Raven and Skull

by Ashley Lister

  ‘Were you watching me sleep?’

  ‘I’m the one who added something to your wine,’ Black reminded him. ‘I thought it only responsible to come here and check on you each evening.’

  Richard digested this statement.

  ‘Each evening?’ he asked, doubtfully. ‘What do you mean each evening?’ He rubbed the growth of beard stubble on his jaw and realised it was no longer Sunday night. A prickle of disquiet spiked his stomach.

  ‘What day is it?’

  ‘Tuesday.’

  Richard stared at him in disbelief. ‘I slept through all of Monday?’

  ‘You’ve slept through most of Tuesday too.’ Black checked his wristwatch and said, ‘It’s almost ten o’clock at night.’

  There was a creak outside the bedroom door. It was the sound of someone making their way through the house. Richard could hear the sound of someone calling his name. Whatever chemicals Black had placed in his drink were still messing up his system.

  He couldn’t hear very clearly.

  The voice sounded small and faraway.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he demanded.

  Black shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s a ghost from your past come to haunt you?’

  Richard glared at him. ‘Is that one of your lackeys?’

  ‘I came here alone this evening. If there’s someone out there, it’s not someone I invited.’

  ‘Richard?’

  It was a woman’s voice. He was struck by the idea that it could be Melissa’s ghost. Gooseflesh pricked his arms. He had never believed in ghosts. He had always thought the idea of spirits and spooks was so much rubbish for the entertainment of idiots and the easily impressed. But, even if there were such things as ghosts, he fervently hoped there was no such thing as Melissa’s ghost.

  ‘Richard?’

  ‘Is this another of your women?’ Black asked.

  He looked as though he was enjoying Richard’s discomfort.

  Richard frowned at the question. ‘Another of my women?’

  ‘Is this another of the hundreds of women you were screwing behind my niece’s back?’

  ‘I wasn’t screwing hundreds of women behind Melissa’s back.’

  ‘Just the one?’

  Richard shook his head. He couldn’t meet Black’s gaze as he said, ‘I wasn’t screwing anyone.’

  ‘Richard?’ The woman’s voice sounded closer. She was climbing up the stairs. He thought that was the sort of thing that Melissa’s ghost would be likely to do. She had died going down the stairs. She would be likely to haunt him by climbing up the stairs and calling out his name.

  His bladder ached as though it was about to burst.

  ‘See who it is,’ Richard told Black.

  Black shook his head. He sneered with disdain. ‘This is your house. You can go and see who it is.’

  Unwilling to show that he was scared, Richard climbed out of the bed. His legs trembled from the lack of exercise he’d suffered over the past forty-eight hours. He trembled as he tried to stand, and warned himself, when he did summon the courage to go out of the bedroom, he should avoid going too close to the top of the stairs until he was properly stable.

  ‘Richard?’

  ‘She sounds like she’s getting closer,’ Roger Black noted. ‘I hope she’s not dangerous.’

  Richard glared at him. He lurched awkwardly past his unwanted guest and hesitated in the doorway.

  ‘Richard?’

  It was Cindy. She had almost reached the top of the stairs. Sighing with relief he suddenly fretted that she might mention something about what had occurred when Melissa suffered her fall. The idea that Black might overhear such a conversation was unthinkable. He rushed towards her, hoping he could get her to stay silent.

  Cindy seemed to stiffen as he approached.

  Richard didn’t know if she was unnerved by his stilted gait or frightened by something else she saw at the top of the stairs. Whatever the reason, she backed away from him with her eyes lighting in terror. He could see that she was going to stumble even before she lost her footing.

  One hand went out, trying to catch the banister.

  Her foot went down too hard and too fast.

  And then she was falling backwards and screaming as she went.

  ‘Cindy,’ he called.

  His voice could barely be heard beneath the spiralling shriek of her scream. And then her voice cut off to flat, mortal silence.

  ‘Cindy?’

  Black clapped a hand on the centre of Richard’s back. The blow was almost enough to push him down the stairs. He clutched at the handrail and glared at his unwanted houseguest.

  ‘Dear, dear,’ Black grumbled. ‘This is a terrible state of affairs, isn’t it? It looks like you’ve killed her.’

  ‘She fell by accident,’ Richard protested.

  Black nodded agreement. ‘Yes. Unlike Melissa’s second and third falls down the stairs, this was an accident. Unlike Chloe’s unfortunate demise at The House of Usher on Sunday night–’

  Richard glared at him, sharply.

  ‘–this clearly was an accident,’ Black concluded. He shook his head wearily. ‘I expect you’ll still go to prison for it. If this country had a death penalty, you’d fry for this accident. Considering the evidence I’ll be giving against you, I’d say every juror in this country will want to hang you.’

  His smile was smug and accomplished.

  Richard squared his shoulders and met Black’s gaze. ‘This country doesn’t have a death penalty,’ Richard reminded him. ‘So that’s not even an issue, is it?’

  Black laughed. He was standing too close to Richard. His face filled Richard’s world. ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘This country doesn’t have a death penalty. The worst that will happen to you is that you’ll end up in a nice comfortable cell, suffering a long, long sentence.’

  Richard could hear a falseness in Roger Black’s voice.

  ‘You’re going to try and kill me, aren’t you?’

  Black shook his head. ‘Of course not. There’s no need. I’m just going to use all my connections to make sure you spend your short time in prison sharing a cell with Chloe’s former boyfriend, Kevin. He was an angry young man to begin with. Now that he’s been imprisoned for her murder, he’s quite the livid young man. And, when he finds he’s sharing a cell with the man who’s responsible for him being in jail, I think he might just push himself to new extremes as he tries to show just how angry a young man he can be.’

  Richard shook his head. ‘You wouldn’t. You couldn’t.’

  Black’s expression was an inscrutable mask. ‘The wheels are already in motion.’

  From faraway, Richard could hear the rise and fall of sirens. And, whilst he suspected one of those sirens might be an ambulance making a too-late dash to assist Cindy, he felt certain that the other siren belonged to the police car that would drive him off to his miserable destiny.

  53

  Cindy squeezed his hand. Richard gave a shame-faced smile. They shared a brief but chaste kiss to punctuate his story.

  ‘That’s the dumbest one yet,’ Heather exclaimed. ‘And there’ve been some pretty dumb stories so far this weekend.’

  ‘You can’t tell him his story is dumb,’ Tony protested. He was shaking his head and pointing at her with an angry finger. ‘We’re sharing stories, not passing judgement.’

  Geoff nodded agreement as he sipped from his pint.

  Heather rolled her eyes. She put down her wine glass.

  ‘That was a story where his girlfriend, who is currently sitting next to him, died. It’s a story where he ends up in prison getting beaten and bum raped and probably dying.’

  ‘I don’t remember bum rape being mentioned,’ Geoff complained. ‘Did I drift off to sleep?’

  ‘I would have remembered bum rape,’ Becky agreed. She spluttered drunken laughter across the table and everyone joined in with her mirth.

  Heather shook her head in disappointment. ‘The bum rape was just implied,’ she said. Her voice tr
ailed off when she realised no one was listening to her. They were all still laughing at Becky’s exclamation that she ‘would have remembered bum rape’.

  Despite herself, Heather found herself grinning at the words.

  ‘Go on, Heather,’ Tony insisted. ‘If you’ve got a story that beats Richard’s, you know we want to hear it.’

  Heather studied him for a long moment before she began.

  54

  ‘I need this typing up, fast,’ Roger Black said. ‘Is there someone here who can do it?’

  Heather beamed at him. ‘I can do it for you.’ She reached out and snatched the sheet of paper from his fingers.

  He considered her, warily. ‘Where’s Fiona?’

  ‘Bathroom break. She’ll be back in a moment. But if this is urgent I can get this typed up for you in ten minutes. I’ll have it printed out and in your office for your signature if it’s that important.’

  Black sighed. His usual gruff manner seemed to flounder in the face of her enthusiasm. ‘Whatever,’ he told her. ‘Just see that it gets done.’

  And then he was gone.

  Heather’s smile stretched wide. This was proving to be one of those days when everything went right. Her horoscope for that morning had promised this would be a day when luck was on her side, she would meet a handsome stranger, and her career would shift up to the next level. She had managed to find a parking space that was fairly close to the Raven and Skull building. She had even found a twenty-pound note on the floor of the lift. Now she was being given a chance to impress Roger Black and prove she was capable of Fiona’s job. Heather was still smiling at the development and didn’t notice Fiona Davies standing in the doorway, glowering.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Heather jumped, startled by the question. ‘It’s a letter that Mr Black asked me to type.’ She glanced at the handwriting on the page and then frowned. She had expected to see letters. She had expected to see something in a squat printed hand that would have suited Mr Black’s squat appearance. Instead she found herself staring at a page of alien markings. There were loops, slashes and cruciforms. The symbols looked ancient, archaic and pagan. Her vision began to blur as she stared at the unfamiliar characters.

  ‘Do you really think you can do my job?’

  Fiona snatched the sheet of handwritten paper from Heather’s fingers.

  As soon as the page was gone Heather was struck by a sickening headache. The pain appeared above her right eye, as though she had been stung. She placed a hand there, gasping in surprise, and expecting Fiona to show some measure of sympathy or concern.

  ‘You’re a snivelling little wretch,’ Fiona declared.

  Heather shrank from the woman’s abrasive voice.

  ‘You have no discipline,’ Fiona went on. ‘No sense of what goes on in this building and you’re of no fucking use to anyone.’

  It wasn’t just her scornful tone of voice that made the insults humiliating. For Heather, the most damning part of Fiona’s diatribe was the fact that woman didn’t bother to look up from the page she was working on. She had rolled a blank sheet of vellum into the typewriter, placed Black’s handwritten page on the copyholder beside her desk, and started typing. She had managed to do all of that whilst reminding Heather that she was useless and making her believe that everyone at Raven and Skull held the same disparaging opinion.

  ‘Go and fetch me a coffee,’ Fiona sniffed. ‘Then, once you’ve done that, you can get back to that filing I gave you earlier, you can complete your other menial chores, and you can stop trying to do my job.’

  Heather knew there were a lot of people in the office who were scared of Roger Black. He had a gruff manner and a physically imposing presence. She had also heard people talk about Charlie Raven in the same whispered tones of terror. He had a reputation for being bossy and cruel. She knew that there were elderly members of staff, those who were getting ready to retire, who said that John Skull had possessed the most dangerous and volatile reputation in the company. But, to Heather’s mind, there was no one more formidable than Fiona Davies.

  She took Fiona’s mug, went out of the office and hurried to the canteen. Her cheeks burnt with embarrassed blushes. Her eyes stung with the threat of tears. It took an effort not to sob as she considered the scathing words that had been fired at her.

  No sense of what goes on.

  No discipline.

  No fucking use to anyone.

  As she brooded on the insults, she had to stifle the moan of despair that wanted to tear at her throat. She’d only been trying to be helpful. Was this how her efforts should be repaid?

  ‘Is Fiona being a bitch again?’

  The question came from a handsome stranger. She knew she hadn’t seen him in the building before but there was something about his features that was uncannily familiar. If she had been pressed to say what it was, Heather would have settled on the fact that he looked like the older man in the portrait that dominated the lobby. The handsome stranger looked like he was closely related to John Skull.

  She wiped away a tear from the corner of her eye and smiled weakly.

  ‘Is it Fiona?’ he repeated. ‘Is she acting like a bitch again?’

  ‘That would be impolite of me to say,’ Heather said. She managed the words in a stiff tone that didn’t give away her upset. She refused to meet his gaze for fear that he would see the tears brimming on her lower lids.

  ‘You’re right,’ the handsome stranger agreed. ‘It would be very impolite.’ He nodded at the coffee she’d ordered. It sat in Fiona’s mug emblazoned with the words ‘World’s No. 1 Mum’. He raised a speculative eyebrow and asked, ‘Is that for her?’

  As soon as Heather said it was, he dropped two tablets into the drink.

  She stared at him in amazement. ‘What was that?’

  ‘That’s something that will help Fiona to calm down.’ His tone was wonderfully reassuring. His smile glinted as though he knew everything was going to work out to everyone’s best advantage. His teeth, a solid even line, reminded her of the teeth on the skull in Black’s office. He patted Heather’s fingers with his cold hand and said, ‘You’ll thank me for it later.’

  Heather shook her head. She put the coffee cup back on the counter.

  ‘I can’t give Fiona a drink that you’ve just drugged.’

  He laughed and shook his head. Lifting up the mug and placing it in her hands he said, ‘Of course you can give it to her. Not only are you going to give it to her but I believe you’re also going to thank me for this favour later.’

  55

  Heather placed the coffee cup in front of Fiona and then had second thoughts. It was the words ‘World’s No. 1 Mum’ that pricked her conscience. If Fiona was a mother then that suggested she had commitments and family and a life outside her role as the office tyrant. Heather had no idea what was in the tablets. There was a chance it could be something incapacitating or potentially fatal.

  She held her breath with that thought.

  If Fiona drank something that made her ill, that would give Heather lots of opportunities to prove her worth to Roger Black whilst the office tyrant recovered at home. If Fiona drank something fatal that would mean Raven and Skull would need to find a replacement for her. She brushed those ideas from her mind, unhappy that her thoughts were so uncharitable. Determinedly, she tried to think how she could stop Fiona from drinking the coffee.

  ‘I’ve just seen a strange man in the canteen,’ Heather began.

  ‘How exciting for you,’ Fiona said, drily. ‘You really do live a thrilling life, don’t you?’ She picked up her mug, raised it to her lips, and then seemed to decide it was too hot for her palate.

  Carefully, she placed the drink back down beside her typewriter.

  ‘I haven’t seen him here before,’ Heather explained. ‘That’s why I called him strange. But he looks very much like the picture of the man in the lobby.’

  ‘Which man in the lobby?’

  ‘The Raven and Skull portrait,’
Heather said. ‘He looked like he could have been related to John Skull.’

  Fiona was scowling as she focused on her work. ‘Why do you say that?’

  Heather shrugged. ‘The shape of his head, mostly. And maybe there was something in his eyes that was in the painting. You know how he’s got that mischievous smile?’

  Fiona nodded. She lifted her drink and placed it close to her lips. ‘I remember John Skull’s mischievous smile.’ She blew on the drink to cool it.

  ‘Could it have been John Skull’s son?’ Heather asked.

  Fiona considered this and then shook her head. ‘I don’t think he had any sons.’ She looked set to sip from her coffee and then paused. ‘John Skull didn’t like me.’

  Heather arched an eyebrow. If she had felt braver she would have said something sarcastic. If she had felt more confident in her position at Raven and Skull, Heather would have said, ‘What a surprise! I can’t imagine anyone not liking you. You’re such a charmer to everyone.’ She bit her lip to suppress the volley of nervous giggles that threatened to erupt from her throat as she imagined herself saying something so bold.

  ‘I was responsible for Skull transferring to a different office,’ Fiona explained. She laughed. The sound was caustic and unpleasant. ‘He’s the father of my little girl and I didn’t want her growing up around his influence. That’s why I organised for his transfer.’

  Heather blinked at this.

  ‘But surely, if he just transferred to a different office, he’d still be able to come back here occasionally and visit you and your daughter or–’

  ‘No.’ Fiona’s voice had a flat calmness to the tone. ‘Where I had him sent, there was never any danger of him coming back.’ Her smile was bitter but tinged with cruel satisfaction. She looked thoughtful as she said, ‘If he ever got the chance, I suspect Skull would try to get even with me for the way I got him out of these offices.’

  Heather nodded agreement. She tried to think of something else she could say in response to what Fiona had shared but only one phrase came to mind.