A Dark So Deadly

by Stuart MacBride

  Callum ran after him, lumbering a bit because of the fish-and-chips sloshing about in Fanta in his tummy. ‘Cheater!’

  Sunshine sparkled across the water, hissing in and out against the little round stones.

  A big fat crab – easily the size of Callum’s palm – scuttered across the bottom of the rock pool, between the raspberry-jelly anemones and the floaty bright-green seaweed. All legs and nippers.

  Loads of sand and shells and stuff lined the bottom of the pool, along with dull pebbly things that Dad said were bits of glass the sea had ground and ground till it couldn’t cut anyone any more.

  Alastair dug his hand into the pool and scooped up a bunch of bits. Then Callum reached in and did the same. The pair of them squatted at the pool’s edge with dripping handfuls of shells and sand and grit, grinning at each other.

  Mum was going to love this.

  The lady in the little hut smiled as they tipped their handfuls onto the table. ‘Well, let’s see what we’ve got, shall we?’

  The wooden walls were clarted with picture frames and animals made of seashells and bits of driftwood. Lots and lots of shelves covered in things covered in more shells: lamps, lumps of rock, more driftwood. Which was kinda cool and kinda dumb, all at the same time.

  A sort of ray-gun thing sat in a wee stand, dribbling clear plastic goo from the barrel, making the air smell like the inside of Dad’s car on a hot day.

  Alastair pointed at a crab claw, still crunchy with sand. ‘That one. Use that one.’ His hair was full of sand too, his legs sparkled with it.

  It was everywhere: in Callum’s flip-flops, gritty between his toes, itchy on the back of his knees where it’d started to dry.

  The lady made a ‘Hrmmmm’ing noise. ‘It’s a lovely crab claw, but it might be a bit big. How about …’ She moved her fingers through the piles and pushed a shell from each – one with a blueish edge, the other pink, both all ruffled and ridged like crinkle-cut chips, both no bigger than Callum’s thumbnail. ‘I think they’ll be very pretty, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh come on, David, stop sulking – they’re beautiful!’ Mum tucks her hair behind her ears and flashes the tiny shell earrings. ‘Aren’t they beautiful? I have the bestest little boys in the whole wide world.’ She kneels and wraps Alastair and Callum up in a big hug. ‘I’m never taking them off. Never ever.’

  Dad scowls. ‘All I’m saying is, I got you a gold bracelet and a bottle of that Priscilla Presley perfume.’

  ‘Well, I love all my presents.’ She stood and spanked Dad on his bottom. ‘Now get that barbecue fired up, Chief Chef Caveman, the Mighty Empress Birthday Girl demands a sausage-and-steak sacrifice!’

  ‘Callum?’ Mother leaned forward and poked him.

  He jerked back in his seat. Blinking at the photograph.

  Powel nodded. ‘You recognise her, don’t you, Constable MacGregor? Who is she? Who did you kill?’

  Wasn’t easy keeping his voice level, but Callum did his best. ‘Is this supposed to be some sort of joke?’

  ‘Oh I can assure you, Constable MacGregor, nobody’s laughing.’

  ‘Is this supposed to be funny?’ He lunged, grabbed the printout from Powel’s fingers and thumped back down again. Fumbled his wallet out with thick slippery fingers. Opened it and stared.

  There, in the photo – Mum, with her big smile and her freckled cheeks. Her cartoon cat T-shirt. Her pale blonde hair, bleached by a week in the sunshine at Lossiemouth. Her earrings, made by a woman in a shed on a caravan site and paid for by two little boys who’d saved up their pocket money.

  And the head in the other photograph – Powel’s photograph – its ears were two delicate curls of translucent skin and cartilage, with a seashell earring in each lobe. One blue, one pink, both ridged like crinkle-cut chips.

  Powel stood. ‘You know her, don’t you? Who – did – you – kill?’

  But it couldn’t be.

  The walls pulsed in and out in time with each breath.

  It was twenty-six years ago. Mum would be in her fifties by now.

  He grabbed the photo tighter, as if that would stop the thump-and-hiss of blood in his ears as the room got hotter and hotter.

  Maybe … Maybe it was a cousin, or something? A relative he didn’t know he’d had.

  His mouth flooded with saliva, but he couldn’t swallow – his throat was full of brambles.

  Which meant there’d been someone who could’ve taken him in. He didn’t have to grow up in a care home. But they hadn’t bothered their backsides to help a wee five-year-old boy abandoned by his whole family …

  The whole world shrank to the size of the photograph in his hand.

  But she was wearing Mum’s earrings.

  How?

  ‘Are you OK?’ Mother held out a mug of tea, steam curling from the surface, rain thrumming on the black skin of her umbrella.

  From up here, on the station roof, most of Oldcastle was laid out like a tortured Monopoly board. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred pounds. Do not hope or dream.

  Low cloud hid the upper reaches of Blackwall Hill and Kingsmeath. Scratched at the crest of Castle Hill. Even the tops of the hospital’s twin incinerator towers were gone, the red warning lights at their top reduced to a faint bloody Sauron glow in the gloom.

  Callum shifted his bum on the metal support and huffed out a breath – opaque in the cold air as rain dripped off the communications array and onto his shoulders. ‘Thanks.’ He took the mug. Sipped at the scalding liquid. Glanced up at the big metal and plastic drums above his head. At the Airwave transmitters. At the civil defence warning systems. ‘Four minutes’ warning. If it was you, would you set the siren off, or let the end come as a surprise?’

  ‘You’ll catch your death of cold.’

  ‘Four minutes to panic and scream, knowing you’re about to die, or blissful ignorance followed by a flash of light and poof. You’re nothing but a shadow, burned into a concrete wall.’

  She sighed and settled onto the support next to him, sheltering them both with her brolly. ‘Professor Twining’s finished the post mortem. Do you want the details?’

  He raised one shoulder in a half-arsed shrug. ‘What can you do in four minutes anyway?’

  ‘Twining says the histology proves the remains have been frozen, apparently he can tell from the way the cell walls are ruptured. But we won’t know for how long until they’ve finished the isotope analysis.’

  All these years …

  A severed head in a plastic bag.

  ‘Say you’re at work, or you’re in Asda, or you’re arresting some scumbag, or maybe you’re breaking up a fight when the sirens go off. How are you supposed to spend your final moments? Not as if you can teleport home and be with your loved ones, is it?’

  ‘I had the head of the laboratory on the phone, desperate to apologise for getting it wrong the first time. Someone mixed up the internal and external samples, so it came back looking like a degraded match.’ Mother blew out a long slow breath. ‘Anyway, Cecelia says your mum’s DNA isn’t on file; it was the Nineteen Nineties, they had different rules back then. And everyone thought it was a case of child abandonment. If they’d treated it as a murder, or an abduction … but they didn’t.’

  ‘So what do you do, phone them? “Sorry, love, it’s the end of the world and we’re all going to die.” Only everyone’s trying to call their husband or their wife or their kids or their parents at the same time, the network goes down and you spend your last four minutes on earth swearing at your phone.’

  ‘We’re reopening the investigation. Well, Powel is. He’s putting an MIT together right now to look into it.’

  ‘Not exactly how I’d want to go out: lonely, pissed off, and scared.’

  ‘Callum.’ Mother put a hand on his leg, warmth seeping through the wet fabric to the skin beneath. ‘It’s OK to be upset.’

  He frowned down into the depths of his mug. ‘I’d leave the sirens switc
hed off: let people live their last four minutes in blissful ignorance. No one wants to know they’re about to die.’ Not going by the look of utter horror on Mr Hand Truck’s face as the river dragged him away.

  How could anyone sane cope with that?

  Here comes Death, and he’s shouting your name.

  Callum ran a hand through his wet hair. ‘What about the guy who went in the water?’

  ‘You’ve had a horrible shock and I want you to take some time off.’

  ‘Let me guess: they haven’t found his body. He’ll be trapped against the river bank somewhere, or wedged under something beneath the surface, or on his way out to sea.’

  ‘Callum, I’m serious: go home.’

  ‘Yeah …’ A fat raindrop dripped from the umbrella’s edge and made ripples in the tea’s beige surface. ‘You’ve wanted rid of me from the start. Might as well carpe the diem.’

  ‘You’re a silly sod, you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘So people keep telling me.’

  ‘I’m not getting rid of you, Callum.’ Mother let go of his leg and wrapped her arm around his shoulders. ‘Not when I’m just starting to like you.’

  Rain thumped on the brolly. Dripped from the communications array. Hammered down on the buildings and the people and the streets.

  She gave him a little squeeze. ‘And I’d leave the sirens off too.’

  35

  Callum wheeled his bike in through the door, locked it up in the rack beneath the stairs. Stood there for a bit with his eyes closed, dripping, blood hissing in his ears like waves on a pebble beach.

  All those years …

  Deep breath.

  Come on.

  He flicked through the pile of letters, fliers, and leaflets on the windowsill – took the ones for the top floor and squelched upstairs.

  Didn’t matter what the weather forecasters said, it was never going to stop raining. Not until they were all drowned and dead.

  Mrs Gillespie’s cats had been at Toby’s pot plants again, black soil spread out in a fan around a wilting rubber plant. A Mylar balloon bobbed in the breeze, the string tied around Mr and Mrs Robson’s door handle. ‘HAPPY 20TH ANNIVERSARY!’

  Glad someone had something to celebrate.

  Callum posted their mail then let himself into the flat.

  ‘Elaine?’ He peeled off his wet jacket – sodding thing didn’t deserve the term, ‘Waterproof’ it leaked like a teabag. ‘Christ, you wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had.’

  He dumped his backpack next to the non-waterproof jacket. ‘I need a drink.’

  The TV was on in the lounge. Some sort of soap opera, probably. Lowered voices and ominous muttering coming through the closed door.

  He unlaced his shoes and squelched through to the kitchen. Hauled open the fridge door and helped himself to a Tesco own-brand continental-style lager. Clicked the metal tag and had a good long swig. Not much else in there. Some open jars of pickles and olives, bit of cheese going blue at the corners, some butter, a wilting lettuce … Leftover tuna casserole. He clunked the door shut. ‘I’m ordering takeaway. I know we’re meant to be saving money, but sod it.’

  He peeled off his soggy socks and slapped them into the washing machine.

  Took his beer through to the bedroom.

  There were two bags, sitting on the bed. One was his battered old suitcase with its wonky wheel and the strip of green fabric tied around the handle so it’d be easy to find on an airport conveyor belt. The other was an aluminium hard-shelled job big enough to fit a small child. Not a scratch on it, so probably brand new.

  Callum’s shoulders dipped even further.

  Great. There he was, worrying about ordering takeaway and Elaine’s busy buying expensive luggage off the internet. As if they were going to let her take something that size into hospital. You could give birth in it, it was that—

  ‘Callum?’

  He turned, and there she was, wearing a baggy black T-shirt with some sort of communist-chicken design – stretched tight over the bump – and a pair of baggy grey joggy bottoms.

  ‘New luggage? Seriously? I thought we were trying to save up for Peanut’s—’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She bit her top lip and stared down at her bulge. ‘I’m really, really sorry.’

  He ran a hand over his face. Sighed. ‘OK. Look, it’s only a suitcase, not the end of the world.’

  Someone appeared in the doorway behind her. Someone with sticky-out ears and silvery hair. DCI Powel. Wonderful. Just what the doctor ordered – a pain-in-the-arse.

  Callum crossed his arms. ‘What’s this, more “friendly” advice? Cos I’m not in the mood.’

  Elaine cleared her throat. ‘I was sorry to hear about your mother.’

  ‘Callum, I know the timing’s horrible, but it was going to be horrible whenever it happened.’ Powel put a hand on Elaine’s shoulder.

  ‘Yeah, well, there’s never a good time for your mother’s head to be found in a carrier bag, is there?’ He reached for a dry pair of jeans. ‘Anything else?’

  A sniff, and Elaine finally dragged her eyes up to look at him. ‘Please don’t make this any harder than it already is.’

  ‘I just want to get dry and changed, OK?’

  ‘Reece has left his wife.’

  ‘Good for him. But he’s not staying here. Barely enough room for the two of us as it—’

  ‘I packed you a bag.’

  Callum froze. ‘You packed me a bag?’

  ‘It …’ She rubbed a hand across her pregnant belly. ‘God, why do you have to be like this?’

  ‘I’m not being like anything! What do you mean, you packed me a bag? Why the hell would I need a—’

  ‘It’s not your child, OK?’ Her voice was loud and trembling. ‘Peanut isn’t yours, Callum. He’s Reece’s. Don’t you get it?’

  The world shrunk to a tiny silent pinprick.

  Then blood crashed against the pebble beach. Nails dragged across the caravan’s aluminium hull. Thunder roared.

  Callum blinked. ‘He’s what?’

  ‘Don’t you get it? I was making do. Reece was never going to leave his wife and you were better than nothing. But that’s all changed now.’

  ‘Are you kidding? Are you—’

  ‘I love him, Callum.’

  Heat rushed through his body, pins and needles crackled between his shoulder blades, fists curled so tight his knuckles burned. ‘This was all lies? Peanut isn’t … I was better than nothing?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Callum, listen to yourself.’

  ‘I was good enough to raise someone else’s kid, though, wasn’t I? Good enough to lie to!’

  Powel squeezed past Elaine, putting himself between them. ‘All right, that’s enough. I need you to—’

  ‘You manipulative, two-timing, backstabbing, lying—’

  ‘I said that’s enough, Constable!’

  ‘I took the blame. For you!’ He pointed at Powel’s child, growing in her belly like a tumour. ‘For that. And it wasn’t even mine?’

  Her voice trembled. ‘What was I supposed to do?’

  ‘I FLUSHED MY WHOLE CAREER – FOR YOU!’

  Powel’s open palm thumped into Callum’s chest. ‘I’m not telling you again.’

  And the thunder roared.

  Callum grabbed two handfuls of Powel’s shirt, yanked him forwards and off balance, then slammed him into the bedroom wall, hard enough to knock framed photos off their hooks. Did it again, harder. Cracks rippled out through the plasterboard where Powel’s head crashed into it with a splintering thump.

  Kill him.

  Callum let go with one hand and smashed his fist into Powel’s face. More cracks in the plasterboard as his head bounced.

  Kill him.

  Elaine screamed, the sound cutting through the thick air like a bone saw. ‘GET OFF HIM!’

  Powel’s eyes rolled up, mouth drooping open.

  Kill him.


  Getting heavier in Callum’s hands.

  Kill him.

  Callum let go and Powel slumped to the carpet.

  KILL HIM!

  He drew back a foot, to kick the bastard’s head in and—

  ‘STOP IT!’ Elaine grabbed at his arm, tried to pull him away. ‘LEAVE HIM ALONE!’

  Callum stumbled, turned, fist curling up …

  She glared at him, tears rolling down her cheeks, face flushed and distorted. ‘GET OUT! YOU’RE NOT WANTED, UNDERSTAND? YOU WERE NEVER WANTED!’

  He lowered his hand.

  Blood crashed on the stony beach.

  She covered her eyes. ‘Please. Just … go.’

  Callum grabbed his battered old case and marched out, scooping up his wet shoes and soggy jacket on the way. Slammed the door behind him. Stood on the landing, jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached. Dragged in a deep, jagged breath.

  ‘Callum?’ The door at the far end of the landing was open, just a crack, still on the chain – Toby’s jaundiced face barely visible in the gap. ‘Is everything OK? I heard screaming.’

  ‘No. Not it’s not, “OK”.’

  He turned and marched down the stairs, suitcase clatter-thumping its way along behind him, past open doors on the second floor – everyone peering out to see what was going on from a safe distance.

  Callum unlocked his bike and hurled it out of the front door into the rain. Did the same with the suitcase. Pulled on his wet shoes and jacket, then stormed out after them.

  36

  Thursday night in the Bart wasn’t much busier than the Wednesday.

  Three auld biddies in the corner booth were playing dominos. A couple having an argument over by the pool table. A fat beardy bloke, playing with his mobile phone and glancing at the door every two minutes. Probably wondering how long he should give it before admitting defeat and accepting that he’d been stood up.

  Callum fed another four pound coins into the jukebox with his left hand, pressed a few buttons and lurched back to the bar as Radiohead’s ‘Exit Music from a Film’ oozed out from the pub’s speakers again. Ignoring the groans from everyone else. Feeling no pain.

  He tipped back the whisky in his swollen right fist and clunked the empty glass back on the bar. Winced. OK, maybe some pain. But there was an easy way to fix that: ‘Same again.’