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

controls or driving aimlessly around. If nothing else, it was a good opportunity to test how his new system performed over several hours of constant use.

The old name for Dores had translated as ‘Black Wood,’ a snippet of information that our killer had known. One of the things that Shay had looked into was a list of old names for other locations around Inverness and he’d found quite a lot of them. Dominic Chuol had been African. He’d also been a child soldier. Whether ‘black heart’ was a reference to the war crimes that Dominic had been forced to commit during those years or a reference to the colour of his skin, his killer had gone to some trouble to create a link between his victim and the scene of his death. Would he do the same for Chris Arnold?

Limited by the number of drones he could fly, Shay had pored over that list of names before making his selections. Drummond, ‘The Specials Ridge,’ Ballifeary, ‘The Guard’s Farm/place/village or ‘Lookout Point’ and Kinmylies, “The Head (or Place) of the Warriors.’ Those three, out of all the options he had discovered, seemed to have more of a tenuous connection to Arnold’s military past than any of the other place names he’d found. They also had the advantage of being within easy flying distance of the town centre, and each other. I wasn’t too sure about any of those neighbourhoods being likely spots myself. Those were all busy residential areas and quite central.

“More chance of being spotted by people out and about late or looking out of their windows, yes,” he’d agreed. “But also a lot more traffic to hide in. Any vehicle out in the middle of nowhere is far more likely to attract attention. McKinnon has people parked up at good vantage points all over the area. We can’t assume our culprit won’t have thought of that.”

“None of which will matter if they stay indoors,” I told him, sitting down on the couch.

He shrugged. “That’s out of our hands. Let’s just focus on what we can keep an eye on, shall we.” He dropped down at my side and pulled his tray in. “You’ve got drones four to six on your screens so we can take it in turns monitoring those in half hour shifts.”

“And the satellite feed?”

“I can zoom in anywhere when one of the patrol cars or helicopters calls in to report passing vehicles out on the quiet roads, or any movement around the houses we’re watching. There’s still quite a lot of traffic about so I’d wait until later to start on that.” His borrowed satellite could pick up GPS signals automatically, but anyone driving without one and not carrying an active phone would have to be tracked by eye. “Eleven until four seems our likeliest window of opportunity, with one ‘til four scoring highest, probability wise.” The hours when the vast majority of people were asleep, and the streets were at their quietest.

We soon settled into the routine, chatting aimlessly to keep ourselves entertained and alert. I’d had a few good sessions with the drone controls on Saturday and Sunday, so I was comfortable taking manual control of the little things to take a closer look at anything they overflew. My cousin had set them all to stay up at a hundred feet unless we overrode their pre-programmed flight patterns. They were very quiet, small, and hard to spot, so I doubted anyone would notice them unless they got too close. You could easily rest one of them on the palm of your hand.

Whenever Shay’s drones were up, he’d simply send them over to my screens when a call came in over the radio, freeing himself to zoom in with the satellite’s thermal imaging cameras to get a look at what was going on. We had a busy hour after the pubs closed, but things soon quietened down after that.

“There are more people still wandering about than I’d expected on a Tuesday night,” he complained, just after half-past one.

I glanced over at what his three screens were showing him. A few cars were still driving around, and odd clusters of people were walking home from clubs or friend’s houses.

“Well, you’ve got people on odd shift patterns going to and from work and a lot of unemployed youngsters with nothing better to do than hang out with their pals ‘til all hours. I’d say it all looks pretty normal. It’s the loners we want to look out for, especially away from the houses and close to parks, playing fields and other empty areas.”

It was a long, dull night and only the thought of what might be happening out there kept me focused enough to keep at it. Our first helicopter team finished their shift at two and were replaced by the second unit. Neither they nor any of the cars reported spotting any fires breaking out anywhere. Shay and I took it in turns to take our drones down to get a good look at lone foot travellers wandering the streets in our selected neighbourhoods and catch the number plates of the odd vehicle still moving around. No sign of anybody pulling or pushing anything big enough to hold a grown man and certainly nobody with a body slung over their shoulder. Whether that was true of every other part of the city remained to be seen.

We saw a lot of people parking up and walking into nearby houses and blocks of flats. Just people getting home late. I was pretty sure I saw a couple of illegal transactions taking place too. A car would pull up, someone would come out and climb in and a minute later disappear indoors again as the car pulled away.

“Wishing you were allowed to use this kind of surveillance all the time?” Shay asked when he noticed me watching one such transaction. I released my drone back into its programmed pattern.

“Not really,” I decided. “If this is the future of police