Perfect Crime

by Helen Fields

  A crow outside his window shattered the peace. A couple of minutes later a different window opened, accompanied by some colourful cursing. An object was thrown. It landed with a hollow metallic twang, suggesting an empty can. The crow was silent for a moment before recommencing its cawing, laughing at the ridiculous attempt to silence it. Predatory by nature, its feeding and hunting patterns were no different than foxes. Crows would eat eggs and nestlings, even adult birds given half a chance, soaking up the life force of their prey, consuming them, merging with them. It was the circularity of nature.

  Life. Not death. He loved animals. Animals fought to survive. They strove to mate, to eat and to protect their young. They never gave in. Not like humans. People were self-obsessed, victims of their own evolution, inward-looking. He wondered exactly when homo sapiens had stopped responding to their environment and started living inside their own heads. They ate pity for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They dissected their emotions as if they were living on the set of a reality TV show. They valued the gift of a life so little that throwing it away had become a nothing. An Internet challenge. A modern-media bedpost notch. Those weak souls were aberrations.

  He rose and went to the window. The crow, perched on the top of a tree that was never going to sprout new leaves, no matter how well spring progressed, cawed again, flapping its wings grandly. Swivelling a glassy, soulless eye, it stared back in through the window. There was a moment of connection. A revelation.

  He and the crow were one.

  Shuffling sideways to a cupboard, careful not to disturb the bird from its perch – not that it seemed likely the crow would fly away, they shared too much natural courage for that – he took out a pellet gun. It was already loaded. You couldn’t be too careful living in a city. The gun had an impressive sight mounted on it, even though the power of it didn’t justify the expense, but now the lens came into its own.

  Raising the gun slowly, sliding it into the hollow between his shoulder and collarbone, he took aim. The bird’s head was too small a target, but its breast would work, too. Breathing in, holding the air in his lungs, he let himself relax slowly, blowing out and counting five seconds in his head.

  The crow opened its beak to disturb the peace but no sound was released. Instead, there was a soft wallop as the pellet forced the bird off its perch. It tumbled, hitting three or four other branches as it dropped, coming to rest on an abandoned fast-food box on the ground. No fuss. It was a dignified ending, the man thought, realising he needed to get dressed before he could retrieve the body. Time was of the essence.

  Throwing on jeans and a hoodie, he took the stairs down past the other apartments and entered the shared garden quietly. He was always careful not to attract attention from the neighbours and being spotted removing the carcass of a dead bird from the garden wouldn’t be a good way to start. He still had the cover of some darkness though, ruined as it was by light pollution from nearby buildings and roads.

  Slipping the crow into a plastic bag, he shook his head sadly for the benefit of anyone who might be watching and curious. He’d gone out to see what had happened, he rehearsed to himself, and found the bird, taking it indoors to care for it, wrongly believing it to be stunned not dead. He practised versions of events all the time. You never knew when the unexpected was going to strike and he was taking greater risks these days. Greater risks, greater rewards. Greater power.

  Taking the stairs silently – he’d practised that, too – he locked his door and unwrapped the crow in his kitchen. It was a thing of beauty. The ultimate in design, made for flight and hunting, the bird sang louder to him now than it ever could have done in life.

  He ran his forefinger along the beak, checking its sharpness, admiring the aerodynamics that started at its tip and ran the length of the body. He held it until the last of the warmth seeped from the carcass into his hands, then he began to pluck it – a longer and more complex procedure than he’d imagined. It was lucky he had the day off.

  Wings and tail first, the easy bits, then the back and stomach, which was more difficult in such a small bird. He wanted it all, would have preferred it intact, but in the end he had to compromise with the head. Removing it with a single chop from a kitchen knife, he sat the bird’s watchful skull on top of the cactus on his kitchen windowsill. Perhaps the bird had a right to see what was happening.

  Slitting from throat to belly, he removed the entrails then took off the legs. After that, he heated butter, sea salt and garlic in a frying pan, dropping the crow in once it was good and hot.

  Cooking it took no time at all. Arranging it on a plate so he could still make out the shape of the creature, he sat cross-legged on the sanded floorboards and breathed deeply of the same air the crow had breathed until only an hour earlier. He looked through the window at the same sky the crow had flown. He listened to the wind in the tree the crow had used for a perch.

  The first bite was ecstasy. It didn’t matter that the meat was stringy, or that the taste was unsettlingly like goat’s cheese. It was life. Life so recently being lived that he could feel its essence sliding down inside him. His transition to crow was complete. He was the crow, and every life it had ever consumed.

  All the tiny birds fluttered inside him.

  He was evolving at superspeed. He understood the very nature of nature.

  That made him laugh. Then laugh again. Laugh so long and hard his sides hurt. He felt lighter than air, as if he could fly. He was a predator. A hunter. But not without purpose. He would consume only to improve his own strength, to live longer and become the best possible version of himself. He understood how precious life was. It wasn’t wrong to punish the people who toyed with it and took it for granted. It was justice. More than that. It was necessary to exterminate them.

  Now that he’d found himself in the crow and become one with the world, he’d be an unstoppable force in upholding nature’s laws.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  11 March

  Ava stared at the screen. There were few classic films that she couldn’t enjoy, but being out of the station on enforced downtime, knowing the best she could hope for was to lie in bed staring at the ceiling while her clock ticked the minutes away, was far worse than the exhaustion she was feeling.

  Fenella Hawksmith was dead. Her daughter had been located and she had an airtight alibi. They had no leads.

  Osaki Shozo was dead. His wife and her companion, Beef, were off the hook, their every minute having been accounted for by a variety of witnesses. The only caveat was if they’d paid for a hitman, but to no purpose. Kylie Shozo stood to make no money from her husband’s death and it wasn’t as if he’d been limiting her movements. Quite the opposite, given that the only information they’d discovered was that Osaki was due to disappear on board a fishing trawler. The wife’s reaction, however disgusting Ava may have found it, was also completely genuine. No doubt about that.

  Then there was the quandary of Stephen Berry’s death, just that one tiny boot print on his finger. No obvious link to the other two. No real evidence of foul play. Yet, Ava just couldn’t get it out of her head – three bodies, no answers.

  Then there was the Pax Graham investigation and Luc still hadn’t got an answer from his mother about what she intended to do regarding the inheritance Bruce Jenson had left to the rape charity. The victim’s son, Andrew, had finally produced video evidence from a casino proving he’d spent his previously unaccounted for hours there, trying to win back some of the vast amounts of money he owed the house. That was him off the hook, and there were no other suspects in sight.

  Ava sighed. A single decent lead in either case would have been nice. But no. The days were piling up and the issues were getting murkier. Ava was becoming more and more culpable for failing to reveal Luc’s interest in the Jenson killing. Now, she’d dragged Luc to a film that was even boring her. It was 10.30 p.m. and the only thing she could contemplate eating was popcorn. So much for promising Ailsa that she’d take care of herself.

>   ‘Did anything happen yet?’ Callanach asked as he sat down and passed Ava a paper bowl brimming with hot, buttery corn.

  ‘Nothing that’s going to make cinematic history.’

  A woman several rows in front shushed them dramatically.

  ‘Sorry!’ Ava called to her breezily.

  ‘Want to get out of here?’ Callanach asked.

  ‘Do I get to bring my popcorn?’

  ‘Back to my place? Only if you promise not to spill it like you usually do halfway through a film.’

  ‘You’re no fun. We could get hotdogs as we leave. Make a real night of it,’ she grinned.

  ‘How are you so thin?’

  He put her coat over her shoulders as she struggled to get up holding the massive carton.

  ‘Stress,’ she replied. ‘And the lack of an intimate relationship. Being single means I don’t have to go through the ups and downs of arguments that lead to unhappiness eating, post-row eating, pre-separation eating, reunification eating. These days my life’s very simple. Microwave meals or anything from the deli counter, seven days a week. No man means no snacking. My body is a temple.’

  ‘But what’s the point if there’s no one worshipping there?’

  ‘Ha ha!’ Ava poked him in the ribs.

  One viewer, sat alone, not the least bit interested in classic movies, turned away from the screen to watch them go.

  They exited onto the street. The cinema in York Place was only a five-minute walk from Callanach’s apartment and they wandered slowly across Picardy Place roundabout with Ava waving nonchalantly at the cars that beeped them.

  ‘Have you been stealing cocaine from the evidence room?’ Callanach watched her drift casually along the pavement.

  ‘Not yet, but it’s an option. I never thought I’d walk into a crime scene where a man had had his penis jammed into a toaster and been electrocuted through it. It’s like we’re in the twilight zone. It’s almost Shakespearean in its drama. The Fenella Hawksmith scene was bad enough, the whole slow death set-up and the violation with the knife. It’s all so bizarre, it doesn’t seem real. And we’re nowhere with it.’

  ‘We’ve had tough cases before. What’s really bothering you about this one?’

  Ava stopped, threw her popcorn untouched into a nearby bin and planted her hands on her hips, middle of the pavement, causing several less than sober men singing loudly in bad Italian to find a path around her.

  ‘That,’ she pointed after them. ‘I don’t know if they’re friends, or brothers, or members of a football team, but they’re connected. Usually we have to avoid family members knocking down our door to demand answers, a prosecution, justice. If not the families then the press is there waiting on every new clue, ratcheting up the tension, stirring public emotion. And yay for us, we’ve kept the crazy down to a reasonable level this time. The media has yet to link the Hawksmith case with Osaki Shozo, but the cynic in me wonders if they’ll be all that bothered.

  ‘Fenella Hawksmith’s daughter didn’t want to be found and was remarkably blasé about her mother’s murder. The lovely Kylie Shozo, who was accommodating both husband and lover in a one-bedroomed flat, was deeply worried by how the murder might affect her tenancy. Does society have victim stereotypes, do you think? Does the public need victim sympathy to come wrapped in the body of a twenty-something woman with smiling photos on social media, with the standard “a life cut short” or “so much potential unfulfilled” bylines? Replace that with an ageing, overweight widow and a Japanese immigrant, and who gives a fuck?

  ‘I worry, Luc. I really worry that bodies don’t count as victims unless their skin colour and dress size matches our atrociously low bloody standards.’

  Her voice was raised as she finished her sentence.

  Callanach waited until she’d taken a breath, then stepped forwards to hug her, holding her tightly for half a minute until he felt her relax in his arms.

  ‘Do you want me to get the popcorn back out of the bin for you?’ Callanach asked.

  Ava let out a small laugh, dropped her forehead onto his shoulder, then laughed again.

  ‘Am I still standing on my soapbox?’ she asked.

  ‘I think you broke it, actually. Come on,’ he said, releasing her but taking one of her hands in his and pulling her gently along the street. ‘If it’s worth anything at all, Rosa – Stephen Berry’s former partner – is very concerned indeed. She cares, and one person is just as important as a thousand. Doing justice isn’t about crowd-pleasing.’

  He slid his key in the communal door and stepped back to let Ava take the stairs first. She waited for him outside his apartment, her back against the wall, fighting tears.

  ‘I know this is going to sound pathetic of me, but it made me wonder who’d miss me.’

  Callanach took her by the hand again and pulled her inside.

  ‘Well, anyone who’s a massive fan of incredibly high-level self-pity would hold a week-long wake in your honour, but other than that particular cult, then, no, you’re probably right. Absolutely no one.’

  ‘Luc, I’m serious. My family decided I was married to the police years ago. These days they ask what’s wrong if I turn up at any of their houses. The squad looks at me with a mixture of suspicion and resignation when I walk into the incident room. Sooner or later, Natasha’s going to hook up with some gorgeous woman who’ll both make her laugh and put up with her terrible taste in music, and then she won’t have any use for me at all. And you …’ Callanach took her coat from her shoulders and threw it on the dining table. ‘I’m pretty sure one day soon you’ll sod off back to France. You’ll recover from the trauma you went through and know you can’t really be happy anywhere else. You’ll long for the sunshine and the vineyards, and you’ll pack your bags and leave me. What am I going to do without you?’

  ‘Ava, I’m not going anywhere. Here, I’ll prove it to you.’ He unwound the door key from his own keyring, took Ava’s from her coat pocket and slid it on there instead. ‘Have I convinced you now?’

  ‘Idiot,’ she laughed. ‘I don’t need your key.’

  ‘Keep it anyway. Unlike you, I actually know where my spare is. It’s not like you ever take no for an answer when you decide you’re coming round. Seriously, why would you think I’m going to leave?’

  He took two glasses from a shelf and opened the bottle of Balvenie whisky he’d been saving for one of her visits.

  ‘Why would you stay? It’s cold. You hate the cold. And it rains so much, the Scots have evolved to be almost amphibious. Then there’s Bruce Jenson’s death. Just when you thought you’d left all the horrors of your past behind, it crops up again. I haven’t been the best of friends, either. I’ve interfered in your life …’

  ‘Trying to do what you thought was right,’ Callanach added.

  ‘I’ve cut you out of my life without explaining why …’

  ‘Trying to protect me,’ he said.

  ‘And I’ve been jealous rather than supportive. I’m ashamed of myself. Maybe if I’d been more grown-up about Selina, you two would still be together. She was good for you and I couldn’t bring myself to spend so much as a single evening with the two of you. I’m so sorry.’

  Ava slumped back on the couch, frowning uncharacteristically. Callanach sat on the arm, swirling half an inch of whisky around the bottom of his glass.

  ‘Jealous?’ he asked. ‘Of what, exactly?’

  ‘I don’t know. Of Selina having you all to herself. I suppose I’d started to think of you as mine. That’s ridiculous, right? We work together all day, I spend more hours with you than most married couples, and yet those evenings when we walked away from work and were just friends kept me going. Having dinner, spending hours talking rubbish over coffee on a Saturday morning, watching films at 2 a.m. Then suddenly there was someone else in your life, and I hated it. God, this is dreadful. Apparently, feeling morbid also makes me horribly honest. I intend to get drunk. Call me a cab before 2 a.m., okay?’

  ‘Why didn’t yo
u talk to me about it before now? We’ve always been able to discuss anything.’

  ‘Oh, right, silly me. I should have just called you into my office, forgetting the uncomfortable fact that I’m your boss, and said, “Hey, Luc, could you ditch the beautiful, leggy Spanish doctor. I’m feeling a bit put out by her.” Because that would have been an easy conversation to have had.’

  ‘Does it help for me to tell you I felt the same when you were with Joe? I hated him from the start and that had virtually nothing to do with the fact that he was a pretentious, arrogant bastard. All I could see was that he took you away from me.’

  Ava tossed back the whisky, pushed the glass onto the coffee table and covered her face with her hands.

  ‘Really? You had to bring up Joe? What was I thinking? That just proves the point – my private life really is an unmitigated disaster. Always has been. Catch a vicious psychopath? Sure, no problem. Find a decent man to wake up with in the morning? Fails the course, last in her class, displays no natural aptitude.’

  ‘I think you’re being a bit hard on yourself,’ he laughed.

  ‘Make up your mind. I thought my speciality was self-pity.’ Ava poured herself another measure of Balvenie.

  They sat in silence, appreciating the skill that went into blending the Scotch, glancing at one another occasionally.

  Callanach sighed deeply then smiled. ‘You want some painful honesty? I can beat you hands down. I never slept with Selina. Not once, in all the months we were together.’

  Ava stopped her glass halfway to her mouth, staring at it as if it were alive.

  ‘I’m sorry, what?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘It’s true. I mean, we did other stuff, I’m no monk, but there was no – I forget the English word – consume?’

  ‘Consummation,’ Ava corrected him.

  He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out the crumpled pack of Gauloises cigarettes he carried with him everywhere as a testament to his smoking days. Ava smiled as he shoved an unlit stick into his mouth, tasting tobacco without the satisfaction – or danger – of breathing smoke in and out.