The Crow wasn’t at home. He’d been there until half an hour earlier, waiting for the light to fade from the sky. Now, he was sitting outside a block of flats, looking up at the third floor, trying to figure out which windows belonged to Janet Vargas. He was pumped, physically and metaphorically.
It had been a strange sort of day, with a variety of demands on his time, but he’d found thirty minutes to lift weights. He could see the changes in his body since he’d consumed the bird. He was more wiry, every muscle and vein defined as if he were an anatomical pencil sketch of himself.
The power he held within was more impressive still. His mind was working with an energy and precision he’d never experienced before. Making decisions was easy, reading other people and staying a step ahead of them had become second nature. But the need for more, to consume more and become more, was like a chain dragging him by the guts onwards. It was an insatiable appetite. If he didn’t feed it, it would start to consume him instead. So Janet Vargas was a risk, but one he was certain he could afford to take. Not carelessly, though.
He waited in his car, watching for people approaching the flats. A single male went by, and that wasn’t right. Then an elderly lady, but she was already looking like thunder. Approaching her would be like setting off an alarm.
It took another hour before exactly the right set of circumstances presented themselves. A young mother walked down the street looking hassled, with two kids in tow and another in a pram. The Crow put on his biggest smile and his most relaxed but reassuring voice, keeping his keys in his right hand and filling his other arm with a bag of grocery shopping from the nearest supermarket.
Since he’d become The Crow, little details like that had become more obvious to him. Want to look unthreatening? Fill a shopping bag with some cheap-brand nappies, chocolate breakfast cereal, washing-up liquid, teabags, oven chips and a bunch of nice but inexpensive flowers from the bucket at the supermarket door.
He opened his car door just as the woman was wandering past, making a show of trying to avoid her children and using the ‘excuse me’ as a way to start a conversation.
‘Pauline, for goodness’ sake, would ye get out o’ the man’s way, girl!’ the woman chided.
‘Aw, don’t worry yerself,’ he replied good-naturedly. ‘I’ve two myself. They threatened to start screaming if I didn’t make sure we had their favourite breakfast cereal for tomorrow morning.’ He nodded ruefully at the bag of shopping for good measure. ‘Me and the wife only moved in a few weeks ago. Takes a while to get to know a place, doesn’t it?’
‘That it does,’ she replied. ‘Where’ve you come from?’
He fell into step next to her, keeping his pace slow to match the pram, smiling down at the children.
‘Fraserburgh,’ he said. ‘How old’s your wee one? I wish mine would sleep so peacefully. I don’t think we’ve had a break from the screaming since the little love arrived in the world.’
‘Three months, and take it from me, he’s just having a good ten minutes. When he wakes up hungry, you’d be able to hear him even if you still lived in Fraserburgh!’
The Crow laughed appreciatively, showing sharp teeth to the children, who were staring at the curious man walking so close to their mother. The boy moved forwards, taking a place at his mother’s side, staring at each adult in turn. Didn’t every boy get jealous when another male got their mother’s attention? Good lad, The Crow decided. Protect what’s yours. Just don’t get in my way.
Continuing down the road, ever closer to the flats, she began fumbling in her handbag as she walked.
‘I’m surprised I haven’t bumped into you before,’ he said. ‘Usually you get to know the pram brigade before anyone else. It’s kind of reassuring to know other people are going through all the same stages as you. Which floor do you live on?’
‘Second,’ she said. ‘Damn, I can never find my keys in this bag.’
‘Here, let me push the pram for you a second,’ he offered.
‘I’ll do it,’ the boy said, pushing forwards and grabbing at the handle.
The Crow got there just ahead of him.
‘Naw, you’re all right,’ he laughed. ‘I’ve clocked up enough hours behind a pram to be a safe driver for your wee baby here.’
The woman laughed, pulling out her purse and the baby’s dummy.
‘Don’t fuss,’ she told the boy. ‘I’ll just be a sec.’
A couple of minutes later, she pulled out a set of keys that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the belt of a night security guard. The Crow carried on pushing for another minute as she zipped her bag up and sorted along the line of keys to find the one that fit the outer door.
‘Hey,’ The Crow said to the boy who looked to be about six years old. ‘Who’s your favourite football team, then?’
‘Hearts,’ the boy said proudly. ‘Every other team is crap!’
‘Lennox!’ the woman scolded. ‘Mind your language. God, I’m sorry, gets it from his daddy. Mild as you like until there’s football on the telly, then you wouldn’t know it was the same man.’
‘Aye, well, if you can’t swear a bit about football, when can you?’
She looked grateful not to have been judged and the boy accepted The Crow ruffling his hair with only the bare minimum of a grimace.
The Crow enjoyed playing the part. It proved what he already knew but hadn’t had a chance to put into practice yet: that he was ready to become. He could change almost every aspect of himself to fit whatever role he needed to play. Nature was a clever beast. It allowed you to stalk your prey silently but gave you a roar that would deafen the herd. It provided you with the softest feathers, bones as light as air, but a beak that could gouge eyes and rip out a still-beating heart. He was stronger than ever because he’d learned to portray weakness.
Now the woman was talking about a toddler group. Did his imaginary wife want to join? And don’t sign up with the doctor’s surgery round the corner because you’ll wait two weeks for an appointment. A longer journey and you could see a doctor the same day you phoned.
He smiled broadly as she talked, the grin becoming more and more genuine as they neared the door to the flats. It had been easier than he’d imagined. Integrate yourself into someone else’s unit, look like you belonged, appear at home. If anyone was watching, they’d see a man walking comfortably with his partner and her children. What could possibly be suspect about that? And they were laughing, having a good time. Ruffling the boy’s hair had been a genius touch. Helping with the pram for a minute, even better.
The woman pushed her key into the outer lock. He stepped back, holding the door as she pushed the pram in first. A siren wailed in the distance, coming closer. The girl – Pauline, who he’d so convincingly nearly fallen over – went next. The boy stopped in the doorway, staring up at him.
‘You never told me who you support,’ he said.
The sirens were getting louder now and The Crow stared up the road.
‘Hearts, of course, same as you,’ he smiled, wanting to get inside now.
‘Doesnae make any sense,’ the boy continued.
‘What doesn’t?’ The Crow asked, wondering if it would spook the woman if he pushed past her son. He couldn’t afford to arouse suspicion at such a crucial stage.
‘You’re from Fraserburgh, you said. Why would you support Hearts? My dad says you should stay true to your hometown.’
The sirens were nearer now, then there were lights, frantic flashed reflections in the windows at the end of the road.
‘I was born in Edinburgh,’ The Crow said quickly. ‘I moved to Fraserburgh when I was a teenager. Your dad sounds like a very sensible man.’
‘Would you come on?’ the woman scolded the boy abruptly. ‘Before the baby wakes up.’
‘Sorry, Mam,’ the boy said, stepping into the building and letting The Crow in, too, as the lights and sirens flashed past the end of the road and away up the hill.
He breathed out, enjoying the small victory, letting it mask his relief.
‘I’ll be off, then,’ he said to the woman who was climbing into the lift. ‘Good to have met you.’
‘Be sure to tell your wife about the toddler group. It’d be nice to have someone to go with!’ she called as the doors finally closed.
The Crow began climbing the stairs to the third floor.
Lance Proudfoot saw a child run around the slight bend in the road first, a boy, older than five but no more than eight. Now that his own son was grown-up, he found it harder to age young children accurately. He could see the heads of the adults accompanying him above the top of a row of parked cars, talking to one another, nodding occasionally, looking relaxed. Other people had come and gone, but none had looked out of place.
A young man had walked past having a loud row on his mobile about money, drawing attention to himself with his bad language. Not a tactic a potential killer would employ. Lance kept checking the vicinity for other people sat in their cars. He was sure the police would be around somewhere.
A car carrying two men had just taken off and he hadn’t got a good view of them. He was mostly just surprised that no one had come to ask what he was up to, given how long he’d been sitting there.
Lastly, an elderly lady had shuffled along and into the building, struggling to get her key into the lock. Lance had fought with himself not to get out and offer to help, but that would have defeated the purpose of staying low, keeping the internal lights off, and avoiding using his mobile and streaming blue light onto his face.
The newcomers were fully visibly now, pram in front of the woman, and a girl, younger than the boy, struggling to keep up. As they walked slowly towards the outer door of the flats, the woman began searching in her handbag. Keys, Lance decided. His wife had never been able to find hers once she’d put them in her handbag, either. The man said something and the boy stepped forwards, trying to take hold of the pram. The man got there first, using his longer stride and height to take control. The look on the boy’s face was thunder.
Lance sat up to get a better look at them. The woman pulled a set of keys from her bag with a relieved half-smile. By then the man was laughing and ruffling the boy’s hair. The male was good-looking. Tall. And he was making an effort. A first-date kind of effort, Lance thought. Not a ‘just bumped into your neighbour’ kind of effort, or an ‘aren’t you a friend of …’ kind of effort. The wide grin was way too much for people who knew each other well.
Then they were at the door. The woman opened up, pushing the pram through, the girl following, but the boy stood in the doorway, something approaching a scowl on his face. Sirens disrupted the quiet evening at a distance and the man looked away into the distance at their source, just as Lance did. He wondered what he was doing there, if he was missing the real story, sat in his own little world, having convinced himself yet again to follow his gut.
The sirens got closer and still the boy didn’t cede the entranceway to the man. They were involved in quite a discussion and the boy’s face was sombre, questioning. The man’s smile held fast.
The siren grew closer and louder, but Lance told himself not to look away. He got the clear impression that the boy wasn’t happy. Then it broke. The boy smiled again, the man was allowed to pass into the building and the reflections from the streetlights drew a reflected curtain over the action happening behind the glass.
Opening a packet of crisps, Lance contemplated his life. Since teaming up with Luc Callanach, things had become both more exciting and more painful – and teaming up was a vast overstatement of his own importance – but it felt good to be doing real work again. His younger days as an investigative journalist had got him in no end of scrapes and he’d loved them all. His now ex-wife hadn’t shared his enthusiasm, nor been keen on the amount of time he’d spent travelling. So he’d compromised and settled down. Or maybe he’d just settled. Got lazy, to be brutally honest with himself. Now Callanach was out of the loop and Lance was stuck chasing hunches instead of cold, hard facts.
He hadn’t liked the man who’d pushed the pram. The thought came to him, a non sequitur mixed into memories of other more successful points of his career. That was ridiculous, though. You couldn’t dislike someone based on seeing them talk – not even hearing them – for three minutes as they walked along, or because their smile had seemed excessive in the circumstances.
Only he really hadn’t liked him. He wasn’t imagining it. It had been to do with the ruffling of the boy’s hair. Lance closed his eyes and reconstructed the details in his mind. The man had been carrying a shopping bag, a full one, up in his arm. Entirely macho positioning, like he was too embarrassed to carry it swinging from his hand like a housewife. Balanced on the top of the shopping, prominently, had been a pack of nappies. A small pack. Usually when Lance saw them in the supermarket they were the huge bumper packs and the damned things were expensive. No point buying them unless you were buying in bulk. The man hadn’t thought of that, apparently.
He saw the male ruffle the boy’s hair in his mind once more. Just before that, the boy had positioned himself between the woman and the man, jostling for control of the pram. It wasn’t just Lance. The boy hadn’t liked the man, either. Hadn’t wanted him next to his mother, or helping with the baby.
He’d ruffled the boy’s hair. The image kept returning. No parent did that to someone else’s child. You didn’t do it to your own child because you knew children hated it. They really bloody hated it. Hair-ruffling was reserved for politicians who didn’t have children of their own, or who – if they did – had a nanny and hadn’t spent a single hour caring for the children without military-style backup.
Lance’s next thought – and it came with a clarity that made his chest hurt – was that the man wasn’t a parent at all. He knew it the same as he’d known when his wife had decided to leave him and when he’d known his son was experimenting with drugs. He just knew. But he’d been carrying nappies. Keeping them in full view, up in his arms. In the woman’s face. Like a badge of domesticity. He might as well have been wearing a sign on his chest that read: I’m a dad.
Lance unlocked his car door and began to climb out, wondering if he’d finally lost the plot. Then there’d been the scene at the door. The boy had stood, scowling, demanding either an answer or an explanation, as if requesting the magic password. Open sesame. It had worked, only the man had been more interested in the sirens that had come and gone just as the boy had allowed him in. The smile, that big, broad smile, had seemed almost fixed in place. No, not almost. Utterly fixed, like someone auditioning for a game show. Look at me, the smile had said. Gosh, I’m a happy, friendly guy.
Lance took his mobile from his pocket and dialled Callanach’s number. He was greeted by an invitation to leave a voicemail. He tried again. Still no answer. By now, he was at the door to the flats. He looked up the road. The area, of course, was deserted. No one was coming to open up who he could charm in his older-guy kind of way to let him in.
He should call Ava Turner instead, he thought. Only to say what? This guy walking towards Janet Vargas’ flat had been carrying shopping that didn’t match Lance’s experience of parenting. And he had a creepy smile, too – mustn’t forget that crucial bit of evidence. It was ridiculous and yet it felt as real as the bag of crisps he hadn’t realised he was still clutching in his hands. He looked down into the sack of salt-and-vinegar flavoured saturated fat and knew he had to do something. Anything.
He phoned MIT, grateful the number was still in his phone from his previous work with Callanach.
‘Hi, I need to speak with DCI Turner as a matter of urgency, please,’ he said.
‘Sorry, DCI Turner’s out at the moment. We’re expecting her back later tonight. Can I take a message?’
Lance racked his brains for other names.
‘Um, wait, Max Tripp. Is he there?’ he tried.
‘No, also out. I’m afraid the department’s a bit low on personnel right now. If it’s an emergency, I can put you through to the switchboard to get police units to you?’
He thought about that. There was no emergency. Just a suspicion. And a block of flats with a possibly dodgy man inside, who could have a million different reasons for carrying a small pack of nappies and chocolate cereal. Perhaps his wife was pregnant and craving chocolate goodies, and they wanted the smallest pack of nappies possible for practising changing techniques. Lance felt like an idiot.
‘No worries,’ he said. ‘If you could just leave a message for DCI Turner that I called. The name’s Lance Proudfoot. She knows who I am.’
‘Of course, sir,’ the woman on the other end of the line said. ‘I’ll let her know.’
Lance almost hoped Ava wouldn’t phone him back. The more minutes that went by, the less certain he was of what he’d seen, or at least of what he’d deduced from it.
The outer door to the flats opened as he stood, poised and ready to return to his car, and to go home to a warm flat and a numbing hour of TV. The exiting teenagers didn’t even look at him. He didn’t exist to them. Not a threat, not a friend, not a girl. They left the door open, with Lance standing in range of it. His hands hung at his sides, but his foot was quicker, pushing out a toe to stop it from closing.
There was a stairway to the right, an elevator to the left and a passageway leading to ground-floor flats stretching ahead into the distance. Lance screwed up the nearly empty packet of crisps and shoved it deep in his pocket, putting his mobile away at the same time. He had nothing to lose except his evening and there were enough of those free in his diary not to be concerned about that. With one final look up the street, wondering where the sirens had been headed and if that was also where Ava Turner was right now, Lance Proudfoot stepped inside.