Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

Headstones stretched out all around him, most crumbling, many illegible. All those lives: their owners rotted away and forgotten, feeding the massive oak tree that dominated this part of the graveyard.

‘I’m... sorry about your mother.’

He nodded. Stared out across the rows of the dead. ‘You want to guess what I’ve spent the last two and a half hours doing? Trying to disentangle myself from Police Constable Elaine Pirie. Bank accounts, council tax, mortgage, electricity bill, BT, hire purchase on the TV...’ He rested his elbows on his knees, the cast on his right hand tucked into his sleeve. ‘I’d go home and drink a bottle of Bell’s in the bathtub, but I don’t have a home.’

Franklin stared up at the ribs of her umbrella, voice a low mutter. ‘Why do men always have to be such babies?’

‘Great, thanks for the pep-talk.’

‘Fine, you sit there wallowing in self-pity.’

‘Self-pity? My girlfriend’s pregnant with someone else’s child, I’ve been thrown out of my own flat, my career’s in the crapper, my mother’s severed head is lying in the mortuary, and they’ve put DS Blake in charge of catching her killer. Blakey the Racist-Sexist-Scumbag-Octopus. The halfwit you punched in the face is now the only person looking into my mother’s murder. I think I’ve got every right to complain!’

A seagull landed between two graves, paddling its big orange feet on the grass, trying to lure a worm to its doom.

Franklin shrugged. ‘So just sit there, then. Catch pneumonia. Play the tragic jilted hero. See if anyone gives a single toss about it.’

Rain pattered on the shoulders of Callum’s jacket. Soaked into his wet hair. ‘Feel free to spread your special brand of sunshine and joy somewhere else.’

‘Or you can get off your moaning backside and do something about it.’

The smell of boiled cabbage haunted Division Headquarters’ stairwells. Callum squelched his way down to the locker room, where it was joined by the ghosts of cheesy feet, eggy farts, and cloying deodorant.

Full-length metal lockers lined the room, each one with a number, nametag, and assortment of dents. Some were plastered in headlines and photos culled from newspapers. Some with celebrity photos from the tabloid magazines. Others austere and bare. Nothing to see here: move along.

More lockers made an island in the middle of the room, surrounded by a knee-high wall of slatted benching. Heavy-duty clothes rails were hung with stabproof vests and high-viz waistcoats.

A young PC sat in the far corner, folded forward with his elbows on his knees, face buried in his hands. Shoulders quivering. Making little sniffing noises.

Callum took out his keys and unlocked locker 322. Opened it. Stared at the wall of photos Sellotaped to the inside of the door.

Most of them were selfies of Elaine: grinning for the camera, making pouty duck-lips, flashing the peace sign, pulling faces, going from flat-stomached to swollen pregnant bulge. All nice and normal. A happy little family in the making.

There was even a printout of the sonogram — looking like a radar image. A fan of streaked grey, surrounded by black, and just off the centre of the image, a small dark kidney-shaped blob. Elaine had drawn a circle around it in red crayon and an arrow labelled ‘GOD, IT LOOKS LIKE A PEANUT!!!!’ surrounded by hearts.

He reached out with his good hand and ran his fingertips along the sonogram’s smooth surface. Then curled them into claws and tore it from the door. Raked the photos down after it, letting them flutter and spill across the tiled floor. Peeled off his sodden jacket and wrung it out.

It wasn’t easy with one hand in a cast, but he struggled through.

Water spattered down on Elaine’s selfies. Soaked into Peanut’s first picture.

He did the same with his shirt, trousers, socks and pants. Stood there in the nip, staring down at the puddled photos. Then swept them all up and dumped them in the nearest bin.

Done. Over. Finished with.

A wooden rack sat outside the door through to the showers. He helped himself to a towel from the pile — greying and frayed around the edges, sandpaper-rough to the touch. Scrubbed himself dry on the way back to his locker. Dumped it on the floor to soak up the wrung-out water.

His spare fighting suit was a little crumpled, but at least it wasn’t damp. No idea when he’d last had it on. Been a while since someone was sick all over him. They tended to gloss over that bit in the recruitment posters.

Callum bundled up his soggy suit and shoved it into a bin-bag. Tied a clumsy knot in the top.

Then marched out of the room, leaving the PC to cry in peace.

Callum stomped his way up the stairs. Through the double doors and into the MIT’s palatial abode. Marching down the corridor, past the meeting rooms, past the open-plan offices, past the mini-canteen.

Poncy Powel’s door was shut — probably off getting someone else’s girlfriend pregnant.

Good. The chance of Powel getting another punch in the face was about ninety-nine point nine percent. And there were far too many of his team knocking about for that to happen — they weren’t exactly going to stand about tutting while Callum battered their boss into a squishy mess.

Across the corridor from Powel’s lair was another door with ‘SERGEANTS’ OFFICE’ engraved into its brass plaque. Callum didn’t bother knocking.

Inside, six desks were arranged around the walls, all with laptops and monitor stands, ergonomic keyboards and fancy mice. An electronic whiteboard above each desk, displaying photos and timelines.

A large woman with a pixie haircut had her feet up, swivelling back and forth, a mobile phone pinned between her shoulder and her ear as she picked at her fingernails. ‘No... Because I say it isn’t, Limpy... Well, guess what: I — don’t — care.’

Two desks down, a tall thin bloke was hunched over his keyboard like a praying mantis, squinting at the media player on his screen.

And there, right in the far corner, was DS Jimmy Blake: elbows on his desk, hands propping up his face so he could do some industrial-strength frowning at the stack of paper in front of him.

Callum nicked the office chair from the next desk, wheeled it over, and sat. Dumped his bin-bag on the nice new carpet tiles. ‘Blakey.’

He didn’t look up. ‘Go away.’

Mantis Boy must’ve set his player going, because a young girl’s voice crackled out of his computer’s speakers. ‘You want to get wasted for my birthday next week? I can utterly rob a bottle of voddy from my gran.’

A slightly muffled answer, dripping with teenaged indifference: ‘Yeah, why not. You only turn fourteen once, right?’

Callum poked Blakey in the shoulder. ‘Have you made any progress yet?’

A long-suffering sigh. Finally he turned and looked up, showing off the big plastic guard covering what was left of his nose. Eyes like a panda that’d been on a three-day bender. ‘Do you have any idea how many cases I’m working right now?’

‘My step-dad wants to have a party down the bowling alley. Laser Quest, dodgems, and burgers, like I’m, I dunno, six years old or something. He’s such a complete spazmoidal—’

‘Yeah, hang on, Marline.’

‘Have you at least looked at the file?’

‘What am I, Dr Who? When am I supposed to have the time?’

The muted sound of a doorbell rang out from the speakers.

‘OK, OK. Jesus.’ Clunks and rattles. ‘What?’

Callum poked him in the shoulder again. ‘ Make the time.’

A man’s voice, barely audible: ‘I’m sorry, but I’m trying to find my son.’