Her Cold Eyes

by Tony Black

  There were some moments of silence. Complete stillness in the wood where the only sound was the rustling of the wind among the branches. Valentine looked up to see the sky through the patchy canopy – it was streaked with the moon’s reflected glow – and then he settled in to gaze upon the eternal emptiness.

  When the group from the house neared, their torch-glow began to illuminate the outbuilding. Long shadows stretched along the ground, and then crawled slowly up the stone walls. It made an eerie setting, even before the robed bodies came into view, with the bright flames contrasting starkly against the darkness of the woods.

  When the door was pushed open, the interior of the building was illuminated by shooting amber slats of light. A stooping man in dark robes moved to the middle of the room where a heavy iron grate was suspended from the roof beams. Around the grate’s edges were black candles, which the man set about lighting with the flame of his torch. When his task was complete the naked girl was laid upon the grate and the others gathered round.

  Outside, Valentine watched the goings-on with a growing sense of dread. The girl seemed barely conscious, her head lolling from side to side; occasionally she would try to reach for the side of the grate, to sit up, but would be pushed down. She’d been drugged, that was clear. What was less clear was her fate.

  ‘I can’t see their faces,’ said McCormack.

  ‘How’s Rickards going to get any pictures?’ said Valentine.

  ‘That’s my point.’

  ‘I won’t leave her lying there in that state.’

  McCormack made to rise and Valentine grabbed her arm. ‘Hold on, just keep your powder dry. Nothing’s happened yet.’

  ‘Look at her, she’s in and out of consciousness.’

  ‘I won’t let any harm come to her, I promise. But we need to get some evidence too, we need Rickards to get some pictures.’

  The men in robes started to move around the grate, like it was an altar they were worshipping at. They chanted together, but the words were not distinguishable. The girl’s distress only seemed to grow now; she turned from side to side, thrashing her arms like she was in the grip of nightmares.

  At the height of the girl’s agony, two of the robed men grabbed her legs and another man pinned down her arms. She screamed out, but it was as if no one heard her. As she writhed, the small, bunched-up woman appeared. She was holding something under her robes; as she lowered her hood, the others followed. Her next action was to hoist up her arm: a long-bladed dagger was in her hand, catching the candlelight and casting its reflection to the walls.

  ‘Oh, no . . .’ said Valentine.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Under her robes!’ He ran into the darkness.

  ‘God no.’

  As Valentine went he heard McCormack’s feet pounding the earth behind him. He heard another sound, a louder thudding, and then there were shouts and screams.

  ‘We’re too late!’ yelled McCormack.

  Valentine didn’t reply, he kept pushing through the undergrowth, batting back the low-hanging branches. The shouting intensified, changed tone completely.

  ‘Something’s not right,’ he bellowed.

  They were screams of terror now, but soon silenced by a louder, more definitive, and final, horror.

  As a gunshot rang out Valentine halted in the darkness of the woods. Standing still, he heard nothing more – no screams, no panic. Not a voice, or a whisper.

  He held steady, his heart pumping so loudly he could hear it in his ears. His spine was rigid, his whole body frozen.

  Then another shot came. And another.

  The detective tightened his eyes.

  A final shot.

  Nothing seemed real. The entire moment was marked with the utter unreality of dreams. He couldn’t process where he was, or what had happened. For several seconds he stayed still, and then, as if responding to prodding, he ran for the door of the outbuilding.

  Valentine arrived at the open entrance a few seconds before Rickards and McCormack.

  ‘Oh, Jesus, what have you done?’ he said.

  McCormack put her hand over her eyes and turned away.

  Rickards was the first to enter the building, as he moved, the baby in the old crone’s hands began to cry. The sound of the screaming child sent McCormack rushing in, snatching up the infant.

  ‘Ian, what have you done?’ Valentine said.

  Davis stood over the fallen and bloodied corpses with the handgun still held in front of him. The smell of gunpowder and a smoke haze hung in the air around him. He was a pale phantom of himself, but somehow calmer than Valentine ever remembered him to be.

  ‘Ian . . . give me the gun.’

  Davis knelt down and started to remove his victims’ hoods. There was Sutherland, with a large portion of his frontal lobe missing. The MEP, Rosenthal, he was dead too. The Labour member of parliament, Jonathan Miller, executed at point-blank range. And Abbie McGarvie’s father, Alex McGarvie, dead.

  ‘Ian, please.’

  Davis rose and looked straight through Valentine, ignoring his request. He called out to Rickards.

  ‘Tell my wife and kids, I had no choice.’

  ‘No, Ian . . .’

  He raised the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.

  ‘No, Ian . . .’

  There was a brief flash from the muzzle of the SIG Sauer and DI Davis’s head jerked sharply sidewards. He fell quickly, onto the bloodied heap of bodies that now covered the earthen floor of the old, stone outbuilding.

  ‘Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.’

  – Ephesians 5:11

  Epilogue

  Lately Valentine had lost the knack of early starts. The morning coffee had been coming later and later – it would soon be a mid-day affair. He could understand how those with time on their hands became different people. It was possible to change completely, alter your outlook on life. He knew some who had become slobs, couch contents. There were others who became obsessively fastidious, like over-grooming parrots who plucked away their plumage.

  It was strange how people changed. He knew he had. There was a time when he thought he wouldn’t be able to live without the force, because he believed it was his life. He was wrong, of course. It had never been that. It had never been more than a part of his life – there was more to Bob Valentine, and there was so much more to life.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come?’ said Clare.

  ‘No, I have to do this by myself.’

  ‘You know I’m there to support you, whatever you do, Bob.’

  He reached out to brush her arm. ‘I know that.’

  Clare smiled, an easy gesture, like a child’s. ‘Look at your shoes,’ she said, ‘you could see your face in them.’

  He laughed. ‘Dad did them for me. He’s not at all bad with the shoe-brush.’

  ‘He’s some man.’ She leaned over and pressed her lips to his cheek. ‘You’re quite the chip off the old block, Bob.’

  He watched his wife walk back into the house and he headed out to the car. The Hyundai Getz wasn’t a match for the Audi, but if he put down the seats he could get his golf clubs in the back, and he certainly wasn’t in any danger of a speeding ticket.

  As he headed into Ayr, Valentine tried to prepare himself for what was ahead. He hadn’t seen any members of the squad, or even any colleagues, save the odd uniform on the High Street, since he’d been suspended. There had been no shame attached to his departure. At first, he wondered why, but later he found he simply didn’t care. His only concern was for the way his team might be affected – he didn’t especially want DI McCormack to suffer unduly for her part in what had happened. He’d had his career, and she still deserved hers, if that’s what she wanted.

  He parked outside the gates of the cemetery and made his way into the open gathering. The wind raked his hair as he walked, stirring up old thoughts about Ian Davis on the day of his internment. Valentine would never know what had d
riven Davis over the edge, but he could, in retrospect, follow some of the trail there. It was pointless, of course, to do that now. Davis was gone, but raking over his actions could be left to others.

  He spied McCormack with some officers from the station, and made his way to her side. As the ceremony began the wind picked up, worrying the priest’s cassocks and the spray of roses on top of the coffin. Clouds crossed the sky and some weak sunrays were lowered over the cemetery, scattering a bouncing light. The mood was sombre, perhaps more than any other time he could remember.

  When the ceremony was over, and the coffin lowered into the ground, a woman in black came forward with three children, the oldest couldn’t have been more than six. As he watched the children scattering soil on their father’s remains, it seemed like the image of true sadness. As they turned to leave he watched them go, sidling past a floral tribute spelling the word ‘Daddy’.

  ‘It breaks your heart, doesn’t it?’ said McCormack.

  ‘In ways I never imagined possible,’ said Valentine.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about what Dr Mason said about the suicide rate among detectives on this sort of case.’

  They started to walk back to the cemetery gates. A blackbird swooped over them and rested on a gravestone.

  ‘What Dr Mason said was on my mind too. That and one or two other things.’

  McCormack gathered her collars, squinting into the wind. ‘I’d been thinking about the earlier shooting,’ she said.

  ‘You mean the shooting of Malcolm Frizzle?’

  ‘And Phil Donnelly. We still have nothing to go on.’

  ‘My conclusion is that Malky simply fell foul of the wrong people. Davis wouldn’t shoot one of his own.’

  ‘But if he hadn’t found the gun at the scene, we might not be here today.’

  ‘Perhaps. But here we are.’

  McCormack looked around, doubts falling from her face. She changed the subject. ‘I didn’t see Kevin Rickards here, I thought he’d definitely show.’

  ‘I spoke to Rickards, I don’t think he wanted to upset Davis’s wife by attending.’

  ‘Oh, is there some kind of difficulty?’

  Valentine turned to face McCormack, halting in the pathway. ‘It was Rickards’ idea for Davis to send away his wife and kids; he thought it was for the best, for their safety. Rickards had faced a lot of threats himself, but he never imagined for a moment that separating Davis from his family would be one of the things that pushed him over the edge like that.’

  ‘How could he?’

  ‘How could any of us?’

  They’d reached the road.

  ‘Such a horrible outcome,’ said McCormack.

  ‘So much heartbreak.’

  She held out her hand. ‘Goodbye, Bob.’