Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

She shifted, and there was child number three — a baby cradled in her arms, wrapped in a tatty Power Rangers blanket. Face a rounded pink blob, making snuffling noises.

A small child wailed somewhere behind her, sounding as if someone was removing its fingers with a blowtorch. Child number four.

The woman didn’t even flinch. ‘Shut up, Pinky.’

‘I redeemed the rest of the kid’s toys. They’re in the garden.’

Her hand reached through the gap between the door and the frame, fingers trembling. ‘Can I have him. Please?’ She licked her lips.

‘Look, all I want is my wallet back, OK? There’s no money in it anyway, it’s just a tatty old wallet that’s falling apart. Like the bear.’ He gave Mr Lumpylump a wee shoogle, making him dance. ‘It’s important to me.’

She blinked up at him. ‘I don’t have it. I don’t have any wallet.’

‘You could check, though? Ask your children?’

Behind her, the toddler wailed some more, as whoever it was turned the blowtorch on their toes.

‘They’re not here.’ She reached out until the frame and door dug into her arm. Straining for the manky teddy bear. ‘Please...?’

What was he going to do, hold a kid’s teddy to ransom?

Callum passed her the bear and she snatched it from him, yanking it back inside the house and slamming the door.

He knocked again. ‘Hello?’ Rested his forehead against the door. ‘Hello?’

Silence. Not even the wailing.

Great.

What was the point of trying to help people? Why did everyone have to be so... so selfish . And nasty. And horrible?

One last try.

He pulled an official Police Scotland business card from his pocket wrote, ‘IF YOU FIND MY WALLET, PLEASE LET ME KNOW’ on the back, and slipped it through the letterbox.

Probably be sod-all use, but what other option did he have?

Callum trudged back along the path. Clambered over the rusted gate.

‘Hoy, mister?’ A young girl’s voice, hard with defiance and a broad Oldcastle accent.

He turned.

The little monster from this morning. The one who’d swigged cider from a can. The one Dugdale had used as a human shield. The rotten wee sod who’d stolen his wallet.

She’d ditched the baseball cap and tracksuit top for a T-shirt with a vampire Womble on it, but not the attitude. ‘What you doing here, Piggy?’

He nodded at the pile of plastic things.

Her eyes widened. ‘Whoa! You got Pinky’s toys back?’ Then her internal coolometer must have kicked in, her grin turned into a bored expression and a shrug. ‘Yeah, so?’

‘Swap you for my wallet.’

‘Ain’t got no wallet, do I? Chucked it.’

His whole face crumpled. ‘Oh for...’ What was the point? Of course she chucked it, with the credit cards cut up, why would she hold onto it? Wasn’t as if there was any cash in there. His shoulders drooped. ‘Sodding hell.’

‘Don’t know what you’re greetin’ about. Just a crappy old wallet, innit?’

‘It was my father’s. Only thing I’ve got of his.’

‘Yeah?’ She spat into the weeds. ‘Well, my dad broke my arm then ran off with one of mum’s friends.’

‘ Mine disappeared when I was five.’

‘I was four .’ Always had to have the last word, didn’t she? A competition for who had the crappiest childhood.

‘Well I grew up in a care home. Beat that.’

Aha, she couldn’t, could she. At least she had a mother. Though going by the bruised face, her mum’s taste in men hadn’t improved any.

He narrowed his eyes. ‘It’s Willow, isn’t it?’ At least, that was what her wee brother had called her when she was kicking three shades out of Dugdale’s head. ‘Any idea who’s been hitting your mum?’

Willow’s back stiffened. ‘I ain’t no snitch, Piggy.’

‘Course not.’ He produced another business card, stuck his mobile number on the back, and laid it on top of the wall. ‘But if you’re worried about her or anything...’ A shrug. ‘You know.’

The lace curtains twitched open, and there was Willow’s mum, standing with a toddler on one hip. She had the tatty old teddy bear clutched to her chest like a bible.

Not the kid’s bear, hers. Pawned to pay for food, or rent.

How depressing was that?

Callum climbed in behind the wheel. Frowned. Shook his head. Then started the car.

Franklin stared at him. ‘Well?’

‘No idea.’ He pulled away from the kerb, keeping one eye on the rear-view mirror.

The little girl stood and watched them all the way to the corner, then disappeared from view.

‘This was all for your stupid wallet, wasn’t it?’

He pulled out his Airwave, poking at the buttons with one hand as they navigated their way back towards the real world. ‘Control? Can you do a PNC on a Ms Brown, forty-five B Manson Avenue, Kingsmeath? See if anyone’s been bothering her.’

‘Aye, will do. Hang on.’

‘Thanks.’ He stuck the handset on the dashboard, took them out past a dilapidated community centre — doors and windows boarded up with damp-swollen chipboard — and onto Montrose Road. Pottering along behind a Fiat Punto barely doing twenty miles an hour.

‘For God’s sake, at least put the blues-and-twos on.’ Franklin reached for the button mounted on the dashboard, marked, ‘999’.

Callum slapped her hand away. ‘Are you off your head?’

‘We’re going to be late!’

‘You press that button and the dashboard camera comes on.’ He pointed at the little rectangle of plastic mounted against the windscreen, hidden by the rear-view mirror. ‘And the GPS starts recording. And it all gets stored for the courts, or in case there’s an accident while you’re wheeching through traffic. Lights and sirens are for emergencies only , not because you’re in a hurry.’

She curled her hand against her chest, as if he’d stabbed it with a fork and scowled at him. ‘Where is it then? This magical wallet?’

A stone settled in his stomach, cold and heavy. ‘They threw it away.’

‘Waste of sodding time.’ She checked her watch again. ‘Thirty-six minutes to get back to Division Headquarters and make up a murder board.’

‘Will you stop moaning on about—’

‘DC MacGregor from Control, safe to talk?’

He picked up the handset and pressed the button. ‘Go ahead.’

‘Aye, right: your woman’s a Miss Irene Brown, twenty-three years old. Done for possession four years ago, got off with a caution... Hmm... Looks like that’s the last known address for one Jeremy Barron, Jezza to his mates, AKA: Jerome Barton, James Broughton, and Jimmy Bishop. Bit of a scummer from the look of it. Assault, robbery, assault, aggravated assault, possession with intent, serious assault, two counts of sodding about in public with a knife.’ A clicking keyboard rattled out of the speaker. ‘Looks like she’s got a bit of a history with violent scumbags. Poor woman couldn’t pick a nice bloke out of an empty room if you Sellotaped a balloon to his forehead.’

Twenty-three years old, with four kids.

And a dirty big bruise on her face.

No wonder she clung onto her teddy bear like that.

Her daughter, the horrible Willow, had to be at least seven years old, so that meant Miss Irene Brown must have been about sixteen when she’d had her.

What a life: trapped beneath a landslide of pregnancy and violence.

Callum tapped his fingers on the handset’s plastic case. ‘Do me a favour: put a grade one flag on the house, OK? Just in case this Jerome Barton comes back again.’

‘Pfff, can’t promise anything, but I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Thanks.’ Callum slipped his Airwave back in his jacket. Took a left at the roundabout and onto the Calderwell Bridge.