Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

‘Yeah, because I’ve got two thousand pounds burning a hole in my pocket.’

‘ … appeal to the media’s conscience to respect her family’s wish for privacy… ’

Good luck with that .

‘Could always borrow it?’

‘That’s how I got into this mess in the first place.’

The door to the rec room thumped open and a hard voice cut across the TV. ‘Henderson!’

I turned, and there was Officer Babs. She jerked a thumb. ‘You got a visitor.’

A man in a brown leather jacket sauntered into the room, hands in his pockets. He was at least a head shorter than Babs, hairy, with thick sideburns.

He wandered over till he was standing between me and the television.

‘ Here’s the sport now, with Bobby Thompson… ’

Hairy Boy smiled. ‘Well, well, well, so you’re the ex-DC Henderson I’ve heard so much about?’ His accent was obviously Scottish, but indistinct, as if he didn’t really come from anywhere. ‘So … tell me about Graham Lumley and Jamie Smith.’

‘No comment.’

Officer Babs appeared at his shoulder, dwarfing him. ‘Detective Superintendent Jacobson is having a squint into what happened outside the laundry a fortnight ago. So don’t be a dick: cooperate.’

Yeah, right. ‘A full Detective Superintendent? Investigating a fight in a prison corridor? Are you not a bit overqualified?’

Jacobson tilted his head to one side, staring at me. Eyeing me up and down like he was about to ask me to dance. ‘Official report says you attacked the pair of them. Shouting and swearing and crying, like a… Hold on, let me get this right.’ He pulled out a small black police-issue notebook. Flipped it open. ‘“Like a big-Jessie escaped mental patient.” That Graham Lumley’s got a way with words, doesn’t he?’

Len crossed his arms across his big barrel chest. ‘Lumley and Smith are lying wankers.’

Jacobson turned a bright, shining smile in Len’s direction. ‘Lennox Murray, isn’t it? Ex head of Oldcastle CID. Eighteen years for the abduction, torture, and murder of one Philip Skinner. Thanks for playing along, but I’d like hear what Mr Henderson has to say. OK? Great.’

I copied Len, arms folded, legs crossed. ‘They’re lying wankers.’

Jacobson dragged a chair over, then sank into it. Scuffed it forwards a couple of feet till his knees were nearly touching mine. A chemical waft of Old Spice drifted out from him. ‘Ash… I can call you Ash, can’t I? Ash, the head psychologist here tells me you’ve got a self-destructive personality. That you sabotage yourself by picking a fight every time you come up for review.’

Give him nothing back but silence.

Jacobson shrugged. ‘Of course Dr Altringham strikes me as a bit of a tit, but there you go.’ He raised a finger, then pointed it over his shoulder in the general direction of the television. ‘Did you see the story about the nurse they found dead behind Blackwall Hill?’

‘What about her?’

‘Dead nurse. Dumped in the middle of nowhere. Ring any bells?’

I frowned at him. ‘You have any idea how many nurses go missing in Oldcastle every year? Poor sods should get danger pay.’

‘Smith and Lumley really did a number on you, didn’t they? Yeah, there’s the bruised cheek and the squint nose, but I’m guessing all the real bruising’s confined to the thighs and torso, right? Where it won’t show?’ Another shrug. ‘Unless you strip off, of course.’

‘I’m flattered, but you’re not my type.’

‘Claire Young: twenty-four, brunette, five seven and a half, about eleven stone three. Pretty, in a big-boned kind of way.’ He held his hands out, either side of his lap. ‘You know, childbearing hips?’

I looked over at Babs. ‘Ever fancy a career as a healthcare professional? Bet no one would dare jump you.’

She smiled back at me. ‘Might have to — cutbacks. They’re talking about voluntary redundancies.’

Jacobson stood. ‘I think I’d like to see Mr Henderson’s cell now.’

It wasn’t exactly a huge room — the set of bunk beds just fit and no more. You could reach out and touch the institution-grey walls on either side with a bit of a stretch. Small desk at the far end, a chair, a sink, and a sectioned off bit for the toilet. Officially large enough for two fully grown men to share for four years to life.

Or one fully grown man who really didn’t like having a cellmate. Funny how they all turned out to be so accident prone. Falling down and breaking things. Arms, legs, noses, testicles…

Officer Babs filled the doorway, arms folded, legs apart, face like a slab of granite as Jacobson stepped into the middle of the cell, hands out as if he was about to bless it.

‘Home sweet home.’ Then he turned and squeezed up close to the desk, leaning forward, peering at the single photograph Blu-Tacked to the wall above it: Rebecca and Katie on Aberdeen beach, grinning for the camera, the North Sea glowering in the background behind them. School jumpers on over orange swimsuits. Buckets and spades. Katie four, Rebecca nine.

Eleven years and two lifetimes ago.

His head dipped an inch. ‘I was sorry to hear about your daughters.’

Yeah, everyone always is.

‘Can’t have been easy — having to grieve for her while you’re stuck in here. Fitted up for your brother’s shooting. Getting the crap pounded out of you on a regular basis…’

‘There a point to this?’

He reached into his leather jacket and pulled out a copy of the Castle News and Post . Dumped it on the bottom bunk. ‘From last week.’

A photo filled most of the front page: a close-up of a chunky woman’s face, framed with ginger curls, a thick band of freckles across her nose and cheeks like Scottish war paint. A couple of photographers were reflected in her sunglasses, their flashes going. She had one hand up, as if she was trying to shield her face from the cameras, but hadn’t quite made it in time.

The headline stretched above the picture in big block capitals: ‘“CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!” BABY JOY ON THE WAY FOR INSIDE MAN VICTIM’.

Dear God, now there was a blast from the past.

I hooked my cane onto the bunk bed’s frame and sat on the mattress. Picked up the paper.

EXCLUSIVE

The Inside Man’s fifth victim, Laura Strachan (37), has some wonderful news. Eight years after she became the first woman ever to survive being attacked by the twisted sicko who killed four women and mutilated three more, plucky Laura is expecting her first baby.

Doctors thought there was no chance she’d be able to conceive after the injuries she received when the Inside Man cut her open and stitched a toy doll inside her stomach. A source at Castle Hill Infirmary said, ‘It is a miracle. There is no way she should have been able to carry a child to term. I am so pleased for her.’

Even better, it looks like the bundle of joy will be an early Christmas present for Laura and her husband Christopher Irvine (32).

Turn to Page 4 for full story

I turned to page four. ‘Thought she was all broken inside.’

‘You were on the original investigation.’

I skimmed the rest of the article. It was light on fact, padded out with lots of quotes from Laura Strachan’s friends and a competition to guess what the baby’s name would be. Nothing from Laura or the father-to-be. ‘They didn’t bother talking to the family?’

Jacobson settled back against the desk. ‘Her husband lamped the photographer, then threatened to shove the camera up the reporter’s backside.’

I folded the paper and placed it beside me. ‘Good for him.’

‘It took two years of corrective surgery and a monster lump of fertility treatment, but she’s seven and a bit months gone. Should be due last week of December. Some fine upstanding member of the press got hold of her medical records.’