Eat the poor galbraith a.., p.9
Eat the Poor (Galbraith & Pole Book 2), page 9
At Victoria Station he went into the toilets where he changed his clothes, leaving in the cheap disposable outfit with the smart suit in the second sports bag. That bag went into left luggage and he took the train to Clapham Junction.
In keeping with his ambition to take control of his situation, he had planned his route with care. From Clapham Junction he walked to the football changing rooms on Clapham Common. In the dark of the Thursday evening, they were not in use. He had brought a stout screwdriver with which he jemmied the lock. He stripped and then, having packed the clothes into the sports bag, he slipped out of the changing rooms and hurried to bushes nearby, concealing the bag before hurrying back inside. He was pretty sure that nobody had noticed him. It occurred to him that, given the reputation of Clapham Common, anyone who did see a naked man there might not think it that remarkable.
Now he had to wait for the moon to rise. With the date being well past the full moon, he did not think that there would be a spontaneous change. But he was sure he could make it happen. He imagined that motivational poster again. He believed. He could do it.
Hidden away in the changing rooms he waited, thinking about the change, thinking about wolves, thinking about his plans for the evening.
Nothing.
Time passed and with it came a growing frustration. How could this be happening to him? Had the motivational poster been wrong?
More time passed and the frustration began to turn to anger.
For a moment, he felt his skin crawling; felt muscles flexing; sensed a change deep inside his bones.
It was happening.
Relief flooded his system and, in the same moment, he felt the changes stop. He remained human and there was no sign this would change.
What had he been thinking when the change had started? What had triggered it?
He looked out the window. There was the moon: clear and bright, certainly, but definitely beginning to wane. The frustration surged again and again there was the sense of a change in his body. The muscles under his skin twitched and swelled as his frustration grew. It was, he realised, as simple as that. In the same way that the drugs would calm him so that he might be able to change from werewolf to human, so it was his frustration and – more importantly – his anger that was initiating the change from human to werewolf.
Using the same techniques that he had learned to force his mind into a state of calm, he now concentrated on his anger. He thought of all the things that he hated about the world he lived in: the drug-addled youths, the work-shy young men and their sluttish women, the ignorant and the stupid, asylum seekers, foreigners generally, and, for some reason, the Welsh.
He felt the anger build and the change beginning, but he remained stubbornly human: a rather hirsute human with disturbingly long fingernails, but human nonetheless. It only needed one last effort. He pushed open the door and threw himself out of the hut. He imagined he could feel the rays of the moon on his naked body. Just in time, he remembered to swallow the clonazepam that he had been prescribed. It should take effect within half an hour, but he reckoned that in werewolf form it was likely to take longer. It should, in any case, give him time to do what he had planned.
Even as he swallowed the pill, he felt his human side being submerged. It was all he could do not to howl at the moon. Instead he forced himself to head north, across the railway lines towards the Winstanley Estate and the 17 storey Inkster House.
CHAPTER 10: In which there is a fifth killing
When the full moon came and went with no more bodies turning up, Galbraith felt that it was safe to relax for another month. With Section S insisting on a news blackout, there was little they could do. The extra police patrols around high rises on council estates had been withdrawn. Even with Counter Terrorism’s budgets, the police didn’t really have enough people to maintain that effort for long and the increased police presence was already leading some community groups to complain that working class districts were being harassed.
Bailey had relented and agreed that he could fill the periods of inactivity in his investigation by doing other work – but, he insisted, not involving himself with other cases. “You can’t dip in and out of ongoing investigations. You know better than that.” So Galbraith found himself back in a world of Excel spreadsheets and strategy meetings with titles like ‘Police Priorities in a Post-Covid Age’ and ‘Engaging Synergies in Diverse Communities’. At least, he thought, it meant almost a month of regular hours. He had even decided to buy an omelette pan and see if he could bring his kitchen skills up to Pole’s level.
He was at home by 7.30 on Thursday night and was browsing Netflix with a freshly opened beer to hand when the phone rang.
As soon as he heard Pole’s voice, he knew it was bad news.
* * *
The car that was taking them to Clapham was crossing Battersea Bridge as Pole summarised the new murder.
“Basically it’s a repeat of Vauxhall. South of the river; tower block. It’s actually owned by Wandsworth, as was the one in Roehampton. I suspect that has no significance. The body was found in a dumpster but one arm sticking out to make sure we get the message.”
“Early evening again.”
“Indeed.” Pole sounded weary.
“We’ll need a fingertip search around the flats, though I’m not very hopeful. And then a wider search in case he’s left clothes behind.”
“As you will doubtless be using my budget, I took the liberty of getting Section S resources on it.”
Galbraith gave him what he was old enough to consider ‘an old-fashioned look’. “And these resources will be better than our search teams how, exactly?”
“I didn’t say ‘better,’ Chief Inspector. But they may bring some, shall we say, ‘special skills’ to the effort.”
They swung into the Winstanley Estate, pulling up behind half a dozen police cars, their blue lights strobing across the scene. As they got out of their car, an unmarked black van with a blue beacon magnetically clamped to the roof pulled up beside them.
“Excuse me,” said Pole, “I need to speak to my colleague.”
Galbraith was curious as to who this colleague was and what, or who, was in the black van, but Pole’s attitude discouraged curiosity and, in any case, a van filled with more conventional police officers was stopping behind them in its turn. Galbraith decided to brief his search teams first and to worry about Pole’s associates later.
* * *
In the end, the most important evidence came from neither of the search teams but from one of the officers door-knocking in the tower.
“I think you should come and hear this, sir.”
Constable Finnis had only been in the force for three months and her manner suggested she was not used to talking to chief inspectors, but she had clearly thought whatever she had found was important enough to bring straight to him.
They took the lift to the 17th floor. Galbraith, who had travelled in more than his share of council block lifts over the years, was impressed. It was smart and clean and there wasn’t the faintest trace of urine in the atmosphere.
Finnis, whose station covered the estate, noticed Galbraith’s expression. “A lot of the flats have been sold off,” she said. “You can get close to half a million for them. That sort of money buys a lot of lift engineers.”
The door to Flat 172 was a deeply stained stripped wood, not like the standard painted doors on the flats either side. Galbraith recognised the obvious sign of a flat that had been bought from the council.
The owner was Alex. He worked in IT, he said, and had been born in this block. He had inherited the tenancy from his parents and bought the place soon after.
“Nice place to live?”
“Very nice. The area’s going up in the world.”
“My officer here tells me you had a bit of trouble earlier this evening though.”
“Not trouble exactly. She asked me if anything unusual happened and I told her about being threatened by some big dog.”
“Threatened?”
Alex shifted uneasily. “Well, it felt threatening.”
“So what exactly happened, sir?”
“I got home about quarter past seven. The front door downstairs is supposed to be kept locked and tonight, for once, it was. So I had to get my keys out and I suppose I was fumbling to find them because usually the door’s open and I heard this sort of growling.”
He paused as if uncertain how to go on.
“Growling?” Galbraith prompted.
“It was a really angry noise, not like something you’d expect to hear from a dog.”
“Do you get many dogs round here?”
“Not really. They don’t allow pets.”
“So tell me about this dog.”
“It was big. Really big. Grey with shaggy hair. I didn’t take much of a look, to be honest. I was trying to get my keys out as quickly as I could. It scared me.”
“Did it actually attack you?”
“That was what was strange. He stepped forward and opened its mouth. I could see its teeth. They seemed…” He paused again. He looked pale, Galbraith thought, as if even the memory of the animal disturbed him. This time Galbraith did not prompt and, after a moment, Alex continued. “They seemed unusually long. Like fangs really.”
He was white as a sheet, thought Galbraith.
“Finnis, can you get him a glass of water?”
He waited while Finnis went to the kitchen. There was the sound of a tap running and then she returned with the water.
Alex raised it to his lips with a trembling hand and took a long, slow sip.
“I was very shaken up. I may have imagined the next bit.”
“I’d like you to describe it anyway.”
Another drink.
“It seemed to rear up on its hind legs. Its face was level with mine. I was shaking. I dropped my keys. I was locked out with this thing facing me. I thought it was going to kill me.”
“But it didn’t.”
“No. It suddenly stopped and sniffed. Then it shook its head. Its jaws were still open and it was growling. When it shook its head spittle hit me on the face. I tried to scream but I couldn’t. I froze. Then it dropped back to the ground and ran off.”
“Where did it go?”
“I saw it head round the corner and I grabbed up my keys and got inside. I didn't hang about to see what happened to it after that.”
“And did you tell anybody about it?”
“No.” Alex shook his head. “I just wanted to forget about it. It was scary but I thought I was imagining it as more of a thing than it really was. I mean, in the end it was only a dog.”
Galbraith hurried to agree with him. It was only a dog but, as Alex had recognised, a dangerous one. “We’ve had reports of a dangerous dog in the area. We’re going to try to track it down before it injures anyone.”
“Well I’m glad you’re taking it seriously. But there seem to be a lot of police for one dog.”
Galbraith nodded. “We have to take these things seriously, sir. And it is a very big dog.”
He headed back to the lift with Constable Finnis.
“I didn’t realise we’d been called out because of a dog, sir.”
“But you brought it straight to me.”
“‘Anything unusual,’ I was told, sir.”
Galbraith decided he liked Finnis.
“Sometimes we start with an accidental death and a senior officer evaluates the situation and decides it should be a murder enquiry. Other times we start with a murder enquiry and a senior officer…” He paused and gave her a meaningful look. “That would be me.”
She nodded.
“The senior officer decides we’re looking for a big dog. Which is what tomorrow’s newspapers will say.” He gave her another look. “I hope you’re on board with that, constable.”
Finnis nodded again.
“A big dog, sir. Sergeant must have mentioned it in his brief. I should have been paying more attention.”
* * *
The good news, Pole and Galbraith were both agreed, was that they could now warn people to be on the alert. Extra police patrols were not only acceptable to local residents but positively demanded.
The bad news was that they knew that the creature they were hunting was targeting its attacks.
“But how,” Galbraith asked, “could it tell that the first man wasn’t one of the kind of residents he was after?”
“I imagine that werewolves share with their canine cousins a pronounced sense of smell. And the odour of a man who showers daily before applying the male fragrance of the moment is likely to differ from that of the long-term unemployed. Have you identified the victim by the way?”
“Joseph McCann. Easy to identify as he’s known to the local police. He lives in one of the remaining council flats in the block where he regularly beats up his wife, who always insists that her bruises were caused when she tripped into a door. He has three children and basically survives on the money that is supposed to be spent on their food. Social workers keep threatening to start care proceedings but money’s tight and…” He trailed off, shrugging helplessly.
“Well at least Mr McCann will not be missed.”
“Strangely enough, I’m told his wife is distraught. I’ll never understand women.”
“I doubt I’ll ever truly understand Mortals.”
They sat in Pole’s apartment but, for once, they were not enjoying his whisky. Galbraith had decided it was time for him to make a contribution and he had turned up bearing a six pack of craft ales. Pole, it turned out, owned no beer glasses, but his whisky tumblers were generously sized and they were drinking from those. Pole was doing his very best to appreciate his gift, but Galbraith wondered if he had made a mistake. If he was being perfectly honest, the beers that had tasted more than acceptable at home seemed to lack something here.
Galbraith tried to sum up the situation as he would if he were leading a regular team in his own police station.
“We know that our man is around six feet tall and slim built. We have one suit of clothing that he appears to have worn only once and that briefly. A thorough search in the area of Inkster House hasn’t found any clothing this time. Either our man has realised that he can’t get back to the clothes he has stashed away or he has managed to switch back and left wearing them.”
“Or we haven’t searched far enough away. Werewolves can cover ground very quickly.”
“We have to be realistic. Checking every bush and shrub takes time. People go on about how wonderful it is that there is so much green space around London. It’s a lot less wonderful when you are searching it. These estates are full of patches of grass with shrubs all over them. And there are hedges. And playing fields and local parks. The estate is in an area bounded by the mainline railways into London and the A3205, which is a big road, mainly dual carriageway. We’re working on the basis that those are boundaries he would try to avoid in wolf form.”
“I understand the reality of the constraints you operate under.” Pole’s tone was carefully neutral and Galbraith suspected he didn't understand the constraints at all. "But we are talking about a creature that we believe has travelled from Vauxhall to Richmond without any reported sightings. I think it's probably capable of crossing a road.”
Galbraith rested his face on his hand. Pole was right, of course, but his being right wasn’t helping. “So what would you do?”
“I’d ask myself where he could change out of his clothes and take on his wolf shape – a process which is far from instantaneous – with a reasonable chance of not being seen. That rules out the sort of shrubbery that is planted around a space of common ground. Playing fields are no use either because they are flat and provide no proper cover.”
Pole went to a bookcase and took down a large A-Z of London. Galbraith realised that, since Google maps had become ubiquitous on people’s phones, he had hardly seen any A-Zs – and even before that, he had never seen one bound in leather.
Pole noticed the expression on his face. “Look around you, Chief Inspector. If you lived here, wouldn’t you want to disguise the somewhat garish cover of the London street plan?”
Galbraith doubted that he would go to the trouble and expense of having a map book rebound but, then again, he wouldn’t have an A-Z in the first place.
Pole had opened the book at the pages that included Inkster House. He pointed at areas of greenery to the east and west. “I’d consider the possibilities of York Gardens and Shillington Gardens.”
“Both in our search area.”
“True. But here…” He traced his finger south. “We have Clapham Common. There is quite a lot of cover from trees and scrub.”
“Across the busiest set of railway lines in the country.”
“In the dark. It’s surprisingly difficult to spot things in the dark when you are inside a lighted carriage. And I think the presence of the railway line was part of his plan. If he failed to change back, he would follow the railway back to Richmond.”
Galbraith shrugged reluctant agreement. “But even if you are right, I can’t search the whole of Clapham Common. It’s too big and, as you said, there are too many places a bag could be hidden.”
“But now that we are publicly looking for a dangerous dog, we can at least send officers to patrol the place. They can keep their eyes open and talk to people about anything unusual they might have seen.”
Both men drained their glasses in tacit agreement.
“An interesting experiment,” Pole said, smacking his lips with an expression of intense concentration. “But I believe there is such a thing as a whisky chaser.”
