Moonscorn

Chapter Five

Six hours before Hysteria woke up from her drug-induced mini coma, Raven drove into Whaterly. The day was drab and overcast, the river high from the previous day's rain. The main street had a few people wandering up and down, the elderly with strollers, a couple of boys on bikes after school about to go trailing up into the forest. The car park they had used previously was a third full, with only a few people dropping in from out of town. A gloomy weekday isn't exactly tourist season, especially not far from Halloween when frost starts to crisp the fallen leaves and people finishing work just want to get home into the warm.

Raven parked up behind The Old Goat, an establishment which claimed to be a hotel but was nothing more than a refurbished old inn, a pub restaurant with a few creaky rooms overhead. He took his suitcase out of the Vauxhall that The Conservatory had let him borrow and went inside.

Downstairs was all dark wooden beams and red carpets. A couple sat in the corner talking over the remains of steak and chips. A pool table stood empty, waiting for the evening's patrons. It wasn't light and airy and full of life, but at least it was cozy.

Raven went up to the bar, where a middle-aged woman with glasses balanced on a squat nose was watching the news.

"See this?" she said. "And he's our MP. Bloody idiot in a suit."

"What am I looking at?"

She looked up at him with eyebrows diving above her glasses. "I'm sorry. I thought you were someone else."

"Most people do. Got a face like that."

She forced a smiled. Swivelled on her stool without standing up to greet him. "What can I do for you?"

"I've got a room here. Under the name of Morrigan."

The woman nodded and turned to a computer screen behind her. She dabbed at the menus one at a time with a plump finger, as if technology had only reached the place in the last few months and she was still distrustful of it. "Morgan, was it?"

"No. Morrigan. Seth Morrigan."

The woman hummed to herself as she poked at the screen a little longer. Then she gave a loud "aha!" and fished a key off a board behind her.

"Here you go. Room 2. Just up the stairs over there and around to the left. No wild parties. We close the front door at midnight, so if you're not in by then, you're sleeping rough until 6 when we unlock it again."

"Thank you. By the way, can I borrow that paper on the side there?"

The woman slid it across the counter to him dismissively. "That's gone downhill recently as well. Everything's change around here, and none of it good."

Raven took the key and paper and thanked her. He picked up his suitcase and headed up the stairs, none of them level and all crooked in different directions to each other. The bartender receptionist returned to the news to find something else to complain about.

The room itself was clean and tidy, if not state of the art. A bed with a wooden headboard, a small desk, kettle, wardrobe with drawers, and the bathroom had a shower with a delightfully gaudy plastic curtain. It's a small place out of season, he said to himself. They're probably surprised we booked a room to begin with. Certainly nobody else was checking into Whaterly. He had seen that all of the other room keys were still there on their own hooks. He was the only visitor in town, near enough.

He set his suitcase down, opened it up, and took out the smaller case from underneath the clothes he'd have to borrow an iron for at some point. He thumbed the code for the little case, opened the clasps, and took out his laptop and his tracking gadget (his pet name for it was Moonbeam, not that he had ever told anyone). Checked it over. Undamaged. Someone back at The Conservatory had asked if, once he got it working, they could make an app for it. Raven wasn't one for giving death stares, but Tom Hatley from forensics very quickly held up his hands, apologised as if he'd just insulted Raven's mother, and backed away slowly.