He waited until she was safely inside the vehicle, had started the engine, and was heading towards the ramp before he made his move. Knowing she would probably slow when she reached it, he positioned himself between a pillar and another parked car, giving the driver an apologetic wave as the car was forced to break just as it was about to reverse out. Then he shot forward, his body low to the ground in order to remain below her line of sight if she happened to look in her rear-view mirror. Expertly, he slapped a tiny, black, metal object just to the left of the exhaust. It wasn’t in an ideal position, but he hoped it would stay in place long enough to lead him to where she was going.
Muttering to himself, repeating her car’s registration number over and over, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his mobile phone, blowing his cheeks out when he’d made a note of the number. Assuming the car was hers, even if she wasn’t heading home right now, he’d be able to find out where she lived. Plus a few other things about her. He might have to pull a few strings (okay, more than a few) but it was doable.
In no hurry now, Crow sauntered back to his own car and switched on a piece of kit he shouldn’t really have in his possession. Oh well, to his knowledge no one had noticed it missing yet, and if they did, it was unlikely the finger would be pointed at him.
There she was, a nice little red dot moving steadily down one of Oxford’s main arteries, heading out of the city.
Starting the car, he shook his head in exasperation. Why the hell was it so hard to track Rochdale? Every time Crow got close, the man disappeared. It was as if he had an invisibility cloak or something. Crow didn’t even know whether the guy had transport. He did know that no vehicle was registered to him. He knew a few other things too, all of them disconcerting, but now wasn’t the time to dwell on them.
Rochdale had seen something in the girl which had interested him. Whatever it was, it had been enough for him to find her outside the theatre.
To Crow’s intense irritation, he was no nearer to finding Rochdale. The only lead he had was the girl, and he’d no intention of losing her.
Chapter 5
Olivia
It was the early hours of the morning before I pulled up to my cottage. My eyes were gritty with tiredness and stung from the salt of too many tears, my whole body ached, and my mind and heart were sore and bruised. It had taken me three hours to get home, one of them having been spent trying to extricate myself from Oxford; it seemed the whole city was in lock-down. The rest of the journey had been travelled at a snail’s pace – my concentration was nil, and I was worried I might crash the car.
I switched the engine off and sat for a moment, letting the silence envelop me, the only sound being the tick, tick, tick of the engine as it cooled. Darkness descended. There were no street lamps for miles, and the nearest houses were black silhouettes against the night sky.
I lived in a small village, more of a hamlet really, consisting of fifteen houses and a pub. It was most definitely rural, and it suited me just fine. The neighbours were a short walk away, and the only parts of their buildings visible from my cottage were the roofs and chimneys. There was no risk of me peering out of my kitchen window and seeing anyone pegging their washing out or mowing their lawn. I didn’t need that kind of stress in my own home.
Exhausted, but too distressed to sleep, I climbed wearily out of the car, removed my camera and bag from the passenger seat, closed the door with a click and leaned against it. A fox barked close by, followed by the squeal of a rabbit, and I wondered if the animal had got away. I hoped it had – there’d been enough death for one night.
A white light penetrated the lane and I frowned. Headlights?
It could be from one of the farm vehicles up the road. A security light had been on when I passed the yard, although the farm itself had appeared lifeless. It was early for Jack Price to be up and about, but then again, what did I know? I’d hardly ever spoken to the man, or his family. He might be getting ready to make an early start on ploughing a field, or whatever farmers did.
The light vanished.
I breathed out slowly. It might be antisocial of me, but I didn’t want any reminders of my neighbours’ existence. Not tonight. I’d had enough of people for a while. Thank God my next job was in the middle of nowhere, and although the castle was owned by the Welsh government and was readily accessible to the general public, I’d asked for, and got, special permission to be there after hours. Hopefully, I’d only have to deal with the site manager and no one else.
I left the lights off downstairs and made my way to the bathroom in the dark, unable to even consider getting into bed until I’d scrubbed every last inch of me. After lighting a couple of candles, I turned on the shower and stripped off. I’d wash the T-shirt and post it back to its owner, but everything else I’d worn today would be thrown away. Except for my jacket. In the morning I would wash it carefully in the special detergent a Barbour jacket demanded, then I’d re-waterproof it. Hopefully, it would be dry by tomorrow afternoon, and I could take it with me to Carew Castle. Rain wasn’t forecast, but it never hurt to be prepared. Besides, it might get chilly once the sun went down.
Finally clean, I slipped into thick, fluffy PJs, stuffed my feet into a pair of slippers and wrapped my hair in a towel, made a pot of tea by the light of the open fridge door, and wandered back upstairs to my office – a posh word for what was in effect a second bedroom. Switching on my computer, I took the memory card out of the camera and watched as the images appeared.
Leaning forward, I cupped my chin in my hand and scrolled through the photos. Nothing could really portray the terror, the horror, or the anguish, but it seemed I’d done an adequate job of my unintentional recording of the aftermath. My mouth was suddenly dry and I swallowed convulsively. My palms were damp, and I sat up and rubbed my hands down my thighs, drying them on the soft fabric of my pyjamas.
The trembling started in my fingers, worked its way up my arms, down through my chest and stomach, right to my feet.
For several seconds I shook and shuddered, breathing hard and fast, my pulse racing and my heart thumping. I felt sick and slightly clammy, and I flopped back in my office chair, the padded armrests keeping me from toppling to the floor. There was nothing else for it, so I rode it out. A panic attack wouldn’t kill me, although it felt as if it might, and I knew from experience it would soon pass.
Afterwards, I allowed myself a glass of neat gin. Just the one. More would be better, but I didn’t want to start down that slippery slope.
Turning back to the photos, I sifted through them; they were good, but nothing could ever capture what it had truly been like in there. It hadn’t been my intention to try, but I’d taken those images and I needed to share them.
The police were my first port of call – they’d need every scrap of evidence they could get, so I dropped them an email. The media was my next thought; I wanted to try to make people understand the terrible atrocity. I wanted to share my horror and revulsion in the only way I knew how... through the awful images I’d taken.
Newsrooms work all night – they have to – so I emailed a couple of contacts. Within minutes, one of them expressed an interest. I selected a few photos and pinged them across to the editor.
The first newspaper who responded wanted written copy, too. I didn’t really feel like writing, but who else was better placed to put words to these images than someone who’d been there?
I replied, promising them something within the hour. It would miss the morning papers but would hit the next day, and would be uploaded to the paper’s website almost immediately.
After half an hour, I’d produced a reasonably good piece, so I attached it to the email, sent it, then flopped back in my chair.
The sun would be up soon. Already there was an almost imperceptible lightening of the sky on the eastern horizon.
I rubbed my eyes, and stretched, yawning. Exhaustion was setting in, but there was one more thing I had to do before I went to bed.
Brin
ging each photo up again, I examined them all carefully. There wouldn’t be any hazy shimmering colours around anyone’s head, but there didn’t need to be; the man’s face was ingrained on my mind.
I zoomed in repeatedly, searching, studying.
Nothing.
The aura-less man wasn’t there. I began to question whether I’d been mistaken about his lack of colour. I’d been shocked, scared and traumatised, and hadn’t been thinking straight. But there hadn’t been anything wrong with your eyes, had there? a little voice in my head asked. I ignored it, knowing that shock could play strange tricks on the mind.
I kept searching, but eventually I gave up. He simply wasn’t in any of them.
But then, neither was the man who had pulled me free, so maybe I was reading too much into it all...
I wished I knew the name of the man with the scarlet aura so I could thank him, suspecting mine mightn’t have been the only life he’d saved tonight. Without his efforts, I was certain I’d be dead. If there was ever any way I could repay him, I would, I vowed.
Exhaustion had set in hours ago. I had to get some sleep, else I wouldn’t be in any fit state to tackle tomorrow’s (today’s) assignment. These photos weren’t going anywhere; I’d look at them another time, when my eyes weren’t gritty and blurred with weariness, and my heart and mind were a little less sore.
Switching the lamp off, I powered down the computer and wandered into my bedroom, walking to the window to give the curtains a tweak to make sure there were no gaps. But before I did, I pulled one of them aside slightly; I have no idea why, I just did.
My bedroom was at the front of the cottage and the view from the window was of my rather overgrown garden and the lane beyond. It wasn’t overlooked, and the seclusion suited me. The hamlet was off the beaten track. Anyone who came here was either lost or had a reason to be here – there was no passing trade, so to speak. Although it was pretty enough in its own way, it was no chocolate-box, cutesy tourist magnet.
Headlights again, shining down the lane. There was nothing too unusual for a vehicle to be out and about this early in the morning, but there was something very unusual indeed about what was inside it. I only had a split-second glimpse as the car sped past, and in the space between one heartbeat and the next, I saw the driver. He, or she, had a red aura, several shades of red – the same as the colours surrounding the man who’d pulled me out from underneath a dead body.
I watched for a while longer, careful to keep out of sight behind the curtain, eyes straining, searching the shadows.
Nothing else moved, no other lights, no car engines. No more auras.
The stillness and silence weren’t reassuring. As much as I wanted to thank my saviour, I didn’t like coincidences. In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure I believed in them. What were the chances of me seeing two separate people with a very similar aura in less than seven hours? Slim, that’s what.
The man who’d saved my life had just driven past my house.
The question haunting me as I finally fell into bed was – why?
Chapter 6
Crow
Could she go any slower, Crow wondered, half expecting the girl to be pulled over by the cops for excessively slow driving, if there was such a thing. It did mean, however, that he caught up with her pretty quickly, and then was forced to hang back to avoid being noticed once they’d left the bright lights of the city behind and the roads became smaller and less busy.
Christ, where the hell was she going? This road was hardly more than a farm track. Oh, look, there really was a farm he noticed, but he brightened slightly when he passed a couple of houses. He was relying on the tracker to guide him now, worried about getting too close, but the tension left him when he realised the little red dot was no longer moving; wherever she’d been heading, she’d arrived.
He checked his onboard satnav and made a note of the name of the village. It was more of a widening of the road, with only a handful of houses and a pub. If there was anything else here, he couldn’t see it. Damn. It would make staking her out more difficult, as strangers were sure to be noticed. He’d have to rely on the tracker.
He’d also have to make sure it was securely in place, and with that in mind, he pulled into a gap between a farm gate and a hedge, then cut the engine.
Silence and darkness descended, and he sat for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the night, his ears still full of the sound of the journey.
When he was satisfied his eyesight was as adjusted as it was going to get, and wishing he had a pair of night-vision goggles with him, he slid out of the car, shutting the door noiselessly, conscious of how far sound carried at night. He didn’t want to set any of those inevitable farm dogs barking.
He crept along the lane, peering up driveways, grateful for the pools of light most of the houses had left on in a vain attempt to keep the darkness at bay. All the buildings appeared to be strung out along the road, and he began to think he’d missed his girl’s car (it could be in a garage or parked around the back of one of the houses he’d just passed) when he spotted it, and the cottage it was parked near.
There was no driveway, but the lane opened up, allowing for a couple of cars to park there if needed, although tonight there was only one – hers. He wondered if that meant she lived alone.
The cottage was in darkness. She must have gone to bed. Crow decided it was an ideal time to have a nose around, although he’d give it a few minutes, just to make sure she was settled. He spent those minutes checking her car over and moving the tracker to a more secure spot under the chassis, and getting a good look at the surrounding area.
Done, he crept closer, searching for a good place to conceal himself while he waited, and when the sound of water running down a pipe reached him, he realised she was probably taking a shower or having a bath. He didn’t blame her. She’d been covered in so much blood even after her efforts to clean herself up. She’d probably be finding russet stains underneath her fingernails or in a crease of skin, for a few more days. It didn’t seem to matter how hard you scrubbed or how often, there was always some blood you couldn’t get rid of.
In the morning, he’d speak to some people, make some calls, and find out as much as he could about this girl. He had to, because if his hunch was correct, then Rochdale would be doing the exact same thing. Crow hadn’t seen Rochdale follow the girl to her car, or had any indication that the man knew who she was, or where to find her. But he never ignored a gut feeling. Rochdale was interested in her for some reason and, besides, Crow had nothing else to go on.
He edged around the side of the house, slowly easing open a side gate, tensed for a creaky hinge, breathing a slow sigh when the gate opened noiselessly. The water sounds had stopped, all was silent once more.
‘Fuck,’ he muttered, catching the leg of his suit trousers on a particularly thorny bush. Even in the dark, he could see how overgrown the garden was, great for concealment but not so good for things like aggressive plant life.
A faint light emanated from one of the two upstairs windows, a white-blue glow, and he took a wild guess that it might be from a computer or a TV. She was probably still awake, then.
There was little of interest around the back, so he made his way to the front again and stayed in the shadows for a long time, watching. He wondered who she was, and what she did, and remembered the camera. It’d been a serious piece of kit; not that he knew much about photography, but even he could tell it wasn’t the point and shoot variety. And why did she have it with her at an opera? Once again, the thought occurred to him that she was either an art critic or a journalist of some kind. Or, and the idea gave him pause, had she taken a camera into the theatre because she’d known what was going to go down?
It crossed his mind that if she had known, it wasn’t because she was involved but because she was part of a surveillance team working for the anti-terrorist lot, but even as he thought it, he brushed the ridiculous notion away before it had a chance to put down roots. Possibly in her l
ate twenties, pretty, slim, nervous, Crow’s overwhelming impression of her was that she didn’t want to be noticed (which would fit right in with the surveillance theory), but her body language wasn’t that of a trained operative. She reminded him of a wild animal, scared and wary, flighty and nervous. No, she definitely wasn’t a professional.
He’d find out the truth soon enough; he just had to curb his curiosity for a few hours more, until he’d made a couple of phone calls in the morning. Actually, it was morning now. The sun would be up shortly and with nothing much happening here, he might as well go home and get his head down for a bit. He’d had enough for one night. It was time for bed.
He knew where to find her again.
Chapter 7
Lord Byron - Present day
My little bird had flown back to her nest and had locked and barred the door. It didn’t matter – she would emerge sooner or later.
I intended to seek her out when she did.
What had she seen when she looked at me? Women and men, hundreds of them, maybe thousands, had gazed on my face and into my eyes, but none of them had registered any recognition until it was far, far too late. So why was she any different?
The little bird and I had never met before, I was certain of it. She shouldn’t have known me, and maybe she didn’t, but she had seen something when her eyes met mine, and that something disturbed me.
Why, in the midst of the mayhem and madness of death, with the sweet stink of blood heavy in the air and delicious crimson coating both bodies and minds, did she focus on me? I was unarmed, unthreatening. I wielded no gun, was making no movement or noise, yet her unfocused gaze had sharpened into scrutiny when she set eyes on me.
What had she seen?
I had to know; to the uninitiated, I was just another man, although a handsome and charismatic one, with a wit and charm none could resist. By the time my victims understood that I was much, much more than any normal man, they were doomed, in one way or another. Yet, this little bird, with her fluttering heartbeat and her fear of meeting anyone’s gaze, had unhesitatingly and courageously met mine.
The Colour of Death Page 4