Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

Callum sniffed. ‘Here come the lies.’

He shifted his cheap plastic chair closer to the monitor. A line of little microphones, perched on the end of bendy metal sticks, poked out at him, each one dark and dead. Waiting for someone to flip the switch.

Franklin stood with her arms folded, leaning back against the door. About as far away as she could possibly get.

Yeah, well, couldn’t exactly blame her.

Emma Travis-Wilkes took a deep breath. The left side of her face had swollen and darkened. The bruises taking hold from where Callum introduced her to his fibreglass cast. A sticking plaster made a pale stripe across the bridge of her nose. ‘Having discussed the situation with my solicitor, I would like to make the following confession.’

Mr Slick patted her on the arm, voice almost too low to make out. ‘It’s OK: in your own time.’

‘I killed them.’

There was a pause, then Mother leaned forward. ‘Who did you kill, Emma? For the tape.’

She stared back. ‘All of them.’

Franklin gave a little whistle. ‘I genuinely didn’t think it’d be that easy. Expensive lawyer like that? Thought he’d make her “no comment” for at least an hour or so. It’s a bit of a let-down, to be honest.’

Callum didn’t move. ‘She’s lying.’

‘All of who, Emma?’

‘I killed the police officer in his car — I shot him once in the stomach and once in the chest. Then I went through into the library and shot my father. Once in the...’ She cleared her throat. ‘Once in the chest and once in the head.’ Emma stared at the ceiling. Gave a sharp, shuddering breath. ‘Then I went into the garage and tried to kill the other police officer, but he was too quick and overpowered me. I’m glad he did. I... wasn’t myself. I needed to be stopped.’

‘Hmph.’ Franklin didn’t sound impressed. ‘That’s the most half-arsed attempt to plead insanity I’ve ever seen.’

‘I see, I see...’ Mother patted McAdams on the shoulder. ‘Let’s try the photos, Andy.’

He dipped into a folder and came out with a handful of A4 printouts. Laid them across the table. ‘I am now showing Ms Travis-Wilkes exhibits nineteen to twenty-seven.’

Difficult to see what they were of, from up here — the interview room’s CCTV system wasn’t high-res enough to show more than a row of grey and pink blurs.

‘Do you recognise any of these, Emma?’

She licked her lips, then looked away. ‘I killed them too.’

‘Who were they?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘How many are they?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘You don’t remember how many people you killed, cut up, and kept bits of in your father’s freezer?’

‘No. I don’t remember. It was a long time ago.’

Mother picked up one of the pics. ‘That’s a human hand, right there, Emma. A human hand, severed at the wrist and put into a freezer bag. There’s even a date on the label: April fourth, 2015. That’s not so long ago, is it?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Here’s a bottom jaw, complete with lip, tongue, teeth, and part of the throat. November 2006. Who was he?’

Travis-Wilkes swallowed. ‘I don’t... Please.’

‘Here’s a severed head. We found it last week, behind some bushes in Holburn Forest. Do you recognise her ?’

Travis-Wilkes stared.

Strange How Much Can Change In Just One Week

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Dad, it’s everywhere!’ Emma jabs a finger at the kitchen worktops.

Tomato sauce. Everywhere .

He’s splattered it all over the toaster and the wall, making bloodstains down the units, scarlet puddles on the floor.

‘I told you I’d make you something.’

Dad doesn’t even answer, just sits there at the breakfast bar, eating his cheese and ketchup sandwich. Chewing as he squints at that morning’s paper.

‘Could you not have waited five minutes? Look at this mess.’

He picks a pen from his pocket and circles something on the front page.

‘Are you even listening to me?’

He circles something else, head on one side as if he’s a cat considering whether or not to pounce.

‘I said, look at this mess!’ She marches over and snatches the paper off him.

‘BODY FOUND IN CASTLEVIEW FLAT’ sits above a photo of an ugly, soulless block of flats. There’s another picture set into it — three people standing outside the building. A pretty black woman, a grey skeleton in a grey suit, and a man with a bruised face. He’s the one Dad’s drawn a circle around. Another around the name ‘DC CALLUM MACGREGOR (31)’.

Her father looks up at her. Then over at the blood-smeared kitchen units. Frowns. Stands. And stalks from the room.

Emma hurls the paper down. ‘I’LL JUST STAY HERE AND CLEAR UP AFTER YOU, SHALL I?’ God’s sake, he just gets worse . ‘DON’T YOU WALK AWAY FROM ME!’

She storms after him, through into the double garage with its fallout-shelter’s worth of antique tinned goods, jars, and all those sodding freezers.

Dad’s got one of them open, leaning in to rummage through the contents. Picking things from the deep-frozen depths and dumping them on the concrete floor. Tupperware boxes, freezer bags, carrier bags, lumpy tinfoil parcels thick with frost. They clatter and skitter away.

‘DAD!’

Nothing.

‘I swear to God, one of these days I’m going to get the shotgun out and blow your bloody head off. And then I’ll shoot myself. Who’ll look after your literary legacy then?’

He digs and rummages.

‘I’m not your skivvy, Dad, I’m your daughter .’

Then he straightens up. Closes the chest freezer. Places something on the lid.

‘LISTEN TO ME!’

He blinks at her. ‘Sophie?’ Then frowns.

‘No: Emma. EMMA! MY NAME IS EMMA!’

‘She was never as beautiful as you, Sophie.’ A grin. ‘But oh, how she screamed .’

Emma takes a step back. ‘OK...’

‘I can’t find my hat.’ He turns and walks back into the house, leaving her to clean up after him. Yet again.

‘God’s sake.’ She gathers up the nearest frozen chunks. Marches over to the freezer and stops. Stares at what he’s dumped on top of it as her mouth goes dry as a library shelf. ‘Dad?’

Oh Jesus... It isn’t, is it? It can’t be.

But it is.

The Range Rover growls into the forest car park, headlights raking the surrounding trees, turning their bark monochrome. Emma parks as far away from the entrance as possible. Sits there, trembling.

Her breath hammers in her lungs, sharp and shallow, blood thundering in her ears.

She licks her lips and glances into the footwell.

The carrier bag is rippled with a layer of white frost, just visible in the dashboard lights.

Get rid of it. Get rid of it. Get rid of it!

She stumbles out into the cold night air and scrambles around to the passenger side. Grabs the carrier bag like an unexploded grenade.

The plastic burns her skin, right the way down to the bone.

Get rid of it!

So she hurls it, as far and as hard as she can.

It disappears into the gloom... then cracks and thumps mark its progress down through a tree or a bush, finishing with a rattle and a thud.

Oh God.

She shuffles backwards, till the car’s warm bonnet stops her going any further.

A head. A human head.

There was a human head in the freezer, with the leftovers and never-weres.

Oh God.

Emma runs a hand over her face.