Torment (Primal Progeny Book 1) (19 page)

Audra’s lip curled involuntarily. ‘I just thought you might like to know.’

Eve quipped back quickly ‘Well thank you for being so considerate. Now what happens next?’

Audra half shrugged ‘I’m not 100% certain. I know that the medical tests are being rushed through and that they do not wish to question him again until the results are back. So I pressed for him to be released on bail and I will be getting a phone call later today regarding his time of release. He’ll have to go back in around a week to be re-questioned but I suppose that gives you time to plan.’

Alfred nodded. ‘Well then I suppose we wait. How does one of you fancy leading an old man to the kitchen and putting on a pot of tea in the meantime? Seeing as there is little else that can be done now.’

Eve smiled at the old man next to her and held out an arm for him to pull himself up with. ‘I’ll take you up on that one Alfred, Audra can find Tobias and discuss what they plan to do if Varulv begins to move on.’

Audra nodded enthusiastically and made her way to the door, not looking back at the other two weres as she scurried into the hall and began her search for the male beta. Things were definitely looking up!

Chapter 19

In his cell Hunter found himself desperate to drift into sleep but was having no luck. His brain was working at a thousand miles an hour and he could not quiet the whirlwind of thoughts that swept across his mind.  He had no idea how long he laid there in silence, but he guessed that a fair amount of time must have passed as he worried and remembered; as outside the daylight was starting to fade.

He couldn’t stop his mind from wandering back to the memory of Lucy lying on the cold barn floor. The image of her lying there, cold and beyond help would stay with him forever. She had looked so pale, so unlike herself, and yet somehow she had looked more real that she ever had before. Whilst he had been crying over her, cradling her on his lap her eyes had looked so ready to spring back open. Her slightly parted blue-tinged lips had looked ready to speak or breathe… And he remembered their chaste kisses, and a tear rolled down his cheek. He may not have loved her in the way she had him, but as a friend she was all he really had, and he deeply regretted making her feel unwanted. If he could have turned back time he would have done things differently; he would have let her do whatever she wanted with him…

It was then that his wolf chose to chime in with a single intrusive word it quietly insisted
‘Eve’
.

Hunter shook his head, he knew full well what it meant and he hated it all the more for its insistence. ‘No.’ He muttered quietly to himself. ‘You cannot have your own way with everything.’

The wolf in him disagreed
‘you want her too human half’.

Hunter opened his eyes and sat up, rubbing at his face roughly with his palms. He did not want her, she was a beta and presumably taken for a start… Even as the thought crossed his mind it seemed like a feeble excuse. If he had truly not wanted her, his mind would have insisted ‘she’s not attractive’, or ‘she’s not my type’ … Not ‘she’s taken’. Which incidentally was something he didn’t even know for certain.

Then Pictures of Lucy flashed across his mind anew, memories of her alive and laughing and then flashes of her as he had last seen her. Suddenly he remembered one of the officers at the scene mentioning stitching and shuddered. Slumping forward he cradled his head in his hands and cried, his emotions playing havoc with his addled mind. He was disgusted with himself, distraught, angry and regretful in equal measure. He wished he could go back and change things… He wished he could have gotten there in time…

Sadness was all at once replaced by rage, his hands began to shake and he thumped his curled fists against his thighs. He wanted to be out of the cell, to be free and able to track the monster who had done such unspeakable things to everyone he had ever loved… For he had loved Lucy as a friend. He wanted to pay back the favour, and found his mind full of gruesome imaginings. Images flashed through his brain of him doing unspeakable, torturous things to the monster. Those thoughts filled him with a strange kind of contentment. Both sides of him needed revenge; there would be no closure without it.

Standing up suddenly he paced the room and growled and raged to himself, the sounds coming from his mouth nowhere near to being human. Had anyone seen him they would have thought him utterly mad, it would have destroyed his case. But as it was he was left alone with his thoughts, a deliberate action by the police to torture guilty minds. Only he was not guilty, though he had horrific plans to be.

*****

Out in the main office where dozens of officers and detectives milled about their desks, the atmosphere was charged and tense. Bobbies scuttled about in and out of the room, going about their daily business, but all of them glancing at Jaunt and Truman who had taken up the rear of the room with their evidence and an enormous board covered in pins and notes. They were being left well alone by the other staff in the station, no one dared to bother them; though all were desperate to be involved in their investigation. There were quiet murmurings of bitterness floating about; in the staff room away from the pair many voiced their disappointment at being shut out from such a high profile case… But it had been made clear to all that the two detectives wanted it to themselves, as a glorious retirement case; for they were both nearing that time in their careers.

The pair had not moved since Audra’s departure earlier in the day, except to alter their board and shuffle through notes and pictures of crime scenes. They had made themselves a pot of coffee and were having it refilled whenever they found it drained by the receptionist. Enough caffeine was in them to keep a man up for days; which was what they aimed for if need be. Neither would rest until the case was solved.

Both detectives had scowls etched into their age-weathered faces. Partly out of concentration and fading eyesight, and partly out of anger at how little evidence they had against the man who had been arrested. They had worked tirelessly on the case since his arrival and it was beginning to become abundantly clear to them that they had almost nothing to tie him to the murder. Both detectives were inwardly livid at that; the excitement at having potentially caught the perpetrator of some of the most gruesome crimes in British history by then entirely faded.

Jaunt looked up blankly from her work and grabbed at her coffee mug, taking a quick sip of the cold liquid before pulling a disgusted face and returning the cup to the table. She sighed loudly and let the photograph she had been studying fall from her hand to the desk, they were getting nowhere and it was beginning to irk her.

‘Are we flogging a dead horse here Truman?’ She asked exasperatedly.

Truman looked up from the report he had been filing and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘I think perhaps it might be heading that way…’

Jaunt grabbed the coffee pot and waved it agitatedly in the air ‘Could somebody get us a refill?!’ She shouted into the office, bringing the receptionist scurrying to do her bidding.

Truman looked ruefully into the depths of his own empty cup and nodded slowly in appreciation of her order. ‘I’m not sure what more we can do here’ He admitted.

Jaunt scowled ‘there must be something, we can’t just give up now, the circumstantial evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of his being the culprit.’

‘Circumstantial is all we have though isn’t it, and we all know that’s not enough.’

‘We must be missing something.’ Jaunt insisted ‘there’s no logical reason for him to have been in that barn, none at all.’

‘Well we have his story, and to be honest where is there logic in this job? You can’t find logic in the vast majority of criminal behaviour, or human behaviour in general. I think we
are
flogging the proverbial deceased equine here Jaunt.’

Truman’s admittance of her fears agitated Jaunt all the more; she sighed again, though more aggressively. Rubbing her temples with age spotted hands she glowered at the photograph beneath her nose, barely noticing the receptionist return with the coffee to refill her mug. She thanked her quietly and took a gulp of the scalding hot liquid, quickly regretting not blowing at it to cool it as it scalded her mouth and tongue. ‘Ah!’ She waved her hands in front of her mouth as though it would help, and shot a nasty look at Truman who was smirking at her misfortune.

He blew on his own cup pointedly, taking a delicate sip to test the temperature and then replacing the mug on the table. ‘I think perhaps we need to consider releasing him on bail.’

Jaunt shook her head firmly ‘no. We can keep him for much longer than this.’

‘But only if there is reasonable evidence against him, which there isn’t, is there? We can’t just detain him forever, and bail will come with conditions as always, we’ll be watching him Jaunt, you know that.’

‘And what if we’re wrong and he does it again?’

‘We could well be wrong now, its looking increasingly like we are in fact… And in the meantime if he isn’t guilty, while we’ve got all our focus on him the real criminal is getting further and further away.’

Jaunt pushed her cup away from her on the table and glared at the other inspector. ‘So we just let him go?’

Truman nodded ‘I don’t think we have a choice. If we keep him and he turns out to be innocent then we’ll likely be sued and I don’t want that hanging over my head on retirement… The man who got it wrong…. I think we would be better off getting him out on bail, having other officers monitor him, and looking into other suspects in the meantime ourselves. What we’re doing at the moment seems too sedentary to me. I don’t want laziness losing us this case.’

Jaunt stared blankly at him for a moment and then nodded slowly. ‘I can’t argue with you, I know that we need to be putting more effort into ascertaining whether he is indeed the correct man. Which I suppose we cannot truly know until we’ve seen him in his own environment.’

Truman nodded and smiled crookedly ‘exactly.’ He paused to take another sip from his mug. ‘I’ll arrange for his release on bail, in the meantime, if you’d like to go to the crime scene I can meet you there when I’m done here.’ With that he stood and made his way out of the room, leaving Jaunt to sort out her own errands.

*****

Two hours later.

After a while Hunter had lost his angry spark and seated himself back down on the cot, and at some point this had progressed to him laying back and eventually drifting into a restless sleep. He was plagued by dreams of what he had seen and images of Varulv’s hideous half-lupine form lurching up out of the darkness in his mind. He remembered the beast so clearly from the day his parents had been killed, and the sight of it crawling into his nightmares with his father’s blood staining it’s muzzle shocked him awake in a cold sweat. He panted and wiped his hand across his brow, sitting upright sharply and wishing it had all been nothing more than a nightmare.

The sounds of the other men and women locked in the cells which lined the corridor outside drifted to him though the vents and under the door. He could hear some pacing as he had been earlier, and still others fidgeting about on their cots. He found himself captivated by the mumblings of those who were talking to themselves. Some were recounting their interviews to themselves; others were insisting quietly they were not guilty. One was complaining loudly about being arrested for something as stupid as stealing a sausage roll. The general theme was one of lack of guilt, though in the distance he could also hear something that gave him hope, a familiar voice; though very distant which quietly informed him ‘we’re here for you, don’t lose hope. We’re getting you out.’ It was Eve, and from the sound of it she was somewhere on the outer border of the station. He suspected at the rear of the car park, probably crouched by one of the vents.

‘Thank you’ he quietly responded, knowing she would hear him. However his whisper was lost in the sounds of footsteps advancing down the hallway. The sound of two advancing persons was almost deafening to his sensitive ears so soon after sleep; but he recognised their steps and was hopeful that things were shortly going to improve for him. One of them was Truman, the other was Audra.

They stopped outside his door and Truman rattled a key in the lock, swinging it open and allowing Audra to enter before him. She sashayed into the room and smiled at Hunter, a forced gesture that had no warmth to it, not that he suspected Truman noticed.

‘We have arranged for you to be released on bail Mr. Johanson.’ She sounded triumphant, though he knew she was thinking only of herself. ‘You will be required to return to the station in exactly a weeks time for further questioning.’

Hunter smiled despite knowing she was not pleased for him, relief washing over him at his impending release. ‘Thank you.’ He said.

Truman interjected at this point. ‘There will be conditions to your bail Mr. Johanson, if you’d like to follow me I’ll explain everything while you tag is fitted.’

Hunter nodded, inwardly in turmoil at the idea of a tag; he would destroy it if he changed… That would mean more time in a cell… He would have to try and keep his emotions in check, and so soon after the loss of his friend. He doubted his own ability to remain cool headed.

‘Come along then.’ Truman gestured to the door.

Hunter stood and wiped his hands on his jeans, following the other man out of the room with Audra taking up the rear. He was led to a small room where he was instructed to take a seat and another officer entered with an ankle tag in his hands. This was fixed into place on one of his legs while Truman dictated to him the conditions of his bail.