Raven and Skull

by Ashley Lister

  ‘Cindy?’ Tony sounded concerned. ‘Are you still there? How are you bearing up?’

  After Melissa’s third tumble down the stairs – a tumble that made her neck snap, and finally stopped her from complaining about her broken bloody fingernail – Richard had immediately called an ambulance. He and Cindy had patiently awaited its arrival.

  Paramedics came.

  Then a police car.

  And, then a harried-looking legal executive from Raven and Skull assuring Richard that Roger Black was on his way over. When he arrived Cindy was bundled back to the sanctuary of her own apartment with the promise that her car would be returned to her the following morning. A police officer took her statement, repeatedly assuring her it was just a formality in these circumstances. And then she spent Saturday and Sunday alone in her apartment and waiting for a call from Richard. When he finally did make contact on Sunday evening, the message she received was disquieting and distant.

  DONT CALL BK. IM USIN A DSPOSBLE MOB TO SND THIS MSG. DONT FONE OR CALL. ILL B N TOUCH AS SOON AS THE HEATS DIED DOWN. RICH XX

  ‘Cindy?’ Tony pressed. ‘How are you bearing up?’

  ‘It wasn’t pleasant,’ Cindy said, honestly. ‘I’m just trying to shut it from my thoughts and get on with things.’

  ‘You know where I am if you need anything,’ Tony told her.

  Cindy thanked him and then placed the phone back in its cradle. The mobile on her hip emitted its shrill series of beeps. She considered reading the text message, and then decided her body needed another fix of caffeine first.

  It was unlikely to be a call from Richard.

  He was clearly trying to avoid contacting her to any degree that could be regarded as suspicious. His last message had made that much painfully clear. And, although she desperately wanted to hear from him, Cindy knew that Richard was right. They had to go out of their way to make sure there was no suspicion of foul play.

  Stepping out of her office, walking past her secretary, Margaret, and heading towards the canteen, she was surprised to see so many vaguely familiar faces study her with sympathetic frowns. Cindy had always known that gossip and bad news travelled faster and more effectively than any other means of communication she controlled under the auspices of Raven and Skull’s CNS department. But she still found it difficult to accept that everyone in the whole office building already knew the superficial details of what had happened to Richard’s wife.

  ‘Cindy?’

  ‘Are you OK, hon?’

  ‘We heard what happened. How are you, babes?’

  Becky, Heather and another girl stood in front of her. Cindy thought there was something horribly familiar about the third woman, although she couldn’t quite recall where she had seen her deathly pale face before. All three of the friends looked tearfully concerned and Cindy couldn’t decide whether to be thankful for their companionship or annoyed by the nuisance of their questions.

  ‘I’m OK,’ she said, thickly.

  The third woman reached out to place a hand on Cindy’s shoulder. Recognition came to Cindy with a rush of horrified revulsion. The woman reaching out to her looked exactly like Melissa. Cindy had never seen the woman in the offices of Raven and Skull before but she didn’t think it was possible that one human being could look so exactly like another. She shrank from the threat of the woman’s touch. Stepping hurriedly back, deciding she could manage the morning without her needed fix of coffee, Cindy turned away and rushed back to her office.

  The fax machine in the corner of the room hummed to life as she stepped into the room. Cindy could hear the beep and whirr of electronic communications interacting. At the same time, her mobile spat another trill series of beeps that told her she had received another message.

  Sighing wearily, and resigning herself to the fact that she needed to start dealing with the morning’s workload, Cindy turned on her PC and typed in her password. Whilst she was waiting for the machine to go through the slow process of booting, she walked over to the fax machine. Unfastening the mobile from her hip she glanced at the first message and saw it was from an unknown number.

  She wondered if it might be from Richard. The tone of his last message had made her think that he would keep communication to a bare minimum. But if something had changed in the situation, she suspected he would try to tell her as soon as possible.

  Silently, she berated herself for not checking the text message as soon as it landed. Urgent haste made her fingers fumble over the mobile’s keypad. She hit the wrong button twice and quietly cursed her own shaking hands. Forcing herself to work slowly, trying to operate the keys the way they were supposed to be pressed, Cindy realised her entire body was drenched with nervous perspiration.

  The intercom on her desk buzzed loudly.

  Cindy shrieked and dropped the phone. It bounced against the floor. For an instant, Cindy thought she would get off lightly from the incident. As the phone flew through the air it seemed undamaged by the rough treatment of its first fall. It was only when it hit the floor for a second time that she heard something break. A hairline crack appeared across the screen. That single sign of damage told her the phone would likely be rendered unusable.

  ‘Shit!’

  She could immediately see a morning filled with the problems of completing all the necessary paperwork for getting her company-issued SIM transferred to another mobile phone, having all the apps she used reinstalled in a new unit, and waiting until some overpaid undergrad from resources finally turned up at the end of the day with her newly working mobile and a backlog of overdue messages.

  The intercom on her desk buzzed for a second time.

  Cindy pressed the button on the machine and snapped, ‘What is it, Margaret?’

  ‘Mr Black is on his way to see you,’ Margaret sniffed. ‘He told me to cancel all your appointments for this morning. He said you two have a lot to discuss.’

  ‘Lucky me,’ Cindy said, bitterly. She released the button on the intercom, glanced at the fax machine and then remembered she needed to deal with her mobile. Picking up the phone from the floor, shaking it, as though such brutal treatment might bring it back to life, Cindy accepted that the phone was dead. She dropped it into one of the padded envelopes for internal mail. Sealing the envelope, then addressing it with a sticker that said IT HARDWARE, she placed the broken mobile in her out tray and walked over to the fax.

  A handwritten message was being spat into the paper tray. It looked as though it had been scrawled in wet ink before being sent. Cindy had no idea what colour the ink was when it went into the fax machine but it was coming out a greasy, oily black. Not that the wetness of the ink troubled her. The most disquieting thing about the message was not even the trembling handwriting in which it had been written. From what she could see, the most distressing aspect of the message was the meaning implied by the single word that ran diagonally down the page.

  K

  I

  L

  L

  E

  R

  21

  Roger Black didn’t bother knocking when he entered the office. Closing the door behind himself he took a seat facing Cindy, sat down and released a breath that sounded positively feral.

  ‘This is a grim fucking business,’ he growled.

  Cindy nodded. She gripped the arms of her chair with determined ferocity, adamant Black would not see any symptoms of her nervousness.

  ‘Grim,’ she repeated.

  ‘I knew Melissa liked the odd drink,’ Black went on. ‘But I didn’t think she was the sort who could get so pissed she’d start doing pratfalls down the fucking staircase.’

  Pratfalls.

  Black’s word echoed inside her mind. Cindy wondered why everyone thought he cared so much about Melissa when he was able to use such a callous phrase to describe what had happened.

  ‘A grim, grim business,’ Black said, wearily. He shuffled forward in his seat and studied Cindy’s face, solemnly.

  Cindy had seen Roger Black aroun
d the offices of Raven and Skull and had always considered him a man to avoid. It wasn’t just that he was physically unattractive. Squat, dark and constantly frowning, he looked like the embodiment of a thug. The fact that he always wore a suit only made him look like a thug on his way to make another court appearance. Yet Cindy knew Roger Black didn’t just have the physical power of a thug: he also had the power that came from being a controlling partner in Raven and Skull. Roger Black had chaired the panel when she was interviewed for her position with the company. Roger Black was currently listed as acting CEO of the company due to Charles Raven having a medical condition that left him heavily incapacitated. Cindy didn’t know much about the company’s structure from before she had arrived but, nowadays, she knew that whenever anyone spoke of senior management they were only ever talking about Roger Black.

  ‘What happened, Cindy?’ he asked. ‘Tell me what happened on Friday night.’

  She sighed and tried to think of a plausible reason why she shouldn’t tell him. In the stillness of the office she heard the fax machine begin its ritual whirr of beeps and shrill whistles as it accepted another message. Her gaze immediately flashed in that direction.

  ‘Deal with your workload later,’ Black instructed.

  She guessed he was trying to be soothing and sympathetic but it was clear that those were not traits that came easily to him. His words were barked like instructions. His manner was harsh and he made no attempt to disguise his impatience.

  ‘Just tell me what happened last Friday night so I’ve got a full picture of why my niece is getting buried at the end of this week.’

  ‘The funeral is on Friday?’

  ‘It’s a private service,’ Black said, quietly. ‘Although you’re welcome to attend if you wish. I can organise a car for you and–’

  ‘Thank you,’ Cindy said, quietly. ‘I’d like… I mean… I appreciate that.’

  Black grunted. He pulled a diary from his breast pocket and made a note inside. Cindy saw the flash of something fat and metallic that was also inside his jacket pocket. She quickly closed her eyes and told herself she had not seen anything there. It was enough to try and cope with what she and Richard had done on Friday. Trying to get her mind to deal with the discovery that Roger Black carried a concealed weapon would be one more detail than her rational mind could handle.

  The fax machine made the familiar scraping sound that always came when it was collecting a new sheet of paper. With her eyes closed Cindy could easily imagine the sheet of paper being pulled up by the traction of the machine’s black rubber wheels and fed through the internal mechanism that allowed the fax’s ink to be sprayed onto the page. The prospect of receiving another message like the one she had received earlier made her bowels clench tight. Roger Black was in the room and she did not want him to latch onto the idea that she might be a killer.

  ‘Friday night,’ Black prompted.

  When Cindy opened her eyes she could see that Black had put the diary back into his pocket. He stared at her with eyes as dark as polished beetles.

  ‘You were going to tell me what happened,’ he reminded her.

  ‘You know what happened,’ Cindy told him. ‘Melissa had too much to drink. She was going to the loo. She made it to the top of the stairs and then she… she fell.’

  The fax spat out its sheet of paper. The machine sighed as though the process had been arduous. Cindy stopped herself from glancing in that direction.

  ‘Why was Melissa drinking?’ Black asked.

  ‘She was just being sociable, I guess,’ Cindy tried. ‘She’d asked me into the house to have a girls’ talk and we just ended up drinking more than was sensible.’

  Black nodded. ‘You were friends? Melissa never mentioned that to me.’

  ‘No. Yes. Well, not really.’ Confusion and embarrassment caused a blush to rise up from beneath Cindy’s collar. ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘I’ve got all morning. All day, if that’s what it takes.’

  ‘I give Richard a lift to work each morning,’ Cindy began. ‘That way I get one of the carpool spaces and Richard doesn’t have to worry about getting to and from work.’

  ‘Why can’t he drive himself?’

  ‘Banned.’

  Black nodded. His features were inscrutable but Cindy got the vague impression that Black approved of Richard’s driving ban. He studied her expectantly and she realised he was waiting for her to continue.

  ‘I give him a lift home at the end of the day too,’ she went on. ‘And I was just dropping him off when Melissa asked me to join her for a drink.’

  ‘Even though you weren’t friends?’

  ‘She wanted–’

  ‘Didn’t it strike you as odd?’

  ‘Yes. No. Well, not odd. But out of the ordinary.’

  ‘And you just said yes.’

  ‘What else was I supposed to say? I’d got a lonely weekend stretching ahead of me. The opportunity for some human company didn’t seem that unappealing. And the few times I’d spoken to Melissa before, I thought she was kinda nice. So, I said yeah.’

  Silence stretched between them. Cindy had no idea what else Black wanted to hear from her and she didn’t want to start babbling for fear that she might something incriminating.

  ‘What did she want to talk about?’

  ‘Why are you asking all these questions, Mr Black?’

  ‘What did she want to talk about?’

  ‘Is there something suspicious about Melissa’s death?’

  ‘What did she want to talk about?’

  ‘She wanted to talk about Richard.’

  Cindy dared to glance towards the fax machine. She could see that there was a page resting in the tray but, from her position, she was unable to see what was printed on the page.

  ‘Melissa wanted to ask you questions about her husband. Why? Were you fucking him?’

  Cindy knew there was a guilty blush rising from her décolletage to her throat. She could feel it burning her cheeks and bringing a rush of tears to her eyes. She madly wondered if Black was gullible enough to interpret her colouring as a blush of outrage rather than a symptom of embarrassed guilt. Even as that thought was tumbling through her mind, Cindy knew it was pathetically optimistic.

  ‘It’s Richard’s birthday next week,’ Cindy said, stiffly. ‘Melissa was undecided about the gift she should get for him. She wanted my advice.’

  Black’s dark eyes regarded her with stubborn, animal wariness. ‘Why would she ask you?’ his voice was soft. ‘She’s been married to him for seven years. She doesn’t know you. Why would she ask you, a stranger, what her husband might want for his birthday?’

  Cindy stood up and started towards the fax machine.

  Black grabbed her wrist. The force of his grip was strong enough to stop her from taking another step.

  ‘Why?’ he repeated.

  ‘I spend two hours each morning driving Richard into the office,’ she spat. ‘We don’t sit in silence on that drive. We talk about stuff. The same happens every night when we’re driving home. Two hours of talking about stuff. That’s four hours a day or twenty hours a week. If me and Richard happen to have lunch during a day, or if we attend the same meeting, that means I can sometimes spend more time with Richard in a week than he spends with his wife. Considering we spend so much time together, I think it made sense for her to ask for my opinion on which present he would prefer.’

  Black released his hold on Cindy’s wrist whilst nodding towards her chair. She understood the spoken message and, with only a bitter glance in the direction of the fax machine, Cindy silently returned to her seat.

  ‘What did you tell her to buy him?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Melissa wanted advice on what present to get her husband. What present did you tell her to buy him?’

  ‘Melissa was torn between treating Richard to a holiday in Africa or a Caribbean cruise. She was asking which I thought he would prefer.’

  ‘Which did you say?’
<
br />   ‘I think she was deciding on Africa,’ Cindy admitted. ‘Although I don’t think either of those choices would have been ideal for Richard. He’s not really got the sort of complexion that suits too much sun.’

  ‘Did you tell her that?’

  ‘I was trying to,’ Cindy lied. ‘But it wasn’t something I could say at first without sounding really rude. If I’d blurted something like that as soon as she invited me into her kitchen it would have sounded like I was trying to tell the woman I knew her husband better than she did.’

  Black sat back in his chair. He considered Cindy in silence.

  Cindy couldn’t recall the last time she had been studied with such close and daunting scrutiny. She resisted the urge to scratch her itching flesh, fold her arms across her chest or make some attempt to hide herself from Black’s unwelcome interest. Instead she sat as still as she was able and struggled to meet his gaze.

  ‘I’m sorry for all the questions,’ Black said, eventually. He rubbed a stubby-fingered hand against his face and added, ‘It’s been a long weekend.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Cindy agreed.

  ‘It’s probably best if I don’t,’ Black countered.

  There was an eerie expression on his face. On any other human being Cindy would have identified the curl to his lips and the twinkle in his eyes as a smile of some description. Because this was Roger Black she knew it couldn’t be one of those. Wrenching her gaze from the disconcerting depths of his eyes she saw that her PC screen had finally sprung to life.

  As head of CNS, Cindy had her PC set so the machine activated her email programme when the computer was switched on. She watched the familiar screen load and saw that her machine was receiving a barrage of emails. With each one the computer whispered conspiratorially, ‘You’ve got mail. You’ve got mail. You’ve got mail...’

  Her complexion grew pale as she saw what she was receiving.

  Cindy reached over and punched the mute button on her keyboard. The electronic announcements stopped, although she could see the emails continued flooding into her inbox.