‘It’s not my project,’ Lydia said. ‘I’m just staying for a week or two. Then I’ll go home.’
‘Scotland, right?’ He managed to make it sound like ‘Narnia’. Like she was delusional to believe that such a place existed.
Lydia waited to see if he was going to say something else, but he just tapped his pencil onto the surface of his notebook, before flipping it shut. ‘Okay, then. If you think of anything else...’
‘I’ll let you know.’ Lydia said.
‘You do that.’
He put the notebook away. ‘Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Crow.’
‘Thank you for coming,’ Lydia said and then wanted to smack herself. This wasn’t a bloody tea party.
‘Give my regards to your uncle,’ Fleet said, pausing at the door.
‘My uncle?’
‘Charlie Crow. He owns this place, doesn’t he?’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I’m a local,’ he said, fixing her with a hard look. ‘Born and bred.’
Lydia got the warning loud and clear. He knew her family. Her spirits sank even lower.
* * *
Alone again, Lydia locked the front door, using the bolt at the top as well as the key. Then she went upstairs to the bedroom. She knew that if she didn’t do it straight away she would chicken out and have to get the train to the suburbs and move into her old bedroom. And she wasn’t going to take trouble anywhere near her parents. Her dad was the youngest brother in the Family and, unlike Michael Corleone, he had been allowed to escape the business. He had married a nice girl from Maidstone and built a quiet life out in the suburbs.
The bedroom was empty. Lydia stood in the doorway, feeling stupid, and then said ‘hello?’ which accomplished nothing except an increase in her personal embarrassment. ‘Thank you for hitting him,’ she said, anyway. ‘And the rest. You saved my life.’
The ghost didn’t appear and Lydia didn’t hear any voices. The air felt neutral and the citrus smell was just a memory. Just in case, Lydia added. ‘I’m going to take the other room. Don’t randomly appear in there unless you want me to have a heart attack.’
She closed the door and went up the stairs to her new room, calling Charlie as she did so. ‘Somebody just broke in and threatened me.’
Charlie didn’t miss a beat. ‘You need a cleaning service?’
‘No,’ Lydia said, wishing she didn’t know what that meant. When her Dad had sunk one too many beers on a Saturday afternoon, he’d often opened up with tales from the Crow family archive. They weren’t pretty.
‘You’re all right, though? Not hurt?’
Lydia blinked back sudden tears. ‘No. I’m fine.’
Charlie let out a breath. ‘Okay, good. Who was it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lydia said. ‘Who knows I’m here?’
‘You recognise the guy?’
‘I don’t know anyone. I only just got here, you know that.’ Lydia looked out of the bedroom window while she spoke. The street outside was quiet, pools of yellow light spilling onto the pavement and the shops opposite shuttered and dark.
‘Not one of your old clients?’
Lydia pulled the curtains shut. London felt so far away from her old life that she hadn’t even considered that possibility.
‘Lyds?’
‘I don’t think so. He didn’t look familiar.’ She closed her eyes, conjuring up the gun man. Not young with hair that was either shaved off or non-existent to start with. Anywhere between forty and sixty, with tanned skin and small eyes.
‘Family?’
Lydia knew he didn’t mean their family, he meant one of the three others which operated in London. Suggesting that one of the other three London Families had attacked a Crow could spark a war, and Lydia was shaking her head before saying ‘no, no, I don’t think so.’ Lydia was lying. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the gun man hadn’t been Pearl, Crow, Silver or Fox. Sensing things like that was the grand extent of her Crow Family magic, but she had promised her dad a long time ago that she would never, ever reveal it to Charlie. Or to anyone in the Family, for that matter. Lydia didn’t know if it was embarrassment on her Dad’s part or his tendency to be over-protective.
‘I’ll find out,’ Charlie said, sounding grim. Lydia knew that nobody in their right mind would threaten a member of their family unless they were riding in a tank. She didn’t want to admit it, but it was comforting to hear Charlie’s voice and know that the word would be out, that the protection that came from being a Crow was still in force. When she had been in Aberdeen she had been alone, maybe not entirely off the radar, but definitely on the periphery. Coming back to the city meant diving back into a world she had always been taught to be scared of. Now Lydia wondered whether her over-protective parents had, perhaps, had a point.
* * *
Lydia unwrapped the linen from its plastic packaging and began making the bed, thinking hard. If the man wasn’t Family then he must be very good at his job. You didn’t work as a pro and reach middle-age unless you were highly skilled or had protection of your own. Lydia felt herself shiver again, her hands shaking as she pulled and tucked the sheets. She shrugged off her leather jacket and peeled off her skinny jeans and climbed in. Just as she thought that perhaps she would be able to sleep, she remembered the important detail she had neglected to ask Charlie. Lydia leaned out of bed and released her phone from her jeans pocket, then tapped out a message.
Do you know DCI Fleet?
A moment later her phone rang.
Charlie’s voice was sharp. ‘You called the police?’
‘Obviously,’ Lydia said, holding the phone to her ear and staring at the ceiling.
‘Interesting choice,’ Charlie said, his voice dry. ‘You really are your father’s kid.’
Lydia stayed silent. She knew that she could have called Charlie instead, and the gun man splattered on the street would have disappeared. The cleaning service would have been swift and untraceable and she wouldn’t be giving a formal statement to the police tomorrow, but she would have owed Charlie in ways she didn’t want to think about. He was her uncle but he was Family first. Plus, you know, the cleaning service was fatal and that was wrong.
As always, the moral imperative had occurred worryingly low down in her list of concerns. It was one of the many reasons she had always abided by her parents’ wishes and stayed out of the Family business. She scared herself.
‘Don’t worry about Fleet,’ Charlie was saying.
‘I’m not,’ Lydia said. ‘Have you found anything about my visitor?’
‘He’s at the hospital, out cold with broken legs, ribs, arm and spine, and a shattered pelvis. He’s also cuffed to the bed, so he definitely won’t come at you, again,’ Charlie said, satisfaction rich in his voice. ‘But he’s just a hired hand. I’ll let you know when I’ve traced the head.’
‘You don’t have to,’ Lydia said. ‘The less I know –’
‘Quite right,’ Charlie said, his voice suddenly warm. ‘You always were sharp.’
Not that sharp, Lydia thought, putting her mobile onto the floor by the bed. I came back to London.
Chapter Three
Lydia hadn’t expected to sleep but PC Moorhouse was absolutely right, ten hours of deep unconsciousness turned out to be just what she needed.
Lydia located a bottle of flavoured water from her rucksack and took a swig in lieu of coffee. It was no substitute, naturally, but she didn’t feel quite up to getting up straight away so delicious caffeination would have to wait.
Lydia piled pillows and sat cross-legged on the bed, opening her laptop. First she re-read the emails from her last client, Mr Carter. She was hoping she had imagined the threats as worse than they were. Perhaps she had over-reacted in taking time off from the agency and running down south? London had proved itself not exactly safe as houses and images of frying pans and fires were dancing through her mind. Maybe she could just pack up her stuff and go home... After all, Mr Carter was a respectable business
analyst, not a thug.
A quick scan of the emails put paid to that comforting notion. Lydia didn’t need to re-read the measured advice from Karen, who had suggested, quite firmly, that she take a week or so ‘away’ and let things ‘simmer down’. Karen had been in the business for thirty years and was unshakeable. When Lydia had questioned whether leaving the country was an over-reaction, Karen had said that Mr Carter had visited the office in person and that Karen thought it wise to use physical distance as a short-term safety measure. ‘You’ve hurt his pride,’ she had said. Lydia had objected. Nothing about her investigation had been personal. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Karen had said. ‘He is used to obedience from his subordinates and doesn’t like to be contradicted. You exposed part of his life, and confronted his own ideas about himself. He doesn’t like to be judged so he is lashing out.’
‘I’m not judging him,’ Lydia had lied.
‘Doesn’t matter. He feels like he lost a game and to him, that is unacceptable.’
‘Sore losers overturn the board,’ Lydia argued, ‘they don’t suggest they are going to use the dark web to commission a hit on an innocent private investigator.’
Karen had pulled a sympathetic face which, somehow, made the whole situation three hundred times scarier. ‘The good news is, his sort get bored easily. He’ll move onto something else soon enough. It won’t take long for somebody else to piss him off, right enough.’
‘Great,’ Lydia still couldn’t believe one prick of a client could stomp over her life like this.
‘Go on a cruise. Visit Paris. Lie on a beach.’
‘All at once?’
Karen was already picking up the phone, moving onto the next item. She wasn’t being rude or heartless, she was just genuinely busy. It was one of the many things Lydia admired about Karen. Her success. Her work ethic. Her security. One day, Lydia wanted to be the boss. If you were the boss, nobody could fire you.
Back in her temporary bedroom in Camberwell, a cool blast of air brushed past Lydia’s cheek, lifting her hair and making the back of her neck prickle. She looked up and let out an annoyingly weak ‘ah!’. The jacket-boy was sitting next to her on the bed.
Heart thudding, Lydia managed to release two furious words. ‘Get. Away.’
The ghost unfolded from his cross-legged position and stood next to the bed instead, looking hurt. ‘Nice ’tude.’
Lydia knew that some of her anger was because she was embarrassed by her fear. After a lifetime of sensing the dead, she had thought herself past that. For as long as she could remember, she had felt the leftover emotions in the air, seen spirits out of the corner of her eye and heard their thin voices in quiet rooms and open spaces. So, this spirit was more corporeal and chatty than any she had ever experienced before, but she liked to think she would have taken his sudden appearance in her stride if she hadn’t been worrying about random gunmen and irate cuckolds.
He pushed the sleeves of his vile jacket up to his elbows. Light was spilling from the window onto his face, highlighting its slightly translucent quality, and an expression that appeared to be a battle between hurt and longing.
Lydia swallowed. Beneath her own fear was a strange excitement. Seeing a full spirit like this was something. It wasn’t true power, but it was a sign that she was a Crow after all. ‘Hello, again.’
‘You can still see me?’
‘Yep,’ Lydia replied. She felt a little bit sick. The way the outline of his clothes and head shimmered was making her feel off balance.
‘And you can hear me?’
‘I think we’ve established that.’
He was staring at her. ‘You have no idea how this feels...’
His voice seemed less odd but perhaps Lydia was just getting used to it. She tried to think of something to say. What could she ask that wasn’t insensitive? Have you lived here long? How did you die? Why are you still hanging around? The spirits of her youth had been shades and feelings, whispers of cold air and voices caught on the very edge of hearing, like badly-tuned radios. She was adrift. ‘I’m Lydia,’ she said and then remembered that she had already told him that.
‘I’ve never done anything like that before,’ he said abruptly.
‘Sorry?’
‘The shoving thing. And hitting that man. Until yesterday I couldn’t even touch anything, let alone lift it. And now –’ he reached out and plucked the edge of the curtain. ‘Look.’
‘Well I’m very grateful,’ Lydia said.
‘Why aren’t you freaking out?’ The ghost said. ‘I’m freaking out. Why are you so calm?’
Lydia shrugged. ‘You’re not my first.’ The man wasn’t looking at her and that made it easier to look at him. He really did look almost solid until he moved, it was unnerving. Every part of Lydia was screaming that he wasn’t there at all while her eyes insisted otherwise. ‘And I’m not afraid of the dead,’ she added. The living were more problematic, in her experience.
‘This is weird,’ the ghost said. ‘I wish I could drink. I could really do with a drink.’
‘What’s your name?’ Lydia said, trying to distract him.
He moved quickly, his outline shimmering in a way which made Lydia’s stomach lurch.
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Just being friendly,’ Lydia said, after swallowing hard.
‘I doubt it,’ he said. ‘No one can be this calm. There is something wrong with you.’
‘Hey!’
‘How long are you staying?’
‘Couple of weeks, probably. At least, that was the plan. Now I’m not sure,’ Lydia looked around the room, trying not to picture her attacker bursting through the door. ‘Maybe I’ll go to Paris.’
The man disappeared and Lydia stopped talking. She stared at the space so recently occupied by something that looked disturbingly like a real person, trying to decide if he had been rude or whether it was a ghost thing. Maybe he couldn’t control whether he appeared or not. She felt a shiver of sympathy; it must be awful to be in-between life like that, neither alive nor dead, unable to control or affect anything. Except, of course, that he had. He had saved her life.
Lydia rummaged in her rucksack for her emergency flask and took a swig of whisky to stop her hands from shaking. The alcohol burned her throat as she stayed, staring at the empty space, wondering if the ghost was going to reappear. She thought about taking another nip but knew she didn’t really need it and screwed the lid back on. Strange. She felt oddly pleased. Despite being brought up away from the Family, she had always been aware that she was a weak link. There were four magical families left in London and the Crows were the most powerful of them all. At least that’s what she had been brought up to believe. They kept their secrets very close to their chests and, since her mum and dad were keen to keep their precious only child as far from that shady world as possible, Lydia was pretty much in the dark as to what those secrets might be.
The Pearls had a facility for selling. They were the original entrepreneurs and their ancestors had run apple carts and bakeries, and had been the first to sell ice cream in the Victorian era and to make money by cutting their flour with dust. Never mind coals to Newcastle, the Pearls could sell shoes to a duck.
The Silver Family had a facility for lying and, unsurprisingly, ran a thriving law firm, and finally there was the Fox Family. Well, the least said about them the better.
Lydia’s mobile rang. Emma’s number.
‘When were you going to phone me, you git?’
‘That is spooky, I was just about to,’ Lydia said. ‘I’m in London.’
‘I know, your mum told my mum at bridge last night.’
Emma was Lydia’s normal friend from her normal upbringing and she had a normal life. Lydia loved her almost as much for those facts as she did for her sense of humour, kindness and energy.
‘It’s been madness here,’ Emma was saying. ‘Archie broke his arm playing football last week and the cat has a hyperthyroid, which is more expensive than it sounds, and t
he week before that Maise-Maise brought us all the sick bug –’
‘Oh no, I’m sorry,’ Lydia broke in. She wasn’t a good, attentive friend, she knew that. Guilt flooded through her. ‘How is Archie doing? Is he okay?’
‘He’s totally fine. Milking it, now.’
Lydia could hear the smile in her friend’s voice and she felt the familiar rush of love, admiration and confusion that her best mate, her old partner in crime, was now a mother. Responsible for tiny human lives. A finder of gym kits, a giver-of-medicine and all that. Emma had been a bit scatty, very sarcastic and a lover of late nights and afternoon naps. When she had turned away from clubbing and travelling and a career to get married and have her first baby aged just twenty-two, Lydia had been incredulous, but Emma was so warm and loving with her kids that Lydia felt as if she was witnessing a whole other, unexpected room in her friend’s personality. An entire wing that she hadn’t known existed.
Emma stopped the Archie-and-Maisie update and took a breath. ‘So, what’s new with you?’
‘Not much,’ Lydia said. ‘I’m back in town for a while, though, if you want to meet up.’ She held the phone away from her ear while Emma screamed her approval for the suggestion.
Hanging up, Lydia realised she was smiling. There were advantages to running away from Aberdeen and steady employment, after all. And the steady employment had been boring-as-hell until it had become scary-as-hell. Why had nobody warned her that being a private investigator was zero glamour, ninety-nine per cent boredom and one per cent fear-for-your-life? Okay, her boss had told her that on her first day but she hadn’t been listening. Lydia knew that she had been drifting through her twenties, failing to work out what she wanted to do with her life, but since that was what your twenties were for, she wasn’t too concerned. Apart from the notable exceptions (like married-to-man-of-her-dreams and living-in-domestic-heaven Emma), flailing and falling was on trend and nothing she needed to worry about until she was at least twenty-nine. Or maybe thirty.
But here she was, back in London, and feeling optimistic. Weirdly optimistic. Perhaps the fear last night had masked a small stroke?
The Night Raven Page 3
