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

the killer possessed, but he said not. We’ve got two types of rope, a generic kitchen knife, beeswax, olive oil, diesel and a set of ebony hair sticks. Even if all of those were bought online and left a payment record we’re talking about millions of transactions in the UK alone to go through, even if we only look at the last few months… and our killer could have bought them all years ago for all we know. They may also have bought, or built, a taser but the least common items were most likely cash purchases. Shay hasn’t been able to find any possible link between Dominic Chuol and Chris Arnold either. No locations they both visited, or events they both attended, so that’s another dead end.”

“Chris was wounded twice during his time in the military, wasn’t he? Was he prescribed painkillers at those times?”

“He was. Once in Iraq and once in Afghanistan. But he was off pain medication pretty quickly both times, and we have no reason to believe he was using. I think anything like that would certainly have been noticed, at home and at work. No, the only connection seems to be that they both killed people while serving in military forces and you can’t really compare their experiences there either. Whatever Dominic Chuol did in South Sudan, he was a child being abused and threatened at the time, not an adult volunteer.”

“Still, if our culprit didn’t know their histories, it’s quite a coincidence that he’d pick those two people. Arnold would have been easy to discover, because of the newspaper article about him, but Chuol? How would anyone here know about his past unless they heard him, or someone else, talking about it? Or already knew him?”

“Yeah, that one’s been bothering us too. Shay spent some time going through all the paperwork on Chuol’s amnesty appeal and hearing, looking at the names of everyone who knew about his past.”

“Nothing yet then, I presume?” I asked, and he just shook his head. “And McKinnon’s lot have run a blank on van rentals and thefts too, which at least eliminates that possibility.”

“Not quite. We can’t be absolutely certain that our culprit owns the van they used. Risky or not, they could still be using a stolen vehicle with false plates. On top of that, for all we know, they may have other vehicles they could use too.”

We were driving through the little village of Inchmore by then, and our GPS indicated that we should turn off onto the Old Telephone Exchange. Our first address was an isolated little place over a kilometre south of the village down the single lane road.

“Christ! The number of houses like this we have scattered around the area! It’s a bloody nightmare.”

“Tell me about it! Then add in all holiday cottages that are empty for months at a time. There’s certainly no shortage of good hiding places for our killer to hole up in with their captives.”

The first person on our list, a Mister Alastair Reynolds, was in. He turned out to be a forty-seven-year-old gentleman with emphysema, a lung disease that severely limited his physical movements. No, he didn’t have any objection to us looking around and he hoped we’d excuse the mess. He had a lady who came in to clean twice a week, because he couldn’t manage by himself. He had prescription inhalers and an emergency oxygen supply and it was clear that he couldn’t even climb a flight of stairs without becoming out of breath. The idea of him carrying another person about was patently absurd and, apart from the restrictions imposed by his medical condition, there was nothing in the least bit strange about his behaviour.

Having duly looked around and checked the van’s GPS history, we refused an offer of tea and were done there in under twenty minutes. Back in the car, Conall waited while I finished writing up my notes before getting us moving again.

“I think we can safely rule Mr Reynolds out once we’ve verified his condition,” he commented as we headed back to the main road.

“I’d say so,” I agreed. “You know, it might have saved us all a bit of time if your cousin had checked medical records for these people while he was at it.”

“You do know what his real job is, Caitlin?” He shot me an exasperated look. “Do you think his employers would be happy to hear he’d spent over a day hacking into local medical practice records just to save us a bit of time? And without much hope of it proving to be of any use?”

“Sorry, I guess not.” It was easy to forget that Shay Keane single-handedly helped to crack major cybercrime cases at an unprecedented rate. He was such a self-effacing oddball. “I expect he’s missing your da’s company, with the house to himself all day.”

“He’s used to spending a lot of time alone,” he told me dismissively. “Besides, Shay’s always got plenty of things to keep him busy. His assignments and his projects, the endless self-assigned chores around the house, at least two hours in the gym a day… he’s not exactly at a loose end. Those two don’t often sit around chatting during the day, anyway. They’re both far too busy for that.”

“Mmm,” I agreed. Daniel, in his own, very different way, certainly didn’t have any difficulty finding ways to keep himself actively occupied and entertained either.

I’d often found myself wondering about Conall’s mother, but as she was never mentioned by any of the Keane men, I was reluctant to broach the subject. I knew that Daniel had only been twenty-one when Conall had been born and had already earned his BSc by then. His nephew wasn’t the first, or only, member of the family to be fast-tracked into higher education.

I also knew that Daniel’s brother Diarmuid and his wife had stepped in to help with the new addition to the clan, while Daniel completed his MSc and then went on to gain