Iain Banks - The Crow Road

Other times it was as though his every inflection and gesture shrieked artifice, lies, deception. Very good deception, cunningly deployed lies and artful artifice, but everything false all the same.

He had reacted just as you would expect somebody to react. But was that the way somebody actually would react? I didn't know, and could not decide.

I got so angry and confused at it all I threw my head back and screamed at the grey sky, roaring full force, all noise and no meaning till my lungs emptied and my throat ached. I doubled up, coughing and spluttering, eyes watering, feeling marginally better but looking round guiltily, hoping nobody had heard or seen. Only a couple of crows answered, harsh voices calling from the trees beneath.

I'd chosen a vantage point from which I could watch the road and the house, and only went back down there when I saw mum's Metro turn off the loch road from Gallanach and flicker like a green ghost as it moved up the drive, half-obscured by the trunks and branches of the bare, grey oaks.

I suppose I was uncommunicative with James and my mother that evening; I spent most of the time in dad's study, reading and rereading the three pieces Rory had written about himself, Fergus, Aunt Fiona and Lachlan Watt. I looked through some of Rory's diaries, gritting my teeth at the impenetrable paucity of their desiccated information. I turned on the Compaq and looked at the letter I'd written that morning. Damn; found a spelling mistake that had got through the spell-checker; «saw» where I'd meant to type "was'.

I started drinking whisky after dinner, sitting at the desk in the study at first, craning over its leather surface, sifting through the various papers and diaries, my eyes getting sore. I nearly spilled my whisky into the Compaq at one point, so I turned off the little green-shaded light on the desk and went over to the couch, taking all the bits and pieces with me. I switched on the standard lamp behind me and lay lengthwise on the couch, surrounded by paper. I had the TV on with the sound turned down most of the time, using the remote to turn it up whenever it looked like there was something interesting coming in from the Gulf. I heard James go to bed about eleven-thirty. Mum looked in to say good-night about twelve. I waved, wished her pleasant dreams and kept on reading.

I woke up just after two with the whisky glass balanced on my chest and my eyes feeling gritty. I finished the whisky even though I didn't really feel like it, then went to bed. I drank some water before I fell asleep.

The clock said 4:14 when I woke up, my bladder just at that point where it might or might not be possible to fall asleep again without having to go for a pee (it didn't usually wake me with so poor an excuse). I lay there for a bit, listening to soft rain hitting the bedroom window. Maybe that was what had woken me. I turned over to go to sleep again, then suddenly started to wonder if I'd turned the computer off. I had the feeling that I had, but 1 couldn't actually remember doing so. Fuck it, I thought; it would be safe enough. I rolled over onto my other side.

But my bladder had woken up properly in the meantime and was demanding attention. I sighed, swung out of bed, not bothering with my dressing gown even though the house had grown a little chilly by now. There was an orange night-light plug in a socket in the corridor; I decided to save my eyes from the shock of putting on any more powerful illumination and navigated the anyway familiar route to the bathroom by the plug's pale orange glow.

I sat in the darkness, peeing. A sort of quarter-erection had made it advisable to sit down. I smiled, remembering Lewis's spiel about trying to pee when you had a full bladder and a full erection at the same time. I flushed the toilet, washed my hands and drank some water from the tap. Mum must have been varnishing some part of the harpsichord earlier, judging by the smell in the corridor. I padded along to the study.

could just make out the dim shape of the desk and computer on the far side of the room when I opened the study door. I couldn't hear the Compaq's fan running, or see a light on, but I went over to it anyway. I stood with my thighs against the wood and leather back of the desk's chair, and leant forward, pressing the computer's disk eject button in case I had switched it off but had left a disk in it. No disk. I yawned, straightened, and rubbed the inside of my right fore-arm where it had brushed against the glass shade of the little desk light. The shade had been hot.

There was a little red dot glowing on the dark screen of the computer monitor; must be the reflection of the TV on the other side of the room. Ha; so I had left it -

I froze, suddenly wide awake.

Why was the light shade hot?

The little red light reflected on the screen winked out, as though suddenly obscured.

I threw myself back from the desk, just starting to sense movement behind me; I fell backwards as something dark scythed past in front of my face and a noise like the wind terminated in a splintering crash. Somebody — just a silhouette in the dim vague shadows of the room, lit only by the feeble light spilling from the hall night-light — stumbled forward, just behind where I had stood, arms reaching in front of them, pulling something long and dark and thin out of the wrecked back of the seat. The figure started to turn as I landed heavily on my back on the rug; I kicked out at their nearest knee, wishing I was wearing my Docs. Or anything, come to that.

I felt my heel hit their leg. "Huh!"

Sounded male; he staggered a little, then came forward at me, one arm raised as I started to roll, suddenly feeling very vulnerable and naked. A smashing noise sounded from overhead; metal and glass. I kept rolling, pushing up with my hands and leaping to my feet. Glass was falling from the ceiling as something thudded into the floor where I'd lain. I was at the man's side as he staggered forward, raising the bar or jemmy or whatever the hell it was from where it had struck the carpet. I kicked him in what I hoped was the kidneys and watched him stumble to one side, then something banged into the top of my head and hit my shoulder, contusing me. My feet crunched over something hard on the rug as I staggered. More light from the hall, as I stood swaying, dazed, and the attacker recovered. I could see him better now; all in black. Gloves, balaclava. His build…

"Uncle Ferg?" I heard somebody whisper. It sounded like me.

"Prentice?" said a woman's voice, distantly, worriedly, from the corridor.

I watched the man in front of me seem to hesitate, arm raised. I was falling. I staggered backwards, trying not to fall, crashing into a filing cabinet.

"Prentice!" mum screamed, somewhere. Then; "James! Get back!"

The dark figure looked towards the hallway, where the light was. I nearly fell round the side of the filing cabinet, then pulled myself up on some shelves, staring back at the black-dressed man in the middle of the room. There was movement at the study door; sparks flashed in the middle of the ceiling. I clutched at something on the bookshelf; graspable, heavy enough; an ashtray or bowl. I threw it, heard it hit his body and clunk to the floor. He still stood there, maybe only for a second or so, but it seemed like an eternal hesitation, while he glanced from me to the hallway again. I thought I heard a door slam. I roared, shouting incoherently the way I had on the hillside that afternoon as I stumbled from the shelves, past the filing cabinet and nearly fell over the desk while he came forward at me, arm raised again; I picked up the computer's keyboard from the desk, hauling it bursting free and swinging it as hard as I could at him as he brought his arm down.

There was a terrific, bone-ringing crash that seemed to infect the whole world, like an electric shock and a thunder-clap and an earthquake all at once. There was an odd pattering and clinking noise from every part of the room. I stood, holding nothing, blinking in the darkness while somebody moved stumbling away, obscuring light.