All That's Dead

by Stuart MacBride

  The ruins were visible in the distance, lurking at the end of the world, where the land fell into the North Sea. Broken walls sticking up like jagged teeth. Other than that, the countryside was a lumpy plain. Fields of wheat and grass. A flock of sheep nibbling away in one littered with big round straw bales.

  The sun had finally given up on the day, leaving it to the pale-blue glow of twilight as night took hold. Quarter past ten, so they’d have about an hour to search for DI Vanishing Bastard King before they’d have to break out the torches.

  Steel killed the engine and scrambled out, Logan following close behind.

  A uniformed officer appeared from the patrol car, pulling his peaked cap on. One of Stubby’s Thugs – Greeny, wasn’t it? Mid-twenties, with a hint of quarter-past-ten-o’clock shadow, his hair all floppy on top and buzz-cut at the sides. He nodded at Logan. ‘Inspector.’ Then led the way, down the track, towards the castle. ‘A wee wifie called it in. White Audi, abandoned on a side road about midway between here and Dracula’s house.’

  Steel grimaced. ‘That’s at least half a mile. I’m no’ walking all the way over there!’

  ‘Nah, only about a quarter. Be there in no time.’

  Logan caught up with him. ‘When was this?’

  ‘About fifteen minutes ago? Glen’s gone down the castle to check it out. I stayed here to block stuff: vehicles and that, you know?’

  ‘Can we no’ drive down instead?’

  ‘Need the patrol car for a roadblock.’ Greeny pointed over his shoulder. ‘Sergeant Stubbs is on her way. Think we should cordon off all the access points before she gets here?’

  Logan nodded. ‘Couldn’t hurt.’

  ‘Oh aye, because that won’t tip the press off, will it? You’re a pair of morons.’

  ‘She’s got a point, Guv.’

  ‘Course I do.’ Steel pulled out her e-cigarette and puffed up a cloud. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got first, eh? Might be nothing. Just cos it’s an Audi, doesn’t mean it’s Laz’s, right? Could be anyone’s.’

  They tromped down the track, then up a small hill.

  From here, Slains Castle looked more like a ruined country house. A massive tumbledown one, but the big windows and thin walls didn’t have that air of solid, dingy … castliness that Dunottar, Fyvie, and Crathes had.

  Logan kept going … Then stopped.

  A small lane snaked away off the track to the right, partially hidden by a frozen explosion of brambles. And there, abandoned a hundred yards along it, was Logan’s Audi.

  He scuffed his feet down the lane, staring at what was left of his poor car.

  All those years wanting a nice car of his own. A proper one. A new one. One where bits of it weren’t held on with duct tape and prayer. And now look at it.

  ‘Noooo …’

  Scratches, dents, gouges. The rear bumper buckled and hanging off. The exhaust battered and dragging on the ground.

  ‘My car …’

  More dents and a huge scrape down the driver’s side.

  ‘Bloody King!’

  Logan grabbed the driver’s door and hauled it open, but there was no one inside.

  ‘I’ll sodding kill him!’ He poked the boot release and it clunked open. But when he checked, there was nothing in there either. Well, except for the pair of high-viz vests King had turned his nose up at.

  Logan slammed the boot shut and leaned on it, scowling down at the damage. The chipped paint. The huge dents. ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’

  Steel stuck her hands in her pockets. ‘You need a moment? Maybe have yourself a wee weep?’

  He marched around to the front of the car and tested the bonnet. ‘It’s cold.’

  ‘Aha!’ A nod from PC Greeny. ‘Been here a while, then.’

  Steel hit him. ‘Aye, thank you, Constable Obvious.’

  The lane twisted away to the left, the brambles blocking out whatever it led to. Logan took a couple of steps in that direction, then stopped and turned to Greeny. ‘Where’s your mate … Greg?’

  ‘Glen. He went up the castle.’ Greeny took hold of the Airwave handset fixed to his stabproof vest, pressed the button and talked into his own shoulder. ‘PC Low, safe to talk?’

  A tinny voice, amplified by the handset’s speaker: ‘Aye, aye, Greeny.’

  ‘Any sign of DI King?’

  ‘Give us a chance, min. Any idea how big Slains Castle is? Gar-sodding-gantuan, that’s how big.’

  Logan pointed off down the lane. ‘Where does this go?’

  A sniff from Steel. ‘Somewhere sharny, is my bet.’

  Probably.

  He waved for Greeny’s attention. ‘Go, back your mate up. But if you find something, you don’t take any risks, OK? Mhari Powell’s armed and extremely dangerous.’

  The constable nodded, then loped off, down the road towards the castle, talking into his shoulder again. ‘Hold fire, Greg, I’m coming to give you a hand …’

  Right. Let’s try this way then.

  Logan followed the lane, between the towering waves of spiny brambles.

  There was a big pantomime sigh, then Steel shuffled after him. ‘I could be home eating pickled onion Monster Munch and drinking ice-cold Chardonnay …’

  ‘Well, you’re not. Now earn your fish supper and call Control. I want a dog unit, firearms team, and anything else they can give us, ASAFP.’

  She rolled her eyes at him, then dug out her phone. ‘Aye, Shuggie? … Steel … Listen up, I’m after Dogs, Thugs, Guns, and anything else you can get me. Top priority.’

  They kept going, past the remains of an agricultural building that had succumbed to time and gravity.

  ‘Well I don’t know, do I? … Get your finger out and do it, you wee turd! … Thank you.’ She hung up. ‘Shuggie’s on it.’

  ‘He give you an ETA?’

  ‘If they floor it out here with lights and music? Half an hour? Maybe forty minutes?’

  ‘Great. That’s … marvellous.’ The sky was darkening, the shadows on either side of the lane growing deeper and bluer with every minute that passed.

  ‘So, you want to wait for them in the car?’

  ‘Yes.’ Logan pulled in a deep breath and sighed it out. ‘But if King’s in trouble—’

  ‘Aye, which he better be, after all this.’

  ‘If he’s in trouble, half an hour could be too late. Could be bleeding to death right now, like Haiden did.’

  The lane curled around a stand of trees, the canopy thick and dark above their heads.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought too.’ Steel pulled the corners of her mouth out and down, like an angry toad. ‘But see if he’s no’ dying when we find him? Bags I get first go kicking him in the nadgers till they pop out his lugs.’

  ‘After what he did to my Audi? Join the queue.’

  They emerged from the trees and stopped. A rundown house lurked straight ahead: two storeys of crumbling dirt-streaked granite in the process of being digested by ivy and brambles. House martins wheeled and curled out from the eaves, chasing the evening’s bugs in simulated dogfights. Elegant feathered arrows, out hunting in the dusk. No cars. No sign of life.

  The house’s dead windows stared out at them from its grey and green face.

  Steel grabbed Logan’s arm and pulled him to a stop. ‘Promise me you’ll no get stabbed this time.’

  ‘Promise.’ He pulled out a pair of blue nitrile gloves and snapped them on, dropping his voice to a whisper as they started towards the house again. ‘Just checking: you’ve got your pepper spray on you?’

  ‘Course I have. And no: you can’t.’ She snapped on gloves of her own. ‘Should’ve come prepared, shouldn’t you?’

  ‘Fine.’

  He picked up a fallen branch from the edge of the trees. About the size of a baseball-bat, only less elegant and more lumpy. Heavy enough to cave someone’s head in.

  Hopefully …

  42

  Logan hunched over and scurried across the rutted lumpy grass, battering-branch clutc
hed in both gloved hands.

  Steel hurried along beside him, keeping her voice down. ‘You want front or back?’

  Probably both as bad as the other, but at least this side was closer. ‘Front.’

  ‘King better appreciate this …’ She crouch-jogged away, around the side of the house and out of sight.

  OK.

  He slunk up the steps to the front door. Had to be half a dozen Yale locks there, the brass fronts all new and shiny … But the door wasn’t even shut – it hung open an inch, letting out the grimy scent of mildew and rotting wood.

  He nudged the door with his stick. It swung open, creaking and moaning on ancient hinges.

  The scent of decay got thicker as he stepped over the threshold.

  Dark in here. Shockingly enough, what with it being after sunset.

  Should’ve brought a torch, you idiot.

  Yeah, well it was too late for that. He’d have to improvise.

  Logan dug his phone out and opened the torch app. Swept its pale grey glow around the grubby hallway. Not great, but it would have to do.

  He crept forward.

  A floorboard creaked under his feet.

  God, it was manky in here: the whole place filthy and crumbling. Holes in the floorboards, the foul black Tic-Tac shapes of rat droppings scattered along the skirting. Drifts of leaves had blown in through the broken windows, gathering in the corners like trolls. What was left of the wallpaper peeled off in sagging curls. Dry and brittle after the hottest June on record.

  He peered through a hole in the wall to what must have been the kitchen – collapsing units and curling linoleum. No King.

  OK, try the open doorway on the right.

  It led into a bedroom. Childish drawings scrawled their way across the walls in ancient crayon, a sagging metal-framed double bed rusting against the wall, its mattress little more than decaying skin and spring bones. No King.

  Logan turned back towards the hall and a thundering clatter erupted in his face. Forcing him backwards. Stumbling. Battering down against the ancient floorboards, hands raised in self-defence, heart thudding like a blowout on the motorway, phone skittering away.

  The house martin squeaked, wings crackling as it did a circuit of the gloomy room, then swooped out through the broken window.

  Oh God …

  He shuddered, forcing his breathing to slow down. ‘Bloody hell.’

  It was only a bird. Not Mhari Powell with her dirty big knife.

  Still alive.

  He pushed himself up to his knees. Then his feet. Pulse pounding at the base of his throat as he bent to pick up his phone. Cracks spidered out from one corner, reaching across the screen. ‘Wonderful.’ Because the car getting ruined wasn’t bad enough. Things had to get worse.

  He crept into the hall again. Opened the door to the kitchen, just in case. Still no King.

  A filthy bathroom at the far end.

  Stairs – the treads rotten and blistered as they reached up into the darkness. Sod that. Besides, there was no way King had climbed them. Anything heavier than a small terrier would probably go straight through the wood and crash down into the basement. Plus: no footprints in the dust.

  Which left the door at the end of the hall. Only this one was closed.

  Logan stuffed his cracked phone in his pocket, raised his battering-branch, and reached for the handle. Took another deep breath.

  In three, two, one …

  He threw the door open and charged inside.

  A cloud of bluebottles growled into the air as he staggered to a halt in the middle of what must have been the living room. Maybe ‘living’ was the wrong word for it. A collection of five chest freezers lurked in the dark, little green lights down by the base of the units showing that they were on, accompanied by a low gurgling hummmmmmmmm.

  Logan dug out his phone again and played its wheezy glow across the chest freezers. They all had one of Mhari’s horrible messages spray-painted on them. The only one not switched on was ‘WALLACE’.

  The room’s windows looked out over the cliffs to the North Sea, everything reduced to shadows and silhouettes as the night grew. The air warm, and … sickly, smelling of hot metal and rancid meat.

  No King.

  One by one, the flies settled onto the blood-smeared lid of the freezer marked ‘JUDAS’. It wasn’t the only freezer with stains on it, but the blood on ‘THREE MONKEYS’, ‘THE DEVIL MAKES WORK’, and ‘SPITE’ had dried to dark muddy brown. ‘JUDAS’ shone a fresh bright red.

  Logan stepped towards it and his foot skidded forward.

  Aaaaaaa …

  He braced himself, arms out, swinging them to keep upright.

  Lurched to a stop. Then stared down at whatever it was he’d stood in. It glittered in a wide puddle that stretched from here to the base of ‘JUDAS’. Yeah, that was definitely blood.

  ‘Jesus.’

  Every fridge freezer except for ‘WALLACE’ was padlocked, but for some reason ‘THE DEVIL MAKES WORK’ and ‘SPITE’ had chains wrapped around them too – an extra brass padlock securing each in place. As if there was something in them that Mhari really didn’t want getting out.

  Logan inched his way closer.

  Closer.

  Bluebottles staggered through the fetid air, buzzing around his head, glittering in the phone’s glow.

  Closer.

  He licked his lips.

  Closer.

  Reached for the chain and—

  A pale face appeared in the broken window behind the freezer, ghostly and horrible and it screamed at him and he screamed back and they both flinched away. Then Steel clicked on a wee torch and shone it through the window. ‘You trying to give us a heart attack?’

  ‘Don’t do that!’

  ‘Nearly crapped myself, there …’ She puffed out a breath and lowered her torch. ‘Kingy’s no’ out here.’

  Logan looked around the room again: the chest freezers with their spray-painted words. ‘Think I might have found Professor Wilson, Councillor Lansdale, and Scott Meyrick.’ He leaned on ‘THE DEVIL MAKES WORK’ and frowned at her through the window. ‘We’re going to need a whole heap of SE techs to—’

  A something thumped into the lid beneath his hands and he flinched away.

  Steel let out another wee shriek. Then, ‘What?’

  Holy buggering hell. Logan backed away from the chest freezer; there was someone in there. Someone—

  His left foot hit something and he staggered again, nearly crashing down into the puddle of blood. Whatever he’d stepped on, it clanged and rattled against the floorboards.

  Another thump from ‘THE DEVIL MAKES WORK’. Then another. And another – the whole thing rocking and shaking. Muffled screams coming from inside.

  Logan grabbed the padlock holding the lid shut and twisted. Yanked at it. But it was solid. Break it. Break it off. He raised the battering-branch, swinging it overhead and down on the padlock, setting it rattling. ‘CAN YOU HEAR ME? THIS IS THE POLICE!’

  The thumping got louder. So did the screaming.

  Logan hammered at the lock again. Twice. Three times … The branch snapped in his hand, its top half spiralling away to thunk against something in the darkness.

  Sodding …

  He swept the phone’s half-arsed glow across the floor.

  There – the thing he almost fell over – the wheel brace from his Audi.

  Logan grabbed it and smashed it down onto the padlock. Didn’t do anything to the padlock, but the bit of fridge freezer it was attached to snapped clean off.

  The lid banged up as far as the chain would allow and a sliver of cold-white blared into the room as the internal light came on. A pair of eyes stared through the gap, breath seeping out in a cloud of pale grey. ‘HELP ME! PLEASE! HELP ME!’

  Professor Wilson – it had to be. No mistaking that plummy voice, even under all the panic.

  Wilson shoved the lid up again and again, rattling the chains, making the internal light pulse off and on. Causing the ro
om to strobe. ‘HELP ME!’

  The living room door banged open again and Steel marched in. ‘What the bloody—’

  Logan pointed the wheel brace at her. ‘Switch them off! Switch them all off.’

  ‘GET ME OUT OF HERE!’

  He stared at the chain, then at the next chest freezer in line: ‘SPITE’. It was padlocked too.

  Steel dropped to her knees, torch clasped between her teeth as she fumbled about behind ‘THE DEVIL MAKES WORK’.

  Logan marched over to ‘SPITE’, tightened his grip on the wheel brace.

  ‘NO! DON’T LEAVE ME!’ Wilson’s voice cracked on the last word. ‘Get me out!’

  He battered the lock twice, denting and deforming it. But the third go snapped the padlock off. Logan yanked the lid up as far as the chain would let him and the internal light bloomed its hard white glow. Difficult to see what was inside, because of the angle, but the interior was smeared with more dried blood. ‘Hello?’

  Professor Wilson broke into sobs. Getting quieter and quieter, as if he’d used up the last of whatever he had left. ‘Please! Please … get me … get me out … of here.’

  Was that groaning coming from inside ‘SPITE’? Difficult to tell with Wilson making all that racket, but it definitely sounded like groaning.

  Logan grabbed the fallen padlock and wedged it into the gap – propping the chest freezer’s lid open.

  Then turned to ‘JUDAS’.

  No chain on this one, just the padlock. He battered it off and threw the lid open.

  The internal light burst out into the gloom. Logan shielded his eyes, peering inside. Swore.

  Detective Inspector King lay naked in the bottom of the chest freezer, curled up on his side, covered in blood.

  Oh God …

  She’d killed him.

  Mhari Powell had killed Detective Inspector Frank King. Dozens and dozens of flat round nailheads glittered in the light, each one sticking out of King’s flesh on a short metal stalk. And they were everywhere: hammered into his arms, legs, chest, head. One poking out of his closed left eye.

  ‘Get me out, get me out, get me out.’

  A faint curl of white fog oozed out from King’s bloody lips.