The Blood of Crows

by Caro Ramsay

  She was out in the forest on her own.

  Suddenly, two hands grabbed her shoulders, and she felt herself being dragged. She tried to struggle, to kick herself free, but her arms were pulled back and held tightly. She cried out as something soft went over her head.

  The darkness really was total now.

  11.25 P.M.

  ‘Batten?’

  ‘Dr Batten to you.’ Mick offered ACC Howlett a cigarette. The late night was still warm, but the slight breath of wind coming up University Avenue promised a change on the way.

  ‘I shouldn’t, you know,’ the older man said, taking it gratefully.

  Batten flicked the top of his battered lighter. He lit Howlett’s cigarette and then his own before perching on the wall. ‘How are you keeping?’

  ‘You have no idea how good that feels.’ Howlett leaned against the wall, looking out at the closing-time crowds spilling out of the pub, all laughing with the ease of the slightly drunk. He contemplated the end of his cigarette, then looked at Batten with weary eyes. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight, too quickly for your clothes to keep up. Your eyes are yellow. There’s a tremor in your right hand. And you’re not like the ACC Howlett I expected from your file. For a man who has a reputation for being cautious, you’re suddenly moving very fast. And for a man who’s a stickler for the rules, you’re breaking them right, left and centre. So, what are you trying to achieve before you shuffle off your mortal coil?’

  ‘Trying to put something right. I want to rid this city of a great evil.’ The words were breathed like some kind of personal mantra, and Howlett sounded as though he didn’t care if Batten believed him or not.

  ‘I see. Something you’ve tried to achieve all through your career is suddenly going to come right for you.’ His voice was calm, contemplative.

  ‘Sometimes the only thing you need do to succeed is to give up hope.’

  ‘And is that worth endangering the lives of good men? My friends?’ Batten’s voice was interested, non-confrontational. They could have been discussing the merits of the canteen coffee.

  ‘Something is going to happen in this city. And we shall see a new heaven and a new earth.’

  Batten glanced quickly to see if ACC Howlett had started to foam at the mouth, but he was merely speaking with a quiet certainty.

  ‘It will be the end of days. And we are, like it or not, moving towards it with every hour that passes.’

  ‘Are we getting a new Christ or something?’

  Howlett drew on his cigarette imperturbably. ‘Not far from it. A new beginning. The good will rise up, and the evil will be driven out. I’ve just been trying to stack the odds in favour of the good. That’s all.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘OK, more like the lesser of two evils. Always better the devil you know.’

  Batten nodded. ‘I am glad it’s only me you’re talking to. Anyone else, they’d wonder what else you’ve been smoking.’

  11.35 P.M.

  Oh no, you bloody don’t! Costello tried to think clearly. She let her body go limp, allowing herself to fall to her knees, and pitched sideways, pulling her knees up and trying to roll, head tucked in. But somebody grabbed her arms through the blanket that covered her, tighter this time. She cried out involuntarily, and heard a voice say, ‘Don’t hurt her.’ Then she felt a warm hand over her face, and fingers forced her mouth open, a cold liquid crept along her tongue, and her mouth was closed over it. She felt her nostrils being pinched, and tried not to swallow, but the tasteless liquid was going to make her choke otherwise.

  She had to. She had no choice.

  She lay there, heart pounding, feeling a vague rush through her head, a dulling of her thought processes, and then felt herself being lifted up. Her legs took her weight, and she was moving again. Hands on her shoulders stopped her stumbling but pushed with just enough force to steer her onwards. Her brain was confused; it was telling her legs to stop, but they kept going. Why was she not screaming? Not terrified? Her brain was panicking, her body was not. Under her feet she felt the path give way to grass, then clumps of longer grass and, finally, a smooth carpet of turf. She felt the hands pressing on her shoulders, and another hand on her ankle. Then hands were all over her, under her arms, behind her knees. She was being lifted, carried, and she felt herself acquiescing meekly.

  She couldn’t resist.

  She heard a gate creaking open, then the metallic grating of ancient hinges. She felt herself being bundled, down, down, somewhere damp and musty. And dark. She knew it was dark. And cold.

  Her feet were guided down metal rungs – how many? Then she was shifted sideways, and she sat down. Correction – someone had sat her down. On something very cold and hard. She felt something – a chain? – being put round her waist, and heard the click of a lock close by. Then her perch vibrated and lurched as someone transferred their weight from it, and their feet clanged on the rungs as they climbed up again.

  Then there was that grating noise again. Some sort of trapdoor being closed over her head. Then silence.

  She waited.

  And waited, shivering with cold, but not fear.

  She was underground. This place had seen none of the recent sun.

  A strange calmness fell over her. Don’t hurt her.

  She could sit here; she could wait. She still had her senses, she told herself; the drug would wear off.

  She rubbed her cheek against the shoulder of her jumper, trying to wake herself up, though she knew she had not been asleep. Then she realized her hands were free. She slipped the cover from her face, and opened her eyes to the blackness. Cold damp air wafted against her skin.

  She felt about with her fingers. She was sitting with her back against a wall of smooth brick, yet under her was cold metal mesh that bit into her thighs. She was numb, with that damp cold that eats into the bones. And she could smell water, hear it trickling far below. Yes, she was underground, yet high up. It made no sense. She stretched out her legs, quickly folding them again when she became aware that there was nothing in front of her, and a drop beneath her. She was on a ledge. For a minute she thought she would fall, and held herself totally still. Then she inched back to the wall behind her, the chain clinking in the dark. It was looped round a metal stanchion. Through a fog of not knowing what to do, she became aware of something hanging from her neck. A noose? One move too far, and it would tighten, and that would be the last thing she knew.

  Yet she still wasn’t panicking. She should have been half dead with terror. Instead, she was starting to think a bit more clearly.

  She felt for the noose. Not a rope, a tape. Weighted. She fumbled for the weight, and recognized it for what it was – a small stainless-steel torch. She switched it on and shone it slowly around her.

  She was in a rectangular vertical shaft, lined with brick. In front of her, the wall glistened with water. To one side, a dark gaping chasm – a sewer? Some kind of underground communication tunnel left over from the war? Whatever it was, it disappeared into fathomless blackness. Fragments of stuff she’d had to read at school chased around inside her brain: Great God! This is an awful place … caverns measureless to man …

  Close beside her, to her left, the beam caught a metal ladder. She followed it up all the way to the top. Twenty feet, then a grating – her way to reach the outside world. If she could get up there and get it open …

  She moved forward carefully, then froze as she heard the rattle of a chain echo around the tunnel. She traced the chain with her torch beam. It was new, shining. But it was a chain clipped to the metal grid, easily unclipped with the pressure of her thumb. She ran it through her hands. Just enough slack to let her move, to tighten before she went too far. Were they keeping her safe? She unclipped herself, shining the beam around. There was only silence, except for the gentle gurgle of the underground stream.

  To her right, the metal platform extended a few feet to the corner of the shaft. There wa
s something on it, she could just see it, a few feet away. She edged along it, a strange confidence rising in her now that her limbs were once more under her own control, and shone the torch to see what it was. An animal, she thought at first. A rat? But it was just a small pile of … her heart began to race.

  Don’t hurt her.

  Bones.

  Small human bones.

  She sat and gazed at them, totally mesmerized, for a few minutes. Then she carefully lay down on her side and reached out towards the hint of gold gleaming in the torchlight.

  She knew she had been drugged. And that some drugs can wipe the short-term memory. She had to remember this, had to obtain proof that she had been here, proof of what she had found. Just as she brought the little medal within reach, the torch beam picked out something else that made the blood almost stop in her veins. Hooked round the farther metal stanchion was something that looked all too familiar – a pair of handcuffs.

  Stretching her arm out as far as she could get it to go, she managed to slide the very end of the torch under the fine gold chain, and with infinite care tugged it towards her, trying not to dislodge the little bones. Yes, she was disturbing a crime scene, and she’d get into trouble for it.

  On the other hand, she might never get out of here at all. And in a hundred years’ time her own bones would be found, her skeletal hand still clutching Alessandro Marchetti’s gold St Christopher medal.

  11.55 P.M.

  Anderson watched the minute hand move on to twelve, joining its mate at the bewitching hour. He closed his eyes, letting his head fall back against the sofa cushions, enjoying the tick of the clock and the gentle snoring of Nesbitt in the corner. He wondered if he could train the dog to bite Mulholland on demand. He always knew that his constable was a career cop. If he saw a way to make his name, why should it matter to him that it would be at the cost of his boss’s career? They had worked together for six years or more. Six years. It meant nothing. Loyalty meant nothing. No loyalty as deep as the Molendinar for cops – there was more honour among thieves.

  His thoughts were broken by the sound of Brenda coming downstairs, her gentle footfall on the carpet. He heard Nesbitt’s tail tap on the floor as she opened the door.

  She perched on the arm of the sofa, wrapping her dressing gown round her, pulling her knees up to her chest. ‘You awake?’

  ‘No,’ he said, patting her on the knee.

  ‘How are you feeling now?’

  ‘Kind of numb, I suppose.’

  ‘Are you thinking about David Lambie?’

  ‘Mostly,’ he answered, with partial honesty.

  ‘Because you should be.’ She paused. ‘When all this is over, do you think we could plan a holiday? Not to go now, but plan it, for Christmas. I feel we have hardly seen you this summer.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry. It’s all been a bit horrid.’

  ‘And it is not over, is it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We don’t have to live like this. We can have a new start.’

  ‘I know.’ He opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling. ‘Yes, I know.’

  She reached for his hand and wrapped her fingers round his. ‘And another thing – all these Russian gangsters. Do you ever stop to think that one day they might come after you? After all, they came for David. I wasn’t going to say it, but it could have been you out there. And then where would the kids and I be? I know it’s your job, but is it worth it?’

  ‘How do you know about Russian gangsters?’

  ‘You think just because you walk about half blind, half asleep, everybody else in this family does. We watch the news, we read the newspapers. You need to leave the job.’

  He sighed. ‘Yes, I know,’ he said again.

  ‘So, are you coming to bed?’

  ‘I’ll come up soon.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’

  He rested his head against the back of the sofa, closed his eyes, and thought very seriously about ignoring his mobile as it rang.

  Sunday

  4 July 2010

  4.00 A.M.

  ‘Stay still, will you?’

  ‘I don’t like people sticking needles in me. What are you doing?’

  ‘I need to get bloods off you, one sample every ten minutes.’ O’Hare held up a syringe and bent down to find the vein. ‘Matilda needs these samples, so be quiet.’

  Costello was lying on her bed, seething. ‘Why am I stuck here?’ Downstairs, the door was wide open, and she could hear the crackle of a radio – somebody was standing guard at her front door. She was being kept in her room, under supervision, while out in the early dawn forest there was a hive of activity. O’Hare kept insisting that she needed to rest. But she didn’t. She had got herself up out of the drain, she had staggered high enough up the hill to get a signal on her phone, and she had made it through the forest and back to the road. Then she had waited in the dark, marking the spot where she had left the treeline.

  After twenty minutes, Pettigrew’s car had pulled up. He had a map of the old drainage pipes and tunnels, and all the shafts – gated shafts, lidded shafts, open shafts, closed shafts – were marked and numbered with an army of little ticks and crosses advancing across the map, showing how far the recommissioning work had progressed. Before driving her back to the school, he laid the map out on the bonnet of the car and talked her through how she had got out. From her description, he seemed to know whereabouts she had been. Shaft 36A was the one Pettigrew put his finger on first, then he circled 37 and 38. But she couldn’t pinpoint exactly where she had been.

  O’Hare made her jump by sticking another needle in her elbow.

  ‘You do realize you were drugged, don’t you? That stuff they put in your mouth? You’re lucky to be alive. Do you think you’ll ever learn to do your job and keep out of trouble?’ O’Hare was speaking while filling up phial after phial of blood, peering through his reading glasses and then writing labels.

  ‘Bollocks,’ Costello growled. ‘And I’m not sure I really was in trouble.’

  ‘No, Costello, you were drugged, blindfolded and put down a hole. The same shaft that … You were put down that hole and left there. It was very dangerous – one wrong move and you would have been off that ledge.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t.’ She folded her arms defiantly. ‘There was a wee chain. And I was left a torch, so I could see. That was Alessandro Marchetti, wasn’t it?’

  O’Hare unpeeled a small sticking plaster and put it on her arm. ‘I can’t answer that yet. It’s getting light, so I’ll go out there as soon as I know you’re OK.’

  ‘Wait – I’ve just remembered something.’ She shifted her hip and dug into the front pocket of her trousers. ‘I thought maybe the drug would wipe my memory, so I took this. As proof.’

  She held out her closed fist, and O’Hare opened his hand. She dropped the gold chain and medal into it. Then she picked up the book from her bedside table and held it out to him.

  He looked from the medal to the photograph of Alessandro and back again. Then he smiled sadly. ‘Yes, this probably is proof. I’d be surprised if my examination finds anything to contradict it.’

  ‘And there were handcuffs.’

  ‘Handcuffs? Where?’

  She pulled herself up on her elbows. ‘The platform they left me on was bracketed to two metal poles up against the wall. The handcuffs were on the one opposite. And –’ she shut her eyes, straining to remember ‘– they were hooked round a long bone. It was too big to be an arm bone. It must have been a shin bone –’

  ‘Because his hands would have been too small,’ O’Hare finished for her. He pushed her back down on to the pillow. ‘Don’t think about it.’

  ‘But you know what that means? It wasn’t just where they put the body. He was alive when they put him down there! And they just left him to die in the dark, where nobody would hear him. I was down there, and it was a horrible place. Prof, he was six years old!’ She sat up, then tried to stand up but had to sit b
ack down again. Her head thought it was a good idea while her legs had made a decision to stay where they were. ‘One thing I’m sure of,’ she said. ‘The people who did that to Alessandro are not the people who put me down there. Somebody led me to that … place … to find him.’

  O’Hare sat down on the bed beside her. ‘And why would they do that?’

  Costello screwed her face up, thinking hard. She rubbed her forehead with her wrist, making her fringe stand on end. ‘Look, they never meant me any harm. Someone said, “Don’t hurt her.” It was –’ she searched for the right word ‘– gentle. I don’t know … it was kind of … I mean, I wasn’t hurt. I wasn’t pushed or manhandled; I was just moved along. They guided me down the ladder carefully … the torch, the chain … They were intended to help me get out. The cover wasn’t locked.’ She repeated. ‘Oh, yes, I was taken right to the place where the body was. I was meant to find it.’

  ‘And why would they do that?’ asked O’Hare again. ‘Apart from the malicious pleasure of proving that bloody Sangster woman wrong.’

  Costello’s grey eyes opened wide. ‘Because the drain was about to be recommissioned. It would have been filled with water, flushed through. Those small bones would have been washed away like twigs. He would have been lost. The truth would have been lost.’

  8.00 A.M.

  The lecture room was quiet, with a cool stillness in the air. No students, no cops, no computers, no phones, just the gentle drone of the traffic outside. Mulholland was sitting with his feet up on the desk, skimming through the reports about Lynda Osbourne. He had intended to go home the night before, but there had always been another page, another statement to read. His mind abhorred disorder, so in the end he had pulled out a clipboard, fixed a sheet of paper to it, and started to write and cross-reference.