Wolf House (Potter's Story) Read Free

Drake who was passing the clipboard from one hand to the other.
    Murphy suddenly reached out and grabbed hold of Detective Harker’s arm. Turning slightly as to have his back to the uniformed officer, Murphy looked into Harker’s eyes. Curling up his top lip, he gave Harker a grim smile and flashed the tips of his fangs at him. Harker blinked as if not sure what he had seen, and tried to pull his arm free of Murphy’s grip. But he was held fast and couldn’t break free.
    “You don’t need to know who we are,” Murphy whispered with a smile, and his voice seemed to rattle in the back of his throat. “Now do me a favour, Detective Sergeant Harker, go and find something to occupy yourself with, while my colleagues and I here go and take a look at the crime scene.”
    Harker looked back at Murphy as if caught in a trance. It was like Murphy had performed some kind of David Blaine mind-bending trick on him. Either that, or the fleeting flash of Murphy’s fangs had totally messed with his head. Whatever the reason, as soon as Murphy released him, Harker looked at the young officer and said, “Constable Drake let these…these men in, I’m going to lie down.”
    “Lie down?” Drake asked, bewildered.
    “Just let them in,” Harker barked, heading away across the car park.
    Frowning, Drake raised the police tape and said, “I guess it’s all yours.”

4
     
    “That was impressive,” Luke said to Murphy as we followed him through the small booking hall and out onto the platform.
    “Yeah, what did you do to him?” I asked.
    “Dunno,” Murphy shrugged, re-lighting his pipe.
    I watched Murphy glance in either direction up the platform. As I would have expected at a crime scene, the station was deserted. It was tiny with just one ticket office, a bike rack, and two platforms – one of which we were standing on. The second platform was opposite and they were connected by an underpass that ran beneath the tracks.
    “This way,” Murphy said, and a small cloud of blue smoke seeped from his pipe and floated away into the night. Without speaking, Luke and I followed Murphy along the platform and down a short flight of stairs which led into the underpass. Even though it was dimly lit with a series of overhead lights, I didn’t need a spotlight to see the corpse lying face-up a few feet away. The underpass stank of urine and the walls were covered with graffiti.
    Without hesitating, Murphy strode towards the body and stood over it, sucking on the end of his pipe. I looked down at Murphy’s boots and could see he was standing in a black puddle of blood that was ebbing away from beneath the body. Luke made his way over towards Murphy, and I followed. The victim was male, about thirty-years-old, I guessed. His eyes were still open and they stared blankly up at the strip lighting which made a buzzing sound like a swarm of flies. His face was contorted and forever locked in a permanent state of fear. The victim’s mouth was open, and his tongue lolled over his bottom lip like a purple slug. I could see that his clothes were nothing more than shreds of blood-stained material which hung from his body. Because of the little amount of remaining clothes, I could clearly see his naked torso – or what was left of it. The whole chest cavity and stomach was empty, his heart, liver, and lungs were gone, as if removed by a giant-sized ice cream scoop.
    “Jeez,” Luke said, as he bent closer to get a better look.
    “What do you think did this?” I asked Murphy.
    But before he had the chance to answer me, someone said from behind us, “I did.”
    We spun round to find Detective Sergeant Harker, Constable Drake, and the pretty officer who I had bumped into standing at the foot of the stairs leading into the underpass.
    “I thought you’d gone for a nap,” I said, as he stared at us with his rodent-like eyes.
    “What did you say?” Murphy asked Harker.
    “I said, I did it,” he smiled. “I killed him.”
    I glanced at Luke