King Crow

by Michael Stewart

  The point was, I wouldn’t have had him down as a vigilante either. Not that I really knew what that was, but I’d heard it involved a lot of violence. I found out later exactly what they were doing and it was pretty brutal stuff. I got told that they dragged one of the suspected drug dealers back to someone’s flat and tied him to a chair. They tortured him and messed him up really bad. He had to go to hospital and have a lot of stitches. I suppose it’s easy to get the wrong impression of someone.

  Although I’ve not known Ashley long, I really thought I knew him well enough and I definitely wouldn’t have put him down as a killer. I know he killed Andy’s brother but that was an accident. Maybe killing Smiler was an accident. But he’d said he’d done it for me. That’s what he said, so that I could see the birds, the ravens. And that’s what I can’t understand.

  I’m driving a stolen car and Ashley has got a road atlas on his knee. We’re heading towards Scotland. My idea. When we stayed in Dumfries there was no one around. You could walk for days and never see anyone. It seems like a good place to hide out. Ashley wasn’t so keen, but he didn’t put up much of a fight either. I don’t think either of us are thinking straight. I can’t get Becky out of my mind, and what sticks is the look of revulsion she gave me just before she ran off. It was like me, Ashley, Smiler, the ravens... all tarred with the same brush. Blackened by the dirt of the world. Something you don’t want to even get close to, let alone touch.

  I’m trying not to think about what’s happened. The only way I can get the image of Smiler’s mud-caked corpse or Becky’s look of horror from my head is to focus on birds. Each time either of these images pops up I replace it with an image of a petrel. One of the best things about that trip to Dumfries and Galloway, after seeing the golden eagle, was seeing some storm petrels. Not much bigger than a sparrow, all black with a white rump. I saw one on its own at first. It was fluttering over the water near to where the harbour was, its wings held up in a ‘v’ and its feet pattering across the waves. Then I saw more. There was a trawler coming into the harbour and there were five or six in its wake. I ticked it off my list. But I’ve never seen the less common Leach’s petrel and I’d really like to bag that one. I’d say it was a bit bigger than a storm. And the other difference is the Leach’s has a forked tail.

  We can lie low there for a bit, but after that, I don’t know, I really don’t know. Ashley has hardly said anything at all. When I came up with the Dumfries idea he just nodded. It’s dusk. I’m thinking about our next move. We’ve still got some money from the drugs. We could stay in a B and B. Plenty of them in Dumfries. But it might look suspicious. I’m thinking it through when Ashley says, —Andy’s dead.

  I don’t know why he is saying this because we both know Andy is dead. It seems a strange thing to say when he hasn’t really spoken for several hours. Then he says, —Dave is going to kill us. We’re dead.

  I think this through. Dave can only kill us if he catches us. And I’m thinking about what Becky said about going to the police. I’ve already spoken to Ashley about this twice but both times he just shook his head. What I need to do is convince Ashley this is the right thing to do, but if killing Smiler wasn’t an accident or self-defence, it’s going to be hard to convince Ashley to go to the police.

  I ask him again. —Why did you do it?

  —I’ve told you.

  —Did he come at you?

  I’m thinking back to the shadow boxing incident. There’s no doubt about it, Smiler was a bit unhinged. I can easily imagine him getting into an argument with Ashley and them fighting. Perhaps Smiler was drunk and fell over, banged his head on the pot-bellied stove. There are lots of explanations that put Ashley in the clear.

  —I did it for you.

  It just doesn’t make sense. He’s never shown any interest in the birds at all. Come to think of it, he hasn’t ever really shown any interest in me either. I’m wondering now what it was that brought us together. For me he was the cool kid and the hard kid – an object of fascination. But for him? Then I get it, he’s not the cool kid at all. He’s another outcast. The girls he was fooling with that day, they weren’t interested in him. He needs me to feel good about himself, because I see him the way he wants to be seen. Except I don’t, not any more.

  It’s getting dark and it’s raining. I spot a police car in the rear view mirror. I don’t say anything, I just sit there hoping it will go away. But it doesn’t, it stays right behind us. Ashley hasn’t noticed. Then its blue lights start to flash and the sirens build. Ashley looks in the mirror. I can see panic on his face. I put my foot down. The police car follows us. It gains on us. I drive off the road, the police car follows. I stop the car and we both jump out. We run through the rain across the road and into a hedgerow. Two policemen chase us but we soon outrun them.

  We run past the back of houses, down narrow streets, back alleys. We stop and get our breath. We are on the outskirts of some town. We haven’t gone that far from Helvellyn. According to the atlas this is probably Carlisle. We’ll have to stay here for the night, go to Scotland in the morning, unless I can persuade Ashley to go to the police. If I can convince him killing Smiler was an accident, then I might be able to do that. I wait for him to get his breath, then I say, —So, what next?

  We check into a B and B. We say we are eighteen. I don’t think she believes us but she doesn’t ask questions, just leads us to our room, at the top of the house. There’s a skylight and you can see a sliver of moon refracted through the rain-spattered glass. I make us both a cup of tea. We sit on the bed in silence, drinking the tea. It’s another one of those days where lots of weird things happen. Finding ravens for the first time, finding a dead body, finding out the dead body is someone we know, realising it is my best friend who has killed the man. Then losing Becky, going on the run, stealing a car, being chased by the police, finding out my best friend isn’t my best friend, and now we are here in this rented attic room sitting on a bed, drinking tea.

  This has stopped being fun. Every time I think of Becky I feel hollow and raw, and I can’t stop thinking of her. It’s nothing like The Met. For a start, it’s gone on for too long. Even an extended episode would have come to the end by now. I have nothing to say to Ashley, there doesn’t seem any point. I don’t even want to look at him. I text Becky. I sit on the bed waiting to get a text back, but nothing. Has she received the text? Is she ignoring the text? She must think I’m like Ashley but I’m not like Ashley. I don’t kill people, only by accident. I certainly don’t kill people to use as bait. I’m thinking I need to get myself out of this situation and back to Becky as soon as I can. The only solution, go to the police. I could go on my own, confess to it all, but confess to what? I could say I’ve lost Ashley and I don’t know where he is.

  Who’s to say anyone has found Smiler anyway. There will be hikers up there and shepherds, but it’s possible no one has found him just yet. If I went to the police now and told them about Dave before they find out about Smiler then they could protect me. The truth is, I don’t know what to do and I can’t stand the silence anymore. The silence says I’m sharing a room with a murderer. The silence says Becky has left me. The silence is not good. I reach over to the portable telly and switch it on. I flick through the channels and see a photograph of me on the screen. There aren’t many photographs of me. This is one from last year, mum was trying out the camera on her new phone. Then I think, mum must have given them the photo. Why would she do that?

  Then it cuts to a news reporter and he is standing outside our school. The reporter says,

  —The boy who was reported missing three days ago has been named as Paul Cooper, but they don’t mention the other missing boy, they don’t mention Ashley O’Keefe. My photo appears again. Three days, it feels a lot longer than that. Why did he say me and not Ashley? Perhaps it is done alphabetically. Still, I don’t like going first.

  —Paul Cooper is a pupil of Roseway School in Salford. He has a history of truancy and exclusion.

&n
bsp; It cuts back to the school gates and the reporter. You can just make out the blue Care Bear on the razor wire.

  —Police are wanting to question the boy in connection with the death of Brian Smith whose body was found in Helvellyn this afternoon.

  Who is this Brian Smith? I wonder, then I realise, that must be Smiler.

  —The boy is thought to be driving a stolen car. His description corresponds with that of a boy seen stealing a car in Kendal.

  So this is why it is on the local news. BBC Cumbria or whatever it is.

  —The car was found in Helvellyn last night. Police are asking witnesses to come forward with any information which may lead to his whereabouts.

  I look over to Ashley. He is staring at the telly. I switch it off. —Listen, I say, —we can’t stay here. If the owner has seen the news, she’ll ring the police.

  Ashley doesn’t really seem to be taking it in. I get up. I shake Ashley. I slap him, I punch him in the face. Finally, I poke him in the eye, nothing. I go over to the skylight and open it.

  We walk across the roofs of a row of terraced houses. As we do, a slate slips and falls. I peer over the edge to see if anyone has spotted it, but the street is deserted. We carry on walking. Ashley receives a text. He stops to read it. I shake him and take the phone off him. It’s from Dave and it says: I am coming. I hand the phone back to Ashley. Dave must have seen the news too from wherever he’s been staying, perhaps in a hotel in Kendal. Who knows? Still, he will go to Helvellyn rather than Carlisle so that buys us a bit of time. We get to the end of the roof. We find a drainpipe and climb down.

  We walk around the streets looking for somewhere to hide out. It’s still raining and quite soon we are soaked. I’m worried about my books getting wet but they are inside the lining of my coat so should be ok. Eventually we find an empty house with a ‘to let’ sign outside. We go round the back and peer in. It is dark. I go to the back door and, wrapping my jumper round my hand, I punch a glass panel out of the door. I reach in and release the Yale mechanism. We’re in.

  There’s nothing downstairs, other than a fitted kitchen. We go upstairs. There’s a double bed with a mattress on top. It will do for tonight.

  —Listen, let’s doss down here for now, I say. But Ashley is distant. He slumps in the corner of the room and builds up a spliff. He doesn’t offer me any and I don’t want any of it. I’m trying to think straight. If Dave goes to Helvellyn, then what next? There is nothing that connects us to Carlisle and no one who knows we went to Carlisle. Becky. He could get to Becky. I try not to think what he will do to Becky. She doesn’t know where we are. I didn’t say in the text, just that I was safe and missing her. Why hasn’t she texted back? Maybe Dave has got to her already. I send her another text. I’m running out of credit, only enough for another couple of texts. I ask if she’s alright. I wait for a reply. Nothing.

  Maybe she has her phone switched off. She’ll be with her parents. They will have had their evening meal, sitting in that fancy living room round that fire, talking about their holidays. Not watching television because they don’t have a television. But what if they’re not? What if they come home to find the house has been broken into and their daughter has gone, kidnapped by Dave. Or worse she’s been sexually assaulted or butchered. Butchered. Sexually assaulted. Butchered and sexually assaulted. Sexually assaulted and butchered. Blood on the walls. Dave has written something on their living room wall with Becky’s blood, and it says ‘coming, ready or not’. Try not to think about that. Go to the police tomorrow. You can’t be responsible for Ashley, Ashley is nothing to do with you, but what if Ashley says I did it? Who knows what Ashley will do? I lie down on the bed. Sleep. Try and get some sleep. But I can’t. Thoughts are colliding in my mind. Ashley, Becky, Dave, Smiler, the police. I try and think about birds but it just doesn’t work. It’s the first time it’s never worked and I don’t know what to do without birds. They have always been there, they have always worked.

  I think about all the birds of prey but their eyes all look cold and accusing, like Dave’s. I try and think of other birds, but every one of them has those eyes. Then the storks appear. Every time I close my eyes, the storks are there. Becky still hasn’t texted. What to do? How much credit has Ashley got on his phone? Probably not that much, but more than me. It’s late. She might be in bed. I can’t blame her for wanting an early night. She is probably asleep. That’s why she hasn’t answered her text, her phone will be switched off for the night. Stop worrying about her. But that’s just it. I can’t. I can’t stop worrying about her. There is me, the one listening to the one worrying about her, then there is the other me, the one doing the worrying. Now I’m arguing with myself. Going round and round. Stop worrying. But I can’t stop worrying. I need to know she is safe. Wait until the morning, get some sleep. But I can’t sleep until I know.

  Herons

  A red-backed shrike, a woodcock and a raven. I was, in all honesty, hoping for a few more firsts, but the raven thing has kind of spoiled the anticipation. I’m not even looking out for anything. It’s funny though, because even when I’m not looking out for anything, I can’t help noticing, very high up above my head, two buzzards soaring on a thermal. They always hunt from a high vantage point. I wonder what they can see from up there. They must be able to see for miles. As far as Helvellyn, easily. I try and dismiss the thought. It’s actually the commonest bird of prey in this country, although most people on the ground fail to spot them because they never look up that far.

  They’re a bit like an eagle really only smaller and less impressive. I watch them soar and then dramatically dive for ages, before hitting a thermal again and gently rising. They travel miles without flapping a wing. You see swifts that high up. Sometimes gulls too. Then I see a grey heron, flying low over the houses. I’m trying not to get distracted by birds. I’ve left Ashley sleeping on the mattress with his coat over him. I left a note saying that I’ve gone to get us something to eat. That it will be safer if I go on my own and to wait there until I get back.

  Still no text from Becky, but several missed calls from mum and a lot of texts from her, too. I’ve taken a twenty out of Ashley’s pocket. So I should be able to get us both breakfast and there should also be enough to get a ten-pound phone card for my phone. I’m going to ring Becky. No point keeping texting her. I buy a local newspaper. I want to know if we’re in it and what it says about us. I’ve got my hood up so I shouldn’t get any attention. There’s nothing distinctive about me so it’s not as though I’m easy to spot. In ornithological terms, I’m just another small dull brown bird. Of no interest to anyone really. Herons are very patient hunters and can stand dead still for long periods of time. As long as you stand still you’re ok really. A fish is looking for movement, not shape or colour, just movement.

  It’s still early, there are not many people about. I pass a TV shop and watch. Nothing about us. One of the tellies is on the blink, not a good advert for a TV shop. You’d be better just switching it off. There’s a woman with a clipboard, but she doesn’t even bother approaching me and there are two fat girls stuffing sausage rolls into their mouths. I quite fancy a sausage roll. The last time I had a sausage roll was over three years ago. Christmas day 2005. Doctor Who was on the telly. It was the one where the Doctor regenerates. Rose and Mickey go shopping and are attacked by masked Santas. When they get home they find a Christmas tree, and they realise that Jackie didn’t buy it.

  I don’t like Christmas, my birthday is quite close to Christmas, and stupidly each year, I think I might get a card or even a present for either my birthday or Christmas from dad. It’s not happened yet. But there’s always that chance. That particular Christmas it was my thirteenth birthday. I was hoping for snow, but all we got was drizzle.

  Just me and mum. My sister was round at a friend’s. There had been some words about that and she’d stormed off. Mum did ask if I wanted a turkey, but there didn’t seem any point. We had the veg though, sprouts and roast potatoes. She made some gr
avy and we even had stuffing, but instead of turkey we had sausage rolls. Mum let me have a small glass of wine with the meal. I gulped it down and it went straight to my head. I felt like I was floating. I won a pink plastic hairslide in my cracker, my mum won a green plastic angel. We both wore our coloured tissue paper crowns and told each other jokes. I laughed. Mum quietly sighed.

  I’d asked for an iPod. I got a hooded top. But that was fine. Mum kept asking me if I liked it and I said I did, which was true, but I don’t think she believed me. Then she said that she’d tried to get me an iPod but they’d sold out. I knew this wasn’t true but I just nodded my head. Mum’s eyes were watering and I was embarrassed. I took my fork and shovelled in a mouthful of sausage roll. I swallowed and took another mouthful. Mum didn’t look up. Drips of water from her eyes were landing on her carrots. I only wanted the iPod so I could upload bird songs. But it was ok because I had a CD with a lot of them on. I tried to tell my mum this but she got up and left the room.

  When she came back she seemed more together. She took the half empty bottle of wine from the middle of the table.

  —Want another Paul?

  —Are you sure mum?

  —Sod it, it’s Christmas.

  She filled up both our glasses. We watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special. For some reason, this made mum cry again. I wish I could comfort her, but putting my arm round her doesn’t feel right somehow, and I can’t think of the right thing to say.

  On the television there was a killer Christmas tree, with its arms spinning, approaching the Doctor’s assistant, Rose, her mother, and her boyfriend. They were recoiling in horror. It should have been funny, but it wasn’t, it was sinister. A distorted Christmas carol played in the background. It sounded demented. The Doctor came round and used his sonic screwdriver just in time. There were all these people standing on the edges of buildings ready to jump off. When the doctor and Rose got ready to go off in the Tardis once more, leaving Mickey and Rose’s mum, mum started to cry again.