A Dark So Deadly

by Stuart MacBride

  He jammed on the brakes and slid the car to a halt, right outside. Clambered into the rain, just in time to see a big black Mercedes disappear into the distance.

  ‘PIGGY?’ That same little girl’s voice, shouting over the wailing siren, sounding so much younger than the last time they’d met.

  He turned and puffed out his cheeks. ‘YOU OK?’

  Willow peered out at him from behind a parked VW Beetle. ‘YOU CAME.’

  ‘SAID I WOULD, DIDN’T I?’ Callum reached back into the Mondeo and killed the lights and siren.

  A couple of curtains twitched on the other side of the road, but other than that Manson Avenue was silent.

  Callum nodded at the house. ‘He still in there?’

  She shook her head. Bit her top lip. ‘I wasn’t scared or nothing.’ A sniff and a shrug. ‘Just called you, you know, for Pinky’s sake, like. Cos Benny was worried bout her, yeah?’

  ‘Course he was.’ The small drift of plastic toys had disappeared from the front garden, leaving it to the weeds. Callum marched up the path.

  The front door lay wide open.

  He knocked anyway. ‘Hello?’

  No answer.

  The hallway was cold, the wallpaper stained and peeling in the corner above the door. A selection of brightly coloured kids’ coats rainbowed a rack on one side. A cracked mirror on the other, reflecting back a spider’s-web kaleidoscope.

  ‘Hello? Anyone in?’ Callum turned back to Willow. ‘What’s your mum’s name again?’

  A shrug.

  Yeah, because when you’re that age, ‘Mum’ and ‘Dad’ was all the name they needed. Assuming you were lucky enough to still have parents.

  A flight of stairs sat beyond the mirror. He rested a hand on the newel post, staring up at the landing. ‘Hello? Miss Brown? Are you all right?’

  No answer.

  A little face appeared around the balustrade: sticky-out ears and flat monkey nose. That would be the brother, Benny. AKA: Baboon Boy. Only this time there was no hooting, just a damp-eyed stare.

  ‘Is your mum up there?’

  He wiped his face on his sleeve and shook his head.

  OK, search downstairs first.

  One door at the end of the hall, one on the right. He tried the handle and it opened on a living room just big enough for a saggy armchair covered in throws, a small TV sitting on a tatty sideboard, a stack of kids’ toys, two threadbare beanbags, and a flimsy-looking playpen covered in cartoon characters.

  Willow’s mum was in the corner, sitting with her back to the wall, knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around them, blonde hair hanging over her face as she rocked. The toddler – Pinky? – was holding on to her, face a big flushed tear-stained knot of gristle and snot.

  Callum peered into the playpen.

  The baby was lying on its back, sooking one of its feet, surrounded by yet more plastic tat.

  OK, so at least everyone was still alive.

  He squatted down in front of the woman in the corner. ‘Miss Brown? It’s PC MacGregor. I was the policeman who brought back Mr Lumpylump? You remember?’

  She peered out at him from behind her curtain of hair. Looked away.

  Callum tried a smile. ‘I came because I was worried about you. Are you OK?’

  She rested her forehead on her knees, voice soft and mushy – as if she’d been drinking. ‘Go way.’

  ‘Willow and Benny’s dad’s been here, hasn’t he?’

  No reply.

  ‘Did he hurt you?’

  No reply.

  ‘If he hurt you we can do something about it.’

  No reply.

  Honestly, it was like interviewing a career criminal. Callum settled on the edge of the lone armchair. ‘I know this is hard. It’s not easy when someone you love hurts you. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.’ He stared down at the filthy fibreglass cast covering his right hand. ‘But, you know what? If they hurt us this much, maybe they never really loved us at all? Maybe they don’t deserve to be with us. Maybe they never did.’

  Willow’s mum raised her head, parting that curtain of blonde hair with one hand. A deep red bruise covered one side of her cheek. Her bottom lip was swollen, split, and raw, blood making a wide trail to her chin. No wonder her words sounded slurred.

  Another fledgling bruise was spreading across her other cheek. A necklace of them wrapped tight around her throat. Her eyes sparkled with tears. ‘He wouldn’t hurt me if I didn’t make him so angry …’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have had another kid without him. I should have waited for him to come back and not run around with other men like a whore. I ruined everything.’

  ‘You didn’t do anything wrong … it’s Isobel, isn’t it?’

  ‘Irene.’ She picked at the knee of her jeans. ‘And I did. He told me I did.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you didn’t and he’s a dick.’ Callum pointed at the playpen and its foot-sucking inmate. ‘You love your baby, don’t you?’

  A little nod.

  ‘Well then, there you go.’ Callum fumbled his notebook and pen out. ‘Now, the charmer who beat you: what’s his name?’

  Irene Brown blinked at him, then looked away. ‘I fell. I tripped and I fell. Because I’m a stupid clumsy bitch.’

  ‘Come on, Irene, you’re not—’

  ‘Please, just … just leave me alone.’

  Callum poured boiling water into the two mugs. The kitchen wasn’t huge, and nothing in it looked as if it’d been bought from new, but it was clean and tidy enough.

  Willow stood in the doorway, watching as he mashed the teabags against the mugs’ inner walls with a teaspoon. Not saying anything as he fished them out and dumped them in the bin. Or when he got the milk out of the fridge. It wasn’t till he took the lid off the semi-skimmed and had a sniff that she broke the silence: ‘We’re not scummers, OK, Piggy?’

  ‘Never said you were.’ Both mugs got a dollop of milk. ‘Force of habit – you can’t trust a pint of milk in a police station. Never know who’s been at it.’ He took a wee sip of tea. Hot, but bearable. ‘Does your mum ever mention your dad’s name? Maybe she’s got photographs hidden away somewhere?’

  Willow rolled her eyes and stomped into the room. Picked the semi-skimmed off the worktop and stuck it back in the fridge. ‘What happened to your hand?’

  Callum pulled down his jacket sleeve, till it hid the filthy cast. ‘You didn’t answer the question: your dad’s name. Photos? Anything like that?’

  ‘Nah. Not a snitch, yeah? Mum’s not a snitch neither. Benny’s not fussed, but she dropped him on his head when he was wee, so you can’t believe a word he says. Lives in a fantasy world, don’t he?’

  ‘This guy comes in here and beats your mum up, and you think it’s more important to not be a clype? Thought you wanted to “break his little bitch legs”? Now you want to let him get away with it?’

  Willow stuck her head on one side and shrugged. ‘Would’ve kicked the crap out of him, but you know …’

  ‘Sure you would.’

  ‘Yeah, would’ve killed him right there, but he had this huge shit-eating darkie with him.’

  Callum stared at her. ‘You can’t say things like that.’

  ‘But see if he was on his own?’ She mimed punching someone.

  ‘Willow, I’m serious. You want people to think you’re some sort of stupid racist lowlife? Because that’s what it makes you sound like. You think it makes you sound tough, but it doesn’t.’

  She clamped her mouth shut.

  ‘Thought you were better than that.’

  ‘You’re not my dad!’

  ‘Yeah. Because he’s been such a role model, hasn’t he?’

  Pink swept up her neck and into her cheeks, setting the tips of her ears glowing. Then she glowered at the kitchen floor for a moment, muscles bunching along her jaw, like she was chewing something. Deep breath. ‘He had a
huge black guy with him. All gold chains and that. He took Mr Lumpylump, cos Dad told him to.’

  ‘They stole your mother’s teddy bear?’

  ‘I was hiding in the cupboard under the stairs and I saw him take Mr Lumpylump. Should’ve broken both their legs. Should’ve killed them both.’ Seven years old, going on Charles Manson.

  ‘So tell me his name.’

  ‘What happened to your hand?’

  The filthy cast itched. ‘I hit someone. Hard.’

  A nod. ‘And I’m not a snitch.’

  Callum stepped into the thin drizzle, closed the front door behind him, and slouched down the front path to the Mondeo: still parked in the middle of the street where he’d abandoned it, still full of all his boxes. Which was something of an achievement for Kingsmeath, even at this time of night.

  He plipped the locks and sank in behind the wheel.

  ‘00:35’, according to the dashboard clock, and he still had to drive all the way to Cowskillin, unload everything into Mother’s husband’s lockup and drive back to Dotty and Louise’s house before he could call it a night.

  ‘Pffff …’ Come on. Keys in the ignition and—

  A knock on the driver’s window made him flinch hard enough to drop the keys.

  Sodding hell.

  He turned and there was Baboon Boy with his jug ears and pug nose, standing close enough for his breath to fog the glass.

  Callum buzzed the window down. ‘Benny?’

  Benny did a big pantomime of looking up and down the street, then over his shoulder, before turning back and lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘They beat on my mum.’

  ‘I know, Benny. But your mum won’t tell me who did it, so there’s nothing I can do to help her.’

  He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his tracksuit top. ‘I saw them. Willow thinks I didn’t, but I did. Both of them. Cos I see things.’

  Callum slumped back in his seat. ‘I’m sure you do, but I’m completely knackered, Benny, so …?’

  ‘My Dad’s a rock star.’

  ‘Is he now?’

  ‘He’s got a helicopter and a plane and a tiger and loads of bitches.’

  ‘Bitches?’ Maybe Willow hadn’t been lying about Benny being dropped on his head when he was wee.

  ‘In bikinis and stuff, for the dancing.’ He did a sort of Michael Jackson crotch-grab-and-twirl thing, finishing off with a finger pointed at the low clouds. ‘Owwwww!’

  ‘Right. That makes perfect sense now.’

  Benny lowered his pointing hand and nodded, face serious as an aneurism. ‘Yeah. I seen him on the telly. With his bitches.’

  ‘OK, well, thanks for letting me know, Benny. I appreciate it. But don’t call women “bitches”, OK? That’s not nice.’

  Another serious nod.

  Callum scooped up the keys from the footwell. Paused. Turned back to the strange little boy with his snot-silvered tracksuit. ‘You don’t know your dad’s name, do you, Benny? Do you know what he’s called?’

  Another pantomime check that no one was listening. ‘No one’s supposed to know.’

  ‘Yes, but do you know, Benny?’

  ‘Mum used to call him Donald when he’d been naughty. But you’re not allowed to tell anyone.’

  ‘Donald. Right. It’ll be our secret.’ Callum stuck the retrieved keys in the ignition and started up the Mondeo. ‘Do me a favour? Look after your mum and sisters … And whatever the baby is.’

  ‘Cos I see things.’

  ‘That’s right. And if you see your dad round here again, you give me a call, OK?’ Callum handed over a Police Scotland business card.

  Benny frowned at it, then put it in his back pocket. ‘OK.’

  And with any luck, next time, they’d catch the cowardly little sod in the act.

  Callum put the car in drive, gave Benny a wave, and pulled away into the night.

  The lockup wasn’t full of pornography, but it was full of booze. Half a dozen demijohns blooped and gurgled on a reclaimed section of kitchen units, complete with worktop. Crates and crates of wine bottles were stacked up in the corner, and a couple of black plastic bins had tea towels draped over their gaping mouths. Everything had the earthy undead smell of live yeast.

  Callum piled his boxes against the wall opposite – clothes and things on the bottom, books on the top. Just in case anything happened and there was a homebrew flood. Sod the clothes: save the books.

  He stood staring at the boxes, then opened the one marked ‘KIDS’ BOOKS’. Pulled out a handful of battered paperbacks, their spines cracked and flaking from years of rereading. The ones he was going to read to Peanut, when he was old enough.

  The House at Pooh Corner, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Black Beauty, Open the Coffins, Biggles Flies Again … A lifetime of books – every single volume he’d ever owned since he was little – now just a pile of supermarket-scrounged wine boxes in someone else’s lockup.

  Callum put the books back in their box.

  Stared at them.

  Then carried the box back out to the car.

  At least now he’d have something to read.

  — these bones beneath the earth —

  The little chimney boy blew life into a candle, melting back the darkness. “There we is, my dear,” he said to Justin. “You just hops yourself up on the kitchen table and I’ll warms you a nice bath.” Then he pulled a big brass pot from a cupboard, filled it with water, and put it on to simmer.

  Justin jumped onto the table and sat there, his brand-new rabbitty ears picking up all manner of scary noises lurking in the gloom. “Why … Why are you putting carrots and onions in my bath?” he asked, trying to sound brave.

  “Because they’s dirty, and I wants you to wash them for me.”

  “And are the potatoes, leeks, and salt-and-pepper dirty too?”

  “Why, Justin, anyone would think you doesn’t trust me …”

  R.M. Travis

  Open the Coffins (and Let Them Go Free) (1976)

  Cos them bitches be wide with their legs in the air,

  But he can’t barely stand, he’s wrapped up in his warfare,

  His booze and his dreams, his tattoos and his schemes,

  He’s f*cked up inside, and it’s time for some screams here.

  Donny ‘$ick Dawg’ McRoberts

  ‘Diary of a Motherfunkin’ Legend’

  © Bob’s Speed Trap Records (2016)

  48

  McAdams held up a hand, eyes clenched shut, wrinkles deep and thick across his forehead. ‘If we could keep it down to a deafening scream, that’d be nice.’

  He wasn’t the only one who looked as if he’d rented his skull out to a Death Metal band. Dotty was slumped in her wheelchair, one hand massaging her temples while the other clutched a large wax-paper cup of coffee. Franklin was wrapped around a bottle of Lucozade, making little grunting noises every time she moved. And Watt sported a pair of dark glasses and a pained expression.

  Mother, on the other hand, sat back in her office chair with her knees spread wide, tucking into a bacon buttie and a big mug of tea. She beamed at them, washed down her latest mouthful. ‘I don’t know what you’re all complaining about: if you can’t do the time, don’t do the tequila shots.’

  Callum had a sip of tea.

  Dotty buried her face in her hands. ‘Urgh … Whose bright idea was it to have flaming Drambuies?’

  Watt raised a finger and pointed it at McAdams. Who just stood there, propped up against the wall. Groaning.

  ‘Now, dear children, our masters will be holding their press conference at one, so we have until then to dot-and-cross. Who wants the “i”s and who wants the “t”s? Don’t all rush at once.’

  Callum raised his mug. ‘I need to go see Blakey about the paedophile I arrested last night.’

  ‘When you’ve done that, get your little friend, Dr McDonald, to look over Tod Monaghan’s details. I want a ribbon wrapped around him
with a bow on top. Rosalind, how did you get on with our friends at Strummuir Smokehouse?’

  Franklin took a scoof of Lucozade, gave another grunt, then picked up a clump of paper. ‘The only one without a criminal record is the woman who cooks chips in the canteen. Everyone else has done time: armed robbery, fraud, assault, murder, possession with intent …’ She was slumping lower and lower with every word, her other hand digging into her hair, keeping her head from hitting the desk. ‘Urgh …’

  ‘Well, we need to add interviewing everyone and checking alibis to the list. Andy? Stick it on the board. Dorothy, you and—’

  A knock on the office door, and a spotty young woman in an ill-fitting fighting suit stuck her head around the door. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Guv, but you’ve not seen DCI Powel on your travels, have you? The Super’s looking for him.’

  Mother turned. ‘How’s the head today, Erika?’

  She pulled a sheepish grin. ‘Vodka Red Bull and crème de menthe do not mix.’

  ‘Thought as much when I saw you doing the Lambada with Sergeant Crilley.’

  The rest of Erika’s face went as red as her spots. ‘Oh …’

  ‘And no: I haven’t seen Reece this morning. Anyone else?’

  There was a chorus of noncommittal grunts.

  Callum had another sip of tea.

  ‘Sorry, Erika, your prince is in another castle. Now,’ back to the team, ‘where was I?’

  The DC slipped out of the room, taking her blush with her, leaving nothing but a vaguely minty smell behind.

  Mother frowned for a moment. ‘Ah yes: Dorothy. You and John set a rocket under the lab: they’re supposed to be getting us fingerprints on the first two mummified victims. I want those bodies ID’d: we leave no one behind.’

  That elicited groans from both of them.

  ‘Don’t whinge. A spot of fresh air will do you the power of good. And John?’

  ‘Grnnnng?’

  ‘You actually signed out at the end of your shift last night! A round of applause for DC John Watt, everyone.’ What she got didn’t even pass for lacklustre. ‘Let’s see if you can make it two in a row today.’ She polished off the last of her buttie. ‘Rosalind, seeing as how you won the “Guess How Many Pickled Eggs DI Morrow Can Fit In His Mouth At Once” competition, you can attend Monaghan’s post mortem.’