Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

I nodded. ‘So you’re saying it isn’t him?’

‘That depends on the next body. If it’s someone else the MO will diverge as he experiments, trying to find his personal groove. If it stays consistent it’s probably him.’ She turned to Jacobson. ‘At the press conference Detective Superintendent Ness wouldn’t answer the question: did he send a letter about Claire Young?’

‘Well … yesterday was Sunday, so if he posted it after he killed her, it wouldn’t get collected till today, and it won’t be delivered till tomorrow. If we’re lucky, we’ll find out before the paper prints it.’

Alice shuffled closer. ‘Superintendent, can I speak to the original survivors and review the victimology reports? I want to look at the Inside Man letters too. The photocopies in the case file are barely readable. I’ll need access to the originals.’

He patted her on the shoulder. ‘For you, anything. And please, call me Bear.’

Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have laughed. ‘Seriously? Thought that was meant to be a joke. You want us to call you “Bear”?’

‘Dr McDonald has pleased me by putting that jumped-up publicity-hungry TV tart in his place this morning. Bernard?’

Professor Huntly kept his gaze on the water, still sulking.

‘You made the boy from SCD who asked about the phone call look like a moron. So you’re forgiven for yesterday.’

Huntly raised one shoulder, stared at his shoes. ‘Thank you, Bear.’

Jacobson poked me in the chest. ‘So far all you’ve done is limp about, taking up space and eating Sheila’s pizza. You can call me, “Sir”, “Guv”, or “Super”.’

One step forward and I was inches from his nose, looming. ‘How about I call you-’

‘Ash…’ Alice tugged at my sleeve. ‘Remember what we talked about? Going to see the deposition scene? I think we should really go now, don’t you, I mean there’s a lot to get through today and we all want to do our best for the investigation so we can stay out of prison, don’t we? Please?’

And miss a chance to rip the little git’s face off and…

Don’t be so bloody s tupid .

Blink. Step back. Deep breath. ‘Right.’ I forced a smile into place and patted Jacobson on the shoulder. ‘Sorry, still getting used to not being inside. You know.’

Jacobson tilted his head back, grinning up at me. ‘And you can take Bernard with you. He doesn’t drive.’

Huntly cleared his throat. ‘Can we at least wait for my sausage sandwich?’

‘… quite ridiculous, surely it’s appropriate to observe a decent period of mourning.’ Sitting in the back seat, Huntly took another bite of his sausage buttie, tomato sauce oozing out of the roll and onto his fingers. He chewed, with his mouth turned down, as if it was full of ashes. ‘You didn’t see me jumping into bed with the first person I saw, did you? Civilized people just don’t do that.’

Alice clicked on the car radio. ‘Maybe some music will cheer you up?’

‘ … have confirmed that the family of four found dead in the wreckage of their burning home in Cardiff on Wednesday were subjected to a brutal hammer attack. Local news now, and the search for missing five-year-old Charlie Pearce continues as police- ’

She switched the thing off again. ‘Maybe not. We could play I-spy?’

Outside the Suzuki’s window, Oldcastle ground its way through the rush hour. Cars, vans, and buses crawled along the streets in a slow-motion metal conga line, blaring horns making a post-dawn chorus.

Huntly gave a big, theatrical sigh. ‘I spy something beginning with bleakness, darkness, and lonely crushing cold. Give up? It’s the rest of my life.’

I ground the tip of my cane into the passenger footwell. Gritted my teeth. ‘How about we all just sit in silence till we get there?’

Alice looked across from the driver’s seat and grimaced at me, both eyebrows up.

He shifted, leaning forward until his head poked through the gap between the seats. Enveloping everything in his sausagey breath. ‘Have you ever loved someone, Henderson? I mean, really, really loved them? And then … then they’re just gone, and there’s nothing you can do to bring them back?’ He grabbed my shoulder and squeezed. ‘God: the agony .’

Alice stared at me, mouth hanging open. ‘Err… Actually, maybe we should-’

I slammed my hand on the dashboard. ‘Bus!’

‘Eeek!’ She stamped on the brakes, wrenched the wheel to the right, nearly battering into a taxi coming the other way. We screeched to a halt in the middle of the road.

An old woman with a tartan shopping trolley stopped on the pavement to gape, her Westie terrier barking at the car — tail stiff and upright.

The taxi driver wound down his window and belted out a mouthful of expletives, before sticking up two fingers and heading off.

Alice puffed out a breath. ‘Right. Let’s try that again.’ She eased past the bus and back onto the left side of the road. ‘Sorry.’

Huntly gave my shoulder another squeeze. ‘Women drivers, eh?’

‘If you don’t get your hand off me right now, I’m going to tear your fingers off and ram them down your throat till you choke.’

He let go, licked his lips, then settled back onto his seat. ‘I was only joking.’

‘And no more talking either.’

Silence.

Go on, say something. Anything .

But he didn’t. Not as thick as he looked after all.

A ribbon of blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape twisted in the wind, growling like a finger dragged across the teeth of a comb. Scrubland surrounded the deposition site on three sides, a patch of wood reaching up like a dark green wall behind it. The sky was a solid swathe of granite. The long grass whipping in a frigid wind.

I turned my back on the gusts and jammed a finger in my ear. ‘No, not… Look, all I want is access to the Inside Man letters. How hard can it be?’

A loud sigh came down the phone. ‘ Seriously? Come down here and take a look; it’s like a bring-and-buy sale for cardboard boxes down here. You know that bit at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark ? That .’ Another sigh. ‘ Did you check with the Major Investigation Teams? ’

‘Come off it, Williamson, who do you think put me on to you? They haven’t seen them.’

One of Oldcastle’s collection of dented and scarred patrol cars blocked the path down to the scene, a pair of uniforms guarding the place by sitting on their backsides inside, out of the wind.

‘ Well, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I’m not Santa. I can’t just magic up a set of letters if I’ve no clue where the damn things are. ’

‘So go ask Simpson. He’ll know.’

‘ Look, I’m telling you there’s- ’

‘Hold on.’ I pressed the phone against my chest and rapped on the driver’s window.

The guy behind the wheel puffed out his cheeks, then buzzed the window down. He didn’t look old enough to vote, never mind arrest anyone — with a threadbare moustache and a scabby pluke on his forehead. Bored eyes and a droopy mouth. Crumbs and flakes of pastry all down the front of his stab-proof vest. He took another bite out of whatever was wrapped in the paper bag from Greggs, talking with his mouth full. ‘Sorry, mate, this bit’s shut. Gotta go walk somewhere else.’

I leaned on the roof. Stared down at him. ‘First off, Constable , I am not your “mate”.’

He obviously recognized the tone of voice from previous bollockings, because he sat bolt upright in his seat and dropped the paper bag into the footwell. A blush erupted across his face, flushing his cheeks, making the tips of his ears glow. ‘Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean-’