed and gave Lily a hand signal to turn her aura on again. ‘Perhaps you’re right though. If you fluffed a simple laying to rest, it’s pretty unlikely you could raise a three-month old corpse.’

  ‘You’re calling me incompetent?’ His voice held no ranco
ur and his posture was relaxed again.

  ‘Seems to me that’s your defence,’ Ceri said. ‘You fluffed something a first year necromancy student can do in their sleep. You can’t have actually brought Mrs Chong back, can you?’ She looked at Lily. ‘I think this is closed, don’t you?’

  ‘Clearly,’ Lily replied, cutting her aura off sharply. ‘He’s not good enough to have committed the crime.’

  Anger flooded back where the vague euphoria had been. Crane half-rose from his seat. ‘I damn well am good enough!’

  ‘Oh please,’ Lily said, ‘my mother could cast a laying to rest spell and she’s just a witch. There’s no way you could have raised…’

  ‘A witch!’ Crane’s voice got annoying and high pitched, and his accent was worse, when he got angry. ‘No way could some witch have raised the old bint! I…’ Realisation dawned, both girls could see it in his face. ‘I could have done it, no problem, but I didn’t.’ He slumped back into his chair.

  ‘Oh, but you did,’ Lily said. ‘I can see it in your eyes, the desire to not get caught.’ Her aura rolled out again, a little thicker this time. ‘But wouldn’t it be better to come clean? Get it off your chest?’

  ‘Judges tend to look favourably on confessions, I hear,’ Ceri said. She was getting an odd feeling over her link with Lily, something like surprise.

  Lily slowly edged her aura away, draining the sensation out of Crane rather than pulling it. The slight melancholy it left behind had the desired effect. ‘I just wanted my Chow Mein,’ he said.

  The interview room door opened. ‘DI Broadstreet has entered the room at eleven-twenty-eight,’ Lily said to the recorder.

  ‘We’ll send someone in to take a new statement,’ Broadstreet said. ‘If you two could come with me?’

  Lily looked at Ceri and shrugged. ‘Interview terminated at eleven-twenty-nine.’ She shut off the tape machine and they followed the detective out into the corridor.

  DCI Barry was waiting outside and he waved for them to follow, leading the way back to the conference room they had been having their lectures in. He turned, wearing a smirk on his military-moulded features, but Lily spoke before he could.

  ‘That wasn’t role-playing,’ she said. ‘That guy really did it!’ Ceri looked at her, horrified, and then turned to Barry.

  ‘He’d been sticking to his story all day yesterday,’ Barry said. ‘Wouldn’t even tell us what Chong had asked him to do. Kept claiming client confidentiality. We were going to have to let him walk so I figured why not put you two in front of him. If you got nothing we weren’t losing anything.’

  ‘How did you do it?’ Broadstreet asked. ‘He just folded.’

  ‘Psychology and subtle emotional manipulation,’ Ceri replied. She was not sure whether to be angry at them for putting her in that position, or at herself for not realising what was going on.

  ‘At very low levels,’ Lily said, ‘my defensive aura produces mild euphoric sensations. By applying and withdrawing it I can give my target something of an emotional rollercoaster ride.’

  ‘And once I knew about the job,’ Ceri added, ‘it was a simple matter of playing on his arrogance. Basically we did “good cop, bad cop,” without all the posturing.’

  Barry pursed his lips. ‘Nothing I can think of which makes that illegal,’ he said after a second. ‘As you say, it’s no different from manipulating his emotions the long-winded way.’

  ‘Anyone with half a brain can work out something’s a little off and suppress the foreign emotion,’ Ceri said distractedly. ‘I can’t believe you did that! What if we’d screwed something up and then you found evidence linking him to the crime?’

  Barry smiled. ‘You didn’t,’ he said, ‘you got him to confess. I had every confidence that you would, at the least, not harm any future outcomes.’

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ Lily said. ‘That man zombified some cook’s dead grandmother to murder him… over Chinese food?’

  ‘Yes,’ Barry replied flatly.

  ‘That is so fucked up,’ Lily said, her tone somewhere between disbelief and shock.

  ‘It had to be wicked Chow Mein,’ Ceri commented.

  Battersea

  Michael and Ceri were on boundary checking duty, a task which sounded distinctly boring, but Ceri loved it. Their journey took them out to Battersea Bridge and then south, cutting off the main road into the estates, and heading toward Falcon Park. It had surprised her, when she had first discovered it, that the locals actually seemed to like the wolves patrolling through their streets and back gardens. Then Kate had happened to mention that the crime level in the pack’s territory was lower than average. Burglaries in particular were lower; sneak thieves obviously thought suddenly discovering a werewolf breathing down your neck was an unacceptable risk.

  So they ran, racing along and leaping fences with the grace and speed of a pair of werewolves. Ceri had heard it called “free running” and she liked the term; it certainly felt free.

  Falcon Park was a wide-open grassy area encircled by trees. They could really open the throttle across the grass, though they had to be careful since the south edge beyond the trees led straight out onto the railway lines. Still, rather than detouring around via the road tunnel, they charged up the embankment, danced across the tracks, and ran down the other side. Then it was through the back gardens along Dorothy Road to the ASDA supermarket where there was an area they could use to cut through and curl back toward the theoretical territorial boundary. Here it ran more or less down Lavender Gardens until they hit Clapham Common.

  There they could open up again, rushing past dog walkers, running for the fun of it. They played, jumping at each other and rolling across the grass as a tumbling mass of grey and black fur. Even the dubious looks they got from some of the humans could not shift Ceri’s mood tonight. She was enjoying herself, running with her mate.

  Northbound from there, they followed Clapham Road and then South Lambeth Road, cutting along back streets where possible. Negotiating the tracks again to get through to Nine Elms Lane was a rush as they skipped across between a pair of oncoming trains. The landscape was far more industrial there, beside the river, but they avoided the riverside walks, instead going for running through yards and car parks, and vaulting nine-foot chain-link fences without breaking a sweat.

  Michael waited until they were dashing along the side of the power station, long disused and almost at the end of their loop, before making his move. He caught Ceri’s arm and pulled her into the shadow of the building, pressing her back up against the wall and pinning her there, hands on either side of her waist. His breath was hot on her neck as he sniffed at her, nuzzled her throat and ears.

  Ceri let out a mewl. Here? As if to punctuate her question a boat on the river sounded its horn. Ceri almost giggled; another horn was making itself evident against her stomach.

  Not want? The growl was low and Michael managed to get a distinct hint of sarcasm into it.

  She squirmed, her body pressed against his. Of course she wanted him. He knew she wanted him. He could smell her arousal just as she could smell his. She made to twist around; werewolves were practically hardwired to doggy-style. He pressed her harder against the wall, stopping her. His hand slapped her right thigh and, her breath coming in ragged bursts, she lifted her leg, hooking it over the crook of his elbow and lifting up on her toes. She was looking right into his amber eyes as he pushed into her, as his hips worked faster and faster, as the tension showed in his face and his muzzle started to rise. Her hands clutched at his shoulders and a second later they were both howling, the sound echoing through the skeleton of the power station loud enough that half the city had to have heard it.

  Ceri’s head stopped buzzing. Her leg was still held up on Michael’s arm, but his muzzle was resting on her shoulder, his breath coming in pants. When he could make an intelligible sound, the half-groan said, Man sex nice change.

  Ceri gave a little barking laugh. Hell yes it was, she was just amazed it had been his ch
oice. It was almost full moon and that always made him more frisky. Of course, now they would have to go back to report to Anita and explain what the howling was about. Ceri was so glad blushes did not show through her black fur.

  Westminster, August 11th

  Broadstreet placed a pair of plastic handcuffs in Ceri’s hands. ‘Now then,’ he said, ‘I need you to get those onto my wrists without causing me too much damage. We’ve spoken with Ray Downs over at the Yard and he says you’re both competent at various forms of combat, but we also need you to demonstrate how you would arrest a difficult suspect.’ He backed up a few feet across the padded mat of the station’s practice dojo, dropped into a combat stance, and raised a plastic dagger.

  At the side of the room, Lily was standing next to Kate, watching the exercise. Ceri glanced at her and gave a little shrug. Lily gave a little shrug back. ‘You’re really sure you want to do this?’ Ceri asked.

  Broadstreet stood up again, his shoulders sagging a little. ‘I get the feeling you’re not taking this seriously,’ he said.

  ‘No, no,’ Ceri said, ‘it’s just... Let me get this right. You’re going to be a difficult suspect by waving a knife at me and I’m supposed to cuff you?’

  The detective dropped back into his stance and said, ‘I’m not lettin’ ya take me in, copper!’

  Ceri bit down hard on the giggle and raised her hand, focussing her power. Then she walked over to Broadstreet, took the plastic knife from his unresisting fingers, pushed his wrists together, and snapped the cuffs on. Then she stepped back and waited, ignoring the muffled giggles coming from the two women at the side of the room.

  After a minute or so, Broadstreet shook his head and looked down at his wrists. ‘You have the right to remain silent,’ Ceri said, ‘but I should point out that anything you fail to say now may jeopardise your defence if you rely on it in the future.’ She grinned. ‘I could have said that earlier, but you wouldn’t have remembered it.’

  ‘I was kind of expecting you to talk me out of it,’ Broadstreet said. ‘All that psychology stuff you used on Crane…’

  ‘Why?’ Ceri said. ‘Crane wasn’t waving a knife at me. The objective is to make the arrest without harm to you or me, and quickly so it doesn’t get out of hand, right?’