Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

Justin reaches up to take her hand. ‘I told you, he won’t hurt us ever again.’

‘Oh my God...’

‘We can be free .’

‘Where’s the phone? There has to be a phone. Where’s the bloody phone? ’

He points at the living room and she hobbles forwards. Peers around the door.

‘We can be free and we can live happily ever after, like in the stories!’

New Mummy limps inside.

The phone is on a little wooden table beside the television. All big and black and forbidden. She stumbles over and grabs the handset from its cradle. Works a shaky finger into the dial.

‘We can get a nice house at the seaside and go for walks and eat ice-cream and get a dog! Can we get a dog, Mummy? Can we get a great big—’

The slap sends him crashing against the wallpaper. He leaves a dark red smear of Father’s blood behind. Stands there, bottom lip trembling. ‘Mummy?’

‘I’M NOT YOUR MOTHER!’ Little bits of spit land on Justin’s cheeks.

‘Mummy?’

‘You helped him. YOU HELPED HIM KIDNAP ME!’

‘But I was scared and—’

‘You could’ve gone for help anytime, you could’ve called someone, YOU HELPED HIM!’

Justin shrinks back. ‘But... But we’re supposed to be together .’

‘GET AWAY FROM ME!’

Justin bites his bottom lip. Blinks back the tears.

Doesn’t matter how much the words hurt, the beating will hurt even more. Remember?

Only how could any beating hurt as much as this?

She goes back to the phone, sending the dial clicking around. Nine... Nine...

‘Mummy?’ He reaches for her. ‘Mummy, I—’

‘I SAID, GET AWAY FROM ME!’ She shoves him away with her good hand, hard enough to send him tumbling across the bloodstained carpet.

The knife is right there. Right at his slippy-sticky red fingertips.

Justin picks it up.

The sun peeks over the hills, turning the sky to blood.

The birds are singing, making sure everyone knows they’re awake and ready to do whatever it is birds do.

Sweat drips off the end of Justin’s nose as he heaves another shovel of soil into the hole.

It took a long time, dragging New Mummy out to the garden and into the hole Father dug for her. Then shovelling in some earth. Then hauling Father out and dumping him in there too. Then more dirt, till the hole is full up to the top again.

Probably should’ve dug another hole for Father. New Mummy wouldn’t like him sleeping on top of her for ever and ever. And maybe if she’d loved Justin, he’d have dug a new one for Father and she could’ve been all alone in the ground. But she didn’t. So he hadn’t.

If she’d loved him, they could’ve had a house by the seaside and a doggie and ice-cream and everything would be nice and happy and they’d sing songs and walk on the beach...

But she didn’t.

He wipes his soggy face on his dirty jumper.

Father’s lawn is all scuffed and flattened, with nasty red scrapes from here to the kitchen door. He’d have hated that.

And now Justin is all alone.

So in the end, nobody gets what they wanted.

He leaves the spade and trudges back into the house. Locks the kitchen door behind him. Tomorrow he’ll have to decide what to do, but for now he’s going to curl up in the Naughty Cupboard and sleep and sleep and sleep.

It’s been a busy day.

Callum jumped back into the car. ‘Nothing doing.’

Franklin scored address number seventeen off the list. ‘Three more to go.’

‘Two thirty-six Banks Road. Next right, then on to the roundabout and left.’ It was the same in every direction: bland grey houses for bland grey people living bland grey lives. Callum let out a sigh. Checked the list again. ‘Fancy some music, or something?’

‘Yeah, OK.’

They both reached for the knob at the same time: their fingers touching. Then flinching back as if they’d been burned.

‘Sorry.’

‘No, it was me.’ Franklin’s cheeks darkened.

Callum cleared his throat. Buzzed his window down a crack. Definitely getting hot in here. ‘Do you want me to...?’

‘I don’t mind.’

‘Cos we don’t have to, if you...?’

‘Yes. It’s OK.’ She kept her eyes fixed on the road.

‘Right.’ He reached out and clicked the radio on, getting a raucous banjo-and-bagpipe rendition of Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’ in return.

More grey houses went by.

The rain rained.

Franklin made a noise.

‘Did you say something?’

‘No. I was just... humming along.’

‘Right. Yes.’

And then Callum’s phone went off.

Oh thank God.

He pulled it out. ‘Hello?’

It was Mother: ‘ Please tell me you’ve got good news.’

‘Sorry. SEB are hammering six Creel Lane now, but going by the brining tank, Monaghan hadn’t been there for months. Maybe years.’

‘Damn it.’ A clicking noise, like someone drumming their nails on a desk. ‘Ashlee Gossard’s going to be dead by the time we find her, isn’t she?’

Of course she was. She was probably dead already. ‘There’s still houses to search.’

‘Gah...’ A sigh.

‘You OK?’

The street gave way to tiny detached houses with steep slate roofs, like a model village for gnomes. A miserable couple wheeled a pushchair through the rain. A bus sat at a bus stop: its driver had an OAP in a headlock, struggling with her in the gutter as the passengers looked on, cheering.

‘Anyway, there’s some good news: Gareth Pike has had a chance to think about the error of his ways, and he’s decided to identify the man he saw abducting your family. Isn’t that public spirited of him?’

A fire burst into life, right in the middle of Callum’s chest. ‘Who was it?’

‘He won’t say till I promise he’s definitely going to prison.’

‘So talk to the Sheriff again! Tell him Pike—’

‘Callum, Callum, Callum... Pike’s a paedophile, you caught him with a horrible video and got a confession. There’s no way he was ever not going to prison. Do you really think we’d let him walk free?’

‘But you had a thing from the Sheriff, at the prison, I saw—’

‘No, that was just a parking ticket. Should probably get round to paying that...’

More Noddy Toy-Town houses, then a community centre.

‘So...?’

‘None of the other teams have found anything, by the way. Andy’s running round like a mad thing — which is definitely not good for him — Dotty’s sulking, and God knows where John’s got to. Honestly, some days it’s like trying to get an angry ginger tom into a pair of Lycra cycling shorts.’

‘What about Gareth Pike?’

Franklin took a left at the roundabout, heading up towards the railway bridge. ‘Where now?’

‘Make a right, after the postbox.’ Back to the phone. ‘Boss?’

‘I’m sorry, Callum, but Gareth Pike will have to wait till we’ve done all we can for Ashlee Gossard. And don’t moan and whinge: you know as well as I do.’

He curled forward until the seatbelt cut across his chest. ‘We need to get it out of him tonight. Soon as he finds out he’s got what he wants — that he’s going to prison anyway — he’ll keep his mouth shut just to spite me. This is fun for him.’

‘We’ll get him, Callum. I promise. Now you get out there and you do your best. There’s a scared little girl hidden away somewhere, dying. Find her.’

The little old lady frowned out the back door as Franklin disappeared into the shed at the bottom of the garden. ‘Are you sure she’s all right in there? Unsupervised?’