“Bring in the first one,” said the tall, polite policeman with the boring voice.
The first one was brought in. He too was tall, if not so much. He too was polite, if somewhat nervous. But his voice when he spoke ruined all resemblance, because it was too obnoxiously erratic and pitchy to be boring, and what he said was “I’m, well, I’m not in trouble am I?”
“Oh you’re in trouble, alright,” said the other member of the police. She had the attitude of brass knuckles and steel-toed shoes. “Neck-deep and sinking fast. How long can you hold your breath, creep?”
“Constable Leslie, please shush,” said the tall, polite policeman. “Sir, this is a complex matter, and your testimony would be of great assistance in resolving it. May I ask what you did last night?”
“Well, I, you know, I went home. From work, yes, I did that. I went home from work. I took the long way along the shore because you know, well, that there’s the construction, and it’s taking so much time, and I, I can’t believe how difficult it can be to pour asphalt, what’s the, what’s the deal with that, and well…”
“Continue, please.”
“Well, I thought I saw something. Maybe. I’m not sure.”
The tall, polite policeman folded his hands in the attitude of a conciliatory praying mantis. “Sir, if you wouldn’t mind elaborating on that, we would greatly appreciate it. No judgment will be made. No word will be spread. Your testimony is anonymous, safe, and profoundly welcome.”
“Right, well, it’s just, you know, sort of, a bit, well, kind of, a tad, uh, you see, somewhat, I know it’s, well, oh dear, really, it’s that-”
“Unshush,” sighed the tall, polite policeman.
“Pardon?”
“LISTEN UP, YOU PREENING PRINCESS PUNK!” howled Constable Leslie, surging forward like a wave through a borehole. “If you don’t START TALKING I’m going to START TWISTING! Fingers! Nipples! EYES! EVERYTHING! WHAT DID YOU SEE!? WHAT DID YOU SEE!? WHAT DID YOU SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!??”
“A beast!” gasped the first one. “A great and terrifying beast, like a a a gigantic tadpole or somewhat like! It slithered ‘cross the road! I only saw its tail as it crossed before my car, but it stretched from curb to curb and more! Please don’t touch me!”
“Please don’t STOP TALKING! “ sneered the constable, jaws gnashing at an invisible, infuriating bit. “You’ve seen more, you little slime-balled snotwedge! SPILL YOUR GUTS OR I’LL SEW THEM UP SIDEWAYS AND LET THE STITCHES ROT IN YOUR SPLEEN!”
“It descended to the water, left nary a ripple! And then as I watched, transfixed, it breached the surface! ‘pon my word, I saw its gigantic skull – whale-like, monstrous! It reared its head back and swallowed a deer it had clutched in its mouth, antlers, hooves, and all! Then it sank below, and it was all as if it had never been!”
“Your cooperation has been of great use and your conduct impeccable,” said the tall, polite policeman, both hands now white-knuckle gripped at the collar of Constable Leslie as she strained towards the far side of the table, eyes wide and pupils narrowed. “Please, take the coffee-coloured seat in the next room and we’ll be with you shortly.”
***
“Bring in the second one.”
The second one was brought in. He had the sort of eyes that didn’t look at anything in particular because they were watching everything through the filter of his own head.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello,” said the tall, polite policeman.
“Shut up and talk!” screamed Constable Leslie. “Talk – TALK or I’ll have your nails, b’god! – The pliers! The needles! The blades! – I’ll have them!”
“Jeez.”
“Constable Leslie, please shush,” repeated the tall, polite policeman in a somewhat strained (if still boring) voice, tendons throbbing wires against his forearms as they pulled desperately at her shoulders.
Constable Leslie receded in reluctant inches, her nails leaving visible scratches in the surface of the table. Her eyes, by contrast, grew to roaring infernos.
“Sir,” said the tall, polite policeman. “There are certain events of the last twenty-four hours that we would like your total and full cooperation in uncovering, as we believe you may have been witness to them.”
“Oh yeah, absolutely. I saw the angel.”
“Pardon?”
“The angel,” said the second one. His voice was neither boring nor obnoxious, merely forthright. “It was in the water. Long, long neck, head like a horse. It reared up out of the water and looked me in the eye and it sang to me.”
“Sang?”
“Without words. Full of meaning, though. Everything made so much sense when it sang. It told me that I was not alone, and that I was not unloved, and that the same was true for all of us that lived on this little dot in the stars. It told me that it would return three times before its people came to greet us as equals, and then it dove into the air and vanished.”
“Dove into the air? Could you please describe that?”
“It dove up – out of the water – and into the air – as if it were water – and then it vanished – as if it had gone underwater. But in the air.”
Constable Leslie had begun at some point during this to make a very slight – almost inaudible – song of her own, which sounded a bit like a tea kettle and a bit like someone mumbling ‘blood’ very very fast over and over. Her arms were flexing; her palms were leaving damp spots on her sleeves.
“Did the angel’s song tell you anything of its people?”
“They were made of light, but wore bodies to try and see us. We’re too dark for them to see without bodies. They visited this world long before, when the dinosaurs were around, before the floods and meteor and the garden and the K-Pg boundary. They left their bones in the stones and we called them plesiosaurs. They fought demons too, and those we called pterosaurs.” He shrugged at this. “It was a lot to take in, you know? One moment I was standing by the beach, the next I was being sung to by an angel.”
“I see,” said the tall, polite policeman. “And what were you doing down at the beach that night?”
“A whole lot of acid.”
“Your forthrightness and candour are appreciated greatly, citizen,” said the tall policeman. He gently elbowed Constable Leslie, whose fingers were beginning to crawl forwards across the desk again. “Please, take the liver-coloured seat in the next room and we’ll be with you shortly.”
***
“Bring in the third one.”
The third one was tired. He looked like he needed a coffee and he needed to not be there.
“I need a coffee, and I need to not be here,” he groaned. “Look at you guys: you look like Abbot and Costello doing good cop/bad cop.”
“I prefer the three stooges,” said the tall, polite policeman.
“Charlie Chaplin fuckin’ BURIES all of them, you morons don’t know a damned thing,” sneered Constable Leslie.
“Well, there is at least one thing one of us knows,” said the tall, polite policeman. “Sir? Would you mind sharing it with us?”
“Sharing what?”
“The experience you claim to have had yesterday afternoon.”
He looked blank. “I had lunch?”
“Something a little more unusual.”
“I skipped breakfast? The room service was lousy.”
“If you were staying at the Lord’s Arms, that’s very usual.”
“I saw a deer in the woods?”
“The WATER, you perfidious, procrastinating clown,” snarled Constable Leslie. “Tell us about what you saw in the WATER, or I’ll -” and here the tall, polite policeman slid his hand over her mouth so smoothly and neatly that it did not appear to be hostile at all, but merely the comforting shoulder-pat of one colleague to another.
“What about the water?” asked the third one, rubbing his eyes.
“What did you see in it?” replied the tall, polite policeman.
“Nothing? Nothing worth noting. A log hit my kayak.”
“A log?” inquired the tall, polite policeman. His fingers moved, almost as if someone was trying to chew her way through them.
“Yeah. A big, bumpy log. Floating just barely below the surface; not fully waterlogged yet is my guess.”
“And you’re certain this is what you saw?” said the tall, polite policeman, face twitching on the edge of agony.
“I saw the bark floating off it; I saw broken branches dangling from it; I poked it with my paddle and watched it roll over and counted the knots on its side, so yeah. I’m absolutely certain what I saw. Is that what’s unusual around here?”
“A little bit,” said the tall, polite policeman. “Oh DAMN,” he amended, and yanked his hand free from Constable Leslie’s face, who gave him a look that no amount of soap could have cleaned.
“So, are we done or what?” inquired the third one.
“Very nearly. Please, come with us into the next room.”
***
The first and second ones looked up from the terrible old magazines they’d been reading as the police walked the third one into the room with them. They were garbage, real dentist-quality stuff. Ten years at youngest.
“Citizens, you have all been of great and profound use to our investigations this day,” said the tall, polite policeman. “Your testimony has brought us to a singular and concise conclusion. Commissioner Leslie will explain.” And so saying, as always unsmiling, he reached out and grasped the third one’s neck and snapped it on the spot, catching the body like the lumpy sack of bones it had become.
“That’s right,” said Commissioner Leslie, showing every fang in her face at once. “There’s going to be another unidentified creature floating in the water tonight! And you two are going to encounter it in passing, by chance, just a little bit! And it’s going to be MYSTERIOUS, and STRANGE, and EXCITING, and you’re going to tell everyone you know about it or SO HELP ME GOD TOMORROW THERE WILL BE THREE SIGHTINGS INSTEAD OF ONE, AM I UNDERSTOOD?”
The first one nodded so hard his neck nearly snapped of its own accord. The second one, by contrast, frowned. “Is this because of the acid?”
“The what?”
“Because you asked for my total and full cooperation and I gave that. It’d be a real asshole move to go after me because I told you about the-”
“NO!” screamed Commissioner Leslie, snatching up one of the magazines and biting it into four. “NOW GO ENCOUNTER THE DEEPEST MYSTERIES THE WORLD HAS YET TO UNCOVER AND TELL THE WORLD OF WHAT STRANGE BEINGS MAY YET LIE HIDDEN WITHIN THE BOUNDARIES OF OUR TOWNSHIP! YRRRREEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!”
“Oh. Okay. Ohkay.”
And they left.
The tall, polite policeman coughed gently until his commissioner made eye contact and gave a grudging nod, then reached out with his free hand and helped resocket her jaw.
“Owfuck,” she grunted. “There. Reckon that did it?”
“Three witnesses would have been a sure thing,” he said.
“And two?”
“Almost a sure thing.”
“Good enough. ‘We need a tourism board’ my left tit; looks like budget’s back on the menu, constable! GOD I’m going to rub this in Jodie’s face on Friday.”