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

From the unhappy expression on James’ face, I gathered that he had, and that it wasn’t very helpful.

“Our man went in to inquire about room prices, didn’t like what he was quoted and left again. He was only in there for three or four minutes. The night porter manning the desk said that he sounded local but he could have been faking the accent. They didn’t get a good look at his face either because he didn’t remove his scarf or put his hood down. I’ve opened up a new case folder and linked it to the ‘Black Wood’ case. You’ll find all their reports in there.” He leaned back in his chair and steepled his hands. “Now that we have two connected murders I’ll have to run them as OIOC, so Philips will take over as the new SIO on the earlier murder and you’ll be the appointed SIO on this one Conall.”

I just nodded. It made sense for James to become the Officer in Overall Command of the investigations now that we had two separate murders linked to the same killer, and it also made sense to give me, the most senior available officer, the fresher case.

“I’ve granted you both Administrator access to both case files so you can generate permissions for your teams,” James continued. “As there doesn’t seem to be much else we can learn from the Chuol case at this point, Philips’ team will be first in line to handle any tasks you need extra manpower for from now on. Just copy me in on any requests you make Conall, so I know if they’re tied up or not, alright?”

“I will,” I assured him as I stood up again. “We’ll get cracking on those door-to-doors as soon as I’ve brought my team up to speed. I’ll call you if we stumble across anything.”

I left them to finish whatever business I’d interrupted. My team should all be in by now and would doubtless have already heard about Chris Arnold. Once they were all caught up on developments, we could head out and start knocking on some doors.

Sixteen

Caitlin

The desk sergeant told me the news as soon as I got in on Wednesday morning, and I could see from the look on Mike and Mary’s faces when I walked into our office that they’d both been informed too. Chris Arnold’s death was a terrible thing to have happened, but we’d been waiting for that particular hammer to fall for the past few days without being able to do a damned thing to prevent it. You had to numb yourself to a certain extent, or at least maintain a good degree of detachment from cases like this one if you wanted to perform your job effectively. To be honest, it was actually something of a relief to have the ghastly business over with, awful as that may sound. Not that the poor man’s family could possibly feel that way.

If someone I loved had been in Chris Arnold’s place, I couldn’t even imagine the state I’d be in right now.

Angela Arnold had finally been informed of our suspicions last Friday. James McKinnon had gone to speak with her in person and he wouldn’t have compromised himself by making any empty promises. I was sure that he’d have held back a lot of the details surrounding Dominic Chuol’s murder, but that couldn’t have been an easy or a pleasant conversation to have. Knowing that we were doing everything possible to find her husband would have been little consolation to Mrs Arnold once McKinnon had made the situation absolutely clear to her.

How would you even start with breaking news like that to a woman whose husband had been missing for four and a half days? ‘We believe there is a strong possibility that your husband is being held captive by a mentally ill person who intends to kill him next Tuesday night. His captor, if our suspicions are correct, has already killed at least once and we have no idea who, or where, they are.’ No, it wouldn’t have been anything like that, but however you phrased the information, those facts did sum up the situation pretty accurately.

Darren Mills and Colum Bryce joined us a little before nine, but there was still no sign of Conall. He was probably up at Area HQ getting briefed. I didn’t know any details of the second killing yet, only that Chris Arnold’s severed head had been found mounted on display somewhere in Kinmylies.

Both of the facts in that little snippet had surprised me. We’d all thought it likely that our culprit would strike in another remote spot outside of town and go through a similar ritual to the one he’d used with Dominic Chuol. The change in tactics, carrying no more than a severed head out into the open after making his kill, and then leaving it in a heavily populated residential area, was disturbing in many ways. It had increased the killer’s mobility, allowing him to move around easily on foot if he chose to. It had reduced our already low chances of being able to catch him in the act, and it also indicated that he was far less predictable than we’d thought.

What else could he change? The dates he chose to strike on? The time intervals between the abductions and the murders?

Conall came in at nine twenty, and we all stopped what we were doing to look up at him the moment he came through the door.

“You’ve all heard about last night’s murder then.” It wasn’t a question, he could see it in our expressions easily enough. “Alright, for now, please keep working on whatever you have open. We’ll all be going out to knock on some doors in a little while but I’ll be sending you an update email before then. Caitlin, can you give me ten minutes and then come in to see me please?”

Well, at least he looked a little better