Thaumatology 05 - Disturbia Read online

  It was as Ceri remembered; bare brick walls, thick wooden beams holding up unpainted wood for a ceiling. At mid-afternoon there were a moderate number of patrons, mostly in booths at the sides of the room, thick wooden barriers separating them from their neighbours. There was one group of werewolves on one of the tables, but they ignored the two women as they walked past to the bar. That was different; when Ceri had come to this place with Lily the entire bar had been sizing her up as a snack. Something had changed.

  ‘Well if it isn’t the hufty and her pet.’ The accent was Irish and the voice sarcastic. Sean, the Sidhe bartender and owner of the Dubh Linn. Dark haired, attractive, the man could likely get any woman he wanted with a single look. That was fae for you. Ceri thought he was probably Unseelie and she would not go near him with a barge pole.

  ‘Can it, Sean,’ Lily said. ‘We’re looking for Nat Dent. He in? It’s business.’

  ‘I’ve not seen him in a couple o’ days,’ Sean said. ‘I heard he was up in Manchester on business.’

  ‘He will be in the Pussy Parlour tonight.’ The speaker was a woman at the end of the bar. Tall and dark, she spoke without turning her head. ‘He will be there after eight-thirty meeting a woman. Don’t be late.’

  Ceri looked at her, blinking. ‘Thank you,’ she said. Something about her was odd, but Ceri could not make out what.

  ‘You are welcome, Ceridwyn Brent.’

  Sean was looking… disturbed. ‘Best you’re leaving now,’ he said. ‘There’s nothin’ else for you here.’

  Ceri and Lily turned to leave, but the woman’s voice made them pause. ‘Freely given, Ceridwyn Brent.’

  Ceri looked back. The woman was fae? ‘Thank you again,’ Ceri said, and they headed back onto the street.

  ‘Ceri?’ Lily said once they were outside.

  ‘Yes, Lil.’

  ‘That woman who told us where Dent would be? Can you remember what she looked like?’

  Ceri frowned, trying to remember something, anything about the woman at the end of the bar. ‘All I remember is… shadow.’

  ‘Shit!’ Lily exclaimed. ‘I think the Black Lady just helped us.’

  Soho

  The sky was lit by dim sunlight still as Ceri and Lily walked down Lexington Street to the very pink frontage of the Pussy Parlour. According to Carter, the place was a low rent strip joint and dance club. According to Lily it was just the sort of place a sleaze like Nat Dent would go to.

  Lily had decided on a change of outfits. Her mini-dress was now a black, crocheted wool one, the holes wide enough to show a fair bit of flesh beneath it. Ceri’s teddy had been switched for a corset, but Lily had allowed her to wear a thong under the skirt; thank heavens for small mercies.

  There was a cover charge, which Lily paid, and then they were in. The small front entrance led onto a dance floor area, the music throbbing in Ceri’s chest like a hammer. The floor was not exactly full, but there were plenty of groups and couples dancing to the beat, within tolerances. Ceri was not going to pass judgement on the dancing. She had become pretty good if there was a pole involved and she was not terrible at ballroom, but she was not sure about freeform wiggling. It seemed to have rules which followed no form of dance she understood.

  They skirted the floor, Lily scanning the tables as they went. Trying to speak was useless, but Ceri could feel Lily’s frustration over their bond. She was not seeing Dent. Ignoring various requests to dance from men in various states of inebriation they continued through the room. Ceri thought the club goers were nuts; it was not even full dark yet and half of them were smashed. Mind you, from the looks of the girls in the club, the boys were a little behind.

  At the back of the room, a pair of double doors led onto a corridor, which led to another pair of doors. The spacing managed to deaden the noise from the dance floor down to a dull thrum, but it was replaced by quieter, but still mildly annoying popular music, played over slightly substandard speakers for the girls on the central stage to dance to.

  Ceri watched the girl on stage with a professional eye. She was not bad, and looked fairly attractive, but Lily was better, and Naira and Jasmine had her beaten into the floor. She looked as though she was tired and trying not to appear so. The patrons gathered around the stage did not seem to care that much; the girl had an impressive pair of breasts and was doing a good job of swinging around the pole.

  ‘There,’ Lily said, starting across the room toward a booth at the side. Ceri looked in the direction she was moving before following, and grimaced. There was a girl in the booth, small, attractive, big-busted, and young, but sat opposite her was a vampire. Ceri could see the image he projected and she wondered why he bothered; slightly balding, the man was scrawny to the point of malnutrition with a nose you could use to poke someone’s eye out, a weak chin, and watery blue eyes. It was still better than his real form, which showed through no matter how much Ceri might have wished it did not.

  Close up, Nat Dent looked like he had rolled out of a grave that evening. His skin was grey and stretched tightly over his bones. The flesh beneath was shrunken, almost wasted away. His eyes were hollow, empty, black pits, his nose more or less a hole in the front of his face, and his thin lips were pulled back to show his teeth, including the two, long, sharp canines. He was, Ceri thought, the worst looking vampire she had ever seen.

  Lily stopped at the table, Ceri pulling up beside her. Dent looked up and smiled. Well, his fake face smiled, his vampire face turned it into a rictus grin. ‘Look, Mary, a couple of table dancers to entertain us.’ The table was about low enough to make it work, but Dent’s chances of getting either of them to do it were slim.

  ‘Mary dear,’ Lily said, her mouth smiling but her eyes deadly serious, ‘take a hike. We need to have a few words with Nat here and, frankly, you don’t want whatever he’s offering.’ They had decided to drop the pretence and just strong-arm the man; letting Dent get his claws into a new girl seemed like a really bad idea.

  ‘Hey now,’ Dent protested, ‘there’s no need…’

  ‘Scram, kid,’ Lily snapped and Mary struggled out of her seat and hurried off in the direction of the door. Lily slid into her place, followed by Ceri.

  ‘What the Hell are you doing, Lilith?’ Dent growled out. ‘That’s my business you’re scaring away.’

  ‘Suzie Stacks,’ Lily said. The vampire leaned back, distancing himself. His four eyes shifted around the room and back. ‘She came to you looking for porn work on the other side of the fence.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Dent said.

  ‘She did a couple of films and stopped,’ Ceri said. ‘Something happened and she packed it in. What happened?’

  ‘I said…’

  ‘Three werewolves were involved,’ Lily added, interrupting him.

  ‘You can talk to us, or you can talk to the Greycoats who are investigating the deaths of the wolves,’ Ceri stated.

  Dent sagged; Ceri thought she might throw up at the sight of the withered corpse almost folding in on itself. ‘Suzie wanted to make some quick money. She did one fairly soft movie, but it didn’t pay enough, so she did something blacker. I think a girl died.’

  ‘Gang rape by werewolves?’ Lily suggested. Ceri’s fists clenched.

  Dent waved dismissively. ‘That was the first scene. Kidnap and rape scenario. I honestly don’t know what happens after that. I was only involved in getting the wolves and Suzie into the production.’

  Ceri swallowed hard. ‘What was it called?’ she said, her voice barely audible over the music though she was fairly sure the vampire would hear her.

  ‘I think they went with “The Degradation of Julia.”’

  ‘Who was the director?’ Lily asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Honestly! I worked through a production company contact. No names. They paid my fee in cash, like usual.’

  ‘I think we’ve got everything we can,’ Ceri said and slipped out of the booth, Lily following closely. ‘For a centuries-old vam
pire he’s a total wimp,’ Ceri commented as they crossed the floor to the doors.

  ‘He tried to lay an aura on me once and I punched his lights out,’ Lily replied.

  Ceri giggled; after what they had found out about Suzie’s last snuff movie it was a relief to hear something funny. ‘Tomorrow we’ll go to Greycoat Street and lay down what we’ve found for John and Kate.’

  ‘They won’t be pleased,’ Lily said.

  ‘No one said we couldn’t work the werewolf case,’ Ceri pointed out. ‘Sucks for them the two cases are related.’ She pushed the first set of doors open and the music from the dance floor started to leak through. ‘If they don’t like it, they can kiss my tight behind.’

  Westminster, August 23rd

  ‘We told you to leave this case alone,’ John growled.

  ‘You told us to leave the Stacks case alone,’ Ceri said, her voice calm. ‘We looked into the rumour that the werewolves may have been involved in illegal porn and it so happens it was the same illegal porn as Stacks. Do you want to know what we have or not?’ She was actually calm; knowing John would react exactly as he was doing helped a lot.

  ‘We might as well hear them out, John,’ Kate said. ‘If the cases are linked then we’ve got a way bigger problem.’

  ‘All right,’ John said. ‘Nothing official until we’ve determined you haven’t made it up to help Fleming.’

  Ceri bit back on the anger which made a sudden surge for freedom. How dare the arsehole suggest that! She felt Lily touch her arm and unclenched her jaw. The expression on John’s face as she looked up at him flattened the rest of her temper; the man looked shocked, perhaps a little scared. ‘I’m a scientist, Detective,’ Ceri said. ‘I form a theory and collect evidence, but if the evidence doesn’t match the theory, I correct the theory. Unlike people who decide what should be happening and find evidence to support that.’ It was John’s turn for flashing eyes and a clenched jaw. ‘Now that we’ve both insulted each other,’ Ceri went on, ‘let’s get to the actual evidence.’

  John’s face relaxed enough for him to lick his lips and nod. ‘Suzie Stacks was having a few money problems,’ Ceri said. ‘She had a lavish lifestyle and she was starting to have trouble getting parts.’

  ‘She was… thirty-one!’ Kate said. ‘And that body… I mean, I’m not a fan of that look myself, but it seems difficult to believe she would be having trouble.’

  ‘Fashion thing,’ Lily said. ‘The directors and producers like youth at the moment. There are markets for the MILF look, but there aren’t so many parts and they tend to pay a little less.’

  ‘She did two illegal porn movies,’ Ceri said. ‘The first one was apparently “soft.” I have no idea what that means.’

  ‘No one died,’ Lily said. ‘Not much violence. Likely underage actors, heavy bondage, drugs.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Ceri really wished that Lily did not have to be the one who knew this stuff. ‘The casting agent we spoke to said he lined her up with a second script when the first didn’t make her enough cash. He also got the werewolves cast on the same movie. And now all four are dead, and you have to admit that all the deaths were either violent or fear induced. Carter wouldn’t give us any details, but he said Suzie’s murder was “angry.”’

  ‘Casting agent?’ John asked.

  ‘Nat Dent,’ Lily said. ‘He’s a vampire, but he’s mostly just a sleaze.’

  John glanced at Kate. He looked faintly sick. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘it does sound like all the cases are connected. Do you know where Fleming was last night around nine?’

  ‘High Towers,’ Ceri said. ‘He was there when we got home, which was about then. Twill could confirm he was there all evening. Why?’

  Kate patted a folder on her desk. ‘Nathaniel Dent was killed last night. His body was found in an alley near Gold Square.’

  ‘Shit!’ Ceri exclaimed. ‘We talked to him thirty minutes before he died.’ She frowned. ‘But he was a pre-Shattering vampire. He was a wimp, but still… What killed him?’

  ‘What is a good question,’ John said, ‘but he died because something ripped his head off. And I do mean ripped.’

  ‘Like Carl,’ Lily said.

  ‘That’s why we got the case,’ Kate said. ‘With four murders to deal with, the Chief was giving it to someone else when the pathology tagged it as likely being our killer.’

  ‘Someone’s systematically slaughtering the people who made that movie,’ Ceri said.

  ‘Even the casting agents,’ Lily said, her eyes wide. ‘Damn!’

  ‘I take it this second movie was more, um, hardcore?’ John asked.

  ‘Dent said a girl died in it,’ Ceri replied.

  ‘I thought that was the idea of the illegal stuff,’ Kate said.

  Lily shook her head. ‘Real, full-on snuff movies are a restricted market. The freaks who watch illegal porn are mostly not quite psychotic enough to enjoy seeing someone die during sex. They want underage girls, innocents degraded against their will, extreme bondage, pain, real rape… When someone dies it’s usually someone getting too enthusiastic or a straight accident. Death doesn’t sell as well.’ Her tone was matter of fact, if a little flat; her emotions were something else. Ceri put a hand on her arm this time and the half-succubus gave her a small, weak smile. ‘Mostly the idea that illegal porn is all snuff is down to the tabloids blowing it up out of proportion.’

  ‘Did you get a name for this movie?’ John asked.

  ‘The Degradation of Julia,’ Ceri said.

  ‘It’s possible that was her real name,’ Lily said. ‘The girl who died. You might want to try checking missing persons reports.’

  Kate was tapping keys on her computer. ‘It’s on the list,’ she said.

  ‘List?’ Ceri asked.

  ‘Carl the werewolf had an extensive collection of, mostly bootleg, DVDs,’ John said. ‘Evidence went through and listed all of them.’

  ‘There’s a note,’ Kate said. ‘The case is intact but the disk was snapped in half.’

  John growled. ‘We could do with seeing what’s on that.’

  ‘Maybe Vice have a confiscated copy,’ Kate suggested, picking up the phone.

  ‘Suzie Stacks,’ Ceri said, looking up at John where he was perched on the corner of his desk, ‘how did she actually die?’

  John grimaced and swallowed back bile. ‘From what we found in her flat she was pretty heavily into BDSM. Someone tied her to her bed, spread-eagled, put a ball gag in her mouth, and… You ever seen a dildo modelled after a human forearm with the hand formed into a fist?’ Ceri shook her head, Lily nodded. ‘Well, someone had forced one of those…’ He swallowed again. ‘The coroner had to cut it out. They left her to bleed out. It took a fair amount of time and it must have hurt like Hell. The thing was eighteen inches long…’

  ‘Crap,’ Lily said flatly. Ceri said nothing; she was trying very hard not to be sick.

  Kennington

  ‘And I hope there’s no hard feelings, Mister Fleming,’ John said. He had not exactly apologised for accusing Carter of murder, but he had insisted that he and Kate take Ceri and Lily home so that they could officially let Carter know he was off the hook. The detectives had done the whole not-apology standing in the lounge, looking terribly formal.

  Without the threat of a prison cell hanging over him, Carter could be magnanimous. ‘None at all, Detective. You were doing your job.’ He did sound genuine about it though. ‘Some of my younger friends may have thought you entirely wrong, but with age comes a degree of perspective.’ Some of his equanimity might have come from the fact that Cheryl was sitting curled in his lap. He was having trouble moving her, but at least she had put something on that morning.

  ‘Huh,’ Alec said from the rug in front of the fire, ‘I was pissed and I’m older than you.’

  ‘Age and not being a werewolf,’ Carter corrected. ‘Do sit down, you two, I think we’re past the acrimonious phase and you look like you’re about to be shot.’ Kate, in particular, looked rel
ieved as she pulled a straight-backed chair over from the wall. ‘Now,’ Carter went on, ‘Suzie was not exactly a steady girlfriend, but I did feel some affection for the woman and she most certainly did not deserve such an ignominious death. If there is anything I can do to help…’

  ‘I assume that Ceri and Lily told you what they found out?’ John asked.

  ‘The basics,’ Carter replied. ‘They were relatively circumspect about details. I know that Suzie and the werewolves who died were connected via a movie. Thinking back on her behaviour that night, she was… troubled. Little things which only really make sense if you know she had some problem. She was very keen on my coming home with her, very eager to please.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want to hear this,’ Cheryl grumbled into his shoulder.

  ‘Hush you,’ Carter replied softly. ‘You’ve had my undivided attention for days now.’ Cheryl snuggled; Ceri suspected that half of her clinging posture at the moment was relieved worry, and half was the fact that she had had both Carter and Alec fawning over her for a couple of days. ‘Suzie said she was considering getting out of the business entirely, perhaps going to America.’

  ‘Sounds like she was considering running away,’ John said.

  ‘In light of what happened,’ Carter replied, ‘she was right to, but she left it too late. Is there any new evidence to indicate who did it?’

  ‘Well,’ Kate said, ‘thanks to Ceri and Lily, we have the name of the film. We’re trying to get our hands on a copy so we can go through it. We may be able to identify the girl, Julia until we confirm her name, and that could give us a suspect. Probably a family member or boyfriend.’

  ‘Could I ask?’ Carter said. ‘Has anything been arranged regarding a funeral?’

  ‘We haven’t released the body yet,’ John said. ‘We also couldn’t find any next of kin.’

  ‘Her parents were dead,’ Lily said. ‘I don’t think she had any brothers or sisters.’ To Ceri it sounded as though Suzie Stacks, nee Jenkins, had had a lonely life, much as Lily had had before moving into High Towers. Lots of men, none of them caring that much about her.