Secrets and Lies

"We managed to track down one of the three witnesses yesterday evening, a Mr. George Robbins," Owen reported. "According to him the experience was life-changing. He claims he's quit drinking, and he started doing volunteer work in the local community, including helping maintain that ancient church."

Martin took over for the next part, "Mr. Robbins said he hasn't seen the angel since the night it appeared. It spoke with him and his two companions for a few minutes, then it departed Fordwich on foot. He last saw it heading west, in the company of his friend Norman White."

Owen added, "White hasn't been seen since. We're going to try and interview the third witness later today. Then I think we'll follow the trail westward. Not hard to guess where the angel and Mr. White were going, considering Canterbury is only a few kilometres up the road."

Dr. Bishop responded, "Thank you Owen, Martin. Terry, I know you're still busy trying to secure some police reports from Southampton but perhaps you can also look into Mr. White's financial records? If he's travelling with this entity they'll probably need money. He may be using his credit or bank cards."

"Yeah I'll see what I can do," the tech wiz replied.

Then Grace asked, "Trillium, Phoebe, have you anything to report this morning?"

It was half past ten on Friday, and the doctor ordered another all-hands conference call. Which my partner and I were attending from the comfort of our four-star luxury hotel suite.

I'd let Phoebe make the hotel arrangements, since I didn't know what LIES policy was with regard to expense accounts. And instead of getting us a couple rooms at a typical inn or bed & breakfast, she'd picked an expensive suite on the top floor of a fancy hotel overlooking the Southampton docks where the cruise liners berthed. The place also had quick access to the downtown areas, including the local police headquarters and the train station. The main hospital was fairly close by as well.

The accommodations included a spacious washroom, a large comfortable sitting area with sofa and recliners, a well-stocked but expensive bar and mini-fridge, a breakfast table where the two of us were currently seated, and a pod-based coffee maker. It also had two beds, but ultimately it meant the two of us were sharing the one room. I hadn't asked yet, but I couldn't help wondering if the busty redhead had some ulterior motive for making that decision.

"Nothing yet," I responded to Grace's question. "After we checked into our hotel we spent some time familiarizing ourselves with the area, both here in town and we've been studying maps of the general locations where the four incidents took place."

Phoebe chimed in, "Not much more we could do here without any of those reports we needed."

She had a point there, but luckily we received some of them from Terry just before we got on the call. So far it was just the ME's reports on the two fatalities plus the patient records from Ms. Townsend's hospital stay. I assumed all three documents came from the hospital's computer system, who's security our tech guy finally cracked. On the other hand the local police database had so far resisted his efforts.

"Thanks for getting us the first few reports Terry," I added. "I think Phoebe and I will need some time this morning to review them. Then maybe we'll try and meet with the ME, if we have any questions for them. And perhaps the A&E surgeon or the EMTs who treated Ms. Townsend."

Dr. Bishop responded, "Very well. I have something for you as well, and I know Emma also has some information for you."

"As you know I met with Ms. Townsend and her wife yesterday afternoon," she continued, "I confirmed your observations and the women's statements regarding Ms. Townsend's physical changes. She let me take some blood, hair, and tissue samples. They're still processing but as soon as I've got lab results I'll forward that along."

Finally she stated, "In the meantime I also shared some of those samples with Emma, to see if they might prompt her gift to provide any sort of insight."

"They did," the goth teen spoke up. "It was weak, but there is a tenuous connection between Valerie Townsend's blood and the entity that attacked her."

There was a brief pause, and when she continued her voice sounded somewhat distant or distracted. "I got vague impressions of a location. An area bounded by three hills, a campground, and a river. And... a beautiful place."

"That doesn't narrow it down much," Phoebe frowned. "There's probably a hundred bloody hills in the New Forest, and a couple dozen campsites."

Emma sounded a little irritated as she replied, "In more concrete terms I'm pretty sure it's somewhere east of Brockenhurst."

"Thank you Emma," I took over. "We'll have another look at the map and see if we get any ideas. Maybe we'll head out that way after we've finished up here in town."

At that point Grace asked if anyone had anything else to add, then when nobody responded she thanked us all for contributing. She suggested we convene again the following morning for another conference call, before wrapping things up.

My assistant tapped her phone to end the call, then looked to me. "So, a little light reading? Then afterwards maybe we can grab lunch, before we go spending another afternoon driving all over the place."

"That's what I was thinking, yes." I nodded as I opened the medical reports on my laptop.

"In that case I'm going to need another coffee first," she said as she got to her feet and loaded a fresh pod into the coffee machine.

"Oh I'd love one too please," I grinned. "If you don't mind?"

Phoebe gave me a look, "You know I'm not your secretary, right? Or your assistant, for that matter."

I smirked, "I don't know about that Feebs. I'm the lead agent on this case, remember? And Owen did tell you to help me wherever you could. And another coffee would really help right now."

Instead of arguing she just muttered something under her breath. Despite her grumbling though she still gave me the first cup out of the machine, before loading it with a second pod for herself.

"Thank you cutie," I flashed her a smile. I was tempted to add a 'good girl' but decided to save that for later.

That was the last of the teasing for a while, since we had actual work to do. I focused on the ME's report for the first fatality, while Phoebe stood behind me and read the report over my shoulder. After a few minutes we moved on to the second ME's report, but it didn't take long to realize both documents were very similar.

I also found myself comparing the reports to the ones I'd seen up in Castleton, since that was my first experience with these supernatural cases. The six bodies Dr. O'Conner examined in Whitby had no defined cause of death due to a complete lack of physical damage or injury. In contrast the two bodies examined here in Southampton had an 'assumed' cause of death because they'd both suffered so much damage it was hard to say exactly which injury actually killed them.

The first body belonged to a twenty-three year old farm labourer named Jeffrey Tate. He was found on the morning of September seventeenth, on the side of a small road just north of Setley, surrounded by the shredded remains of his clothing. According to the medical report, and the rather graphic photographs, he'd suffered injuries similar to those which Ms. Townsend described in her own assault.

Mr. Tate had deep lacerations along both arms, across his back, around his waist and hips, his thighs, legs, and abdomen. And there were deep bites at his left shoulder and neck. The official cause of death was given as exsanguination, due to the sheer number and severity of the lacerations and amount of blood lost.

There was a chance however that the man had died of suffocation, based on the bite marks around his neck. And finally the size and shape of the various claw and tooth marks were very clearly non-human in origin. The size suggested they were caused by canids of some kind, but anything beyond that was outside the ME's area of expertise.

Next was a thirty-seven year old farmer named Callum Stone. He left behind a young wife and two small children. Apart from that his medical report was eerily similar to the first one. His naked body was found in one of his fields on the morning of October seventeenth. The nature and extent of his injuries were almost an exact repeat those that killed Mr. Tate the month before. And once again the injuries were confirmed to be animal in origin, but beyond that the ME could only guess that some species of canid was involved.

"It's circumstantial, but having two nearly-identical reports dated exactly one month apart certainly suggests these men were both killed by the same thing," I commented after finishing the second one.

Phoebe suggested, "Time to look at Townsend's surgery report? Maybe we'll make it a hat-trick."

"That's a sports-ball reference," she added with a smirk.

I rolled my eyes, "I'm familiar."

She was still reading my laptop over my shoulder while I opened our survivor's surgical report. And as the text came up on the screen I commented, "I don't even want to think about how many privacy laws we're breaking right now. It's one thing when the subjects are deceased, but these medical records belong to a living breathing person."

My partner shrugged, "Can't be much worse than you impersonating a cop the other day, when we met that same living breathing person."

"I never impersonated anything," I insisted. "I identified myself as a detective and you as my assistant, but I never claimed to be a police detective. And when Ms. Townsend mentioned the police here in Southampton I specifically told her we weren't with the Hampshire Constabulary."

The redhead went quiet after that. Probably because she knew she'd lose whatever argument she was thinking of making. Instead we both focused on Ms. Townsend's surgery report.

Once again the list of injuries read like a repeat of the previous two. The biggest difference apart from the obvious was Valerie hadn't lost as much blood as the others. And considering she'd suffered almost the same number and type of injuries, I could only conclude that her lacerations weren't as deep as the ones the two men received. Either that or the men really were suffocated to death, while for whatever reason our killer decided to spare their latest victim.

On the other hand the report ended with comments suggesting the surgeon expected Valerie to have a long painful recovery. He also mentioned the possibility of permanent muscle damage, and that even after healing her scars would probably be life-changing. Which didn't align at all with what we'd seen when we met the woman just two days prior.

"So what do you think?" I finally asked as I sat back in my chair and had a sip of coffee. "You're the expert when it comes to strange or supernatural stuff. What's your gut telling you?"

There was a thoughtful frown on her face as Phoebe settled into the chair next to mine. She took a few moments to enjoy her drink, then she shrugged. "They're obviously violent bloody attacks, and all three reports made it clear the claw and teeth marks weren't caused by anything human."

"Makes me wonder if this is someone trying to mimic a werewolf," she added after a brief pause. "Or even someone who believes they are a werewolf. We know there's no such thing as lycanthropy, but there's been a few cases over the years of folks playing the part, for one reason or another. And thanks to that bloody spell there's no reason people can't give themselves non-human teeth and claws. As evidenced by that 'wolfby' Owen and Grace found up in Cumbria."

That left me with a frown of my own, "Shit. I hadn't thought of that, but you're right. We can't assume anything's 'non-human' anymore, can we? Not when we live in a world where catboys and foxgirls and mousekin exist."

"The only saving grace here is whoever's doing this, they can't be using the spell to disguise themselves in between the attacks," I added. "You can only use it once a month, and only when the full moon reaches its astronomical peak."

"Aye I know, I've looked into it myself." Phoebe mumbled before draining the last of her coffee.

I glanced at her, but didn't ask her to elaborate. I figured her interest would have been the same as Inspector Carter's, considering what happened to the two of them in the North York Moors.

Instead I turned my attention back to the surgical report on my laptop screen and sighed, "I didn't see anything in these reports about recovering potential evidence from any of the attacks. Nothing about the attacker's saliva, no casts of the bite-marks, nothing about fur or anything else being found in the wounds."

"If we're lucky the police did their jobs and collected everything they could from the crime scenes," I added with a frown. "If nothing else there might be some traces of the attacker on the victims' clothes."

Phoebe started to respond when we were interrupted by a knock at the door. It opened a moment later to reveal a pair of middle-aged women, one with a vacuum and the other with a cart full of fresh linens and towels and the sort.

"Housekeeping?" one of them announced in an Eastern European accent as she looked to my partner and I.

"Yes please," I replied as I shut down my laptop. "We're just heading out anyways."

We grabbed our jackets, then Feebs and I exited the room while the cleaners got to work.

"Lunch next?" the redhead asked as we got into the lift. "Or do you want to try and meet with the ME or surgeon first?"

It was only half past eleven, but neither of us had much for breakfast. Apparently the hotel did a nice brunch buffet on the weekends, but this morning we just had some muffins with our coffee.

"Lunch sounds good," I nodded. "I don't know if there's much point meeting with the ME just yet. And without some sort of official paperwork or identification I doubt the surgeon would be willing to discuss a patient's medical information with us."

As the lift doors opened to the lobby I added, "How about we head over to the New Forest after we've eaten? Maybe we can find that spot Emma was talking about. She said it was a beautiful place, right?"

Phoebe shrugged, "Whatever you say. You're the boss, apparently."

That got me smiling. I didn't let the temporary promotion go to my head though. I was even magnanimous enough to let her decide where we'd go for lunch.