Tales of Crow- The Complete series Box Set

by Chris Ward

  In the years since, although they had never met in person, the man calling himself Dave Green had provided her with information on anyone getting too big in the underworld, and in return had seen many of his underground business practices slip by unnoticed.

  ‘This is dangerous for me,’ he said. ‘You want me to expose some of the biggest names in the underground. If they find out about me … no DCA confinement could be worse.’

  She walked over to him, holding his gaze while one hand reached down between his legs, stroking his penis through his trousers.

  ‘I have enough dirt on you, Dave, that I could have this big dick of yours cut off and fed to you.’ She smiled. ‘But I wouldn’t want to waste something so wonderful without a proper goodbye.’ She squeezed tighter, feeling it grow hard. ‘How about we go somewhere more welcoming to negotiate further?’

  He nodded, but didn’t smile. He didn’t need to.

  ‘I think we can work together,’ he said. ‘But let’s get to know each other better first.’

  Urla smiled. She turned to the door, pulling him along by the rocket in his trousers. As she reached the doors she refused to look back at the dead monstrosity lying on the stretcher.

  There was nothing that might quell her rising passion like the corpse of a man with a dog’s snout sewn onto his face.

  23

  Patrick

  Dawn light was streaking in the front windows as stringy carrots boiled in a pot on the stove. Patrick stood by the window, peering out at shadows of the trees receding from the reservoir’s surface as the sun slowly rose. Suzanne and Kelly were still asleep in the little bedroom, but the sun had reached Patrick where he slept on the sofa and woken him early.

  He switched off the stove then opened the window a crack and let warm air inside. He liked it here. Don had stocked the cupboards with enough food to last them several weeks. As well as an assortment of tins, there were items Patrick hadn’t even known existed: cartons of powdered milk, mashed potato mix, boxes of instant noodles, items that would last for months before spoiling.

  Don had planned for this very event, although expecting the occupants to be himself and his family. When the DCA had finally come, though, they had caught him unawares.

  Eventually, though, the food would run out, and they would be back to where they started.

  On the run.

  In the end, they would be caught. The police and DCA were too numerous, and there was nowhere to hide.

  They needed a plan.

  The only safe option was to get out of the country, but that was hard enough when you weren’t a fugitive. When you were, it was next to impossible.

  Unless you had special help.

  Uncle Tommy.

  He was Patrick’s only hope, even though Patrick couldn’t be sure whose side his uncle was on after seeing Race with a dog’s snout sown over his face. Patrick’s anger burned whenever he thought about it, but Tommy still presented their best chance of getting out of Britain alive.

  He was just thinking to wake the girls when the bedroom door opened and Suzanne appeared. Rather than a hug like he might have hoped, she went straight to the sink, pulled a cloth from underneath, and began soaking it in water from the tap.

  ‘Kelly’s wound is getting inflamed,’ she said. ‘We need to get her to a doctor or she could get worse.’

  ‘A doctor? How?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I can’t watch my little sister get sick and die. I’d rather face the gallows again.’

  Patrick shook his head. ‘No, there must be something else we can do. She needs antibiotics, right?’

  ‘I imagine that would fix it. And where do you get those? From a doctor.’

  ‘What if I go and steal some?’

  Suzanne paused. She turned and looked at Patrick, cocking her head. ‘Since when did you become a master criminal?’ she asked, giving him a thin smile.

  ‘We’re only a few miles out of town and I can move much faster on my own. It would be better for you and Kelly to stay here while I went and found something.’

  Suzanne came forward. She took his hands and pulled him close, giving him a light kiss on the lips.

  ‘This is important,’ she whispered. ‘If you don’t come back, what do we do?’

  ‘I’ll be back,’ he said. ‘But if I’m not, you’ll figure something out. You’re the bravest person I’ve ever known.’

  Suzanne pulled something from her pocket and put it in Patrick’s hand. A wallet. ‘I found this in the bedroom last night after Kelly went to sleep. It was taped to the bottom of one of the drawers. This wasn’t just Don’s summer retreat, but a bolt hole in case the DCA came after him.’

  ‘I was thinking the same thing.’

  Suzanne patted the back of his hand. ‘I really don’t think he or my mother would mind us using this money to help Kelly.’ She swallowed, and Patrick saw the hint of a tear in the corner of her eye. ‘To be honest, by now they might be beyond caring.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘We’ve both been in there, Patrick. You know what could happen.’

  ‘We have to stay strong.’

  ‘And we have to stay alive. So, if you can bribe someone to get that medicine without getting the DCA on your trail, then do it.’

  Patrick nodded. ‘I love you.’

  ‘And I love you too, and as soon as we have a little time to ourselves, I’ll show you how much.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Now, go.’

  Patrick pulled on his shoes and went out. He gave Suzanne one last smile before closing the door, then he ran for the road without looking back.

  It might have only been a few miles by car, but on foot it felt like several days’ walk back to civilisation. Patrick had only been walking for a couple of hours when he decided to give up on staying out of sight and head for the nearest place he could catch a bus.

  There was a tiny village set into a shallow valley calling itself Teeswell according to a polished sign on the outskirts. Patrick found his way to the main road and discovered a bus stop outside a village green. He waited, and within an hour he was sitting at the back of a deserted hopper bus as it bumped slowly over the gravel that now made up the main roads. The driver, constantly cursing and flapping his hands, expressed the frustration that Patrick felt as their progress slowed to a crawl.

  The town of Glastonbury with the tor overlooking it was in view when the roads reappeared, the driver banging on the windscreen and hurling abuse through the side window at two men standing beside a construction vehicle gradually pulling up the tarmac and loading the pieces on to the back of a truck. Patrick wondered what they did with it. He had heard a rumour they were building a perimeter wall around London, but that sounded absurd.

  A couple of turns later, the bus reached an area Patrick recognised from a time he had visited on a school trip. They were only a few streets from the town’s hospital, so Patrick rang the bell to be let off at the next stop. As the doors opened, Patrick jumped down, giving the bus a quick wave as it pulled away. He didn’t have a map, but a signboard next to a war memorial told him the hospital was nearby. He had to pass a DCA checkpoint to take a direct route, so he wondered if he ought to skirt around. When he peered around the corner of a bank, however, he saw a huddle of people outside the checkpoint, shouting abuse.

  A mob.

  Unable to quell his interest, Patrick headed down the street until he was at the back of the throng, among the casual onlookers. Perhaps two hundred people had surrounded the checkpoint, with those at the front demanding the return of loved ones. Some brandished crude weapons: kitchen knives, gardening forks, wooden clubs. Their threat felt very Stone Age to Patrick, but on their side they had strength in numbers. No more than three or four men manned each DCA checkpoint. They might get off a few shots, but the mob would overwhelm them if it came down to a scrap.

  ‘Come on!’ someone shouted. ‘What do you have to say for yourselves?’

  To Patrick’s surprise, a door opened, and a DC
A agent stepped out. He lifted a megaphone to his lips and began to talk to the crowd.

  ‘If you have any requests or demands, please ensure they are put in writing and addressed to our head office. We do not suffer idle threats. We are a policing force working for your benefit. We are on your side.’

  The crowd, particularly at the back, was beginning to stir, their ire dampened by the spokesman’s words. A few people around Patrick shrugged and drifted back into the streets.

  ‘We are here to help you, don’t forget that. However, enemies of the government will not be tolerated. We are one people, one voice, one country—’

  Something hissed through the air overhead. It hit the metal case of the megaphone and deflected into the spokesman’s face. He gurgled and stumbled backward, an arrow sticking out of his mouth.

  The crowd roared and surged forward, several men kicking through the checkpoint door and pushing inside. Patrick glanced back, and saw a dark shadow climb down from the roof of a building opposite and run off up a side street.

  Without hesitation, he gave chase. The figure headed up the street, pausing at the corner where its head swung languidly back and forth. It was wearing a hood like the one which had rescued him, the one he was certain was Race. Was this the same one, or another?

  He had closed to within a few steps when the figure set off again, crossing the road and diving into an alleyway opposite. Patrick sprinted after it, narrowly avoiding being struck by a bus lumbering out into the road from a stop around the corner. The blaring horn didn’t quite hide the obscenities the driver aimed at him through an open front window.

  As he rushed down the alley in pursuit of what was only ever a shadow around the bend up ahead, Patrick knew he couldn’t keep this pace up for long. His lungs were already bursting, and the creature was easily outpacing him. As he emerged on to another residential street, he saw the hem of its robe disappear around a corner farther ahead.

  He leaned over, breathing hard, sweat dripping on to the road.

  Frowning, he bent to touch a dark patch of liquid nearby, lifting his finger to sniff it.

  Oil.

  ‘Huh.’

  It had to have come from the figure as it had passed this way. Patrick looked out across the road and saw intermittent dots leaving a trail, followed by a larger patch where the figure had paused in the shade of an overhanging tree.

  He might not be able to keep pace, but he could track it.

  No longer bothering to try to keep it in sight, he concentrated instead on following the trail it had left, while simultaneously keeping out of sight of any people or traffic on the roads.

  The trail led across the town, out into the countryside. He nearly lost it when the figure abruptly turned off a road, climbing up over a hedge into a field. Luckily the field had been recently plowed, the drips of oil glinting in the sunlight where they had fallen on freshly churned mud. The figure ran straight across, following a path due north. Patrick followed at a more sedate pace, reluctant to leave himself so exposed, yet happy to be off the roads.

  So it continued, the figure leaving a trail as it climbed over a hedgerow into another field, then spent some time following a farm lane, before cutting through fields again. As he walked, the drips of oil no more than a few metres apart, Patrick wondered what kind of creature he was following, something human yet simultaneously machine.

  It was no surprise when he climbed over a last hedge and found himself at the end of an industrial estate.

  He knew this place, because some of his friends had worked up here, on the production lines of the last local food factories in operation before they moved into the cities. Now, only a handful of buildings were in use during the day, while at night it was a place to avoid. People hung out in the abandoned holdings to fight and deal in contraband. The estate wasn’t a place you went without good reason.

  The trail made a zigzag motion across one pavement as though the figure were staggering and at the last of its strength, but Patrick no longer needed to follow. He knew where it was going.

  Carmichael Industries.

  Suzanne’s father’s company occupied one of the larger buildings at the far end, a giant grey warehouse with no windows or doors. As Patrick crept up to the corner of a building across the street and peered around, he wasn’t sure what he expected to see.

  His Uncle Tommy’s sedan parked outside wasn’t one of them.

  24

  Saj

  ‘It’s down here,’ Dave Green said, pulling up the coal chute lid and pointing the torch at a staircase hidden inside. He looked up at Saj and grinned. ‘I never told you about this place, did I? Honestly, I haven’t been back here in a while. Always gives me the creeps down there, but I needed somewhere safe to hide my stash.’

  ‘Down there?’ Saj said, frowning. A cellar opened out at the end, but it looked damp, dark, and uninviting.

  ‘Yeah. It’s a safe box. If you want, you can stay up here. I mean, I don’t really want to bring it up, but it freaks me out down there too. I’ll bring it up if you like, just so you know I’m not bullshitting.’

  Saj looked around, taking in the woodland at the back of the abandoned mechanics yard. You could never be certain the DCA bastards weren’t out there somewhere. The only place that was ever really safe was in the dark, underground. The thought of going down there, though … it made him shiver. Dave was tying back the door, which was banging in the wind.

  Dave said he had a stash of dope, street value of a quarter mil if they could get it into London. He wanted Saj to run it, meet a contact inside. An easy job, and why should he doubt Dave? They’d done smaller jobs before. He trusted Dave as much as he trusted anyone, more than Tommy even.

  ‘Safer down there than up here,’ he muttered, grinning as he stepped past Dave on to the wooden steps leading down.

  Dave chuckled. ‘Yeah, you’d think, wouldn’t you?’

  Saj didn’t even have time to turn back. Something heavy struck him on the back of the head, he felt a dull pain as though someone had sucked all the water out of his brain, and then he was falling forward, the floor coming up to meet him.

  He hurt everywhere, but for the first few seconds after he opened his eyes, the glare of the light hurt the most. It was only after, as his eyes slowly adjusted, that he realised from the pain in his legs and arms at least two of the four were broken.

  ‘For what it’s worth,’ a voice said, ‘I only gave you a little push. The kind a mate might give another mate after a game of footy in the park. Not like I jumped you or anything, and I ain’t about to give you another kicking while you’re tied up. Not really my style, being a bully like that.’

  Saj opened his mouth to speak, but found something cold and metal pressing against his chin.

  ‘Sorry, old friend, but I don’t want you making a scene. You can whisper to me nice and quietly, but if you get too excited I’ll twist the handle here and close you up a couple of degrees.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Saj muttered, struggling to make any sound at all with the bottom of the brace or vice or whatever the fuck it was right below his mouth.

  ‘Just some information. That’s all.’

  ‘Dave, I’m your mate—’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s rather an archaic term in this day and age, don’t you think? Trust’s another word soon to go obsolete.’

  ‘Come on, man—’

  Dave cranked the vice half a turn, cracking Saj’s teeth together. He groaned as Dave released it.

  ‘I’m not playing games, Saj. I want some information. I’ve been out of the loop a while, and I’m keen to get back on the inside, preferable right into the centre. Now, what do you know about Tommy’s recent connections?’

  ‘Nothing—’

  The vice cranked, cold metal pressing down on the top of Saj’s head. He realised how easily Dave could close it up, slowly squeezing until first his teeth burst out of his face, then his nose pressed up into his eyes, and finally his head gave way with a single
loud pop.

  ‘Do better.’

  ‘He’s … he’s been hanging around up at the old Carmichael place.’

  Dave leaned down. Grinning in an insane way Saj had never seen from the man he considered a friend, he tapped Saj on the nose.

  ‘That’s more like it. More. Come on, I know you talk to him.’

  ‘He tells us only what we need to know. Only when he wants us.’

  ‘What’s he doing up there?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The vice cranked. Saj groaned. He could barely move his tongue between his teeth.

  ‘Yes, you do.’

  ‘He’s helping … the new owner,’ Saj muttered.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Supplying … raw materials.’

  ‘Which are?’

  Saj closed his eyes, wondering if, after everything he had been through over the years, this was where he would die.

  The vice cranked. Saj felt a tooth break.

  ‘Come on, cough up, and I might let you go.’

  ‘People,’ Saj said, his voice the faintest of whispers.

  25

  Tommy

  ‘Look into these hollow pits he calls eyes,’ Kurou said, flapping the newspaper in front of Tommy’s face. ‘Doesn’t the mere sight of him fill you with anger?’

  Tommy sighed. ‘Maxim Cale. He has the government in his pocket whether we like it or not. And it’s not like we could possibly be worse off, is it? Who knows, he might actually do some good.’

  Kurou’s single eye blazed. ‘You’re a fool, like the rest of your country’s people.’

  Tommy glared at him. ‘You sew dog snouts on to men’s faces and you want me to think bad of him?’

  Kurou’s face spread into a grin. ‘I, sire, am but an artiste. Maxim Cale is a marauder. He will flatten this land, grow the people fat for his own gain, then extinguish all lights to bring forth his perfect, eternal darkness.’