had waned and waxed anew; toward the end of that period the incidence of vehicle theft had risen again; the taking of a couple of Porsches clinched it, and a raid on the garage was on ... and the moon was nearing its ful.
'Meanwhile, Stevens and Jakes had looked the place over. A run-down, multi-storey ex-municipal car park, the garage was huge and decrepit, a concrete skeleton. Upstairs it was a gutted ruin; only the ground floor and basement were still viable, and housed the garage proper. Access, however, was by no means easy. There were no windows on the ground floor and one of the two old entrance/exits had been blocked off. The remaining entranceway onto the disused ramps was controlled by a manned barrier and a motorized, steel-ribbed, retractable overhead door. There was no natural light in the work areas, only electrical, and the only visitors allowed inside were clients whose vehicles were in process of repair. A search-warrant was vital.
'But in the course of looking the place over, Stevens and Jakes had experienced the same kind of invasion suffered by Jim Banks: something, or one, had got into their minds! But a feeling so "strange, unnatural, weird, that neither one of them more than mentioned it to the other! Maybe they suspected they might be cracking up a little -certainly Stevens felt shaky about it - but neither one of them made too much of it, not to his partner, anyway. In fact Derek Stevens put it down to an attack of nerves, and to the loss of Jim Banks. But I've
spoken to both of them now, and I know that their symptoms were exactly the same.
This wolf-thing, a self-designated lycanthrope, was into their minds. Maybe he'd been alerted by their giving the garage the once-or twice-over in preparation for their raid. Whatever, it never got that far ...
'Five nights ago, a day before the full moon, Stevens was driving home from work on wet roads through a thin drizzle. He stopped at a red light controlling road-works at a bridge over a railway . . . but the truck following right behind him didn't! The only warning he got was that Thing in his mind, an obscene chuckle, and a gurgling mental voice that told him: "Kiss your asshole goodbye, fuckhead!" Followed by a howling, like a madman trying to imitate a wolf.
'Struck in the right-hand rear, his car spun left, smashed through a makeshift "safety" barrier, and fell thirty feet onto electrified tracks ...'
Darcy Clarke nodded. 'We read about it in the papers. That would probably have been enough - falling like that and crashing down on that live rail - but the commuter train that piled into him two minutes later left no doubt. It was a miracle the train wasn't derailed and there were no other injuries.'
Harry nodded. That was the extent of what Derek Stevens could tell me. And now I'm left with George Jakes. Or rather, with whatever is left of him!'
'Harry,' Darcy was very quiet, 'I know you've seen some stuff, but the police have told us that this one is, you know, ugly.
Jakes didn't have any family, so they didn't pretty him up much. He's ... just as our mad friend left him three nights ago. But the police are finished with him now and he burns the day after tomorrow. Jakes was a "Green" and that's how he wanted to go, cremated. He reckoned we're short enough of space as it is, without filling the ground with dead meat - his words, Harry, not mine!
So his boss told me, anyway.'
Harry thought about it a moment, and said, 'You're right, Darcy, I've seen some stuff. The Chateau Bronnitsy . . . was full of it!
But thanks for the warning, anyway. I could probably contact Jakes from here, or from my room at E-Branch HQ, but that isn't my way. See, in my book, respect works both ways: if you want it, you've got to give it. So I'll go to see him anyway.'
And in a little while they were there ...
No two dead people are alike, Harry knew that. Jim Banks had been hard, but not really. Derek Stevens had been hard-headed; he hadn't wanted to admit defeat, wasn't nearly ready to quit, even when the chips were all the way down. With them, maybe it was like a suit of clothes you wear to impress. They were just people underneath, wearing policemen on the outside. Well, and that