Stuart MacBride - In the Cold Dark Ground

Logan let out a long slow breath. ‘Here we go.’

Steel squeezed his leg. Again.

‘Hoy!’ Samantha banged on the seat. ‘Hands off, you old bag.’

‘She’s only being nice.’

There was a frown from the passenger seat. ‘What? Who’s being nice?’

The Punto slotted into a parking space outside the admin wing. ‘Milne’s wife, Katie. She’s trying to be nice to everyone. Can’t be easy after everything.’

Steel took out her e-cigarette and had a puff. ‘With her husband shagging a dead bloke? Probably no’.’ She climbed out into the sunshine and had a scratch at her belly.

‘Gah, it’s like sharing a car with a Labrador.’ Samantha thumped back into her seat and folded her arms. ‘Scratching and fidgeting and fiddling with her boobs.’

‘You coming?’ He grabbed his jacket.

Steel bent down and peered into the car. ‘Course I am.’

‘Right. Yes. Good.’ He led the way to reception: a glass-fronted room with pot plants, watercolours, and a big beech desk.

The young man sitting behind it looked up as Logan entered and smiled. ‘Mr McRae, how are you today?’

‘I’m not sure yet, Danny.’

‘Ah, of course.’ He stood. ‘Please, take a seat and I’ll get Louise. Would you like a cup of coffee, or...?’

‘No. Thanks.’

‘OK then.’ He picked up the phone and had a muttered conversation while Steel stalked around the room, squinting at the paintings, hands behind her back, like a badly creased crow.

Samantha wound her hand into Logan’s. ‘It’s going to be OK.’

He just breathed.

Steel took his other hand. ‘How you holding up?’

‘I appreciate the gesture, but I’m fine.’ He shuffled his feet. ‘You don’t have to be here. You’ve got a murder to solve.’

‘Well Harper can rant and rave all she wants, some things are more important.’ She gave his hand a squeeze. ‘Couldn’t leave you to go through this alone.’

He squeezed back. ‘Thanks.’

‘You’re still not allowed to think about me naked, though.’

‘Urgh.’ He took his hand back and wiped it on the front of his jacket. ‘OK, now I’m going to be—’

‘Logan, hello.’ A woman marched into the room. Her bleached pixie cut curled across her forehead, cowboy boots clicking on the wooden floor. She held her arms out and the sunlight caught the linen sleeves of her shirt, making her glow like an angel. She wrapped him up in a hug. Then stepped back. ‘How are you?’

Why did everyone have to ask that? How the hell did they think he was?

‘Fine. I’m fine, Louise.’ It sounded better than: dead inside.

Samantha leaned in, her voice a warm soft whisper in his ear. ‘Liar.’

‘Now you’re sure you want to go through with this? Remember, there’s no rush.’

‘I know.’

‘OK.’ Louise stroked his arm. ‘If there’s anything that’s unclear, or you want to stop at any time, let me know. It’s not a problem.’ Then she turned to Steel. ‘You must be Logan’s mother. He’s told me so much about you.’

The wrinkles deepened across Steel’s forehead. ‘No! I’m no’ his mum , I’m his moral support. Nowhere near old enough, for a start !’

Louise’s smile slipped for a moment. ‘Right. Sorry. My mistake.’ Then she turned and gestured towards the door leading deeper into the building. ‘Shall we?’

The corridors were alive with the wub-wub-wub of a floor polisher and the noise of music coming from the rooms — each one playing something different. It blended into an atonal mush of sound, like a radio picking up multiple stations at once.

Men and women lay on their beds, some connected to machines, some breathing on their own. A couple propped up and strapped into armchairs, heads on one side, dribble soaking into their bibs.

‘Here we go.’ Louise held the door to number eighteen open and ushered them inside.

Samantha lay beneath the covers, an oxygen mask over her pale face. Her hair was almost all brown roots now, slipping into a faded scarlet only at the tips. A little dot marked her nose and another her bottom lip, more up both sides of her ears where the piercings had healed over. The tattoos stood out against her almost translucent skin, coiling up and down both bare arms — skulls and hearts, wound round with brambles and tribal spines. They looked so much blacker than they used to. As if they’d been leeching the life out of her all these years and were now ready to break free from the flesh.

Her cheekbones were sharp and pronounced, riding high on her sunken face. But the thing that really didn’t look like her was the big dip in her head, above the left ear, as if someone had taken a big ice-cream scoop out of her.

Louise placed a hand on Logan’s arm, turning him away from the bed towards the room’s other occupant. ‘Logan, this is Dr Wilson, he’ll be in charge of withdrawing Samantha’s medical treatment.’

A dapper man with no hair stuck a hand out. His chinos had creases down the leg you could shave with, denim shirt rolled up to the elbows with a pink tie tucked in between the buttons. ‘We’ll take good care of her, Logan. She won’t feel a thing.’

‘How does this work?’

‘We give Samantha a dose of morphine, wait for it to take hold, then switch off the respirator.’

‘So she suffocates.’

‘I know it sounds distressing, but she won’t be in any pain.’

At least that was something.

Dr Wilson folded his hands together, as if he were about to say a prayer. ‘Are there any questions you’d like to ask?’

Samantha’s chest rose and fell beneath the blankets, marking time with the hissing respirator.

‘Logan?’

Someone nudged him in the ribs. And when he looked around, Steel was frowning at him.

Her voice was soft. ‘You OK? Cos we can sod off home and do this some other day, if you want.’

Deep breath. ‘No.’ He reached out and took Samantha’s hand in his. The skin was dry and papery, cool to the touch. ‘It’s time.’

‘I understand.’ Dr Wilson nodded. ‘The procedure should—’

‘You’re not doing it.’

He pulled his chin in. ‘I know this is difficult, but I can assure you I’ve done this many times—’

‘You didn’t know her.’ Logan brushed a lock of hair forward on Samantha’s head, covering the dent. ‘It should be me.’

‘Ah...’ The doctor looked at Louise. ‘I’m not sure that’s such a good—’

‘She deserves that much. Not to be switched off by a stranger.’

Steel’s frown deepened. ‘Laz, you sure you want to do this?’

‘Doesn’t matter what I want: I owe her.’

‘Mr McRae, please. I think you should reconsider, it’s—’

‘You heard the man, Doctor.’ Steel stepped between them and held her arms out, as if she were breaking up a fight in a pub. ‘Show him how to do it, then off you trot for a nice cuppa tea and a chocolate Hobnob.’

The machines pinged and hissed.

Logan pulled the visitor’s chair from the corner of the room and positioned it alongside the bed. Sat in it. Hissed out a long breath.

It was a lot less crowded in here without Steel, Louise, and Dr Wilson. Just Logan and the two Samanthas — the one in the bed and the one in his head.

‘You sure you know what you’re doing?’ She settled onto the bed next to him, one hand on the dying Samantha’s leg. ‘Don’t want you screwing this up. I could end up with brain damage, and then where would you be?’

Another breath.

‘Don’t I look pale?’ She leaned forward and ran a finger around the dent in the body’s forehead. ‘And that was never flattering, was it? Oh yes, let’s hack a big chunk out of her skull to relieve the swelling on her brain. That’s a good look.’