Pack Of Lies [2/2]

[robling_t]

Title: Pack Of Lies
Rating: Teen [language and sexual situations]
Characters: Rhys, Gwen, PC Andy, Lois Habiba, Agent Johnson, George Sands, John Mitchell
Advisories: contains dark themes including: masturbation, domestic violence, reference to suicide, unfortunate implications, unreliable narrator, Unexpected Naked Rhys, theoretical bestiality, and gratuitous abuse of furries
Disclaimer: you can bet I'm not owning up to anything at this point
Note: Written for tardis_bigbang 2010

Summary: Rhys Williams is helping his wife to rebuild a working line of defence in the wake of the visit of the 456. But when PC Andy Davidson tangles himself up in a very spooky do, Torchwood's fragile reconciliation with the government may not be all that's in jeopardy.


**********

<

Back to the usual this workweek though, if you'd stretch usual to cover where someone, quite possibly Johnson, had left a sheet in the printer where they'd photoshopped Andy Davidson's head onto the trunk of a relaxing Disney-mascot dressed as a giant dalmatian. Whether this had been generated as part of a genuine attempt at fact-finding or for a pointless personal jab was anyone's guess. Rhys wadded it into the recycle before Gwen could see and went to settle himself in for his turn on the rota to trawl through the online sources for odd news that might ultimately end up as Torchwood's concern. (Which idea he suspected Gwen had nicked straight from the films, but it was an hour or so where he could reasonably predict that nothing was going to eat him and he wasn't standing about looking into a hole in the freezing rain, so he'd take it most any day really.)

Even in the absence of much new information the media couldn't seem to stop worrying at the mystery of who could have taken a shot at a copper. One of the less reputable tabloids was trying its best to flog a 'GAY LOVE TRIANGLE SHOOTING' angle, but didn't seem to be getting much of anywhere, all of the pair's neighbours staunchly defending both men as quiet and respectable about it. Curious that his mates just across the road had still managed to duck the reporters even after that -- one article did have a photo with George in the background, head turned as if he were speaking to someone just out of the frame, but it must have been snapped before anyone would have connected him to the case at all or there'd surely have been more fuss made over it. As it was, he wasn't even identified in the caption.

Just as well no one seemed to have got onto the mix-up with Torchwood's P99 or they'd not be hearing the end of it for reporters into their bins, Rhys supposed. He printed out a few of the better accounts of it for archival purposes (well, to be strictly honest, for the scrapbook he kept at the back of one of the cabinets where Gwen wouldn't find it) and tried to settle his mind back onto the business of the rest of the day, the records upon records upon records needing cross-checking and the occasional fact-checking against what available ordinary sources of information they'd been able to put to their disposal. (Which, Rhys gathered, weren't the resources Gwen had been used to enjoying before, as clever as Lois was she was still only keep-your-clocks-from-blinking clever and not that phenomenal technical mind who had once commanded Torchwood's tentacles deep into any database the organisation cared to infiltrate, but still quite enough to keep one humbled about one's intellectual capacities.)

Wasn't long, though, before the mind-numbing chore of scanning through page after page of haystacks for some imaginary needle had his mind wandering and Rhys found his fingers straying into the pursuit of research rather different than what Gwen had originally set him to: While the idea of a shape-shifting figure is found in many cultures, the presence in premodern Europe of the wolf as a powerful and predatory rival to human activities provided a strong focus for such beliefs. Traditional signs of the wolf include thicker body-hair or a lack of definition between the eyebrows like Jennnifer Brownling who has no boobs either. Other sources suggest that a werewolf in human form retains an increased sensitivity to the supernatural, possibly based on the belief that dogs can see ghosts, which means that if you're seeing people who aren't there, Rhys Williams --

Rhys blinked uncomprehendingly at the nonsensical words, willing them to fall into some sort of logical order. "You're not believing anything you read on Wikipedia again, are you?" Lois said, pausing behind him to glance in at his screen. "People vandalise those things, you wouldn't believe what the page for the Home Secretary said yesterday before someone sorted it."

He'd seen it, actually; the picture of the baboon in place of the official photo had been in particularly poor taste, if deserved. At a second look the paragraph had reloaded into a reasonably well-edited and bland account of hairy palms and foul breath. Rhys shrugged and dismissed the site in favour of the records he'd been supposed to be filing. "What about you, turned up anything interesting about, erm," he lowered his voice as Gwen passed in the background: "werewolves?"

Lois considered. "Michael J Fox is fit in that one film."

"Meant anything we didn't already know, aye?" She grinned at him.

"Sort of weird how things come round again, though," she continued with a thoughtful look. "I mean, Torchwood was founded because of a werewolf. The Charter says -- surely you've read it?" she prompted to what must have been a conspicuously blank look from him.

"Well, not supposed to be working here at all, am I? Should still be on bloody parental leave from Harwood's. Not really time to read through the handbook when your wife is asking you if you can shoot a pistol because something's about to eat the baby."

"Not much point in reading the rest of the handbook anyway, really," Lois said, pulling a face. "It starts out 'Congratulations, you are now a fully accredited Handmaiden of Satan' and I'm afraid it rather goes downhill from there. Gwen says Jack must have been drunk when he wrote it."

That Rhys would believe. "Didn't write the charter, though?" he hazarded.

Lois shook her head. "Not unless he was running about in the days of Queen Victoria. I know Gwen has her stories about him, but... that'd just be absurd, even for this place." Rhys held his tongue; whatever Gwen had or hadn't briefed her new hires on regarding Harkness was her own lookout, and seemed like being a moot point anyway, since he doubted Torchwood's welcome would be particularly warm if the man ever did come slinking back. "Anyway, supposedly, the Queen had an encounter with something alien that behaved just like a traditional werewolf -- turned into a monster by the light of the full moon and all -- and after 'Sir Doctor of Tardis' helped to sort it, she decided that an institute should be founded to deal with unusual threats to the realm in the future."

It just bloody well figured that that Doctor would have been at the heart of this nonsense. "But that's still aliens, not some bloody supernatural Lon Chaney rubbish, yeah? Like the ghost always turns out to be some posh arse wearing a sheet to scare people into selling their land cheap. Oh, bloody hell, I've just made myself into the naff one in the spectacles, haven't I."

"You have, a bit, yeah." Lois hesitated. "I keep wanting to ask, this... Doctor... I know when Gwen's mentioned him it hasn't sounded as if she thinks of him too highly, but... she's never said why really?"

Rhys thought back to a certain strange string of days, and a video neither of them had ever been able to bear looking at again after. "Because he thinks he can pick and choose when to help us," he finally said.

She gave him a disconcerted shrug, clearly wanting to argue the point and not sure just how. "Maybe he wants us to learn to sort our own problems when we can."

"Aye, well, almost didn't that last time, did we. Could be overrun with more alien-werewolf-things now and I don't know he'd be in any hurry this go either. And that's not just me being bitter this one had a nip at me. Is it?"

A pragmatic look crossed the young woman's face. "You were pointing a gun at it. Could you tell was it going after you, or was it trying to stop you waving the funny thing at it?"

Rhys gave her a look. "See now, that's you trying to use earth-logic for something that weren't even human. Dunno it knew what I was, let alone the gun."

Lois still had that trace of a stubborn look about her, sort of thing the cabinet-that-was must have found itself looking at when she'd stood up to them at that last. "I'm only saying that it could have been self-defence, is all. You had a weapon, so it reacted."

"By bloody biting me." Rhys paused to consider this. "This space-werewolf, though, did it say how that worked? I mean, did it go about biting people to make them like it was? Or would it have been too posh for that, used a ray-gun or something?"

Lois looked chagrined; "Dunno really, that it existed at all was all that the Charter has to say about it. There are notes referring to further information that Torchwood used to have, but it looks as if most of it must have been on papers that weren't ever scanned into the system."

So unrecoverable now, blown to flinders with the rest of the old base. Rhys was already well used to the odd gaps in the organisation's records, such as the long stretch round the nineteen-fifties when what little documentation there was regarding the medical officer's duties and activities mostly existed in the form of glosses from Owen Harper speculating upon the man's character and apparent lack thereof. It seemed Gwen wasn't the only Director who found that the most difficult position to fill. Hard even to say, though, whether it was the destruction of information they'd once had access to or its seeming absence altogether that was the more frustrating. Had there once been a musty old book in those archives that could have put his worries to rest, or at least given him some clues what to be looking out for at the worst? Lois was giving him an odd look, and Rhys realised suddenly that he'd been sat rubbing his right hand for the last while. "Still aching a bit," he said, letting it drop into his lap again.

Lois was a sharp one, she was. "You know, I could have a go out in the field, it isn't right to put you and Gwen both at risk at the same time so often."

Gwen would appreciate the offer, Rhys knew, and she'd turn it down for all the reasons it made sense. "You're not expendable, love, better it's the wally like me can't even remember how to set the microwave to half-power without checking the book every time. Mean, you can ask, sure she'd think about it," he offered as she started to protest that her technical skills weren't anything worth shuttering her up at the office as an invaluable asset over.

Lois picked up her bag from beneath her desk. "Anyway. See you tomorrow, I have to get home before Temper tries to start the wash again."

"Temper?"

Lois... blushed. "Temperance. Johnson? We, erm, she... Sort of a thing now, I suppose, she moved most of her kit in a few weeks ago and she's already broken the telly and shot my toaster! Worth every pound though."

"Oh." Rhys was really beginning to feel left out of the loop, lately. "Erm, well, good luck?" She gave him a little wave and turned for the exit.

Rhys leant back in his chair as the doors closed behind Lois. Werewolf in the bloody Charter -- he'd wager Johnson knew about that, aye, any excuse to wind her new mates up about their questionable pedigree when they handed her a chance like this all wrapped up in a shiny bow. Sometimes Rhys suspected she'd never given over her original mission to discredit Torchwood, only decided that they were better undermined from within. (Not that it hadn't been tried before, according to the garbled anecdotes from Harkness that Gwen had been setting down as best she recalled them. The best reading was the one where she claimed something had goaded Torchwood into opening the rift over Rhys's own dead body, which had to be rubbish 'cos, well, looking at the file now, yeah?) Her and Lois going at it, were they? Rift couldn't throw them anything much stranger than the thought of, well, of Johnson getting that close to anyone at all, really. Or having a life outside of her work.

And... Temperance? He kept rolling that round in his head the rest of the day, and still hadn't worn down any of its sharp corners by the time he'd gone to curl up alongside his own partner for the night. "Johnson's first name is really Temperance?"

"You named your daughter after your great-aunt Iphigenia," Gwen pointed out.

"Aye, but her it bloody suited." Gwen snorted and tucked one leg up against his hip. Rather... invitingly, yeah. Hadn't escaped him either that they were in bed and both still awake for the once... "Thinking maybe we could practice for a little Orestes?"

"We were going to name a boy for my Dad," Gwen said. Rhys noticed that this hadn't exactly been a refutation of the underlying premise. He nipped at her shoulder, feeble human teeth only dimpling the pale skin; right, been a while for all the workload but he still had some thoughts about it, and suddenly Rhys wanted the view of that lovely round arse, urging Gwen up onto her hands and knees to go after it hard and deep and loud, tumbling down into a sprawl of tangled limbs, oh, yes --

After a long pause Gwen lifted a hand to scoop the dark hair away from her eyes. "That was... enthusiastic."

"Sorry, didn't mean to... Dunno what came over me there --"

"Didn't say I didn't like it," Gwen assured him, rolling herself over to snuggle closer. "Maybe next time I can find those old cuffs, yeah...?"

Sort of a shag carried you on through teatime the next day thinking back on it, that had been. And he was catching himself mooning off over his keyboard thinking back on it, yeah, not much use to the Secret Organisation in the state like this. Maybe take a run out for something to eat before he tried to drag his mind back onto the endless, endless filing...

Andy's mate Mitchell was sitting on the wall round the feeble excuse for landscaping at the edge of the car-park, smoking a hand-rolled fag. Rhys wondered why Lois hadn't seen him on the CCTV and come out to scold him long since. "Oi, how's Andy doing then, all right still?"

Mitchell flicked the fag-end to the ground from fingers left bare by tatty gloves and blew out a last plume of mingled steam and smoke before he slid down from the wall and nodded that Rhys should walk along with him, out of the range of the eyes he must suspect were watching from inside the building. The skinny bloke was bundled against the wind blowing in off the channel until he almost looked fit, pale and squinting as if he didn't think much of even Cardiff's rubbish idea of winter sun. Probably had a Warcraft habit worse than Daf's and hadn't seen daylight in yonks. "Mending, yeah. Been over at ours, George is looking after him. Police keep coming round with new questions," he added, stopping to look square at Rhys. "Supposedly they think they've found the gun."

"Aye, been round here as well. Dunno I believe it, I mean, there's no way it could have been, yeah? You saw Gwen and I were already at that hospital when you brought him in."

"Yeah, that dog that bit you, how's...?" Rhys offered his hand for a look. "Looks like it's healing," Mitchell said, examining the lines of angry punctures. "Big fucking dog, there," he remarked with a raised eyebrow, drawing out several extra vowels into the expletive.

Rhys shrugged. "Could have been worse, could have been some little mite you'd be embarrassed to get bit by?" Mitchell cracked a lopsided grin. "Supposed to have our own medic on staff, see, only Gwen's not been able to hire one could manage the, erm, caseload, 's a bit daft round here sometimes."

A shadow crossed Mitchell's eyes. "Used to know a good nurse. She... would have loved an opportunity like that."

From the look on his face this nurse was worse than told him to shove off. "You and George medical men then? Seem to have been about it a bit and all."

"Nah, we were just staff at a hospital for a year or so. Not really my game, though, afraid I get a bit useless at the sight of blood. T'other night was... interesting, trying to drive Andy in and he's getting it all over my car. And all over George. But I don't think he minded it," he finished with a sly look.

Mitchell reminded him of Harkness, somehow, less the air of easy lechery than something darker behind eyes that didn't match a young face. "Are Andy and George really...?"

"Oh, yeah, getting on like a pack of wolves," Mitchell said, and shrugged. "Wouldn't have reckoned George for it, but it's good to see he's getting back into something after... Well. Not the luckiest when it comes to his personal life, our George."

"Andy used to be off his head for Gwen," Rhys said. "Funny old world sometimes. Still, found each other, 's good and all, aye?"

"Not when they're in your lounge making Bolognese jokes about him getting shot until you want to take the vid away," Mitchell said. It was hard to tell if he felt left out of something, though, or just wanted the telly to himself once in a while. "But they're sweet. They're... twelve, but they're sweet."

Rhys's mind supplied him an image of the duo flopped together on a settee like a pair of hounds who were well-used to each other, Sadie sprawled across the one's long legs like a third member of their pack. Or fourth, he supposed, depending how it really was with Mitchell -- No, he wasn't going to go there, bloody weird enough thinking about this as it stood. GAY LOVE TRIANGLE SHOOTING. Bloody Torchwood was one thing, but the ruddy daytime telly melodrama could just go be its own lookout, yeah?

Still. Mitchell was the victim's boyfriend's flatmate... "Listen, I was just on my way to get something to eat, you want to --?"

Mitchell shook his head. "Ta, but I have to run, just dropped round 'cos your wife was saying let her know what's been doing our end. Oh, and Andy says he still wants to get together for that pint?"

"Be a bit before I could get a night yet, still mad around here," Rhys said. "Might come round with the baby for a quick cheer him up though, yeah?"

Mitchell nodded, as if recognising that it wasn't really his point to press. "Wouldn't leave it too long, he's been starting to make noises about getting back to work. Week or two they might be wanting him behind a desk, I'd try to catch him before that."

Which probably translated to Mitchell desperately wanting the man off his settee for a night if he could arrange it without having to nudge George out as well, Rhys surmised, reminded too readily of how spare flatmates could drive you when their mates turned up and wouldn't leave. Banana-Boat had had a particularly bad eye for women who inevitably in turn let their not-so-exes quietly move in. Still did, actually. Rhys watched as Mitchell walked off to his car, somehow unsurprised to see that he drove the sort of period-piece that those blokes on the telly would find some arcane reason to wax lyrical about, a mid-century Volvo nothing special to Rhys's lights but well-kept for its age if you didn't mind the bent wiper. Rhys stood looking after it and decided that he had a sudden craving for steak-and-chips. Or maybe just steak.

Day didn't go much better afterwards either, three calls that turned out to be the same weevil failing to catch on as quickly as they'd rather, and Rhys was all too happy to see a bed by the end of it. As if he was going to get an uninterrupted night for, oh, the next sixteen years at least; "Your turn to give her the bottle," Gwen groaned, rolling over onto her face.

With some difficulty Rhys levered himself out of bed and cast about blearily for his dressing-gown; probably shouldn't walk about in the altogether anymore, baby and all. All he came up with, though, was a vague recollection of having put it in the wash. So, when she's old enough to complain, aye?

And just as well he hadn't found it, or it'd have gone in the wash anyway when Jenny spit-up all down his back at a gentle burping. "Oi, not any happier about being awake at this hour, am I," he told his daughter, deciding that the situation warranted a shower before he'd try to get back into bed with Gwen. He sloped into the bath and took a stop to have a go at himself with the big mirror on the back of the door. Not as doughy now, he'd lost a stone since Gwen had dragged him into this job -- well, half of one, anyway -- but no more hair than ever, between his eyebrows or anywhere else. Bloody Torchwood, have me waiting up for Father Christmas next.

The water felt good, muscles still sore from the endless round of deskbound immobility punctuated by brief moments of running about in terror finally beginning to loosen. Rhys stood under the spray, slowly deciding he was feeling better about it all, yeah. Quite a bit better, in fact. Maybe enough to try out the hand, eh? (Hairy palms, hah.) Better than to go bother Gwen at this hour, needed her sleep so long as she was. But when there was no one else to do the job. Come up with something to keep himself occupied all on his own...

And damn it, now he was picturing whatever it might be that Lois and Johnson -- Temperance -- might be about with each other (not that he would know, of course, happily married man now, although a bloke couldn't help but come out with a few ideas about it from here and there even if they were probably wildly inaccurate), however two birds might really -- But it wasn't on, to think of your friends going at it, no matter how tempting a provocation. Was it? George and Andy might be tucked up in a bed too, he supposed, the one tenderly solicitous of his partner's injuries as they -- well, there Rhys really didn't have a frame of reference, unless you counted that night he still pretended he'd been too completely bladdered to remember, and in retrospect he ought to have suspected something was a bit off about a man who kissed like he hadn't had to think about it. As like they were curled up together like puppies, though, dreaming of better days when no one was bandaged up or under suspicion.

...Not really helping, that image, only make him think of them going at it like wolves. Which one do you suppose is the, wossname, alpha? (Why was he thinking about that now --) What was that thing that dogs did, where they came stuck together after? Way to catch a werewolf, get him whilst he's wondering if it counts as a cuddle. Gwen would make a beautiful wolf, green eyes and dark silk pelt. They could run together through the hills and teach their cub to feast on mutton. Wolf with a gap between her front teeth. Did wolves have gaps?

Bugger, but his mind was wandering. Bloody Torchwood, leaving a man too tired for this. Was a point where you gave it up for a game of soldiers and decided not to waste more water, aye. Rhys stepped out the shower and gave himself a full-body shake. Felt pretty good too, it did. Still on that train of thought, was he? Yeah, might need to bother Gwen after all...

It was another few days and another visit from some increasingly exasperated-seeming coppers before Director Cooper decreed that Torchwood appeared to have sufficient interest in a certain case to go round and pay a social call on company time, given that all of their little family's time seemed to be accounted for as company time anymore. When Rhys rang the bell at the number on George's card Andy answered the door, barefoot and in the bleach-spotted trackpants his mate had been wearing at the hospital. (He'd got both arms into the dressing-gown, though he'd not been able to tie it; bloody hell, but the man had a hairy chest. Skin him for his pelt, you could.)

The house was just another terrace more or less the mirror of what Rhys remembered of Andy's own across the way, one more anonymous two-up-two-down like so many others on this scrottily Victorian edge of Cardiff. The only real evidence to show it was another house at all was that the stairs were on the opposite side and someone who lived here hadn't got rid of their collection of vinyl yet. Rhys craned his head at the line of deteriorating cardboard spines on a shelf in the lounge, making out a few familiar titles like Revolver. Right, Mitchell would be the antiquarian. Set up on a nearby table was an ancient gramophone, stonking great horn and all, a wicked needle poised to devour its prey. Andy noticed the direction of his gaze and remarked, "The good player was broken in the move, Mitchell hasn't been able to find anyone to fix it yet."

"Tosh could have," Gwen said absently, the line of regret that appeared between her brows well familiar to Rhys. "They just moved in, then?"

"Mm, seven, eight months, round there?" Andy showed them into the kitchen. (Neater than you'd think in a household of bachelors, even if one of them was -- well, no, that'd be one of those assumptions Rhys had been warned of in what had passed for Torchwood's sensitivity training, the bits of it that weren't about not judging a face-sucking alien by its tentacles.) He started banging around with the kettle as he went on: "Came over from Bristol. Think they were looking for a fresh start after George lost his girlfriend."

Girlfriend? ...Ah, yes, sensitivity to modern rubbish like that had been in the training as well. (The chapter with the... illustrations. Rhys suspected Captain Harkness had written the whole of the unit on Respecting And Considering Having A Friendly Team-Spirited Go With Alternative And Alien Sexualities.) Maybe that was why Andy didn't think he was gay either? "That close of mates? The one moving here along with the other, I mean?"

Andy shrugged, a bit more motion now to the damaged side before he grimaced. "Know each other's bad habits by now, I reckon. Not many would put up with either of them, anyway."

"You put up with George," Gwen teased. Andy went a bit pink.

"It's a thing."

Out of the corner of his eye Rhys caught a glimpse of a figure in grey watching them from the doorway of the lounge. Dark curls, dusky skin -- He turned his head but there was no one there. Could drugs go on giving you hallucinations after you'd done taking them? When he looked back to the kitchen it was to meet a puzzled look from Andy. "Just them live here then?" Rhys asked, wondering if someone could have gone into the lounge without him seeing.

For an instant Andy looked as if he didn't quite know how to answer that question. "Far as I know, anyway, mean, Mitchell's one for the birds but he's not really got one at the mo. Wasn't anyone over who could give you more of what we were all about that night, if that's what you're meaning by it."

Andy's skill at managing more than the kettle in his present state was somewhat lacking. Gwen stopped him as he tried to fumble open a box and gently pressed the baby upon him instead, taking up the tea-making operations with her two practised hands. Jenny began to fuss over the swop, but her nominal uncle shortly got her calmed with a few awkward jiggles and his silliest grin, which for Andy was a truly silly grin indeed. "Looks like the arm's healing up some," Gwen remarked as the baby settled her head against his shoulder to no protest of pain.

Andy gave Jenny another gentle rock. "Wasn't that bad a break. Just clean and they set it right together."

Gwen was frowning of a sudden, glancing round the kitchen as if she were just now considering some of the more practical elements of the physical case. "Lucky, that. Nine-millimetre round that close could have shattered it. Should have shattered..."

Andy started getting that sarky look of his now, scowling at Gwen as if she was the one here being thick about it. "Wouldn't know about that, not an Authorised Firearms Officer, am I. Or any sort of a doctor. Lucky bloody shot not to have had my arm off, they said." He glanced towards the lounge just as Sadie pricked her ears after a whisper of a sound; in another moment the dog was heaving up from the tiles at Andy's feet to go to investigate, and he watched her trot out, brow furrowing into a deep frown as he turned back to Gwen. "Starting to feel I'm a bloody mental for telling them all how I thought it went and I was there."

"We'll all go mental trying to work this out, the police and us both," Gwen said, dragging her teabag round in the mug by the string. "I mean, the best we've got round our side of it is that now Johnson thinks you might be a werewolf."

Andy looked as if he were caught between the desire to laugh outright in Gwen's face and a sort of creeping horror that she might have gone mad enough to be serious. "What was her last case, finding Little Bo Peep?"

"I know, this whole thing is just bloody ridiculous. I mean, werewolves, right? Even in Cardiff that's hardly the simplest explanation even if there was such a thing anyway. You know they must have just buggered up the ballistics records somehow. "

"Has to be rubbish, you wouldn't have given a werewolf the baby." He dipped his head to nuzzle into Jenny's fine dark wisps. "You'd be a tasty mouthful, eh?" The baby gurgled.

"If you've nothing more you've thought of to add to it then I suppose that's something in itself, isn't it?" Gwen continued, brightly, although Rhys noticed that she had given a bit of a look to Andy's one-armed hold on her child. "Don't worry yourself over our part of this, Andy, I can go round tomorrow and have another go with the police to see if we can't sort how they think it could have come from Rhys's gun."

The look Andy gave her was far too venomous for that boyish face, as startling as suddenly being sworn at roundly by Fireman Sam. "What Torchwood does, isn't it? Clear it up, make it go away. As if I've got the leg to stand on about coverups, anyway," he checked himself with an odd little frown. "Haven't told the superintendent I think I know who murdered the chief constable of Bristol either." Andy looked slightly ill at the thought. "How it starts, the one little thing. Should have handed in my warrant-card then."

"Should have told them where to stick it after the children," Rhys countered. "Dunno why you even went back. They need a man like you more than you need them."

"It's not supposed to be about me, is it," Andy said gravely. "I can't just say 'oh, it would hurt my friends', or 'oh, he was a tosspot and a corrupt bastard', and decide for myself how things should be. That's what the law is for."

"Who did murder the chief constable?" Gwen asked after several moments of uncomfortable silence had oozed past. Andy shook his head slightly.

Thump of feet down the stairs then and the blur of one of the housemates-proper ducking into the lounge; "Where's Mitchell gone?" A moment later George came shuffling into the kitchen, attention focused upon a slip of paper. He was also still in his dressing-gown at this hour, this one drab brown plush that had seen some better days than today. "...Oh, no, he's going to come back with a hundredweight of tea-lights and another lutefisk-torturing spoon --" George's eyes went wide as he looked up from the note and realised Andy's guests hadn't cleared off yet. "Oh, erm... you're not finished, ah..."

Rhys caught a glimpse of the oddest look passing across George's face at the sight of little Jenny in his mate's arms (well, arm), the bitter heartache of a man looking through a closed window at a future forever barred to him. Maybe lost had meant... oh. "It's all right, we're not discussing anything Official Secrets Act and all," Andy said, sounding as if he might have wished they were.

"We should be going, really," Gwen said, pushing back from the table and reaching out for the baby. Andy rose as well, giving over his awkward hold with his own look of regret. George was still tracking little Jenny as if he'd never seen the like in his life. "Oh, erm, you've not seen... This is our Jenny, Andy must have mentioned her?"

"A bit, yeah." With a look of the utmost gravity George extended a finger and let the baby wrap small fingers round it, shaking her hand gently. "It's very nice to meet you, Iphigenia. Speaking of old-fashioned names," he added with a sly nod to Rhys. "-- Not planning to sacrifice her for a favourable wind, were you?"

"She's named for his great-aunt," Gwen said, looking a bit nonplussed that George had caught the classical reference. But then he was a tutor, Rhys thought, must have an education behind him to get on at that, aye?

George went to check was there any water hot still in the kettle. "I spent an hour on the phone last night trying to tell a DI that I didn't know anything about your 'Torchwood'," he said, clearly mystified that someone would have thought that he did. "I gather the investigation's still not been coming along very well?"

Andy gave Gwen an arch look. "According to some, the latest theory is apparently that I'm a werewolf." George took on that same look of politely frozen wariness Andy had done. "Which might be everything you'd need to know about bloody Torchwood. Although I'm not sure if this is supposed to be some sort of metaphor for them finding out about us maybe?"

George managed a smile that looked a bit forced. "Oh, yes, our, erm, thing, yeah, it's as if once a month we get together to bark at the moon and grow fur. It's great fun until someone tries to kill us for it." He sounded inordinately bitter as he added this last, and Rhys noticed as he shifted that the chain round his neck led to a six-pointed star. Put their feet in more than one issue here, it seemed.

"Might not mind it so much if the fur stayed," Andy said playfully, running the good hand through his thinning spot.

"And I suppose I could be your therapy-dog." Again that odd little nuzzle as they leant close. Well, couples got that way, foolish gestures grown into rituals as it went along, until neither of you could remember who'd started saying that old punchline to every joke or how you'd come to always break the last biscuit in half to feed it to the other from your palm. (And he'd just thought of these two men as a couple like any other, that was good on him, right?) Looked a bit odd when George was half a head shorter than Andy, well, most everyone was weren't they, but you couldn't really come to a thing like this and have that be what you fetched up against, could you. Hardly... fair, or something?

"Right, no werewolves here, moving on," Gwen said, the colour rising in her cheeks as she averted her eyes from the threat of further displays of affection by fussing about for the nappy-bag at her feet. "Give us a ring if you do think of anything more that might help. There has to be a way to get this sorted without anyone, oh, having to turn into a wolf in front of a barrister, yeah?"

Andy and George both gave her wan grins that said the gag was wearing a bit thin by now but for an old mate. Rhys held the front door for his wife and their child and let her go to bagsie the driver's seat as he went and settled Jenny into the back.

But Gwen didn't move to pull off straightaway even after he'd joined her in the front, but sat with her chin on her folded arms against the steering column, frowning in furious concentration. "Andy is... I don't know, there's something's not right about this. If he was shot from the distance inside his kitchen that round should have had his arm off. Not just cracked the bone a bit."

"So he is a bloody werewolf and he likes to go running about with his mates in the park to wind Torchwood up 'cos we won't hire him. Under a full moon made of cheese, yeah?" Rhys put an arm round his wife's shoulders. "Or have the ballistics boffs switched up a label and he just doesn't want to admit he was arsing about with his mates on Armed Response down station that night? Simplest explanation, love, we're just seen so much of this alien shite we look for spooks round every corner."

Gwen laid her head against him with a rueful sigh. "It's not as if he's ever had any sort of a poker face, I don't see that he could even be hiding that he knows who shot him. But there's something he's not letting on about. Maybe he's protecting George from something."

"Mitchell looks like the sort might know where to lay his hands on a gun," Rhys said, thinking. "Close enough mates to move house together, maybe he wants George to himself? So he has the go, didn't work, confessed and made it up... Aye, that's worse than that load of wank was in the Sun about it, innit. Told you I'd be rubbish at this secret-agent bollocks."

"You do just fine, love." Gwen straightened and went to start the motor. "Has to be a simple answer to explain all of this, yeah." And here she cocked her head, playfully: "Even if it's they're all bloody werewolves."

Rhys reached across to take his wife's hand, morse-code of healing scars all that he could see as her fingers laced into his. "No, love, they're not."

But he couldn't tell that to his nightmares, could he, lost in a moonlit forest watching his packmates butt heads, dark wet noses touching. alpha's long pink tongue comes out to lick his mate's muzzle. he has a mate too, back at the den with the cub, run with them all some night but this is tonight, hunting pack under the moon running for the joy of running, wind in his fur and the distant scent of little-sister standing guard with alpha's other packmate, the one who smells of meat-not-for-eating (not like other-sister who smelt not at all, there only to the eyes). every night is one night to them, every night is tonight. alpha still missing his last mate, smell it on him when he looks at the cub, not a breeding-pair them. lucky to have a proper one him, pack needs its cubs. could go back to the den? scents her, wants her, wants to copulate with his mate --

"Oi, dog breath," Gwen muttered, shoving him away. Rhys blinked, eyes stinging in the gloom of the dawn light filtering in under the blinds. "It isn't morning already, is it? Bloody hell... All right, love?"

Rhys realised he'd been sat there with a blank look, trying to grasp slithering wisps of nightmare as they shredded away. "Weirdest dream, that was. Like I was in a... Ah, 's gone now. Too much telly before bed, aye."

"Curry couldn't have helped you either," she said, wrinkling her nose at him. "Come on, so long as we're both up..."

But bloody work she'd meant, not anything more entertaining than the perpetual piles of paperwork to keep him company of a bright sunny morning. To be fair Gwen was drowning herself in it right alongside him at a nearby desk, an abstracted scowl on her face as she pored over boxes of figures that could as easily have been a normal workplace's payroll spreadsheets as whatever arcane calculation she was actually performing regarding the month's rift activity to date. Made sorting through the remains of the archives for files concerning artefacts about so big and blue or blueish-green seem like the easier bit, that did --

In his monitor Rhys caught the reflection of two men standing beside his workstation, watching him. He startled. "Erm, what, that is, can I... help..."

And he broke off, for he recognised them both. One had helped him to save Gwen's life at his wedding. He'd helped the other save the world.

Owen Harper.

Ianto Jones.

Dead men.

Rhys took a deep breath. "Right, bloody Torchwood, funny gas in the ventilation again is it? Must be Thursday then."

Jones still had that jagged scratch on his cheek, well, of course Rhys would picture him like he'd seen him last, aye? Doctor Harper cleared his throat. "Woo, woo, we come bearing a message from the spirit world, woo --"

Ianto gave his colleague a look of disbelief. "And that would be you completely ballsing this up, is it."

Ballsing what up? Owen threw up his hands. "I said appearing to him at a porno theatre would have been more traditional, but you didn't like that idea either."

"You still watch too many bloody films, you do realise that --"

"Right!" Rhys barked, startling both of them into silence. "If this job is going to drive me mental it's bloody well not going to be the two of you gets to do it, yeah? Piss off."

A dark head came up from where Gwen had been scribbling something onto a clipboard. "Rhys? Who's on the comm?"

"Nothing love, just seeing dead people again."

"Is it Thursday already?" Gwen went back to her own paperwork.

Harper managed to tear his eyes away from Gwen, or her cleavage, and returned his attention to Rhys with a world-weary scowl. "Right, anyway, long story short, Williams, you're a werewolf and the fact that you can see us means you're best off topping yourself before next Wednesday, yeah?"

Rhys stared at the apparition. "Gwen always said you had a crap bedside manner." He squinted over at Ianto's faintly blurry features. "What about you, he's the little devil on my shoulder what's your story?"

Ianto squirmed. "As much as it pains me to admit it, Owen may have a case."

Well, that just wasn't fair. Or sporting. Or... something. "Oi, don't I get a good cop?"

"I would consider that my professional obligation to be the diplomatic face of Torchwood ended when I died for it," Jones said.

"As if it's that fucking easy to get out of here." Harper held up his bandaged left hand.

"You certainly give new meaning to 'L'enfer, c'est les autres'," Ianto said. Owen folded the wrapped fingers down and gave him the other two in a defiant salute.

As mental breaks went, receiving phantom visitations from a bickering comedy routine seemed particularly Torchwood, somehow. "Right, how do I know that you're even real? Mean, you could, dunno, what's to prove you're not just my own head talking, aye?"

An ugly light sparked in Harper's eyes. "Well, dunno, would your own head know how Gwen learnt about my 'bedside manner'?"

"Yes, erm, Owen, recalling the previous remarks on 'ballsing this up' --"

Some premonition of dread prickled at the nape of Rhys's neck. "No, wait, what's he on about? What are you saying, mate?"

One side of that frog mouth turned up into a sneer. "I'm saying, mate, that I fucked your wife." A pause to let this sink in, as Rhys felt the icy knives slicing deep through his gut. "Yeah, reckoned she'd not have told you that bit. Or would she?" Leaning closer now, look of triumph in the dark eyes: "Maybe she did and you just don't remember --"

"Fuck off!" Rhys took a swing that went through nothing, spinning him round in his chair until he was looking up into Gwen's wide green eyes. Eyes that were clearly wondering what Torchwood policy was now regarding dealing with lunatic spouses -- "Did you sleep with Owen Harper?"

"What?"

"Did you," Rhys stood up and she took a step back, eyes going impossibly wider, "have sex with Owen Harper?"

It was clearly the last thing she'd expected him to ask. But... she had been expecting him to ask. He could see that in the way that she was running through options behind those wide green eyes, searching for the one that might still come up trumps here. "Where in the hell is this coming from, Rhys?"

"Jesus christ, you did, didn't you. And I have to hear it from his bloody fucking ghost 'cos you're thinking you've got away with it all these years --"

Gwen... Gwen was shaking her head. "Rhys... I don't know what you think you've seen, but there's no such thing as ghosts. You're thinking that because... because I told you, once. And gave you retcon after, I didn't think you'd want to --"

Rhys felt a growl rising from his throat. He gripped Gwen by the shoulders and backed her up against the wall with a shove that jarred down through his wrists as her back connected with the breeze-blocks. "You think that makes it any better --"

Gwen shoved right back, heaving him away from her. "Don't you even start with that, Rhys Williams. Don't you even start."

"Going to hit me on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper, then? Or just retcon me again like some stupid... ape?"

Jenny had started to wail in fright of the sound of her father's voice raised in anger. Gwen turned away and went to soothe her, fretful jiggles that seemed only to be increasing the baby's distress. "We're at work and on a case, Rhys. We can talk about this when the rest of everything's sorted, yeah?"

Which meant never, 'cos it wasn't as if anything ever got sorted round here. Lois and Johnson were staring at the sudden domestic that had boiled up in the midst of an ordinary workday. Rhys sat back down at the workstation, hands shaking in his lap. The ghosts had gone, of course, buggered off somewhere to play Christmas Past to some other stupid cuckolded sod. Of which Harper must have a string, Rhys didn't doubt, his penance in the afterlife to tick them all off in a book? Maybe Jones was his minder. Although, for all the good Ianto had done at it just there, maybe Owen was his punishment. Hell was, wossname, other people, yeah. If Jones had done something wicked enough to deserve that, then where was Rhys's soul bound, after this year with Torchwood?

Bedlam, maybe. Buggering christ, he'd just laid hands on Gwen in anger. It's this job, it gets inside you. He rubbed at his face, rough edges of healing skin scraping across one cheek. Johnson was still giving him a look. "What?"

"All that I am saying is that sudden aggressive tendencies could be a symptom of many things that maybe you would do well to look into, yes?"

"I am not turning into a fucking werewolf! Still enough retcon left to pack you back to a desk at some listening post in bloody Greenland thinking you're a WAAF in nineteen-forty-three, aye?"

Johnson arched an elegant eyebrow. "Behavioural changes like this can be caused by... brain tumours, or some sorts of infections -- some sorts of ordinary infections," she continued stubbornly as Rhys opened his mouth.

Rhys stood up, wheels of his chair scraping. "Right, this is bollocks, I'm going home to have a lie-down. Since you seem to think the nutter needs one. Have your girlfriend book me for a bloody CAT-scan if you like, yeah? But make it for the week-end, 'cos I might have to go running about pissing on trees for a few nights first." A subdued blimey from Lois's station as he snatched up his coat and stalked out.

Stress. Had to be stress. Not had a proper night's rest in more than a year, had he, baby and mental job and mental wife to juggle until any man would start thinking a night or two running round the Beacons howling looked like a hol compared to having the police sniffing round after you just for doing your job. Sorry love, can't go chasing the aliens with you tonight, off with the mates to have a few rounds and take down a sheep or two.

Speaking of rounds, was a message from Andy on the ansaphone when he got in and sat down on the settee for a listen, Oi, Rhys, we never did get that pint, erm, think they might be wanting me back on soon, find a minute sometime before Tuesday --? He deleted the rest before it could finish, then dragged the blanket on the back of the settee over himself and went to sleep.

He was still on the settee in the morning, stiff and lonely and irritable about both. Discarded trainers in the doorway told him that Gwen had made it home and chosen to let one sleeping dog lie for just a bit longer. But it wasn't a big enough house to avoid each other forever, not in the mornings, not with the baby, until finally there across a table from her he sat, eating cold cereal and wondering what there was to be done with the strained silence. Not as if they hadn't had their share of troubles, yeah, but it was going to be awkward having to go in and pretend some sort of normality in front of the witnesses to that lapse in standards of professionalism. But when there was no one else to do the job.

He muddled through. Maybe it was easier, really, here, at Torchwood, the petty annoyances of the rift not even leaving him time to have that pint with a mate ever, much less remember to dwell upon slights that might have best been left undiscovered altogether (she'd bloody retconned him) when it wasn't as if it could happen again (what had he said to her before he forgot) and she'd still gone ahead and married him, that was the important bit, that was the thing that he had to keep his eyes on in the end, wasn't it? She'd chosen him.

(And having to look at his little girl in the sick dread of not knowing whether that was Gwen's dimple or Captain Chin-Arse's --)

Right. Let's not even start with that.

Least time had put paid to this werewolf bollocks by now, moon had been full in the sky all last night. He'd sat beside Jenny's cot just looking out the window until it rose past the easy view before he'd curled up on the floor, easiest sleep of the last four weeks stealing over him despite the discomforts. He'd dreamt as well, but this was a better dream, walking free and unafraid on his own two feet through the forest, and at the last the whisper of Jones's voice telling him that he had nothing to fear when he looked into his daughter's grey eyes. (Right, so, that bit might have been more odd than the rest of it, when he woke and gave it a thought, but still it felt as if something had been settled, the mind was a funny thing after all?) He'd felt good enough about it come morning to throw together a proper fry-up for two, well, two and a half counting Jenny, and even to manage some cordial conversation over that hastily consumed fry-up with his wife. Not the end of everything, maybe. Life... goes on, aye.

His improved mood lasted exactly as long as the drive in to the office, plus the time it took him to get into the building, plus the time for Johnson to recognise that Rhys had entered the building. But not long enough for him to sit down at his own desk. "I've been going over the data regarding one of our outstanding cases and I think I've found something we hadn't been taking into consideration." Johnson tapped at her keyboard and one of the displays lit up with coloured dots. Rhys frowned at it, trying to think where he'd seen that pattern before -- "And this is what happens when you sort the results by locations and times," she continued, setting the graph into motion.

Little red dots, stalking across a map. Not a perfect rendition, allowing for the reporting errors, but... Little red dots, following invisible ant-trails that centred, at intervals of four weeks, along an axis between Andy's street and the park. Lois put a hand over her mouth.

Rhys stabbed a shaking finger at the screen. "No, no, no more of this werewolf shite, all right? Full moon last night and I'm still here, aye?"

"But the moon looks full for three nights," Lois pointed out too pragmatically, poking at her keyboard to add, "Technically it isn't at its most complete stage until... nine twenty-one tonight."

"What?"

And the bloody bell from reception going just then to make them all jump, and Lois to scuttle off playing at receptionist. Lucky her, getting a moment to collect herself. Except that she came back in leading a pair of uniformed officers: "Erm, can we help you?"

Both of the coppers had the same looks of grave but guarded import, as if there was an easy way to accomplish their business here and then there was the plan that they were expecting to have to execute. Rhys stifled a thought about whether the latter involved handcuffs and not in the fun way. "If you could please come with us, Mr Williams."

Rhys looked to his wife and got only a puzzled play along with it and we'll sort this later look. "Right, erm, just get my coat, shall I?"

If they only wanted him to assist with an enquiry, he couldn't imagine it would be much worse to be under proper charges for something, read the caution and passed from hand to official hand within the station to provide sixteen sorts of proof who he was before finally being sat in a room barely large enough to squeeze two chairs facing across a folding table. The DI who'd won, or maybe lost, at the rounds of musical custody glowered back at him across that table, about as welcoming as the detective on that programme where the bloke might have gone back in time. Made you wonder which was worse, 1973 or this mess. If he was lucky maybe he was dreaming all of this, lying on a coma ward somewhere with Gwen reading him fairy-stories to keep herself going. Oh, Husband, what big teeth you have. Rhys felt his feet tensing, the desire to lope away across a moor like a wild animal going round and round uselessly in his head. He tried to match the DI stare for stare, shamming a confidence he wasn't sure he remembered how to imagine after the last while of gruff voices and ominous papers. "Don't even know why I'm here again, do I? Told you everything I know about it already."

The DI gave him a look as if no one could actually be that thick without it being an act. "Why is Andrew Davidson covering for you?"

Of all the possible answers he might have been expecting, he couldn't at first even work out how those words could have fit together in a string. "Sorry?"

"Constable Davidson's accounting of events is somewhat lacking insofar as its correspondence to the available evidence. To wit: no signs of forced entry to any of the access points to the scene, no spent casings at the scene, injuries inconsistent with the supposed range of fire, no signs of a struggle and only minor traces of the victim's blood. Which were not found, I might add, anywhere in the alleged kitchen. Also troubling us is the detail that none of the neighbours were able to recall hearing anything out of the ordinary during the night or early morning of the date in question, which is to say, no gunshots, and also no unusual barking that could have been Special Officer Sadie Davidson attempting to summon assistance as she has been trained to do in the event that her partner is being assaulted and or shot at." The DI leant closer across the table: "Is there anything you would care to tell us, Mister Williams?"

The bottom had dropped out of his stomach. "I think I might be sick. No, really, miss, I --"

The DI pulled a face, as if she'd seen this ploy a thousand times, but something in his expression must have rung of truth; "I'll bring you some water," she said, and exited the room with a soft word to the officer standing watch outside.

The wave of nausea subsided as he swallowed it back, replaced by cold chills of dread. Rhys rubbed at his fingertips, fancying that they still itched from having the prints taken. Why they couldn't just have asked for the set that Torchwood already had in its files, my bloody tax that. The wounds on his right hand still screamed out to the eyes, each individual gash of the alien's -- werewolf's -- creature's long teeth stark angry pink against pallid winter skin.

Rhys jumped at an odd little click from somewhere in the ceiling, the sudden absence of a humming undertone that he hadn't really been aware of until it stopped. Bugger, but this place put you on edge even when you really hadn't done anything. He found himself hoping that the DI would come back just so that they could have this over with, one way or another, some sort of resolution where they'd either arrest him for certain or let him go home to his family. Whatever they might decide to arrest him for, he couldn't think what way a DI might find to tie him to something he couldn't have done, could he? Wasn't any sort of a criminal mastermind nor a proper copper neither, never mind what he might have been asked to do for his government in the course of his duty with Torchwood. Just an idiot who loved his wife, and look where that love had got him. He looked up as the door opened again. Different coppers again this time, the shorter one's hi-vis didn't seem to fit him properly -- "Oh, 's you then," Rhys said, recognising George as Andy turned into the room to face him. "Didn't know you were both coppers. Arm out of the sling, that's good, aye?"

Andy gave a small snort. "For all the good it's going to do me in about an hour."

"Why? What's then, tea-break? ...Wank-break?"

"Moonrise," George said.

Rhys thought about this, and finally the word presented itself: "Bollocks."

"We have to have you out of here before then or what you've already said to the DI will be the least of our worries," Andy said, wary eye on the door. "You've not been charged with anything yet, have you?" Rhys shook his head, though he wasn't entirely clear on that point himself. "So legally you're free to leave any time, look better getting you out of the building if a copper's showing you out though. Sort the rest of this later, we'll see you're all right for tonight."

Rhys shook his head, but it wouldn't come clear. "All right, sorry, all right to be --"

A solemn blink from George. "All right through the... transformation. Into the wolf."

What was he, on the internet somewhere with a sign wind him up, he thinks he's been bit? "Is everybody gone mental about this werewolf rubbish now?"

George gave him a look. "Simplest explanation that fits all of the evidence, isn't it? Occam's razor."

Whoever bloody Occam was and why him shaving entered into it, Rhys was a bit lost. But... if it was a wind-up, it was a good one, they even looked like they believed it. All of it. "But, but, the statements, you're a copper --"

"Statement was a load of tosh, all right? Best-sounding thing we could come up with in the car on the way to hospital." Rhys gaped at Andy. "Wake up in your own back garden and realise you've been shot there aren't a lot of stories most people would credit." And here the constable sighed; "We must have run into you whilst we weren't ourselves. Sort of spooky bloody thing some pensioner out walking her dog would ring Torchwood on, aye?"

"Oi, now you're just taking the piss. Johnson's put you up to this."

"As if I'd ever bloody well get involved with her daft shite again." Had Andy's teeth always looked that... sharp? "Could stay here, if you fancy your chances against a station full of coppers. Might take them a while to get Armed Response in after you."

"Doubt it would be long enough to get out, though," George contributed with a look of calculation. "The wolf's not clever, you see, he'd just blunder about through the building. Reckon he'd hurt a lot of people before he found a doorway to the street. And then... he'd be on the street."

No, no, this was Andy Rhys was looking at, he rings us every twenty minutes about every stupid kid with a toy raygun --

He rings us every twenty minutes about every stupid little thing... and how would we spot the time he hadn't? Not as daft as he looked, or just clever enough to follow through on someone cleverer's plan. A plan to keep some very odd mates safe from a nosy special-ops unit with an interest in the very odd. "We've found a few spots are usually good to run about in for the night," Andy said, that boyish face creased in regret. "Come on. Rhys. This is my career if they find I've been in here talking to you. But the cnud looks after its own, yeah?"

Rhys blinked, eyes stinging with something he was horrified to suspect might be the onset of some fit of hysterical weeping. "But I can't just walk out, I mean, what's that going to look like? They'll think I have done something, find some reason to bloody arrest me then. And what would that do to my life? Got a family to think of, you know."

George gave him a incredulous look. "Your bloody life? I'm impersonating a police officer to assist in a jailbreak, and it isn't even the strangest thing I've done in the last six months." He winced, and in the next blink his blue eyes had taken on odd amber glints. "We haven't much time, we have to go."

Rhys dug in his heels as Andy took him by the arm. "But what about Gwen? And the baby?"

"I am thinking of the baby. You can ring Gwen in the morning, you'll need Torchwood to --" A gruff bark as George opened the door; Sadie was in on this as well? Echoing through the deserted corridor came the distant sound of a voice carolling I want to be an Airborne Ranger. Andy's brow furrowed. "Bloody hell. He thinks that's a proper diversion?"

"Too many old movies." George's expression had crumpled into something right the other side of disbelief by now. "Oh, Mitchell, stop being a twat --"

"Right, 'course you'd have a getaway driver to finish it off. S'pose he's a werewolf as well, aye?"

Andy gave Rhys a look as if this were the most mental thing he'd ever heard. "Ah... No."

"Oh. All right, then, that's --"

"He's a vampire. Run --!"