Stuart MacBride - In the Cold Dark Ground

Logan shook. ‘Andy.’

‘Come, come.’ He turned, beckoning Logan to follow him as he stalked towards a curtain behind the desk. Pulled it back to expose a plain wooden door. ‘Tea? Or we have a rather nice coffee machine. It’s new. I think there may even be biscuits.’

Logan followed him through into a bare breezeblock room, with a small metal table in the corner, a kettle, fridge, microwave, sink, and a huge shiny chrome coffee maker. Posters lined the walls — displaying different brands of coffin with all the associated added extras.

‘Sit, sit.’ Andy pointed at the plastic chairs tucked under the table. ‘Now, tea or coffee?’

Logan sat. A heady whiff of pine air freshener pervaded the room, along with something much darker seeping under a door through to the rear of the building. ‘I need to arrange a funeral.’

‘I see. In that case, I think a cappuccino.’ He poked and fiddled with the chrome monster. ‘May I ask the name of the deceased and when they passed?’

‘Samantha Mackie. And it’ll be the day after tomorrow. She’s not dead yet.’

The eyebrow climbed higher up Andy’s forehead. ‘Sergeant McRae, we here at Beaton and Macbeth consider ourselves to be a very progressive firm, but we do draw the line at interring the living.’

‘It’s my girlfriend. Well, partner. Sort of. She’s been in a coma for years, they’re... we’re withdrawing life support on Friday. She can’t breathe on her own. So... Yeah. Friday.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Andy’s fingers twitched and clicked off one another. ‘And I took you back here . I’m so sorry, Sergeant McRae, please, let’s repair to the chapel of rest and I can—’

‘No. It’s OK. Here’s fine.’ Logan took a deep breath. ‘I need a black coffin with a red silk lining. And do you have anything with skulls-and-crossbones on it?’

The Sergeant’s Hoose sulked on the corner, diagonally opposite Banff station and a lot less impressive. Large patches of rough stonework poked through the crumbling render on the gable wall, one of the windows there still boarded up. Have to do something about that. The front was a bit better. Kind of. If you ignored the entire right-hand side with its sealed off doors and windows.

Logan switched the carrier bags to his other hand and dug his keys out. Let himself in. Dumped the carrier bags.

‘Cthulhu? Daddy’s home.’ He clicked the hall light on, took his soggy fleece off, and went to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Where’s Daddy’s little kittenfish?’

No reply. No thump of fuzzy paws battering down the stairs. No prooping or meeping.

‘Cthulhu?’

Nope.

Lazy wee sod was probably still asleep.

Logan picked up the mail from the mat, flicking through it on his way to the kitchen. Bill. Bill. Bill. You May Already Have Won!!! Donate To Charity Now! Buy A Hearing Aid. Do You Need New Windows And Doors?

He dumped the lot on the table and stuck the kettle on, then limped through to the living room while it groaned and pinged towards a boil.

The answering machine glowered at him with its angry red eye. He jabbed the button and a flat electronic voice growled from the speaker. ‘ MESSAGE ONE: ’ Then Helen’s replaced it, every word carving out a jagged chunk from his chest. ‘ Hello?... Logan, are you there?... Please pick up if you’re there... I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to end like that. I... ’ A sigh. ‘ Look, this was a mistake. I just... I wanted to hear your voice again. ’

Bleeeeeep .

His finger hovered over the delete button a moment too long.

‘ M ESSAGE T WO:’ A harsh, smoky voice gravelled out into the room. Steel. ‘ Laz? Where the hell are you? Why’ve you no’ called me— ’

Delete.

‘ MESSAGE THREE: Mr McRae? It’s Sheila here from Deveronside Family Glazing Solutions... ’

A soft meyowp came from the doorway behind him, then a small fuzzy body leaned into his leg with a thump — brown and grey and black stripes leaving hairy trace fibres on his damp Police-Scotland-Issue trousers. She wrapped her big fluffy tail around his leg, adding yet another layer of hair.

‘Where have you been then?’

‘ ...let you know that your new windows have come in. ’

‘About time, been waiting six weeks.’

He bent down and picked Cthulhu up, turned her over so she was lying on her back, white fuzzy tummy on display as she stretched out her arms and curled her big white feet. He rubbed her belly, getting a thick rumbling purr in return.

‘ So if you want to come in any time in the next week or so, we can get the invoice sorted out. ’

Bleeeeeep .

‘You wouldn’t believe how much money Daddy spent on a custom coffin today.’

‘ MESSAGE FOUR: Logan, it’s your mother. You know I don’t like talking to this infernal machine. Why on earth you can’t simply— ’

Delete.

‘Going to have to live on lentil soup and the cheap cat food for a couple of years. Sorry about that.’

‘ MESSAGE FIVE: Hello, my name’s Debora McLintock, Louise at Sunny Glen gave me your number. It’s my role to help families when the decision has been taken to end— ’

Delete.

‘ YOU HAVE NO MORE MESSAGES. ’

He played Helen’s message again. Then deleted the lot.

Samantha lay back on the couch with her legs across Logan’s lap. ‘Any good?’

He frowned up from the book. ‘Put it this way: JC Williams is no MC Beaton. PC Munro and the Poisoner’s Cat ? Nothing but a half-baked Hamish Macbeth rip-off.’ Logan sniffed. ‘She’s only getting media attention because she’s a local author. If this wasn’t set in Banff, no one would touch it with a sharny stick.’

‘So don’t read it then.’ She dragged her fingers through her hair, working a chunk of it into a scarlet plait. ‘Or at least stop moaning about it.’

‘I mean, listen to this: “Och, hud your weesht,” said PC Robbie Munro dismissively, “the lad’s clearly been poisoned. His tongue’s all black and that always happens when someone’s given arsenic.”’ Logan lowered the book. ‘Which is utter bollocks. The only way you can tell someone’s taken arsenic is with a blood toxicology screen.’

His left foot rested on a pillow on the coffee table, a bag of not-so-frozen peas balanced on the ankle. He stretched the joint out, flaring his toes. Ankle was a bit numb from the cold, but it was better than the throbbing ache. And at least the swelling was going down.

Samantha wriggled her legs. ‘You know, you don’t have to live on lentil soup. Soon as I’m gone there’ll be no more care-home bills to pay.’

‘And who the hell poisons people with arsenic? It’s not the eighteen nineties: do you have any idea how difficult it is to get hold of arsenic these days?’

‘Rat poison.’

‘Thought that was warfarin?’

‘Not all of it. Maybe you could go on holiday or something? Head over to Spain and see Helen.’

Yeah, because the last time worked out so well.

He went back to his book. ‘I’m not talking about this again.’

‘And ant poison. Why not?’

‘Can we just leave it, please?’

‘And weed killer. What are you scared of?’

He poked the book. ‘I’ve read this sentence three times now.’

‘Come on, Logan, it’s not as if you don’t get urges. I’ve seen your internet browser history and—’

‘You’re not dead, OK? That’s why not.’ He thumped the book down on the coffee table. ‘You’re... I don’t know what you are. I don’t know what we are any more. You’re lying on your back, hooked up to all those machines in the care home, and I’m sitting here arguing with a bloody hallucination!’