Sam crashed into my bedroom, and I followed close behind. I slammed the door closed, lent against it, my chest pumping up and down, trying to suck mouthfuls of air into my burning lungs.
“That was close…
Sam collapsed onto my bed and lay there panting for breath like a tired dog.
“Are you taking the piss, Kayla?” Sam wheezed.
“No.”
“He ain’t going to be sending us to no Rat-House. We won’t be seeing him again. Didn’t you see him? He’s freaked out — gone bat-shit!” he puffed. “Have you still got that camera?”
“Yes,” I said, not wanting to let go of it.
“What do you think is on it?” Sam asked, getting his breath back.
“I don’t know,” I said, collapsing onto the bed next to him.
“Maybe it will show us what really happened to Miss Clarke,” Sam said. Then he added, “It might show us where all that blood came from.”
“It might,” I said, wondering now if I really wanted to watch what had been recorded on the camera. Did I really want to see Emily Clarke being butchered?
“Well, let’s have a look then,” Sam said, propping himself up on one elbow. We lay so close to each other that our heads nearly brushed together.
“We can’t,” I said, holding up the camera. “I left the power cable behind.”
“You’re shitting me, right?” Sam gasped in disbelief.
“You were rushing me,” I insisted.
“You’re telling me we nearly got busted to get that camera and we can’t even watch what’s been recorded on it?” he asked me.
“Looks like it,” I said, looking at the camera.
It was then Sam started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” I asked him.
“Us,” he laughed. “We must be out of our freaking minds.”
Staring down at the camera and knowing there was no way I was going to find out what was on it, I started to laugh too. It wasn’t just a giggle or snigger. We lay next to each other and laughed great big belly laughs until tears streamed from our eyes.
With his laughter under control, Sam turned his head so he could look at me and said, “You know, Kayla Hunt, I’ve never met a girl like you before.”
“Oh,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.
“You’re different,” he smiled. “It’s kinda exciting being with you.”
“Is that a compliment?” I asked him, his blue eyes burning into mine.
“A big compliment,” he smiled again.
I didn’t know what to say. I had never had a boyfriend before and the last guy who paid me a compliment ended up murdering me. With those memories in the front of my mind, I sat up and said, “I think you should go back to your own room now.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Sam said, sounding concerned.
“I’m just tired,” I lied.
Sam went to the door and opened it. Before he left, he looked back at me and said, “There is something different about you, Kayla. I don’t know what it is, but you’re definitely not like other girls.” Then he was gone, closing the door behind him and leaving me alone.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
On arriving back at the farmhouse, Potter and I found Isidor sitting before a roaring fire with the laptop on his knee. The late afternoon was cold, and the sky looked as if it was threatening to snow. Isidor sat with his back arched and his eyes fixed on the screen before him. The fire flickered in the grate, casting warm-looking shadows across the walls. The room felt cosy, and sinking onto one of the old armchairs next to Isidor, I stretched out in front of the fire.
“Had any luck?” he asked us without looking up.
“I don’t know yet,” I said, taking the disc from my jacket pocket. “Put this in.”
Isidor looked at the disc. “What’s that?” he asked.
“A disc,” Potter said.
“I know what it is,” Isidor said. “What I meant is, what’s on it?”
“It’s CCTV from a petrol station which looks across the street at the store where Emily Clarke’s credit card was used yesterday,” I explained.
“Nice,” Isidor smiled, taking the disc and sliding it into the side of the laptop. “What about CCTV from the store?”
“Didn’t have any,” Potter said, perching on the arm of my chair.
We all sat and watched the screen as the disc loaded. In seconds the shot of the petrol station forecourt flashed onto the screen.
“Wind forward to ten-thirty-three,” I told him. Isidor found the place on the disc. I stared at the screen and waited for the man to appear from within the store. The image looked clearer on the laptop than it had on the TV back at the station.
“There!” I said, jabbing my finger at the screen. “Stop right there.”
Isidor hit pause and the image froze as the man I suspected to be McCain left the store.
“It’s not great,” I said. “Is there any chance you can get a bigger image?”
“Give me a second or two,” Isidor said, and I could see that he was enjoying showing me, more likely Potter, that he could be of use. Isidor took a screenshot, then opened it with the paint programme, where he enlarged the picture.
“That’s McCain,” Isidor said, looking at me.
“Are you sure?” Potter asked him.
“You asked me to do some research on the guy,” Isidor said, ignoring Potter and looking straight at me. “I searched the net for info on the guy, but it was hard because there are loads of McCains all over the place, so it was difficult for me to track him down. But I eventually found this article on a Morris McCain. He is known as the
“The
“It would seem that Morris McCain has spent his life organising the matching of wolves into human skins. He is meant to have a nose for it. And I’m not trying to be funny about the whole nose thing either. Apparently he has this amazing sense of smell, a bit like my own I guess,” Isidor explained. “That’s how he matches wolves to humans — he matches them by smell. But over the years, it has been rumoured that his sense of smell has weakened and some of the matches that he has arranged recently haven’t been entirely successful.”
“How come?” Potter asked him, sounding interested in what Isidor had discovered.
“It seems that for there to be a successful matching, the human host has to be very similar in attitude, temperament, and spirit to the wolf. If they’re not, then there can be problems.”
“What sort of problems?” I asked him.
“From what I’ve read, it’s almost like organ donation,” Isidor said. “If you don’t get a perfect match like blood type and stuff the body rejects the organ. If this happens in
“What happens then?” Potter asked, taking a cigarette and twiddling it between his fingers instead of lighting it.
“They go kind of crazy,” Isidor said, looking at us.
