Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

Willow’s mum raised her head, parting that curtain of blonde hair with one hand. A deep red bruise covered one side of her cheek. Her bottom lip was swollen, split, and raw, blood making a wide trail to her chin. No wonder her words sounded slurred.

Another fledgling bruise was spreading across her other cheek. A necklace of them wrapped tight around her throat. Her eyes sparkled with tears. ‘He wouldn’t hurt me if I didn’t make him so angry...’

‘What’s his name?’

‘I shouldn’t have had another kid without him. I should have waited for him to come back and not run around with other men like a whore. I ruined everything.’

‘You didn’t do anything wrong... it’s Isobel, isn’t it?’

‘Irene.’ She picked at the knee of her jeans. ‘And I did . He told me I did.’

‘Yeah, well, you didn’t and he’s a dick.’ Callum pointed at the playpen and its foot-sucking inmate. ‘You love your baby, don’t you?’

A little nod.

‘Well then, there you go.’ Callum fumbled his notebook and pen out. ‘Now, the charmer who beat you: what’s his name?’

Irene Brown blinked at him, then looked away. ‘I fell. I tripped and I fell. Because I’m a stupid clumsy bitch.’

‘Come on, Irene, you’re not—’

‘Please, just... just leave me alone.’

Callum poured boiling water into the two mugs. The kitchen wasn’t huge, and nothing in it looked as if it’d been bought from new, but it was clean and tidy enough.

Willow stood in the doorway, watching as he mashed the teabags against the mugs’ inner walls with a teaspoon. Not saying anything as he fished them out and dumped them in the bin. Or when he got the milk out of the fridge. It wasn’t till he took the lid off the semi-skimmed and had a sniff that she broke the silence: ‘We’re not scummers, OK, Piggy?’

‘Never said you were.’ Both mugs got a dollop of milk. ‘Force of habit — you can’t trust a pint of milk in a police station. Never know who’s been at it.’ He took a wee sip of tea. Hot, but bearable. ‘Does your mum ever mention your dad’s name? Maybe she’s got photographs hidden away somewhere?’

Willow rolled her eyes and stomped into the room. Picked the semi-skimmed off the worktop and stuck it back in the fridge. ‘What happened to your hand?’

Callum pulled down his jacket sleeve, till it hid the filthy cast. ‘You didn’t answer the question: your dad’s name. Photos? Anything like that?’

‘Nah. Not a snitch, yeah? Mum’s not a snitch neither. Benny’s not fussed, but she dropped him on his head when he was wee, so you can’t believe a word he says. Lives in a fantasy world, don’t he?’

‘This guy comes in here and beats your mum up, and you think it’s more important to not be a clype? Thought you wanted to “break his little bitch legs”? Now you want to let him get away with it?’

Willow stuck her head on one side and shrugged. ‘Would’ve kicked the crap out of him, but you know...’

‘Sure you would.’

‘Yeah, would’ve killed him right there, but he had this huge shit-eating darkie with him.’

Callum stared at her. ‘You can’t say things like that.’

‘But see if he was on his own?’ She mimed punching someone.

‘Willow, I’m serious. You want people to think you’re some sort of stupid racist lowlife? Because that’s what it makes you sound like. You think it makes you sound tough, but it doesn’t.’

She clamped her mouth shut.

‘Thought you were better than that.’

‘You’re not my dad!’

‘Yeah. Because he’s been such a role model, hasn’t he?’

Pink swept up her neck and into her cheeks, setting the tips of her ears glowing. Then she glowered at the kitchen floor for a moment, muscles bunching along her jaw, like she was chewing something. Deep breath. ‘He had a huge black guy with him. All gold chains and that. He took Mr Lumpylump, cos Dad told him to.’

‘They stole your mother’s teddy bear ?’

‘I was hiding in the cupboard under the stairs and I saw him take Mr Lumpylump. Should’ve broken both their legs. Should’ve killed them both.’ Seven years old, going on Charles Manson.

‘So tell me his name.’

‘What happened to your hand?’

The filthy cast itched. ‘I hit someone. Hard .’

A nod. ‘And I’m not a snitch.’

Callum stepped into the thin drizzle, closed the front door behind him, and slouched down the front path to the Mondeo: still parked in the middle of the street where he’d abandoned it, still full of all his boxes. Which was something of an achievement for Kingsmeath, even at this time of night.

He plipped the locks and sank in behind the wheel.

‘00:35’, according to the dashboard clock, and he still had to drive all the way to Cowskillin, unload everything into Mother’s husband’s lockup and drive back to Dotty and Louise’s house before he could call it a night.

‘Pffff...’ Come on. Keys in the ignition and—

A knock on the driver’s window made him flinch hard enough to drop the keys.

Sodding hell.

He turned and there was Baboon Boy with his jug ears and pug nose, standing close enough for his breath to fog the glass.

Callum buzzed the window down. ‘Benny?’

Benny did a big pantomime of looking up and down the street, then over his shoulder, before turning back and lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘They beat on my mum.’

‘I know, Benny. But your mum won’t tell me who did it, so there’s nothing I can do to help her.’

He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his tracksuit top. ‘I saw them. Willow thinks I didn’t, but I did. Both of them. Cos I see things.’

Callum slumped back in his seat. ‘I’m sure you do, but I’m completely knackered, Benny, so...?’

‘My Dad’s a rock star.’

‘Is he now?’

‘He’s got a helicopter and a plane and a tiger and loads of bitches.’

‘Bitches?’ Maybe Willow hadn’t been lying about Benny being dropped on his head when he was wee.

‘In bikinis and stuff, for the dancing.’ He did a sort of Michael Jackson crotch-grab-and-twirl thing, finishing off with a finger pointed at the low clouds. ‘Owwwww!’

‘Right. That makes perfect sense now.’

Benny lowered his pointing hand and nodded, face serious as an aneurism. ‘Yeah. I seen him on the telly. With his bitches.’

‘OK, well, thanks for letting me know, Benny. I appreciate it. But don’t call women “bitches”, OK? That’s not nice.’

Another serious nod.

Callum scooped up the keys from the footwell. Paused. Turned back to the strange little boy with his snot-silvered tracksuit. ‘You don’t know your dad’s name, do you, Benny? Do you know what he’s called?’

Another pantomime check that no one was listening. ‘No one’s supposed to know.’

‘Yes, but do you know, Benny?’

‘Mum used to call him Donald when he’d been naughty. But you’re not allowed to tell anyone.’

‘Donald. Right. It’ll be our secret.’ Callum stuck the retrieved keys in the ignition and started up the Mondeo. ‘Do me a favour? Look after your mum and sisters... And whatever the baby is.’

‘Cos I see things.’

‘That’s right. And if you see your dad round here again, you give me a call, OK?’ Callum handed over a Police Scotland business card.

Benny frowned at it, then put it in his back pocket. ‘OK.’

And with any luck, next time, they’d catch the cowardly little sod in the act.

Callum put the car in drive, gave Benny a wave, and pulled away into the night.

The lockup wasn’t full of pornography, but it was full of booze. Half a dozen demijohns blooped and gurgled on a reclaimed section of kitchen units, complete with worktop. Crates and crates of wine bottles were stacked up in the corner, and a couple of black plastic bins had tea towels draped over their gaping mouths. Everything had the earthy undead smell of live yeast.