Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

After two years of being stuck inside, in a little concrete room with the occasional accident-prone cellmate, there should’ve been no contest. ‘Actually … I’d rather stay in. If that’s OK?’

The living room wasn’t exactly huge, but it was clean. Two folding chairs — the kind sold in camping shops — sat on either side of a packing crate in front of the fireplace. She hadn’t taken the price-tag off the rug, leaving it to flutter like an injured bird in the draught of a small blow heater.

The curtains were a washed-out blue colour that still wore the chequerboard creases from when they were in the packet. I pulled one side back.

Kingsmeath. Again. As if last time hadn’t been bad enough.

Mind you, it didn’t look quite as awful in the dark, just a sweeping ribbon of streetlights and glowing windows stretching down to the Kings River — the train station on the other side of the water shining like a vast glass slug. Even the industrial estate in Logansferry had a sort of fairy-tale mystery to it. Security lights and illuminated signs. Chain-link fences and guard dogs.

To be honest, most of Oldcastle looked better at night.

And then a trail of gold streaked into the sky. One… Two… Three… BANG — a glowing sphere of red embers punctured the night sky, throwing a pair of gravestone tower blocks into sharp relief, washing them with blood.

It slowly drained away until everything was in darkness again.

Alice appeared at my shoulder. ‘They’ve been letting them off for a fortnight. I mean don’t get me wrong I love fireworks as much as the next person, but it’s nearly a whole week after bonfire night and soon as the sun goes down it’s like Beirut out there.’

Another firework burst in a shower of blue and green. The change of colour didn’t improve anything.

She handed me a cup of tea. ‘You know, it might help to talk about what happened to Katie and Parker, now you’re not inside, because you’re safe here and you don’t have to worry about being recorded or people-’

‘Tell me about Claire Young.’

Alice closed her mouth. Bit her lips together. Then sank into one of the folding chairs. ‘Her mother blames herself. We’re not making it public, but she’s on suicide watch. Tried it twice before, apparently and-’

‘No, not her mother: Claire.’

‘OK. Claire.’ Alice crossed her legs. ‘Well, she’s definitely in the target range of the previous Inside Man victims — nurse, mid-twenties, very … fertile looking.’

The tea was hot and sweet, as if Alice thought I was suffering from shock. ‘So if it is him he’s still hunting at the hospital. Security tapes?’

‘Claire didn’t go missing from work. As far as we can tell, she never made it further than Horton Road. With any luck they’ll let us have the security camera footage from the area tomorrow.’

I turned back to the window. Another baleful red eye exploded over the tower blocks. ‘Is it him?’

‘Ah…’ Pause. ‘Well, that really depends on what happens tomorrow. Detective Superintendent Ness thinks it isn’t. Superintendent Knight thinks it is. Bear’s sitting on the fence till we’ve had a chance to examine the body and the physical evidence.’

‘That why we’re here: to decide if he’s back or not?’

‘No, we’re here because Detective Superintendent Jacobson is empire-building. He wants the Lateral Investigative and Review Unit to be a full-time thing. This is his test case.’

I pulled the curtains closed. Turned my back on the world.

‘So… What DVDs have you got?’

‘ No, you listen to me: we’re going to fight this! ’ She stops, shifts her grip on the holdall, and stares up at the dark-grey ceiling. Her hair’s like burnished copper, a dusting of freckles across her cheeks and nose. Pretty.

A fluorescent tube clicks and pings above her head, never quite getting going, making strobe-light shadows that jitter around the underground car park.

No place for a woman to be walking alone in the middle of the night. Who knows what kind of monsters might be lurking in the shadows?

Her breath plumes around her head. ‘ We won’t let them compromise patient care to save a few grubby pounds. ’

Yeah, right. Because that’s how it works.

Whoever’s on the other end of the phone says something, and she stops for a moment, surrounded by manky vehicles, parked in miserable rows of dents and chipped paint. Raises her chin. ‘ No, that’s completely unacceptable. ’

That’s when the music starts — violins, low and slow, marking time with her footsteps as she walks towards her car: an ancient Renault Clio with one wing a different colour to the others. ‘ Don’t you worry, we’ll make them rue the day they decided people didn’t deserve their dignity. We’ll… ’

A crease puckers the gap between her neatly plucked brows. Her eyes are bright sapphire, set in a ring of ocean-blue.

There’s something wrong with the passenger window of her car. Instead of being opaque with dried road spray, it’s a gaping black hole, ringed with little cubes of broken safety glass.

She peers inside. All that’s left of the stereo is a handful of multi-coloured wires, poking out of the hole where it used to be.

‘ For goodness’ sake! ’ The phone gets clacked shut and stuffed back into her pocket. Then she stomps round to the Renault’s boot and hurls her holdall inside.

Footsteps sound somewhere behind her, echoing back and forth as she stands there trembling and spiky. Some other underpaid nobody, making for their crappy car so they can go back to their crappy flat after a crappy day at their crappy job.

The violins get darker, joined by a minor chord on the piano.

She roots through her handbag, then pulls out a jangling mass of keys more suited to a prison officer than a nurse. They fumble through her fingers and tumble to the damp concrete. Cling-clatter their way under the car.

The footsteps are louder now.

She thumps her handbag on the bonnet and squats down, reaching into the oily blackness beneath the patchwork Clio, searching, searching…

The footsteps stop, right behind her.

Dramatic chord on the piano.

She freezes, car keys just out of reach.

Whoever it is clears his throat.

She lunges for the keys, grabs them, holds them jagged between her fingers like a knuckle duster, then spins around, back against the driver’s door…

A man frowns down at her, with his big rectangular face and designer stubble. ‘ Are you all right? ’ He’s wearing a set of pale-blue nurses’ scrubs, his top pocket full of pens. Castle Hill Infirmary ID tag hanging at a jaunty angle. Broad-shouldered. His blond hair, gelled into spikes, glints in the buzzing strip-light. Like something off Baywatch .

The grimace dies on her face, replaced by a small smile. She rolls her eyes, then sticks out her hand so he can help her up. ‘ Steve, you frightened the life out of me. ’

‘ Sorry about that .’ He looks away, deeper into the fusty gloom, eyebrows knitting. ‘ Listen, about this meeting tomorrow: Audit Scotland .’

‘ My mind’s made up .’ Laura picks through her keys, then unlocks the car door.

Seems like a waste of time, when she could reach in through the broken passenger window and open the thing, but there you go.

‘ I want you to know that we’re all behind you, one hundred percent .’ He doesn’t just look like something off Baywatch , he sounds like it too.

‘ Thanks, Steve, I appreciate that .’ She brushes broken glass from the driver’s seat, and climbs in.

Steve pulls his shoulders back, chest out. ‘ If there’s anything you need: I’m here for you, Laura. ’