A Dark So Deadly

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘Oh.’ The smile faded. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Franklin stood. ‘Well, maybe if you hadn’t treated it as a child abandonment case, you’d have had better luck!’

  ‘Whoa! I’m going to have to stop you there: Maggie and I ran it as an abduction. We’d been on it for months – fighting hard, but getting nowhere – before the top brass pulled the plug. Shifted us off to other cases. Downgraded this thing to “child abandonment” so it would look better for the crime statistics. Thank you and goodnight.’ Shannon toasted them with his glass and drank. Sighed. ‘So I kicked up a fuss. Wouldn’t believe how much trouble that got me into.’

  Franklin lowered herself back into her seat, cheeks flushed. ‘I see.’

  ‘That was it, far as my career was concerned. Because I wouldn’t shut up, they gave me a “development opportunity”, AKA: chucking me out of CID and back into uniform. I was supposed to make DI by the time I was fifty, instead of which I got to spend my last three years juggling staff rosters and patrolling Harvest Lane at chucking-out time.’

  Callum put the statements back on the table. ‘What about the Slug?’

  ‘Hmm? Oh, we don’t get a lot of them in here. I was listening to Radio Four the other day and they were banging on about setting a few chickens or ducks loose to eat the slimy little monsters, but they’re even worse for guzzling lettuces than slugs are. So I just hand pick them and throw them in the burn.’

  ‘Not slugs plural, the Slug. The man in the toilets?’

  ‘What man?’ Shannon leaned forwards, light glinting on his metal-framed glasses. ‘Describe him.’

  ‘Paedophile, about six feet tall, hunched, balding, think he had a limp? Breath stank of butter-mint.’

  ‘And this was when you went missing?’ Shannon’s voice had gone up again. Excited. Eager. ‘All those interviews with Constable Giraffe and you never mentioned him once.’

  ‘He …’ Callum’s mouth clicked shut. ‘I didn’t?’ He cleared his throat.

  It was like tying an anvil to his stomach and throwing it overboard. Being dragged down through the water, breath burning in his throat, pressure squeezing him, sunlight fading as the lake swallowed him whole.

  ‘If we’d even had one witness, maybe we could have done more.’

  All this time.

  ‘Maybe we could have done more.’

  They’d had a witness: Callum. And he hadn’t told them about the Slug.

  ‘This is going to be our little secret. If you tell anyone, I’ll know. And I know where you live and I’ll come get you. Understand?’

  He hadn’t told them, because he was too scared. Too cowardly.

  ‘Could have done more.’

  DS Shannon and PC Gibbons could have caught the bastard. Could have saved his family.

  It was all his fault.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Franklin was only visible from the knees down, standing in front of Callum’s chair.

  ‘No.’ He kept his head between his knees. ‘I didn’t say anything. I should have said something.’

  ‘Callum, you—’

  ‘The Slug said he knew where I lived. He would come get me if I told anyone. I was terrified of him.’

  ‘You were only five. A wee boy.’

  Callum sat up, let his head fall back and covered his face with his fibreglass cast. ‘Arrrrrrrrrrrrgh …’

  The rain thrummed on the polytunnel walls.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid—

  A hand, warm on his shoulder. A squeeze. Franklin’s voice, soft and kind: ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  Her hand was still there when ex-DS Shannon returned.

  ‘Right, I’ve put in some calls, but it’s going to take a while. Everyone I knew on Nonce Patrol is either retired or dead. But Franky Campbell’s going to have a root about in his shed, see if he’s still got any of the case files from back in the day.’

  Franklin’s hand slipped from Callum’s shoulder. ‘Does everyone steal files from the station?’

  ‘Be glad we did.’ Shannon pulled a face and sank back into his chair. ‘The Great Clear-Out of Ninety-Five. The archives were packed, no one wanted to pay for a new storage facility, so they binned nearly everything not connected to a major case. A lot of people took stuff home rather than see it hurled in a big skip.’ A shrug. ‘I suppose, in a lot of ways, Oldcastle Police managed to outsource its storage problem to our attics and sheds.’

  She checked her watch. ‘And is this Franky Campbell going to be long?’

  ‘Hours. And hours. And hours. He’s on a Zimmer frame. Arthritis. Very bad.’

  Callum nodded, then stood. ‘Thanks, Mr Shannon. I appreciate …’ A frown. ‘Wait a minute: when I asked if they were chucking the files on my family’s disappearance because of the Great Clear-Out of Ninety-Five, you said “no”.’

  ‘That’s right.’ He topped up his glass with the last of the Malbec. ‘Happened right after they decided to write it off as child abandonment, even though any idiot could see it wasn’t.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Officially? Not cluttering up the archive with redundant materials. Unofficially: because they were fiddling the crime figures and didn’t want anything hanging around that proved it was an abduction. And super-unofficially?’ He pursed his lips.

  Callum stared.

  Franklin cleared her throat. ‘Any time you like.’

  ‘Well, and this is just a rumour, and it didn’t come out till years afterwards, but super-unofficially: they knew who did it and there was no way they were ever going to bring that person to trial, because that person was famous and that person was protected.’

  ‘Hrmmm …’ She flexed her hand. ‘If the next words out of your mouth are “Jimmy Savile”, I’m going to slap the face off you.’

  ‘Jimmy …? No.’ Shannon shook his head. ‘And it’s all just rumours anyway. Oldcastle’s never been a mecca for the rich and famous, has it? Too sodding wet and miserable.’

  ‘So who was it?’

  ‘No idea. It was someone’s leaving do, a DCI was drunk and mouthing off. Probably just a wine box of supermarket Cabernet Sauvignon talking.’ A shrug. ‘You know what some cops are like with a drink in them: the Castle Hill Ripper was actually on the city council, Sensational Steve from the radio has a basement full of dead children, Lord Lucan spent his last three years chained to the wall in a warehouse in Logansferry.’

  Yeah. Still.

  Callum stood. ‘Do me a favour: see if you can track down your drunk DCI. Might be rubbish. Might be worth a go.’

  Shannon levered himself upright and shook Callum’s hand. ‘I’m sorry about your mother. I wish we could’ve done more.’

  ‘Me too.’

  42

  ‘… spectonkular!’ Grating honking noises blared out of the car radio. ‘You’re listening to this super bumper edition of Crrrrrrrrrazy Colin’s Rush-Hour Drive-Time Club on Castlewave FM, my friend, and we’re here live at …’ pause for dramatic effect, ‘the seventh annual Tartantula music festival! Yay!’ The sound of a crowd baying in the background – whoops, cheers, and whistles.

  Franklin turned in the driver’s seat. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘Are we having a great time, or what?’

  More cheering.

  Callum frowned down at the cast on his right hand, little pink fingertips poking out of the end. ‘I know. But it doesn’t help, does it?’

  ‘That’s right-a-roonie, campers: we’re not going to let a little rain spoil our fun. And now, are you ready for your next act?’

  Cheers.

  The pool car wheeched down the dual carriageway, heading south, back into town.

  ‘I can’t hear you!’

  Cheers.

  On the right, the tight spirals and cul-de-sacs of Blackwall Hill. On the left, the necrotic miserable sprawl of Kingsmeath.

  ‘One more time!’

  Cheers, going on and on and on.

 
‘Callum—’

  ‘I know, OK? I was only five. But …’ He rubbed his good hand over his face. ‘Maybe Shannon will come up with something. I mean, the trail’s only been cold for twenty-six years. What could possibly go wrong?’

  ‘Darn tootin’ you are. Let’s give a great big Oldcastle welcome to Overture for a Riot!’

  And the crowd go wild.

  A slow, thumping drumbeat wove its way between the screams.

  Franklin shook her head. ‘You haven’t twigged it yet, have you? Yes: the initial incident is twenty-six years cold, but someone dumped your mother’s head in the woods Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. That’s current. Something’s happened to bring him out of retirement.’

  She had a point.

  The drums got louder. Faster.

  She reached across the car and thumped him on the arm. ‘So?’

  ‘So we chase up the SEB. Fingerprints on the bag, any foreign DNA found on …’ He cleared his throat. ‘On the remains.’

  Not his mother’s head. Remains.

  ‘Correct. Then you put out an appeal for witnesses: anyone in the vicinity of the woods. Dog walkers, courting couples, maybe it’s a dogging hotspot? Get Traffic to stick up a couple of those “Were you here on the eighth or ninth?” sandwich board things they leave at the site of an accident.’

  A single guitar chord sounded, long and trembling.

  ‘Yeah … Only they won’t do it for me: I haven’t got a budget to give them. It’s Blakey’s case and he’ll do sod-all for as long as he can get away with it.’

  ‘So go round him. Talk to his boss. Get him slapped down.’

  Another chord, building on the first.

  Callum stared at her for a moment. Then burst out laughing. ‘His boss is the one who got my girlfriend pregnant!’ He held up his cast. ‘Whose face do you think I broke this on? Powel’s not going to help.’

  ‘HELLO, OLDCASTLE!’

  Nothing on the radio but cheering.

  Franklin pursed her lips for a moment, then nodded. ‘You’re buggered, then.’

  Might as well get that tattooed across his forehead. Save time.

  The Blackburgh Roundabout loomed up ahead, the library in the middle dark and lifeless, while lights blazed in Montgomery Park – just past it, on the right. Marquees and anti-aircraft spotlights, a blimp shaped like a massive tartan spider. Its legs trembled in the rain. Yeah, because that wasn’t going to give all the kids within a three-mile radius nightmares for months.

  ‘Wicker Man, Wicker Man, they’re dancing while you burn inside, / Run and hide, Wicker Man, your heart’s pumping formaldehyde …’

  Franklin’s phone rang and she dug it out, tossed it across the car to Callum, then killed the radio. ‘Put it on speaker.’

  He did, holding the mobile out and keeping his mouth shut.

  ‘Rosalind? It’s Mother. Where are you? We’ve been worried.’

  ‘Coming up to the Calderwell Bridge, just heading back to the shop now. Did you get your warrant to search Tod Monaghan’s home?’

  ‘Change of plan – I need you at Kings Park, east entrance.’ Pause. ‘And you can tell Callum he can come too.’

  Franklin raised an eyebrow. ‘Callum? I don’t—’

  ‘They didn’t make me a detective inspector just because I’m pretty, Rosalind. Now, bottoms in gear, children. We’ve got ourselves a body.’

  Franklin hunched her shoulders, rain drumming on her Crimestoppers umbrella, picking her way down the gravel path from the car park.

  Callum limped along beside her, bundled up in a high-viz jacket, sticking close to stay dry.

  Wet grass glistened in the fading light, big rhododendron bushes lurking in the gloom, leaves just starting to turn on the trees. The fancy sandstone bulk of Dundas House lorded it over the manicured grounds – a massive Brideshead Revisited tribute act, covered with pillars and twiddly carved bits – caught in the glare of a dozen spotlights, making it glow beneath the dark sky.

  But that was nothing compared to the light show on the opposite side of the river.

  Montgomery Park was lit up like a Ferris wheel. Marquees bright as lightbulbs. That looming spider dirigible. Spotlights raking the low grey cloud, the beams solid in the downpour. The pulsing thump and rumble of drum and bass pulsing out across the water like a giant heartbeat.

  ‘Which way?’

  Callum pointed.

  A line of blue-and-white ‘Police’ tape turned and whirled in the rain, blocking off the path a hundred yards further on, where the ground fell away towards the river.

  They ducked under it and picked their way down the damp stairs to another gravel path, this one bordered by a knee-high stone wall. Probably there to stop the dog walkers and joggers from tumbling down the six feet of muddy bank and into the Kings River.

  An aluminium ladder was tied to a couple of metal cleats sticking out the far side of the wall.

  Callum peered over the edge.

  Down at the bottom of the ladder, two SEB technicians in blue Tyvek Smurf suits squatted beside the broken-ragdoll figure of a man. He’d lost his T-shirt somewhere along the way and gained a deep gash across his back, but the faded prison tats on his arms and wrists were all the ID needed. It was ‘Tod’ from Strummuir Smokehouse, skin all pale and blotchy in the fading light, face buried in the mud of the river bank.

  ‘Hrmmm …’ Franklin’s face puckered. ‘That him?’

  ‘Yup.’ Callum stuck two fingers in his mouth and battered out a harsh whistle.

  One of the techs turned and looked up, face completely hidden by the facemask and safety goggles. ‘What?’

  ‘Have you gone through his pockets yet?’

  ‘One smartphone, deceased. One wallet full of papier-mâché receipts, two soggy fivers, a couple of sodden business cards, and an Irn-Bru-flavour condom. One handkerchief. A pound eighty-six in change. And a set of keys.’

  Callum turned and grinned at Franklin. ‘And you know what keys mean, don’t you?’

  He pulled out his phone and called Mother.

  Bellfield Road stretched away into the distance, a long straight street of three-storey terraced granite. No front gardens, just a slab of pavement in front of the slab-faced buildings. A wee shop on the corner was boarded up, tentacles of black soot reaching out across the grey stone. The corner opposite was an aromatherapist’s with bars on the windows.

  And three doors down, in a block acned in satellite dishes, was number 39. It was one of the few buildings with an attic conversion – an ugly Dutch-barn-style lump of black slate stitched to the top floor. Dirty windows in dirt-streaked UPVC surrounds.

  An intercom unit hung by a couple of brightly coloured wires, but the flat numbers on the panel still had names attached. ‘TOD MONAGHAN’ was printed in green ink next to ‘TOP FLOOR LEFT’.

  Callum struggled his way into a blue nitrile glove, not easy with one hand in a cast, and slipped the keys out of their evidence bag. ‘We ready?’

  Mother and Franklin nodded from beneath the Crimestoppers brolly. Standing off to one side, McAdams grunted, rain thumping on the wide brim of his brown leather hat. His face was paler than usual, the lines deeper across his forehead and chin. As if yesterday’s chemotherapy had been carved there with a Stanley knife.

  ‘OK.’ Keys one through three didn’t work, but number four did.

  Inside, the building didn’t live up to its grim exterior. Instead it was painted a cheery shade of sandy yellow. Bright hall lights in fake-Tiffany lampshades. Pot plants curling out across the landing windowsills.

  Callum led the way up the stairs.

  By the time they reached the top floor, McAdams was puffing and wheezing, one hand pressed against his stomach. Face pale and shiny.

  Top Floor Left had a green door with a welcome mat out front and a potted lily growing in a stand.

  Callum knocked.

  Mother rubbed McAdams’ back as he hunched over. �
��There, there. It’s OK. You just catch your breath.’

  Another knock.

  Still nothing.

  So Callum went through the keys again. Number Three unlocked the green door with a click.

  He eased it open with his gloved hand.

  Gloom.

  ‘Boss?’

  She shook her head. ‘You and Rosalind can go first. Andy and me – we’ll wait here for a minute. Rest our old bones.’

  He stepped over the threshold.

  A small irregular-shaped hallway with a coat rack by the door. Leather jacket. Parka with furry hood. Dog lead hanging like a noose.

  ‘Hello?’

  A door led off to the right: bedroom. Shrouded in shadow, but clean, tidy, bed made.

  Franklin looked back, over her shoulder. ‘He shouldn’t be out here.’

  ‘Who shouldn’t?’

  Next door: a galley kitchen, barely wide enough to turn around in. Mugs hanging from hooks beneath the wall units. Plates, bowls, and glasses lined up in the dishrack on the draining board. Spotless cooker.

  ‘DS McAdams. Why haven’t they forced him to go off on the sick? He’s clearly not coping. Should be at home, or in hospital.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to go home; he wants to make a difference before he dies. What’s wrong with that?’

  Straight ahead: bathroom. Dancing penguins on the shower curtain. Wooden toilet seat. Splodge-free mirror on the medicine cabinet. The sweet lemony scent of bathroom cleaner.

  ‘He needs help. Look at him. How is that healthy?’

  Callum glanced down the hall towards the landing. McAdams was still bent double, Mother rubbing his back and talking in a voice too low to make out.

  ‘What are they supposed to do, suspend him? Even if they say they’re doing it for health reasons, it’d be a PR disaster: “Police Scotland sack brave cancer hero!”’

  ‘He’s going to die here.’

  Probably.

  One door left. It swung open on a living room.

  Oh …

  The rest of the flat might have been immaculate, but the living room? Not so much.

  Franklin squeezed past him. ‘Bloody hell.’

  One window gave a view across the rain-slicked rooftops to the vast steel and concrete bird’s nest of the City Stadium. The setting sun turned everything to fire and darkness as it burned its way through the gap between clouds and earth. Painting the living room in warm shades of bronze and amber.