Hedgehog Dundee sucked a breath in through his teeth then let it out in a long slow hiss. A round wee man with an oversized goatee, shiny face, and long straggly hair, he looked as if his blood was about sixty-four percent cheese. ‘Not that I’m ungrateful for your patronage, Constable MacGregor, but you’re rather undermining the happy-go-lucky atmosphere we strive for here at the Dumbarton Arms.’
‘Double Grouse, no ice or … or water. Pint of Cham-pi-on.’ Had to focus a bit to get the word ‘Champion’ out, because something had gone wrong with his tongue, but it was the thought that counted.
‘And while “Exit Music from a Film” is a well-constructed song, and clearly reminiscent of Gustav Mahler’s later work, the fact that you’ve played it fourteen times in a row is beginning to take its toll on the other patrons’ joie de vivre.’
‘An a … an a packet of piggled … onion.’ He wobbled his way up onto a barstool.
‘Especially as you preceded this tribute to a somewhat lesser known Radiohead song about suicide, with a dozen playings of REM’s “Everybody Hurts”.’ Hedgehog reached beneath the bar and came out with a folded sheet of paper. Placed it in front of Callum. ‘This might be more beneficial to your state of mind than the further consumption of alcohol and depressive songs.’
It was a leaflet for the Samaritans.
Callum drained his pint and thumped the empty glass down right on top of the thing. Squinted one eye shut to keep everything in focus. Put on his best police officer voice: ‘Hedgehog, I’m going to give you … you a choice. You can either get me my drinks … drinks an crisps, or … or I can call a friend at Food Standards Scotland …’ OK, that sounded a bit slurred, but they were difficult words after five or six pints. And double whiskies. ‘I’ll … I’ll get them to come down here an … an give your kitchen the kind of … examination that’d make … make a proctologist’s eyes water.’
A sigh. Then Hedgehog turned and pressed a tumbler up beneath the optic of Famous Grouse.
Damn straight.
No one wanted a visit from the Cheese Police.
The whisky went on a coaster in front of him, followed by a foamy pint of dark brown beer, and a silvery green packet.
He fumbled out a tenner and laid it on the bar with exaggerated care, just to prove he wasn’t drunk.
Hedgehog took it, then stared over Callum’s shoulder, smiling. ‘Oh thank the heavens for that: you came.’
‘Callum?’ Dotty wheeled herself over to his barstool and looked up at him. ‘Are you OK?’
‘You want … want a drink? I’m buying.’ He thumped his left hand down on the bar. ‘Hedgehog – pint of … pint of Old Jock for Dotty. Put it … on my tab. No, no, I insist. You want crisps? Course you want crisps. Give her some crisps.’
‘How much have you had to drink?’
‘I’m celebrating.’
‘Oh, Callum …’
He took a swig of beer. ‘No, it’s great. All of it.’ A soft warm smile spread across his face. ‘My mum didn’t … didn’t abandon me, she got murd—’ The burp tasted of whisky and prawn cocktail. ‘Sorry. She got murdered. An … an I don’t have to raise … raise someone else’s baby!’ The Grouse set fire to his chest on the way down, making it swell. ‘Cos it wasn’t mine. You see?’
Hedgehog leaned on the bar. ‘Dear, sweet, Detective Sergeant Hodgkin, I would consider it a personal favour – nay, a veritable boon – if you would escort DC MacGregor to another establishment. Perhaps somewhere he can drink copious amounts of coffee, consume some carbohydrates, and prepare for what is no doubt going to be a most terrible hangover? He can settle up and collect his bike when he’s sober.’
The song on the jukebox mourned to an end. Then started right back up again.
‘Wasn’t my baby, Dotty. It never … never was.’
‘Have you got somewhere to stay?’
He spread his arms wide, slopping beer across the bar. ‘World … world is my oyster.’
She puffed out her cheeks. Grimaced. ‘OK, OK. You can stay in the spare room, I’m sure Louise won’t mind. Probably. As long as you’re not going to be sick – she hates that. You’re not going to be sick, are you?’
He lowered his glass. ‘They kicked me out of … of my flat. My flat! I paid … paid for it an every … everything.’
‘You have to promise not to be sick everywhere.’
‘It was my flat.’
‘I’m serious about the not being sick, Callum. Don’t do that.’
‘Cross my heart.’ He blinked at her for a bit. Then held out the packet of pickled onion. ‘You want … want some crisps?’
Callum wiped his mouth, sighed. Spat out a bitter thread of bile. Rested his forehead against the cool wooden seat.
The shower’s hiss disappeared for a moment as he flushed the toilet for the fourth time.
Urgh …
Then he clambered back into the bath again, holding onto the rails built into the bathroom wall to keep him upright. Rinsed the shampoo out of his hair. Then stood there and steamed for a bit, till the water went tepid, then cold.
Finally, he clambered out and dried himself off on a dark-blue towel. Wrapped it around his middle and crept back along the hall and into Dotty’s spare room. Stood there with his back to the door, arms hanging by his sides.
Dotty and Louise had gone to town in here: pink chintz cushions; pink floral bedspread; pink floral pillows, curtains, and pelmet; dried flowers on the pine chest of drawers.
It was like standing inside Barbara Cartland.
He sank down the door, until his towelled bum came to rest on the fuchsia-coloured carpet. Cradled his swollen right hand against his chest. Every time he tried to move his fingers it was like rubbing barbed wire into the joints. That’s what he got for punching Powel in the face.
Might hurt now, but it felt great at the time. Standing over him, watching the blood seeping out through his open mouth.
Deserved all he got. And more.
How long had it been going on: Powel and Elaine? She was due in two weeks, so that meant at least nine months. Probably longer. Probably ever since they worked that murder/suicide.
All that time, screwing around behind his back …
He groaned.
Yeah, that explained why Elaine had been off sex since April – she was saving herself for sodding DCI Powel.
And what would’ve happened if Powel hadn’t found the balls to leave his wife?
No way Elaine would’ve come clean, not when she had Callum right there to pay for everything. To change dirty nappies and stay up half the night feeding Poncy Powel’s bloody baby.
To take the blame for cocking up a crime scene, so she could keep her paid maternity leave for a baby that wasn’t even his. Manipulating him with little love notes and sandwiches. How stupid could he be?
No wonder she treated him like an idiot – that’s exactly what he was. A moron. A halfwit. A mug.
Whose mother’s severed head was lying in a refrigerated drawer in the city mortuary.
Yeah … this had been a great day.
37
Didn’t really matter any more, did it? Who was going to hear? No one.
So Ashlee stopped screaming. Stopped rattling against her chains. Stopped fighting against the darkness.
Just slumped back and let the cold filthy water seep into her bones.
The surface rippled with every shiver that juddered through her, making her teeth clatter.
Maybe the Man with Blue Eyes would come back and let them go?
He said he’d come back …
Or maybe he’d forgotten about them?
How long had it been since he left? Hours. Hours and hours and hours. And no sign of him. Nothing but the cold and the wet and the sound of her own screams.
Mum still hadn’t moved. She was just visible in the pale-orange light that seeped through between a couple of the wooden boards. Slumped over to one side with the
chain tight around her neck.
Poor cow.
All those years living with Dad, who was utterly a dick. All the shouting and the manipulation and the checking up on her and not letting her have any friends … And then one day he just walks out and never comes back, because occasionally even utter dicks can do something nice for their families.
All those horrible years with Dad, then some more horrible ones with Uncle Eddy who always wanted to tickle Ashlee and take her shopping for pretty dresses and go with her to the swimming. Breathing heavily as she stripped off in the changing rooms. Sitting in her room watching her sleep. Oh, yeah, completely not a paedo. Then Uncle Eddy finds himself another single mother with a much younger daughter and off he goes too.
Good sodding riddance.
And then, when Mum was finally getting herself back together – going out of the house instead of staying at home watching soaps and eating ice-cream and oven chips – this happened.
Ashlee closed her eyes and sobbed in the dark.
Howling it out.
Because who was going to hear her?
She was going to die here. Alone. In the dark.
— protect and survive —
Fallout can kill. Since it can be carried for great distances by the winds it can eventually settle anywhere, so no place in the United Kingdom is safer than any other. The risk is as great in the countryside as in the towns.
Nobody can tell where the safest place will be.
Stay at home – Public Information Film
© Crown Copyright (1975)
“There’s no point crying, little girl,” said the Bonemonger with his scissor-sharp smile. “No one will hear you, and nobody cares.”
R.M. Travis
Open the Coffins (and Let Them Go Free) (1976)
You better beware, cos yo parents is nowhere,
You hear me? I swear, man, you ain’t got a prayer,
Ain’t no love in the air, it’s just pain and despair,
You grown up in care, and this place is a nightmare.
Donny ‘$ick Dawg’ McRoberts
‘The Arsonist’s Diary’
© Bob’s Speed Trap Records (2015)
38
‘Urrrgh …’ The kitchen throbbed like the heart of a monster. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Obviously, Dotty’s fridge, freezer, and microwave were plotting Callum’s death with their horrible reflective metallic surfaces. Sending burning daggers of sunlight stabbing through his eyeballs and into his brain. Making everything burn.
He held the empty pint glass under the tap and filled it up again. Glugged it down, water dripping onto his old grey T-shirt.
Finished and slumped there with his head drooped, panting.
Oh God.
Never, ever again.
He had to put the glass down to turn the tap off – his right hand had swollen up to the size of a space hopper. All purple and yellow and stiff and full of rusty metal. Fingers twisted and rigid.
Callum used his left to fumble a couple of painkillers from the packet by the kettle and dry swallowed them.
His stomach lurched and gurgled.
‘Urgh …’ He curled forward, resting his elbows on the work surface, head hanging like a sack of burning tatties.
Stay down. Stay down. Stay down.
Please …
The pills stayed where they were and he gulped down another pint of water.
Shuddered.
The sound of breakfast TV burbled through the house and he slouched through to the living room.
It was a lot less chintzy than the guest bedroom – more ‘Scandinavian functionalism’ than ‘Barbara Cartland’s innards’. Flatpack furniture with lots of straight edges, Scottish colourist impressions of wee seaside towns, hills, and but-and-bens in big wooden frames. A display cabinet full of random ornaments and wine glasses.
The only book on display was a celebrity biography of someone he’d never heard of, sitting on a big glass-topped coffee table.
‘Well, well, well, look what the cat threw up.’ The black-leather couch’s only occupant took a sip from a huge mug. Greying hair cropped close to her long face. Sharp black suit, red shirt, a pair of no-nonsense schoolmarm glasses perched on the end of her nose. ‘You look like a tramp had sex with a wheelie bin.’
‘Louise.’ Callum wiped a hand down the front of his wet T-shirt. ‘Sorry.’
On the TV, a man in waders was chest-deep in a river somewhere. ‘… and that’s the only good thing about American signal crayfish: they’re very, very tasty. Back to you in the studio.’
‘Still, at least you didn’t vomit everywhere.’
The picture jumped to a pair of presenters sitting on a curved red sofa with big animated screens behind them. The woman smiled. ‘Thanks, Colin. Now here’s Valerie with the weather. Any good news for us, Valerie?’
‘Sorry. I’ll get packed up and out of your hair.’
Valerie was a sporty-looking type in a stripy dress. ‘I do indeed, Claire, as you can see from the satellite map it’s going to be a lovely day for the southeast all the way up to Manchester and Newcastle …’
‘Pfff …’ Louise waved at him. ‘Just because I’m a solicitor, doesn’t mean I’m heartless. Dorothy told me what happened with Elaine.’
‘Oh.’ He sank onto the end of the couch. ‘Yeah.’
‘… best of the sunshine in Wales and Northern Ireland …’
‘She worries about you, Callum. Dorothy thinks you’ve got a self-destructive streak a mile wide.’
‘I do genuinely appreciate the bed for a night. She didn’t have to take me in.’
‘Stray kittens, puppies, injured birds – you name it, she wants to give it a home.’
‘… stubborn band of rain clinging onto the northeast of Scotland, but other than that we’ve got all the makings of an Indian Summer …’
He nodded. Stared down at his swollen knuckles.
‘I think it’s because she’s in pain a lot of the time. She’s hurting, so she hates to see others suffering. Well, except for that idiot Detective Constable Watt.’
‘I’ll get a B-and-B sorted out today. Give you your spare room back.’
‘All the muscles and nerves are messed up in her right leg, from the crash, but they won’t amputate it. Doesn’t matter how much she begs.’ A sigh. ‘How is that fair?’
‘Thanks, Valerie. Now, how many of you remember this?’
A music clip played from the TV – an orchestra swooping through a guitar-and-bassline.
‘Life never is.’
‘No.’ A small, sour laugh. ‘I don’t suppose it is.’ Louise stood, took a couple of steps closer and squeezed Callum’s shoulder. ‘You stay as long as you like.’
Then a man’s voice, dark and warm belted out over the top. ‘Run, little rabbit boy, you’d better run like hell, / Cos the Bonemonger is coming and he’s after you as well …’
Louise gave Callum’s shoulder another squeeze. ‘Well, let’s call it a week. Don’t want you cramping our style.’
‘Slick and sharp and sickle-like he smiles his scissor smile, / and he’ll catch you and he’ll eat you, though you run for miles and miles …’
Louise let go. ‘Sod it: look at the time.’ She marched from the room, voice getting louder as she disappeared into the hall. ‘There’s a spare key hanging in the kitchen – if you’re going out, pick up some milk!’
Clunk, the front door shut and he was alone.
Urgh …
He slumped back on the couch. Rubbed his good hand over his eyes.
Probably wouldn’t hurt to go back to bed. Maybe a couple of hours’ kip would dull the hangover howling its way through his skull.
‘… lovely to have you with us.’
‘Lovely to be here, Siobhan. Though watching that, I have to wonder what on earth I was thinking. I know it was the Eighties, but oh dear …’ A familiar laugh, dark and treacly. ‘Can
’t believe the Miami Vice look used to be trendy.’
Callum peered out through his fingers and an old man had joined Mr Suit and Mrs Casual Dress on the breakfast sofa. He was wearing faded jeans, scuffed cowboy boots, and a dark-blue shirt that had silvery bits speckling the sleeves, leather buckles on his wrists. On the screen behind him was a much younger version of himself in a pastel-green linen suit with the sleeves rolled up, no T-shirt, showing off a lot of chest. The hair on his head swept up and back: coiffured into a big blonde mane.
The mane was still there, but it was thin and white now.
A caption appeared at the bottom of the picture: ‘LEO MCVEY ~ SINGER SONGWRITER’.
‘So Leo, of course Open the Coffins was a massive hit in the eighties. But it almost didn’t get made, did it?’
‘Oh yeah. Man that was a hard sell. You should’ve seen the record execs’ faces when I told them I wanted to do a concept album based on this children’s book about a wee boy who gets turned into a rabbit and has to fight the Lord of Bones for his sister’s soul. “No way!” they said. “You can’t make this, it’ll be career suicide!”’
Callum pulled out his phone, winced one eye shut and brought up his call history.
Oh thank God – no drunk-dialling the flat or Elaine’s mobile.
‘And then it’s like, sixteen weeks at the top of the album charts. Just goes to show you how much guys in suits know.’ A wink. Then he leaned over and patted the male presenter’s knee. ‘No offence, Brian.’
Next check: text messages …
A big sigh let all the pressure hiss out of his lungs.
No angry texts, or weepy ones, not even a big chunk of solid swearing.
‘And of course, Ray and I became really good friends when I was recording the album; have been ever since. Man, we used to hang out all the time. He’d even come on tour with us. And loads of people would bring their books and he’d be sitting out in the auditorium signing them during the interval, you know? Great guy.’
There were three incoming texts, though. All from Elaine.
Oh.
‘And a great writer too. That’s why the album was so successful – the source material was just so great.’
A Dark So Deadly Page 29
