Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

Two fingers on his left hand were bent back, sticking out like they were on the wrong way around. Blood pooled around his thighs.

Bitch.

Weapon. Grab a weapon and batter her skull flat. Anything would-

‘Now, now. Let’s not turn this torture into a mass murder.’ She wiggled the gun at the open door to the kitchen.

Alice was just visible, sitting on the floor, backed up against the units, hands in front of her, the wrists wrapped in duct tape. Another strip across her mouth. Eyes wide and bloodshot, tears streaking her cheeks. Trembling. The soles of her Converse trainers were stained dirty brown and red, like she’d walked through blood…

Mrs Kerrigan grinned. ‘That’s a right kick in the bollocks, isn’t it?’

Coughing rattled out of the hallway, then Joseph lurched into the room, rubbing at his throat. His left eye was already swelling shut, scarlet smeared around his mouth — more staining the sleeve of his jacket. His voice was a raw wheeze. ‘Mr Henderson, it would be efficacious if you could put your hands on your head and kneel. Failure to comply would have the most unfortunate consequences for Dr McDonald And DI Morrow.’

Mrs Kerrigan brought the gun up and Alice flinched. ‘Five. Four. Three. Makes no fecking difference to me. Two…’

I put my hands on my head. Then creaked down to my knees. Kept my mouth shut.

‘There we go. All friends again.’ She handed the gun to Joseph. ‘If Mr Henderson moves, put a hole in his other foot, then ventilate his lady friend.’ The wooden floorboards clacked beneath Mrs Kerrigan’s boots as she wandered across the room to stand behind Shifty. Put her gloved hands on his shoulders. ‘Fecky the Ninth here, on the other hand, needs a bit of an education. Did yez really think I wouldn’t notice some feller asking after me? My house and my movements? What kind of security I’ve got? My dogs?’ She lowered her lips to his ear. ‘Dear, oh dear, oh dear.’

A low moan trembled out of the gap in the gag.

‘Had a lovely little chat with the wee man ye sent to do yer spying. Just him, me, and my friend Mr Soldering Iron.’ She squeezed Shifty’s shoulders, her yellow rubber fingertips digging into the bruised skin. ‘Ye must think a bigger bollox never put her arm through a coat, right? Think I’d let yez get away with that?’

Keep it nice and level. Calm. In control. ‘You’ve proved your point, now let them go.’

‘Ah now, I’ve not even started .’ She straightened up, patted Shifty on the bruised cheek. ‘With ye all tied up to the chair like that, a lot of people would cut yer ear off and dowse yez in petrol. It’s a classic. But for me, it’s all about the eyes. No idea why. Some weeks it’s fingers. The next it’s toes. Or maybe I’m after taking a soldering iron to yer langer. But this week it’s eyes.’

She moved around in front of him. Took his head in her hands. ‘Left or right…?’ Looked over her shoulder. ‘What do ye think, Mr Henderson?’

Shifty moaned, blood bubble popping from his flattened nostrils. ‘Nnnnnnngh!’ He screwed his eyes shut.

‘Leave him alone, or I swear to God…’

Something cold and hard pressed into the nape of my neck. Then came the delicate metallic click of a safety catch slipping off. Joseph cleared his throat a couple of times, but it didn’t make any difference to the rasping voice. ‘Trust me, Mr Henderson, your silence would probably be beneficial to all concerned at this moment in time.’

Mrs Kerrigan winked. ‘Funny you should mention God. How does it go? “And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.”’ She slid her left thumb across Shifty’s cheek. Pressed the yellow rubber against the socket. ‘And if it’s good enough for the baby Jesus…’

Behind the gag, Shifty screamed.

Shifty’s left leg trembled to a halt. His shoulders slumped. Head hung forwards.

Mrs Kerrigan dropped something to the floorboards, then stood on it. Worked the toe of her boot back and forth, as if she was grinding out a cigarette. ‘Right so. Shall we talk about that offer I was going to make yez?’

In the kitchen, Alice was rigid, eyes wide and round.

I took my time. Cleared my throat. ‘We need to get him to a hospital.’

‘There’s a certain gentleman of Mr Inglis’s acquaintance that we need taking care of. That’s yer job. Take care of him, and yez’ll get four grand off the top.’

‘He’s in shock, he could die.’

‘Think about it: four grand down, twenty-eight to go. And the warm fuzzy feeling of doing Mr Inglis a solid. All ye have to do is deliver the thieving fecker’s body to the old chandler’s warehouse on Belhaven Lane at nine tonight. Don’t even care how you do it, long as it gets done.’

‘Just call an ambulance and-’

‘Now, I know yez’re probably thinking, “Why the feck should I kill someone I don’t even know? What’s he done to me?” So I’m going to give ye a little incentive.’ She pursed her lips, tilted her head to one side. ‘How about we take ourselves a hostage? That good for you, Mr Henderson? That incentive enough?’

I just stared at her.

‘Now, obviously I can’t take yer doctor friend: that’d set off yer ankle monitor.’ A smile. ‘Mind you, I could always hack Miss McDonald’s foot off and leave her tracker with you. Would yez like that? Bit of freedom from the old ball-and-chain?’ She let the silence stretch. ‘Come on, Mr Henderson, yez’re after burying two daughters already, what’s one more dead girl? Should be used to it by now.’

Don’t even blink.

‘No? In that case, we’ll just have to take yer pal, Detective Inspector Morrow, with us. Seeing as he’s all started and everything. Bit messy, but we’ve got plastic in the boot of the car.’

She smeared her bloody thumb across Shifty’s neck. ‘Oh, and just in case yez are thinking of calling yer thickie mates to come arrest us — I own Oldcastle CID. I get so much as a whiff of that and Fat Boy here goes through a bacon slicer. We clear?’

‘He needs a doctor .’

‘We all need something, Mr Henderson. Right now, Dr McDonald needs every one of her fingers. But these things change, don’t they?’ Mrs Kerrigan looked over my shoulder. ‘Joseph, do yez have the pliers?’

‘I believe my colleague is in possession of our toolkit. Would you like me to fetch them?’

‘Well, Mr Henderson? Think we should start with a thumb or a pinkie?’

Alice moaned, feet slipping on the kitchen floor, pressing herself back into the cabinets. Going nowhere.

My tongue turned to sand in my mouth. It took two goes to get the words out. ‘Who needs to die?’

‘ … ha, ha! Spectacularrrrrr. Right, we’ve got another heeeeee-larious wind-up call coming after Nigel News and Travel Trevor, but first: this one’s for all you special people out there searching for little Charlie Pearce today… ’ A big orchestral intro, followed by an electric guitar.

I ran a hand across the Jaguar’s passenger window, carving a trail through the condensation. ‘Do we have to listen to this prick?’

Most of Jura Row sat behind high stone walls. Posh mansions with gravel drives and tall, barred, automatic gates. Imprisoning the kind of cars that cost more than the average family home. Fifteen years ago the Jag would have fit right in, but now — next to the street’s collection of Ferraris and Aston Martins and Lexuses — it looked like a shabby old man. Tired, saggy, and anonymous. Which was the whole point of stealing it in the first place.

Fake period streetlights made pools of glittering light on the wet pavements. The rain had given up, leaving everything still and damp beneath the pewter sky. Waiting for the sun to come up.