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

inwardly again. “Shared psychoses are very rare, although there is a very small chance that we’re dealing with some kind of cult scenario where a dominant personality type is influencing a susceptible follower, or followers, in a ‘folie a deux’ or ‘folie communiquee,’ spreading their own delusions to others. I suppose that’s possible, but you said Dougie could only confirm that one person had walked in and out of the crime scene. How much would you estimate the victim weighed?”

“Hard to say. He was about five foot seven and skinny. Between sixty and sixty five kilos, maybe?”

Shay nodded thoughtfully. “That’s still quite an awkward burden to carry. So we’re looking for someone fit enough to manage it. And, whatever delusions they may be suffering from, they’re mentally competent enough to both plan elaborately and drive without behaving erratically or drawing attention. That should cut the numbers down a bit. On the other hand, it might also mean that they’re very good at concealing their condition, which isn’t good news for us.”

No, it wasn’t. A psychotic capable of appearing perfectly normal, especially if they were undiagnosed, would be a lot harder to find. Maybe it was time to just switch off and try to relax a bit. I’d already got what I needed from Shay. If my cousin was convinced our killer was a nut job, that was good enough for me. There was nothing to be gained from repeatedly going over and over the little information available to us at this point.

“What’s the dinner situation?” I asked, getting up to take our cups to wash again.

“There’s soup that just needs heating up and your da is bringing some fresh rolls back so you two can fill up on bifanas after. I’ve got the pork steaks for those seasoned and marinating in white wine ready to go.”

That sounded great. I hadn’t had a good bifana, an amazing hot pork sandwich, for quite some time. I lifted the lid off the soup pan to see what he’d made and a lovely aroma rose from the still warm contents inside. That looked like a really hearty, old-fashioned Iberian peasant dish; beans, winter collard greens and chopped spaghetti in a thickish gloop of pureed potatoes, carrots, onions and plenty of garlic. My stomach growled impatiently, and I decided to help myself to a small bowl to keep me going. This stuff was one of the few things that tasted better warm than it did hot.

Shay watched me slurp it down with a pleased little smile. “You do know where the spoons are, right?” he asked as I tipped the bowl up to get the last of it.

“Why make extra washing up?” I asked and ladled myself another serving. He’d outdone himself with this one, the stuff was moreishly delicious and just the thing on a cold, winter evening. Besides, what did it matter if I had my soup now and my sandwiches later? That was probably a better idea than trying to eat everything in one sitting, anyway.

I finished off my third little bowl and headed upstairs to shower and change. It was funny how little things like coming home to find good food ready and waiting for you could perk you up again after a really shitty day.

Five

The laser imaging scans I’d been promised came through before ten o’clock the next morning. I sent them straight over to my cousin before turning my attention back to a case that I could actually get on with. McKinnon hadn’t actually assigned the new murder to me and I wasn’t sure that he would or even should. The kind of investigation we were probably looking at with that one was far beyond the scope of what my little team could manage. Shay had thrown a few statistics at me later yesterday evening and seemed certain that Philips was going to end up with a list of over six hundred patients to check out in the Greater Inverness area. McKinnon was going to need to throw a lot more manpower into that little job if he wanted to see results any time soon.

Meanwhile, our car thieves had struck again last night, twice. They’d taken an Audi from outside a surgeon’s house in Culloden, and a BMW belonging to a company director in Castlehill. Both of the stolen cars were executive class, pricey saloon models.

Caitlin and I drove out to visit both addresses, neither of which had any security cameras installed. Nor, unfortunately, did their neighbours have any set up that gave a view of the road outside their properties. Nobody had been woken up by odd noises in the night at either address, so we didn’t even know what time the thefts may have occurred. Even more annoyingly, our thieves seemed to know where the few traffic cameras in operation were placed and had managed to avoid them all, yet again. On top of that, naturally, the first thing they’d done, once they’d removed the vehicles, had been to immediately disable their GPS systems.

Driving back to town from Culloden after our second visit, I found myself wondering how much longer the gang would risk sticking around in our area before moving their operation elsewhere. Waves of organised thefts like this didn’t usually last longer than two or three months before everything went quiet again. Maybe it was time to look into the national pattern more thoroughly, instead of focusing too narrowly on what was happening on our turf.

“You know, I think we might be wasting our time looking for a local site for them to strip the cars down,” I told Caitlin as we drove back from Culloden.

“You think they’re just shipping them elsewhere in one piece as soon as they take them?” she asked, interested. “They’d need covered car transporters for that.”

“True, but if they’re moving around quite frequently, as I’m starting to think they might be, that’s probably a smaller and safer investment than renting a new place to work from every time they