Eyes of the Raven

Chapter Three

The Canal Row Apartments, unapologetic of their modernity, squatted among the industrial past and present of Durton. The concrete and wood two story building, with a sloping roof to drain away rainwater and conspicuous solar panels glinting in what was left of the sun, lay parallel to the specially built Waterside Road, terminated at each end by the building's parking lots.

Emily turned her Land Rover Defender onto Durton Industrial Park, keeping left and following Commercial Road as it curved around the back of the factories and warehouses. She glanced incessantly at her speedometer, keeping the needle dead-on the thirty mile-an-hour limit. Traffic was light. The night shift had already begun at many of the factories, and most commuter traffic had long-since wound its way home.

Turning onto Waterside Road and heading for the left-hand parking lot, she tried to relax, to switch off the constant rattling of her brain. So much to think about. So much to do! She had always found it hard to disconnect at the end of the working day. Even before she joined the police, there were just too many thoughts fighting for a place in her head. And she could only truly concentrate on one at a time, the others temporarily silenced as she gave her full and intense attention to the one that had climbed to the top. A psychologist, way back when she was in high school, had described her attention to detail as hyper-focus. But knowing that didn't lessen the weight of thoughts, or the fact that, as soon as the one had been dealt with, the deafening clamor of all the rest returned.

She barely registered the fact that she had parked, climbed out of the car, and locked it.

On the far side of the apartments lay Durton Canal, which gave the block its name. This short stretch of waterway, branching off the much larger Trent & Mersey Canal, had been dug to serve Hilderton's Cotton Factory, before trains and articulated trucks stamped out the commercial canal barges. The factory closed down in the early part of the twentieth century, but its blackened brick skeleton still sat, broken and vandalized, across the other side of the canal from Canal Row Apartments.

Emily used her keycard to gain entrance to the apartment block, giving no thought at all to the history and architecture surrounding her. She was tired and focused on climbing the stairs to the second story. She needed to be in the safe familiarity of her own apartment, away from the noise and the people and the death.

The corridor was long and straight and well lit, giving clear views in front and behind as she walked, with an unhurried step, to her door. The same keycard she had used outside the building now gave access to her apartment, and it was with a sense of relief and release that she closed the door behind her and kicked off her shoes, deliberately ignoring the off-white tide mark on the right one. She hoped to ignore the serial killings too, but she knew herself better than that. The most she could hope for would be a short reprieve before the case notes, the images, and the on-scene memories began swirling around in her head, regardless of whatever else she was doing. It was always the same when she was on a case. She wouldn't want it any other way.

#

Simon did not, in any way, feel resentful because he lived on the Coronation Gardens public housing estate, southwest of the town center and across the far side of the River Durt as it swept around the west side of the town. He had grown up in public housing, and when he wanted to find a place of his own, the council list was his first port of call. It had taken some years, but he had made it to the top eventually.

Jen would be waiting for him. Tonight was one of those they'd agreed would be a stayover night. Three times a week. The other nights, Jen stayed at home with her widowed mum. She didn't feel quite ready to leave her mum on her own just yet, she said. Simon suspected her mother did what she could to keep it that way, but he dared not say anything. He'd suggested it once, and Jen hadn't spoken to, or seen him, for almost two weeks before she finally calmed down, and he reluctantly apologized.

He also felt no resentment at using public transport to get to and from work. The force could not afford to provide vehicles for any but the top staff. Even his boss drove her own car.

The bus dropped him at the edge of Coronation Gardens, and he walked quickly down the footpath and into dark shadows. The council was saving money by turning off every other street-lamp. It made for deep pools of darkness on the path winding through the small, cramped houses.

It was called Coronation Gardens because it had been built in 1953, the same year Queen Elizabeth II was crowned. Perhaps back then it did, indeed, have gardens somewhere on its acreage. But if so, they had been built on since. Now, with the exception of a small children's rubber-surfaced play area and a few potted plants here and there, the estate was concrete. Dirty, spat on, urinated on, tagged, concrete. And yet he was not resentful, just a little nervous.

Half way down Elizabeth Road was his house, a semi-detached, two story, two bedroom building of rust colored brick. Jen, who had been watching for him out of the upstairs bay window, descended the stairs and opened the door before he reached it. She smiled broadly.

"Welcome home, Simon," she said, standing aside to let him pass. "Dinner's almost ready."

Simon smiled in return, and they exchanged a brief kiss.

As he closed the door and watched Jen walking, almost skipping, towards the kitchen, he wondered at the unusual display of domesticity. Jen, like himself, worked full time. Quill's Estate Agents paid her a decent salary and provided a company car, currently parked on the road outside his house. But her job was nine to five, only rarely running into overtime, whereas his erratic and subject-to-sudden-change work day meant that he could not say when he would be home until he was actually sitting on the bus. And yet, remarkably, Jen did not seem to mind. On the nights she stayed over, she would let herself into the house with her spare key and patiently wait for him to get home. But she was rarely as domesticated as she seemed this night, and for her to cook dinner was even more rare. He was almost disappointed. He enjoyed their take-out together. But more importantly, why was she cooking? He began to feel a little apprehensive about the coming evening.

#

Outside of town, some distance from both Emily and Simon, a man drove his dark blue van through an open farm gate and pulled to a dusty stop near the farmhouse. A few chickens in a nearby coop complained of the noisy disturbance, and further over, the pigs began to gather, knowing it would be feeding time soon.

The farm was typical of the area, if a little more neglected than most. There had been no rain for some time, and the wide pathway up to the house had dried out, the raised shoulders of the wheel ruts hard and difficult to drive over. The farmyard was also dry and rutted, and was edged by several brick stalls, the remains of long abandoned stables, a wooden and corrugated iron barn, a lean-to shelter roofed with more corrugated iron, and the farmhouse. The only animals were the chickens and pigs, although there were indications—rusted machinery in the barn—that it had once been a dairy farm. It was evident the place had fallen on hard times.

The driver exited the van and walked towards the back. He paused for a moment, looking into the sky, watching a black dot circling high above, before opening the rear doors and pulling out a body, wrapped in an off-white sheet and secured with strip after strip of duct tape. Shivers of movement beneath the sheet, and the almost inaudible, muffled cries for help and mercy, showed the trapped person to be alive, but the man seemed oblivious. Grimacing with the effort, he tugged and half lifted the body across the dry farmyard and into the farmhouse.

#

In the sky, a raven wheeled lazily, circling the farm buildings until it was certain the man was not about to show himself again any time soon. Then, it effortlessly turned and flew away over the fields, not at all sure why it had remained over the farm for such a long time when there was no food to be had.