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

his PhD too. Had Conall’s mother died? Or had she left her infant son to his father’s sole custody while she went off to focus on her own career, unencumbered by an unwanted child?

I had no idea. Whatever had happened there, Daniel had remained committedly single ever since. The entire subject, if not taboo, certainly wasn’t discussed in company.

The arrival of cousin Shay, eighteen months after Conall, didn’t seem to have changed the adult family dynamic at all. The boys had been a package deal throughout most of their childhoods, whichever relatives they happened to be staying with. Shay had chosen not to attend school, and if he’d missed out on the chance to develop his social skills by opting for an elective home education, he’d more than made up for it in time not wasted. There wasn’t a local authority in existence that could argue that Shay hadn’t received the finest education possible, even if it had been self-regulated. There had never been any question of a School Attendance Order being issued. After all, the boy had passed a barrage of GCSE examinations by the time he was ten, which had certainly ‘served its purpose and kept them off our backs’ as Conall chose to phrase it. Conall’s own school years, although often interrupted by travel, had been far more conventional. Despite regular periods of absence, I gathered that he’d consistently managed to achieve high marks with little apparent effort.

“I suppose I must have missed between three and four years of school over the years,” he’d admitted once, with a deprecatory shrug, “which just goes to show what a total waste of time a lot of it is.” I don’t think any of the Keanes realised how much an average student struggled and sweated to get by, or the kind of pressure we’d all felt subjected to as examinations loomed.

Conall certainly didn’t seem to think he was anything out of the ordinary. Above average, yes, but nothing special. Once you realised the standards he’d spent his whole life measuring himself by, that attitude began to make some kind of sense.

By five fifteen, we’d visited every house on our list, finding thirteen of the people we wished to speak with at home and seven out. We’d left calling cards for those. Eight had willingly given us permission to look around and we were satisfied that none of those were viable suspects. Of the other five, three remained of interest. All of those had been healthy, fit men between the ages of twenty five and forty and one of them had displayed noticeable uncontrolled muscle spasms or ‘nervous tics’ as well as restless eye movements. Like the other four people who’d refused us entry, he’d merely informed us that he’d willingly comply with a search warrant but did not welcome our presence on his property. He’d spoken quite calmly, despite the outward signs of agitation.

“He was probably just highly strung. Police officers make a lot of people uncomfortable at the best of times,” Conall commented as we drove back towards our station. “Some because they break the odd little law themselves now and then and others because they’re worried we might decide to try to frame them for something.”

“Well we can’t pretend that never happens. We’ve got our share of bad apples, just like every other profession.”

“Less, I’d hope, although our screening processes could do with some improvement.”

I couldn’t disagree with that statement.

“What do you think McKinnon will do once he’s got all the results from these visits?”

“I imagine he’ll run some background checks on the people who wouldn’t allow a search and then maybe send out an officer with a mental health nurse next time to get their professional assessment. Hopefully, the list will be a lot shorter by then. Eight out of thirteen isn’t a bad success rate, let’s just hope everyone else has done at least as well.”

No doubt the shortened list would go back to Shay too. And we’d certainly be keeping an eye on those properties if we hadn’t found Chris Arnold before next Tuesday. Unless we caught a lucky break, somehow, our chances of doing that weren’t looking good.

“Are you going to head home or write this lot up first?” I asked as we parked up at Old Perth Road.

“I think I’ll do that at home. I’m just going to pop in and see how the others got on first. If you want to grab your stuff and hang on, I can drop you off at your place after. I’ll only be a few minutes.” It wasn’t raining particularly hard, but it was cold, windy and already dark. A lift would be welcome.

“That’d be great, thanks.”

Inside, we discovered that Walker and Mills hadn’t had quite as uneventful an afternoon of it as the rest of us. They were both fine and seemed to be in good spirits but someone had managed to bruise Darren’s jaw and cut his lip for him.

“Our fifteenth stop,” DC Walker explained. “Our man was rather the worse for drink when we arrived and so were the two pals he had with him.”

“They were trying to get a barbecue going under the carport when we pulled up, the daft buggers,” Darren added. “We showed them our warrant cards and started asking our questions, but it was clear that they weren’t in a cooperative mood. We were invited to piss off several times.”

“Did the owner of the house clearly request that you remove yourselves from the property, or allow you ample time to do so?” Conall asked. Withdrawal of consent to remain was a perfectly legitimate right that anyone could exercise if we entered their property without a warrant, or without good reason to believe that a crime was being committed on the premises.

“He did not, Sir,” Walker assured him. “As I said, they were all very drunk. Then one of them decided that it might be funny to attempt to engage with me in an inappropriate manner so I put him