Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

She smiled. ‘Was the policeman’s name, Ash? It was, wasn’t it?’

‘Who’s telling this story, you or me?’

Eight Years Ago

I hit the door hard, battering it open. Dodged a crowd of old fogies in their dressing gowns and slippers, surrounded by their own personal fog-bank of cigarette smoke.

Where the hell did he…

There — on the other side of the low wall that separated Castle Hill Infirmary from the car park. A pregnant woman screaming abuse, banging on the window of an ancient-looking Ford Fiesta as it roared away from the kerb.

More swearing erupted behind me as PC O’Neil staggered through the OAP smokers, his face flushed, sweat glistening on his cheeks. ‘Did you get him?’

‘Do I bloody look like I got him? Get the car. NOW!’

‘Oh God…’ He lumbered over the low wall — making for our rusty Vauxhall, parked on the double yellows.

The pregnant woman stood in the middle of the road, sticking two fingers up at the back of the Fiesta as it fishtailed out through the hospital gates and onto Nelson Street. ‘I HOPE YOU CATCH AIDS AND DIE, YOU THIEVING BASTARD!’

I staggered to a halt beside her. ‘Did you get a good look at his face?’

‘He stole my bloody car! Did you see that?’

‘Would you recognize him if you saw him again?’

‘My dog’s in the boot!’ She cupped her hands around her mouth. ‘COME BACK HERE, YOU WANKER!’

The pool car screeched out from the kerb, coming to a stop in a squeal of brakes on the wrong side of the road, opposite us. O’Neil buzzed the window down. ‘He’s getting away.’

I pointed the woman at the hospital. ‘You don’t go anywhere till someone’s taken your statement, understand?’ Then I ran around to the passenger side and clambered in. Slammed the door. Slapped O’Neil on the shoulder. ‘Put your foot down!’

He did, and the Vauxhall surged forward in a squeal of tyre smoke.

Left onto Nelson Street, just missing a Mini, the driver leaning on his horn, eyes wide, mouth stretched in horror.

O’Neil got the slide under control, both hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel, teeth biting down on his bottom lip as the car raced up the hill. Newsagents, carpet shops, and hairdressers streaked past the windows.

I scrambled into my seatbelt, then flicked the switch for the blues and twos.

The pool car’s siren wailed above the engine’s bellow, forging a path through the lunchtime traffic.

We screeched up the hill while I pulled out my Airwave handset and called it in. ‘Charlie Hotel Seven to Control, we are in pursuit of the Inside Man. Eastbound on Nelson Street. Get someone out there blocking the road. He’s in a brown Ford Fiesta.’

A pause, then a hard Dundee accent came on the line. ‘ You been drinking? ’

‘Get backup out there now!’

The Vauxhall cleared the brow of the hill, flew for at least ten feet, then slammed back down onto the tarmac. O’Neil had his shoulders curled forwards, arms locked straight ahead, as if pushing the steering wheel would actually make the car go faster.

‘There he is!’ I jabbed a finger at the windscreen.

The Fiesta disappeared into the underpass.

We were there less than thirty seconds later, the dual carriageway rumbling above us as O’Neil kept his foot to the floor. The siren echoed back from the concrete. Out into the daylight again. ‘Almost there…’

Couldn’t have been more than four seconds between us now.

The Fiesta jumped the lights where Nelson Road cuts across Canard Street, narrowly missing a woman on a bicycle, and right into the path of a bendy bus. It ploughed straight into the Fiesta, grabbing the front passenger-side and wrenching it three feet into the air, spinning the whole thing around and into a streetlight.

‘Shite!’ O’Neil stamped on the brakes. Hauled the wheel left, sending the back end squealing out across the cobbles. And everything slipped into slow motion. All the colours and shapes bright and sharp in the thin December light. A woman with a pushchair, mouth hanging open; a man up a ladder outside Waterstones, painting over graffiti; a little girl coming out of Greggs, frozen mid-pasty. A Transit van, the driver leaning on his horn as we slammed into him.

The bang was like a shotgun going off — cubes of safety glass exploded across the Vauxhall’s interior. The car kicked up on my side, hurling me into the seatbelt as the airbags detonated. Filling the world with white and the stench of fireworks. Then down again, bouncing, safety glass pattering against my skin like rain. Nostrils filled with the smell of dust and spent airbag and petrol.

Everything clicked back to normal speed.

O’Neil hung forward against his seatbelt, arms dangling at his sides, blood seeping down his face from the gash in his forehead and broken nose. The Transit van’s radiator blocked his window.

I fumbled with the seatbelt, a high-pitched ringing filling my head.

Out… I shoved open the door and stumbled into the road, holding onto the pool car’s roof to stay upright.

Someone screamed.

The Fiesta was bent around the lamppost, the passenger side all buckled in. The lamppost hadn’t fared much better. It was bent and twisted, the glass head dangling from a couple of wires.

Yellow and black dots swirled around me, dimming the street.

I blinked. Shook my head. Cracked my jaw. And the ringing dropped from deafening to just painful. Christ, what a mess…

Glass crunched under my shoes as I picked my way across the road.

Whimpering came from the back of the Fiesta — a pair of brown eyes stared out at me, wet nose pressed against the cracked hatchback glass. Then the driver’s door creaked open and the bastard fell out onto the road: baggy blue tracksuit, trainers, big woolly hat pulled down over his ears. Couldn’t see his face, just the back of his head.

‘You! You’re under arrest!’

And that was it. He was up on his feet like he was on springs, not looking back, arms and legs pumping as he sprinted towards the blue-and-white monolithic Travelodge on Greenwood Street.

No you bloody don’t.

I lurched after him, dragging my handset out again. ‘I need an ambulance to the junction of Canard, Nelson, and Greenwood. Officer hurt. And get the Fire Brigade too — there’s a dog trapped in the wreckage.’

Moving faster, pulse thudding in my throat, roaring in my chest.

Around the corner of Greenwood. The train station loomed ahead — a big Victorian upturned boat in wrought iron and glass, with a blocky 1970s concrete portico stuck on the outside for taxis and smokers to loiter under.

I shoved my way through the main doors, into a din of people shouting and pounding music. The interior was one big open-plan space, with walkways arching over the tracks, connecting the half-dozen platforms. Light filtered down through the dirty glass roof.

Someone had set up a big tent-stage thing by the ticket office — the Castlewave FM logo emblazoned on either side with ‘TURNING MILES INTO SMILES!!!’ in the middle. A table at the front was draped in black, a pair of tossers standing behind it clapping their hands above their heads in time to the music, still holding their microphones.

A sea of bodies clapped back at them, shoulder to shoulder, crowded into the concourse.

‘ Ha, excelente mi amigos! ’ The music faded out. ‘ What’s the total, Colin? ’

‘ Well, Steve, we’re all the way to Calais in France already, how cool is that? ’

‘ Megatastic coolio! ’ Followed by a grating honk from an old-fashioned horn.

Where the hell was he?

No sign of anyone running, or of anyone getting up, swearing, shaking their fists because they’d been knocked out of the way.