Stephen Leather - Once bitten

Anyway, I'm not sure how long I've got so I'd better get started. How did we decide to begin it?

Oh yeah, I remember. Once upon a time…

…it was a dark and stormy night. I wasn't asleep when the phone rang because the storm was rattling the windows and a gate was banging somewhere outside. I groped for the phone. The display on the bedside clock radio said 03:15 and the voice in my ear said it was Lieutenant Samuel De'Ath and what the hell was I doing trying to sleep on the night of a full moon?

"I didn't know it was a full moon tonight," I growled at him. "It doesn't seem like twenty eight days since the last one." I was lying. I always knew when the moon was full – it was my busiest time.

"Well it is, and the crazies are out in force, my man. The werewolves are howling, the vampires are biting and the ghouls are ghouling. And the call has gone out for Jamie Beaverbrook, Vampire Hunter."

De'Ath laughed like a maniac. Black De'Ath I called him, partly because of the colour of his thick skin, but just as much because of his sick sense of humour. He didn't mind, he could take it every bit as well as he dished it out. I sat up in bed and shook my head to clear it. "What's happened?"

"A throat-biter, picked up in an alley off Sunset Boulevard. Blood everywhere." De'Ath was a homicide detective so he wouldn't be on the case unless the victim had died. "It's open and shut, no doubt about it, my man. All we need is the rubber stamp from you that the perp is sailing on an even keel so that we can get on with the paperwork."

"Can't it wait until the morning?" I asked.

"We wanna strike while the iron is hot, no time like the present, he who…"

"All right, all right, I'll be there, just don't hit me with any more cliches."

De'Ath roared with laughter and hung up. I dressed without thinking, blue jeans and my Mickey Mouse sweatshirt and then I thought better of it and put on a dark blue suit, white shirt and red tie and then picked up my briefcase from the study. Might as well look the part. I went through the kitchen door to the garage so that I wouldn't get wet. I pushed the overhead door open and for the first time saw the moon, hanging over the Hollywood hills like a lone white eye glaring defiantly down at California, daring it to do its worst. It was cold. That was one of the misconceptions I'd brought with me to the United States, that Los Angeles was always hot, that the sun always shone on the beautiful people. Not true, the Los Angeles climate was a desert one and the temperature plummeted at night. Tourists were often taken by surprise at what a cold city LA was. Literally and metaphorically.

The car started on the third attempt, which was par for the course. It was a prime example of British motoring history, a 1966 Sunbeam Alpine Mark IV, 1750cc or thereabouts, bright red with a black soft top, left hand drive because I bought it in the States. It leaked a bit when the rain was really bad and parts were difficult to get when it went wrong but it reminded me of England and I got more fun out of driving it than I ever did out of the American models. I liked the fact that it was old, too, there was something comforting about the feel of the wooden dashboard and steering wheel and the smell of the leather upholstery. There was a permanence about it, it had been around for almost thirty years and yet it was as good as new, inside and outside.

There wasn't much traffic around at that time of the night so I was at the station within half an hour and I left the car in the Captain's parking space because I was damn sure he'd be safe and warm at home in bed.

While I was driving the rain gave up its half-hearted attempt to soak the streets, though the lightning still flashed somewhere beyond the Hollywood hills.

The moon fixed me with its baleful one-eyed stare as I got out of the car. There was no point in locking it, not because it was parked by the side of a police station but because the soft top was no deterrent to a thief, a quick slash with a switchblade and they'd be inside. Better to leave it unlocked so they could open it and see that there was nothing worth taking.

De'Ath was talking to two uniformed policemen in the main reception area. As usual, it was barely-controlled bedlam, packed with sweating policemen, barking mad drunks, petulant hookers and surly teenagers, all of them shouting, swearing and arguing in any number of languages.

"Room F," he yelled at me over the din. "Name's Terry Ferriman."

"I suppose an arrest report is asking too much," I shouted back.

He grinned. "At this time in the morning, what d'yer expect?"

"Coffee?"

His grin widened. "I'll have one sent in. Black, no sugar?"

"That'll be the day," I answered. "White. Two sugars. Lawyer?"

De'Ath shook his head. "Perp hasn't requested one. There's a public defender around somewhere if we need one." He turned his back on me and returned to his conversation.

I picked up a visitor's badge from the main desk, clipped it to my top pocket as I edged between a tall blonde in purple hotpants and halter top and the gold-bedecked black guy in a silver suit that she was screaming her lungs out at and pushed through the double doors leading to the corridor off which were the interview rooms. There was a line of identical green doors, each with a small observation window at head height, an oblong of glass reinforced with wire mesh. Each door had a number stencilled on it and F was about half way along the corridor. I knocked once and the door was opened by a uniformed woman officer, a blue-eyed brunette, and I thought then how strange it was that they were using a woman guard and then I stepped into the room and saw the girl sitting at a table. I was flustered and I looked back at the door to check that I was in the right room. The guard saw my obvious confusion and I said "Terry Ferriman?" to her and though I wasn't looking at the girl at the table it was she who said yes, she was Terry. De'Ath was being a smart arse, I realised, deliberately not telling me that the perp was a woman. Cancel that, she was hardly a woman, she was little more than a girl. I nodded at the guard and she closed the door and then stood with her back to it, her arms folded across her chest. I sat down on another plastic chair and swung the briefcase onto the table. "My name is Dr Beaverbrook," I said to the girl. "I'm a psychologist."

"Pleased to meetchya," she said. "I would shake hands but, you know…" She shrugged and I noticed for the first time that her hands were handcuffed in front of her. I took out a small tape recorder and a notebook from the briefcase and then put it on the ground, by my chair.

"I'm going to record this interview, it's easier than making notes," I explained as I pressed the recording button.

"For sure," she said. She was wearing a grey tunic and trousers which I guessed the police had given her which meant that her clothes had been sent to Forensic.

"Your name is Terry Ferriman?" I said, and she nodded. I smiled and tapped the tape recorder with my pen. "You have to say it out loud, it won't pick up nods."

"Oh right, yeah, for sure," she said, nodding her head. "Your accent is really neat. You're English, aren't you?"

I nodded. "How old are you?" I asked.

She grinned mischievously. "How old do I look?" she said, holding her chin up and shaking her head so that her long dark hair swung from side to side, her jet black eyes weighing me up. I'd have put her face at about fifteen, smooth white skin and gleaming Californian teeth. Her lipstick was smeared across her right cheek as if she'd wiped it roughly with the back of her hand. Her body I'd have put at eighteen, maybe nineteen. They'd obviously taken her underwear because when she shook her head I could see the ripple of her breasts under the tunic. She caught me looking at her chest and smiled. "How old do I look?" she asked again.