Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

A little oily drip splashed on his shoulder.

Callum turned to Mr Smug. ‘Is this area ever left unsupervised?’

‘What, the smokehouse?’ He curled his top lip. ‘Oh no, no, no, no. This is a twenty-four-seven operation: we supply haddies to Harrods . The only time we shut down is for five days in January to do a thorough deep clean.’

‘How about the nightshift?’

‘Three staff on at all times. Like I said, it’s a twenty-four—’

‘Seven. Yes. Thanks.’

‘Oh aye. Aye, aye, aye...’ Mrs Lumps hauled an empty plastic box on top of the full one and laid out a layer of split herrings in the bottom with quick fluid movements. Then topped them with a fistful of salt, flung with casual precision. ‘We’ve been smokin’ fish here, ooh, since the eighteen hundreds. No me personal like.’ She gave Callum a wink that bordered on the obscene, layering up more herring as she went.

‘And how many people have access to the smokehouse?’

‘Och, just me, Jeemy, and the boy Rodger — that’s him in the dungers on the forkie. Big lump that he is.’ She waved a handful of salt at a bear of a man in dungarees, driving a forklift truck laden with boxes of ice. ‘He’s our Siobhan’s eldest. Well, it’s a family business, ken? Has been since the start.’

‘OK, so does—’

‘We do a lovely hot smoked salmon with Drambuie, chilli, and lemon zest. Our Hot Toddy Salmon was on the TV, you know. We were a “Food Hero”!’

‘Yes, that’s great. But could anyone else have access to the smokehouse?’

‘Oh I doubt it.’ Mrs Lumps gave him a big gap-toothed smile. ‘We’ve got the biggest sodding dog you’ve ever seen. Take your arms off soon as look at you would our Winston.’

Mr Baldy stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. ‘And that’s it. The grand tour. “ Y daith fawreddog. ” As they say in Welsh.’

Rain hammered down on the large concrete yard, bouncing off the piles of empty fish boxes and refrigerated containers. Made rusty streaks down the ten-foot-high walls that blocked off the outside world. The warm rich smell of smoke wafted out around them, billowing from the open double doors through to the processing plant.

Callum turned. ‘Didn’t know you were Welsh.’

‘I’m not, no. But I do like leeks. So...’ Shrug.

‘Right. Great.’ Why was nobody normal any more? ‘You got a big staff?’

‘Sixty-two last count. Most are part time — we went into this job-share scheme thing, couple years ago, and you wouldn’t believe how many single mothers we‘ve got working here now. Had to open a crèche.’

Which explained the Portakabin in the far corner, behind the containers, all covered in characters from Winnie the Pooh and SpongeBob SquarePants .

Callum shifted back a bit, till he was underneath the roof of the loading bay again. ‘How many men?’

‘Ooh, now you’re asking.’ He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a bit. ‘Fifteen? No: eighteen. I forgot about Mitch, Spanner, and Dingle.’

‘Dingle?’

‘Don’t ask. And Spanner’s not much better. What’s the point of employing people if they never turn up? I told, Marge, I told her: we need to fire these idiots, but she’s soft as Angel Delight, she is.’

‘How many in their mid-twenties?’

Mr Baldy did the cheek-chewing thing again. ‘Might help if you told me what this was all about.’

Watt pulled down his beard net. ‘Sorry, it’s an ongoing investigation so we’ve got to be a bit discreet.’

Dear Lord, was Wee Willie Wattie actually talking to someone like a human being?

‘Ah, right. Got you.’ Mr Baldy nodded, as if that explained everything. ‘I’d have to check the staff records, but I think I can help.’

Callum stuck the keys in the ignition and pulled out his phone. ‘Hello?’

McAdams’ voice drawled into his ear: ‘An update I seek, dear Constable Useless, / On Imhotep — killer both nasty and ruthless, / The smokehouses visited, all must be—’

‘Yeah, I get the point. We’ve done five of the seven smokehouses in Oldcastle: seen round the premises, spoke to the managers, got lists of staff members: when they’ve been working and where.’

‘I had another three verses.’

‘Thought you were meant to be busy this morning.’

‘If there’s one thing you can say about sitting in the Grim Reaper’s Soulless Anteroom of Death, with a drip full of poison seeping into your veins, it’s that any distraction is a welcome one. Even talking to a lump of gristle like you. Now: An update I seek, dear Constable—’

‘We’ve done five, so we’ve got two more to visit in town, and the one over in Strummuir, but...’ He tapped his fingers against the wheel as Watt sagged his way into the passenger side.

‘But?’

‘I don’t know.’ From the car park outside Lennox, Bremner, and Wallace, there was a rain-greyed view across the river to Castleview. Left a bit and there was McKinnon Quay with its background of grim council flats. Squint a bit and you could almost make out the one where Benjamin Harrington died, facedown in bathtub full of brine. ‘All these places: they have to conform to EU directives and health-and-safety and food standards. They get inspected by Environmental Health Officers — and you know what the Cheese Police are like: they spot anything, they shut you down.’ He frowned out at the rain. ‘No. These are commercial enterprises working six days a week, minimum. Someone would notice if you stuck a body in their smoker for a fortnight. It’d get in the way of the kippers.’

Watt wiped the water from his face and flicked it into the footwell. ‘Who is it?’

‘McAdams.’

‘What?’

‘Not you: Watt. Thing is, I think our boy’s built his own smoker. Or he’s got access to one that doesn’t operate any more. Somewhere you can smoke a body for weeks without any chance of it being found.’

‘And that’s supposed to help, is it?’

‘Don’t know. Even if he’s built his own smoker, he’ll have to get the wood he burns from somewhere. Lucy down the mortuary reckons it’s a mix of beechwood and oak. Maybe we should get in touch with whoever it is sells sawdust and woodchips to smokehouses? See how many sales they make to hobby smokers?’

Watt shook his head. ‘If he doesn’t have to comply with food standards, he doesn’t have to buy commercial-grade sawdust. He can just get a big bag of it from the local sawmill, or someone that does firewood.’

‘You get that?’

McAdams made a hrumphing noise. ‘Or he could just—’

‘ Andrew!’ A woman’s voice in the background: ‘What did we say about mobile phones?’

A scrunching noise, and his voice went all muffled. ‘Oh bounteous nymph, I hear thy pleas, / but it’s police business, so sod off, please.’

‘And the “please” on the end’s meant to make that all better, is it?’

‘Yes. Now be a good nurse and see if you can rustle up a cuppa and a biscuit. I’m wasting away here.’ Then McAdams was back at full volume: ‘Where was I? Ah, yes: Imhotep doesn’t have to buy sawdust at all. He could just get himself a bunch of logs from the forestry commission and make his own.’