Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

Ruth blinked at the paper for a couple of breaths. Then there was a soft thump — like a tiny punch — and a droplet spread out in a ragged circle of grey into the newsprint. Then another. She sniffed. Picked the paper up and pressed it against her chest as if she could absorb the words through her jumper and into her scarred skin.

Alice put her hand back on Ruth’s knee. ‘You’ve not spoken to Laura since the attack, have you?’

She shook her head, cheeks glistening, a dribble of silver shining on her top lip.

‘Well, what would you think if I arranged for you to see her again? Would you like that? And, maybe, afterwards we could make you an appointment with the fertility clinic — see what they say?’

‘I can’t believe it…’ Ruth wiped a hand across her trembling lips.

Alice reached into her satchel again and produced a couple of tissues. Held them out. ‘Now, I’d like to talk about what happened eight years ago. Could we do that?’

She took the tissues in one hand, the other still hugging the paper, and bunched them against her eyes. Then nodded.

‘OK, so just you sit back in your seat and relax. And-’

‘What if I can’t remember?’

‘Well, I’ve got a technique that can help, if you’re OK with it? Is that OK?’

Another nod.

‘Great. So I need you to make yourself comfy and take a deep slow breath and take us back to that day.’ Alice’s voice dropped, just like it had in the secure ward that morning. ‘Picture the smells. The sounds. The noises as you wake up that morning.’ Lower and slower. ‘You’re lying in bed and you’re warm and comfortable, drowsy with sleep, your muscles all relaxed and warm and you’re so comfortable and warm and you’re safe and nothing can hurt you…’

… and then I’m standing in the corner of the room, crying while they wheel her out and down to the mortuary. She’s forty-nine but there’s nothing left but tumours and yellow skin stretched over jagged bones.

‘God’s sake, Ruth. Get it together, yeah? It happens.’ Andrea squats in front of the bedside cabinet and empties it into a cardboard box. Perfume, a fuzzy monkey, a toilet bag, supermarket moisturizer. The end of a life. ‘You going to help, or what?’

So I do. Not saying a word. Trying not to sniffle in case it sets her off again. And then we strip the sheets off the bed, remove the pillowcases, spray the plastic-shrouded mattress with disinfectant and wipe it clean.

She’s the fourth woman to die tonight. Two cancers, one septicaemia, and a pneumonia. All thin and rattling and alone.

The lift jerks and shudders, like it’s crying, all the way down to the locker room. Names and swearwords are scratched into the stainless-steel walls.

It’s the end of night shift, but I’m the only one here. Everyone else bunked off dead on time to stomp down to the Severed Leg in Logansferry for Janette’s leaving do. A dozen haggard, hollow-eyed women hammering cocktails at five in the morning.

But Janette’s never liked me, so here I am. Alone.

Up above — in the triangle between the main building, the admin block, and the old Victorian part where they keep the psychiatric patients — the sky’s thick and deep-deep purple, like when you trap your fingernail in a door.

The doctors’ car park is full of BMWs and Porsches, all covered with a crisp layer of white frost that sparkles in the glare of security lights, but the entrance to the underground bit they make us use is shrouded in darkness. Even with four nurses dead and two in intensive care, they still haven’t put up lights. Just a notice printed in thick red letters, ‘WARNING: LONE WOMEN SHOULD NOT ENTER PARKING AREA UNACCOMPANIED’.

Because that’s going to help.

Still, it’s not as if I have to worry about it — I don’t have the car with me today. Some bastard robbed it on Old Year’s Night and left it burning in a lay-by near Camburn Woods. Which makes getting to the twenty-four-hour Asda a pain, but there’s nothing in the fridge but Bacardi Breezers and olives. So I take a left, through the broken security gate, beneath the lifeless gaze of a security camera with the wires dangling from its blackened casing, and onto St Jasper’s Lane.

Half the streetlights are out. The cold air smells like pepper and lemons.

The pavement crunches beneath my feet. Little piles of grit make goose-pimple patterns on the slabs, dirtying the ice. I dig my hands into my pockets.

My breath mists out in front of me, pulled away on the wind like a ghost from my mouth.

Cross the road.

Should really go the long way round: past St Jasper’s, along to Cupar Road and down to the bus stop, but it’s much quicker to nip down Trembler’s Alley.

When I was at school — can’t have been more than six or seven — they told us the Earl of Montrose trapped the town council there, caught in the narrow slit between the granite church wall and the apothecary’s. His men butchered them like hogs and painted the walls with their blood. Mounted their heads above St Jasper’s door for everyone to see … I had nightmares for months.

I… They haven’t… The council hasn’t gritted the alley. Maybe it’s too narrow for the machine, or maybe they just can’t be bothered? It’s icy, slippery. Mounds of crunchy snow you have to pick your way through and try not to fall flat on your arse.

And it’s dark . Just a couple of lights for the whole length, and they can barely work up a faint glow.

And… And I’m halfway down…

Please…

‘It’s OK, Ruth, you’re safe, remember? You’re in bed and you’re warm and you’re comfortable. So very comfortable and safe and warm and nothing can happen to you, because you’re safe.’

And there’s a noise. Behind me. Crunching. Like feet.

Oh God, someone’s following me. There’s someone there.

Faster. Get away.

Oh God, oh God…

‘Ruth, it’s OK. Take a deep breath. We’re here. Nothing can happen to you, you’re safe and-’

It’s Him! He’s right behind me and I try to run, but the ground’s like glass beneath my feet and I slip and stagger and try to stay up. Get away, run away! RUN AWAY!

‘OK, Ruth, I need you to come back to us. It’s OK, we’re here, you’re-’

And the pavement rushes up and cracks across my knees and my arm goes out, but I can’t stop myself and my head smashes into the ice and everything smells of old pennies and meat, and I’m crying and I can’t get up and he’s on top of me pressing me into the snow and there’s something over my mouth. Hot breath in my ear, sour like sick. Stubble rasps against my cheek. His hand grabs my belt, undoing it… Fingers jabbing into the zip of my jeans. Yanking them down. Grunting.

Please, don’t. No. Someone help me!

HELP ME!

‘Ash, slap her. Not too hard! Just a gentle-’

‘ You hit her. I’m not-’

HELP ME!

Alice lurched out of her seat and whipped an open palm across Ruth’s cheek, hard enough to snap her head to the side. Hard enough to stop her screaming. Hard enough to leave a perfect five-fingered print on her tear-streaked face.

Then Alice was on her knees, pulling Ruth into a hug. ‘It’s OK, it’s OK. Shhh… You’re OK. We’re here. Nobody’s going to hurt you.’

Ruth’s shoulders shook, vibrating in time with her howling sobs.

‘It’s OK, it’s OK…’

I stepped back, the tips of my ears burning. Looked away — out of the window and down at the street below. At Alice’s rattled Suzuki. At the three-legged dog tripoding its way down the pavement in front of a T-shirt-wearing skinhead. At a pair of vulture-sized seagulls tearing into a mound of black bin-bags. Up at the blood-streaked spire of the First National Celtic Church. Anywhere that wasn’t Ruth.