Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

Powel’s smile died. ‘You’re genuinely trying to pin this on her?’

‘I threw my career in the septic tank to protect your child. It wasn’t even mine!’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. This isn’t—’

‘Every bloody day! I turn up for work and get treated like filth, so your bloody baby can have a fancy stroller and a crib and everything else.’

‘For God’s sake, Callum, listen to yourself. You lost, OK? Lying to get revenge won’t change anything.’

He paced to the end wall, then back again, barely three steps. ‘And you want to know the really funny part? I can’t even go to Professional Standards and tell them what actually happened, because that’s how completely Elaine’s screwed me. I took the blame for her, I lied to an internal enquiry. FOR HER!’ Jabbing his broken hand out in the general direction of Flanders Road.

‘Callum, don’t—’

‘Ask her. Ask Elaine.’ Another laugh burst free, tasting of bile and betrayal. ‘Mind you, she hasn’t told the truth for at least nine months, why would she start now?’

A trolley squeaked past in the corridor outside.

The hospital PA system crackled into life: ‘Please keep your personal belongings with you at all times.’

Someone in the next cubicle wailed out in pain.

Powel pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Let’s park this for now. OK?’

‘And what about the flat? I suppose you expect me to just hand it over?’

‘I didn’t come here to fight with you, Callum.’

‘Because that’s not happening. I’ve paid the mortgage for three years on that place. My name’s on the title deeds.’

‘I came to ask about your mother.’

All the air went out of Callum’s lungs. He settled on the edge of the treatment table, broken hand clutched against his chest. ‘Oh.’

‘I’ve been reviewing the original investigation. Not that there’s much left in the files after the Great Clear-Out of Ninety-Five. Why they treated it as a case of child abandonment is beyond me. Who abandons a wee boy, and the family car and caravan?’ He sniffed. ‘Is there anything you remember from that day? Anything at all? Doesn’t matter how trivial or insignificant.’

‘I was five years old.’ Callum fumbled his wallet out and opened it. Showed Powel the photo of the four of them, grinning for the camera, all T-shirts and sunburn. Took a deep breath. ‘We’d just spent two weeks on a caravan site outside Lossiemouth and on the way home I needed a pee...’

Steam coated the café windows, turning them nearly opaque. Little rivulets of water trickled across the back of the words ‘THE TARTAN BUNNET’ — vinyl lettering stuck to the glass in an optimistic arc. The red-and-white checked plastic tablecloth was scarred with ancient cigarette burns, and sticky to the touch.

A TV, mounted high in the corner, was tuned to some auction/car boot sale competition rubbish, with the sound muted and subtitles on, while a radio by the counter burbled out some cheesy pop tune from the eighties.

An auld mannie sat on his own in the corner, buried in that morning’s Castle News and Post : ‘BEST FRIEND’S PLEA FOR MISSING ASHLEE’ above the photo of a painfully thin teenage girl.

Other than that, they were alone.

Powel poured a third sachet of sugar into his mug and stirred it. ‘We’ll do everything we can, but I won’t lie to you: it’s a cold case from over twenty-five years ago and we’re stretched thin as it is. They won’t let me stick a huge team on this while we’ve got modern-day killers on the loose.’

Callum sat back with his arms folded. ‘So that’s that, is it? Nothing happens?’

‘No. It’s going to take time , that’s all I’m saying. DS Blake will—’

‘Oh well, that’s OK then. If Blakey the Octopus is on the case we’ll get an arrest by teatime!’

A sigh. ‘Callum, you can’t just—’

‘This is because I punched you in the gob, isn’t it?’

‘Don’t you dare .’ Powel jabbed a finger at him. ‘I don’t do “half-arsed”, understand? I’m putting Blake on it because he’s worked abduction cases before. I do not cock-up investigations out of spite.’

A saggy woman in a checked apron appeared at their table, a plate in each hand. No smile. Mouth surrounded by the kind of wrinkles that suggested she never did. Shiny forehead daubed with thin grey hair. ‘Who’s gettin’ the sausage?’

As if there was any question.

Powel took a breath, then pointed. ‘Sausage for him, booby-trapped for me.’

She clattered the plates down in front of them, then shuffled off.

Powel opened the soft white bap on his plate, revealing a thick smear of melting butter and a fried egg — brown and crispy at the edges, bright-yellow wobbly yolk. ‘I know you don’t think much of DS Blake, but he’s like a pit bull with a small child. Once he sinks his teeth in he won’t let go.’ Salt and pepper on the egg. ‘He’ll do a good job.’

Callum slathered the inside of his buttie with tomato sauce. ‘He’s an idiot.’

‘For God’s sake...’ Powel burst the yolk with a fork, spreading it around. Closed his buttie and took a bite. ‘Elaine and I didn’t set out to hurt you, Callum. It just happened.’

‘What, and you think buying me a cup of tea and a sausage buttie, and saying “sorry” makes it all right?’

‘No. It... We’d been working that murder/suicide and it was tough, OK? They drowned the kids in the bath first: two beautiful little four-year-old girls. Then Mummy and Daddy took turns eating a shotgun. Blood and brains everywhere.’

The ketchup bottle was the old-fashioned kind: glass. Nearly full. Heavy in Callum’s hand. Just the sort of thing for battering Poncy Powel’s head in.

‘Elaine was upset and we went out for a drink, and it just happened. We—’

‘Don’t.’

Powel frowned at him over the top of his buttie, voice soft and concerned: ‘Callum, I’m only trying to—’

‘Well don’t.’ Callum thumped the sauce bottle down on the sticky tabletop. Stood. ‘You want me to what, forgive you? Say it’s all fine. All’s fair in love and war?’ He grabbed his buttie and tossed it across the table, sending the sausages spilling out to roll off the edge of the table and onto the floor, leaving a smear of blood behind them. ‘Lost my appetite.’ He marched for the door, grabbed the handle.

Powel’s voice cut across the room. ‘Word of advice, Constable .’ He reached out a foot and stood on one of the sausages, grinding it into the lino. ‘DI Malcolmson’s right: you should take a few days off. You don’t look well.’

And whose fault as that?

‘Callum?’

He looked up from the bench and there was Franklin, wearing yet another Blues-Brothers-tribute-act suit — complete with white shirt and black tie. She’d wangled herself an official Police Scotland golf umbrella with the Crimestoppers’ 0800 number emblazoned all over it. It trembled in the downpour.

She had a quick glance around. ‘What are you doing, sitting out here in the rain?’

St Jasper’s Cathedral reached up into the stained clouds, austere granite walls topped with sandstone spikes and gargoyles. The sandstone wasn’t the genteel, pale, creamy-coloured stuff they used in the Wynd, but a dark dirty red like old blood. And nearly five hundred years of sleet and rain had made it bleed into the grey beneath. A big brown scab of rusty scaffolding covered the circular stained-glass window, the sound of a workman’s radio burbling out promos for the music festival in Montgomery Park.

Callum toasted her with his can of Fanta. ‘Detective Constable.’