Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

A different voice, another young woman, screeching it out: ‘Get away from me!’

And then a man, barely audible over the shouts and screams, as if he was standing far away from the phone. But there was no mistaking his calm and reasonable tone, the pride in his words: ‘They’ll worship you. You’ll be a god and they’ll worship you.’

Callum turned the volume up and clicked the mouse again.

‘They’ll worship you. You’ll be a god and they’ll worship you.’

Franklin stared at him. ‘Callum?’

‘I think we’ve got more victims out there.’

‘They’ll worship you. You’ll be a god and they’ll worship you.’

Mother sat back in her seat and grimaced. ‘Well... Maybe?’

Callum pointed at the media player sitting in the middle of her computer screen. ‘Dr McDonald said Imhotep was venerating his victims. The Peruvians used to transform their dead into gods so they could look after the village. This is what he does: he abducts people and he turns them into gods.’

She looked over her shoulder to where McAdams was slouching against the filing cabinet, stirring something white and fizzy in a glass. ‘Andy?’

A shrug. ‘Play the recording from the start again. Let’s hear our boy’s voice.’

Callum did, setting the speakers crackling.

They sat and listened all the way through. Frowning at the screen.

‘They’ll worship you. You’ll be a god and they’ll worship you.’

‘You’ll be a god and they’ll worship you. Hmm...’ McAdams stared off into the distance.

Mother stared at him. ‘In your own time, Andy.’

‘Thinking.’ He bared his teeth. ‘I know it’s all muffled, but does our boy sound local to you? I think there’s a big lump of Dundee in there.’ The filing cabinet squeaked as he leaned back against it. ‘And how did this Marline manage to record the whole call?’

‘She’s got an app that runs in the background, buffering everything on a loop. Likes to record her boyfriend so she can listen to him over and over again. Find out if he’s cheating on her.’

‘Ah, the delights of modern technology.’ A nod. ‘The lad may be right. Imhotep doth make them gods. Now we must find out.’

Mother sniffed. ‘I like it better when poems rhyme.’

‘Don’t blame me, blame the Japanese, / Their haikus flummox, tease, and please, / Though sometimes they may cause unease.’ He downed his white-and-fizzy in a single gulp. ‘It could be that our story has a third-act twist up its sleeve and our dead serial killer is reaching out from the mortuary slab. Can our brave team of misfits overcome their differences to save Ashlee and Abby Gossard in time?’ McAdams put his glass down. ‘Well, assuming they’re not already dead, tra-la-la.’

‘Fair enough.’ She nodded. ‘All righty. Callum: you and Rosalind go check out this Ashlee Gossard. But do it quickly — let’s not get caught out on the “i”s and “t”s, because we got distracted dotting the “j”s as well.’

Johnson Crescent was a big horseshoe development of tiny two-storey houses, all squished together into long tenement blocks.

Callum parked a few doors down from number 223, beneath the yellowing leaves of a sycamore tree.

Franklin sniffed. ‘Least it’s stopped raining.’

The sun had even managed to poke its way through the city’s blanket of dove-grey clouds.

Wonders would never cease.

This side was still wreathed in darkness, though.

The rattle and clank of construction stretching from the Camburn Roundabout cut through the damp air as they climbed out and locked the Mondeo.

Callum stuck his broken hand in his pocket and wandered down the pavement to number 223.

A line of police tape was tied around the door, but there was no sign of anyone guarding it.

He let himself in with the keys from the case file.

A small hallway with stairs up the right-hand side. A row of coats. Laminate flooring with a long smear of dark red curling away down the hall and disappearing through the door at the far end. More smears on both sides, below knee-height, as if someone being dragged had tried to get purchase on the magnolia walls. Smudged bloody handprints on the architrave of the open living room door.

Franklin peered over his shoulder. ‘Should we not be in SOC suits, or something?’

‘DS McCready says the SEB have been and gone.’ Though it had taken a crowbar to get that information out of the Praying Mantis, never mind the keys, or the case file.

Just to be on the safe side, Callum fought his way into a blue nitrile glove and picked his way down the outside edge of the laminate flooring, keeping as far away from the blood smears as possible.

The room they disappeared into was a kitchen.

‘Yeah... That’s not good.’ Franklin stood in the middle and did a slow three-sixty.

She wasn’t wrong. There was blood up the walls, little red dots on the ceiling, shattered jars spilling teabags and coffee granules, sugar and cornflakes. A small table lay on its side against the fridge, one leg snapped clean off and sitting in a sticky-looking puddle of scarlet. Two chairs, twisted to splintered bones.

Franklin curled her top lip. ‘Why all the blood? Tod Monaghan didn’t do this when he attacked Ben Harrington, Brett Millar, and Glen Carmichael. Three of them, and not so much as a drop anywhere. Why the overkill?’

Good question.

‘Maybe Ashlee and her mum wouldn’t eat the magic mushrooms?’

‘Nah, you heard the nine-nine-nine call, he didn’t even try. Soon as he was in the house that was it: screaming.’

Callum eased the broken table out from in front of the fridge. The white plastic door was covered in blobs of black fingerprint powder.

‘And he’s never attacked women before, has he? All the other mummies are men.’

And that was a good point.

‘Well, I don’t know, do I? Maybe he thought Ashlee Gossard was a better bet: you’ve seen her photo, she’s either bulimic or anorexic. Less body-fat means less water, means easier to preserve.’

‘Assuming Ashlee was the target and not her mum.’

Another good point.

Callum sat back on his haunches. ‘The only way we’ll know for sure is if we find them.’

‘If they’re not already dead.’

‘Will you stop it with the good points already?’

That got him a frown.

He waved a hand. ‘Never mind. How did your boyfriend’s work’s do go?’

‘I’m just saying this doesn’t look like Imhotep’s handiwork. This isn’t his MO.’

‘I know.’

She opened and closed a couple of the kitchen drawers. ‘Apparently the partners kept asking where I was. And he had a miserable time. And it was all my fault, because I wouldn’t drop everything and go simper at his side like a little woman should .’

Callum stood. ‘Want to check upstairs?’

‘He’s always banging on about how he supports my career, but every time it clashes with his career suddenly I’m being “selfish”.’

There was a pool of blood at the foot of the stairs. A couple of dark footprints on the bottom three steps, then a smear down the wall to the ground again. As if someone had made a run for it, but didn’t get very far.

Callum tiptoed between them and up the stairs.

Franklin followed him. ‘You know what I think? I think Mark doesn’t want me to work at all. He wants a trophy wife who’ll settle down and do some volunteer work between squeezing out three kids and baking sodding scones.’

The landing was clear — no blood spatters.

She curled her lip. ‘I hate scones.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Callum pushed open one of the three doors — small bathroom with a built-in shower over the bath. Every porcelain surface was clarted with fingerprint powder.