Stephen Leather - Once bitten

They took me out into the hall and Filbin locked the door. While we waited for the elevator I asked De'Ath where he was going next.

"Office," he said. "We're still waiting for the report on the victim. And I want another talk with the girl."

The elevator arrived and we got in. "Can I come back with you?" I asked.

De'Ath raised his eyebrows. "You seem to be taking more interest than usual in this case, Doc," he said.

I shrugged. "She intrigues me."

"Man, I am disgusted," De'Ath guffawed. "You must be old enough to be her father." He laughed and Filbin laughed with him.

"Come on, Samuel. She's only ten years younger than I am."

Filbin shook his head in disbelief. "It must have been a rough ten years," he said. Their laughing intensified and I was relieved when the doors hissed open and we went out into the sunshine.

"Anyway, God forbid I should split up this laughing policemen act, but is it OK for me to go back to the station with you?"

"Didn't you come in the Batmobile?" asked De'Ath.

I sighed. "Yes, I meant that I'll follow you back." I pointed to my car. "I'm parked there."

Filbin used his hand to shade his eyes from the sun. "Nice car," he said. "English, is it?"

"Yeah. Though an American helped design it. That's why it's got fins."

Filbin nodded appreciatively, then frowned. "What's that hanging from the aerial? It looks like a bat!"

The Autopsy There were no free parking spaces in the precinct car park so I left the Alpine on the road. Most of the cops knew who I was so I reckoned I was unlikely to get a ticket. De'Ath and Filbin were at their desks by the time I reached the Homicide office. More than thirty detectives worked out of the big open-plan office, and all the desks were grouped in twos so that partners could sit facing each and answer each other's phones and steal each other's sandwiches. They worked a three-shift system and spent most of the time out on the streets which meant that there were never more than half a dozen detectives actually in the office at any one time.

Filbin was talking into one of the phones, to Forensic by the sound of it.

De'Ath saw me listening. "Forensic said they've sent her clothes back," he explained. "Said they're clean and there's no point in hanging on to them."

"What are you going to do next?" I asked.

"Ask her about the knife that's missing from the set in her kitchen. Ask her what she was doing in the alley. You know, Doc, police-type questions, just like you see on the television."

Filbin slammed down the phone. "Jerk," he said.

"That's no way to talk to Jamie D. Beaverbrook, world renowned vampire hunter," admonished De'Ath.

"I didn't mean this jerk," said Filbin. "I meant those guys in Forensic. Had her clothes arrived?

Don't forget to sign for them. Don't forget to send back the paperwork. Teaching their grandmothers to suck eggs."

There was a blue file on Filbin's desk and I could see a colour photograph peeping out. He saw me looking and pushed it across the desk at me. "Scene of crime pics," he said. "Not for the faint hearted."

"Mind if I look?" I said, more to keep De'Ath happy than anything else. He sometimes got a bit ratty if I took liberties.

Both men nodded. I pulled up a chair and sat down. There were a dozen or so glossy photographs, each twelve inches by ten inches. Some were close-ups of the victim's face. He seemed to be about forty years old, his hair in a military-looking crew cut, his eyes blank and staring. There was a savage cut in his throat reaching from his windpipe up to his right ear. Other photographs showed his blood-soaked chest, though it was difficult to see where the knife had gone in.

One of the phones rang and De'Ath picked it up.

The victim was wearing a suit, not the grey one I'd seen in the dream but a brown and yellow checked one. He was wearing a red tie and there was a matching red handkerchief sprouting out of his top pocket. Both were the same colour as the blood over his neck and chest. I flicked through the photographs, knowing what I was looking for but not wanting to admit it to myself. One of the pictures was a full length shot of the body. I could see the brown shoes and I scrutinised the socks.

They were red. They were not black with white triangles. I sighed and sat back in the chair.

De'Ath replaced the receiver. "Coroner's office," he said to Filbin. "Autopsy'll go ahead this afternoon. I'm going to have a chat with young Miss Ferriman. Can you hit the phones and nail down a supplier of the those knife sets. What was the brand? Dick, wasn't it?"

Filbin nodded. "Yeah, Dick. Some German company."

"OK, you know what we want. Number of sets sold in the LA area, and we want a set so that we can identify the one that was missing from her kitchen." De'Ath looked at me. "You still here?" he asked.

"No I'm a hologram," I answered. "I left an hour ago."

A uniformed sergeant came banging through the door, a large plastic bag in one hand. He dropped the bag on Filbin's desk and thrust a clipboard under the Irish detective's nose.

"You've gotta sign for these," he rasped.

"What is it, my laundry?" asked Filbin.

"Don't piss me about, Filbin. They're Ferriman's clothes, from Forensic. Just sign your name.

You can manage joined-up writing, can't you?"

Filbin sighed and took a pen off his desk and scrawled on the clipboard while I reached for the bag. Inside there was a white t-shirt, a pair of black high-heeled boots, white briefs and bra, a black miniskirt, and a black leather motorcycle jacket. I took out the jacket and held it up. There was nothing unusual about it, you saw ones just like it every time you walked down the street, big collar, lots of zips, belt around the bottom. You know the sort. The sort she was wearing in the dream.

The sergeant with the clipboard walked away. Over his shoulder he shouted "by the way, Doc, you know the Batmobile's got a ticket?"

"This isn't a boutique," said De'Ath and he took the jacket off me and pushed it back into the bag.

"What are you going to do with them?" I asked.

"She's not been charged yet, so she's free to wear her own clothes," he said. He swung the bag off the desk and took it with him to the interview rooms. As he went through the double doors, Captain Canonico came barrelling into the Homicide office like a frigate under full steam.

"Beaverbrook, got your crucifix and stake with you?" he bellowed.

"Morning Captain," I said, my heart heavy.

He charged over to where I was sitting, put his hands on the desk and loomed over me like a storm about to break. "Have I got a scumball for you," he said. "We pulled him in about half an hour ago. He killed two small boys last night. Tortured them with a soldering iron. And then bit their peckers off. Can you believe that? Bit them clean off and swallowed them. Said it would boost his potency. You know what I'd do to someone like him, Beaverbrook? I'd hack off his balls with a blunt hacksaw and lock him away for life. That's what I'd do. But you, Beaverbrook, maybe you'll think he's just a bit disturbed and that we should put him in a nice hospital somewhere and let him take woodwork classes and go for long walks in the fresh air. Anyway, he's in room C, why don't you go and get inside his head."

He pushed himself up off the desk and leered at me. "And the Batmobile's got a ticket again," he said, before heading off towards his office.

"He's still got it in for you, hasn't he?" asked Filbin, as he picked up the phone and began to dial.

I didn't reply, just grabbed my briefcase and headed for the interview rooms.

I was in room C for the best part of two hours and I felt sick when I came out. Sick and dirty and tainted. The man was insane, no doubt about it and the program labelled him as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and I knew that Captain Canonico would not take the news kindly. I sympathised with him. I hated child-killers more than any other type of murderer, hated them with a vengeance. If I'd had my way I'd quite happily give the bastard a bimedial leucotomy there and then with a broken bottle, but that's not the way the American justice system works. There were times when I hated the job, and hated even more the people it brought me into contact with.