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

There was a click as the kettle boiled and turned itself off. Conall filled my cup for me before bringing it over. His old Italian Gaggia machine had heated up by then so he set his coffee going.

“You don’t believe they’re working, though?” he asked as he filled himself a glass of water from the tap. I prodded my teabag, and a waft of peppermint scented steam rose up.

“I don’t think they’re working away from wherever they live,” I corrected him. “But that’s based on the premise that they live alone, which is probable but not proven yet. They might still have a job they can do from home, in whatever hours suit them. Then again, they may have inherited money, or come by it some other way.”

He frowned as he came to sit down with his cup and glass.

“Alright, so either not working or working from home, self-employed or otherwise. What else have you got left to follow up on?”

“Not much. The samples of rope from the scene can be bought from dozens of online suppliers and so can ebony hair sticks.” Forensics had agreed that the fragments recovered were most likely from a pair of those. “And that’s without considering all the shops that supply things like that. The same goes for soundproofing materials. Also, the cuts into the chest could have been made by any one of dozens of easily obtainable straight bladed knives. I’m sorry Cuz but unless identifying Chuol’s dealer gives us a lead, we’ve got nothing much to go on at this point.” I’d already sent him the records from Dominic’s mobile phone and we hadn’t found any useful links there either. He might even have had a second phone we didn’t know about. Well, however many phones had gone missing, those had most likely been disposed of by the killer almost immediately. “I could check council tax records for the Greater Inverness area and make up a list of single occupancy dwellings that might fit the bill, but I’m not sure how useful that would be. It’s not as if you can go around and search them all.”

“Not without probable cause, no. And there’d be far too many to cover, anyway. Besides, our killer may not live alone.” I doubted they had an accomplice, but Conall was right, we couldn’t make assumptions like that. Thinking about what I might do in their place, it also occurred to me that if you didn’t mind losing your single occupancy discount and paying the extra council tax, it wouldn’t be hard to declare a second, non-existent occupant anyway.

We stared at each other bleakly, the same thoughts going through both our minds. With no trail left to follow, there was nothing more either of us could do.

Eight days later, on Monday the eleventh of February, Chris Arnold was reported missing. Although I’d put the Chuol case on a back burner and spent the intervening week dividing my attention between my assignments for the Ids and my drone project, I hadn’t forgotten about it and I’d made sure that my cousin had an alert set on that list for two weeks. None of the new reports had set any of our internal alarm bells ringing and sure enough, all our missing locals, so far, had turned up within twenty-four hours. This particular disappearance immediately stood out as more suspicious. Rather than being a partner storming out after an argument, a friend or relative going on a bender, or a kid playing truant or ‘running away’ after a telling off, Chris Arnold had gone out for his regular morning run and hadn’t come home.

It was just after eleven in the morning when Conall’s email came in and alerted me to the disappearance.

‘New missing persons report for a Mister Christopher Arnold. The report was phoned in by the wife at nine thirty.’ Conall’s email informed me. ‘I’ve attached the recording and transcript and I’m heading out there now with a uniformed search team. Call me if you think of anything you think we should ask Mrs Arnold.’ I opened up the transcript and read through it.

Chris Arnold went out for a morning run several times a week, usually choosing a ten mile route, and had done so ever since leaving the army five years before. He was forty five and in great shape. The couple and their three children lived in Leanach, less than a mile east of the Culloden battlefield. On the mornings he planned to run, Chris left the house at around half-past six and was always home again by eight, eight fifteen at the latest. His wife, Angela, had become concerned when she returned to their house after dropping the kids off at school and found that he wasn’t home yet. Angela had tried to call her husband at that point but his phone was off. She’d then called the hospital, worried that he may have been in an accident or suffered some kind of medical emergency. Having no luck there, she’d called the police. Time of disappearance, according to that information, was between six thirty and eight.

The night of the next full moon was only eight days away so yes, there was every reason to be concerned about the timing of Chris Arnold’s disappearance. If he’d just collapsed, off the road somewhere along his route, we’d know soon enough. It was probably too late, already, for any search dogs to pick up a scent trail. Even on grass, any trail over two hours old was patchy. Still, I expected McKinnon would have called a dog team out. If any objects had been discarded along Chris’s route, there was a good chance that they, at least, would be discovered.

A ten-mile run meant that Chris Arnold would have remained within five miles of the house at every possible point but that still gave us a considerable area to look at. Well, Conall would certainly ask Angela if she knew what route her husband