A Song for the Dying

by Stuart MacBride

  Fire and Brimstone.

  Good job the gate was chained shut.

  Babs sucked her cheeks in and raised an eyebrow. ‘Any chance he’s not in?’

  BANG.

  ‘He’s in.’

  ‘Good. No point copping a sicky to come rattle some scally, only to find he’s not there.’ She frowned up at the razor wire. ‘Can’t go over. Have to go through. Come on, Crowbar Boy.’

  BANG.

  Yeah… Maybe not. ‘That chain’s the only thing between them and us.’

  Babs lowered the sawn-off shotgun till it was at waist level. ‘Don’t you worry your pretty little head, Mr Henderson. Me and Thatcher will look after you.’

  I lifted the crowbar, slipped the curved end in between the padlock and the hasp. Hissed out a breath. Bob the Builder was just sitting there, on the back seat. He’d probably like to help. Certainly it’d be a hell of a lot safer with him on our side. But that would make Babs a witness – yes, Officer, now you mention it, I did see Mr Henderson with an illegal handgun. And when Mrs Kerrigan turned up with her face blown off…

  Yeah, maybe not.

  I pointed back towards the Suzuki. ‘Alice, get in the car.’

  The chain rattled as a huge furry body slammed into the other side of the gate.

  ‘Are you sure we shouldn’t just—’

  ‘Car. Now!’

  She fumbled with her keys and scrambled inside. Slammed the door behind her. Thumbed the locks down. Stared up at me with wide eyes.

  I turned back to the gate. Deep breath. ‘Right, on three. One. Two. Th—’

  A harsh voice cut through the night. ‘FIRE! BRIMSTONE! SHUT UP, YOU WEE BUGGERS, OR I’LL SKIN YOU ALIVE!’

  Framed in the gap between the gates, the two dogs froze: mouths hanging open, tongues lolling over jagged teeth, muscles in their haunches twitching. Then they turned their heads and looked back into the scrapyard.

  A tall, thin man, wearing nothing but a pair of torn jeans padded out of the shadows. Bottle of Glenmorangie in one hand, a huge meat cleaver in the other. His chest and arms were smeared with scarlet and black, more blood on his jeans and bare feet. Scars criss-crossed his torso – some old and pale, others angry red-and-purple – stretched tight across muscle, the skin like tanned leather between the gore. A mane of dark hair reared up from his lined forehead, a grey moustache covering his top lip. Hooded eyes, narrow as stab wounds. A face carved from granite and other people’s pain.

  He bared his teeth and whistled.

  The dogs loped off to join him, silent and compliant.

  Babs lowered her shotgun, one side of her mouth twisted up. ‘He’s a lot … better looking than I imagined.’

  Never thought I’d be happy to see Wee Free McFee.

  20

  Wee Free padlocked the gate shut behind us.

  Alice tugged at my sleeve, her voice low as the dogs prowled silently around us. ‘It’s like something out of a horror movie…’

  The junkyard was a dark maze of partially crushed cars, stacked into monolithic blocks; mounds of scrap metal; and a sagging Cheops of washing machines, cookers, and fridge freezers.

  A shipping container sat in the middle, surrounded by these towering piles, ‘THE CHAPEL’ painted in chipped white on the side. It was bolted onto a ramshackle collection of two caravans, an ancient Oldcastle Transportation Company bus – sitting on six flat tyres – and the boxy bit off the back of a Transit van. All stitched together with more sheets of rusting corrugated metal. Strings of multi-coloured fairy lights hung in drooping lines, marking out a two-storey-high crucifix, looming over everything. Twinkling red and yellow, with all the festive welcome of an infected wound.

  Home sweet home.

  Wee Free wrenched open a wooden door set into the container’s wall, and lurched inside, the cleaver screeching along the rust-streaked metal.

  Fire and Brimstone squeezed past him, feet scrabbling on the linoleum, and Wee Free looked back over his shoulder at me, top lip curled, showing off those little white teeth. Now he wasn’t shouting any more, his voice was quiet. Well-spoken. Bordering on posh. ‘You’ll have had your tea.’

  Babs slipped Thatcher through a couple of Velcro straps fixed to the front of her stab-proof vest, the gun nestling against her stomach. ‘Actually, I wouldn’t mind a coffee if—’

  ‘We’re fine.’ I ignored the glower that got me. ‘We need to talk to you about Jessica.’

  Wee Free’s back stiffened for a moment. Then he grunted, took a swig from his bottle of whisky and marched away down the hall.

  Inside, the shipping container’s walls were hung with striped wallpaper, slowly fading to a uniform filthy grey, darkened by patches of mould. A saggy brown sofa squatted in the middle of a Turkish rug – surrounded by drifts of paperbacks, newspapers, and beer cans – facing a small TV propped up on a stack of tyres. More books lined the walls, some in bookcases, but most just piled up in heaps.

  The coppery smell of raw meat filled the place, so thick I could taste it.

  Wee Free prowled straight past the sofa, towards the back of the container where a light bulb dangled from a cord above a wooden table covered in sheets of newsprint. The paper was clarted in blood. A large chunk of meat – about the size of a small child – sat on a crumpled patch of dark red. Whatever it was, there was no skin on it, just thick veins of white fat. He took another swig of whisky, then slammed the cleaver into the meat, hacking a chunk off the end.

  Fire and Brimstone padded around his bare feet, eyes on the table, mouths open.

  The container’s metal floor was a patchwork of rust and scuffed paint. It rang every time my crowbar-walking stick clanged against it, like the toll of a funeral bell.

  Alice clasped her hands in front of her. ‘Your home’s very … distinctive.’

  Wee Free gave her a tombstone smile. Drew the cleaver’s edge along the chunk of raw meat, carving off a thin slice. ‘What’s your name, girl?’

  ‘Dr Alice McDonald. This is Ash Henderson, and that’s Officer Crawford.’

  He took the slice of meat and tossed it over the edge of the table.

  The dogs scrambled forwards, jaws snapping, one of them grabbing it just as it slapped against the metal floor, leaving the other to lick up the smear of blood it left behind.

  Wee Free transferred the cleaver to his left hand, and stuck the right one out. The smile died. ‘William McFee.’

  Alice looked down at the blood-smeared fingers – scarlet and brown, flecked with clots of black. Swallowed. Shook his hand.

  Then he offered it to me.

  The palm was sticky, the fingers cold and slick, leaving smears of red on my skin. He squeezed, making my knuckles groan. I squeezed back. Kept my teeth gritted and my face dead till he let go and moved on to Babs.

  I adopted the Standard Police Officer’s Bad News Pose: feet shoulder-width apart, hands behind my back. ‘Mr McFee, we have reason to believe your daughter, Jessica, has been—’

  ‘She’s a whore.’ His mouth turned down. ‘Fornicating with that Godless … Dundonian.’ The cleaver battered down into the meat again. ‘Dishonouring her father in his twilight years. Turning her back on the Lord.’ He bared his teeth at the bottle, daring it to contradict him. ‘Bitch is no daughter of mine.’

  ‘Have you heard of the Inside Man?’

  Wee Free stared at me for a beat, then carved off another slice. Only he didn’t toss this one to the dogs, he bit it in half. Chewed. Knocked back another swig of whisky. ‘Then it’s God’s judgement. He’s punished her for her sins. He punishes us all, in time.’

  Something wet brushed my right hand and I flinched – couldn’t help it. One of the Alsatians was right beside me, sniffing my stained fingers. No idea if this one was Fire or Brimstone, but it was massive. Its wedge-shaped head moving back and forth, muscles rolling beneath the broad hairy back as it shifted from side to side. Ears forward.

  ‘The bitch des
erved to die.’ He turned the cleaver, pressed the blade against his chest – in amongst the other scars – and drew it slowly from left to right. Nothing happened for a heartbeat, then blood welled up along the line, spilled over the edge of the cut and trickled down his skin. A sigh shuddered free from his lips.

  Alice opened her mouth an inch, then shut it again. Looked at me. Then back at the line of scarlet dripping its way down his chest. ‘Actually, she’s not dead, well probably not, I mean she might be, but the other women abducted by the Inside Man were kept for at least three days before they were dumped, so there’s every reason to believe she’s still alive—’

  ‘She’s not dead? How can she not be dead? Of course she’s dead, it’s God’s judgement.’

  The Alsatian’s tongue rasped against the back of my hand, warm and slippery. Tasting me…

  Stay perfectly still.

  Alice cleared her throat. ‘Well, she might be, but there’s a very real chance she’s still—’

  ‘You saying she’s beyond God’s judgement? That what you’re saying?’ He carved off another slice, the knuckles of his hand white around the cleaver’s handle. Voice low and cold. ‘You saying she’s above God?’

  ‘I didn’t—’

  ‘No one’s above God. No one!’ The cleaver slammed into the meat.

  Alice squeaked and backed up a pace.

  The dog stopped licking my hand and growled, hackles rising, teeth bared.

  Babs put a hand on Thatcher’s stock. ‘Easy now.’

  I inched away from the Alsatian. ‘All right, let’s all calm down. Dr McDonald didn’t say anything about God, she just said—’

  ‘No one’s above God’s judgement. NO ONE!’

  Growling, snarling.

  Babs pulled Thatcher out and pointed her at Wee Free’s face. ‘Time to put the knife down, Mr McFee.’

  I nodded. ‘Let’s all just calm down, OK? We can talk about it.’

  Babs clicked off the safety catch. ‘No need to get uncool. We’re cool, aren’t we, Mr McFee? Cool?’

  ‘“Hold not thy peace, O God of my praise; for the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me: they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.”’ Getting louder with every word.

  ‘That’s not cool, Mr McFee. That’s another way of saying, “Shoot me in the face, please.”’

  He snatched a sheet of newsprint from the table. The front page of the Telegraph was half obscured with blood, the headline: ‘SERIAL KILLER STRIKES AGAIN’ above a big photo of an SOC tent in the scrubland behind Blackwall Hill, inset with a camera-phone snap of Claire Young at some sort of Christmas do. Wide smile, shiny green party hat perched at a jaunty angle, snowman earrings with lights in them. ‘“They compassed me about also with words of hatred; and fought against me without a cause. For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer.”’

  The dog took a step closer, saliva dripping onto the metal floor. The other one emerged from beneath the table.

  I tightened my grip on the crowbar. ‘Come on, Mr McFee, put the knife down.’

  ‘Be cool, Mr McFee, do the sensible thing.’

  He padded out from behind the table. Threw the paper at his feet. ‘“And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love. Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.”’ Wee Free’s face was swollen and flushed, the sinews in his neck sticking out like cables, the cleaver snaking back and forth – glittering in the light of the bare bulb.

  Babs braced her legs. ‘Mr Henderson, Dr McDonald? You might want to back up a bit…’

  ‘No one is above God’s judgement!’

  I smashed the crowbar down on the table top. ‘All right, that’s enough!’

  And Fire and Brimstone weren’t just growling any more: they were coming at me.

  One second the world was full of fur and teeth and the next: BOOM! The shotgun kicked up in Babs’s hands, spewing out a cloud of smoke. One of the dogs slammed into my chest. We crashed backwards onto the floor, in a tangle of arms and legs, a ton of yowling Alsatian pinning me to the cold metal floor. My ribs burned, the whole right side of my body throbbed. Oh Jesus, she shot me…

  Alice screamed.

  The other dog leapt, and Thatcher barked again.

  The sound was deafening in the container, reverberating back and forth, a sledgehammer battering my skull flat as the animal crashed sideways into the table, yammering and whining.

  She bloody shot me!

  Alice stumbled over and shoved the Alsatian off my chest. Then grabbed my face. ‘Ash? Oh God, Ash, are you OK?’

  This was it: blasted at point-blank range. Bleeding out on the metal floor of the manky, cobbled-together, shanty-town house of a vicious nut-job, in the middle of a junkyard…

  Next to me, the dog wriggled then he and the other one were on their paws, scrabbling away, tails between their legs. Whimpering.

  ‘Ash?’ Alice’s face swam in and out of focus. ‘No, please, come on, you’ll be OK, won’t you, please say you’ll be OK.’ She glared over her shoulder at Babs: ‘You shot him!’

  The real pain would kick in any second now, soon as the initial shock faded. All that crap, all those deaths and pain, and this was how it ended. It wasn’t fair. Not like this. Not while Mrs Kerrigan was still breathing…

  Wee Free gaped at Babs as she broke Thatcher open and the spent cartridges flew out. She slipped in another pair.

  ‘You shot my dogs!’

  Clack, and the gun was closed again.

  Sprawled flat on my back, I checked for the huge gaping hole pumping my life out onto the rusty floor. Fingers trembling against my jacket… Maybe they could get a tourniquet on? Apply pressure, staunch the bleeding, get me to the hospital?

  Where was all the blood?

  ‘Ash? Can you hear me?’

  There was no way Babs had missed me at that range, not with a sawn-off.

  A gnawing ache clawed its way up and down my side, where the pellets had torn through my flesh, ripping my lung apart like…

  Hold on a minute.

  How could there be no blood? Not even a drop. Not so much as a hole in my jacket. How the hell…?

  Wee Free trembled, spittle flying from his mouth. ‘You shot my dogs! No one shoots my dogs but me!’

  Babs brought Thatcher up till she was pointing at Wee Free’s face again. ‘Drop the knife, Mr McFee, or you’ll find out how they feel.’

  I batted Alice’s hands away and hauled my way up one of the table’s legs. Struggled to my feet. ‘ARE YOU INSANE? YOU COULD’VE KILLED ME!’

  ‘Inside voice, eh, Mr Henderson?’

  ‘You shot me!’

  She grinned. ‘Rocksalt and tampons. Not exactly rubber bullets, but good enough at close range. Tell you what though: stings like an utter bastard.’ She waggled the gun at Wee Free. ‘Fancy a go? Or are we cool now?’

  He lowered the cleaver. Licked his lips. ‘They… Maybe God’s using this Inside Man to give my little girl a second chance. It’s a test of my faith. I’ll find her and save her for a higher purpose.’ A nod. ‘Yes, that’s it. It’s God’s will.’

  Alice stepped in close and wrapped her arms around me, her face pressed into my shoulder. ‘Don’t do that to me.’

  Knives and bullets ripped through my ribs as she squeezed. ‘God … please … get off…’

  ‘Sorry.’ One more squeeze and she let go.

  Wee Free placed the knife on the table, next to the meat. Picked up the whisky bottle instead and drank deep, then threw his arms wide. ‘Praise be to God!’

  Babs clicked Thatcher’s safety catch back on and tucked her away. ‘There we go. Now we’re all cool again, I’ll have that coffee. Three sugars. And have you got any decent biscuits?’

  21

  A lone firework streaked into the dark sky on a line of silver, then burst in a rattle of green and yellow.

  Wee Fr
ee took another draw on his cigarillo and trickled a line of smoke from his lips. The security light turned it into a ribbon of solid white. ‘She was always a pain in the backside. Lippy.’ He shifted his naked feet, elbows resting on the roof of a rusting VW Beetle. Where he’d cut himself, the blood had hardened into a scabby black line across his chest, the dribbles merging with the gore. ‘Never did what I told her.’

  Above us, the sagging fairy lights twinkled, drawing up towards that vast rusting cross. The rest of the junkyard lay thick with darkness, piles of dilapidated machinery looming around us like the bones of metal dinosaurs.

  ‘“Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”’

  I took a sip of my tea. ‘Doesn’t it also say something about thou shall not kill?’

  Another line of smoke got caught in the security light’s glare. ‘That was thrown out of court. Insufficient evidence.’

  The Beetle sat up on bricks. Both front doors were gone as was all the glass, the interior stripped bare except for the back seat where Fire and Brimstone lay, ears twitching, glittering eyes like polished marbles. Staring at me.

  ‘According to the hospital, Jessica was doing a split shift, clocked out at midnight. We found her handbag on Wishart Avenue. He probably followed her there.’

  In the shadows, over by the shipping container, Babs leaned against the corrugated metalwork, steam rising from her coffee, one hand on Thatcher’s stock.

  Wee Free took another drag. ‘I’ve read the papers. He slits them open, stuffs a doll inside, stitches them up again, then dumps them at the side of the road to die.’

  ‘Did your daughter say anything about strangers hanging around the dorms or the hospital? Anyone bothering her?’

  ‘You strike me as someone who’s let darkness into his heart.’

  Me? ‘You can bloody talk.’

  A shrug. ‘Like I said – I read the papers, I take an interest. If she’s alive, I want my daughter back.’

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to do.’

  The tip of his cigarillo glowed like a malignant orange eye. ‘Didn’t manage it with your own, what makes you think you can do it for mine?’