Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

Stubborn old git.

Callum sighed. ‘Fine, no hospital.’

‘Good. Now, where are we going? You’re both obviously headed out somewhere. Have we got a lead on Ashlee Gossard?’

‘I’m taking Callum home, before he gets himself properly fired.’

McAdams raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re taking him home? Are you two...?’

‘No, we are not.’

‘Well, that’s probably just as well, you have about as much on-screen sexual chemistry as a loaf of wholemeal bread.’ He clicked on his seatbelt. ‘Well, climb in, Constable MacGregor. I’ll give you a lift. No point getting a nice clean pool car all wet. You too, Rosalind: you can catch me up on the morning’s shenanigans.’

She pointed over her shoulder, towards the Divisional Headquarters. ‘Maybe I’d be better off—’

‘In you get, Constable.’

‘Yes, Sarge.’ She got in the front.

Callum slid into the back. ‘You sure you’re OK to drive?’

McAdams grinned. ‘Let’s find out.’ He cranked the engine, setting it roaring, then slid them down the ramp and onto Peel Place.

Some civic-minded soul had removed the traffic cone hats from the war memorial opposite, and given the three bronze figures Oldcastle Warriors scarves instead. The blue fabric hanging limp and dark in the rain.

‘Come on then, Rosalind: shenanigans?’

‘Callum’s brother Alastair’s alive, only now he’s calling himself Donald Newman, AKA: Donny McRoberts, AKA: Sick Dawg.’

McAdams slammed on the brakes and the Shogun slithered to a halt on the damp tarmac. ‘Really? Congratulations, Callum! That’s...’ He turned and raised an eyebrow. ‘Didn’t you pair arrest him yesterday for beating up his ex, sexually assaulting a police officer, making threats to kill, and possession of Class A drugs?’

Heat bloomed in Callum’s cheeks.

‘What a jolly family reunion that must have been. Still, at least you’ll know where he is for the next six to eight years.’ A wink, then McAdams faced forward again, driving them past the front of Division Headquarters.

A crowd of media people jostled by the main entrance, sheltering beneath umbrellas, doing pieces to camera and taking photos. Behind them were a group of protestors, waving placards with things like ‘BRING BACK HANGING!’, ‘FATHER-KILLING BITCH! and ‘YOU MURDERED THE MAGIC!!!’ More people drifted in off the street. By lunchtime there’d probably be a full-on lynch mob.

McAdams pointed. ‘It’s been on the radio all morning. Tributes to R.M. Travis, from all his celebrity chums. Someone’s started fundraising for a statue.’ A sniff. ‘Morons.’

Callum poked McAdams in the shoulder — all bones. ‘Your oncologist wants you to make an appointment.’ After all, why shouldn’t he share the misery?

‘Not this again.’

‘You need to start your chemotherapy!’

DHQ faded in the rear-view mirror, swallowed by the rain.

‘Have you ever tried it? No, didn’t think so.’ McAdams took a left, past a squat grey church and its peeling ‘THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE HIM!’ posters. ‘So don’t tell me what I’ve got to do. I’m not having another round of bloody chemo, and that’s final.’

‘Your oncologist...’ Callum sat back. Frowned. ‘Your oncologist told me you’ve not even started this course of therapy.’

‘It’s my life, and it’s my death too.’

‘But you were on the phone — you called from the hospital, wanting an update on the smokehouse searches. I heard your nurse in the background.’

McAdams flashed a smile over his shoulder. ‘Good, wasn’t it? I recorded four or five of them last time round. Now all I have to do is hit play and people don’t bang on about me not going to chemo. It stops Mother worrying.’

Not just a stubborn old git, he was devious too.

‘But you’re—’

‘Do you want to know what I do instead? When everyone thinks I’m strapped into my deathchair in the hospital getting poison pumped into my veins? I go and park outside the castle, or across the water by the golf course, or just a lay-by somewhere up on Blackwall Hill. I sit in my car and look out at the city. And I wonder if anyone’s going to remember me when I’m gone...’

A row of little shops went by, windows all dark, waiting for the morning to begin.

McAdams coughed again. Grimaced. Swallowed. ‘No one ever remembers the police officers, do they? Oh, if we cock something up it’s all over the papers: public enquiries, questions in parliament. Heads must roll!’ Right at the roundabout then left, drifting by the closed nightclubs, bars, and takeaways on Harvest Lane. ‘And if we actually catch the bad guy, do we get the credit? Do they bang on in the media about our thousands of man hours and dedication and genius? Do they hell. It’s all about the killer, isn’t it? How many people they murdered. What they did to the bodies afterwards. All the gory sensationalised details.’ He shook his head. ‘No one ever gives a toss about us.’

Franklin shifted in her seat. ‘That’s not true.’

‘Name a serial killer.’

‘Andrei Chikatilo.’

‘I’ll see Andrei Chikatilo and raise you Dennis Nilsen, Peter Manuel, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, and Harold Shipman. Name the police officer who caught any of them.’

McAdams pulled up at the traffic lights. Rain battered the Shogun’s roof. Outside, an old lady lumbered through the downpour, dragging a tiny terrier along on the end of its leash. The lights turned green and he turned, past a strip joint with ‘WE ARE HIRING!’ in the window.

‘No?’ He sucked air through his teeth. ‘How about this then: Jeffrey Dahmer. He’s properly famous. Never mind who caught him, name one of his victims. Just one.’

Right, onto the main road.

‘See, you can’t. All people care about is the killer. The rest of us don’t matter at all.’

Kings River lay just beyond the docks, swollen and dark, breakwater curling against the supports of Dundas Bridge.

‘Oh, one exception: if the victim’s famous. People care about them then. JFK, John Lennon, they get remembered. The rest of us are just footnotes in a true-crime book.’ He slowed for a small coughing fit. Then shuddered. ‘So Emma Travis-Wilkes will probably be famous for generations. A serial killer who murdered her bestselling-children’s-author father.’

Callum poked him again. ‘She isn’t a serial killer, it’s all lies.’

‘Do you really still believe the popular press and prurient public care about the truth, Constable? How sweet. And where do you stand on the topics of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?’

The Shogun growled its way over the bridge.

‘You are such a dick.’

‘Oh, no doubt.’ McAdams gave a small, sour laugh. ‘You know what I did this morning? I went up and I sat in the barn behind Thaw Cottages. I shouldn’t have left Watt there...’

Franklin turned to him. ‘Mother says he’s out of surgery and they think he’ll be OK.’

‘Do they? Oh that’s good.’ He nodded. ‘That’s something.’

‘Of course he might have brain damage, but— Sod.’ She pulled out her ringing phone. ‘DC Franklin... Right... No, no put them through... Yes. Thanks.’ Franklin held the phone against her chest. ‘It’s the Land Registry Office.’ Back to the call. ‘Hello?... Right... Yes, hang on a second.’ She produced her notebook, pinning it against the dashboard. ‘OK... 14 Lehman Road, Blackwall Hill... Yes.’ Wrinkles appeared between her eyebrows. ‘How many others?... Can you text them to me?... Yes. Thanks... No, that’s great. Bye.’

She hung up. ‘According to the Land Registry Office, Paul Terrance Jeffries only owns one property — in Blackwall Hill. He inherited it from a Mrs Georgina Mason. But before that he was left another four houses from various old biddies. And guess who he sold them all to?’