A Case of Fury

Chapter 6

Clouds drifted lazily away from the sun, their edges swelling and melting into the blue of the sky like the exhaust trail of a jet engine. Sparrows chirped in the huge birch tree and the scruffy roadside grass gleamed with the morning dew. The low rumble of moving vehicles emanated from the highway-an incessant cacophony of wheels and engines and the occasional honking.

Sitting at the foot of the birch tree, leaning comfortably against its hard bark was Fury, focused entirely on braiding his flowing hair into dreadlocks. He still wore Marshall's clothes. More than a week had passed since he made his acquaintance with Case, in which time he grew less luminescent, more aggravating, witnessed a flawless homicide and the painting of a red eye. It had been an engaging week.

Case didn't sit down because he didn't want to get mud on his pants before he reached school, and because he didn't want to give Fury the higher ground even by an inch. He stood a yard away from Fury, his attention fixed on the utilitarian-looking building across the road poking out from the middle of a few rows of hedges. Sunlight slanted on its walls from the east, giving the building a cheerful glow.

Fury pulled at the grass growing near his knees, coming up with a handful of green blades. He inspected the broken leaves without expression, then he put them in his mouth and chewed on them. "Why are we watching the police station at the break of dawn again?"

"It's not the break of dawn." Case consulted his watch. He cast a furtive look in Fury's direction to see if he'd swallow the grass. In all the time Case had known him, he had never caught him eating anything. "It's 7:49."

Fury spat out the wad of grass. "Think of all the sleep I lost."

"I would say the same to you," said Case scathingly. "And it wasn't just one night for me. You kept me awake for three nights straight! Also, you don't need to sleep at all!"

"Oh, calm down. It was only three nights. And if keeping you awake at night didn't make you a boring zombie in the morning who couldn't be relied to entertain me, I would have kept at it until you thought it'd kill you."

That was only one reason. The other reason was that Fury preferred tormenting Case in daylight when there were people around, when he knew Case couldn't do much to fight back.

"So are we going in yet?" Fury asked.

Case appraised the police station in the same way boxers in the Girdle sized up their opponents. He had to do this today. He had to get inside the detective's head. Case hadn't managed to find out the name of his next target, but he knew he'd been with the late police chief on the day they arrested Marshall. Now justice was going to come to him, it was going to fall on his head and crush him. Case would see to it.

However his plan wasn't foolproof. He had contrived to anger the detective somehow, then leave him with a compulsion to kill himself a few hours later. But Case's lack of knowledge about him was a significant drawback. If he blew this chance, he might never get another, especially when he couldn't hope to walk into the station wearing a mask. The detective was bound to recognise him if he tried a second time. If he'd only known what he looked like, Case could have avoided this visit to the station and instead confronted him elsewhere.

"Don't you ever worry that you might get caught someday?" Fury asked swatting at a grasshopper.

"It's impossible to link any of those deaths to me."

"But why do you make each of those deaths look like murder? Painting eyes and messing with the crime scene, don't you think it's easier and safer to make the deaths look like an accident? You could make people run in front of a speeding car. You could make someone tamper with an electric switchboard and make him touch a live wire with a wet hand."