Stuart MacBride - A Dark So Deadly

Callum turned the page. ‘Hold on, I’m nearly finished this chapter.’

‘Oh for goodness’ sake, not more kiddies’ books. I’m beginning to think you’ve got an unnatural bent, Constable MacGregor.’ He snatched the novel out of Callum’s hands, shut it, and grimaced at the cover. ‘ Open the Coffins is a ridiculous title for a kids’ book.’

‘It’s a classic .’

‘You know Travis stole that from William Blake, don’t you? Or was it Milton? No, definitely Blake. “And by came an Angel who had a bright key. / And he open’d the coffins and set them all free...”’

Callum grabbed the book back and slipped it into his pocket. ‘You said five minutes, twenty minutes ago.’

‘And he’s obsessed: rabbits as a symbol of male innocence and virility, cats as feminine cunning and treachery.’

He hauled his seat forwards, started up the Mondeo and stuck her into drive. ‘The rust-brown Berlingo’s closest: Milgarvie and Kirk, plumbing supplies and services, Cowskillin.’

‘Justin Nevin gets transformed into a rabbit by the Wicked Witch of the Well as a punishment for his theft. And by the way, she’s only stuck down the well because the villagers chucked her in there, but Justin thinks it’s OK to steal the apples from the tree growing over the well even though they’re her only source of food. Well, unless a child falls down there, I suppose.’

Callum slid them out of the car park, right, and onto Camburn Road. ‘That’s why she’s got the apple tree there — so kids will try to steal the apples and fall in the well.’

‘And that’s something else he’s obsessed with: witches eating children. Goblins eating rabbits. Monsters eating children. People eating rabbits that are actually children. It’s a smorgasbord of transspecies consumption, posing as anthropomorphic cannibalism, but it’s really about venal desire. Consume the flesh, violate the body, and absorb it into your own.’

They skirted the edge of Camburn Woods, steering clear of the main roads. ‘They’re kids’ books. They’re about magic and adventure, not sex.’

‘Just because you read a lot, Constable, it doesn’t mean you read deeply. Skimming across the surface like a water beetle, no idea of the pike swimming through the murky depths below.’

Past the cemetery on the left, where a yellow JCB was busy digging a six-foot hole.

McAdams turned to watch the graves go by. ‘And what about Justin Nevin’s sister, Arya? Nevin is Croatian for “innocent”, Arya is Hausa for “false”. So the main female character is literally called False Innocence.’

Callum took a right, up a street of Victorian houses with railing-guarded front gardens, across the road at the end and into a narrow cobbled alley.

He pulled up outside a small shop with a dusty front window and an eight-foot-high gate wide enough to drive a bus through. ‘MILGARVIE & KIRK ~ FAMILY PLUMBING SPECIALISTS’ in big white letters across the blue-painted wood. ‘You finished?’

‘All I’m saying is that you’ve got a terrible taste in literature, and you should feel ashamed about it.’

‘Screw you, Sarge.’ Callum climbed out into the rain. Slammed the Mondeo’s door. Then hurried into the shop.

‘Nah...’ The man in the overalls handed the photo of Ashlee and Abby Gossard back across a countertop littered with bits of copper pipe, valves, grommets, and washers. ‘Sorry.’

Callum put the photo in his pocket and showed him one of Tod Monaghan instead. ‘How about him?’

‘Nah.’

‘But you were on Johnson Crescent Wednesday night?’

‘Fixing the most disgusting blocked U-bend you’ve ever seen in your life. Three women, sharing, and the amount of hair down the bathtub drain looked like they’d drowned a Womble. I can give you their number if you like? Manky cows...’

Dundas Bridge was jammed with cars and trucks trying to avoid the roadworks on the main route through Oldcastle.

McAdams grimaced out of the passenger window. ‘Traffic’s terrible .’

‘And yet you made me drive all the way through it to pick you up, then all the way back again.’ Callum tightened his grip on the steering wheel. ‘Remember?’

‘You know, moaning and whingeing isn’t an attractive quality in a sidekick. You should watch that. I might have to trade you in for narrative purposes.’ McAdams’ face was the colour of damp newsprint, his breathing coming in little shallow pulses. The bags under his eyes had darkened since he’d climbed into the car, back at DHQ. He checked the dashboard clock, then reached out and clicked on the radio. ‘Press conference should be starting soon.’

They were still doing their live coverage from the festival, only whoever was on stage right now couldn’t sing in tune no matter how loud they tried. It wasn’t even proper words they were bellowing, just noises.

Callum tightened his grip on the steering wheel. ‘I’m not your sidekick.’

‘Well you’re obviously not the hero, are you? You’re not even the comic relief — you have to actually be funny for that. All you do is moan and whinge. No wonder the readers don’t like you.’ McAdams held up a finger, the other hand pressing against his stomach. A grimace. Then: ‘ And Arya gets transmogrified into a cat.’

That sickly pear-drop smell was getting stronger.

OK, so McAdams might be a pain in the backside, but still... Callum cleared his throat. ‘Are you feeling all right, Sarge? Only you look terrible.’

‘Remember the scene when she catches and eats that church mouse, even though it’s got a family of six to care for? That’s a metaphor for women being soft and fuzzy on the outside and all cruel violence on the inside. How they consume men for their own selfish ends.’

‘Seriously, you look awful.’

A shrug. ‘I’m dying.’

‘You’re not planning on doing it right now, though, are you? You can’t believe how much extra paperwork that’d give me.’

McAdams smiled. ‘I’ll do my best to hang on till we get back to the shop.’ He stretched in his seat, grimacing. ‘Do you ever think about the end of your life, Callum? How it’s all going to just... stop?’

‘I’m not kidding: if you’re going to drop dead do it to Dotty. Or Watt, he deserves all he gets.’

‘The doctors say I won’t see my forty-third birthday. Can you imagine what that feels like?’

Callum stared at him: the stubbly grey hair, the bags under the eyes, the wrinkles. ‘You’re only forty-two ? God, that must have been one hell of a hard paper round.’

‘The Reaper reaps all men, in time, / His hand has come to rest on mine...’

The song on the radio droned to a halt as they reached the other side of the bridge, replaced by cheering as Callum took them straight across the roundabout and into the posher part of Castleview. Where the streets were wide and lined with trees, and no one’s corpse was floating in a bathtub full of brine and herbs.

‘Wooohooo! Wasn’t that fan-chicken-tastic? That’s Mr Bones there, sponsored by ScotiaBrand Tasty Chickens Limited, let’s give them another big hand!’

More cheering from a crowd that was either too polite to mention, or too drunk to care, that the band had been unable to carry a tune in a rucksack.

Callum navigated past a chunk of open ground, full of trees, and round onto a car park outside a small line of shops.

‘And now here’s Gorgeous Gabby with all your news and weather. Any chance of some sunshine, Gabby?’

‘Sorry, Chris, but things might be looking up for Sunday. Here’s the news. Police Scotland have announced they’re not looking for any other suspects in the Imhotep Mummy Murder case, after a man’s body was pulled from the Kings River outside Dundas House yesterday...’