Death in the Black Wood Read online

  Death in the Black Wood

  Deadly Highlands book 3

  Oliver Davies

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. The Ally

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  10. Shay

  Chapter 11

  12. The Ally

  13. Caitlin

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  16. Caitlin

  17. Shay

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  21. The Ally

  22. Caitlin

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  25. Shay

  26. The Ally

  27. Shay

  28. The Ally

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  A Message from the Author

  Prologue

  Chief Superintendent Bernard Anderson ducked under cover outside the emergency department of Raigmore Hospital and stamped the snow from his boots as he closed up his umbrella. The snow was still falling thickly; heavy, silent flakes descending unhurriedly through the almost windless air. It was late afternoon by then and had been snowing, steadily, for hours, with no sign of a letup yet. The gritters were doing their best, but traffic was in chaos and slowed to a crawl. A thick fall like this in town was not a common sight, even at the beginning of March.

  Well, Anderson decided, once he’d shed the last of it, he’d better get in there and find out what the hell they were dealing with.

  Inside the entrance, he found James McKinnon and Simon Philips waiting for him. James looked pretty much as Anderson had expected to find him, like a man who hadn’t eaten or slept properly for days but was learning to breathe normally again after having an intolerable weight lifted from his chest. That was perfectly understandable. What was less easy to interpret was the anxious concern that still seemed to have him in its grip.

  “Sorry I took so long getting here, James,” Anderson apologised. His summons down to Edinburgh yesterday had come at a very bad time. He shook James’ hand warmly, “How’s young Jimmy?”

  The ghost of a smile twitched across McKinnon’s face as his dark eyes sparked with much more like their usual fire, shaving a couple of years off his haggard appearance as his shoulders straightened.

  “He’s in good shape, all things considered. June and Gary are with him now. The doctors all say everything looks good. They think they’ll be able to send him home tomorrow.”

  Considering what would have happened, if not for the Keanes, that was such good news that Anderson was lost for words to describe how he felt about it. He contented himself with patting James on the shoulder before turning his attention to DI Philips, who was hovering nearby.

  Philips looked far less worn than his boss, but that left eye of his was quite a sight. It was swollen almost shut, the bruising still an angry flare of reds and pinks, too fresh to have darkened yet. Whatever had hit him, that was very recent. Oh dear, was there any chance that hadn’t been Conall’s doing?

  Philips met his gaze steadily with his good eye.

  “Had a bit of an accident there, Simon?” Anderson enquired mildly.

  “I’m afraid so, Sir. My own fault. I stupidly walked right into something I really shouldn’t have. I must try to remember to be a bit more careful in the future.” Well, alright then. Thank goodness Philips wasn’t inclined to be petty about it. A sensible attitude to take if he didn’t want to be ostracised by the entire department.

  “The Keane boys are in a little room down this way, Sir. Daniel’s with them too.” James led Anderson past the reception area and down a corridor, out of hearing range of the few people sitting waiting to be seen. “I should warn you that Shay is in no condition to give an official statement today.” Reaching a wider area, an alcove where the porters could temporarily wheel a bed out of the way, Anderson came to a halt.

  “Is he badly hurt?” he asked worriedly.

  “He says he’s not, but he was pretty incoherent when we arrived at the scene. He’d been dosed up with some kind of hallucinogenic and repeatedly shocked with both a taser and a cattle coaxer.” One to incapacitate, the other to inflict localised pain. Christ! What the hell had happened since he’d gone missing almost three days ago?

  “I think you’d better fill me in a little better before I talk to them, James.”

  McKinnon’s account was brief and to the point. He had received a call from DCI Conall Keane at one-thirty-five that afternoon informing him that both Jimmy Stewart and Shay had been found. The boy was unconscious but breathing easily and had a steady pulse. Apart from a few minor electrical burns and bruises, he appeared to be unharmed. McKinnon had called for an ambulance to be sent out to the address, just outside Balloch. He had then immediately proceeded to the scene himself, along with DI Philips, leaving instructions for a SOCO team to follow them out there as soon as they could.

  On arriving at the given address, a moderately sized detached house, they had found the front door open and heard an agitated but somewhat muffled voice from within. The voice was coming from the cellar. Descending, they had found DCI Conall Keane, Shay Keane, young Jimmy Stewart, and the prone, unmoving figure of an adult male.

  “There were two barred, adjoining cells down there. Jimmy was in the open one, and Conall had locked himself and Shay into the other, so nobody else could get near him,” McKinnon told Anderson. “Shay was pacing up and down, looking pretty wild, babbling agitatedly in furious Irish. He’d been extensively worked over, from what I could see. His torso was covered in electrical burns.”

  “His torso?” Anderson asked. “So he was dressed like the earlier victims?”

  “Aye. Conall had managed to coax him back into his jacket and shoes before we arrived, but he told us Shay had been barefoot, in nothing but his trousers when he’d first seen him. He must have been freezing down there. There was nothing in that cell but an old mattress.” McKinnon shook his head. “Anyway, once the ambulance crew had taken Jimmy out of there, Conall walked Shay up to his car so our SOCO boys could get down there to process the scene. He wasn’t too happy about DI Philips here suggesting that maybe he ought to restrain Mr Keane first, as a safety precaution.” Right, that might explain the black eye. “They just sat there, for another hour or so, while Conall got some fluids into him and calmed him down. Then we all came here. Shay seemed perfectly collected again by then, although he’s barely uttered a word since.” James McKinnon was frowning worriedly.

  “He hasn’t let a doctor examine him, and Conall and Daniel are backing him up. Conall took a few photographs for evidence, and Shay agreed to supply blood and urine samples, but nothing else. They just want to get the hell out of here and get their boy home. The three of them have just been seething away in there for the last twenty minutes since the samples were taken.” Anderson thought he could understand that. Shay didn’t like the scrutiny of strangers at the best of times. The idea of allowing anyone but his family near him in his current condition must be almost intolerable.

  “Thanks for the warning, James,” Anderson said, “I’ll see if they’re prepared to tell me anything, unofficially, but I don’t see any reason to keep them here once I’ve spoken to them. After what Shay’s just done for us all, it’s the least we can do in return.”

  “That it is.” McKinnon agreed fervently, “He’s a strange one alright, and far too fearless for his own good, but God love him for it.” The two men eyed each other knowingly. They both knew that this wasn’t the first time that Shay had decided to use himself as bait
.

  Shay and Daniel were sitting together when Anderson walked into their treatment room. Daniel’s right arm was curled protectively along the back of his nephew’s chair, and the younger man was doing his blank, robotic thing, safely shielded by a large pair of the dark glasses he favoured so much. Daniel must have brought a set of clean clothes from the house for him because Shay was fully dressed now, only his outdoor gear left to don. His uncle glared at Anderson with a look that said ‘Finally!’ as clearly as uttering the word aloud would have done.

  Conall was leaning against the wall on Shay’s right with his arms crossed. He, too, met Anderson’s eyes coldly.

  “Glad you could make it, Sir,” he said, in a way that made it abundantly clear that he was also incensed by the delay. Maybe it had been a mistake, asking McKinnon to keep them all here until he could speak with them, but Anderson didn’t think so. He needed to add his personal assessment of Shay’s condition to his report to ensure that no unwelcome questions or doubts were raised. Conall must have realised as much himself, or the Keanes would simply have left by now.

  “I came as soon as I could.” Anderson wasn’t about to make the mistake of wasting time explaining himself. He focused his attention on the younger Keane. They’d cleaned him up nicely, but Shay didn’t seem to have his usual, effortless control of himself. Little muscle tremors here and there betrayed that much and an occasional series of rapid little taps as his knee jerked spasmodically, and his heel struck the floor was clearly audible. “James was just telling me that you wish to be discharged, Mr Keane. If you’re quite sure that you don’t require any medical assistance, I’d very much like to let you all go home as quickly as possible.”

  A slight, acknowledging chin lift there but no verbal response.

  “So what’s the hold-up?” Daniel asked impatiently. “Because as far as I can see, Chief Superintendent, unless you’re planning to charge my boys with anything, you have no right to stop us from just walking out of that door.”

  “There is absolutely no question of any charges being brought,” Anderson assured him confidently. That won him a fraction of softening. “However, unofficially and off the record, I was hoping that perhaps Shay wouldn’t mind answering a couple of questions for me before you all go.” Conall straightened up and took a step away from the wall.

  “I’m afraid that’s simply not possible today, Sir,” he said, sounding perfectly calm yet somehow giving the impression of a snarling guard dog, hackles raised. “Apart from the fact that he hasn’t eaten for three days, my cousin is mentally and physically exhausted. He’s in no condition to give you any kind of a report, however unofficially, today.”

  “Not forgetting that on top of all that, his brain’s still flooded with chemical crap,” Daniel agreed angrily. “His neurotransmitter levels are all over the place. Any fool can see that. What the hell’s wrong with you?” Another staccato series of taps from Shay’s errant foot punctuated the point.

  “Of course.” The Chief Superintendent wasn’t about to argue with them, but he’d felt obliged to ask. “Perhaps you could just take him on home, Daniel? Conall can hang on here for a bit and fill me in on what he witnessed of today’s events before following you.”

  Shay’s head turned as his hand shot out to grip his cousin’s arm. No! The movement pulled back the cuff of his baggy jumper, exposing the raw, broken skin around his wrist. You couldn’t help wondering, knowing what he was capable of, if Shay was putting on a calculated performance. Unlikely, but not impossible. He certainly didn’t need to speak to get his messages across.

  “Bad idea, Sir,” Conall said softly. “I don’t think he wants to let me out of his sight right now, and it wouldn’t be good for him. He’ll sleep sooner and better knowing we’re both there.”

  Anderson stifled a sigh. It looked like he’d need a crowbar to prise those two apart, and if he pushed this, there was a very high risk that DCI Keane’s resignation would be waiting in his Inbox before the end of the day, the very last thing anyone wanted to happen. Shay himself clearly had no intention of uttering a word until he felt more like himself again. Lingering paranoia from the drugs he’d been given, or a play for more time, to allow them to get their stories straight? It didn’t matter. Whatever they decided to say, whether truth or fabrication, there was no doubt whatsoever in Anderson’s mind that it would match the physical evidence perfectly. They’d make damned sure of that.

  Self-defence or not, one of the cousins had killed a man today.

  One

  The Ally

  Everything was fine. Nothing could possibly go wrong. There was no reason to be nervous. All he had to do was follow his instructions properly, and he wouldn’t be punished. Your brain wasn’t supposed to be able to feel pain, he knew that. It didn’t stop it from happening, though.

  No lights, keep the van quiet, don’t mess up. The full moon was enough of a guide to drive by, and he had his night-vision goggles with him in case the sky unexpectedly clouded over. Besides, he knew this track through the woods. He’d practised this run several times, preparing for tonight’s mission.

  He shouldn’t even be thinking about punishment either because then he might start thinking about disobeying, and his head would start to feel like someone had lit a fire in it again. The last time he’d attempted to open up a bottle of his meds, he hadn’t even been allowed to scream as he collapsed. It had been unforgivably stupid and selfish of him to try that! Even when he couldn’t see or hear anything, he knew he was still being watched.

  As always, he’d just flopped around, convulsing voicelessly on the floor until he’d passed out. When he’d woken up, hours later, the shame and humiliation he’d felt when he realised that he’d pissed and crapped himself again had only made the fading echoes of agony feel even worse.

  “I’m sorry that was necessary, but you know I couldn’t let you do that,” the Companion had chided him disappointedly, “You can’t hear a word I say when you take those pills. Forbidden means forbidden!” It hadn’t needed to add that it never rested, never slackened its vigilance or tried to shirk its duty. Humans were so weak and so piteously vulnerable, and the Companion was always so sad when it had to hurt him. It was much happier when it had reason to reward him instead.

  He was special, he knew, and far too valuable to be allowed to live a normal life. Most humans weren’t evolved enough to hear anything when a Companion tried to communicate with them, and the few who could mostly only picked up a lot of garbled nonsense that drove them crazy. They were the failures, and he was the rarest of the rare, a perfect, flawless receiver. Of course, he couldn’t be allowed to use any of the chemicals designed to help those less gifted than he was to shut out the voices. There was far too much important work to be done, and he was an essential part of it.

  Reaching his chosen spot, he parked the van before climbing out to slide the side door open. No sound of anyone around, as promised. The prisoner, the one he’d been ordered to bring here tonight, was waking up, right on schedule. The whites of a pair of supposedly terrified eyes stared back at him as he dragged it out into the moonlight, but he wasn’t falling for that. The Companions’ adversaries were very tricky, he knew. This one would look just like an ordinary human to most people, but it wasn’t. It was an alien. He could clearly see the huge, black aura that surrounded it. All the aliens had those in different sizes and colours. The prisoner shivered convincingly as it stared up at him, pretending to feel the sub-zero chill of the January night. A real human, dressed in nothing but a pair of tracksuit trousers, would certainly have been chattering their teeth out here tonight. The breath from its nostrils even steamed in the frigid air, just like his own. Maybe it hadn’t realised that he could see that telltale aura, but it was wasting its time trying silly tricks like that on him. He’d never have guessed that it wasn’t a person if he hadn’t been gifted with the ability to see what it really was.

  The thought of one of those awful things getting inside his head and taking
his body for itself was too revolting to contemplate, but he was fully protected against that particular danger. The Companion assigned to him was guarding him zealously. Unlike everyone else he’d ever met, he was perfectly safe from that particular horror.

  Ignoring the low noises that it was trying to make, he put on his pack and lifted the gagged and bound creature over his shoulders. It was almost time. He set off into the woods.

  The ground was nicely frozen, no need to worry about footprints, and he’d secured covers over his boots, anyway. His burden was heavy, but he’d been training for this for a long time, and he only had a few hundred metres to go.

  The oak tree he’d been told to use was at the bottom of a hollow, surrounded and vastly outnumbered by the fir trees that dominated the woods. Once he’d reached it, he gratefully shed his burdens and opened up his pack. The mark he’d cut into the trunk at the right height was easy enough to find, and he firmly secured a rope around the trunk there, making sure it couldn’t slip down, before hauling the creature up and clipping its collar to it so that it had to stand upright. Then he added more loops of rope, from ankles to waist, so it couldn’t try to knee him or kick out. Another band, around the forehead, held its head up nicely.

  “The arms!” he was reminded, helpfully, and he took out his knife to reach around its back and sever the rope holding the wrists together so he could pull the arms out and tie those down too, with the inside of the forearms exposed. “Good, very good.” He felt a first little wave of pleasure wash through him and smiled happily.