‘Jesus,’ Emma said.
‘Right?’ Lydia was surprised at how much she was enjoying herself. Emma was hanging on her every word.
‘Everyone says that the Crows were the strongest. Is that still the case?’
‘Yeah,’ Lydia’s good mood evaporated instantly. ‘I don’t really know what that means, being brought up apart from them all. I’m in the dark.’
‘You sound angry,’ Emma said.
Lydia shrugged. ‘It’s just weird. You can’t miss what you never had, but it feels like I failed a test I wasn’t even given the chance to take –’ She broke off as a pair of small dark-haired women wearing matching pink t-shirts and cropped jeans, stopped abruptly in front of her to take a selfie.
Once they had manoeuvred around the tourists, Emma put an arm around Lydia’s waist and squeezed. ‘Your mum and dad were just being protective.’
‘I know,’ Lydia said, leaning into Emma for a moment before breaking apart to let a tour group past.
They walked back through the gallery, heading to the exit. ‘Look,’ Emma stopped. ‘More Crow stuff.’
‘That’s not ours,’ Lydia said, taking an instinctive step back. ‘At least, I don’t think so. I hope not.’
It was a painting on a piece of parchment which looked more like fabric than paper, lurking behind a protective sheet of glass. It was a stylised image of an enormous corvid. Its eyes round black holes and ragged wings spread.
‘Nachtkrapp or Nattravnen.’ Emma was leaning down, reading from the label.
‘The night raven,’ Lydia said, her throat dry. ‘It’s a bad omen. It doesn’t have eyes, just tunnels. And if you look into its face, you die.’
Emma raised an eyebrow. ‘Another lovely bedtime story? No wonder you went to Scotland.’
Lydia tried to smile.
‘What is it,’ Emma reached out.
‘Nothing,’ Lydia turned resolutely away from the painting. The Night Raven was just a myth. Brought over from Scandinavia centuries ago. It can’t hurt you, Lydia told herself, but her feet sped up as she headed for the exit and she could hear Paul Fox’s voice in her head: Fly away little bird.
Chapter Fourteen
After sinking a couple of bottles of red with Emma, Lydia was more than slightly tipsy. She squinted at her phone as she walked from the tube station back to the cafe. There was an email from Karen with the subject line ‘Good News’. Mr Carter had been into the office to make a full apology. Apparently things were off again in his soap opera of a marriage and Karen wanted to know how soon Lydia could come back to work. Lydia decided she was too drunk to work out how she felt about that.
In the café, there was an incredible warm and spicy smell. Lydia pushed through into the kitchen and found Angel presiding over a gigantic pot of soup.
‘How do you feel about getting CCTV here? Also,’ she stepped closer to the delicious aroma. ‘What is that?’
Angel didn’t answer, but she plucked a bowl from a shelf and added a ladleful before handing it to Lydia. ‘No cameras,’ she said. ‘Charlie said no point.’
‘I’m not Charlie,’ Lydia replied, ignoring the dip in her stomach. She wasn’t Charlie Crow, right enough. Or Henry. Or even third-cousin-twice-removed Phoebe. She was Lydia Crow, damp squib extraordinaire and she had would-be killers and Foxes strolling into her home, casually adding doors she didn’t need or want. ‘We could use some dummy ones down here, at least,’ Lydia said. ‘Better than nothing.’
Angel shrugged.
‘Did Charlie give you a budget for the renovations?’
Angel looked guarded. ‘Yeah. He’s booked everything, though. I’m just on site to make sure everything carries on without a problem.’
‘And to make incredible food,’ Lydia had been unable to resist the scent any longer and had dipped a spoon into the bowl. The layers of flavour from the tomatoes, garlic, onion and chilli, with the earthy notes of lentils and a bright green basil, combined in a smooth, creamy base that wasn’t too acidic nor too cloying. It was like every childhood bowl of comforting tomato soup Lydia had ever eaten, but a thousand times better. ‘Seriously,’ Lydia waved the spoon. ‘This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten. Ever.’
Angel didn’t smile but there was a slight softening around her eyes. ‘It’s just soup.’
‘I’m going to need some cash,’ Lydia said. ‘For some additions to the flat.’
Angel turned away and selected an onion from a basket. ‘You’ll have to ask your uncle.’
Lydia pushed through the door to the cafe. She opened the till and took out four fifties.
Angel was right behind her, onion still in hand. ‘I’ll have to tell him,’ she said.
‘Not a problem,’ Lydia said. Uncle Charlie had told her that he wanted her to feel safe. Lydia knew exactly what that required. ‘I’ll keep my receipts.’
* * *
The next morning, Lydia woke up and swigged water. She felt fine, which was the upside to daytime drinking. The fifty-pound notes from the cafe till were on her bedside table, next to a half-full pint glass of water.
She showered and got dressed, ignoring the fact that she hadn’t replied to Karen, yet. When her phone rang, showing Karen’s number, she turned it face down. Carefully not thinking too much about what she was doing, Lydia went downstairs to the abandoned office. The desk and chair were both basic IKEA models, but the chair was padded and better than sitting on her bed. She unscrewed the legs from the desk to make it easier to manoeuvre and then lugged both pieces of furniture up the stairs and into her flat. She reassembled the desk in the middle of the room and put the chair behind it, facing the door and with her back to the window. It wasn’t pretty, but it was functional. And since she had a proper job to go back to and this was just temporary, functional was all she needed. A very small part of Lydia knew that she wasn’t being entirely honest with herself, but she drowned it with a large mug of coffee and went shopping.
Three hours later, Lydia was admiring her handiwork. Empty camera cases, just for show, in the cafe and the corridor leading to the customer toilets. Top-of-the-range wireless cameras on the stairs and outside her front door and by the back entrance to the cafe, by the bins, with a live feed to her laptop. Charlie might render the footage useless if he came near, but hopefully he wouldn’t short them out unless he actually touched them.
* * *
Sitting in her makeshift office, Lydia checked her email and found a response from Verity. She confirmed that she met with Maddie on the fifteenth and left a contact phone number. Lydia dialled straight away.
‘Yes?’
‘This is Lydia Crow, I’m calling about Madeleine.’
There was a lot of traffic noise and Verity’s voice was hard to make out. ‘Sure.’ She sounded breathy, too, like she was speed-walking while speaking.
‘You said you haven’t seen Madeleine since the fifteenth. Have you heard from her at all?’
‘No,’ Verity said. ‘I told your uncle the same thing. I met Maddie for a coffee on the Tuesday afternoon. She wasn’t at all contrite and I was a bit cross with her. I didn’t stay long and it wasn’t a particularly warm parting.’
‘You argued?’
‘A bit, I suppose.’ Verity’s voice suddenly came through more clearly as she entered a quieter environment. ‘Honestly, I reached out because I thought Ivan must have tried something on, he’s an absolute sod for that, and I wanted to check she was okay. Maddie laughed at me.’
‘She laughed?’
‘Not very nicely,’ Verity said.
‘How would you characterise her mood?’
There was a short silence. ‘Giddy. Like she had just won the lottery or something.’
Lydia thanked Verity then headed to Charlie’s house. She could call him, she knew, but she wanted to look him in the eye while she asked him a few questions.
* * *
Charlie lived on Grove Lane in a Grade II listed Georgian three-storey terrace which was set back from the str
eet with an impressively long front garden. It was well-stocked with trees and bushes, adding an air of privacy and mystery. The foliage was alive with birdsong as Lydia walked up the path. The harsh warning call of a corvid sounded above the others and Lydia saw three magpies in the copper beech to her left. ‘Good morning,’ she said, minding her manners. Another four magpies flew down and lined up along the path, eerily quiet. Watching.
Lydia lifted a hand to press the doorbell but the door opened before she made contact. Charlie was standing in jeans and a white T-shirt, a piece of toast in one hand. ‘Good to see you, Lyds,’ he said through a mouthful of crumbs.
‘I’m not stopping,’ Lydia said, walking through the hallway with its original arched architrave and glass fanlight and into the living room. Bare white walls, stripped oak floorboards with a hand-knotted rug and three enormous wooden-framed windows filling one wall. A couple of comfortable chairs and a teetering pile of books were the only pieces of furniture, indicating that Charlie didn’t do a lot of entertaining in this room.
He didn’t take a chair, crossing to the empty fireplace instead and leaning against the wall next to it. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’
‘You didn’t tell me that you spoke to Verity. How did you find her?’
‘I knew Maddie worked at Minty PR and the boss there was very helpful in providing names of everyone she had been friendly with.’
‘Any reason you didn’t tell me?’
Charlie smiled. ‘Just a little test,’ he said. ‘I was curious as to how you would get on on your own.’ He finished the last bite of his toast and dusted his hands on his jeans.
Lydia tamped down on her irritation. ‘So you knew that she had lost her job at the PR place. Do you know where she was going every day? She was leaving the house like normal, her parents none the wiser.’
Charlie shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
There was the tiniest flicker of his eyes as spoke. Barely noticeable, just a tightening of the muscles, but Lydia felt a cold certainty settle in her stomach. He was lying.
Lydia waited, leaving a space for him to keep talking. Nothing. Finally, she said; ‘I thought you wanted Maddie found?’
‘Come on, Lyds. Of course I do.’
‘Then don’t play games.’ Lydia narrowed her eyes at him.
Charlie smiled back, friendly as a shark. ‘Got any news for me?’
‘The man who attacked me was Russian,’ she watched his face for a flicker but didn’t find one. ‘Which you probably found out before you killed him.’
Still nothing. Charlie was good.
‘Which is interesting given that Maddie had an altercation with a Russian businessman called Ivan Gorin. I would say that one of the Russian gangs was targeting Crows if it weren’t for the fact that he should have been in the hospital and Maddie walked away without a scratch. At least as far as we know... Daisy and John certainly didn’t mention any injuries or trauma.’
‘People should know better than to come at a Crow,’ Charlie said, with some satisfaction. ‘Anyone else on your radar? Any leads?’
Lydia decided not to tell him about Paul Fox. Not while her gut was screaming at her that she was missing something big, something she didn’t understand, yet. ‘Why aren’t you more worried about Maddie? What else do you know?’
‘Nothing, I swear.’
‘Your word means less and less,’ Lydia said and left before she could do any more damage. Fighting with the most powerful member of the Crow Family wasn’t a good idea even if he was her uncle.
* * *
Lydia’s face was freezing. She woke up with the sensation of ice on her cheeks and nose and, as she become fully conscious, her brain registered that the air she was inhaling was that of a midwinter day. In Scotland. On a mountain. Buried childhood instincts deep in her subconscious had worked out the problem before she opened her eyes, so she managed to make only the smallest of expressions of surprise. Jason was leaning over her, his face crumpled with concern. ‘You were talking,’ he said.
‘Good morning,’ Lydia said, pleased with her calmness. ‘Would you mind, perhaps, not leaning over me while I sleep? In fact, maybe you could respect my privacy and not hang about in my bedroom at all?’
‘What if you invite me?’
‘That would be different.’ And was never going to happen.
‘So,’ Jason said after a pause. ‘Do you want to know what you were saying?’
Lydia sat up, clutching the duvet to her chest. ‘What?’
‘About Fleet.’ Jason moved to the end of the bed and sat down. ‘I think you might have some unresolved feelings.’
‘Shut up.’ Lydia closed her eyes. ‘Eavesdropping is bad enough, but you’re supposed to be sneaky about it. You can’t tell me.’
‘I’m an honest guy,’ Jason said, shrugging. The movement was odd.
Lydia rubbed a hand over her face, trying to wake up properly so that she could deal with the ghost. ‘Seriously. You need to stop appearing like this. It’s not good for my health.’
‘Sorry.’ Jason looked genuinely contrite. ‘I heard you shouting and thought someone might have broken in again.’
‘Oh.’ Maybe it was a sad indictment of Lydia’s life, but she was touched by the ghost’s concern for her welfare.
‘I wish I could help,’ Jason was saying.’ I wish I could do something. Hitting that guy, it was a rush. It was scary but then I actually did something. I affected things, you know? Changed the world in a small way.’
Oddly, Lydia did know. First case she worked with Karen, when she got a result it was like she had finally found something which made a difference. It wasn’t glamorous but gathering the evidence on a cheating husband so that the wife could begin to move on was something.
Jason had his head tilted and was staring at her.
‘What?’ Lydia wiped her face with one hand, wondering if she had visible sleep-drool.
‘There is something different about you.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘No, there definitely is.’
‘Jason. Seriously, I don’t mean to be rude, but I just woke up.’
‘Got it,’ Jason said. There was a pause and he looked confused.
‘What is it?’ Lydia stretched, feeling her spine cracking.
‘When I want to move around, I just move. It’s like teleporting in Star Trek and it’s about the only cool thing in this whole gig.’
Lydia waved a hand. ‘So teleport. I release you.’
He pulled a face. ‘Very funny. I can’t.’
‘Maybe if you try again?’ Lydia said. She wanted to get up, shower, and drink a litre of coffee.
‘Let me see,’ Jason stood up and went to the wall. He put both hands against the surface and pushed. ‘See?’ He looked around. ‘I’m not going through it.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Lydia tried.
‘No, no, not sorry. I couldn’t touch anything before you came. I could move around this place just by blinking and I could walk through the walls like they were smoke. But I couldn’t touch things. I couldn’t pick anything up. Not even a pencil.’
‘Okay.’
‘And when you got here I picked up that pot. I wrestled with that man. I had to concentrate really hard and I felt my hands kind of wanting to slip through him, but I managed to do it. I lifted that plant pot and I pushed that man and I could feel them.’
‘And I’m very grateful,’ Lydia began. Jason’s pale face had two high spots of red on his cheeks and a hectic look in in his eyes. He began to pace, throwing his arms around as he spoke.
‘I thought it was the adrenalin or something, which is stupid because I don’t have adrenalin anymore. I don’t have a body, but I thought it was the situation, but it wasn’t. It’s you.’ He looked at Lydia. ‘When I’m near you, I don’t even have to try to remember that things should be solid, I don’t have to try. Look.’ He slapped the wall with the flat of his hand.
‘It’s not me,’ Lydia said. ‘I’m not
doing anything. I promise.’
Jason smiled at her. ‘It’s okay. I like it. I’m going to get you some coffee.’
‘Oh, thank God,’ Lydia said, forcing a smile.
The ghost opened the door and with a final, manic grin, swept from the room.
* * *
Lydia’s phone buzzed with a text message. It was Fleet asking to meet her at the park for ‘a quick chat’. Lydia tapped out ‘bridge to nowhere 30 mins’ and hit ‘send’ before she could talk herself out of it.
Fleet was waiting by the ironwork steps and he was either off-duty or trying to give that impression. ‘Sportswear?’ Lydia said as she reached him. ‘Dress-down Friday?’
‘I’m not at work.’
‘You’re a copper,’ Lydia said. ‘You’re always working.’
‘Fair enough,’ Fleet said, smiling. ‘Same goes for you, right?’
Lydia didn’t answer for a moment. It was taking every bit of concentration Lydia could muster not to reach out and touch him. The sport clothes weren’t for show and he had obviously been working up a sweat. It ought to have been disgusting but Lydia wanted to go up on tip-toe and bury her nose in his neck, to lick his beautiful skin and, quite possibly, do something that would get them both arrested for public indecency. As a result, her tone was sharper than she intended. ‘I’m not supposed to talk to you.’
‘Then don’t,’ Fleet said, warm eyes never leaving her face.
‘You’re not supposed to say that,’ Lydia said, looking away.
‘Because I’m a copper?’
Lydia nodded. ‘You tell me I have to talk to you and then I have no choice.’ The words were out and she wanted to snatch them back. Family first.
‘I want you to stay safe.’
‘Won’t you offer police protection?’
It was Fleet’s turn to nod, his face serious.
The Night Raven Page 15
