Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

‘Semen?’

‘I’d prefer an ice cream, if it’s all the same to you?’

‘Oh, we’re feisty, are we?’

‘Nothing in the living room, bathroom, kitchen, or hall. There’s three sleeping bags in the bedroom, and they’re like large down-filled condoms. Scrape them clean and you could artificially inseminate half of Fife.’

‘So our three property tycoons were enthusiastic onanists. Everyone needs to have a hobby.’ The little face pulled on a smile. ‘That’s why I wanted to see the pornography, Cecelia. Is it the sort of thing to encourage Ben, Glen, and Brett’s nocturnal manipulations, or was it put there by whoever left a drugged body floating in a bathtub full of brine? Alice?’

Dr McDonald walked over to the window and held the phone up to the bits of magazines taped there.

‘Hmm... Interesting.’

‘You see something?’

‘No, I just didn’t think anyone actually bought dirty magazines any more. You can download all this for free from the internet, what sort of idiot pays for it?’

‘It’s all heterosexual, well, I mean it’s mostly heterosexual except for the lesbian photoshoots and they’re basically only there to appeal to heterosexual men, so what I meant is that there’s nothing that would suggest the three of them were involved in a romantic way.’

Callum sniffed — the air still had that mouldering sausage smell. ‘Unless they’re overcompensating? Big display of testosterone: look how manly and laddish we are, and next thing you know they’re all running around sharing sleeping bags and playing with power tools.’

‘Does it really matter ? No one cares if they were gay or not.’ Cecelia pulled back the edge of her glove and checked her watch. ‘ Enders starts in eighty minutes.’

‘Nobody cares unless that was why they were targeted, my dear Mrs Lynch. I’m going to need you to scrape out those sleeping bags after all — see if you can find evidence of sexual activity involving more than one person.’

Her back bowed. ‘Oh... lovely.’

Over in the corner, Franklin stiffened as her phone launched into a strangled rendition of ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’. She snapped off one of her gloves and dug into her SOC suit, pulled her mobile out and turned to face the wall. ‘Mark, this is not a good time.’

‘Now, to the bathroom! Our friend Imhotep had to fill the bath somehow and I fancy we’ll find some DNA on the underside of the taps. Easy to contaminate with biological residue, not so easy to clean.’

Dr McDonald carried Professor Huntly out through the door and into the hall. ‘We’re not calling him Imhotep, we’re calling him Paddington, because of—’

‘The Peruvian-style mummies, yes, I know. But it’s hardly a name with dramatic connotations, is it? “Paddington” isn’t someone who abducts people, drugs them, drowns them in a bath of brine, then smokes them to a fine wrinkly jerky. Not unless those marmalade sandwiches of his were laced with psilocybe semilanceata. And he wears a duffle coat! What self-respecting monster does that?’

‘But the team agreed—’

‘Paddington’s a stupid name for a serial killer, Alice. At least “Imhotep” has a bit of gravitas about it.’

‘Bernard, you can’t just waltz in and rename our killer!’

Cecelia hooked a thumb at the doctor and her phone. ‘Are they always like this?’

‘I have no idea.’

She slouched into the hall, after them. ‘Your boy on the phone’s a dick, but he’s right. Paddington is a stupid name. Jack the Ripper wouldn’t have got where he is today with a name like Paddington.’

There was no room for them in the bathroom, so they stayed in the hall.

‘So why are you really here?’ Callum leaned back against the wall, where the sheet of plasterboard used to live. ‘Mother said SEB had finished with the crime scene ages ago. Nothing left for us to contaminate.’

‘Ah...’ Cecelia rubbed the tips of her gloved fingers together, making them squeak. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but—’

‘Oh you have got to be kidding. You’re here because of me?’

‘The Powers That Be said you couldn’t access the scene unless someone from my team made sure you didn’t get up to anything. And I can see you making faces at me behind your mask, so don’t.’ She shifted her feet. Fiddled with her gloves some more. ‘I know you didn’t cock that last scene up, but everyone else thinks you’re a liability.’

Of course they did.

He let his head fall back until it thunked against the wall. Winced as a thousand bees sank their stingers into his ear. ‘Ow...’

‘So tell them the truth, Callum.’

‘I can’t .’ He lowered his voice, even though Franklin was still muttering angrily into her phone in the living room and there was no one else to hear. ‘You said it yourself: one more strike and they’d fire Elaine. We need the money. If we didn’t have her maternity pay coming in, with the mortgage, and the credit card debt, and all the stuff we’ve got to buy for the birth and babyproofing the flat, and everything else... It’s two weeks away and we’re nowhere near ready.’

Cecelia put a hand on his arm. ‘Don’t panic. Breathe.’

‘We’re not taking any chances. And you’re not telling anyone.’

She gave his arm a squeeze. ‘Still think you’re an idiot.’

‘Join the queue.’

Dr McDonald emerged from the bathroom, phone still in her hand. ‘Mrs Lynch, can you do a complete swab of all the taps in the house? Especially the underside of the handles and knobs.’

‘And the flush on the toilet too.’

‘Sorry.’

Cecelia shook her head. ‘Fine.’ Then stomped off back to the living room.

Dr McDonald frowned behind her safety goggles. ‘The three men here were targeted for a reason, we don’t know what it was, but the flat’s self-contained, a safe zone for Paddington to work, I mean no one’s going to see in when you’re on the top floor, are they, of course not, so he can do whatever he wants in here and no one’s going to notice as long as he’s reasonably quiet about it.’

Professor Huntly’s voice boomed out in the narrow corridor. ‘I’ve been thinking about your two other victims: the mummies. If you don’t get anything from the DNA, you can try the fingerprints. It’ll be cheaper than going for facial reconstruction.’

‘The question is: did someone gain access to the flat and decide Glen, Brett, and Ben would make good victims, or did he target them somewhere else and follow them back here?’ She pulled back her hood and wrapped a coil of hair around two fingers on her free hand. Holding the phone out in her other like a Dalek’s eye stalk.

Callum peered at the face on the screen. ‘And we get their prints how? The mummies’ fingers are like prunes.’

‘Ah, my dear Constable...?’

‘MacGregor.’

‘I knew it was something like that. Their fingerprints are like prunes because they’ve been dehydrated. So how would one get them nice and plump again?’

Of course: ‘Soak them in water.’

‘Dear Lord, no, that would be a disaster. We soak them in glycerol . Should make them lovely and soft too.’

Dr McDonald twiddled with her hair. ‘Of course, the fact that there’s three of them makes it all a bit more difficult, I mean one person’s easy enough to subdue, but three at the same time, when they’re all young and fit, that would take a lot more doing, wouldn’t it, you could restrain them individually, but then how do you do that without the other two stepping in?’