Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

The fridge was full of half-empty takeaway containers, the untouched bag of salad and the five bottles of alcohol-free lager I didn’t drink. No milk. Or anything else that wasn’t curry-related. And lamb Rogan Josh wasn’t exactly an enticing prospect for breakfast.

I clunked the fridge shut again. ‘Shifty, fancy picking up some bread and milk?’

‘Can’t. Shave. Then shower. Then death.’ He flopped back, bare hairy legs sticking out from under the duvet. ‘Urgh…’

Fine.

Alice shuffled along beside me, eyes two bloodshot slits in her waxy face. Nose and ears heading from pink to red. ‘I’m not well…’ The words came out in a pale cloud of breath — last night’s onions and garlic and chillies mingling with the icy air.

‘Bit of exercise will do you a world of good then, won’t it?’

The street glittered in the darkness — a dusting of frost catching the streetlights’ baleful glow. Glinting on the windscreens of parked cars. Above us, the sky was a patchwork of black and dirty orange, the approaching dawn just a smear of pale grey on the horizon.

She dug her hands deeper into her pockets. ‘Cold…’

‘Did you think any more about it? You know, Australia?’

‘I think my brain died.’ She sniffed. ‘David’s a bad influence.’

Up ahead, Mr Mujib’s Corner Emporium shone like a grimy beacon on the darkened street. Not quite half six yet, and the shop’s lights blazed in their wire cages. Bars covered the poster-filled windows, but the metal shutter over the door was up.

I paused on the threshold. ‘Only I might have to leave sooner than I thought.’

Inside it smelled of furniture polish and washing powder, mingling with the sweet earthy scent of rolling tobacco. The place was lined with shelves, covered in tins and packets and sachets and bottles and jars. Sweets in a big display by the lottery tickets, opposite the newspapers and soft-porn lads’ mags.

A radio sat up on a shelf behind the counter, some greasy politician on the Today programme banging on about the latest round of cuts.

Alice stared at me. ‘But we haven’t caught him yet…’

‘It’s complicated, OK?’ A large glass-fronted fridge growled away to itself between the bread and the household goods. I cracked it open and grabbed a pack of smoked streaky, a pat of butter, and two pints of milk. ‘You know what Mrs Kerrigan’s like. She’s been screwing with me for the last two years, do you think she’s happy I’ve got out?’

‘But Jessica McFee…?’

‘That’s what her thugs were doing outside the mortuary yesterday: threatening me.’ A loaf of sliced white from the rack by the fridge and a packet of tattie scones. ‘It’s no fun for her if I get away.’

Alice reached out and held my sleeve. ‘We can’t just abandon Jessica.’

‘Jessica’s…’ Two steps away, then back again. ‘I don’t like it any more than you, but what am I supposed to do? Wait for her to come find me?’ Turned my back. Tin of beans, carton of eggs.

‘We can find her, I know we can.’

Sigh. ‘We couldn’t catch the Inside Man eight years ago, what makes you think we can do it now?’ I placed the shopping on the counter, by the newspapers.

The Castle News and Post had ‘LOCAL MIDWIFE NABBED BY SERIAL SICKO’ plastered across its front page above a photo of Jessica McFee.

I rapped out a couple of beats on the wood with the head of my cane. ‘Shop! Mr Mujib? Hello?’

Alice was tugging at my sleeve again. ‘Please?’

Oh for God’s sake… I folded forward until my head rested on the counter. ‘It’s not the movies. Sometimes the bad guy gets away.’

A rough voice sounded on the other side. ‘What?’

When I looked up, a tall thin man was standing in front of me. Greying hair clung to either side of his head, skin the colour of curdled yoghurt — stained by a red patch on one cheek. A line of purple hooked at the corner of his left eye, the beginning of a proper shiner.

‘Where’s Mr Mujib?’

‘Cancer. Now do you want this stuff, or don’t you?’

I brought my chin up. ‘You got a problem?’

‘Me? No. Why would I have a problem? Not like I’ve been ripped off again, is it?’ He totted up the total, lips moving as he counted. ‘And the bloody police are a joke, aren’t they? How am I supposed to run a business when scumbag crooks can just walk in here and demand protection money?’

I handed over the cash and he thumped my change down on the counter.

‘Bloody city’s a disgrace.’

Couldn’t argue with that.

We took our shopping and headed back out into the pre-dawn chill.

Alice scuffed along the pavement in silence, clutching the bacon, eggs, and milk to her chest.

‘I’m sorry, OK? I know it’s…’ I stopped. ‘She killed my brother. She kept me in prison. She even arranged this.’ I circled the tip of my cane over the top of my aching foot. ‘If I hang around for too long, she’s going to get bored and send someone after me.’

‘Can’t we, I don’t know, get her arrested or something?’

I limped around the corner, back onto Ladburn Street. ‘She’s got Andy Inglis behind her, she’s not going to stay banged up for long. And when she gets out she’ll come right after us, worse than before.’

Light blazed from our flat windows — it was the only one lit up on the whole street. Obviously no one else had to be awake at seven on a Tuesday morning.

Alice passed me the bacon and beans so she could rummage for her keys. ‘Then we have to find something that she can’t talk her way out of. Something serious with a long sentence.’

God, the naivety of youth.

I nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s a good idea.’ And then we could all climb aboard our unicorns and ride off into the lollypop sunset.

She clambered up the stairs, pausing at the first landing to let me catch up. ‘I know it’s not ethical to frame someone for murder, but surely there must be a real one we can connect her to, one she did do?’

My cane thunked on each step, like the beat of a faltering heart. ‘Go ahead, get the kettle on. I’ll catch up.’

‘Milk, two sugars, coming up.’ She smiled, turned, and scampered off, little red shoes disappearing up the stairs. Then the flat door rattled open and clunked shut again.

Pfffff… Closed my eyes. Rested my forehead against the wall.

OK, so she wasn’t happy about just abandoning the case, but how the hell was I meant to hang about Oldcastle after putting Mrs Kerrigan in a shallow grave?

Unless I could fit someone else up for it?

I started climbing again.

That might work. Find some lowlife who deserved to be inside, and make sure there’s enough evidence to point to him. A junkie perhaps, or one of her dealers?

Or a rival?

That was good. More believable.

Up the last flight of stairs and onto the top floor.

Just need to get a few names from Shifty and manufacture some evidence — fingerprints on the gun, bit of DNA, some fibres. Even better if he was dead at the scene.

A smile pulled my cheeks tight as I stepped into the flat and locked the door behind me.

It was perfect.

I shrugged my way out of my jacket and dumped it in my bedroom. Took the butter and tattie scones and beans out of my pockets. Gathered it all up along with the bread.

Alice would be happy, Mrs Kerrigan would be dead, and I’d be in the clear.

Absolutely perfect…

Someone cleared their throat out in the corridor and I froze. Turned. Swore.

There was a man, standing right outside my room, little pink eyes staring straight at me. Francis.

A nod. ‘’Spector.’

Damn…

‘Francis.’

He jerked a thumb towards the living room. ‘They’re waitin’ for you.’