Stuart MacBride - In the Cold Dark Ground

The microwave dinners buzzed and hummed around in a circle.

‘Thought you didn’t allow drunks.’

‘Oh, he was very apologetic about it, but it didn’t stop him barfing everywhere.’

Buzz and hum.

She shuddered. ‘We had a cat once, soon as its shoulders started going you knew what was coming.’ Denise hunched her shoulders up and down a couple of times, then made ‘ ack ’ing noises. ‘All over the place. Couldn’t just stand still and throw up: much more fun to back away and make sure there was a big long line of the stuff.’

Buzzzzzzzzz...

‘Worst was when he got into the knicker drawer. Urgh... All over my thongs.’

Now there was an image to put you off your chicken curry ready-meal.

Hummmmm...

It’d be really nice to go now, but there wasn’t any room to squeeze past Denise and her pukey pants.

She produced a polystyrene cup and made some milky tea in it.

Buzzzzzzzzz...

Ding .

Denise picked up the tea then pointed at the microwave. ‘Grab those for me, will you? There’s a tray over there.’

He tweezed them out of the microwave with sizzling fingers, dumping them on a round brown tray that looked as if it’d been half-inched from a pub.

She turned and marched from the room, leaving him to follow.

What was it with women? Why did they all expect him to run around after them? Did he have ‘D OORMAT ’ printed across his forehead in two-inch-high letters only they could see?

Logan picked up the tray and followed her.

Denise produced a bunch of keys, flipping through them as they walked past the entry corridor and right, past the female cells, and through into the new bit where two rows of big blue doors stretched away in front of them. They each had a slide-down hatch, safety notice, intercom, and a little whiteboard mounted on the metal surface. Someone had scrawled prisoner warnings on those, like: ‘BEWARE !!! H E B ITES! ’, ‘D IABETIC ’, ‘S PITS ’, and ‘A LLERGIC T O W HEAT ’.

She stopped outside one marked, ‘N EEDS F EEDING U P ’ and slid down the hatch. Peered through the plastic viewport. Then unlocked the door. ‘Felix? How you feeling?’

A stench of mouldering garlic and dead mice oozed out into the cellblock.

‘You hungry? Bet you are. Got you a lovely cup of tea too.’

What looked like a mound of dirty laundry stirred on the blue plastic mattress. Then Felix rolled over.

His skin was a mottled grey brown, the wrinkles darkened with dirt. There wasn’t much hair on his liver-spotted head, but what he had was yellow and straggly. He blinked at them with rheumy eyes. ‘Hmmm?’

‘Come on, Felix, see what we’ve got for you? All your favourite foods.’

Thin trembling fingers reached for Logan’s tray, a smile cracking the skeletal face.

Logan put it on the blue plastic mattress next to him. ‘Watch, they’re hot.’

He dug into the chicken curry with a plastic spoon. Shovelling it into his ragged mouth.

Denise smiled. ‘There you go.’

Logan leaned against the blue strip, painted halfway up the wall. ‘Anyone exciting in tonight?’

‘Usual collection of Thursday-night drinkers. Couple of druggies in for possession. A lovely young lady, in the other block, stabbed her granny in the leg because she wouldn’t buy her a new iPhone.’ A sniff. ‘“Stinky Sammy” Wilson’s back again. Thinking of giving that boy a season pass.’

Felix polished off the last chunk of curry, licked the plastic tray clean, then started in on the all-day breakfast. Getting bean juice all over his stubbly chin.

‘What did he do this time?’

‘Cheese and bacon, same as every other druggy.’ She shook her head. ‘Doesn’t even make any sense, does it? Shoplifting cheese and bacon. Who’s going to buy a slab of gouda and a pack of smoked-streaky from a smackhead in a pub? You’d have to be mental.’

Beans and sausages and potatoes disappeared.

Logan glanced out into the corridor, with its rows of heavy blue doors. ‘What about Martin Milne?’

‘Ah yes. Mr Milne.’

Felix slurped the last of the breakfast from the tray and polished it with his tongue. Only the shepherd’s pie to go.

‘Giving you trouble?’

‘I can understand why someone gave him a spanking, put it that way.’ She turned back to their resident garbage disposal unit. ‘There we go, is that nice?’

Felix kept on shovelling.

‘Which one’s he in?’

‘Course it is. You eat up.’ Then up to Logan. ‘Number five. If you want to fall him down the stairs a couple of times, let me know and I’ll nip out for a fag.’

Logan raised an eyebrow.

‘Joking.’ A shrug. ‘Kind of.’

He stepped out into the corridor and wandered across the hall to the cell door marked ‘M5’. The whiteboard had ‘P AIN I N T HE H OOP ’ scrawled on it. Logan slid the hatch down halfway — until it clicked into the viewing position.

Martin Milne sat on the edge of his thin blue mattress, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. A shudder rippled across the shoulders, setting them quivering. He wiped a hand across his nose and stared at the silvery pink line it left on his forearm.

Then he looked up and round. Stared right back at Logan. Wiped his eyes dry.

Logan slid the hatch back up again.

Turned to go.

There was a knock on the other side of the door — three light bangs, muffled by all that metal. ‘ Hello? ’

Logan clicked the hatch into the viewing position.

Martin Milne stood on the other side of the little Perspex window, blinking at him with swollen bloodshot eyes. ‘Hello. You were there. At the house.’ He sniffed. Wiped away the tears. ‘Can I see him?’

‘See who?’

Milne turned his face away. ‘Peter. Can I see him?’

‘Don’t you think you’ve done enough, Mr Milne?’

‘I need to. They wouldn’t let me say goodbye.’ He leaned his bruised forehead against the window. ‘I just want to say goodbye.’

‘You want me to ask Detective Superintendent Harper if you can see the body of the man you killed? I can ask, but I know what she’ll say.’

‘I didn’t kill him. I...’ Deep breath. ‘I loved him.’ Milne cleared his throat. ‘About those photographs, at Pete’s place. My wife doesn’t need to find out about them, does she?’

‘They’ll probably be used in evidence.’

‘But...’ Milne looked up, straight into Logan’s eyes. ‘They’re not important. Pete liked to watch the slideshow while we... It’s not illegal . Everything was consensual. Everyone was over eighteen. If someone didn’t want their face on camera they could wear a mask.’ He bit his bottom lip. ‘It’d break Katie’s heart. Please ?’

Should have thought of that in the first place.

Logan shook his head. ‘It’s out of my hands. You’ll have to...’ Wait a minute. ‘Who? Who wouldn’t let you say goodbye?’

‘Please. I’m begging you.’

‘No, you said someone wouldn’t let you say goodbye. You weren’t talking about Detective Superintendent Harper, were you? Who wouldn’t?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Milne turned around and slid down the inside of the door — still visible in the convex mirror mounted on the cell’s ceiling. ‘None of it matters any more.’

OK...

Logan went back to the other cell, where Denise was collecting up all the licked-clean ready-meal containers and humming ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’. Felix was curled up on his mattress with his back to the cell, looking like a pile of dirty laundry again.