by Sam Millar
“My son is missing out there. A week tomorrow. He’s not a runaway, Shaw. I’m going to find him. Of that I am positive.”
“You’ve always lacked good judgment in certain areas, Calvert, even with your acknowledged ability. But do not allow that ability to become a liability.”
Jack nodded. “I appreciate all that you’ve done, Shaw, but just for the time being, keep this between us. It’s important that I get some breathing space. I’m following my instincts on this, and they have rarely let me down.”
“I can’t avoid the bone. I must make a report. You know that. It would be unprofessional—not to mention hot water for me with Wilson.”
“How long?”
Lifting a pen from the table, Shaw tapped his teeth for a few seconds before replying. “Two days. Three at the most, provided, of course, that I can find the bone which I seem to have misplaced somewhere …”
“Thanks.”
Shaw watched Jack walk towards the door. “What are you going to do?”
Opening the door, Jack replied, “Do? I’m going to be become very unprofessional. I’m going to find the remains of that child. Her bones will lead me to my son.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“A traveller, by the faithful hound, Half-buried in the snow was found …”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Excelsior”
EASING OUT OF the car, Jack quickly scanned the vast landscape with its colourless collage of a dying winter, trying to feel some sort of direction, feeling lost yet paradoxically belonging, as if the land had been waiting for him all these years, whittling out shadows with its knife-sharp memories.
Suddenly, it struck him—to the exclusion of all other childhood memories—that he had been here before, as a child, exploring the vastness of never-stopping land, awed by the wonder and force of nature.
Under no illusions about the size of the task ahead, he tightened the hood of the windcheater close around his throat and bent into the wind, conscious of the rucksack on his back enabling the wind to make him sway like a reed.
Officially, they were on the other side of winter, when spring should be showing some telltale signs of encouragement, but there was still a nasty bite in the air, and Jack’s skin felt as if a potato peeler was trying to scrape it off.
At least the hardened snow was receding. Along with some other revelatory signs of a reluctant spring, patchy areas of unfamiliar grass and weeds were tunnelling their way to the top, enabling his footing to stay the course. At the bottom was a rock-filled creek with ice patches along the shore. Further out, the ice thinned where the water ran faster.
Just this morning, an ornithologist from the town’s museum had informed him that the only place he would find a murder of crows, at this time of year, would be in the middle of—
“Barton’s Forest?”
“Yes,” the ornithologist had replied, somewhat puzzled but seemingly impressed by Jack’s quick assertion. “How did you know?”
“A hunch. An educated guess.”
Of course. It had to be Barton’s Forest. It was all beginning to make sense, thought Jack, trying desperately to place the pieces of the puzzle into their right positions. He could hear Adrian’s voice, lingering somewhere in the back of his skull, like a leaf from a notepad: Dad, do you know if there was ever an old abandoned graveyard, over near Barton’s Forest?
Yesterday—shortly after talking to Shaw—Jack had called on Mister Fleming, Adrian’s English teacher. No, the pupils had not been assigned any essays on graveyards. Fleming had smiled at such a bizarre question but the smile had soon faded when he noticed the storm attached to Jack’s face.
Now, isolated and alone, Jack stood and observed the flat expanse of the lake’s glassy surface gleaming in the distance, ice coated firmly on top like a layer of smooth metal; he thought how easily a soul could slip into the thinness of the ice, mistaking its strength and calmness.
Could this have been where Adrian had been, that night when he came home soaked and shivering? Adrian had said that he slipped over near Coldstream Dam. Had that been a lie?
Jack shuddered involuntarily and quickly banished any other negative thoughts from his head.
About to begin his journey, he saw a movement on the trees in the distance—a black vibrating friction. Hastily, he extracted the binoculars from the rucksack and tried to focus on the movement. Birds—crows?—somersaulting above the confluence of trees, finding the air current before returning to their nests, covering the treetops in blackness, as if the trees were wholly made from black feathers.
The sky beyond them was reddish with patches of purple, like torn and bruised flesh, and he tried to judge the distance and species, holding the birds in the circle of the binoculars. It was tricky, trying to measure distance accurately except by reference to something else: a solo tree, perhaps; another bird; a human.
“A mile. Has to be about a mile,” he mumbled, packing the binoculars, knowing it could be well over a couple of miles where the birds nested. And what if they aren’t crows? What if they are starlings, or simply—?
“Shut up! Shut the fuck up! They are crows, you tormenting bastard! They are!”
But waves of anxiety and doubt rolled through him the closer he came to the trees with their feathered lodgers. He could hear no telltale cawing, only wind and the sound of his heart thumping in his head, and already he felt the emptiness of defeat.
The intensity of the climb stole his breath, leaving him gasping for air. Exhausted, he collapsed unceremoniously close to the first group of trees, and closed his eyes. Too much liquor and too many TV dinners had taken their toll. He felt old and embarrassed at his lack of fitness. His arse was cold and numb as the dying sun set neatly behind him, his shadow an obscenely long smear of darkness.
Just as he closed his eyes for a breather, a sound roused him. At first, it sounded like dry twigs being rubbed, but the more he listened, the more he was convinced it was the language of the crows echoing between the trees, whispering secret messages to each other, alerting one another to the danger of a trespasser.
Eager now, he pushed himself up, galvanised by the sound, and followed it; its siren-like power dragging his worn-out legs. A few times, he stumbled—once upon a hidden, jagged rock, tearing his pants and skin—but still he moved with purpose, and was rewarded, a few minutes later, by kamikaze crows, swooping down perilously close to his head, attempting to chase him back from whence he had come. Defensively, they began to shit, pancake his face and clothing with their droppings, pummelling the top of his windcheater.
“That’s right! Come on, you feathered bastards!” Removing the gun from inside his coat, he brandished it like a madman before firing directly into the air, deliberately missing, intentionally scaring.
It worked. Only a few brave stragglers remained while the rest flew to the summit of the trees, caw-cawing in an opera of indignation.
Slightly dazed, Jack proceeded onwards, finding himself deeper in the forest’s stomach. Again he heard sounds, but this time followed by stillness. This was the sound of nothingness, as if he had suddenly stepped off the edge of the world.
Had he travelled left instead of right, he would have missed it. He later wondered what would have happened had the crows not forced his redirection. Ridiculous, of course, to believe that they had somehow purposely intended for him to find it: the carcass of a bird, perfectly shaped like a plastic toy discarded at Christmas, resting inside thorny, evergreen shrubbery.
Bending slightly—not yet touching—he simply observed the story before his eyes. The missing bone leg helped the story on. Jack imagined the dying bird being banished by the council of crows, its missing leg a liability, its oozing bloody scent an open invitation to every would-be predator and enemy from within a mile radius. The bird had probably risked the thorns, believing, rightly, that they would be a deterrent to any stalker: self-preservation—especially with death knocking on the door—being the greatest spur of all life.
&nbs
p; “Smart little bastard!” He smiled before noticing the darkness beneath the carcass.
The bones rested upon a glove of feathers and Jack removed one cautiously, as if he were defusing a bomb. His heart beat with slight jumps as he placed the feather in a plastic ziplock, praying that Shaw would find a match with the one from Adrian’s room.
Rewarding himself, Jack removed a cigarette from his top pocket, added flame, and inhaled, gratefully, allowing himself some time to think, allowing the cigarette to burn in his hand while he played out the scenario in his head.
“You were here, son. I know it. You probably bent down at this exact spot.” A wry smile appeared on Jack’s face. “Did you find this bird, wounded, hobbling about the forest? Was it you who placed it in the thorn bush for safety? What else did you do? Where did you discover the bone? C’mon, Linda, help me here.”
With a Swiss army knife, he carved a marking into the tree adjacent to the bush. A few seconds later, he removed a notepad and pen, scribbling down some information, trying to map exactly where he was. Lastly, he took a mental picture of his surroundings, wishing he had remembered to bring his camera.
There was one last thing he needed to do before heading back. He fumbled for his mobile, needing to alert Shaw that he had a feather and that it was vital to have it analysed, ASAP.
In his rush, he dropped the phone and it bounced on contact with his rugged boot, skidding off it like a skimming stone, before sliding down a small embankment of loosened rocks and hardened muck.
“Shit!” He cursed his clumsiness, blaming the fatigue settling in. Later, he would reflect on that minor incident and the major consequences it forced.
It was not a natural clearing. It was temporary, like the inhabitants. The bones were covered in decayed foliage, staining the original whiteness into a blackish green. At first, while retrieving the phone, he thought they were simply carcasses of other birds and that this particular area was a graveyard for them—one he had accidentally stumbled upon. But with the slightest tilt of his head and craning of his neck, he could see the saucer-sized piece of bone semi-hidden in the ground, protruding like a miniature moon. He knew instinctively that it was too large to be a bird’s; believed it to be a human skull; knew in his heart the ownership.
He could see the bones of the skeleton waiting patiently underneath the puckered and hardened soil, waiting for this moment to tell their tale like a gathering of cairns; could see the latent brains squeezed out like toothpaste.
The laddering of the ribs was almost perfect, and the skull seemed so small that he felt he could hide it in his palm. But the rest of the skeleton—from the waist down—was violated, unmoored from any decency the earth afforded it, the clothes it had once worn now threadbare rags.
Jack stared at the small body, mangled beyond belief, but not so mangled that he couldn’t tell it had belonged to a girl. There was little doubt in his mind that this was the McTiers’ little girl, Nancy. The skin—what little was left—was a blue hue. The ghostly blue was there in every line of her devastated face. Those who had loved her were going to suffer grief beyond measure and there was nothing he could do to help them, knowing that he was barely able to help himself at this moment.
Not yet seven, you had hardly begun your life before it ended, thought Jack bitterly. Who could do such a thing to a child, commit such a crime? Especially such a crime as he knew this most certainly would be revealed as. The post-mortem would have the final say but he knew the outcome. Yes, he was very afraid that he knew, and someone would soon be knocking at the McTiers’ front door, telling them what had happened to their little girl, offering condolences that meant sweet fuck all to a devastated parent.
He tried to pull his eyes from the partial face with its long dishevelled hair, but his eyes returned with a will of their own, forcing him to look. A symphony of sensations—mainly revulsion—played inside him, but he quickly pushed them away. Shaw was correct: become emotionally attached and all you will do is hinder, never solve. Be callous, detached and professional. Think analytically—and who the hell knows? You just might catch the perpetrator of this ghastly crime.
Dusk was just darkening the skyline, giving it a vague purple tinge that made the filthy dying snow look shabbier, the scene more subdued and wasted. Leaning against the tree, Jack removed another well-earned cigarette. He struck a match and its sulphur stung his nostrils. Slightly dazed by the whole experience, he inhaled, and the smoke—like his thoughts—meandered through the air, drifting lazily upward, unfettered. Only after the cigarette was finished did he make the phone call, not to Shaw but to Benson.
“Harry? No, I’m not pissed off at you. Will you stop blabbering? Shut up! Just listen. I need you to get a team together, along with a chopper. I think I’ve found the McTier girl. I’m out at Barton’s Forest, at the eastern part of the lake, just where the mass of trees begins. Hurry—darkness is falling very quickly here.”
That was all he said, before snapping the phone shut, chopping off Benson’s hyped voice and the million questions escaping at once from his friend’s eager mouth.
Initially exhausted, both mentally and physically, Jack felt strangely lucid now as he pocketed the phone, waiting for the whirl of the chopper to penetrate the sky above.
He glanced at his watch. Fifteen to twenty minutes, if luck was on his side.
Regardless of his training, he was conscious of the body, a few feet away, and knew that he should ignore it, isolate it from his mind. He tried to conjure some kind of sequence of proceedings to bring her to this moment, to trace a chronology of events that explained her disappearance. Don’t allow yourself to be sidetracked. Conscious observations might turn potentialities into actualities, and you wouldn’t want that, would you? Changing probabilities? No, of course not. Too sore at the minute, cloaked in self-pity and useless to everyone—especially this little girl and your son.
It was the body’s left hand that drew his attention to the item poking slightly from a curled finger bone.
Bending slightly down, he used his pen to tease the item out carefully, spearing it with the nib.
A surge of panic rose up in his throat. It was a sweet, its wrapping badly damaged by the elements. He could make out only the slightest colour from the wrapper, faded almost white. The colour was red, swirling like a barber’s pole.
Yet, despite the wrapper’s wretched condition, something in his stomach told him that this was similar to the wrapper he had found in Adrian’s room. The one stuck to Adrian’s socks.
“Oh dear lord …”
This startling revelation was the final straw, and suddenly Jack Calvert could no longer contain the despair that had been building inside him; the despair he had camouflaged so well. He sobbed, bitterly and alone.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.”
Edmund Burke, Trial of Warren Hastings, Vol. 2
WHEN THE REVEREND Richard Toner, vicar at the Church of Saint James, heard about the decapitated body found at the old Graham building, his worst fears quickly came to the fore. So far, the police had not been able to identify the decapitated body, and had called on anyone with information to come forward. However, even though Richard knew that it was his Christian duty to call the police, tell them what he thought he suspected, he was not willing to open this particular can of worms—even for God.
The darkness of the small church was broken only by the glow of the moonlight filtering through the stained-glass windows. The smell of melting candles and incense lingered while Richard knelt, praying to God.
Statues of agonised angels with majestic faces stared down from niches, seemingly judging him with their grey, cemented eyes.
Easing himself up, he grimaced, hearing his bones crack and pop, like a breakfast cereal. Arthritis had devastated most of his body, turning the most mundane tasks into Herculean endurance tests, humbling him, making him feel like poor Job on the dun
ghill, making him feel like a proper shit.
“Was that God or the devil you were praying to?” asked a voice in the darkness, startling him.
“What? Who’s there? What are you doing in the church?” He stumbled, slightly.
“I should ask you the same question.”
Richard needed more light. His eyes could barely see in the hushed darkness. He reached for the dimmer switch.
“Don’t,” said the voice, calmly yet effectively, with a hint of warning in it.
The impertinence! Was it one of those wretched homeless people, one he had reported to the police for loitering in his grounds, urinating up against God’s holy walls?
“How did you get in here?”
“God opened the door for me. Wasn’t that sweet of him?”
“You shouldn’t be in here. Tuesday nights are specifically for—”
“Those are reproductions of old masters. Aren’t they incredible?” said the voice, indicating the family of paintings attached to the wall, directly above Richard’s head.
“I really must ask you to leave—”
“He’s my favourite. El Greco, isn’t it? His models came from the lunatic asylum in Toledo and the local prison. Did you know that?”
“What is it you want?” asked Richard, nervous and annoyed.
“Think about it: all those rapists, murderers, perverts and child molesters, transformed to saints on canvas. Powerful, isn’t it, the way the eye can lie?”
The blasphemous tone unnerved him more. “There is no money in the church, at this time of night. If it’s food you’re after, then I do have a little”
“I know you have a little, Small Dickey,” said the voice snidely. “We all knew …”
Small Dickey? Richard hadn’t heard that horrible nickname in a long time—a very long time, indeed. They used to say it, whisper it behind his back, those wretched, good-for-nothing, ungrateful little bastards in their smelly rags.
