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

reasonable question, given the conversation we were having. I told him Anderson would probably have us wait two or three days, see if O’Hara left the place at all, before we swooped in. That was enough, I think, to make him decide to try it his way.”

“Because he knew that otherwise we were going to get my grandson killed, if he wasn’t already dead by then. I know what kind of psycho we’re dealing with as well as you do, Conall. Don’t you think I’d already convinced myself the boy was as good as dead until you sent me that email? Now I have some hope again… and twice as many hostages to fear for.”

“Sir,” Philips protested, “We have to seize Mr Keane’s laptop and have our tech team look through it. We could at least watch the place like that.”

McKinnon shook his head. “No, we don’t. And we won’t. If O’Hara notices any surveillance activity, he’ll kill them both.”

“With all due respect, Sir, I think that decision should be left to Superintendent Anderson. He is the OIOC now, after all.” So McKinnon had been supplanted. That had been inevitable, I supposed, given the fact that it was his own grandson who’d been taken yesterday.

On a good day, I could handle an irritation like Simon Philips easily without losing my temper. Today was not one of those days.

“Apparently, we’re too emotionally involved to be fit to decide anything ourselves, James,” I said, trying to sound calm. “Go ahead, make the call.” I’d copied Anderson in on my email so he should be fully up to date on the situation by now.

McKinnon had his boss on speed dial.

“James,” Anderson picked up quickly. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m with Conall and DI Philips. and we have you on speaker, Sir. DI Philips thinks the final decision on an issue he’s raised should be yours, not ours.”

“Given the circumstances, I can understand why he might feel that way. What is it, Philips?”

“I suggest we seize Special Consultant Keane’s laptop in order to search it for O’Hara’s location, Sir.”

“Absolutely not,” Anderson said firmly. “If anyone so much as tries to touch that thing, the consequences will be career ending. Is that clear? Anything else?”

“No, Sir, that was all.” Philips looked both very subdued and very thoughtful after Anderson abruptly hung up. James stood up again, so we did too.

“If there’s anything I can do for you, Conall, well, you know how to reach me.”

“I do. If we don’t hear anything before then, I’ll see you at Burnett Road on Friday. At two thirty?” That should allow plenty of time for the pre-operation briefing and final preparations.

“Aye. Fine. You’ve called Daniel? He’s coming home?”

“He’ll be here tomorrow.”

“Good, good.” At least we understood each other properly. McKinnon was a strangely comforting kindred spirit, down here in the dark with me.

I dragged my way through the rest of Wednesday like a zombie, trying not to think and unable to eat. I put myself to bed early, with a sleeping pill, and mercifully didn’t recall any dreams when I finally did wake up. Thursday dragged by with no word from Shay but it was good to have da home again. We didn’t try to talk to each other about my cousin, but the reinforcement provided by da’s presence was immense.

Shay called me at eleven twenty two on Friday, but not from his own phone. He wiped all records of that call afterwards, and neither of us ever mentioned it to anyone else, except da. I was at Brady O’Hara’s house before twelve.

My cousin was sitting on the doorstep waiting when I arrived. He stood up as I climbed out of the car and didn’t resist or protest when I threw my arms around him and clutched him like a drowning man clinging to a slippery rock.

“It was smart of you to wait until you were sure I wouldn’t kill you myself,” I told him, when I’d got that little crisis out of my system. I let him go and wiped my eyes so I could get a good look at him. He seemed to be in pretty decent shape but that didn’t mean anything. At least he wasn’t visibly bleeding anywhere, no broken bones either. “One of these days you’re going to give me a bloody heart attack you know.”

“Sorry, Con.” He ducked his head down, “It seemed like the only real choice, you know?”

“I know, Shay. You did what you thought you had to. Jimmy? O’Hara?”

“I think Jimmy’s okay. O’Hara shocked him a couple of times but didn’t do anything else to hurt him that I know of. He was feeding him and I think he was lacing the food, or the water, with sedatives. The kid was pretty much ignored after I got here. He kept very quiet whenever Brady was down there but I could hear him crying, sometimes, when it was just the two of us.”

“O’Hara?” I repeated.

“Still alive. We need to decide what to do about that.” Oh? One of those situations?

“Alright. Come and sit in the car and tell me everything.” Best not to disturb the scene until I knew the whole story.

Sitting in da’s car, which I’d borrowed to come here, I listened to him describe everything, the shocks, the sedative, the things he’d heard Brady and his alter ego discussing. He talked about it all as if it had been nothing to worry about, no big deal.

“That alter ego of Brady’s really is a monster. He’s got a very effective carrot and stick routine for keeping Brady in line. Blinding headaches that make him pass out if he acts up and orgasmic rushes for doing well.”

“It’s all one person, Shay.”

“One brain, one body, two distinct, separate egos. Anyway, so then he decided to see what a dose of LSD would do to me. Maybe the Alter thought it would make me give myself away if I was faking it? It seemed likely. You know that hallucinogenic substances don’t bother