Death in the Black Wood, Oliver Davies [short story to read TXT] 📗

mini drones when I walked in, swapping out a tiny little two millimetre microchip with the aid of his homemade movement scaling controllers and the magnifying headset he’d splashed out on.

“Just a sec, Con,” he apologised absently. “These are tricky little buggers to handle.” I perched against a nearby cluttered bench while he finished fitting the replacement chip.

“What was wrong with the originals?” I asked curiously.

“Too high a power consumption rate. The things wouldn’t fly for more than twenty minutes at a time with those in. The replacement MCUs I ordered are much more power efficient.” Exchange completed, he released the controllers and lifted his headset off. “They’re still very limited, pretty rubbish really, but I can’t wait to see what we’ll have to work with a few years from now. They’re doing some very promising research at MIT.” He spun his chair around to face me and frowned. “What’s up?” Then, before I could say anything, he figured it out for himself. “Oh, a new case? A bad one, huh?” He got up. “Come on then, I could do with a tea, anyway. You can tell me all about it in the kitchen.” He pressed a few buttons to turn some active equipment off and gestured for me to precede him out into the hallway before closing the door behind us.

“Where’s da?” I asked as we walked past the gym and turned off into the kitchen. “I didn’t see his car outside when I came in.”

“Oh, he popped into town to meet a friend. Some guy from the engineering faculty at the UHI campus who wanted to pick his brains. I guess they don’t get to meet many PhDs who can add FRAeS after their names around here.”

Well, no, or anywhere else really. The Royal Aeronautical Society didn’t hand out fellowships to just anyone. Da had received his gold medal from them over a decade ago, but he’d had to wait a bit longer before being awarded his fellowship. Not that he paid much attention to such things. Still, he’d probably have felt slighted if he’d been overlooked.

“I doubt they’ll be able to talk him into giving a guest lecture,” I commented as Shay put the kettle on. “He’s a little bit out of their league.”

“Yeah, just a bit.” He grinned. “Imagine all the politely blank faces once he got going… and so, to determine something as simple as the shape of the trajectory taken by a spacecraft using a constant-thrust ion motor, using differential and integral calculus for arc length,” he snickered delightedly, “or using the parametric equation to determine speed and acceleration during a launch and orbital insertion...” I couldn’t help but smile back at his perfect imitation of da in full flow as I pictured a lecture hall full of utterly lost undergraduate students whispering worriedly to each other. ‘Is this stuff covered by the ‘mathematics for engineering 2’ course module?’

Besides, da was flying off to Florida at the weekend and wouldn’t be back for a couple of months. SpaceX, through NASA, had requested his physical presence, and he’d agreed to the rather lucrative consulting offer. He’d be in his element over there and was rather looking forward to getting down to Texas to check out the Boca Chica launch facility in person.

Shay handed me my tea, and we both sat down. “So, tell me about the new case, Con,” he prompted. “It’s obviously got you on edge already.” Obvious to him, perhaps. I doubted anyone else would have picked up on my inner tension so quickly. My cousin and I were unusually attuned to each other’s moods and tended to read each other unthinkingly when we met up again after being apart. From my own experience, I knew that when something was bothering Shay, the sensation when I walked into a room he was in was as strong as a physical twang from a struck nerve.

I sampled my tea experimentally. This was a new one to me. I could definitely taste both chamomile and cinnamon in there, as well as something floral. I wasn’t too sure about the taste but I figured my cousin had opted for a blend whose purpose was to reduce stress and aid relaxation. I’d drink it, but he’d already noted my reaction to the flavour. He wouldn’t offer me this one again. I fetched myself a glass of water to wash it down with and began to tell him everything I’d seen when I’d visited the crime scene with Caitlin.

Shay listened silently, golden eyes focused on an invisible point behind me as he sipped calmly at his own tea while he absorbed the data. When I’d finished bringing him up to date, he switched his attention back to me.

“Sure, I can handle the facial reconstruction once you send me the scans tomorrow, no problem. The missing features should be easy enough to reconstruct accurately once I’ve calculated the original soft tissue depth from the remains.” He put his empty cup down. “And it seems almost certain that your killer is suffering from a severe mental disorder, from what you’ve just described,” he added confidently. “I’d say you can forget about anyone setting a scene like that up as a red herring. Why would they need one? Your body hasn’t been missed by anyone yet, so it’s a good bet he doesn’t have any family in the area, or any close friends for that matter. If Davie says he’s been dead for at least three days, and perhaps longer, not being missed is pretty unusual,” he shrugged, “so he was probably both single and living alone. The killer could have finished the victim off and dumped him somewhere he was unlikely to be found with much less risk involved.” He got up to switch the kettle back on, and the coffee machine too this time. “We’ll have to wait for the pathologist’s report to get a time of death, but I think there’s a statistically significant chance that he might even