• I felt haunted as I walked through the corridors and it always was on such a mysterious night as Halloween, but who was I to question?

    I found constable Fergus sitting by the interrogation room looking rather haggard.

    I grinned. “Boy, girl’s giving you a bit of trouble isn’t she?”

    Fergus shook his head and got to his feet. “Well we’ve checked her for drugs and bruises that could be messing with her head, but she still hasn’t made much sense.”

    “Have you assessed her to make sure she’s not-?” I spun my finger.

    “Perhaps, but we’re needing answers Will. So I’m handing it over to you.”

    Well I was a detention officer, so it was my speciality. “Suit yourself, I’ll take all the glory once I crack this case.”

    “You mean like you did with that vandal incident?”

    “Don’t you bring that up again,” I laughed and stepped into the interrogation room. “Right, now that-.”

    I swear I almost choked at what I saw. With fair hair and captivating eyes, the most delicate and lovely thing, but I snapped out of it when I heard her tug at her cuffs.

    “L-let me out,” pleaded the girl.

    Shaking myself out of it, I pulled out a seat and sat myself down and resting my arms. With a charming smile, I spoke. “Now why honestly would a fair lass like yourself have killed Roger McFinn with your own hands or an axe to be precise and then try to loot his home, when you could’ve probably charmed a person to do it.”

    “I-I had to, he wasn’t going to give it back.”

    “Give what back?”

    “My skin?..”

    I laughed. “Does it come off does it?”

    “Yes.”

    “Aren’t you a riot?” I wasn’t sure if I had to take this case seriously.

    The girl didn’t seem to be joking though: her eyes expressed confusion at my laughter, as if there were something wrong with my voice.

    “Please, just give me my skin back! I want it back.”

    “It’s right on you lass, don’t you see?”

    “No it’s not. It’s still in his home. I need it.”

    I sighed. “How about telling me about what happened?”

    “Why? I just want my skin back.”

    “And we want to know what happened so we can understand why you did it.”

    “If I do, will you let me go?”

    “I’m afraid not. But if you cooperate I’ll see what I can do about this skin.”

    “Alright,” she spoke tensely. “I-I had walked out with my herd, out into the beach where we removed our skin so we could dance?”

    “Dance?”

    “Yes, we love to dance under the moon. While we were dancing however, he took my skin.”

    “Ah, I see what you been meaning now.” Who’d have thought Roger was that dirty. “By skin, you meant your clothes.”

    “No!” She tried to jump up, but the desk she was cuffed to was bolted to the floor. She pulled her hair as she squealed. “I mean my actual skin! The skin that holds my body!”

    “Alright-alright settle down.” I had encountered mentally ill people who were convinced they had lost something that didn’t exist. However this lass acted more like a mother who had lost her child. “Continue the story then.”

    The girl sniffed. “Soon as I found out my skin was gone, I tracked it back to his home. I begged for it back, but he wouldn’t give it, not until I married him.”

    I furrowed my eyes. Roger was not clever with the ladies, but neither was he stupid or that desperate. “Did this skin really matter that much to you?”

    “Of course it mattered it to me! It was my skin! When he wouldn’t give it back, I-I couldn’t control myself! I was desperate to return to my home! To my friends, my family.”

    “That’s where you used the axe on him I take it?” The girl lowered her head. “Look I don’t know what this skin is, but were you really not able to return home without it.”

    “Yes.”

    I had heard enough. Although this girl seemed somehow sane, she obviously wasn’t. “I’ll be leaving you now lassy. I’ll give you a referral to be sent to a mental institute. It’ll save you having to go to a prison.”

    “What no! I need to go home!” I walked out. “I need to go home!”

    I closed the door behind me. Fergus had been talking to one of the investigating officers, but then turned to me.

    “What did you get out of her Will?”

    I shrugged, but I needed to give Fergus something. “Closest thing that fits was that Roger stole her clothes, tried to bribe the lass with it and the girl got so infuriated that she chopped the fella up. She then realised what she had done and tried to make herself believe that the clothes was something special so that she could rationalise it.” My conscience ate at me. “But it’s hard to imagine Roger would do something as daft as that.”

    “Well Roger seems to be a stranger guy than we thought.”

    “What?”

    “We searched his house and found a seal skin hidden underneath the floorboards. Who’d have figured he even hunted.”

    “Seal skin?”