Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

‘She’s not dead? How can she not be dead? Of course she’s dead, it’s God’s judgement .’

The Alsatian’s tongue rasped against the back of my hand, warm and slippery. Tasting me…

Stay perfectly still.

Alice cleared her throat. ‘Well, she might be, but there’s a very real chance she’s still-’

‘You saying she’s beyond God’s judgement? That what you’re saying?’ He carved off another slice, the knuckles of his hand white around the cleaver’s handle. Voice low and cold. ‘You saying she’s above God?’

‘I didn’t-’

‘No one’s above God. No one!’ The cleaver slammed into the meat.

Alice squeaked and backed up a pace.

The dog stopped licking my hand and growled, hackles rising, teeth bared.

Babs put a hand on Thatcher’s stock. ‘Easy now.’

I inched away from the Alsatian. ‘All right, let’s all calm down. Dr McDonald didn’t say anything about God, she just said-’

‘No one’s above God’s judgement. NO ONE!’

Growling, snarling.

Babs pulled Thatcher out and pointed her at Wee Free’s face. ‘Time to put the knife down, Mr McFee.’

I nodded. ‘Let’s all just calm down, OK? We can talk about it.’

Babs clicked off the safety catch. ‘No need to get uncool. We’re cool, aren’t we, Mr McFee? Cool?’

‘“Hold not thy peace, O God of my praise; for the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me: they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.”’ Getting louder with every word.

‘That’s not cool, Mr McFee. That’s another way of saying, “Shoot me in the face, please.”’

He snatched a sheet of newsprint from the table. The front page of the Telegraph was half obscured with blood, the headline: ‘SERIAL KILLER STRIKES AGAIN’ above a big photo of an SOC tent in the scrubland behind Blackwall Hill, inset with a camera-phone snap of Claire Young at some sort of Christmas do. Wide smile, shiny green party hat perched at a jaunty angle, snowman earrings with lights in them. ‘“They compassed me about also with words of hatred ; and fought against me without a cause. For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer.”’

The dog took a step closer, saliva dripping onto the metal floor. The other one emerged from beneath the table.

I tightened my grip on the crowbar. ‘Come on, Mr McFee, put the knife down .’

‘Be cool, Mr McFee, do the sensible thing.’

He padded out from behind the table. Threw the paper at his feet. ‘“And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love. Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.”’ Wee Free’s face was swollen and flushed, the sinews in his neck sticking out like cables, the cleaver snaking back and forth — glittering in the light of the bare bulb.

Babs braced her legs. ‘Mr Henderson, Dr McDonald? You might want to back up a bit…’

‘No one is above God’s judgement!’

I smashed the crowbar down on the table top. ‘All right, that’s enough!’

And Fire and Brimstone weren’t just growling any more: they were coming at me.

One second the world was full of fur and teeth and the next: BOOM! The shotgun kicked up in Babs’s hands, spewing out a cloud of smoke. One of the dogs slammed into my chest. We crashed backwards onto the floor, in a tangle of arms and legs, a ton of yowling Alsatian pinning me to the cold metal floor. My ribs burned, the whole right side of my body throbbed. Oh Jesus, she shot me…

Alice screamed.

The other dog leapt, and Thatcher barked again.

The sound was deafening in the container, reverberating back and forth, a sledgehammer battering my skull flat as the animal crashed sideways into the table, yammering and whining.

She bloody shot me!

Alice stumbled over and shoved the Alsatian off my chest. Then grabbed my face. ‘Ash? Oh God, Ash, are you OK?’

This was it: blasted at point-blank range. Bleeding out on the metal floor of the manky, cobbled-together, shanty-town house of a vicious nut-job, in the middle of a junkyard…

Next to me, the dog wriggled then he and the other one were on their paws, scrabbling away, tails between their legs. Whimpering.

‘Ash?’ Alice’s face swam in and out of focus. ‘No, please, come on, you’ll be OK, won’t you, please say you’ll be OK.’ She glared over her shoulder at Babs: ‘You shot him!’

The real pain would kick in any second now, soon as the initial shock faded. All that crap, all those deaths and pain, and this was how it ended. It wasn’t fair . Not like this. Not while Mrs Kerrigan was still breathing…

Wee Free gaped at Babs as she broke Thatcher open and the spent cartridges flew out. She slipped in another pair.

‘You shot my dogs!’

Clack , and the gun was closed again.

Sprawled flat on my back, I checked for the huge gaping hole pumping my life out onto the rusty floor. Fingers trembling against my jacket… Maybe they could get a tourniquet on? Apply pressure, staunch the bleeding, get me to the hospital?

Where was all the blood?

‘Ash? Can you hear me?’

There was no way Babs had missed me at that range, not with a sawn-off.

A gnawing ache clawed its way up and down my side, where the pellets had torn through my flesh, ripping my lung apart like…

Hold on a minute.

How could there be no blood? Not even a drop. Not so much as a hole in my jacket. How the hell…?

Wee Free trembled, spittle flying from his mouth. ‘You shot my dogs! No one shoots my dogs but me!’

Babs brought Thatcher up till she was pointing at Wee Free’s face again. ‘Drop the knife, Mr McFee, or you’ll find out how they feel.’

I batted Alice’s hands away and hauled my way up one of the table’s legs. Struggled to my feet. ‘ARE YOU INSANE? YOU COULD’VE KILLED ME!’

‘Inside voice, eh, Mr Henderson?’

‘You shot me!’

She grinned. ‘Rocksalt and tampons. Not exactly rubber bullets, but good enough at close range. Tell you what though: stings like an utter bastard.’ She waggled the gun at Wee Free. ‘Fancy a go? Or are we cool now?’

He lowered the cleaver. Licked his lips. ‘They… Maybe God’s using this Inside Man to give my little girl a second chance. It’s a test of my faith. I’ll find her and save her for a higher purpose.’ A nod. ‘Yes, that’s it. It’s God’s will.’

Alice stepped in close and wrapped her arms around me, her face pressed into my shoulder. ‘Don’t do that to me.’

Knives and bullets ripped through my ribs as she squeezed. ‘God … please … get off…’

‘Sorry.’ One more squeeze and she let go.

Wee Free placed the knife on the table, next to the meat. Picked up the whisky bottle instead and drank deep, then threw his arms wide. ‘Praise be to God!’

Babs clicked Thatcher’s safety catch back on and tucked her away. ‘There we go. Now we’re all cool again, I’ll have that coffee. Three sugars. And have you got any decent biscuits?’

A lone firework streaked into the dark sky on a line of silver, then burst in a rattle of green and yellow.

Wee Free took another draw on his cigarillo and trickled a line of smoke from his lips. The security light turned it into a ribbon of solid white. ‘She was always a pain in the backside. Lippy.’ He shifted his naked feet, elbows resting on the roof of a rusting VW Beetle. Where he’d cut himself, the blood had hardened into a scabby black line across his chest, the dribbles merging with the gore. ‘Never did what I told her.’