Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

You grown up in care, and this place is a nightmare.

Donny ‘$ick Dawg’ McRoberts

‘The Arsonist’s Diary’

© Bob’s Speed Trap Records (2015)

‘Urrrgh...’ The kitchen throbbed like the heart of a monster. Boom. Boom. Boom .

Obviously, Dotty’s fridge, freezer, and microwave were plotting Callum’s death with their horrible reflective metallic surfaces. Sending burning daggers of sunlight stabbing through his eyeballs and into his brain. Making everything burn.

He held the empty pint glass under the tap and filled it up again. Glugged it down, water dripping onto his old grey T-shirt.

Finished and slumped there with his head drooped, panting.

Oh God.

Never, ever again.

He had to put the glass down to turn the tap off — his right hand had swollen up to the size of a space hopper. All purple and yellow and stiff and full of rusty metal. Fingers twisted and rigid.

Callum used his left to fumble a couple of painkillers from the packet by the kettle and dry swallowed them.

His stomach lurched and gurgled.

‘Urgh...’ He curled forward, resting his elbows on the work surface, head hanging like a sack of burning tatties.

Stay down. Stay down. Stay down.

Please...

The pills stayed where they were and he gulped down another pint of water.

Shuddered.

The sound of breakfast TV burbled through the house and he slouched through to the living room.

It was a lot less chintzy than the guest bedroom — more ‘Scandinavian functionalism’ than ‘Barbara Cartland’s innards’. Flatpack furniture with lots of straight edges, Scottish colourist impressions of wee seaside towns, hills, and but-and-bens in big wooden frames. A display cabinet full of random ornaments and wine glasses.

The only book on display was a celebrity biography of someone he’d never heard of, sitting on a big glass-topped coffee table.

‘Well, well, well, look what the cat threw up.’ The black-leather couch’s only occupant took a sip from a huge mug. Greying hair cropped close to her long face. Sharp black suit, red shirt, a pair of no-nonsense schoolmarm glasses perched on the end of her nose. ‘You look like a tramp had sex with a wheelie bin.’

‘Louise.’ Callum wiped a hand down the front of his wet T-shirt. ‘Sorry.’

On the TV, a man in waders was chest-deep in a river somewhere. ‘... and that’s the only good thing about American signal crayfish: they’re very, very tasty. Back to you in the studio.’

‘Still, at least you didn’t vomit everywhere.’

The picture jumped to a pair of presenters sitting on a curved red sofa with big animated screens behind them. The woman smiled. ‘Thanks, Colin. Now here’s Valerie with the weather. Any good news for us, Valerie?’

‘Sorry. I’ll get packed up and out of your hair.’

Valerie was a sporty-looking type in a stripy dress. ‘I do indeed, Claire, as you can see from the satellite map it’s going to be a lovely day for the southeast all the way up to Manchester and Newcastle...’

‘Pfff...’ Louise waved at him. ‘Just because I’m a solicitor, doesn’t mean I’m heartless. Dorothy told me what happened with Elaine.’

‘Oh.’ He sank onto the end of the couch. ‘Yeah.’

‘... best of the sunshine in Wales and Northern Ireland...’

‘She worries about you, Callum. Dorothy thinks you’ve got a self-destructive streak a mile wide.’

‘I do genuinely appreciate the bed for a night. She didn’t have to take me in.’

‘Stray kittens, puppies, injured birds — you name it, she wants to give it a home.’

‘... stubborn band of rain clinging onto the northeast of Scotland, but other than that we’ve got all the makings of an Indian Summer...’

He nodded. Stared down at his swollen knuckles.

‘I think it’s because she’s in pain a lot of the time. She’s hurting, so she hates to see others suffering. Well, except for that idiot Detective Constable Watt.’

‘I’ll get a B-and-B sorted out today. Give you your spare room back.’

‘All the muscles and nerves are messed up in her right leg, from the crash, but they won’t amputate it. Doesn’t matter how much she begs.’ A sigh. ‘How is that fair?’

‘Thanks, Valerie. Now, how many of you remember this?’

A music clip played from the TV — an orchestra swooping through a guitar-and-bassline.

‘Life never is.’

‘No.’ A small, sour laugh. ‘I don’t suppose it is.’ Louise stood, took a couple of steps closer and squeezed Callum’s shoulder. ‘You stay as long as you like.’

Then a man’s voice, dark and warm belted out over the top. ‘Run, little rabbit boy, you’d better run like hell, / Cos the Bonemonger is coming and he’s after you as well...’

Louise gave Callum’s shoulder another squeeze. ‘Well, let’s call it a week. Don’t want you cramping our style.’

‘Slick and sharp and sickle-like he smiles his scissor smile, / and he’ll catch you and he’ll eat you, though you run for miles and miles...’

Louise let go. ‘Sod it: look at the time.’ She marched from the room, voice getting louder as she disappeared into the hall. ‘There’s a spare key hanging in the kitchen — if you’re going out, pick up some milk!’

Clunk , the front door shut and he was alone.

Urgh...

He slumped back on the couch. Rubbed his good hand over his eyes.

Probably wouldn’t hurt to go back to bed. Maybe a couple of hours’ kip would dull the hangover howling its way through his skull.

‘... lovely to have you with us.’

‘Lovely to be here, Siobhan. Though watching that, I have to wonder what on earth I was thinking. I know it was the Eighties, but oh dear...’ A familiar laugh, dark and treacly. ‘Can’t believe the Miami Vice look used to be trendy.’

Callum peered out through his fingers and an old man had joined Mr Suit and Mrs Casual Dress on the breakfast sofa. He was wearing faded jeans, scuffed cowboy boots, and a dark-blue shirt that had silvery bits speckling the sleeves, leather buckles on his wrists. On the screen behind him was a much younger version of himself in a pastel-green linen suit with the sleeves rolled up, no T-shirt, showing off a lot of chest. The hair on his head swept up and back: coiffured into a big blonde mane.

The mane was still there, but it was thin and white now.

A caption appeared at the bottom of the picture: ‘LEO MCVEY ~ SINGER SONGWRITER’.

‘So Leo, of course Open the Coffins was a massive hit in the eighties. But it almost didn’t get made, did it?’

‘Oh yeah. Man that was a hard sell. You should’ve seen the record execs’ faces when I told them I wanted to do a concept album based on this children’s book about a wee boy who gets turned into a rabbit and has to fight the Lord of Bones for his sister’s soul. “No way!” they said. “You can’t make this, it’ll be career suicide!”’

Callum pulled out his phone, winced one eye shut and brought up his call history.

Oh thank God — no drunk-dialling the flat or Elaine’s mobile.

‘And then it’s like, sixteen weeks at the top of the album charts. Just goes to show you how much guys in suits know.’ A wink. Then he leaned over and patted the male presenter’s knee. ‘No offence, Brian.’

Next check: text messages...

A big sigh let all the pressure hiss out of his lungs.

No angry texts, or weepy ones, not even a big chunk of solid swearing.

‘And of course, Ray and I became really good friends when I was recording the album; have been ever since. Man, we used to hang out all the time. He’d even come on tour with us. And loads of people would bring their books and he’d be sitting out in the auditorium signing them during the interval, you know? Great guy.’