Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

Justin’s not allowed to step on the stairs. If he puts one foot on the stairs something horrible will happen. Father will make sure of it.

So he doesn’t. He just stands there, with his face all swollen on one side and bits of stinky bird droppings and sticky blood on his hands. Looking.

New Mummy is there. She’s sitting on the dirt floor with her back to an old radiator — all rusty and lumpy edges. She’s got her knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around them, face buried in her yellow hair. Shoulders quivering as she cries.

New Mummy must’ve been bad, because she’s got no clothes on. She has to be naked and cold, because she’s been bad.

It’s like a lump of coal in the middle of his chest. You have to do what Father says. That’s the Number One Rule.

Justin moves his foot and the floorboard groans beneath him.

Mummy flinches, like she’s been slapped. Then stares up the stairs, eyes wide and soggy, ringed with red. The gag in her mouth has darkened to a deep blood red where the tears and bogies have soaked into it. And the chain around her neck sparkles like no diamond necklace ever did.

She makes... noises. All muffled by the gag. Strangly, angry, pleading noises.

As if he’s the one who can help her. As if he isn’t every bit as trapped as she is.

Justin reaches out and swings the door closed.

He’s never making that mistake again.

There’s only one thing for it.

The God-In-Waiting is gone and he’s not coming back. Oh, he’ll regret running away soon enough. Come crawling back, pleading to be released from his impurities, but as Mummy always found out, pleading never worked. Once you broke the rules you had to take your punishment, because that’s how it works.

He had his chance at being a god and he threw it away.

Of course, there’s very little chance of him being able to find his way back. The purification ritual is mind-expanding, but often makes the Gods-In-Waiting confused. As if their brains have been rewired to run on a foreign voltage. The signals from the real world get scrambled until they finally achieve divinity and all becomes clear again.

He won’t be able to lead anyone back here.

Probably.

But probably isn’t definitely, and that was one of Father’s many lessons. You never trust a probably, because ‘Probably’ can’t be trusted like ‘Definitely’ can. A thing is either dead or it’s not, ‘probably dead’ isn’t good enough.

So yes, there’s only one thing for it.

He unscrews the cap of the petrol canister and pours it down the basement stairs.

It cascades like a little waterfall, making the air swim and wobble in front of him. The sharp heady scent of pear drops and sweet vinegar.

The living room smells of cloves and smoke, with its open fireplace full of twigs and bones. The jackdaws always win in the end. But they won’t be back this time. He covers the mouldering furniture in unleaded, sploshes more on the dusty carpet. Pours what’s left across the bathroom floor and into the kitchen. Upends it and gives it a little shake, getting the last dribbles out.

Steps out of the back door and into the rain.

Father would not be happy if he could see the garden. His precious vegetable plot disappeared under a war zone of brambles and nettles, battling it out for the last scraps of nutrients from the dark thick earth. The trees heavy with unclaimed fruit, rotting and wasp-riddled on the branches. The garden shed, where so many nights were spent learning not to be a bad little boy.

He dips a strip of fabric into the empty plastic container, strikes a match and puts it to the hanging end. Still enough petrol in there to soak through the scrap of T-shirt and turn it into a torch. Then the whole thing goes in the kitchen door, tumbling over and over, making the same fluttering roar as baby jackdaw wings when they’re caught in their nest.

It bounces off the wall, and lands halfway between the kitchen and the living room. Blue flames rush across the floor in both directions, eating their way into the house. Popping and crackling like a baby jackdaw’s bones when you hold one of their fluttering little bodies in your hand and squeeze .

Two minutes later the basement goes up, growling out its decades of pain.

He waits until the fire has taken hold, then goes back to the van.

It doesn’t matter if the ex-God-In-Waiting leads them back here — there will be nothing left to find. And he will have moved on to somewhere new.

The only thing left to do is find someone else to take their place.

‘Hold on, I’ll put you on speaker.’ Dr McDonald stood in the middle of the filthy room, dressed in the full-on Smurf outfit: booties on her feet, gloves on her hands, mask, and safety goggles covering most of her face. She had an oversized smartphone in one hand, held out at head height.

Scenes Examination Branch had left the windows alone — still covered with their layers of hardcore pornography, blocking out the evening light, leaving them to the mercy of the single lightbulb dangling from a wire in the ceiling. They’d left everything else as it was as well — the ladder, the wallpaper table, the power tools, the radio. The stack of empty cans in the kitchen and the half-full bong.

Most of the flies were gone from the floor though, so at least every step didn’t scrunch.

And Callum’s ear throbbed. So much for local anaesthetic. No one said the sodding stuff would wear off in less than an hour.

McDonald poked at her phone’s screen and a semi-posh Scottish accent crackled out of the speaker. ‘Can you hear me?’

Franklin stood in the corner, notebook at the ready. But Callum leaned back against the wall, by the porn-covered window, with Cecelia. All of them done up in blue Tyvek oversuits with matching accessories.

Cecelia made a raspberry noise behind her facemask. ‘To be perfectly honest, I find this more than a bit insulting.’

Callum shrugged.

‘My team’s been over this flat with the proverbial nit-comb. We did our job.’ She folded her arms, her suit making crinkling noises with each movement. ‘And for your information: Tina’s confronting Yashnoor about having an affair on Enders tonight. In ninety minutes.’

He groaned. ‘You’ll be back in time for EastEnders .’

‘I better be.’

Dr McDonald did a slow pirouette, showing the phone the flat. ‘Say “stop” if you spot anything.’

‘Ooh, is that pornography on all the windows? I wouldn’t mind a gander at that.’

Cecelia shook her head. ‘Pervert.’

‘Who said that?’

‘Hold on...’ Dr McDonald turned the phone around, so they could see the screen.

A creased face blinked out at them — steel-coloured short back and sides, two prominent grey eyebrows, a matching moustache lurking beneath a puckered golf-ball nose. Little rectangular glasses. ‘Greetings, minions of Police Scotland! Fear not, for your salvation is at hand.’

‘Bernard, this is Cecelia Lynch, head of the local Scenes Examination Branch. And standing next to her is DC Callum MacGregor and DC Rosalind Franklin. Everyone, this is Professor Bernard Huntly — he’s a physical evidence specialist. A bit of an acquired taste, but he’s annoyingly good at what he does so we put up with it.’

‘Quite right too.’ He gave them all a grin. ‘Can you turn me up a bit, Alice?’

She poked at the controls and Huntly’s voice got louder.

‘Well, why don’t we cut straight through the meat to the bones beneath, Cecelia my love? Bloods?’

Cecelia pointed at the doorway by the kitchen. ‘Biggest quantity was over there, and even then it was less than a teaspoon. Going by the little dots on the floorboards, it wasn’t a gusher, more like a hammered thumb.’