Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

I lifted the crowbar, slipped the curved end in between the padlock and the hasp. Hissed out a breath. Bob the Builder was just sitting there, on the back seat. He’d probably like to help. Certainly it’d be a hell of a lot safer with him on our side. But that would make Babs a witness — yes, Officer, now you mention it, I did see Mr Henderson with an illegal handgun . And when Mrs Kerrigan turned up with her face blown off…

Yeah, maybe not.

I pointed back towards the Suzuki. ‘Alice, get in the car.’

The chain rattled as a huge furry body slammed into the other side of the gate.

‘Are you sure we shouldn’t just-’

‘Car. Now!’

She fumbled with her keys and scrambled inside. Slammed the door behind her. Thumbed the locks down. Stared up at me with wide eyes.

I turned back to the gate. Deep breath. ‘Right, on three. One. Two. Th-’

A harsh voice cut through the night. ‘FIRE! BRIMSTONE! SHUT UP, YOU WEE BUGGERS, OR I’LL SKIN YOU ALIVE!’

Framed in the gap between the gates, the two dogs froze: mouths hanging open, tongues lolling over jagged teeth, muscles in their haunches twitching. Then they turned their heads and looked back into the scrapyard.

A tall, thin man, wearing nothing but a pair of torn jeans padded out of the shadows. Bottle of Glenmorangie in one hand, a huge meat cleaver in the other. His chest and arms were smeared with scarlet and black, more blood on his jeans and bare feet. Scars criss-crossed his torso — some old and pale, others angry red-and-purple — stretched tight across muscle, the skin like tanned leather between the gore. A mane of dark hair reared up from his lined forehead, a grey moustache covering his top lip. Hooded eyes, narrow as stab wounds. A face carved from granite and other people’s pain.

He bared his teeth and whistled.

The dogs loped off to join him, silent and compliant.

Babs lowered her shotgun, one side of her mouth twisted up. ‘He’s a lot … better looking than I imagined.’

Never thought I’d be happy to see Wee Free McFee.

Wee Free padlocked the gate shut behind us.

Alice tugged at my sleeve, her voice low as the dogs prowled silently around us. ‘It’s like something out of a horror movie…’

The junkyard was a dark maze of partially crushed cars, stacked into monolithic blocks; mounds of scrap metal; and a sagging Cheops of washing machines, cookers, and fridge freezers.

A shipping container sat in the middle, surrounded by these towering piles, ‘THE CHAPEL’ painted in chipped white on the side. It was bolted onto a ramshackle collection of two caravans, an ancient Oldcastle Transportation Company bus — sitting on six flat tyres — and the boxy bit off the back of a Transit van. All stitched together with more sheets of rusting corrugated metal. Strings of multi-coloured fairy lights hung in drooping lines, marking out a two-storey-high crucifix, looming over everything. Twinkling red and yellow, with all the festive welcome of an infected wound.

Home sweet home.

Wee Free wrenched open a wooden door set into the container’s wall, and lurched inside, the cleaver screeching along the rust-streaked metal.

Fire and Brimstone squeezed past him, feet scrabbling on the linoleum, and Wee Free looked back over his shoulder at me, top lip curled, showing off those little white teeth. Now he wasn’t shouting any more, his voice was quiet. Well-spoken. Bordering on posh. ‘You’ll have had your tea.’

Babs slipped Thatcher through a couple of Velcro straps fixed to the front of her stab-proof vest, the gun nestling against her stomach. ‘Actually, I wouldn’t mind a coffee if-’

‘We’re fine.’ I ignored the glower that got me. ‘We need to talk to you about Jessica.’

Wee Free’s back stiffened for a moment. Then he grunted, took a swig from his bottle of whisky and marched away down the hall.

Inside, the shipping container’s walls were hung with striped wallpaper, slowly fading to a uniform filthy grey, darkened by patches of mould. A saggy brown sofa squatted in the middle of a Turkish rug — surrounded by drifts of paperbacks, newspapers, and beer cans — facing a small TV propped up on a stack of tyres. More books lined the walls, some in bookcases, but most just piled up in heaps.

The coppery smell of raw meat filled the place, so thick I could taste it.

Wee Free prowled straight past the sofa, towards the back of the container where a light bulb dangled from a cord above a wooden table covered in sheets of newsprint. The paper was clarted in blood. A large chunk of meat — about the size of a small child — sat on a crumpled patch of dark red. Whatever it was, there was no skin on it, just thick veins of white fat. He took another swig of whisky, then slammed the cleaver into the meat, hacking a chunk off the end.

Fire and Brimstone padded around his bare feet, eyes on the table, mouths open.

The container’s metal floor was a patchwork of rust and scuffed paint. It rang every time my crowbar-walking stick clanged against it, like the toll of a funeral bell.

Alice clasped her hands in front of her. ‘Your home’s very … distinctive.’

Wee Free gave her a tombstone smile. Drew the cleaver’s edge along the chunk of raw meat, carving off a thin slice. ‘What’s your name, girl?’

‘Dr Alice McDonald. This is Ash Henderson, and that’s Officer Crawford.’

He took the slice of meat and tossed it over the edge of the table.

The dogs scrambled forwards, jaws snapping, one of them grabbing it just as it slapped against the metal floor, leaving the other to lick up the smear of blood it left behind.

Wee Free transferred the cleaver to his left hand, and stuck the right one out. The smile died. ‘William McFee.’

Alice looked down at the blood-smeared fingers — scarlet and brown, flecked with clots of black. Swallowed. Shook his hand.

Then he offered it to me.

The palm was sticky, the fingers cold and slick, leaving smears of red on my skin. He squeezed, making my knuckles groan. I squeezed back. Kept my teeth gritted and my face dead till he let go and moved on to Babs.

I adopted the Standard Police Officer’s Bad News Pose: feet shoulder-width apart, hands behind my back. ‘Mr McFee, we have reason to believe your daughter, Jessica, has been-’

‘She’s a whore.’ His mouth turned down. ‘Fornicating with that Godless … Dundonian .’ The cleaver battered down into the meat again. ‘Dishonouring her father in his twilight years. Turning her back on the Lord.’ He bared his teeth at the bottle, daring it to contradict him. ‘Bitch is no daughter of mine.’

‘Have you heard of the Inside Man?’

Wee Free stared at me for a beat, then carved off another slice. Only he didn’t toss this one to the dogs, he bit it in half. Chewed. Knocked back another swig of whisky. ‘Then it’s God’s judgement. He’s punished her for her sins. He punishes us all, in time.’

Something wet brushed my right hand and I flinched — couldn’t help it. One of the Alsatians was right beside me, sniffing my stained fingers. No idea if this one was Fire or Brimstone, but it was massive. Its wedge-shaped head moving back and forth, muscles rolling beneath the broad hairy back as it shifted from side to side. Ears forward.

‘The bitch deserved to die.’ He turned the cleaver, pressed the blade against his chest — in amongst the other scars — and drew it slowly from left to right. Nothing happened for a heartbeat, then blood welled up along the line, spilled over the edge of the cut and trickled down his skin. A sigh shuddered free from his lips.

Alice opened her mouth an inch, then shut it again. Looked at me. Then back at the line of scarlet dripping its way down his chest. ‘Actually, she’s not dead, well probably not, I mean she might be, but the other women abducted by the Inside Man were kept for at least three days before they were dumped, so there’s every reason to believe she’s still alive-’