Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

Callum raised his left fist to the wood. ‘One more go.’

But before he landed it, there was a thunk from inside. Followed by a light flickering on behind the spyhole.

Then a gravelly voice, dark as gravy, oozed through the wood. Unmistakable, even after all these years. ‘Who is it?’

Heat crawled up Callum’s back, spreading pins-and-needles across his shoulders. He swallowed, then held his warrant card up to the spyhole. ‘Mr Pike? We need a word.’

‘Ah. I see. Well, I’m sorry, but it’s not convenient right now. Not convenient at all. I’m... indisposed.’

Shannon raised his voice a bit. ‘Let’s kick it in. Right now. Boot the door right off its hinges.’

‘No! No, don’t do that. I... I need my door. Yes. I need it. Please don’t do that.’

‘Then open up, Gareth .’

A rattling sigh. ‘Today doesn’t seem to be turning out as well as I’d hoped.’ The clattering sound of a chain drawing back was followed by several loud clicks. Then the door swung open.

The man standing in the doorway was stooped over, but his large bald head still came within an inch of the frame. Big. Wide. Just like he’d been in the car park, only a lot thicker around the middle. And instead of the black overcoat he was dressed in a stained silk robe, socks, Crocks, an ‘I ♥ OLDCASTLE!’ T-shirt spattered with what looked like brown sauce, and a pair of polka-dot boxer...

Gah!

Callum recoiled a step. So did Shannon.

Gareth Pike smiled, showing off perfect white teeth. Raised his bushy white eyebrows. ‘I did mention I was indisposed.’ The front of his underwear was tented out, pointing straight ahead at ninety degrees. ‘Now do you gentlemen still wish to come in?’

Pike waved a hand at the couch. ‘Sit. Sit.’

No chance.

Piles of newspaper and ready-meal containers teetered against the walls. The carpet, if there was one, lay buried beneath a thick layer of hair and filth. Water stains on the ceiling and walls. A drift of scrunched-up tissues spread out from the couch in a fan shape: all crunchy and flaky. Their faint bleachy smell mingled with the rancid odour of a man who’d clearly fallen out with soap and deodorant.

The only picture on the wall was Mary, cradling the baby Jesus.

An old-fashioned cathode-ray TV was hooked up to a video player, the screen flickering with a close-up of Simon Cowell’s sneering face.

Pike lowered himself into a greasy armchair, legs spread wide, tent on full display. ‘Oooh... My knees. Not what they once were.’

Hard to believe that this was the man who’d given him nightmares for years.

Callum crossed his arms, just in case his hands accidentally touched something. ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

Pike’s face creased for a moment. Then, ‘No.’

Shannon went to sit, but obviously thought better of it. ‘Twenty-six years ago, Gareth. You were interfering with little boys. Public lavatories, mostly. Parks. Service stations. Lay-bys. Winter, summer, autumn, spring: there you’d be, fiddling away. A nonce for all seasons.’

A big fat shrug sent his chins wobbling. ‘A wise man once said, “To thine own self be true.” So: yes. I admit it. But I’ve atoned for my sins. Repaid my debt to society with ten years attending to Her Majesty’s pleasure at Peterhead Prison.’ His hand reached over the brow of his belly and scratched at the boxer shorts, making the tent-pole wobble. ‘Oh, this was back when it was a specialised institution, not the modern monstrosity they have now where they’ll take just anyone. No, it was a lovely establishment. Loads of character. And characters , too. I remember one time, I was taking tea with a kindred spirit called Haroun and who should walk in but—’

‘Twenty-six years ago.’ Callum took a step closer. ‘It was a lay-by on the Aberdeen road, not far outside Blackwall Hill. A family of four: mother, father, two wee boys.’

Pike raised his bushy eyebrows again. ‘Sounds delicious. Were the boys blond and pretty? I like them blond and pretty.’

‘I’ll blond and—’

Shannon grabbed his arm. ‘Good Cop, remember?’

Callum closed his eyes. Took a deep breath of stench. ‘It was April. I was five and you tried to touch me in the toilets.’

‘Ooh.’ Pike squeezed himself through the polka dots. ‘You were one of mine ? You must have been very pretty when you were younger.’

‘Two men came into the toilets and scared you off.’

‘How rude of them.’

‘My mother and father and my brother were waiting for me in the car outside. With a caravan on the back. Do you remember them ?’

‘Mmmm...’

‘I swear to God, if you don’t stop touching yourself I’m going to—’

‘Come on, Callum.’ Shannon shook his head. ‘We agreed.’

‘DO YOU REMEMBER?’

Pike didn’t even flinch. ‘I remember all my pretty little blond boys.’ He squeezed. And squeezed. ‘They’re all I have left.’

Shannon pulled Callum back. ‘All right. Let’s just calm down a minute, OK?’

‘Ask him. Ask him if he remembers hacking off my mother’s head!’

Pike let go of himself and sank back in his seat. ‘Oh, no. I would certainly remember something like that.’ He raised his squeezing hand to his nose and sniffed the fingers. ‘I don’t do “mothers”. Or fathers, come to that. Grown-ups in general repulse me.’ A finger came round to point at Simon Cowell’s face on the TV. ‘I wasn’t sitting here wasting a perfectly good Viagra on him. I mean, I’m not gay or anything. I just didn’t think you’d like to see what I’d really been watching. Hmmm?’ He licked his lips, dark and slimy like twin slugs circling his mouth. ‘It’s amazing what one can purchase over the interwebs if one is... discreet.’

Callum pulled his arm free from Shannon’s grip. ‘Are you saying you didn’t kill her?’

‘Well of course not. Why on earth would I do something like that? Can you imagine how messy it would be? No: I’m a lover, not a fighter.’ He gave a little shudder. ‘But I do remember you . You ran off and hid in the caravan, didn’t you? You wouldn’t come out to play.’

‘You said my parents didn’t love me any more. That they’d given me to you.’

‘Oh we could’ve had such fun, you and I. Before you got so old and unappealing .’ Sigh. ‘I waited so long in the rain for you. I hope you didn’t mind my taking care of myself while I waited. But you wouldn’t come out and help.’

Shannon curled his top lip. ‘Did you see anything? Anyone else at the toilets?’

‘Would you like to see the video I was watching? It’s very good. I know everyone’s obsessed with digital technology, but I’m not supposed to have a computer. I do , of course, but there’s something so deliciously nostalgic about videotape.’ His eyes widened. ‘The way it flickers and buzzes. Oh, my...’

‘Did you see anyone else, or didn’t you?’

‘Sometimes I like to twist the tracking all out of line, so it’s like the old days when a tape’s been copied and passed around and copied again and again and again. You don’t get that sense of tradition with these modern digital films.’

Callum unfolded his arms and balled his left hand into a fist. ‘Answer the sodding question, or I’ll break the tracking in your head .’

‘Oh yes. I saw someone. I saw things you wouldn’t believe, right there in that car park, all those years ago.’ Pike fluttered his eyelashes. ‘But it’ll cost you.’

Shannon grabbed Callum’s arm again. ‘He’s just screwing with you. It’s what people like him do.’