A Murder of Crows

by Ian Skewis

Scott looked at him warily, then said, ‘I don’t know what else to say.’

  The detective regarded him for a moment, then replied, ‘It’s like this, Scott. Two people have gone missing in these woods. Alistair Smith and Caroline Baker. You didn’t happen to see them by any chance?’

  ‘No,’ replied Scott flatly.

  ‘That’s odd, Scott, because your father said you were here on the night they both disappeared.’

  Scott’s stomach lurched and he felt his face flush. Then came the anger. You bastard, he thought, I cover your back, despite everything you’ve done to me. And you throw me to the dogs. ‘I was in the forest but I never saw anything,’ he lied. Just then Scott had a flashback to something that he couldn’t easily form into words.

  ‘What are you hiding?’ asked Colin, through a pleasant smile.

  Scott shook his head. ‘Nothing. I never saw anything.’

  The detective constable stared at him for what seemed the longest time – then he suddenly lost interest.

  ‘Okay. You can go,’ he announced.

  Scott blinked. ‘I can go?’

  ‘Of course you can. There’s nothing stopping you, is there?’

  Scott waited a moment, unsure, then cautiously edged past.

  ‘Is your father a violent man?’ Colin asked suddenly, stopping Scott in his tracks.

  ‘When he’s got a drink,’ said Scott carefully.

  ‘I can’t abide violence myself. I was never very hands on, you see.’ He nodded to Driscoll, who sidled up to Scott. ‘Of course, I can’t speak for both of us.’ And with that as his exit line, Colin left with Campbell, leaving Driscoll with Scott.

  Scott glared at him and was ready to defend himself if necessary. But Driscoll simply looked him up and down, the expression on his face implying that he thought Scott was no match for him. He gave him a wink and sauntered off with a smirk.

  Scott was furious. He was sick of being threatened. He was also very hungry, having not eaten properly in days. He marched out of the woods and went into a nearby café and ordered a hot meal. He wolfed it down, all the while wondering why his father had tried to frame him. Was the old bastard so twisted that he would do anything to get at him? It certainly seemed so. What have I ever done to him to cause such hatred?

  Scott’s optimism and hopes for reconciliation were all but extinguished, and he decided there and then that it was time to leave for good. He finished his meal and got up to pay.

  His card was declined.

  Scott phoned his bank.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Smith, but someone has reported that they found your card lying in a street so we had to take a course of action in order to prevent it from being used without your authorisation.’

  ‘But it’s my card. It was never lost in the first place,’ argued Scott, heatedly.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir – we can send you a new one within twenty-four hours – but you won’t be able to use the old one.’

  After much arguing, Scott reluctantly agreed, and after supplying his details, he hung up.

  Dad must have kept a record of my bank details, he thought darkly. Why won’t he leave me alone?

  He stared long and hard into the woods. Something seemed to cackle quietly in the shadows. A bird perhaps, he reassured himself. But it was cold comfort at best. I’m trapped here. Game, set and match to dad.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  September 4th

  Alice Smith was doing her housework, flicking the dust off the great-grandfather clock in the hall with a small feather brush, when she noticed that her telephone had been moved. She always left it at what she felt was a jaunty angle, but now it was sitting a little too near the edge of the table. When she approached, Alice found that the receiver was no longer on its cradle. It looked like it had been deliberately taken off the hook.

  I must have moved it when I was dusting, she thought, unconvinced, as she continued with her chores, her mind wandering furtively through all the distinctly creepy possibilities. Then she stopped.

  Something upstairs. She listened, staring at the ceiling. It came again. The sound of creaking floorboards.

  I’ve heard this before. Probably just the house cooling off. But Alice wasn’t particularly good at reassuring herself. Her mind would not let her rest. She just had to go up and see.

  On arriving at the landing, there seemed to be nothing there. She sighed impatiently at her own paranoia and went back down the stairs.

  The very next moment she was humming a tune to herself as she sprinkled water on the herbaceous border of her garden. Alice knew something had happened, but she did not know what. It just felt wrong somehow. She looked at her watch, but the time meant nothing to her anymore.

  Another fugue? she wondered vaguely, and Alice suddenly felt lost, for her life was becoming a secret that she was no longer part of.

  She went back indoors and struggled for a full 20 minutes to comprehend the fact that the clock in the hall had stopped working when the storm had struck. When she finally understood this, she fell exhausted on the front doorstep and cried.

  Just then she discovered that the dead seagull was gone.

  The revelation jolted Alice back to her senses and she pulled herself together. Steadfastly trying not to think about her disturbing lapses of memory, she got up and continued watering the soil, which was bone dry from the heat that still permeated Hobbs Brae, despite the recent thunder. She breathed in what air there was and wrinkled her nose when she smelled something acrid, like smoke. She looked down at her dress and was shocked to see that it was covered in strands of straw. Alice was struck with a hazy memory of something that made no sense; she could see a blue cardigan and she remembered flames, but nothing more.

  Something caught her eye and she stood stock still, watching the upstairs bedroom window closely. The curtain flicked back suddenly and she gasped, dropping the metal can onto the paving stones with a clatter, the water pouring out until it sputtered to a stop. Alice clutched at her pearls and backed off, shocked that her suspicions were true.

  Someone is in my house.

  It explained everything that had happened: the floorboards upstairs and the dead seagull disappearing; then the phone. And now this.

  Alice felt her feet sinking into something soft and found that she had retreated into the soil. The basket was still lying there on its side and she wondered what was buried nearby under the telltale mound of earth. With a sudden act of boldness, she marched round to the back garden and pulled out a spade from the shed and marched round to the front again. Digging furiously, she discovered a pile of terracotta pots under the soil. Alice realised with an involuntary laugh what she had done. She had buried them there because she thought they would somehow grow. ‘Not one of my better days,’ she remarked. Alice was so disgusted with herself that she left the pots scattered in the soil with the spade sticking crookedly out of the ground.

  She looked up at the window again. And I thought I was going mad. I’ve been blaming myself for all these strange little things that have been happening. When all along someone has been here with me the whole time. For a moment, Alice felt confident, for the evidence behind her bedroom window told her that she had more nous than she gave herself credit for.

  To think I thought it might be the ghost of my husband.

  Alice almost laughed at the idea, her no-nonsense teacher’s sensibilities kicking in again.

  This would be the last place he would return to, she thought cynically, and stared up at the window once again, silently challenging her trespasser to appear before her. When nothing came, she pressed her lips together determinedly, and went straight back inside.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she shouted, and waited for a response. None came. She stood for a moment and wondered what to do next. ‘I’m calling the police,’ she yelled.

  But, by the time the sun began to rise again, Alice had already spent the entire night in her garden, shivering in the cold, and exiled from her own home.

  For ju
st as she was about to pick up the receiver, someone had run heavily across the hall upstairs.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  September 4th

  Despite the sunshine, Scott had retreated once more to his green dominion. It was the only place where he felt reasonably safe. In the relative gloom of the trees, he could move around unseen, and the masses of moss, which were reassuringly soft and springy underfoot, served to muffle his movements. He found a glade of ferns and hid amongst their fronds, lying back on the forest floor and staring up through the leafy canopies at the sky. Two vast clouds were slowly coming together like two huge armies joining forces – a massive, silent drama of reconciliation taking place in the air above. And here on terra firma he wished that he and his father could do the same. It pained him deeply to think that they had always been on opposing sides. Unlike the clouds above, it seemed they would not be reconciled until one or the other was defeated. There was no going back now.

  He was getting used to his life as an outcast. It didn’t seem that different to how his father made him feel at the best of times. He had no money and no home, and he was now playing a distinctly uncomfortable waiting game for his bank card to arrive. Uncomfortable, because he would have to try and intercept the postman before it was delivered into Jerome’s callous hands.

  Yet he had discovered a crude sense of independence and his confidence was growing as a result. In some ways he had his father to thank for this, given how he had pushed him out into the real world. He just wished that it hadn’t been done so maliciously. In any case, he knew that he would soon have no choice but to leave because his dominion was shrinking. The forest had too many visitors and he could hear one of them approaching now. He sat up quickly, alarmed by the heavy, laboured footsteps coming towards him through the trees. A figure appeared. As it approached Scott was relieved to find that it wasn’t Jerome.

  ‘DCI Jack Russell,’ the detective said gruffly, looking down at Scott and cloaking him in his shadow. Scott looked up, observing that the investigator had a stern expression, but his eyes betrayed an empathy with the world. Scott thought there was something clumsy about him. He seemed to be putting on a stance, his chest puffed out deliberately and his voice forcibly deeper than it ought to be.

  ‘And you are Scott Jennings,’ Jack added, intending, it seemed, to intimidate him. Scott smiled patiently and waited. Clements had been playing bad cop and he suspected this one would soon tire of being a bully and would revert to being the kind soul that was so evident in his eyes. He wondered what was lacking in the officer’s life that he felt the need to play-act. Scott’s patience was wearing thin. If it wasn’t his father threatening him with an axe, it was some nosey detective with an axe to grind. He never seemed to get a moment’s peace. Once more he was being driven from his bolthole. He felt endangered, close to extinction – a future fossil.

  Scott watched carefully as Jack sat down heavily beside him and wiped his brow. He could see that the man was exhausted. His shoulders were slumped, as if a lead weight rested on them. There were shadows under his eyes, and he had a haunted expression, as if trying to conceal some private malady. Doubt perhaps, thought Scott.

  ‘Still on the run from your dad?’ Jack quipped.

  Scott flinched slightly. ‘I’m not running away from anybody.’

  ‘You ran away from me. And it did appear that you had been running away from him too, no?’

  There was an awkward silence, then Scott stammered, ‘I thought you were that other detective – Clements.’

  ‘Yes, we often get mistaken for one another,’ said Jack good-humouredly. ‘We’re practically twins.’

  Scott noticed the detective suddenly scowl.

  ‘So let me get this straight. DC Clements has already questioned you?’

  Scott looked at him cautiously. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see. And how did that go?’

  Scott fidgeted uncomfortably. ‘I was scared,’ he said finally.

  This seemed to strike a chord with Jack. ‘Nothing wrong with being scared.’ Then he leaned closer and whispered, ‘And between you and me, I don’t like Clements either.’

  Scott giggled involuntarily and twigged how childish he must have sounded. His face flushed with embarrassment.

  ‘I’m worried about you,’ said Jack. ‘This isn’t a good place to be right now. Two people went missing here. You do know that, don’t you?’

  Scott shrugged. He felt Jack nudge him.

  ‘Do you remember the storm a few days ago?’

  Scott replied, ‘The storm isn’t gone. It’ll be back.’

  He saw Jack look at him questioningly. ‘Someone else said that.’

  Scott felt a charge of excitement. Somebody was on the same wavelength as him. ‘They did? Who?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ replied Jack. ‘What makes you think the storm is coming back?’

  ‘Can’t you feel it?’

  He looked right back at the detective, who seemed to be observing him closely, as if trying to figure him out.

  ‘Where were you, Scott, on that night?’

  ‘I was here.’

  ‘Did you see anyone?’

  Scott shook his head.

  ‘If you saw someone, then you must tell me. You’ll be protected.’

  ‘I only saw my dad.’

  ‘Why were you running from him yesterday?’

  Scott didn’t respond.

  ‘Did you have a fight?’

  ‘We’re always fighting.’

  He watched with a degree of quiet cynicism as Jack attempted an amiable smile.

  ‘I had a little chat with him. He likes a drink, doesn’t he?’

  Scott remained guarded.

  ‘I could smell it,’ explained Jack.

  ‘Whisky,’ said Scott simply.

  ‘I guess he’s got quite a temper on him when the whisky kicks in. Am I right?’ An attempt at a laugh.

  Scott gave Jack a wary look, then nodded.

  ‘Does he frighten you?’

  ‘No,’ answered Scott quickly.

  ‘And yet you hide out here alone, on cold nights, with people going missing all around you. Bit dangerous, is it not?’

  ‘That’s why I did it,’ claimed Scott with a winning smile, but he could tell that the officer wasn’t convinced. He self-consciously plucked the leaves from some plants, waiting for the next question.

  ‘Your dad doesn’t really need his walking stick, does he?’

  This unexpectedly touched a nerve and Scott blinked away an oncoming tear. He was startled when the detective seized him by the shoulders and put his face close to his.

  ‘Did you see anything suspicious that night – the slightest thing – anything at all?’

  Scott felt under pressure to give him some kind of answer, but he didn’t know what to say. He frowned and pursed his lips, trying to think fast.

  ‘Did you see anyone else in the forest on the night of September the first, other than your father?’

  Scott saw himself in the woods. He could remember the rain soaking through his clothes and the wind howling through the arch of the bridge. A glimpse of water. And blood. He recalled averting his eyes to the cosmos above. ‘I saw a strange star in the sky,’ he blurted.

  ‘A star?’ Jack repeated impatiently.

  Scott hung his head. ‘It moved differently from all the others,’ he added quietly.

  Jack let go of his shoulders and Scott could feel the air of regret between them. They sat together in silence for a while, then they both heard footsteps. Jack got up, absentmindedly ruffling the boy’s hair. Then he shouted, ‘Come out of your hiding place.’

  Scott was preparing to make a run for it, lest it was his father. But instead, DC Clements came out of the shadows. Scott watched as Jack marched towards him and then there were raised voices. It appeared that Clements was getting a bollocking. Scott was relieved not to be on the receiving end of someone’s bile for once. He moved a little closer so that he could hear them mo
re clearly.

  ‘What the hell are you playing at?’ demanded Jack.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, sir,’ Scott heard Colin reply, with a look of defiance.

  ‘That boy has just told me that you have already questioned him. So why did you not take him to the office for a formal written statement?’

  Scott didn’t like being referred to as a boy, nor did he like the look of contempt that DC Clements gave him at that moment. He worried that he had inadvertently got the detective into some kind of trouble with his superior. He observed him move closer to Jack and tell him something, but he couldn’t make out what it was.

  Scott moved a little closer too, his eyes cast downwards as if disinterested. He cocked his head to one side in order to eavesdrop.

  ‘… and what about the blood?’ he heard Jack say.

  ‘Nothing yet, sir.’

  Scott saw Jack heave an impatient sigh. ‘What do you mean, nothing yet?’

  Colin appeared to bristle. ‘Well, as you know, it can take weeks to find the DNA in such a sample.’

  ‘Yes, I do know that, but there is nothing stopping you from finding out the blood type and matching it with his medical records. They are easy enough to find, are they not?’

  ‘Well, aye, but we need a warrant first and if it’s a common blood type it hardly gets us much closer to a match.’

  ‘But it does narrow it down, so get it done.’

  The DC glared at his superior for a moment, then shrugged and stomped off.

  Jack watched him go, and turned his attention to Scott. He walked up to him and smiled apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, Scott. But I need you to come back to the station with me in order to make a statement. Once done, we can then take you out of our enquiries.’

  Scott felt his stomach sink. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, he thought, as he reluctantly followed Jack back to his car.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  September 4th

  Matthew White was watching and waiting, collating every scrap of information he could get. He observed that the local press were reporting on the case, but only seemed interested in Caroline. He didn’t mind too much. She’s worth ten of Alistair, he thought.