Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

‘Cheer up, Constable. A little rain won’t kill you.’ He nodded at the cordon. ‘You got our body?’

‘Depends. You on the list?’ She dug a clipboard from the depths of her jacket and passed it through the window.

McAdams flipped through the top three sheets, making a low whistling noise. ‘There’s a lot of people here. All for one dead little body?’

‘Oh you’d be surprised.’

He printed two more names on the last sheet in blue biro, then handed the clipboard back. ‘There we are, right at the end. Now be a good girl and get out of the way. It’s the opening chapters: I need to draw the readers in, establish myself as the protagonist, and get on with solving the murder.’

Constable Drip frowned at their names, then into the car. Her mouth tightened as she stared at the bloodied and unconscious Dugdale lying across the back seat. ‘Looks like you’ve already got a body.’

‘Oh, this one’s not dead, it’s just resting. DC MacGregor decided to try his hand at a little police brutality.’

‘MacGregor...?’ She peered at the list again, then across the car, top lip curling. ‘So it is you.’

Callum stared right back. ‘Don’t: I’m not in the mood.’

She shook her head, stowed her clipboard away, then unhooked a length of the tape barricade and waved them through.

McAdams grinned across the car at Callum. ‘My, my, Constable. You just can’t stop making friends, can you?’

No.

‘That offer of an arse-kicking is still valid, Sarge.’

‘Yes, because people don’t hate you enough already.’

The Shogun pitched and yawed through the potholes like a boat. God knew how big the rubbish tip was, but from the wide, lumpy road, it stretched all the way to the horizon. A vast sea of black plastic, gulls wheeling and screaming in the air above — flecks of evil white, caught against the heavy grey sky.

And the smell ...

Even with the car windows wound up it was something special. The rancid stench of rotting meat and vegetables mingled with the sticky-brown reek of used nappies, all underpinned by the dark peppery odour of black plastic left to broil in the sun.

McAdams slipped the four-by-four in behind a line of police vehicles and grubby Transit vans. Had to be, what, eight cars? Twelve if you counted the unmarked ones. About three-quarters of the dayshift, all out here playing on the tip.

The sarcastic half-arsed-poetry-spouting git was right: this was an awful lot of people for one dead body.

McAdams hauled on the handbrake. ‘Right, Constable, make yourself useful for a change and go fetch us a couple of Smurf suits, extra-large. Ainsley and I need to have a little chat.’

A chat?

‘He’s unconscious , Sarge. He needs a doctor. I told you he—’

‘Don’t be stupid.’ McAdams turned in his seat, staring through into the back. ‘Give it up, Ainsley, you’re not fooling anyone.’

Dugdale didn’t move.

‘Don’t make me come back there, because if I have to...’

One of Dugdale’s eyes cracked open. ‘I’m dying. Got a brain haemorrhage, or something.’

‘You have to have a brain to have a brain haemorrhage, Ainsley. What you’ve got is a lump of solid yuck wrapped in ugly. Now, Constable Naïve here is going to sod off like a good little boy and you’re going to tell me all about what Big Johnny Simpson’s up to now he’s walked free.’ McAdams made a dismissive little waving gesture in Callum’s direction. ‘Go on, Constable. Two Smurf suits, at the double. I won’t ask again.’

One punch in the face. Just one. Right in the middle of his smug, wrinkly face...

What was the point?

It wouldn’t change anything.

So Callum gritted his teeth and stepped out into the stinking mud. Closed the car door. Counted out his own muttered haiku. ‘Away boil your head. You patronising arse-bag. I hope you get piles.’

Out here the smell was eye-watering. Like jamming your head in a dead badger.

He turned up his collar and hurried through the slimy mud to the nearest Transit van, sheltering in the lee of its open back doors. From here, Oldcastle lay spread out beneath the heavy grey lid of cloud like a cancer beneath the skin. The vast prow of Castle Rock loomed out from the other side of the valley, wound round with the ancient cobbled streets of Castle Hill; the dark sprawl of Camburn Woods peered out from its shadow; the warehouses, shopping centres, and big glass Victorian train station punctuated Logansferry to the left of that. Spires and minarets stabbed up between the slate roofs on the other side of the river, like some vast beast was trapped under the surface, trying to claw its way out. And on this side: the grubby maze of council houses, high-rise blocks of flats, and derelict terraces of Kingsmeath; the rest of the city, hidden by a line of trees at the edge of the tip.

Quite a view for a rancid mass of black plastic bags and mouldering filth.

He reached into the Transit and helped himself to two large blue Tyvek oversuits, two sets of plastic bootees, a pair of facemasks and matching safety goggles. What every well-dressed Scene of Crime officer was wearing this, and every other, season.

One of them appeared from the other side of the van, the hood of her SOC suit thrown back to reveal a sweaty tangle of dark brown hair. Her thin, pale oval face shone with sweat. She took a swig from a leopard-print Thermos, the words coming out on a waft of coffee breath with a faint side-order of Aberdonian. ‘Oh, it’s you .’

‘Don’t start, Cecelia, OK? I get enough of that from McAdams, don’t need the Scene Examination Branch chipping in.’ He tucked the suits under his arm. ‘We’re here for the body.’

She curled her top lip. ‘Which one? Started digging at nine this morning and we’ve already turned up four of the things. Seven if you count those.’ She nodded in the vague direction of a red plastic cool box and helped herself to a wad of paper towels. ‘Three left feet, severed just above the ankle.’

‘Well... maybe their owners aren’t dead? Maybe they’re limping about somewhere, wondering where their other shoe’s gone?’

‘Urgh. I’m melting in here.’ Cecelia scrubbed the paper towels across her damp face, turning it matt again. ‘Bet they don’t have this problem in G Division. Bet if you go digging in a Glasgow tip all you turn up is rubbish. Can’t open a bin-bag in Oldcastle without finding a sodding corpse.’ A sigh. ‘Have you got any idea how much work it is to process crime scenes for seven different murder enquiries, all at the same time?’ She ticked them off on her fingers. ‘One stabbing, one shotgun blast to the face, one God-knows-what, and I’m pretty sure the body we found over by the recycling centre is Karen Turner. You know: ran that brothel on Shepard Lane? Beaten to death.’

At least that explained why most of Oldcastle Division was in attendance, picking their way through the landfill landscape.

‘Wow.’ Callum frowned out at the acres and acres of black-plastic bags. Suppose it wasn’t that surprising the tip was hoaching with corpses — if you had to dispose of a body, where better than here? Clearly the city’s criminal element didn’t approve of littering. ‘Maybe we should set up a recycling box at the front gate, so people can dump their dead bodies responsibly?’

She puffed out her cheeks. ‘We should never have started digging here. Just asking for trouble.’

‘So, come on then: which one’s ours?’

‘Body number three: the God-knows-what. That way.’ She pointed her Thermos at the middle distance, off to the right, where a handful of blue-suited figures was wrestling with a white plastic tent. ‘And Callum?’