The Blood of Crows

by Caro Ramsay

  Pettigrew put his gun away, and pulled at her elbow. ‘Out,’ he said. ‘You need to breathe.’

  But she shook her head mutely. She risked moving one hand from her mouth and nose to reach over to a pile of red envelopes shaped like pillar boxes. She held one up for Pettigrew to see. It was a sleeve for a DVD, addressed to PillarBoxFlix.

  Pettigrew just said, ‘Oh, right.’ He sounded almost relieved. But he didn’t seem surprised. ‘You, out,’ he said again.

  Costello hovered in the doorway, within reach of some fresher air, and watched as Pettigrew switched on the laptop, slightly shifting the trolley it stood on, and looked at the neat cables to see if they would stretch to the bed.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘My job,’ he said, tapping away at the keys.

  Intrigued, Costello put a handkerchief over her mouth and came closer to look over his shoulder. The screen was a mass of unintelligible words. ‘What is it?’

  Pettigrew was following the text with a fingertip. ‘It’s in code. But I bet it’s the plan to take out Richie Spence.’

  Her stomach lurched. She was going to be sick. ‘How do you know that?’ she forced herself to ask.

  ‘It’s dated the 26th, two days before he was taken.’

  It wasn’t only the smell and the shock that was making Costello feel ill. Pettigrew had no way of knowing when Richie had been taken. She muttered an excuse and bolted out into the cool, refreshing rain. And then was violently sick. Once she straightened up, she realized Pettigrew had followed her out.

  ‘I’d better go back to the school.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ And then he pointed the gun at her.

  9.30 P.M.

  Anderson was beginning to wonder where Costello and Pettigrew had got to. He knew that Howlett was taking him somewhere, but had no idea where. And there was no sign of the backup the ACC had supposedly organized for them. As they trekked through the Forestry Commission planting, the strangely warm refreshing rain began to bucket down. Big drops came pattering like tears through the pine needles, and the little sky that could be seen was rapidly darkening.

  ‘What’s that?’ Anderson asked, halting. Through the trees he could hear a strange high-pitched mewling, the sound of a human being in distress. Disturbingly, it reminded him of the sound Rusalka had made as he held her on the ladder. He had no idea where the noise was coming from, but it didn’t seem to be close by.

  ‘We’ll walk on a bit,’ was all Howlett said.

  But Anderson was reluctant to move. ‘I think that noise is coming from over there, so we need to go through here.’

  ‘Humour me. We have better things to do.’ Howlett stepped aside as if exhausted, letting Anderson move ahead of him into a clearing, where a group of people were waiting for them.

  ‘Hello, DCI Anderson,’ Cameron Fairbairn said, grinning like a jackal. ‘Nice to meet you again. I don’t know your colleague, but I’m sure we’ll become acquainted. Briefly,’ he added. He looked at his watch, twisting the gun he was holding slightly. ‘You came the quick way through the trees – unlike your friend here, who went the long way round.’

  He flicked the gun casually to the side where Costello was standing rooted to the spot, pale and terrified, blood streaks across her face. Pettigrew stood behind her, preventing her from retreating. On a pile of logs, casually smoking, sat the fat girl from the school. Her heavy mascara had run in the rain and was drizzling down her cheeks. She wiped at it impatiently.

  Anderson noticed too late that Howlett, his soaked linen suit clinging to every bone, had moved in behind him. He and Costello were trapped, totally. The ground was rusty with fallen pine needles, the smell of it warm and earthy in the long-awaited rain. The sky rumbled and for a moment the scene lit up, making Libby Hamilton look like a Hammer Horror zombie. And all the while that ghostly keening emanated from somewhere. But where?

  As water poured down the drought-baked ground, a small stream was forming, determinedly making its way to a huge grated drain cover in the centre of the clearing. Anderson shivered, despite the warmth of the evening air, his ears straining to track the sound. At some distance, deep in the bowels of the earth, it sounded as if somebody was screaming.

  No one spoke. No one had moved. Apart from the smoke streaming from Libby’s scarlet mouth, it could have been a tableau from a cinema still. Anderson sized up Fairbairn. Despite the new haircut, he decided, Skelpie was still an evil, nasty little man.

  It was Libby who broke the silence. ‘You should ask them to stand with their hands out from their sides, Tito. That way they can’t pull a knife or a gun, or phone for help,’ she advised, as if talking to a slightly backward child. She rose slightly, pulling her skirt straight before sitting down again, like an efficient secretary. ‘The thing is, Tito, they don’t really respect you.’ The they was punctuated by a flick of the cigarette in Anderson’s direction.

  ‘Don’t call me that!’

  ‘Sorry – Cameron. All I meant was that I don’t really think they have the measure of you, of how good you are at what you do.’ She lit up another cigarette, holding it in an elegantly gloved hand like a femme fatale in a black-and-white movie. ‘Actually, I take that back; DCI Anderson had to fit you up to get you behind bars four years ago, so maybe he does know how good you are.’

  Fairbairn said, ‘Well, you did that once, DCI Anderson, but you’ll never do it to me again. You see, Archie O’Donnell and I were in the same unit for a while, and he told me what was going to happen to Biggart. He said if I behaved myself, I would get out – maybe take over his empire. And here I am.’

  Anderson shot a look of disbelief at Costello, but having a gun levelled at his stomach indicated that sarcasm was not the best response.

  Costello glanced at Libby, who just shrugged – as if to say, ‘Well, you heard him.’

  Anderson was too busy trying to quell the panic that roiled inside him. He thought of Lambie. Of Moffat. It was too much to hope that someone would come along a second time and blow Skelpie Fairbairn’s head off.

  ‘He doesn’t believe me,’ Skelpie sneered, still with that weird grin.

  ‘Told you they wouldn’t,’ said Libby, backhanding rain from her forehead. ‘They think you’re just a noncy wee child molester, but really you’re a clever bastard. Look at the way you nearly killed that wee Russian lassie.’

  Costello stared at Libby, confused. This was not the girl she thought she knew. She was in charge. She was taunting Skelpie Fairbairn.

  But Skelpie took it as a compliment. ‘I could have killed her any time, you know. I was that close,’ he boasted, and held up his gun inches from his other finger. ‘That close. I decided if she lived or died.’

  ‘And that makes you a big man, does it?’ asked Costello, her voice dull with mock tedium.

  ‘Not now, Costello,’ Anderson warned her out of the corner of his mouth.

  ‘And don’t forget the wee Marchetti boy; you killed him too,’ added Libby. ‘You got away with that one. Well done.’ Her voice was warm with congratulation.

  ‘Aye, I did.’ The gun waved back towards Anderson’s stomach. ‘But do you know the good thing, the really good thing? It’s not the killing.’

  ‘No?’ asked Anderson, soothingly. ‘So, tell me what is. I really don’t understand any of this.’

  Costello recognized that Anderson, standing there soaking wet in the pissing rain, with a thunderstorm raging overhead and a gun at his stomach, was following procedure. Be nice, empathize, engage at all times, then smack the bastard on the back of the head once his guard was down. Trouble was, it tended not to work with psychopaths. Especially when you were outnumbered by more psychopaths.

  ‘It’s the power,’ Skelpie gloated. ‘The power to let live or let die. And I still have the pleasure of the kill to come. What I like is the feeling that I can. At any time.’ He walked up to Anderson then to Costello.

  Costello sensed Pettigrew move slightly behind her, blocking any pos
sible escape route. Fairbairn raised the gun, placed it against her cheekbone, and slowly moved it back and forth. She could feel the mesh in the bone tingle under the cold metal. She could see spits of saliva in the corner of his mouth, small red veins running across the whites of his eyes. He could blow her head off with one squeeze of his forefinger.

  ‘The big deal, you see, is the power. It’s my choice whether you live or die, DS Costello. My decision. And it’s my decision who I shoot first. And where.’

  ‘Well, if you can chain up a child down a drain, and rape a ten-year-old girl, putting a bullet through the head of a stupid cop should be easy.’ Libby sniffed and stubbed out her cigarette as if bored. ‘Did she cry for her mother, the Russian girl? Did it make it easier or harder, the wee lassie crying like that?’

  The muzzle of the gun pushed into the flesh under Costello’s jaw. ‘I like it when they cry,’ Fairbairn grinned. ‘She might have lasted another week, but there were other plans for her.’ The gun pushed in a little harder. ‘The next one I was going to kill myself. And earn my new tattoo.’

  ‘So, I guess killing two cops is easy-peasy lemon squeezy,’ said Libby, a challenge in her voice rather than a question.

  ‘Oh, it’ll be easy.’

  ‘Well, take your time,’ said Libby conversationally. ‘And after those two, who have you got lined up?’

  ‘Lynda Osbourne. Lying little cow.’ Skelpie swung round to jam the gun into Anderson’s stomach. ‘And then there’s this girl,’ he said nastily. ‘I think she’s called Claire.’

  Costello was sure she heard Anderson stop breathing.

  ‘He’s not joking,’ said Libby.

  ‘I didn’t say he was,’ answered Anderson, his voice trembling, recalling Helena asking how long he thought it would take Fairbairn to figure out that the girl who came to the gallery was his daughter.

  ‘Show him your phone,’ said Libby. ‘You may as well – they can’t run away and tell anybody.’

  Fairbairn opened his phone with one hand, tapped a few times on the touch pad and turned it to show Anderson.

  Even from a few feet away Anderson could tell it was a covert picture of Claire. She was standing outside the gallery, the sun shining off her dark hair.

  There was silence, just the steady patter of rain on the carpet of pine needles.

  Costello watched Libby get to her feet and fling the cigarette butt down before walking over to Fairbairn and taking the gun off him, like a mother removing a dangerous toy from a child. For a moment, she stood in front of him, the gun levelled at Anderson. Costello held her breath … and then slowly, very slowly, the penny dropped. This young woman, with anger behind her eyes, was intelligent and determined. This young woman with her dark hair wet against her face, her prominent cheekbones, was the same face she had held in her hands in that car park all those years ago. Then Libby smiled and the moment was gone.

  ‘There you are, DCI Anderson; you have your confession.’

  ‘What the fuck?’ bellowed Fairbairn.

  ‘Don’t make so much noise, you horrible little shite, you’re disturbing the crows.’ Libby spun the gun, and Anderson instinctively took a step backwards.

  Then he realized she was handing it to him. He took it automatically, and it fell heavily into his hand. ‘You didn’t think I’d let a thick bastard like that loose with a gun, did you?’ she said, her voice heavy with irony. ‘I’ve taken the safety off now, DCI Anderson; you can shoot him. And I would, if I was you – because you’re never going to get him behind bars now, not with your previous failed attempt at banging him up. So, you might as well go ahead.’

  Costello watched as Anderson’s hand tightened on the gun. ‘Colin?’ she whispered. She looked round at Howlett and Pettigrew who were statues, blocking their exit, their faces unreadable.

  Libby lifted herself up on tiptoe to whisper in Anderson’s ear. ‘You saw the film,’ she said. ‘Remember, that wee girl died in your arms. Think of the other girls who died. Think of your own daughter. One shot, one bullet.’ She walked round behind him and spoke in his other ear. ‘And no reprisals. You and him, end of.’

  Without realizing it, Anderson had raised the gun, and was pointing it at Fairbairn. It was warmer than he had expected, heavier. He usually only held a gun when it was wrapped up safe in an evidence bag. The power felt dangerously good.

  ‘Of course, you could try to send him back to jail,’ Libby went on dispassionately. ‘Until he gets out through another legal loophole, so you have to wait until he kills another child. But even if that child is yours, it won’t matter, because you’ll have done the right thing.’

  ‘This isn’t justice,’ said Anderson, his voice trembling. What frightened him was how good the power felt, how comforting it was to have that weight in his hand, how reassuring. Then he realized he was squeezing the trigger gently and relaxed his hand. ‘This is not right.’

  ‘So, put the gun down. But do you think he’d hesitate for a second to take you out? Apart from the fact that he couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a banjo.’ Suddenly Libby spun like a dancer and kicked Fairbairn in the back of his knees. He collapsed to the ground. ‘It’s easier to shoot people if they’re on their knees,’ she observed dryly.

  The water was running down Fairbairn’s face just as it had run down Rusalka’s. Anderson remembered the tape of her rape, how she had screamed in agony and fought for breath. And he remembered that last pleading whisper – Mamochka – and his finger tightened. He found he couldn’t force it to relax. Then, with a real effort of will, he lowered his arm.

  Impatiently Libby took the gun off him, clicked the safety catch off, and shot Skelpie once through the head. The crows rose squawking from the trees, the body jerked slightly, swayed on its knees for a moment, then crumpled like a paper bag.

  ‘I had the second safety on for you, DCI Anderson, but I had to get your prints on the gun. My insurance.’ She smiled almost impishly and shook him by the hand; her grip was tight, firm. ‘That was justice, my justice, a concept you’ll have to get used to.’ She looked down at Fairbairn’s body. ‘The problem with such people is that they’re so stupid they believe their own publicity.’ She straightened up briskly, put the gun into a deep pocket, and said, ‘Come on, we’ll see how the big fish is doing. Hopefully he’ll be drowning and not waving.’ She started along the path out of the clearing, confident that she knew where she was going.

  Anderson put his arm round Costello’s shoulder, and squeezed her tight. She was shaking.

  Libby turned back briefly. ‘Come on,’ she said, as if chiding dawdling children. ‘You won’t come to any harm. This way.’

  Anderson noticed how easily Pettigrew and Howlett moved into position behind them, without talking, without communicating. They knew each other well, these two, and they knew each other as a functioning unit. He also had the feeling somebody else was out there, tracking them.

  Libby went striding ahead, scarcely visible in the twilight. Then, without warning, she turned off the path to a wide clearing between the trees. The path was hardly even a track, only there because somebody had walked this way recently. Anderson held up his arm, trying to keep the branches from whipping Costello in the face.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked her quietly.

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ answered Libby from in front. ‘She’s Tony Costello’s daughter – it’s in her blood, remember?’ She turned to look at Costello, challenging her to argue.

  In answer, Costello’s face twisted with the flicker of a smile. All her questions about who this girl actually was were starting to answer themselves.

  Libby marched on into the trees again, then out into another clear space. If she was trying to disorientate them, she had succeeded. Anderson could hear the mewling sound again, quieter now. Then somebody – a man – began shouting, screaming almost, in a language that Anderson could not understand. But it sounded like Russian. He almost tripped over an open drain cover, and stopped. Libby was standing on the far side
of it, gazing down at a metal grating about a foot below ground level. Between the bars, Anderson could see writhing fingers, and the face of the man beneath. Water was rising round the man’s shoulders as the rain ran straight off the hard-baked ground into the drain.

  ‘Pomogite! Luidy!’ The man wasn’t screaming now; he was furiously demanding to be let out.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ Libby asked Pettigrew, who was gazing impassively through the grating at the upturned face.

  ‘Rough translation – I’m a celebrity, get me out of here. Fuck him!’

  She turned to Anderson, while pulling something from the belt of her jacket. ‘You know the meaning of the tattoos?’

  ‘Yes,’ he answered.

  ‘Then you know who he is. You know what he is.’

  ‘We both do,’ said Costello, her voice stronger. She walked over to stand beside Libby, catching sight of the bone-handled knife in the girl’s hand. She had seen that before – on the floor of the car park, lying in a pool of blood and oil.

  ‘Good. He’ll never stand trial in a British court, will he, DCI Anderson? Him or his bloody daughter? I’m going to cut his fingers off.’

  ‘Don’t do that, Libby,’ Anderson said. ‘Let him out. That grating’s padlocked, and water’s rushing in there. He’ll drown.’

  ‘Aye, I know. Removing his fingers would be kinder, make it quicker. So maybe I won’t. And that is the death of the Puppeteer.’

  At that moment, Howlett fell to the ground.

  Pettigrew grabbed Costello, pulled her behind a tree and crushed her against the trunk.

  Instinctively, Anderson flung himself sideways. He had registered a quiet thud. They were being shot at. After a little while, he cautiously raised his head.

  Libby had gone.

  Howlett was lying still. The only sound, apart from the pounding rain, was the sound of their own breathing.

  ‘If you move, DS Costello, I will fucking shoot you myself,’ said Pettigrew kindly. ‘Stay here, and don’t even fucking breathe!’