* * *
It took Paddington a while to remember how to breathe. In the end, his body did it for him, sucking in air without him ever looking away from the base of the hole. After a few seconds that seem to go on forever, he asked, “Richard… is there any reason why your trap has captured my very naked girlfriend?”
“Your what?” Richard leapt from the tractor to land on all fours beside him.
Eight feet down, Lisa clutched her bloody left arm. Mud caked her body where she’d tried to climb the sides of the pit and her mouth was black with dried blood. She had a hoof-shaped bruise on her ribs.
She looked up, face bruised, lip split, panicked. She saw him. Found his eyes. Held them. Turned his spine to ice.
“James!” she said.
The beast… was Lisa, had always been her, and she’d known it. And she hadn’t told him, she’d let him piss about with the hair and the internet and make a complete fool of himself.
Deep inside, something asked Paddington why he was surprised. Told him he should have known better, shouldn’t have trusted her, shouldn’t trust anyone. Never would again.
“That weren’t what I caught,” said Richard, and Paddington realised that almost no time had passed.
“It was a wolf, Jim,” said Richard. “You saw the pic—”
“I believe you, Richard,” he heard himself say. He wanted to reassure the farmer somehow, like Quentin would have done, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off Lisa; wasn’t even sure he could take his eyes off her as long as she held his gaze. He couldn’t even think.
Lisa rose on shaky legs and covered herself with blood-coated hands. “Jim! Help me!”
Richard leaned into Paddington’s peripheral vision, distraction enough for Paddington to look away from Lisa. There was lust or hatred in Richard’s eyes; Paddington wasn’t sure which and didn’t want to find out. The last thing he needed now was a dull farmer distracting him and getting in the way. Paddington shoved him toward the tractor. Richard was heavier than he looked, but obliged a single step before stopping and leering into the hole again.
“Jim, get me out of here!”
Paddington closed his eyes. He needed her to tell him the truth. “How’d you get in there?”
“I… don’t remember.”
That wasn’t the truth. “Yes you do.” He knelt at the edge of the well. “Think back. Why couldn’t I find you yesterday? What were you doing the day before? Where were you?”
Lisa wouldn’t even look at him. After all she’d put him through. After the lies.
“Where?” he shouted. “Answer me!”
Lisa dropped back to the dirt. Filthy hair hid her face, but not the convulsions of her shoulders: she was crying. That didn’t earn her sympathy. Not today.
Not after this.
“Just taking a midnight stroll through Richard’s fields?” Paddington asked. “Bit warm, thought you’d lose a few layers?” He waited for her to look at him. “It was never the Beast of Gévaudan. It was you. And you knew it.” Paddington threw his overcoat into the pit. “Get dressed.”
Lisa’s left arm started bleeding again as she struggled into the long tan coat. By the time Paddington had lain on his stomach in the mud and pulled her up, it had soaked all the way through.
“I can explain,” she said.
“In a minute.” Paddington turned to Richard, who was standing frighteningly close behind them. “I’ll take her from here.”
Richard’s head dipped and rose once. He spoke evenly, still eyeing Lisa greedily. Was it just that he didn’t see many women up here, let alone half-naked ones? Or was there something else behind that glare? “Honestly, Jim, I don’t know how—”
“Don’t worry, Richard,” Paddington said, not that Richard looked worried. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
They boarded the tractor, Lisa hanging on with her good hand and holding the other away from her body, then Paddington guided her to the van. Technically she was a prisoner and must be placed in the cell at the back, but he needed to know what she had to say. Needed to know what could possibly lessen this betrayal.
He let her into the passenger seat and she watched him round the van and climb in the driver’s side. There wasn’t hatred in her eyes or fear; there was caution. She wasn’t sure what he would do, how he would react. To be honest, Paddington wasn’t either.
When they were alone with the road he said, “Now, explain.”
“I… I didn’t know.”
“Of course not. How could you know you were a werewolf? What clues might there have been? Apart from turning into a wolf once a month!” She watched him. He watched the road. “No hints?” he asked. “No random nudity? No waking up in a field, bathed in blood, hoping it had all been a drunken dare?”
“It’s not like that!”
“So you do remember.”
Lisa shifted her legs away from him and stared out the window. “I remember everything.”
“This explains why you didn’t want me investigating. I might find out the truth, might arrest you.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
Paddington wasn’t even sure he could arrest her. And if he did, “I turned into a wolf” was an excellent defence, if the jury believed it. If they didn’t, there was no charge in the first place, apart from maybe trespassing or destruction of property.
The road passed beneath them. Paddington needed time: a few minutes to come to grips with this, a cup of tea, and a long talk. Some time to calm his outrage, shame, and worry. To look at things logically. To decide whether he wanted to know everything about it or never speak to her again.
Maybe, after he knew a bit more, or a lot, maybe after that he could forgive her. Maybe it would all make sense. Maybe. Right now there was too much noise in his head.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We need to talk, somewhere private.”
“James!” Andrea said, crackly and tinny.
Paddington would have grabbed the radio and hurled it from the still-moving van, but the radio was in the pocket of his coat… which was on Lisa.
“Fine,” Andrea said with a sigh. “Detective Constable Paddington?”
“Give me the radio,” Paddington said. “Right pocket.”
Lisa shook her head, eyes watering. He didn’t have time for this. His mother was still his boss; right now Lisa was only his prisoner.
“Give it to me.” When he reached over, she covered the pocket with both hands; Paddington pushed through them and grabbed the radio. Lisa whimpered and slunk against the left side of the car to cradle her bleeding arm.
“James!” Andrea said. “Answer me, damn it.”
“What?” he said.
“There are some people from the Mainland to see you. They say you summoned them.” Cold anger slid across the radio waves. His disobedience had been discovered. Worse, the Mainlanders had come to Archi without permission.
There would be hell to pay when he got back.
Fear slithered through him. “I’m still at Richard’s,” he lied. “Give me half an hour.”
“They’re impatient.”
“Then give them a cup of tea!” He clicked the radio off and dropped it onto the centre console. This was just what he needed.
Lisa grabbed his arm. “Jim, please! Pull over. I’ll run. Say you didn’t find me.”
But he had. He couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened; he had to find some way forward, something that still made sense.
And he did: the law was clear, and just, and right.
“I can’t do that,” he said.
“Jim…” Her voice was small and hard. “Don’t do this.”
“It’ll be fine.”
Lisa released him and leaned as far away from him as she could get. “For whom?”
“What does that mean?”
“That you’re only looking out for yourself. Again.”
As Paddington glanced over, childhood betrayal reflected back at him in sapphire tears
, to the memory of butterflies and shattering glass.
Paddington tore his gaze away from her in time to avoid a row of parked cars and brought the van to a screeching rest at the edge of the cobblestones. In the silence of the stalled engine, his heart tried to escape his chest and Paddington tried to think of anything except the day he’d driven her away. Betrayed her. Destroyed himself.
His knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. “What do you expect me to do?” he asked. “I can’t deal with this. Little people, little problems, remember? Lisa, these Mainlanders will know what happens next. Maybe they even have a cure.”
Lisa kept staring. All the condemnation he’d feared from her this last month condensed into a single disgusted glare. “Lie to yourself if you must, James, but don’t you dare lie to me.”
After another deep breath, Paddington restarted the engine and pulled away from the curb. She was wrong; he wasn’t lying to himself. They were experts, members of the law, and Mainlanders to boot. They’d do what was right.
A tense minute later, he parked at Lisa’s cottage and nodded at the windshield. “Come on. We’ll get you cleaned up.”
“Want to present your prize sparkling?” she asked.
“You can go naked and bleeding for all I care.”
Lisa was studying him again, so Paddington remained stone-faced and hoped she wouldn’t crack his façade. He left her at her bedroom door.
Once the en suite’s shower began, Paddington dropped into the nearest seat and allowed himself a short moment of utter horror. What was he doing? But what else could he do? There was nowhere to hide on Archi and no way off it. They’d have to cooperate, but what did the Mainlanders want? What would they do to Lisa?
No, that wasn’t how to think. She’d been playing him, manipulating him. He’d bared his soul and she’d… what? What did he know about the real her? And why hadn’t he recognised the truth? There must be clues in this house, in this very room, that he’d missed. He was a failure as a policeman.
And, now, as he waited to deliver her to people with intentions unknown, he was a failure as a boyfriend too.
He’d had enough of his own company. “You nearly ready?” he asked her door. When there was no reply, he moved closer. Was she escaping? Trying to run? There was a window in her bedroom, but she’d have to use her injured arm to get through it…
He heard soft sobs from inside and retreated guiltily.
Another minute passed before Lisa emerged wearing jeans and a sweater, hair wet. Her eyes were ringed red, her jaw was black and purple, and her left wrist was wrapped in a white bandage. She handed him his coat. The bottom three inches of its left sleeve were now stained red.
“Do you need a doctor?” he asked.
“We could stop at the vet and have me put down,” she said. “Save them the trouble.”
“Come on.”
Twenty minutes later, Paddington stared at his hand on the ignition key in the station’s parking lot. Once he removed it, they’d have to go inside and the secret would be out. It would become real. It would be Done. Unchangeable.
But right now, he could still turn away. Still save her.
Except… that was what he was doing here, wasn’t it?
“Come on,” he said again, when the bickering voices in his head reached no consensus.
Lisa pleaded silently; Paddington answered with mute resolution and led her by her good arm past the empty sergeant’s desk to the crowded station beyond. Usually the space between the three desks was bare, even barren. Now it was full. Figures in black fatigues obscured the doors to the side entrance, the cell, the interview room. Paddington had never seen the station so busy, and eight of its nine occupants were unfamiliar to Paddington. Its other occupant, his mother, was storming toward them with murder in her eyes.
What would she say? How could he explain? What sort of impression would that make on the Mainlanders, seeing him berated by his mother like an irresponsible schoolboy?
So Paddington spoke first. “Take Miss Tanner to the interview room and tell Conall to call off the search.”
Andrea looked from her son to Lisa, noticed the bandaged arm and Paddington’s expression, and seemed to understand that now wasn’t the time for questions. Andrea took Lisa’s arm and played along, but he knew he hadn’t heard the last about inviting the Mainlanders over to stay.
One problem down, Paddington cleared his mind. This wasn’t the time to think about Lisa. He had to focus, make the Mainlanders welcome. He was doing the right thing, surely.
One of the Mainlanders approached him and Paddington attempted a smile. This would be the cocky, streetwise leader. “Cheery little town you’ve got here, detective,” he said. He was a touch shorter than Paddington and nearly thirty, the ranks of his dark hair were already retreating from his bony face. It gave him the look of a cartoon vulture peering over its prey.
“I’m Captain Jermaine Mitchell. This is Peterson, Thompson, Clarkson, and Normson.” Mitchell nodded at four muscle-bound men who held backward-heavy assault rifles. Each soldier had close-cropped brown hair, was three inches taller than Paddington, handsome, and in his late twenties.
“What are their first names?” Paddington asked. He wanted to shake their hands, but doubted they’d shake back.
“The other two are Skylar and Truman,” Mitchell said. A brunette in her mid-twenties raised her chin. She’d be the tough-as-nails fighter whose cold heart would be warmed by the captain until their initial enmity melted into love.
Truman wore a cowboy hat over blond hair and blue eyes. “Put ’er there!” he exclaimed, extending an arm and shaking Paddington’s hand with vigour. Paddington recognised him now: he was the American. There was always one.
“And that’s Doctor McGregor,” Mitchell finished, nodding toward Quentin’s desk. Also in his late twenties, McGregor was smaller and slimmer than the soldiers. He also had freckles, glasses, and red hair instead of brown, but at least he wasn’t wearing a kilt.
Paddington reminded himself to be grateful they’d come. That this was his dream. After years of longing, he was finally meeting Mainlanders. So why did he wish he and Lisa were still at her house? Why did he wish they were talking this through like boyfriend and girlfriend instead of officer and criminal?
Why did he wish the Mainlanders would just get off his island and leave them be?
McGregor was still waiting awkwardly, either to shake hands or just because he was an awkward sort of person. Paddington felt he should put the doctor at ease. He had to do something; they were all staring at him. “Doctor McGregor,” he said, “uh, would you like some haggis?”
“No… thank you,” McGregor said in a squeaky London accent. “Sorry for the delay we, um, couldn’t find Archi on any of our maps.”
“What?” Paddington asked. The Mainland was big, but how did you lose an entire island?
“Yes, it’s all very mysterious,” Mitchell said dismissively. “Now, where’s the Beast of Gévaudan?”
“Well, uh…” Paddington said.
“You can’t miss it.” Mitchell stepped into Paddington’s personal space. “Size of a cow; red fur, black stripe; ate more than sixty Frenchman over a four-year period in the seventeen-hundreds. Sound familiar?”
Paddington wasn’t sure he was ready for Mitchell to meet Lisa. Not until he knew more about him. “We… don’t have Frenchmen.”
Mitchell wouldn’t be stalled. “Detective…” His hazel eyes bore into Paddington’s, demanding, forcing. “…take us to your beastie.”
“It’s not the Beast of Gévaudan,” Paddington admitted. He’d never been any good at lying; his mother had been too good at seeing through it for him to develop the knack. “It’s a werewolf.”
He handed Richard’s photos to Mitchell, who inclined them to McGregor. “Analysis, doctor?” Mitchell asked.
“Werewolves are typically depicted as humanoid – muscular, bipedal, no tail, with a shorter snout. Although, there’s an argument that histori
call—”
“It’s not a full moon, detective,” Mitchell said, throwing the photos onto Paddington’s desk, “not even on islands that don’t exist. You took a photo of someone’s dog. Now stop pissing me about.”