Page 78 of Licence To Howl
‘Well, this is a fecking shitshow,’ O’Brien muttered.
Devereau grimaced. Then he sprinted out after Alina.
She hadn’t gotten very far. She was curled into a ball in the middle of the pavement. The white haired woman was holding the knife and frowning at it while two werewolves, both in animal form and both with their jaws snapping, flanked Alina on either side. The smaller wolf growled, her fur bristling.
‘It’s alright, Martina,’ Devereau murmured. ‘You can stand down.’
The young werewolf immediately relaxed.
‘Good work,’ Devereau said. ‘You didn’t let her get far at all.’ He peered down at Alina’s body. ‘You’ve not hurt her much, have you? We need her alive.’
The second werewolf blinked, transforming into his human form. ‘Wasn’t us, boss,’ Morty said. ‘It was the old lady that did that.’
The old lady in question glared at Morty and his now naked body. ‘For goodness sake,’ she said. ‘Put that away. This is a respectable neighbourhood and we have appearances to maintain.’
To Devereau’s genuine surprise, Morty blushed brick red and used his hand to cover his groin.
‘Are you alright, ma’am?’ Ronnie Hitchens asked, appearing in the doorway.
‘Of course I am,’ she snapped. ‘It’s a cold day in hell when someone like that gets the better of me.’ She stared at them. ‘Well, come on then! Get her inside before somebody sees! I’m quite sure the cavalry is already on its way.’
‘They’ve been called,’ Hitchens said, picking up Alina and backing into the pub. She was quite clearly out for the count.
Devereau scratched his head, still not entirely sure what had happened. ‘Uh …’
‘I suppose, young man, you thought you were being clever by bringing her here,’ the woman said to him. With some distaste, she dropped the knife to the ground. ‘Well,’ she continued, ‘you were. It was a clever move. I heard the entire conversation.’ She held her hand out. ‘As you may have guessed, I work for the same outfit as you do. You can call me Em.’
‘M?’
She gritted her teeth. ‘Em. Short for Emily.’
Devereau nodded and tried to suppress his smirk. ‘Sure. Nice to meet you, M.’ Then he bowed. It seemed the right thing to do.
Chapter Thirty
Six dayslater
Devereau shifted uncomfortablyon the park bench. It was a bitterly cold day and he was certain that snow was beckoning. Given all that he’d achieved, he’d been sure that he he could at least graduate to being allowed to meet in a coffee shop instead of a frozen park.
‘Happy Christmas.’
Sarah Greensmith eyed him. ‘It’s not quite Christmas yet. And if this is where you produce a perfectly wrapped present, know that I didn’t buy you anything and that I bloody hate Christmas.’
‘Yeah,’ Devereau said, ‘all that peace on earth and goodwill to all men stuff is rather tiring, isn’t it?’
She gave him a long look. ‘In any case, thank you for putting a word in for me with the higher-ups,’ she told him. ‘It is appreciated. My present is that I get to keep my job.’
‘Maybe we’ll both be treated with a bit more respect from now on,’ Devereau said.
She smiled slightly. ‘Stranger things have happened.’
He grunted.
‘You should know,’ Greensmith told him, ‘that we have recovered almost all of the money which Alina Bonnet accrued from the German, French and British governments. She was persuaded to return it all and she is being … taken care of. I doubt we’ll be seeing or hearing from her ever again.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
‘Roughly one and a half million pounds are still missing. It looks like that amount was transferred to an online bitcoin wallet shortly before you met Ms Bonnet in the Bell Street pub. You wouldn’t know anything about what happened to that money, would you, Mr Webb?’
