Deadly Origins: A Detective Zoe Finch Prequel by Rachel McLean, book 0.5 in the Zoe Finch series - Chapter 1

Trevor felt the steering wheel shift under his hand as he rounded the traffic island. In the back seat, his four-year-old grandson looked up from his book.

Trevor smiled into the rear view mirror. “Sorry, kiddo. Just a bump in the road.”

Harry yawned and went back to his book. The Gruffalo. The boy took it everywhere with him.

Trevor sailed past his exit – the A452, heading towards the M6 and a day out in Stratford – and took the island one more time. Harry was only four. He wouldn’t notice his grandad acting a bit doolally.

As he passed the spot again Trevor checked his mirrors and slowed a little. They were still there. Birds, hurtling into the centre of the island, swooping through the trails cast by the vast metal sculptures of Spitfires. He drove past here every day on his way to work, and he’d never seen that before.

Relax, he told himself. You’re getting jumpy in your old age. Probably just some worms. A nice juicy breakfast for those birds.

Another one swooped past his windscreen. Without thinking, he raised his hand to protect himself.

“Bird!” came the voice from the back seat.

“Crows,” Trevor told him. “Big ones.”

“Lotsa crows.”

The boy was right. There were at least twenty of them, fighting over something beneath the sculpture. Worms wouldn’t get them all worked up like that, would they?

Trevor’s wife Sheila liked to watch birds. She kept binoculars in the back bedroom, on the windowsill, just in case she spotted something interesting in the trees behind their garden. Sheila would know if this was normal. She’d be able to give him chapter and verse on the behaviour of crows, whether he wanted to hear it or not.

He circled for a third time and opened his window for a better look. Eight am on a Sunday, and the island was quiet. No one to honk their horn at him, to cut him up. No one to wave a fist in irritation.

He sniffed. Castle Vale was dominated by the Jaguar plant behind him, where they’d made Spitfires in the war, and the motorway junction up ahead. Not a spot that smelled sweet. But this was something new. It was rancid and sharp, attacking the back of his throat like it was solid.

He wound the window down.

“Eww!” cried Harry. He waved his hands around in the air to make the smell go away. Trevor smiled back at him, trying to hide the worry.

There was a turn-off just behind them, heading into the rabbit warren that was Castle Vale. He’d need to go around again.

He took the roundabout one last time, glancing towards the centre as he did so. The birds were multiplying. Not just crows now, pigeons too. Circling, diving, wheeling. Shrieking.

He took the exit and found the first spot he could safely park the car. He looked round at his grandson.

He was being a stupid old man. Harry was four. He couldn’t leave him here on his own. But he couldn’t take him on some wild goose chase trying to cross a busy traffic island, either.

If his daughter heard, she’d never let him take the boy out again.

She didn’t need to know.

“Come on, kiddo.”

He opened the rear door and hoisted Harry out of his car seat. Harry wound his hands around Trevor’s neck and clung on. Trevor squeezed him for a hug. He smelled of jam.

“Come on H, let’s go see what those birds are up to.”

Harry giggled. He liked it when Trevor called him H. Trevor said it was Harry’s spy name.

He hauled Harry higher in his arms and made for the traffic island. The smell thickened.

He stopped at the junction. This was daft. He shouldn’t have brought the boy. Should have carried on driving and let those birds get on with whatever it was they were doing.

But there was something pecking at the back of his mind.

The roundabout was all but empty. No more traffic than he’d see crossing his own road at this time of day. He licked his lips, waited until there were no cars approaching, and hurried across. Not running, that would be foolish. Harry jiggled in his arms, pawing at his face.

“Danda.” Harry could say Grandad now but preferred to stick with the name he’d used when he was little.

“Just checking out the birds, kiddo. Won’t be long. Then we’ll be back on our way.”

“Birds.”

“Yeah. Lots of them.”

Harry clapped his hands together. He waved his hands like they were wings. Trevor struggled to hold onto him.

They were on the grass now, the birds huge at this proximity. Trevor hesitated. He shifted Harry round so the boy was behind him, almost riding piggyback.

I’ll be quick, he told himself. A quick look and then we’ll get out of here.

He clamped his lips between his teeth, trying to shut out the smell. He should turn back, he knew. Protect Harry. He was too curious for his own good, that’s what Sheila said. Maybe she was right. But he was here now. He couldn’t leave it. If it was what he thought it was…

“Secret mission from T to H,” he muttered.

“Mission!”

“Hands over eyes. Top secret. Only move them when T says so.”

“Aye, aye.” The boy clapped his hands over his eyes. Trevor took a deep breath and pressed on.

The steel vapour trails soared over him, huge from this angle. They rose into the sky, the Spitfires at their ends weightless in the pale February sky. He took another step forward, glancing upwards to check that Harry wasn’t peeking. The boy was humming something to himself, the theme tune from a TV show. His eyes were closed, his hands in place.

As he neared the centre, the birds took off as one, flapping into the sky in a thunder of noise and movement.

Trevor gasped, not so much a gasp as a whimper. He’d seen what they’d been attracted to.

And it wasn’t good.