A Dark So Deadly

by Stuart MacBride

  Watt’s face went redder than his beard.

  ‘Exactly.’ McAdams rubbed his hands together. ‘Now, children mine, police divine, / Tell me, what do you propose, / Our mystery to diagnose? DS Hodgkin?’

  Dotty nodded. ‘Rosalind and I are heading up the infirmary to see if we can get any sense out of Brett Millar.’

  ‘Good: feel free to lean on the medical staff. I want a statement off Millar, A.S.A.F.P. Emphasis on the F. And that leaves naughty DCs Watt and MacGregor to canvas every smokehouse in the district. And not just phone calls: I want boots on the ground and signed statements.’

  Callum sagged in his seat.

  Why did God hate him? Wasn’t sacrificing a quarter of his ear enough?

  ‘After that, you can start on Dr McDonald’s list: pubs and nightclubs where Ben Harrington, Glen Carmichael, and Brett Millar might have met Imhotep. Start from whatever’s nearest the flat they were renovating and work your way out. Probably the Dockmaster’s Yard? Let’s see if we can’t progress the plot a bit today.’

  Watt folded his arms. ‘I work better on my own. Why don’t I take the smokehouses and leave the pubs to MacGregor?’

  McAdams smiled and fluttered his eyelashes. ‘Because I don’t want you to be lonely, Detective Constable, that’s why. Now off you trot like a good little boy and let’s not have any nonsense about you two not playing nice. OK?’ A nod. ‘OK.’

  Mother clapped her hands. ‘And that’s your lot. Keep me and Andy updated as you go. Class dismissed.’

  As everyone else filed out Watt folded forward, elbows on his knees, head held in his hands.

  Thanks for the vote of confidence.

  ‘If it’s any consolation, Watt, I’m not too thrilled being lumbered with you either.’

  He stayed where he was.

  Fine.

  Callum reached into his jacket pocket and produced the lemon yellow tie, all soft and slippery. ‘Right, I’ve got to go see DCI Powel. In the meantime, do you want to get a list of smokehouses together? Or are you just going to sit there wallowing in your sulk?’

  Nothing.

  Oh today was going to be lovely.

  He wandered out into the corridor. Down the end to the stairs. Clumped his way up to the fourth floor.

  The Major Investigation Team had the whole level to themselves, complete with multiple meeting rooms, a series of open-plan offices with swish computers and new furniture, their own mini canteen … All right for some.

  Most of the rooms bustled with uniform and plainclothes officers, making phone calls and writing things on whiteboards, tapping away at keyboards that didn’t look as if they’d fallen off the ark.

  The second door from the end was ajar, its brass plaque polished to a high sheen: ‘DETECTIVE CHIEF INSPECTOR REECE POWEL ~ MIT’.

  Callum went to knock, then stopped – knuckles half an inch from the wood – as Powel’s voice growled out from inside:

  ‘No, Anita, I don’t … Because I don’t, that’s why … No, you listen to me for a change: marriage counselling didn’t work, the second honeymoon didn’t work, salsa classes didn’t work. I’ve had enough. Enough of your sniping and your complaining and your nasty little comments. I’ve had enough of you poisoning my own children against me.’

  Yeah. Probably shouldn’t be eavesdropping on this. Still.

  ‘You know what? Cry all you like. It’s over, Anita … No: it’s over, because I deserve better than this. I deserve better than you.’

  He had a quick check the corridor was still empty.

  ‘Of course I am, why do you think I packed a bag? I’ll be round for the rest of my things in a couple of days, and if you even think of touching anything, I’ll do you for destruction of private property. Are we clear? … You better believe I will – they’ll march you out of there in handcuffs …. I don’t care: my lawyer will be in touch … No, you know what, Anita? You go screw yourself. Christ knows I never want to again.’

  Then a clattering thump.

  Presumably that would be Mr Telephone Handset being forcibly reconciled with Mrs Base Unit.

  OK.

  Count to five, and knock.

  Silence.

  Callum pushed the door open. ‘Guv?’

  Powel was behind his desk, face a threatening cloud of red and fury, glaring at the desk phone. Hands curled into fists either side of it, as if weighing up the pros and cons of smashing it into tiny little bits.

  It was a pretty nice office, with a view out across the rooftops and up the hill towards the castle. The spire of St Jasper’s, in the middle distance, jabbing at the low clouds. Big wooden desk, a pot plant fern thing, filing cabinets bereft of dents and scratches, framed certificates and news clippings on the walls, a whiteboard broken up into rows and columns full of neat little letters. A small couch, two chairs, and a coffee table. Very swanky.

  ‘Guv?’ Callum held up the tie. ‘I think you left this at our house.’

  He pulled his face up and round, clenched like his fists. His cheeks darkened even more. ‘Constable MacGregor.’

  ‘Elaine thought it was mine.’ Callum laid the tie on the desk.

  ‘I see.’ He uncoiled a hand and picked the thing up. Slipped it into his pocket. Looked somewhere else. ‘And how much of that did you hear?’

  Innocent face. ‘How much of what, Guv? I just walked up and saw your door was open. Took a chance on you being in.’

  ‘Right. Yes.’

  ‘Can I ask a favour? Not for me, for Elaine.’

  Powel took a deep breath. Hissed it out. Then sat back in his seat. ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘We’ve been getting silent phone calls. And someone might have followed me home last night. After what you said about Dugdale, I thought, just in case, if we could put a grade one flag on the flat?’ A shrug. ‘Probably nothing, but if Dugdale does try anything and I’m not there …’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’ Still not making eye contact. ‘How is—’

  A knock on the door and one of Powel’s minions stuck his head in. All short-back-and-sides, baggy eyes, and sunken cheeks. An Aberdonian accent you could stun a sheep with at fifty paces. ‘Sorry, Boss, but we’ve got a nine-nine-niner. Some wee wifie’s turned up a heid in a shoppin’ baggie.’

  Powel stared at him. ‘A head, in a carrier bag?’

  ‘Aye, hacked off at the neck and dumped in Holburn Forest aff nae far frae een o’ the car parks. Div yis want ta gan oot and see it in situ?’

  ‘God almighty …’ He curled forward until his forehead rested on his desk organiser, talking into the interlocking biro doodles. ‘Get a pool car, I’ll be down in a minute. And get the pathologist as well. And the SEB. And a PolSA. And DS Blake. And about a dozen search-trained officers to do a fingertip.’

  ‘Aye, Boss.’ DC Teuchter pulled a face at Callum, then ducked back out into the corridor and shut the door behind him.

  Powel didn’t move. ‘It never just rains, does it? No, it has to sodding bucket down.’ He looked as if someone had driven over him, then reversed a couple of times to make sure he was never getting up again.

  Maybe Elaine was right? Maybe Powel was doing his best?

  Callum cleared his throat. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Never better.’ A sigh. Then he sat up in his seat. Made a note on a Post-it and stuck it to his monitor. ‘OK: grade one flag on your flat in case Dugdale goes after Elaine. Anything else?’

  ‘Actually …’ OK, so it wasn’t very ethical to take advantage of the man when he’d just split up from his wife, but nothing ventured: ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got any pull with the IT Lab, do you?’

  Mother blinked at him. ‘You’re kidding …’

  ‘I’m not.’ Callum grinned. ‘Probably a once in a lifetime thing, but if we go right now we might get it done before he changes his mind.’

  She stared at him, then the Lego man flash drive in its evidence bag, then back to him again. ‘Quick as you like.’ Her c
hair juddered back on squeaky wheels and she was off, out of her office and marching down the corridor, pulling out her phone and fiddling with the screen. ‘Andy, it’s Mother. Callum’s got Powel to— … No, of course I’m not checking up on you. But while I’ve got you, how’s it going? … Oh, OK … No, no we’re fine. You stay where you are, that’s much more important. Listen to the nice doctors … Yes … Yes I will … OK, bye.’

  They pushed through the double doors to the stairwell. Waited for the lift to creak and grind its way down from the top floor. When the doors dinged open, they revealed a filing cabinet and a stack of file boxes abandoned in the middle of the lift. Like it was a cupboard.

  Mother squeezed inside anyway. ‘Room up top for a small one.’

  Urgh … He forced his way in, pressed hard up against the filing cabinet.

  She thumbed the button for the sub-basement. ‘Does it hurt?’ Pointing as the doors groaned shut and the lift juddered into life. ‘The ear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Brett Millar does seem to like biting things, doesn’t he?’ She dug a little paper bag from her pocket. ‘Have a jelly baby, it’ll make you feel better.’

  It probably wouldn’t, but Callum took one anyway.

  They stood and chewed in silence, squeezed in like beans in a tin.

  Yeah, this was comfortable.

  Now Mother’s breath smelled of strawberries. ‘I think it would be nice if we got a card for Andy. Wish him well with his chemotherapy. Maybe get him a cake or something?’

  Because that would make all the difference.

  Mother popped another jelly baby, humming a happy tune as she munched.

  For God’s sake, how long did it take a lift to get to the sub-basement?

  Callum shuffled his feet.

  Stared at the numbers changing on the display above the doors.

  Ding.

  He was first out, popping into the dull grey corridor like a cork from a bottle.

  Mother marched out through the double doors and into the warren of corridors and rooms that lurked deep below O Division Headquarters.

  He followed her through the maze to a black door with a plastic plaque with ‘FORENSIC IT LAB’ on it.

  She wiggled her fingers, as if she was limbering up to play the piano. ‘Remember: I do the talking.’ Then pushed through the door.

  Callum followed her into a room crammed floor-to-ceiling with metal shelving racks, each one packed with computers, laptops, and cardboard boxes with cables poking out of them. More boxes, hundreds and hundreds of them, each the size of a paperback book, were stuffed into the racks, six or seven deep. A workbench sat against the wall by the door, with a row of computer monitors mounted above it and more dangling cables.

  A thin woman in a once-white lab coat was hunched over a netbook, tapping away at the keyboard with purple-nitrile fingers. Tongue poking out the side of her mouth. Glasses balanced on the end of a long straight nose.

  Mother knocked on the wall and she flinched hard enough to make her wheelie office chair trundle back from the bench.

  ‘Aaargh …’ Mrs Thin turned and scowled. ‘Don’t do that!’

  ‘Ruby, this is DC MacGregor. We need you to access whatever’s on here.’ She held up the evidence bag with the Lego man flash drive in it.

  The woman in the lab coat raised both eyebrows, then burst out laughing. ‘You’re kidding, right? Of course you’re kidding. Do you have any idea how many bits of electronica are in the queue ahead of you? Let me give you a clue, Flora, it’s hundreds.’ She spun her chair around and waved at the little paperback-sized boxes. ‘I’ve got nearly a thousand mobile phones in here, not to mention everything else. And every time your lot arrest someone another lump gets added to the pile.’

  Mother placed the evidence bag on the countertop. ‘I know, but we’ve had the nod from DCI Powel: he wants this bumped to number one priority.’

  Ruby’s eyes narrowed. ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Yes. It’s all been cleared with Cecelia too, you can give her a call if you like. Check.’

  She reached for the phone on the desk, then froze. ‘This is on the up?’

  ‘Cross my bypassed heart and hope to die.’

  That thin pink tongue slithered out between her lips and Ruby picked up the evidence bag instead. ‘OK. I guess I can spare five minutes.’

  She scooted her chair down a couple of monitors and clicked an ancient black laptop into life. ‘We’ll run it on a virtual machine, just in case it’s chocka with viruses.’ She scribbled an entry into a form, copying down all the info from the bag, then pulled the Lego man’s legs off and stuck his exposed connector into the side of the laptop. ‘Any idea what we’re looking for?’

  ‘Not a sausage.’

  The machine whirred and clicked.

  Mother lowered her voice. ‘I like your hair, by the way. Very nice. Frames your face.’

  ‘I was thinking of going blonde.’

  ‘Oh, no. Auburn suits you much better.’

  A window appeared on the screen.

  ‘Here we go.’ Ruby fiddled with the mouse. ‘Looks like it’s password protected, so let’s see what Aunty Ruby’s box of magical tricks can do …’ More fiddling. ‘Edward Snowden didn’t know the half of it.’

  Numbers and dialogue boxes flashed in and out of existence.

  Mother perched herself on the only other chair in the room. ‘So, are you still seeing Charlie from the Finance Team?’

  ‘Not for ages. He was a bit …’ She pulled a face. ‘I didn’t mind the spanking so much, but the PVC all-in-one suit did terrible things for my dermatitis.’

  ‘Spanking?’

  ‘Well it seemed to make him happy, though God knows how he managed to sit down the next day for work. Men are funny creatures, aren’t they?’ A quick glance at Callum. ‘Sorry, but it’s true.’

  The screen flickered with more boxes. Numbers. Lines. Boxes. Numbers. Lines.

  Then the whole thing cleared, leaving a dialogue box.

  Ruby hunched over the keyboard, tongue poking out again, and clattered her fingers across the keys. Sat back and smiled. ‘Why people never use proper encryption is beyond me. Have you got a clean drive?’ She held out her hand and Callum dropped a plain grey USB stick onto her palm. ‘Thank you kindly.’ It went into the slot next to Mr Lego.

  Lights flickered on the stick.

  ‘Just take a minute.’

  Mother smiled. ‘Next time I bake, you’re getting brownies.’

  ‘Brownies are good.’ The machine pinged and she pulled out the USB stick. Handed it to Mother. ‘You want a quick squint while you’re here?’

  ‘What’s on it?’

  The mouse clicked. ‘Looks like we’ve got a bunch of video files and some word docs. Let’s try … this one.’ She clicked on an icon in the shape of a piece of film and a new window filled the screen. Black as it loaded. Then …

  Mother’s eyes widened. ‘Oh.’

  Callum hissed out a breath. ‘Bloody hell.’

  But Ruby just nodded. ‘Now there’s something you don’t see every day.’

  30

  Oh God, they were completely going to die here. Ashlee sniffed back a drip, mouth a trembly wobbling line, cheeks wet with tears. Eyes darting back and forth, pulling shapes from the darkness. How was this fair? How come it couldn’t happen to Marline instead? How couldn’t she be the one chained up in here? At least Marline would’ve deserved it!

  Another wave of shivers rattled its way through Ashlee, making the water ripple.

  Gah. If it was water. The stuff smelled like piss and vinegar and that manky potpourri Mum brought back from Barcelona on her last holiday with ‘Uncle Eddy’, before he realised how utterly a slob she was.

  A metal tank full of cold piss and vinegar and manky potpourri. Like the world’s crappiest hot tub.

  Ashlee gulped in a big shuddery breath. ‘Mum?’ Her voice was tiny, high-pitched like a
mouse or something. ‘Mummy?’

  She craned her neck to the side, pushing it as far as it would go, till the chains dug into her skin. ‘Mummy, I don’t feel so good …’

  But Mum didn’t move. She just sat there, with her back against the wooden slats, the chain around her neck tight from there to the wall, because she’d slumped a bit to one side. All naked and pale and bloaty.

  The bruising was getting worse. It wrapped all the way over the left of her face, dark and purple in the gloom.

  The bandages around her hands and wrists were spotted with red and yellow, arms dangling loose at her sides.

  ‘Mummy?’

  Ashlee’s head fell back, making a dull ringing noise when it hit the metal tub.

  They were completely going to die here. Alone and hungry and thirsty, in some crappy wooden room that stank like a chimney fire.

  Quiet little sobs popped and crackled from her mouth.

  Why couldn’t it be Marline?

  ‘Shhhh …’ A voice in the dark.

  Ashlee froze, eyes widening till it was like they’d pop free or something. ‘Please. Please don’t hurt me.’

  ‘I’m not going to hurt anyone.’ He stepped closer, settled his backside on the edge of the metal tub. Almost invisible in the gloom, like he was a ghost or something. Hands pale as a dead fish. But his voice was all, you know, warm and cheery – like he was a drama teacher or a kindly relative or something, instead of completely a psycho. ‘I bet you’re thirsty. And cold and tired and lonely. You must be hungry.’

  She shrank back, but the chains wouldn’t let her go any further. ‘I’ll scream.’

  ‘That’s OK: I’ve got a few minutes before I head back to work.’ He put his fingers in his ears. ‘You go ahead if it makes you happy.’

  So she did. Long and loud and hard. Over and over till her throat was sandpaper raw and her head rang from the noise.

  Ashlee slumped back in the filthy water, panting.

  ‘There we go. Was that good?’

  ‘Please don’t …’

  ‘Here, this’ll make you feel better.’ He pulled one of those plastic sports-bottle things from his jacket, the kind with a pop-up top so you can drink and cycle at the same time. He held it out. ‘It’s herbal water. It will cleanse away your sins. You’ll be pure and free.’ Gave the bottle a shoogle. ‘You want to be cleansed, don’t you?’