Death in the Black Wood

by Oliver Davies

  “Malnourishment. He definitely hadn’t been eating healthily for some time. Plus it’s been pretty chilly lately. That’s why I cracked the corners of the mouth a bit too. I think you might have overestimated his weight a bit, Cuz. He was pretty skinny.”

  “These are excellent. They look almost like real ID photographs. Thanks, Shay, I’ll get them over to McKinnon right away. Great job!”

  “No problem. Have you stopped for lunch yet? I wanted to finish those for you first but I’m going to grab some now.”

  “Same,” I assured him. Now that I’d paused in my searching, I’d become aware of my stomach complaining unhappily. “I’ve got the rest of the pork from last night in some rolls, slathered in mustard. I just need to get the coffee going and I’m good to go.” My mouth was already watering at the thought of it.

  “Bleuch!” I could hear him smiling to himself at my enthusiasm, “Well, enjoy your dead pig then! Smoothie time for me. See you later, Con.” He hung up, and I saved my spreadsheet and forwarded my cousin’s attachments to McKinnon before getting up to stretch. Lunch bag in hand, I headed for the break room.

  Caitlin wandered in a few minutes later, just as I was topping up my portable espresso maker from the kettle. “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten you had a stomach again,” she told me as she rinsed her mug out and threw a teabag in. “I ate just after twelve.”

  I obligingly filled her mug for her before putting the kettle back.

  “How are you three getting on?” I asked, sitting down and opening up the first of my reusable beeswax coated sandwich wraps. Shay, being Shay, didn’t approve of cling film so we never had any in, not that it bothered me or da. His alternatives worked just fine.

  “We’re doing pretty well, I think,” Caitlin told me. “Almost four hundred vehicles were stolen in Scotland in November, but only about a quarter of those match our organisation’s M.O. and most of them appeared to be isolated thefts, no cluster pattern.” She put the milk back in the fridge and came to sit down, eyeing my sandwich hungrily. Well, I’d brought a spare third, half-expecting that to happen. I took a good first bite. God! That was so good! For someone who didn’t eat the stuff himself, Shay had an extraordinarily fine touch when it came to seasoning and cooking meat. I chewed happily, nodding for Caitlin to keep talking.

  “You’ve got mustard on your cheek,” she informed me helpfully.

  I just shrugged and took another huge bite. I wasn’t going to hand her any until I’d finished my first one. Caitlin could eat pretty quickly and I wasn’t splitting my second with her. She took the hint and laid off with the circling vulture impression, for now.

  “We do have what appear to be two groupings similar to what’s been happening here though. A dozen in Perth and another ten in Stirling.” That sounded promising. I took a good swig from my water bottle.

  “Have you got those marked up on maps yet?”

  “The boys are doing that now. How are you getting on with your rank-pulling ANPR access?” I waved an admonishing finger at her as I chewed up another mouthful.

  “You’ve only yourself to blame there, Caitlin, and, to be honest, it would be handy to have someone else around with the same access right now. We could split the job and be done with it in half the time. If you’d let me start the wheels turning on a competency-based assessment process when I asked, months ago, you could already have had your bump up to DI by now.”

  I’d been making excellent progress, I thought, on chipping away at her resistance to the idea. Caitlin was sharper, and more experienced, than most of the DIs I’d worked with. The idea of her remaining a mere detective sergeant for the rest of her career wasn’t only ridiculous, it was a stupid waste of talent. Besides, she’d been on the top pay grade for her rank for a while now and, under me, she was already doing a lot of a DI’s work, anyway. She might as well get paid for it, and it wasn’t as if she could keep using the argument that she didn’t want more responsibility. The only difference it would make, in reality, was that she could take full charge of the team when I was absent on leave or working elsewhere on something for Anderson. No more substitute bosses stepping in every time I was away.

  That, I thought, might just be one of the deciding factors, now that she was confident that I wasn’t planning to leave Inverness in any hurry. Da and Shay moving up here, and the fact that we’d bought a place together, had certainly reassured her on that front. I was delighted to see that her usual little scowling reaction to the suggestion was nowhere near as forceful as it had been the last few times I’d brought the subject up.

  I finished off my first sandwich and lifted my bag up to fish the other two out. “You know McKinnon’s still trying to pressure me into accepting one of his DIs, and I think we’d all rather avoid that. We’ve got a good thing going here, the six of us, and you know how much hassle it can be to successfully integrate a ranking outsider once a team’s working really well together.” I slid a sandwich over to her and opened up my second one. “Besides, Mary Walker’s going for DS this year, and I doubt I’ll be allowed to keep both of you once she gets her bump. McKinnon will insist on switching one of you out and landing a DI on me when that happens.”

  “That is so unfair, Conall!” she protested, opening up my bribe. “Wow! You don’t skimp on the meat in these do you?” No, I didn’t. There were two, generously sized pork steaks layered up in each large roll. She took an experimental bite and chewed appreciatively before swallowing. “Damn! That’s delicious.”

  I just grinned, scenting victory.

  “Just don’t expect me to keep bringing in extras for you if you do end up at Area HQ.” I didn’t need to elaborate. Much as I’d hate to lose Caitlin, it wouldn’t be fair to Walker to let her go just because she was the one who was willing to make the most of herself. “Because when it comes to it, I’m going to ask McKinnon to make the choice for me if he insists on moving people about.”

  We ate in silence for the next few minutes, and I saw the moment where Caitlin finished thinking it through and decided to give in to the inevitable. There was no question that we’d remain friends, even if she was transferred, but it wouldn’t be the same. She loved working here, and she certainly didn’t want to leave my team. I don’t think her back-up plan of taking a civilian job instead was looking very attractive to her these days either. I pushed the button on my little coffee maker and carefully wiped the mustard off my face.

  Espresso delivered, I lifted up my cup in a mock toast. “To lesser evils?” I suggested helpfully. “And better pay?”

  “Manipulative bastard!” she swore softly, touching her mug to it, but she had a wry little smile on her face. “You know how much I’d miss food like this, now that you’ve gone and got me addicted to it… and I suppose the pay rise could shave a few years off the mortgage.”

  “Mmm,” I agreed, knocking back half my espresso, “Sounds just awful! No wonder you’d rather not have to do it.”

  Six

  The rest of that Friday afternoon seemed to fly by. When Caitlin stuck her head in, at half-past five, to let me know she was heading home I was shocked to see how late it already was. By then, I’d made good progress with my searches and had compiled a considerable amount of data from the mornings after the first eight of our thefts. Well, the rest could wait. This wasn’t the kind of job I could get through in a tearing hurry and there was no pressing urgency there either. All the information that I wanted to access would still be available to me next week.

  “If you give me a few minutes, I can drop you off at yours,” I offered.

  “Thanks, Con, but I’ve got to nip over to Tesco’s first and pick up some shopping.”

  “Even better. Buzz me when you’re at the checkout and I’ll come over and pick you up. You can stock up properly that way without needing to call a taxi to get everything home.”

  “Really? You don’t mind hanging around for another half hour or so?”

  “Not at all. I’ve got some bits and bats to
finish up here, anyway.” I really didn’t, and another coffee would go down nicely too.

  “Awesome! In that case, yes please and thank you. It’s freezing out there again and there’s a nasty east wind blowing.” After she’d gone, I loaded up my espresso maker with a fresh capsule before emailing the half-finished spreadsheet and the maps to myself. I could do a bit more work at home, from my laptop, if I felt like it. It wasn’t like there was much I could get on with in the garden over the weekend; nothing that would take up more than a couple of hours, anyway.

  Sitting still for too long had stiffened me up a bit and my bladder was bursting, so I nipped out to deal with that while my coffee maker heated up. Only Collins was still in by then and he gave me a little nod before turning his attention back to his screen. On my way back I stopped by his desk to see how he was getting on with the mugging he was working on.

  “Any luck?” I asked.

  He shrugged noncommittally. “Too soon to tell, but yeah, maybe. Some footage from outside the nightclub showed our victim leaving and, a few minutes later, a trio who might be our culprits went past. The footage quality isn’t very good though. I’m going to try to clean up some stills to see if I can get a clear view of any of them.”

  “Sounds good. It’s after six though Mike. Not had enough for the day yet?” He turned and looked up at me with a smile playing around the corners of his mouth and his bright blue eyes gleaming.

  “I’m just hanging around waiting for Linda to come and pick me up. It’s a bit nippy for the bike just now. Don’t worry, Guv, I’m not turning into a workaholic.”

  That flourishing little romance had surprised us all. Mike Collins had been quite the Casanova for most of my first two years here, before he’d met his current girlfriend during the Ramsay case the previous March. She must have made quite an impression on him because, after half a dozen dates, he’d somehow found himself happily ensnared in an exclusive little arrangement and by October they were living together. If Mike felt any regrets about his change in lifestyle, there certainly hadn’t been any sign of it yet and I was secretly rooting for the couple to make a real go of it. From a professional point of view, Linda’s influence on him could only be seen as a positive thing. Collins had certainly cut down on late nights out over the past few months and his on the job performance had improved accordingly.

  Back in my office, coffee in hand, I went through my inbox, reading through the team’s updates on our open cases properly. I’d glanced at them all as they came in but there hadn’t been anything in need of an urgent reply in any of them. Once I’d checked to see that the relevant case files had all been updated accordingly, I fired off a few suggestions for them all to look through on Monday morning.

  McKinnon had sent me an email earlier too, thanking me for the images and letting me know that they’d been sent on to STV to get onto the evening news. With any luck, he might get some phone calls in response to the public appeal to help us identify our victim. If not, we’d just need to pin our hopes on the forensics report, and, after that, anything Shay might be able to find. I hadn’t asked him to start any searches yet because I was hoping for more information first. There was no point in wasting his time on a job like that until it became clear he was the only hope we had. As expected, there was nothing in from the forensics team yet, but I knew some of them would be pulling overtime over the weekend, so I was hopeful for at least a preliminary report by Monday.

  Throwing myself into a data search that required a high level of focus had helped me to keep my thoughts off the new murder case, but now that I’d stopped again all of my anxieties were resurfacing. I kind of wished I hadn’t read through some of the stuff Shay had sent me after dinner yesterday. I’d read up on a great many serial killers over the years myself, but I’d never come across a lot of the studies and papers that my cousin had passed my way. I’d known that he was far more aware of the numbers and types of monsters who walked among us than I was, but if what I’d read was just a sample of what he carried around in his head, then I certainly didn’t envy him.

  “Well, no,” he’d told me, when I’d finished reading through it all and he was ready to head off to sleep, “I hardly ever think about any of those cases. It’s not healthy to dwell on that kind of thing. Still, it’s useful to have all the information to hand when it’s needed and, after all, it’s not as if any of it is new. We’ve had some very sick people among us all throughout human history.”

  His attitude made sense, I supposed. Shay simply didn’t spend time thinking about ‘unpleasant’ things unless he thought there was something useful to be gained by doing so. I suppose anyone with a memory like his would need to build similar filters and coping mechanisms, or they’d have fallen apart years ago.

  Historical killers such as Gilles de Rais, Countess Elizabeth Báthory, Jack the Ripper, Albert Fish, Fritz Haarmann, and the Butcher of Rostov, to name but a few of the most infamous culprits, backed up his statement that the psychopaths and psychotics had always been among us, and we had no idea how many countless thousands of them had never even been noticed. If a certain percentage of people were going to become that mentally ill, then it was only reasonable that growing population figures would also proportionally increase the number of such killers. All I could do was hope that medical advances would one day allow such problems to be diagnosed and treated before they could turn their sufferers into yet more statistics on the criminally insane. I mean it wasn’t as if we were talking about going Clockwork Orange on anyone. Chemical problems could be chemically treated without anyone needing to go that far.

  My phone buzzing pulled me out of my dreary thoughts. Caitlin had reached the checkout. She’d been quick too, it was only just after six. I shut down my office and packed up my stuff. Mike had already left by then so I locked up behind me as I went out.

  After dropping her off and helping her in with her bags it was a quick drive home and I was in well before seven. Da and Shay were both in the kitchen, and I could hear them laughing over something in there. The house felt warm, welcoming and wonderful to come back to. The smells coming from their direction were promising too.

  I went to dump off my lunch bag before heading up to shower and found Shay sitting with his laptop at the kitchen table. Da was over by the cooker, idly stirring something, and I could hear Liam’s voice coming from the speaker. Ah. That explained the laughter.

  “… so yeah, that went really well,” I heard him say, sarcastically, before I moved into view, “Oh, hi, Conall. I was just telling these two about our five days down at Pocklington. Remind me why it’s a bad idea to take undergraduates anywhere next time I mention volunteering to run another field trip like that.” I grinned.

  “Let me guess, they overindulged at the local pub every night? Did one of them throw up on a priceless relic?” I teased as Shay tipped the screen back a little so I could straighten up a bit.

  “Hell, no!” he said indignantly. “Not on my bloody watch! But I made the worst two scrub their own rooms out before we left. I wasn’t leaving that job to the poor housekeeping staff.”

  Remembering some of his own youthful escapades, I couldn’t muster much sympathy at the thought of Liam having to babysit the young idiots. Karma could be a bitch.

  “You just get in?” he asked. “Clocking up some overtime again?”

  “No, I just got held up a bit helping a friend out with a shopping run. I’d better go up and shower and change now too. Group call on Sunday, right?”

  “Yeah, everyone’s still in, as far as I know. Jen was making noises about maybe popping over your way next month too.” He smirked a little as he saw my face light up at the prospect. “Maybe she’s got a new fella she wants you to check out?”

  “Could be,” I agreed cheerfully, refusing to give him the satisfaction of catching any hint of disappointment at the prospect. I just wanted her to be as happy as she deserved to be and I had no intention of allowing our little arrangement to get in the way of something
more serious. “I’ll have to remind her that da won’t be around to feed them though.”

  “Like you won’t have tons of good stuff piled up in the freezer she can steal if you two go on strike. Nobody ever goes hungry visiting you lot, Con.”

  “Yeah, following the old hospitality laws does seem a little old fashioned, now that I think about it.” Shay grinned. “Maybe we should just stop feeding them all, Cuz? It is the twenty-first century after all. ”

  “Oh piss off!” Liam snorted. “You Keanes put on ridiculous spreads at the slightest excuse, just so you can stuff your own greedy faces without feeling guilty about it. Besides, I’d just make up a rude song about the shamefully tight-fisted descendants of the Ó Catháin Uí Fiachrach and we’d all keep bombarding you with it until you gave in.”

  It made me laugh, which is what he’d been angling for.

  “Speaking of feeding our greedy, Keane faces…” Da put in cheerfully, “I’m serving up in half an hour son, so if you still want to shower first you’d better get moving son.”

  Right. I gave Liam a little wave and left Shay to torture him with a detailed description of what he and da had been cooking up for our farewell dinner.

  I’d be driving da out to the airport tomorrow afternoon because he was planning to spend the night with friends in Manchester before taking his nine hour flight over to Orlando on Sunday. I didn’t envy him the long trip but the idea of spending the next couple of months somewhere nice and warm was making me feel a bit jealous. He’d probably come back as tanned as Shay always looked and I’d be all pale and sun-starved in comparison to the two of them if I didn’t grab a week away somewhere nice myself before then. Maybe we could squeeze something in at the end of March?

  After dinner, we all settled down in the living room, and I decided that I might as well keep going with my NAS search. Shay glanced over to see what I was doing but refrained from commenting as he popped his earbuds in to listen to music while he worked on his own stuff. Da seemed engrossed with his own laptop so we all worked away peacefully for a while, sort of. It was driving Shay nuts, I could tell, the way I was going about things. He didn’t even last half an hour, glancing over at me more and more frequently with an increasingly disbelieving look on his face.