Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

‘Aye, Aye?’

‘Brucie? Any word on my lookout requests?’

‘Hud oan, I’ll check...’

The office was empty, no sign of Dotty or Watt-the-Moaning-Dick. They’d been at the murder board, though: no mistaking Watt’s drunken-spider scrawl.

Didn’t look as if they’d made a whole load of progress. The column headed ‘OPEN TASKS’ had gained a bunch of actions allocated to the pair of them, more on the bottom waiting for someone to take them on. Mostly interviewing friends and family of the three amateur property tycoons. Franklin’s name appeared on the list only once: ‘ATTEND POST MORTAM ~ 10:30’.

God’s sake.

‘You still there? Aye: Benjamin Harrington, Brett Millar, and Glen Carmichael — no sightings. You could get yourself a warrant and see if they’ve used their bank cards?’

‘Thanks, Brucie.’ Callum hung up, then hauled himself out of his chair and over to the board. Wiped the word ‘MORTAM’ out and wrote ‘MORTEM’ in the gap. Chief Inspector Gilmore might have been putting on an act, but Watt wasn’t. He truly was an idiot.

‘And what exactly, my dear Constable Callum, are you up to now?’

Wonderful: Haiku Boy.

Callum corrected the spelling of ‘INTERVIEW COLLEEGES’. ‘I’m fixing the murder board.’

‘You keep away from that, young Callum. That’s for grown-ups.’ McAdams settled on the edge of Dotty’s desk. ‘While we’re at it: what time do you call this? It’s ten o’clock. Shift starts at seven a.m., not whenever you feel like it.’

‘You know fine well where I was.’

A grin. ‘Ah yes, Professional Standards.’ He put one hand on his chest. ‘They interview cops, who are dirty and bent, / To punish their sins, till they wail and lament, / Then cast them down low, in the dirt at their feet, / And I do hope they fired you, cos that would be sweet.’

‘Yeah, go screw yourself, Sarge.’ Callum chucked the whiteboard marker back onto Watt’s desk, then sank behind his own. ‘What happened with Dugdale, he cop to it?’

‘That’s no longer your concern, Constable.’ McAdams checked his watch again. ‘When the lovely DC Franklin gets in, you can give her a lift to the overflow mortuary. You’re going there anyway.’

Oh great .

He sagged back in his seat. ‘I am?’

‘Of course you are. As a minor character you’ve been farmed out onto a subplot: discovering which museums have lost their mummies. Mother’s even made you SIO . Isn’t that fun?’

‘Gah...’ Callum covered his face with both hands. ‘I hate you all.’

‘And they’re post-morteming your first mummy at half ten this morning. Don’t be late.’

‘No, don’t put me on hold, I just need to know if... Hello? Hello?’ A pan-pipes version of ‘Green Sleeves’ rattled out of the phone’s earpiece. Wonderful.

Callum printed the letters ‘D.I.C.K.’ next to the museum’s name. Third one in fifteen minutes.

There had to be, what, a dozen active murder investigations in the division right now? And what was he doing? Sodding stolen mummies.

The office door clunked shut.

Probably bloody Andrew McAdams, back for another gloat. Maybe he’d come up with another hilarious poem. Oh ha, ha, ha.

Dick.

Franklin’s face appeared over the top of Callum’s cubicle wall. ‘Where’s everyone else?’

He held the handset away from his head and frowned at it. ‘Is it just me? Am I hallucinating and this isn’t really an actual phone? Is that why I’m the only one who can see it?’

‘Somebody’s touchy.’

‘Yes, hello?’ A little voice replaced the pan pipes. ‘We’ve checked and we’ve never had a human mummy here. We’ve got a mummified dog and a stuffed polar bear in storage, if that helps?’

‘No. Thanks. You’ve been a lot of help.’ He hung up and stuck two lines through the museum’s name. Sat back and massaged his temples.

Franklin sniffed. ‘So?’

‘So what ?’

‘So where is everyone?’

He pointed at the murder board. ‘Off interviewing Glen Carmichael’s mates.’

‘Ooh, there’s stuff on the board.’ She disappeared from view. ‘Wait a minute, how come I’m down to do the post mortem?’

Callum stood.

She was in front of the murder board, hands on her hips, frown on her face. ‘What, I’m stuck in the mortuary with a decomposing corpse while you’re all off interviewing people? Thank you very sodding much!’

He pointed at the list of tasks. ‘If you didn’t want to do it, why put your name down?’

‘I didn’t . None of this was on the board last night.’

Hmm... ‘You didn’t mark up the actions with Watt and Dotty?’

‘No. We ate the pizzas, then Mother told me to head off and not come back in till quarter past ten, as I’d been here till late.’

Lovely. So even though he’d been here three weeks longer than she had, Franklin got to call DI Malcolmson ‘Mother’ while he had to call her ‘Boss’. And she got a lie-in.

Franklin sniffed again. ‘What’s wrong with your face?’

‘Nothing.’ He picked his coat off the back of his chair. ‘Get your stuff, we’re off to the mortuary.’

The pool car slid along Camburn Road, following the edge of the woods. They made a thick blanket of green: leaves and bushes trembling in the rain. There were people in there, on the paths and tracks that wound their way between the trees — walking dogs, wheeling pushchairs, jogging. A wee girl on a bicycle...

Callum slammed on the brakes.

‘Aaargh!’ Franklin lurched forward against her seatbelt, both hands slapping onto the dashboard — bracing herself. ‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re—’

‘Just be a minute.’ He stuck on the hazard lights and scrambled out into the downpour. Flicked his collar up as he jogged between the puddles and in under the canopy of branches. Wiped the rain from his face. ‘Willow.’

Her dirty-blue anorak was frayed at the cuffs and shoulders, hood thrown back, gold ringlets stuck to her shiny face. Pink cheeks and Rudolf nose. ‘Sup?’

Raindrops pattered on the leaves above them, like a million tiny drummers. The occasional drip made it through the canopy, splashing into a puddle big enough to drown a toddler.

He cleared his throat. ‘Is your mum all right?’

‘Been waiting on you for ages, Piggy.’

‘Did Jerome come back and hit her again?’

Willow tilted her head on one side. ‘You perving on my mum?’

‘No.’

‘Why? What’s wrong with my mum?’

‘It’s OK, I’ll keep your name out of it. No one will know you told me who hit your mother.’

‘Get bent, Piggy. I ain’t no snitch.’ She balanced on the pedals, shoogling the bike from side to side to stay upright. ‘You got them toys for Pinky from the wee creepy guy with the pawnshop. Why?’

‘Because.’ Callum shrugged. ‘No one should have to pawn their kids’ toys just to stay afloat. No matter how much of a pain in the arse those kids are.’

She almost smiled.

‘Willow, your dad — the guy who broke your arm when you were four — what was his name?’

‘How come you always asking questions, Piggy?’ She pedalled around him in a slow circle. ‘Nosey, nosey, nosey: oink, oink, oink.’

‘Just interested.’

‘Always sticking your nose into other people’s stuff and that.’

‘Hey, it’s OK if you don’t know.’

‘Course I know .’ She did another lap. ‘You saying I don’t know?’

‘Lots of people have no idea who their dad is. No shame in that.’

‘Yeah, well I know: and I ain’t no snitch. But see if he ever comes back? I’ll break his arm.’