The Last Werewolf

Zoo. Nonetheless, partly in an act of self-ridicule, partly out of unexpected vacuity, I spent a day taking them in. I ate an ice cream in the drizzle. Fed coins into a delirious fruit machine. Drank a cup of tea in a cafe full of damp pensioners. I brought this journal up to date. All feeble distraction from the quickening Curse, which, indifferent to the winsome farewell drama, foreplayed my blood in obedience to the swelling moon. And on the subject of swelling and blood, my libido was going nuts. I had thought, given the near failure of my last date with Madeline and the days of sexual quiescence in Cornwall (nothing, not even a hand job), that desire was finally done with me. Thanatos advances, Eros retreats. Not so. By the end of my second day I was walking around in a more or less permanent gurn. To join a queue was to risk arrest.

Pocket Internet consultation revealed Caernarfon served by not one but four escort agencies, with which I made do until, around midnight of Day Three, incredulously taxied two hundred miles at my expense and toting a Louis Vuitton overnight bag, Madeline arrived. I’d promised her triple time and a generous sayonara bonus. Yes, I was Going Away.

“You are so one can short of a six-pack, babes,” she said, when I opened the door. “What are you doing here?”

“Dying. Here’s some champagne. Drink it and get into bed.”

“Crikey. Can I take my coat off first?”

“If you think it’s necessary, but please hurry.”

Maddy wasn’t the only thing up from London. I’d practically advertised my departure from the capital, so naturally WOCOP surveillance had followed. I’d clocked agents everywhere, though Grainer and Ellis declined to show themselves. I wondered what they thought I was doing, this swanning, this insouciance. To them it must look like prep for the biggest fugitive sleight of hand in history. Visibility this brazen could only be the dummy to an extraordinary escape. God alone knew what machinations they imagined I had planned.

“Ow,” Madeline said, having rolled over on something not soft in the bed. “It’s your bloody phone.” It was late afternoon on Day Four and we’d just woken up. The curtains were closed and what was left of the light was going. The night had been taxing, for Madeline because I’d fucked her six times with preposterous staying power, and for me because no amount of fucking her could suppress the psychic quartet of fear and boredom and sadness and hunger that took turns being me and sometimes didn’t take turns but nauseously swelled together like a mesmerising special effect. I had a champagne head and cocaine guts, but more pressingly the first blood-shudders and muscle-hiccups of wolf, of the coming transformation. The Last Curse.

“You’ve got voicemail, by the way,” Madeline said. “Here. I’ve got to pee. God, I feel like death.”

The phone, of course, was the phone, the Harley phone. Battery almost dead. Message icon flashing. The clipped nonperson female voice (a slightly retarded descendant of the Speaking Clock) said: Message. Received. Yesterday. At. Seven. Fourteen. a.m.

It was Harley.

“Jesus Christ, Jake, listen. There’s—”

That was all.

I played it again, pointlessly since I’d heard it perfectly the first time. The cutoff was absolute, technological. I dialled the number. Voicemail. I dialled again. Voicemail.

A little more of the light seemed to go. The room smelled of hotel carpet, flat champagne and sex. Adrenaline shimmied and bucked in my shoulders and wrists, went through my scalp, balls, knees. I stood there staring at nothing, trying to see through walls, miles, hours, other people.

I dialled again.

Voicemail.

Maddy emerged from the en suite. She’d washed her face and brushed her teeth and pinned her hair up with clips. In ten minutes she’d look as good as a new car. Her recovery time’s astonishing. “Look at that, thank you very much,” she said, turning her cheek and showing me a tiny love-bite on her pliable young neck. “That’s a mark, isn’t it?”

“Get dressed,” I said. “I’ll give you an extra thousand but only if you get dressed and go down to the restaurant right now. I just need a few minutes.”

“I can’t go down looking like this.”

I found last night’s dress and tossed it to her. “A grand on top of the rest. Go on. I’ll be down in a bit.”

Alone in the room when she’d gone, I stood (dressed, brutally awake) with all the lights on and the mobile in my hand trying not to panic.

Jesus Christ, Jake, listen. There’s—

There’s what?

It was a risk, but I called the Earl’s Court house. You’ve reached Elite Antiquarian. Please leave your name, number and a brief message, and we’ll return your call as soon as possible. Thank you. “Yes, hello. This is Mr. Carlyle. I’m told you’ve recently acquired a sixteenth-century Malleus Maleficarum, which I’d be very interested in taking a look at. Please do call me back on …” No point not leaving the hotel number. WOCOP knew I was here, and if they were monitoring Earl’s Court calls then they already knew about Harley. I hung up and called the foundation. No, Mr. Harley wasn’t there at the moment. Was there a message?

Jesus Christ, Jake, listen. There’s—

It wasn’t beyond Harley to try a ruse. Drag me back to London for another assault on my resolve. He was desperate. Desperate enough to leave that message? Possibly. You’re a selfish cunt, do you know that? Said in the way we said such things, implying affection. But underneath he’d meant it. Why not? It was true.

I lit a Camel. Parted the curtains and peered out. Dusk. Rain. Car headlamps. Pedestrians under umbrellas. Every now and then you look out at the world and know its gods have gone utterly elsewhere. Its personality shows, the kid abandoned horribly early who’s survived at too great a price.

There was a knock at the door.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me,” Madeline said. “Let me in a sec.”

“For fuck’s sake.”

I opened the door. Had a split second to register Ellis holding a fire extinguisher and Grainer holding Maddy— then the fire extinguisher hit me in the face.

19

I WASN’T KNOCKED out but I was knocked over, and in the aftermath of the blow’s red detonation sufficiently dazed for Ellis to get my hands cuffed behind my back. Grainer steered Madeline at silenced gunpoint over to the couch, sat her down, then stood behind her with the weapon resting against the back of her skull. The room’s furnishings achieved sudden taut sentience. To her credit, Maddy was keeping her mouth shut. I had the impression it wasn’t the first time she’d been around men with guns, which made me feel tender towards her, sorry I hadn’t kissed her more.

Grainer had lost weight since I’d last seen him and looked handsomer for it. Oily thick dark hair flecked with grey, a broad face, small hard brown eyes, pockmarked skin. Native American blood in there somewhere giving the good cheekbones, the inscrutable distance. In the Dolomites he’d been in lightweight Hunt fatigues and night-vision goggles. Now here he was like a spruce gangster in dark casuals and a quality black overcoat.

I spat out a bloody front tooth. My nose was broken. “Don’t worry, Madeline,” I said through my mashed mouth. “It’s me they want.”

Ellis found the dimmer and turned the lighting down slightly, for no reason, it appeared, beyond his own aesthetic sensibilities. He took the desk chair, placed it opposite me and sat down. In a film he’d start cleaning his nails or peeling an apple. In reality he just sat, elbows on knees, in a state of relaxed readiness. The long white hair was ponytailed today.

“So here’s the thing,” Grainer said. “We know about Harley.”

Instant structural shift. As if a wall or door had gone for good and now cold air came in.

“Is he dead?”

“Don’t try’n drive this, Jake. You’re the passenger.”