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

At home, later, long after my assigned escort had driven back to town, I caught up on Shay’s progress. He didn’t have anything for me yet but he’d been busy. He had another four ‘possibles’ from driving licences that had matched new, altered composites and was looking into those now. Another batch was currently running through the DVLA. Brad MacRoberts coding club account was still inactive. Apart from that, he’d also set up filtered alerts on all the major supermarkets’ home delivery databases, watching out for any new accounts being opened in the Inverness area and for unusual orders on existing ones.

“If even ten per cent of the calls the hotline received in response to the televised appeal were genuine, then he’s been going out shopping pretty regularly up until now. He might not want to keep risking that.”

I just nodded approvingly. That was a good idea. I had something else I wanted to talk to Shay about though.

“That camera,” I said, catching his gaze and holding it, “in Jackie’s garden. I saw you stop and stare at it for a good five seconds before you went to dig up the receiver. I don’t suppose you’d care to explain what you were thinking?”

He just shrugged. “Probably exactly what you think I was thinking. Our killer must be wondering how we got hold of that picture of him in Kinmylies on Tuesday night. I don’t believe, for one second, that he thinks the police took that. So maybe someone gave it to you? Someone else who wants him stopped? The way psychoses usually work, he’ll have come up with some ‘rational’ explanation for it by now that matches his existing beliefs.”

“Supernatural enemies plotting against him? And you look strange enough to catch his interest?”

Another little shrug. “Maybe. Whatever he’s got going on in that fucked up head of his, you have to admit that most people think I look pretty unusual. If he saw me, he might be curious enough to want to see more.”

“I take it you have a plan then?” I was trying to remain calm, but what I really wanted to do right then was smack him in the face. I thought we’d left this kind of thing behind us years ago, in Glasgow. No more setting traps with my cousin as the bait.

“Nothing risky or drastic. I drive into work with you from now on, come home when you do. My drones sit quietly, watching every approach to the station. With only the cameras running, the batteries will last for hours on a full charge. If he comes sniffing around, we’ll see him Con. I’ve even added a little facial recognition programme to the AI system and added all my composites in. It will beep me every time one of the drones spots anything close to a potential match.”

Well, that actually sounded reasonably safe, by his standards. If we did spot our suspect anywhere near there, I could have him surrounded before he knew what was happening.

“And if he somehow manages to get hold of you?”

“How, by assaulting the station? The risk is almost non existent. But okay, let’s say he does manage to, somehow. Remember the torc and the armband I put together for that Halloween bash, when we were after the McGill brothers?” I did. Shay had never enjoyed the Gang’s jokes about our ‘Changeling,’ but my God, he could pull off the ‘Faerie Princeling,’ with bells on, when he wanted to. “I still have those. And I can set my laptop to feed yours everything, if I fail to log on at specific times.”

I still didn’t like it but I couldn’t argue with his reasoning. Besides, that camera at Jackie’s house may already have been disconnected, anyway. How long could those things run for without being recharged?

“Alright,” I agreed. “That’s not as insane as I thought it was going to be.” He could keep working, as usual, so it wouldn’t slow us down. We could share my office, and I did like having him with me when we were working a case. It made it so much easier to keep up to date on each other’s progress. And I sure as hell didn’t want to leave him alone here now. Maybe our killer had seen him and maybe he had become curious. What did we have to lose by trying it?

Shay smiled happily. He must have been expecting more of an argument. I was going to bloody well arm myself though, just in case. He wouldn’t like that but he wouldn’t comment on it either.

“Oh, one other thing,” he said offhandedly, “I’m riding in the back of the car. Hold me by the arm going in and out too, like you would if I was a collar.”

“Why?”

“Because if he is watching, we want him to think that you don’t trust me not to try to slip away.”

“Okay,” I agreed. After what we’d both seen in Jackie’s bedroom that morning, I wasn’t entirely sure, just then, that I did.

I couldn’t think of anything my cousin wouldn’t do to prevent a repetition of a scene like that.

Twenty-Four

Sunday and Monday passed uneventfully. Everyone working the cases continued to pursue every possible line of investigation, and Shay kept feeding more of his faces into the DVLA and chasing up batch after batch of possibles. He flew the big drone in on Saturday night and positioned the six smaller ones around our building under cover of darkness. They docked again to recharge each night before resuming their positions. Nobody had noticed any of them yet, a good sign that he’d chosen his hiding places well, but there hadn’t been any sign of our man coming near the station either. It was beginning to look like he hadn’t seen my cousin or, if he had, was not interested enough to risk coming near us again. It was one thing to secretly watch us before we knew what he looked