Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

At least it had stopped raining. Up above, a patch of stars glared down at them from a hole in the clouds. About as welcoming as a mortuary drawer.

Callum puffed out his cheeks. ‘Are you sure about this?’

‘It was just a rumour, remember? I’m making no promises.’

‘OK. Right. Only... you know.’

A small hatchback sat in front of the garage, its boot gaping open like a hungry mouth. And as they sat there, parked on the road with the engine idling, a woman in a flowery pinny and yellow rubber gloves lurched out of the garage with a big bag and fed the hatchback with it. Wiped her forehead on the back of her arm, then went back inside.

Shannon nodded. ‘We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.’

‘No, I do. But...’ He cleared his throat. Took a deep breath. ‘But it’s R.M. Travis. The man’s a hero to millions of kids, he can’t be a serial killer.’

‘I was listening to Radio Four the other day: someone’s started a petition to get him on the New Year’s Honours list. Can you believe that?’ The car’s wheels crunched on the gravel driveway. ‘They’ll be a bit embarrassed if Pike’s telling the truth. Arise, Sir Murdering Tosspot!’

Callum shifted in his seat. ‘Maybe Pike’s lying?’

A modern extension poked out from one side of the building — a low long box fronted with floor-to-ceiling glass. It was a private library, lined with bookshelves, crammed with books, lit by artfully placed downlighters and standard lamps.

God... To own that many books .

‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he was.’ Shannon pulled up outside the front door. ‘That’s the thing about people like Gareth Pike: lying’s like breathing to them. It’s a way of life. I don’t think Pike would know the truth if it clambered up his bumhole and took up clog dancing.’

Callum undid his seatbelt. Grimaced. ‘OK. We can do this...’

‘Of course, maybe Pike gave you Leo McVey’s name because he was protecting Travis? Maybe they go way back?’

‘You think R.M. Travis is a paedophile ?’

‘Wouldn’t be the first kiddy fiddler in line for a knighthood.’

Something deep inside his stomach lurched and gurgled. ‘Yeah, but...’ He hissed out a breath. ‘I loved his books, growing up. The home had a complete set. If it turns out he... you know?’

Shannon patted him on the shoulder. ‘Look at it this way, we—’

There was a knock on the driver’s window.

The woman in the pinny stared in at them, face creased and worried. Brown hair, greying at the roots. Bags under her eyes, going slightly jowly around the chin. Pale. As if she hadn’t seen the sun for years.

Shannon opened his door and she stepped back.

‘Can I help you?’ Voice brittle and sharp.

Callum climbed out. ‘We’re looking for R.M. Travis.’

She grunted. Then shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s late and my father’s not up to visitors. Please, he appreciates you reading his books, but he’s not well.’ She pointed down the drive towards the road. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got things to do.’

He produced his warrant card. ‘DC MacGregor.’

If anything, she went even paler. ‘What’s this about?’

‘Can I ask your name, Mrs...?’

‘Travis-Wilkes.’ She laughed, brittle and high-pitched. Wrung her rubber-gloved hands together. ‘And it’s Ms . Emma. Divorced, single, writer: seeks tall strong man for walks on the beach, cheese toasties, and vigorous lovemaking.’ She licked her lips. Cleared her throat. ‘Sorry.’ Pulled on a smile. ‘We get so many fans coming here. Well, not as many as we used to.’ A shrug. ‘It gets a bit much at times.’

‘You live here?’

‘As carer, nurse, archivist, biographer, and general dogsbody. You’ve no idea how much work’s involved in looking after someone else’s literary legacy. I haven’t written a single word of my own for years.’

‘We need to ask your father a few questions.’

The laugh sounded forced. ‘Good luck. He’s not having one of his better days.’ She brushed her fringe aside with the bright yellow gloves. ‘Half the time he thinks I’m my mother. The other half he hasn’t got a clue who I am.’ Emma pointed back towards the garage. ‘He switched off all the freezers last week. No idea why. You wouldn’t believe the smell.’

‘We’ll try not to take too much of his time.’

‘Wouldn’t be quite so bad if he didn’t have enough rubbish in there to survive a nuclear winter.’ Sounding more bitter with every word. ‘I swear on the Bonemonger’s grave, he hoards leftovers like some people hoard money. We’ve got pot roasts in there going back to Margaret Bloody Thatcher’s...’ Emma cleared her throat. Straightened her pinny. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t be talking about him like that. It’s been a long day.’ She sighed. Pulled on another smile. ‘Anyway, shall we?’

She snapped off her gloves, stuffed them in the pocket of her pinny, and unlocked the front door. Ushered them into a wide hallway covered in framed book covers — most of their titles barely recognisable in foreign languages: ‘ÖFFNEN SIE DIE SÄRGE’, ‘ZACZAROWANY KRÓLIK RUSSELL’, ‘LES MONSTRES QUI SONT VENUS DINER’, ‘EL CUBO DE BASURA MILAGROSO DE IMELDA’...

‘I need you to understand, his grip on the real world is... tenuous.’ Down to the end of the corridor and left. More book covers. ‘He goes off on these rambling discussions where he’s playing all the parts. Arguing with himself. I used to just let him get on with it, then I sat down and listened to what he was actually saying.’ She looked over her shoulder as they passed a big kitchen with gleaming work surfaces. ‘I was trying to get him to talk about his childhood, but he was going on about how the Goblin Queen was rebuilding her army in the depths of the forest.’

A door at the end of the corridor opened on the library. The comforting smell of books mingled with the chemical floral whiff of air freshener.

‘It was like he was writing another Russell the Magic Rabbit book. Only instead of battering it out on his old Underwood, he was living it all in his head.’

The bookshelves weren’t just around the outside of the room, they made islands in the middle of the space too, dividing it up into discrete areas. Some with armchairs, others with little tables.

How rich would you have to be to own something like that? It was like Heaven, Nirvana, and Jannat ul-Khuld all rolled into one. A Valhalla for bibliophiles.

‘So I started recording him. Sometimes it’s about Russell, sometimes it’s Imelda, sometimes it’s Justin and Arya. Sometimes new stuff, sometimes just retreads of the books already published. The only person he never talks about is Ichabod Smith, for some reason.’

Over in the far corner, at a desk piled high with books and papers, was the bent-over figure of a man. White hair circled a shiny bald patch speckled with liver spots. He was curled around a piece of paper, one arm shielding it — like a small child trying not to let the cheat at the next desk copy off him — scribbling away.

‘Sometimes I wonder if it’s because, writing the books, the characters and worlds he created are more real to him than what happens out here with the rest of us. They say people with dementia find it easier to remember stuff from fifty years ago than this morning. He remembers them instead.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Dad?’

The man at the desk kept on scribbling.

Emma lowered her voice. ‘Just don’t be surprised if it all goes a bit surreal. Sometimes he’s him, sometimes he’s one of his creations. He was the Bonemonger for nearly a week once. That was... disturbing .’