A Dark So Deadly

by Stuart MacBride

  Callum’s phone launched into its bland anonymous ringtone. The two officers nearest him pulled pained faces and backed away a couple of paces as he yanked it out of his pocket and hit the button. Keeping his voice low. ‘What?’

  ‘Callum? Callum it’s Bob. Bob Shannon? Hello?’

  ‘… grasp the nettle and forge a new alliance with the public to ensure not just policing by consent, but by active enthusiasm …’

  He turned his back on the Chief Superintendent. ‘Bob, hi. Sorry, I can’t talk, it’s a bit—’

  ‘I know it’s late, but I think I’ve got an ID for your public-toilet paedophile.’

  ‘… not just a success for DI Malcolmson’s Divisional Investigative Support Team, but for all of O Division …’

  ‘There are three or four possibles, but our most likely lad is one Gareth Pike. Mate of mine in the Sex Offender Management Unit did him at least a dozen times for trying to interfere with little boys in gents’ loos. Montgomery Park, Dalrymple Park, Kings Park, Camburn Heritage Centre, all the classics.’

  ‘… challenges when I took on the role of Chief Superintendent, but I knew that with the right people behind me, I could make a real difference to this division …’

  ‘Point is, Pike got fed up getting his collar felt, so he started to play away from home. Rest stops on the A90, the services at Montrose, that kind of thing. So a lay-by on the Aberdeen road would have been right up his street.’

  ‘… but it’s important to remember that the transformation in Oldcastle isn’t down to the hard work and inspirational leadership of just one man …’

  Callum fumbled out his notebook. ‘You got an address?’

  ‘I can do better than that. Tell me where you are and I’ll come get you.’

  ‘Callum? Are you OK?’ Mother stood in the Bart’s doorway, hands deep in her pockets, breath curling out into the rainy night.

  ‘Yeah. Fine.’ Callum tried a smile. ‘Just …’ He picked at the lining of his fibreglass cast – hadn’t even been on a day and already the thing was getting filthy, all greyed and blotchy. Getting it soaked at regular intervals throughout the day probably wasn’t helping. ‘Elaine and DCI Cock-Face want me to move all my stuff out. Today.’

  ‘Ah.’ She winced. ‘I heard Reece had left his wife. Didn’t know it was for your Elaine. Sorry.’

  ‘She’s not my anything.’

  Mother nodded.

  Water rushed in the gutters like filthy little rivers, washed across the paving slabs, hissed against the sign above the pub door, turned the streetlights into glowing spots – septic and angry.

  A taxi grumbled past, a couple screaming at each other in the back seat.

  ‘Callum, do you want a hand moving? It’s not going to be easy with just a bicycle.’

  He looked the other way. ‘Actually, I thought I might borrow one of the pool cars. You know, without telling anyone.’

  ‘Hmmm … Better take the Mondeo, then. You’ll get more in the back of an estate.’

  ‘Thanks, Boss.’

  She made a tutting noise, then patted him on the back. ‘Have you got anywhere to store your things?’

  Ah.

  There was that.

  Because if Powel and Elaine thought they were keeping all the furniture and kitchen stuff he’d bought for the flat, they could carve that thought on a six-foot granite slab and shove it up their collective backsides. And there was no way it was all going to fit in Dotty’s spare room. Never mind all the books.

  Mother rolled her eyes. ‘Men: you’re sweetly pretty things, and we wouldn’t be without you for the world, but your little heads just aren’t suited to the practicalities of life.’ She pulled a jailer’s bundle of keys from her fleece pocket and worked a small Yale from one of the many rings. ‘Here. My Jack has a lockup in Cowskillin: twenty-three Washington Lane, round the back of the processing plant. I’m sure it’s all pornography and empty whisky bottles in there, but try not to make too much of a mess.’

  Callum took the key. ‘Thanks.’

  A small green Toyota hatchback pulled onto the street, headlights shining back from the wet road. It parked four buildings up, outside ‘DOUGIE’S “FAMOUS” CHIPPER! ~ PIZZAS KEBABS & BAKED TATTIES TOO’. The Toyota switched off its headlights and sat there with the engine running.

  ‘And if you finish before midnight, come back and have a proper drink. No more of that orange-juice-and-lemonade nonsense. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Good.’ Another pat. ‘Better get going: I’m doing “Somethin’ Stupid” with Andy in a minute.’ She headed back inside. And thirty seconds later, the car parked outside the chip shop flashed its lights and pulled away from the kerb.

  Slid to a halt outside the Dumbarton Arms, right in front of Callum.

  The driver’s window buzzed down, filling the night with Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison imploring a postal worker not to sod off without checking their bag again.

  Callum hunkered down with his hands on his knees and peered into the car. ‘Can I help you?’

  Ex-DS Bob Shannon smiled out at him, voice raised over the Beatles. ‘Detective Constable MacGregor. You and I have an appointment with a child molester.’

  45

  Shannon paused for a moment at the top of the stairs, face flushed and shining. ‘Urgh. The smell … Why does everyone have to pee in the stairwell? Do they not have toilets here?’ He mopped his forehead with a green-and-yellow scarf.

  Callum lurched to a halt next to him, breathing hard. Thirteen floors of climbing through the eye-watering reek of other people’s urine and his throat burned. The air even tasted of it: sharp and bitter. ‘He better be in after this.’

  Faulkner Heights had to be the mankiest of the seven tower blocks that enclosed this side of the Blackburn Roundabout. Oh, it didn’t look manky from the dual carriageway, or the library, because the council had painted the sides of the building that faced that way. But they’d left the other two sides as dirt-streaked concrete, with all the windows boarded up on the bottom three floors – about as high as a wee scroat could chuck a rock.

  They hadn’t bothered painting the inside either. Or dousing it with disinfectant. Though, to be honest, setting fire to the place was probably the only hygienic option.

  A pile of bin-bags sat by the lift – beneath the ‘OUT OF ORDER’ sign – leaking rancid brown liquid across the floor. A dull yellow stain marked the wall in the corner, flowing down across pale crystalline growths to the ground – the burning stink of fossilised piddle mingling with the bin-bag’s gritty stench.

  Graffiti scrawled across the walls: generations of the abandoned, marking their territory in a slightly more permanent way than by peeing on it.

  Shannon bared his teeth. ‘About time they pulled this block down and stuck up something nicer. Like a crematorium. Or an abattoir.’ He pointed at Callum. ‘Before we do this, we need some ground rules.’

  Callum wiped his good hand across his damp forehead. ‘Go on then.’

  ‘One: I know you want to kill this guy, but you don’t. Agreed? No beating the living hell out of him, no breaking his fingers, not so much as a Chinese burn.’

  ‘He—’

  ‘No. That can’t happen. We’re police officers, or at least I used to be, and that means something. If he’s the one who killed your mother, he goes to prison for a very, very long time. He doesn’t walk free because you played “Batter the Suspect”.’

  Callum blew out his cheeks. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Two: we’re going to Good Cop, Bad Cop it, and you’re playing the good cop.’

  Seriously? ‘Come on, you can’t—’

  ‘No. Non-negotiable. If you’re playing Good Cop you’re less likely to twat him one.’

  Callum stared at him. Then away down the dull grey corridor with its graffitied walls. ‘Agreed.’

  ‘OK, then.’ Shannon leaned on the doorbell, but nothing happened: not so much as a bing-bong fr
om inside. So he drew his fist back and gave the door three loud hard knocks. The kind that let everyone know the police were outside and they were not sodding happy.

  Which was probably par for the course down here.

  Or, strictly speaking, as they were on the thirteenth floor, up here.

  Shannon gave the door another three bangs.

  No one came out of the other flats for a gawp. The police hammering on someone’s door had clearly lost its novelty a long time ago.

  Callum checked his watch. ‘Maybe he’s out?’

  ‘Doubt it. From what I’ve heard, Pike’s pretty much a shut-in these days.’ Shannon rolled his shoulders. ‘Think we should kick it in? I’ve not done that in donkeys.’ A grin tugged his grey beard out of shape. ‘I was listening to Radio Four the other day and this guy from the Met said modern UPVC doors can stand up to a battering ram for over half an hour. This thing? One good boot and it’s in.’ He rapped his knuckles against the tatty wooden door. Someone had stolen the numbers off it, leaving just the dents in the paint to spell out ‘13-15’.

  ‘We haven’t got a warrant. Thought you wanted to do things by the book?’

  ‘I used to love dunting someone’s door in. It was like opening a present on Christmas Day, never knowing what you were going to get. Would it be a selection box, a pair of leather football boots, or a druggie with a shotgun?’ A sigh. ‘Strange, the things you miss when you retire from the force.’

  Callum raised his left fist to the wood. ‘One more go.’

  But before he landed it, there was a thunk from inside. Followed by a light flickering on behind the spyhole.

  Then a gravelly voice, dark as gravy, oozed through the wood. Unmistakable, even after all these years. ‘Who is it?’

  Heat crawled up Callum’s back, spreading pins-and-needles across his shoulders. He swallowed, then held his warrant card up to the spyhole. ‘Mr Pike? We need a word.’

  ‘Ah. I see. Well, I’m sorry, but it’s not convenient right now. Not convenient at all. I’m … indisposed.’

  Shannon raised his voice a bit. ‘Let’s kick it in. Right now. Boot the door right off its hinges.’

  ‘No! No, don’t do that. I … I need my door. Yes. I need it. Please don’t do that.’

  ‘Then open up, Gareth.’

  A rattling sigh. ‘Today doesn’t seem to be turning out as well as I’d hoped.’ The clattering sound of a chain drawing back was followed by several loud clicks. Then the door swung open.

  The man standing in the doorway was stooped over, but his large bald head still came within an inch of the frame. Big. Wide. Just like he’d been in the car park, only a lot thicker around the middle. And instead of the black overcoat he was dressed in a stained silk robe, socks, Crocks, an ‘I ♥ OLDCASTLE!’ T-shirt spattered with what looked like brown sauce, and a pair of polka-dot boxer …

  Gah!

  Callum recoiled a step. So did Shannon.

  Gareth Pike smiled, showing off perfect white teeth. Raised his bushy white eyebrows. ‘I did mention I was indisposed.’ The front of his underwear was tented out, pointing straight ahead at ninety degrees. ‘Now do you gentlemen still wish to come in?’

  Pike waved a hand at the couch. ‘Sit. Sit.’

  No chance.

  Piles of newspaper and ready-meal containers teetered against the walls. The carpet, if there was one, lay buried beneath a thick layer of hair and filth. Water stains on the ceiling and walls. A drift of scrunched-up tissues spread out from the couch in a fan shape: all crunchy and flaky. Their faint bleachy smell mingled with the rancid odour of a man who’d clearly fallen out with soap and deodorant.

  The only picture on the wall was Mary, cradling the baby Jesus.

  An old-fashioned cathode-ray TV was hooked up to a video player, the screen flickering with a close-up of Simon Cowell’s sneering face.

  Pike lowered himself into a greasy armchair, legs spread wide, tent on full display. ‘Oooh … My knees. Not what they once were.’

  Hard to believe that this was the man who’d given him nightmares for years.

  Callum crossed his arms, just in case his hands accidentally touched something. ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

  Pike’s face creased for a moment. Then, ‘No.’

  Shannon went to sit, but obviously thought better of it. ‘Twenty-six years ago, Gareth. You were interfering with little boys. Public lavatories, mostly. Parks. Service stations. Lay-bys. Winter, summer, autumn, spring: there you’d be, fiddling away. A nonce for all seasons.’

  A big fat shrug sent his chins wobbling. ‘A wise man once said, “To thine own self be true.” So: yes. I admit it. But I’ve atoned for my sins. Repaid my debt to society with ten years attending to Her Majesty’s pleasure at Peterhead Prison.’ His hand reached over the brow of his belly and scratched at the boxer shorts, making the tent-pole wobble. ‘Oh, this was back when it was a specialised institution, not the modern monstrosity they have now where they’ll take just anyone. No, it was a lovely establishment. Loads of character. And characters, too. I remember one time, I was taking tea with a kindred spirit called Haroun and who should walk in but—’

  ‘Twenty-six years ago.’ Callum took a step closer. ‘It was a lay-by on the Aberdeen road, not far outside Blackwall Hill. A family of four: mother, father, two wee boys.’

  Pike raised his bushy eyebrows again. ‘Sounds delicious. Were the boys blond and pretty? I like them blond and pretty.’

  ‘I’ll blond and—’

  Shannon grabbed his arm. ‘Good Cop, remember?’

  Callum closed his eyes. Took a deep breath of stench. ‘It was April. I was five and you tried to touch me in the toilets.’

  ‘Ooh.’ Pike squeezed himself through the polka dots. ‘You were one of mine? You must have been very pretty when you were younger.’

  ‘Two men came into the toilets and scared you off.’

  ‘How rude of them.’

  ‘My mother and father and my brother were waiting for me in the car outside. With a caravan on the back. Do you remember them?’

  ‘Mmmm …’

  ‘I swear to God, if you don’t stop touching yourself I’m going to—’

  ‘Come on, Callum.’ Shannon shook his head. ‘We agreed.’

  ‘DO YOU REMEMBER?’

  Pike didn’t even flinch. ‘I remember all my pretty little blond boys.’ He squeezed. And squeezed. ‘They’re all I have left.’

  Shannon pulled Callum back. ‘All right. Let’s just calm down a minute, OK?’

  ‘Ask him. Ask him if he remembers hacking off my mother’s head!’

  Pike let go of himself and sank back in his seat. ‘Oh, no. I would certainly remember something like that.’ He raised his squeezing hand to his nose and sniffed the fingers. ‘I don’t do “mothers”. Or fathers, come to that. Grown-ups in general repulse me.’ A finger came round to point at Simon Cowell’s face on the TV. ‘I wasn’t sitting here wasting a perfectly good Viagra on him. I mean, I’m not gay or anything. I just didn’t think you’d like to see what I’d really been watching. Hmmm?’ He licked his lips, dark and slimy like twin slugs circling his mouth. ‘It’s amazing what one can purchase over the interwebs if one is … discreet.’

  Callum pulled his arm free from Shannon’s grip. ‘Are you saying you didn’t kill her?’

  ‘Well of course not. Why on earth would I do something like that? Can you imagine how messy it would be? No: I’m a lover, not a fighter.’ He gave a little shudder. ‘But I do remember you. You ran off and hid in the caravan, didn’t you? You wouldn’t come out to play.’

  ‘You said my parents didn’t love me any more. That they’d given me to you.’

  ‘Oh we could’ve had such fun, you and I. Before you got so old and unappealing.’ Sigh. ‘I waited so long in the rain for you. I hope you didn’t mind my taking care of myself while I waited. But you wouldn’t come out and help.’

  Shannon curled
his top lip. ‘Did you see anything? Anyone else at the toilets?’

  ‘Would you like to see the video I was watching? It’s very good. I know everyone’s obsessed with digital technology, but I’m not supposed to have a computer. I do, of course, but there’s something so deliciously nostalgic about videotape.’ His eyes widened. ‘The way it flickers and buzzes. Oh, my …’

  ‘Did you see anyone else, or didn’t you?’

  ‘Sometimes I like to twist the tracking all out of line, so it’s like the old days when a tape’s been copied and passed around and copied again and again and again. You don’t get that sense of tradition with these modern digital films.’

  Callum unfolded his arms and balled his left hand into a fist. ‘Answer the sodding question, or I’ll break the tracking in your head.’

  ‘Oh yes. I saw someone. I saw things you wouldn’t believe, right there in that car park, all those years ago.’ Pike fluttered his eyelashes. ‘But it’ll cost you.’

  Shannon grabbed Callum’s arm again. ‘He’s just screwing with you. It’s what people like him do.’

  ‘Oh, no, no, no. All I’m asking is that you sit down and watch my video with me. Me and the Boy Who Got Away, watching.’

  ‘OK, that’s it, I’m going to kill him.’

  Shannon tightened his grip. Leaned in close and whispered into Callum’s ear. ‘He puts on the video, you do him for possession of indecent images of children, or whatever they’re calling it these days. It’s not an illegal search, because he’s shown you it voluntarily.’

  ‘Well, my once-pretty-little-blond-haired-boy?’

  Grab the greasy fat slug by the throat and squeeze. Dig both thumbs into his windpipe and squeeze till his eyes bulge and his face goes purple. Squeeze till he judders and gurgles and dies.

  And never find out what happened.

  Callum uncurled his fists. Forced it all back down again. ‘Go on then.’

  Pike clapped his hands. ‘Oh how jolly!’ He knelt in front of the video player and ejected Simon Cowell. Replaced him with a tape in a grey cassette. Collapsed back in his seat and grinned. ‘You see, I was so angry when those ruffians burst into the toilets and spoiled everything I was going to slash their tyres. Serve them right.’ He dug a remote control out from between his seat cushion and the arm of the chair. Pointed it at the TV and pressed play. ‘But when I got out, another pretty little blond boy was right there. I thought it was you for a moment, but he was wearing a different T-shirt.’