Tales of Crow- The Complete series Box Set

by Chris Ward

  The boys in the band would go wild for these riffs, he knew. These were the best riffs of his life, a couple of albums’ worth of quality material. Surely this time they’d be able to record something good enough to get signed. After all, it might be their last chance to get on the endless booze and pussy bandwagon if the government got their way with next years’ vote.

  The playlist ended and the silence rushed in around the single-note riff Race was still ripping out. The thudding bass rhythm kept him in time as he went for one last run up to the top frets—

  Bass rhythm?

  Race dropped his guitar, the sound cutting off in an instant as the smartphone’s wire jerked free. That rhythm was still there, coming from behind him, but it sounded like—

  Hand claps?

  ‘Oh, don’t stop,’ came a reedy voice. ‘I was really getting into it. You have quite a talent there, young man.’

  Race spun. A shadowy figure wearing a top hat stood by the busted-in door to the old pinball hall. Race had been planning to go inside after dark to let the atmosphere freak him out, but he’d got caught up in the music.

  ‘So much noise, and suddenly so quiet? A penny for your thoughts, young pretender?’

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’

  Race slipped a hand into his back pocket, feeling for his knife. He usually carried it everywhere, but shit, it wasn’t there. Of course, he’d changed his jeans before coming out, putting on a lighter pair more suitable for the climb.

  Still, even though he couldn’t see the man’s face, his thin frame was spindly, like a talking clothes horse. Race was a hundred and ten kilograms of meat. There was no contest.

  ‘Who am I? You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But I have something for you, Race Devan, if you want it.’

  ‘How the fuck did you know my name?’

  The man lifted a hand and extended a bony finger in Race’s direction. The man’s joints creaked as he moved, sending a shiver of fear running down Race’s back.

  ‘It says it on your guitar case.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t—’

  ‘There. By the clasp.’

  It was full dark, the only light coming from the moon, yet this stranger had read the faded biro on a thumb-sized sticker stuck next to the handle, written by Race’s mother on a long-ago morning as he prepared to board a bus for a three-day school trip to Wales. He had never bothered to rip it off, but it was impossible that the man had seen it. Race couldn’t even see the sticker and he was sat right by it.

  ‘You have good eyes.’

  The man gave a dry chuckle. ‘Eye. I lost one. Regrettably.’

  Even though Race’s fear stood at a level he had never believed possible, he couldn’t bring himself to cut and run. This was his best guitar, Goddamnit, and there wasn’t a way to get another one. If this scrawny one-eyed motherfucker was going to murder him, he would have done so by now.

  ‘What do you want?’

  The man chuckled again. ‘I want nothing but to make you an offer.’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

  ‘You have talent,’ the stranger said. ‘Let me offer you the world as your stage.’

  ‘Seriously, mate, you’re out of your mind. Why don’t you just fuck off before I either beat the shit out of you or call the DCA and let them do it?’

  The stranger seemed to ignore him. ‘You have good taste in music,’ he said. ‘Plastic Black Butterfly is an old favorite of mine. I once offered Ken Okamoto himself the same offer I’m making to you, and he turned me down. The world saw what happened.’

  Race’s eyes widened. ‘Man, seriously, you know Ken Okamoto?’

  ‘I consider him an old friend.’

  Maybe it was the drink, or maybe Race was just star-struck, but he took a step towards the stranger’s silhouette, his absent knife forgotten.

  ‘You’re mates with Ken Okamoto?’

  The man shrugged. ‘Our relationship isn’t the greatest right now, I’ll admit. A span of several thousand miles doesn’t help. Are you interested in my offer?’

  Race felt himself swaying from side to side. He really hadn’t drunk that much, so perhaps he’d stood up too quick. The stranger was still little more than a silhouette, but now he could see a light behind him, coming from inside the old pinball hall.

  ‘Tell me what you want and I’ll think about it.’

  The stranger laughed again. ‘Oh no, my dear friend, it doesn’t work quite that way. What fun would life be without a little gamble? Perhaps you’d be interested in putting your cards on the table?’

  The man turned and strode back inside the pinball hall. Race stared after him. The glow from inside was expanding, as if a fire burned in there. Yet there was no smoke. Race shook his head. He felt strange, drunk and exhausted at the same time. His mind was oddly vacant, as if he’d just woken from a long, fitful sleep.

  What if the man was telling the truth? What if he could offer Race everything he had ever wanted?

  There was one thing he wanted more than anything, something that went beyond music, down into the deepest depths of his need.

  A girl.

  It was worth a try, he thought, grinning, as he headed up the steps towards the old pinball hall entrance and the light beyond, carrying with him only the bottle of whisky, his guitar and speakers lying forgotten on the ground behind him.

  Part I

  The Dark Master of Dogs

  1

  Patrick

  ‘Look, I already told you. I don’t know where he is. His guitar and some of his stuff has gone. He might have gone to stay with a friend.’

  Patrick crouched at the top of the stairs, peeking through the rails of the landing. He listened to his mother’s voice, inflected with not so much concern as nervousness. The man standing with his shoulder imposingly against the open door towered over her like a giant, his grey eyes boring into hers as if she had something to do with his brother’s disappearance.

  ‘If he gets in contact I’ll be in touch with the local DCA office.’

  ‘I’m certain you will. Good day to you.’

  The man stepped out of the doorway and was gone, marching down the path to a waiting car. Patrick crept back to his room to call Suzanne.

  ‘Hey, it’s me.’

  Suzanne gave a long sigh before she answered. ‘I thought we said no calls before sundown? My dad’s not here but he could show up at any time. Jesus, Patrick, do you want me to get caught with this thing?’

  In other circumstances he would have smiled. She berated him every time he called her. It was almost a ritual.

  ‘Sorry. This time it’s urgent.’

  ‘So you didn’t just call to speak to me?’

  This time he did smile. ‘Well, it’s nice to hear your voice, of course. But listen, something bad has happened. Race has gone missing.’

  ‘I thought you said something bad?’

  ‘I know you hate him, but—’

  ‘He’s a fucking pervert. I hope he fell down a mineshaft and got his dick caught in a crack halfway.’

  ‘Look, I know you don’t like him, but this is serious. We just had the DCA at the door. He’s in trouble because he hasn’t shown up at work for the last two days. Mum thought he’d gone to stay with one of his mates like he sometimes does, but no one’s seen him.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. Tomorrow I’ll go round and see some of his mates, see if anyone’s heard from him.’

  ‘Do you want me to help?’

  ‘Sure. That would be great.’

  ‘I need to be sure he’s fallen down that mineshaft, you know, so that I can stop worrying about my underwear going missing—look, Patrick, I’d better go, just in case.’

  ‘All right. I’ll come by tomorrow mid-morning.’

  ‘Great.’

  Patrick started to say I love you, but the line had gone dead. He turned the phone over, pulled off the casing, and took out the doctored sim-card that gave him ac
cess to one of the free pirate frequencies that had pretty much brought the downfall of the telecommunications industry. He put the sim-card into the little hole dug underneath the lip of his bedroom window ledge and slid the phone back into the box at the bottom of his wardrobe.

  He went downstairs and peered into the living room. His mother, barely forty-five, looked sixty years old through worry. Her hair was sticking up where she’d run her hands, and the spray she used had held it. In her hands now she clutched a glass of a clear liquid that gave off a sour aroma that made their whole house stink.

  Patrick wished it was water.

  ‘He’ll come back,’ he said, making her start as she noticed him.

  She shook her head. ‘No, not this time. I dreamt it. He’s gone.’

  Patrick subdued the urge to sigh or roll his eyes. Instead he held his gaze firm on his mother, not even daring to look at the glass that was trembling in her hands.

  ‘He’s probably just gone off with his friends. Perhaps they tried to get into the city. He’ll be back in a day or two, I’m sure.’

  His mother didn’t look up. ‘Everyone runs out on me,’ she said. ‘Your father did, now Roger. You will soon.’

  Before Patrick could answer, she lifted the glass and flung it against the living room wall. Shards of glass and whatever she had been drinking scattered across the threadbare carpet.

  ‘I’ll clean that up,’ Patrick said as his mother started to get out of the chair. ‘Just stay there. I’ll make you another.’

  He went into the kitchen and fetched an empty cardboard box and a cloth. When he returned to the living room his mother had started to cry.

  ‘You have to find him, Patrick,’ she sobbed. ‘You have to bring Roger back.’

  As he picked pieces of glass up off the carpet, Patrick looked up and said, ‘I’ll find him. If he’s anywhere to be found, I’ll find him.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise.’

  He finished cleaning up, then got his mother a refill from an unmarked plastic container in the refrigerator. She had always liked a drink even before his father disappeared, but hiked prices made regular drinking on her cleaning salary impossible. Luckily there was always plenty of homebrew to be found on the black market. Race got it for her, but if he ever got hold of anything decent, he kept it for himself.

  Patrick left his mother alone and went out. Whether his brother was missing or not, Patrick didn’t like being stuck inside on fine days. In a month—barring some miracle with his A-Level results—Patrick would start working in the robotics factory across the valley in Mirefield, limiting his daylight hours to Sundays and a couple of hours after work each evening.

  The street was quiet. A couple of cars sat in driveways, but there seemed to be more bicycles every day. He had seen on the news that an anti-government rally was to be held tomorrow in the town square, but he didn’t really understand why everyone was so upset. Just three years ago, when you had to wear a mask to walk down any urban street, people were complaining about the fumes.

  Suzanne’s house was a fifteen-minute bicycle ride, but Patrick preferred to walk. It was a quiet morning, with most people either in school or at work. Having finished his final exams the week before, Patrick had his last stretch of holiday ahead of him before entering the world of centralised government labour. He wasn’t so much worried about it—the five-year mandatory term might feel like a lot right now, but it wasn’t forever—but he would miss his freedom. Still, he’d hoped to enjoy what he had left.

  And then Race had gone missing.

  His brother—Roger by birth and to their mother, but Race to everyone else—didn’t have a girlfriend or any close friends to stay with, not that Patrick knew about. Due to his musical skills—it was said he was the best guitar player in the county—he had a band, but unless they’d decided to smoke weed and rehearse for three days straight, it was unlikely he was with them, even though he had taken his guitar with him when he left. That was the only clue Patrick had, and therefore the first one he had to follow up.

  He turned up a quiet street halfway between his house and Suzanne’s, and climbed the stairs to the third floor of a tatty apartment building. An overweight balding man answered his knock and gave Patrick a surprisingly welcome smile when he opened the door.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, Mr. Lewis. Is Johnny in?’

  Johnny Lewis played bass in Race’s current band. The flat he shared with his dad was the closest of Race’s bandmates to Patrick’s house. It was a start.

  Johnny’s dad nodded. ‘He’s in his room. Been in there all day.’ He winked. ‘Probably watching porn or something. Not heard him playing any music, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Can I speak with him?’

  The man shrugged. ‘Sure. Come on in.’

  Johnny was slouching on a broken sofa watching an old science fiction movie on a TV with a third of the screen just a scramble of pixels. He glanced up as Patrick entered, then turned back to his movie, lifting a cup of something fizzy to his lips.

  ‘Get on, Little Devan. What’s up?’

  ‘I’m looking for Race.’

  ‘He didn’t show at practice yesterday. We figured he was still pissed after Rick told him his new riffs sucked last week. Would be like him to have a tantrum about it. Tell him it was just a joke when you see him, would you?’

  ‘He’s been gone three days. He took his guitar with him. We had the DCA at the door this morning because he’s not been showing up at work.’

  ‘At least that means they don’t have him.’

  ‘Could be a feint.’

  Johnny snorted. ‘They’re not that clever. Perhaps he’s gone off to busk in London before they seal us out.’

  ‘He’s not got that kind of motivation. It’s an effort for him to get up for work. Something’s happened to him, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Well, what do you want me to do about it?’

  ‘Just let me know if you hear anything. Anything at all.’

  Johnny shrugged. ‘Sure. Hey, you wanna sit and watch this with me? Chronicles of Riddick. Bit dated, but they don’t spend the money on effects like they used to. This is cool shit, man.’

  ‘Another time.’

  Johnny shrugged again. ‘Whatever.’

  Race went out, saving his thanks for Johnny’s dad as he left.

  The other two members of Race’s band lived across town. Patrick headed over there, taking a detour to Suzanne’s house on the way. Unlike the old council house that he shared with his mother and Race, Suzanne’s house was a tall, stately townhouse along a line of doctors’ surgeries and lawyers’ offices. Three doors down from Suzanne’s place, two DCA vans sat raggedly against the curb, one with its engine idling. A tickertape barrier was set up to guide people around that section of pavement, and behind it stood a group of armed agents. Two stood on guard, rifles across their chests.

  Patrick got as close as he could until one of the guards waved him around. “Tinkerton Accountancy Ltd” read the sign outside the broken-in door. From inside came the muffled sound of silenced gunfire. Patrick tried to get a look in through the door but a guard stepped over the tape and marched towards him. Putting up his hands in a gesture of surrender, he backed off until the guard headed back to his post.

  Suzanne’s place was too close to whatever bust was taking place for the front entrance to be safe. Instead, Patrick walked to the end of the street without looking back, then cut left into a thin alleyway that led behind the row of houses. The fortified rear walls of gardens and padlocked car garages rose on either side as he approached Suzanne’s house from behind. The road angled around to the left, but as her place came into view, to his dismay he saw a group of DCA agents here too.

  The closest he could get to Suzanne’s place without being seen was the wall of a lawyer’s office four doors over. He pulled leather gloves on over his hands and hauled himself up, feeling lumps of glass beneath his gloves that had left scars on his hands on a previous occasi
on.

  He dropped down onto a plain paved courtyard with a single picnic table sitting amid a few tasteful potted plants. Easily seen by anyone looking out of the wide back windows, he ran to the side wall and climbed quickly over.

  Arms that had lifted plenty of weights lowered him down on the other side, into an overflowing mess of vegetation at the back of a house belonging to an old woman Suzanne had often told him was mad.

  From farther down the row came the sound of a gunshot. Outside this time, unsilenced, the crack loud enough to hurt Patrick’s ears, leaving a lingering ring behind. Patrick dropped behind a wiry azalea and froze. The sound of panic, perhaps? A mistake in a carefully organised plan?

  From around the front of the row of houses came the sound of a car engine starting up. The spin of wheels was audible from here, as was the squeal of the engine as it sped away. Farther up the alley, the group of DCA agents moved in Patrick’s direction, their bored conversation drifting over the garden walls.

  ‘And next on the agenda is … drum roll please—’

  ‘Stanley Jones, dissenter extraordinaire. Let’s hope those clowns don’t fuck this one up.’

  Patrick’s breath caught in his throat. Stanley Jones was Suzanne’s father. Owner of a robotics factory outside town.

  ‘Hold your poses,’ came the second voice from over the wall. ‘No firing unless he runs. We’re only supposed to take them for questioning.’

  Patrick moved along the side wall until he was near the back of the old woman’s house. Climbing up onto a tumbledown coal shed, he leaned over the wall into the adjacent yard.

  He was just one backyard away from Suzanne’s, but the tenant between them—a doctor, so Suzanne had said—had taken precautions to the extreme: an assortment of broken glass and porcelain-covered clean paving slabs, making it impossible to get across the yard to the back of the house without making a sound.