A Dark So Deadly

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘Constant and total surveillance, an Orwellian nightmare, only instead of “Big Brother” you’d be “Little Sister”?’

  Voodoo smiled. Sighed. ‘Ah well, a girl can dream, can’t she?’ Then jogged over to her desk and pulled a sheet of paper from a tray. Held it out. ‘All three vehicles’ registered owners and addresses, plus first and last confirmed locations on camera.’

  Callum stood and took the sheet. ‘Thanks, Voodoo, you’re a star.’

  ‘I am, aren’t I?’ She frowned at him. ‘Callum, do you want a little friendly advice?’

  No.

  ‘You’ve had a bad run of late. Don’t let it colour everything that happens to you.’ She gave him a small hug. ‘And come to my party: Becky’s a yoga instructor. Very flexible.’

  Winston Smith peered out over the top of his glasses. ‘Well, yes, Winston did say you should go away and get a cup of tea, but the key part of that sentence is that you should go away.’

  Callum leaned back against the windowsill again. ‘You’re all mouth and no trousers, aren’t you?’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘Winston is very much all trousers, thank you very much. He told you this was going to be a challenge, and he’s not going to give up till it’s done, but until then you should leave him alone and let him get on with his work.’ He raised a hand from his keyboard and made shooing motions. ‘Away with you. Winston will call when, ultimately, he is triumphant.’

  Police Scotland really needed a moratorium on hiring freaks and weirdos.

  ‘Fine.’

  Callum headed back down to the car, phone clamped between his thumb and the fibreglass cast. ‘Mother?’

  McAdams’ voice oiled its way into Callum’s ear. ‘She goes to stand firm. At the press conference. The top brass to save.’

  He clattered down the stairs. ‘A simple, “she’s not here” would’ve done.’

  ‘Then: “she’s not here,” you artless spud. And she won’t be back till two or three, so if you’ve got information: spill it.’

  ‘Voodoo’s done the CCTV analysis for us.’ Callum pushed out through the old station doors and into the rear car park – surrounded by an eighteen-foot-high brick wall topped with barbed wire. ‘They’re nominating three small vans as possible abduction vehicles.’

  ‘Good. Return your backside to DHQ; you and I are going visiting.’

  Callum scuffed to a halt ten feet from the pool car. ‘Erm … Maybe you’d be better off staying there and coordinating things? You know, if Mother’s going to be tied up at the press conference? Somebody needs to be in charge?’

  Fingers crossed …

  ‘Nice try, Constable.’

  Don’t give up!

  ‘And now I think about it, maybe Dotty or Watt would be better—’

  ‘Backside. Back here. Now.’

  Sod.

  52

  Division Headquarters was remarkably quiet for noon on a rainy Saturday. No clatter of boots on the stairs, no shouting in the corridors. No drunken singing echoing up from the cells.

  A couple of PCs were having a heated argument by the coffee machine outside the Productions Office, but other than that: dead.

  And there was still no sign of McAdams. ‘I’ll be down in five minutes.’ His arse.

  Callum pushed through into the stairwell and froze, fingertips of his broken hand resting on the bannister.

  That was Detective Superintendent Ness’s voice, wafting up from the floor below. ‘… problems. For God’s sake, Reece, I know you’re having a rough time at the moment, but that’s no excuse for not turning up for work! This is completely unacceptable.’ The sound of feet pacing on the concrete landing. ‘Look, call me when you get this, OK? If we have to rejig your workload till things calm down … well, we’ll sort something out. Bye.’

  A loud sigh. Then something muttered too low to hear.

  Callum waited till the door below clunked shut before scurrying up the stairs like a rat. Along the corridor and into the Misfit Mob’s office.

  As if he was going to hang around, getting drawn into a conversation about DCI Bloody Powel. No thank you.

  He scooted into his chair and logged back into his computer.

  The email about Irene Brown’s known associates was sitting in his inbox, between a memo about not leaving half-eaten takeaways in the pool cars and a lookout request for an OAP who used to specialise in jacking security vans.

  Looked as if Irene Brown had lousy taste in men. Eight of them: all violent, all with criminal records.

  What on earth was wrong with some women? How could they possibly find that attractive? Oh, you’re an aggressive scumbag who steals things and deals drugs? That sounds dreamy!

  Callum stuck the names into the Police National Computer and ran them again, just in case. Attempted murder. Drugs. Assaults. Housebreaking. Armed robbery. Stealing cars. Rape … Irene Brown certainly could pick them.

  Going by the mugshots on file, she was into the sullen muscly type. Tattoos an added bonus. Like Bachelor Number Four.

  Callum scooted forward in his seat.

  Previous for shoplifting, theft, breaking into old ladies’ houses and robbing them blind, nicking other people’s cars, and that was it. Nothing on his docket for the last five years. Either he’d gone straight, he’d died, or he’d gone somewhere else. But the most interesting thing was his name: Donald Newman.

  Benny, Willow’s brother, said his dad was called Donald.

  Mind you, he also said his dad owned a tiger, a helicopter, and “loads of bitches”, so: pinch of salt.

  But still. Bit of a coincidence if it wasn’t.

  And Newman was what, eight years older than Irene Brown? That was wholesome, wasn’t it? A twenty-four-year-old wannabe gangster talking her into bed on her sixteenth birthday. Assuming he even waited that long.

  Callum scowled at the screen.

  It wasn’t as if they could do anything about it, after all this time. If she was over sixteen it was legal. And if she wasn’t, try proving Newman was in violation of sections 13, 14, or 15 of the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009, seven years after the fact. Assuming she even wanted to press charges after all this time.

  Still might be able to do him for breaking his daughter’s arm …

  Mind you, even then, how would you prove it beyond reasonable doubt?

  Might be worth getting in touch with Social Services, though.

  Yeah, unless they took one look at Irene Brown and decided her kids would be better off growing up in care.

  Sod that.

  Callum slouched down the stairs, out the back door, and into the rain. Hurried across the rear car park and into the dysentery-brown Mondeo. Wiped the water from his face.

  Checked his watch.

  Detective sergeants were a pain in the backside at the best of times, but McAdams took the Jammie Dodger. Still no sign of him.

  And you could bet your last fifty-three pounds and seventy-two pence that if anyone caught Callum hanging about in the office, doing nothing, they’d find him something unpleasant to do. Much better to hide out here, waiting for McAdams to turn up. And at least he could do something productive while he was waiting.

  Callum took out his phone and made a call.

  ‘Scenes Examination Branch.’

  ‘Cecelia? It’s Callum. I’m calling about the Gossard crime scene – two twenty-three Johnson Crescent. The abduction?’

  ‘Oh I remember that one: blood everywhere.’

  ‘Did you get any decent fingerprints or DNA?’

  ‘Still working through the samples, but it’s all the victims’ so far.’

  Sod.

  A frown. What was it the posh-sounding bloke had said? The one on Dr McDonald’s phone when they were going through Brett, Ben, and Glen’s fixer-up flat … Right.

  ‘Did you try under the taps and door handles? He would’ve been clarted in blood, he’s not going to risk being spotted looki
ng like an abattoir’s floor. He’ll have washed his hands.’

  ‘Course we did. I got Brian to do it. Hold on …’ There was a muffled conversation on the other end that escalated into a muffled argument. Then a sigh. And she was back again: ‘I’ll head round there soon as I’ve finished my tea.’

  ‘Thanks, Cecelia, you’re a star.’

  Callum hung up, stuck the seat back as far as it would go, pulled Open the Coffins from his jacket pocket and settled down to read.

  A knock on the window made him flinch. He blinked at the dashboard clock – 12:15. A whole five minutes’ peace and quiet.

  McAdams slithered into the passenger seat and clunked the door shut. Sat there, staring across the car with one eyebrow raised. ‘Any time you’re ready.’ He’d brought a slightly bitter aroma with him: like pear drops laced with marzipan and vinegar. An unwell smell.

  Callum turned the page. ‘Hold on, I’m nearly finished this chapter.’

  ‘Oh for goodness’ sake, not more kiddies’ books. I’m beginning to think you’ve got an unnatural bent, Constable MacGregor.’ He snatched the novel out of Callum’s hands, shut it, and grimaced at the cover. ‘Open the Coffins is a ridiculous title for a kids’ book.’

  ‘It’s a classic.’

  ‘You know Travis stole that from William Blake, don’t you? Or was it Milton? No, definitely Blake. “And by came an Angel who had a bright key. / And he open’d the coffins and set them all free …”’

  Callum grabbed the book back and slipped it into his pocket. ‘You said five minutes, twenty minutes ago.’

  ‘And he’s obsessed: rabbits as a symbol of male innocence and virility, cats as feminine cunning and treachery.’

  He hauled his seat forwards, started up the Mondeo and stuck her into drive. ‘The rust-brown Berlingo’s closest: Milgarvie and Kirk, plumbing supplies and services, Cowskillin.’

  ‘Justin Nevin gets transformed into a rabbit by the Wicked Witch of the Well as a punishment for his theft. And by the way, she’s only stuck down the well because the villagers chucked her in there, but Justin thinks it’s OK to steal the apples from the tree growing over the well even though they’re her only source of food. Well, unless a child falls down there, I suppose.’

  Callum slid them out of the car park, right, and onto Camburn Road. ‘That’s why she’s got the apple tree there – so kids will try to steal the apples and fall in the well.’

  ‘And that’s something else he’s obsessed with: witches eating children. Goblins eating rabbits. Monsters eating children. People eating rabbits that are actually children. It’s a smorgasbord of transspecies consumption, posing as anthropomorphic cannibalism, but it’s really about venal desire. Consume the flesh, violate the body, and absorb it into your own.’

  They skirted the edge of Camburn Woods, steering clear of the main roads. ‘They’re kids’ books. They’re about magic and adventure, not sex.’

  ‘Just because you read a lot, Constable, it doesn’t mean you read deeply. Skimming across the surface like a water beetle, no idea of the pike swimming through the murky depths below.’

  Past the cemetery on the left, where a yellow JCB was busy digging a six-foot hole.

  McAdams turned to watch the graves go by. ‘And what about Justin Nevin’s sister, Arya? Nevin is Croatian for “innocent”, Arya is Hausa for “false”. So the main female character is literally called False Innocence.’

  Callum took a right, up a street of Victorian houses with railing-guarded front gardens, across the road at the end and into a narrow cobbled alley.

  He pulled up outside a small shop with a dusty front window and an eight-foot-high gate wide enough to drive a bus through. ‘MILGARVIE & KIRK ~ FAMILY PLUMBING SPECIALISTS’ in big white letters across the blue-painted wood. ‘You finished?’

  ‘All I’m saying is that you’ve got a terrible taste in literature, and you should feel ashamed about it.’

  ‘Screw you, Sarge.’ Callum climbed out into the rain. Slammed the Mondeo’s door. Then hurried into the shop.

  ‘Nah …’ The man in the overalls handed the photo of Ashlee and Abby Gossard back across a countertop littered with bits of copper pipe, valves, grommets, and washers. ‘Sorry.’

  Callum put the photo in his pocket and showed him one of Tod Monaghan instead. ‘How about him?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘But you were on Johnson Crescent Wednesday night?’

  ‘Fixing the most disgusting blocked U-bend you’ve ever seen in your life. Three women, sharing, and the amount of hair down the bathtub drain looked like they’d drowned a Womble. I can give you their number if you like? Manky cows …’

  Dundas Bridge was jammed with cars and trucks trying to avoid the roadworks on the main route through Oldcastle.

  McAdams grimaced out of the passenger window. ‘Traffic’s terrible.’

  ‘And yet you made me drive all the way through it to pick you up, then all the way back again.’ Callum tightened his grip on the steering wheel. ‘Remember?’

  ‘You know, moaning and whingeing isn’t an attractive quality in a sidekick. You should watch that. I might have to trade you in for narrative purposes.’ McAdams’ face was the colour of damp newsprint, his breathing coming in little shallow pulses. The bags under his eyes had darkened since he’d climbed into the car, back at DHQ. He checked the dashboard clock, then reached out and clicked on the radio. ‘Press conference should be starting soon.’

  They were still doing their live coverage from the festival, only whoever was on stage right now couldn’t sing in tune no matter how loud they tried. It wasn’t even proper words they were bellowing, just noises.

  Callum tightened his grip on the steering wheel. ‘I’m not your sidekick.’

  ‘Well you’re obviously not the hero, are you? You’re not even the comic relief – you have to actually be funny for that. All you do is moan and whinge. No wonder the readers don’t like you.’ McAdams held up a finger, the other hand pressing against his stomach. A grimace. Then: ‘And Arya gets transmogrified into a cat.’

  That sickly pear-drop smell was getting stronger.

  OK, so McAdams might be a pain in the backside, but still … Callum cleared his throat. ‘Are you feeling all right, Sarge? Only you look terrible.’

  ‘Remember the scene when she catches and eats that church mouse, even though it’s got a family of six to care for? That’s a metaphor for women being soft and fuzzy on the outside and all cruel violence on the inside. How they consume men for their own selfish ends.’

  ‘Seriously, you look awful.’

  A shrug. ‘I’m dying.’

  ‘You’re not planning on doing it right now, though, are you? You can’t believe how much extra paperwork that’d give me.’

  McAdams smiled. ‘I’ll do my best to hang on till we get back to the shop.’ He stretched in his seat, grimacing. ‘Do you ever think about the end of your life, Callum? How it’s all going to just … stop?’

  ‘I’m not kidding: if you’re going to drop dead do it to Dotty. Or Watt, he deserves all he gets.’

  ‘The doctors say I won’t see my forty-third birthday. Can you imagine what that feels like?’

  Callum stared at him: the stubbly grey hair, the bags under the eyes, the wrinkles. ‘You’re only forty-two? God, that must have been one hell of a hard paper round.’

  ‘The Reaper reaps all men, in time, / His hand has come to rest on mine …’

  The song on the radio droned to a halt as they reached the other side of the bridge, replaced by cheering as Callum took them straight across the roundabout and into the posher part of Castleview. Where the streets were wide and lined with trees, and no one’s corpse was floating in a bathtub full of brine and herbs.

  ‘Wooohooo! Wasn’t that fan-chicken-tastic? That’s Mr Bones there, sponsored by ScotiaBrand Tasty Chickens Limited, let’s give them another big hand!’

  More cheering from a crowd that was
either too polite to mention, or too drunk to care, that the band had been unable to carry a tune in a rucksack.

  Callum navigated past a chunk of open ground, full of trees, and round onto a car park outside a small line of shops.

  ‘And now here’s Gorgeous Gabby with all your news and weather. Any chance of some sunshine, Gabby?’

  ‘Sorry, Chris, but things might be looking up for Sunday. Here’s the news. Police Scotland have announced they’re not looking for any other suspects in the Imhotep Mummy Murder case, after a man’s body was pulled from the Kings River outside Dundas House yesterday …’

  He pointed through the window at a florist’s, wedged between a domestic appliances shop and a Co-op funeral director’s. A lumpy green van sat out front, the side door slid back so a young woman in trousers, shirt, and tie could load big floral arrangements inside. The number plate matched the one on Voodoo’s printout.

  ‘… over live to Oldcastle Division Headquarters.’

  The sound of a general hubbub died down, punctuated by the occasional clack-whine of a camera going off. Then the Chief Superintendent’s voice boomed out, amplified loud enough to cause a squeal of feedback. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m pleased to announce that O Division officers have successfully concluded the recent spate of mummification murders …’

  Callum undid his seatbelt, but McAdams stayed where he was, clutching his stomach and grimacing. ‘Do you want me to call an ambulance?’

  A shake of the head. Teeth gritted. ‘It’ll be fine. I just … need to sit here for a minute. Make sure … the press conference goes OK.’

  ‘… tireless work by the officers under my command, preventing further deaths at the hands of a deeply troubled individual …’