Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

She wiggled her fingers, as if she was limbering up to play the piano. ‘Remember: I do the talking.’ Then pushed through the door.

Callum followed her into a room crammed floor-to-ceiling with metal shelving racks, each one packed with computers, laptops, and cardboard boxes with cables poking out of them. More boxes, hundreds and hundreds of them, each the size of a paperback book, were stuffed into the racks, six or seven deep. A workbench sat against the wall by the door, with a row of computer monitors mounted above it and more dangling cables.

A thin woman in a once-white lab coat was hunched over a netbook, tapping away at the keyboard with purple-nitrile fingers. Tongue poking out the side of her mouth. Glasses balanced on the end of a long straight nose.

Mother knocked on the wall and she flinched hard enough to make her wheelie office chair trundle back from the bench.

‘Aaargh...’ Mrs Thin turned and scowled. ‘Don’t do that!’

‘Ruby, this is DC MacGregor. We need you to access whatever’s on here.’ She held up the evidence bag with the Lego man flash drive in it.

The woman in the lab coat raised both eyebrows, then burst out laughing. ‘You’re kidding, right? Of course you’re kidding. Do you have any idea how many bits of electronica are in the queue ahead of you? Let me give you a clue, Flora, it’s hundreds .’ She spun her chair around and waved at the little paperback-sized boxes. ‘I’ve got nearly a thousand mobile phones in here, not to mention everything else. And every time your lot arrest someone another lump gets added to the pile.’

Mother placed the evidence bag on the countertop. ‘I know, but we’ve had the nod from DCI Powel: he wants this bumped to number one priority.’

Ruby’s eyes narrowed. ‘Oh yes?’

‘Yes. It’s all been cleared with Cecelia too, you can give her a call if you like. Check.’

She reached for the phone on the desk, then froze. ‘This is on the up?’

‘Cross my bypassed heart and hope to die.’

That thin pink tongue slithered out between her lips and Ruby picked up the evidence bag instead. ‘OK. I guess I can spare five minutes.’

She scooted her chair down a couple of monitors and clicked an ancient black laptop into life. ‘We’ll run it on a virtual machine, just in case it’s chocka with viruses.’ She scribbled an entry into a form, copying down all the info from the bag, then pulled the Lego man’s legs off and stuck his exposed connector into the side of the laptop. ‘Any idea what we’re looking for?’

‘Not a sausage.’

The machine whirred and clicked.

Mother lowered her voice. ‘I like your hair, by the way. Very nice. Frames your face.’

‘I was thinking of going blonde.’

‘Oh, no. Auburn suits you much better.’

A window appeared on the screen.

‘Here we go.’ Ruby fiddled with the mouse. ‘Looks like it’s password protected, so let’s see what Aunty Ruby’s box of magical tricks can do...’ More fiddling. ‘Edward Snowden didn’t know the half of it.’

Numbers and dialogue boxes flashed in and out of existence.

Mother perched herself on the only other chair in the room. ‘So, are you still seeing Charlie from the Finance Team?’

‘Not for ages. He was a bit...’ She pulled a face. ‘I didn’t mind the spanking so much, but the PVC all-in-one suit did terrible things for my dermatitis.’

‘Spanking?’

‘Well it seemed to make him happy, though God knows how he managed to sit down the next day for work. Men are funny creatures, aren’t they?’ A quick glance at Callum. ‘Sorry, but it’s true.’

The screen flickered with more boxes. Numbers. Lines. Boxes. Numbers. Lines.

Then the whole thing cleared, leaving a dialogue box.

Ruby hunched over the keyboard, tongue poking out again, and clattered her fingers across the keys. Sat back and smiled. ‘Why people never use proper encryption is beyond me. Have you got a clean drive?’ She held out her hand and Callum dropped a plain grey USB stick onto her palm. ‘Thank you kindly.’ It went into the slot next to Mr Lego.

Lights flickered on the stick.

‘Just take a minute.’

Mother smiled. ‘Next time I bake, you’re getting brownies.’

‘Brownies are good.’ The machine pinged and she pulled out the USB stick. Handed it to Mother. ‘You want a quick squint while you’re here?’

‘What’s on it?’

The mouse clicked. ‘Looks like we’ve got a bunch of video files and some word docs. Let’s try... this one.’ She clicked on an icon in the shape of a piece of film and a new window filled the screen. Black as it loaded. Then...

Mother’s eyes widened. ‘Oh.’

Callum hissed out a breath. ‘Bloody hell.’

But Ruby just nodded. ‘Now there’s something you don’t see every day.’

Oh God, they were completely going to die here. Ashlee sniffed back a drip, mouth a trembly wobbling line, cheeks wet with tears. Eyes darting back and forth, pulling shapes from the darkness. How was this fair? How come it couldn’t happen to Marline instead? How couldn’t she be the one chained up in here? At least Marline would’ve deserved it!

Another wave of shivers rattled its way through Ashlee, making the water ripple.

Gah. If it was water. The stuff smelled like piss and vinegar and that manky potpourri Mum brought back from Barcelona on her last holiday with ‘Uncle Eddy’, before he realised how utterly a slob she was.

A metal tank full of cold piss and vinegar and manky potpourri. Like the world’s crappiest hot tub.

Ashlee gulped in a big shuddery breath. ‘Mum?’ Her voice was tiny, high-pitched like a mouse or something. ‘Mummy?’

She craned her neck to the side, pushing it as far as it would go, till the chains dug into her skin. ‘Mummy, I don’t feel so good...’

But Mum didn’t move. She just sat there, with her back against the wooden slats, the chain around her neck tight from there to the wall, because she’d slumped a bit to one side. All naked and pale and bloaty.

The bruising was getting worse. It wrapped all the way over the left of her face, dark and purple in the gloom.

The bandages around her hands and wrists were spotted with red and yellow, arms dangling loose at her sides.

‘Mummy?’

Ashlee’s head fell back, making a dull ringing noise when it hit the metal tub.

They were completely going to die here. Alone and hungry and thirsty, in some crappy wooden room that stank like a chimney fire.

Quiet little sobs popped and crackled from her mouth.

Why couldn’t it be Marline?

‘Shhhh...’ A voice in the dark.

Ashlee froze, eyes widening till it was like they’d pop free or something. ‘Please. Please don’t hurt me.’

‘I’m not going to hurt anyone.’ He stepped closer, settled his backside on the edge of the metal tub. Almost invisible in the gloom, like he was a ghost or something. Hands pale as a dead fish. But his voice was all, you know, warm and cheery — like he was a drama teacher or a kindly relative or something, instead of completely a psycho. ‘I bet you’re thirsty. And cold and tired and lonely. You must be hungry.’

She shrank back, but the chains wouldn’t let her go any further. ‘I’ll scream.’

‘That’s OK: I’ve got a few minutes before I head back to work.’ He put his fingers in his ears. ‘You go ahead if it makes you happy.’

So she did. Long and loud and hard. Over and over till her throat was sandpaper raw and her head rang from the noise.

Ashlee slumped back in the filthy water, panting.

‘There we go. Was that good?’