Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

Alice fidgeted, eyes fixed on the rear-view mirror. Staring at Bob in the back seat. He just sat there, smiling his stitched-on smile, yellow fabric spanner held in his hand. ‘I still don’t understand why he has to be here…’ The words were slightly mushy, deformed by her swollen lower lip, the skin split, a bruise darkening around the crack of dried blood.

Francis was bloody lucky I hadn’t caved his head in. I would next time.

She reached up and twisted the rear-view mirror, so it was pointing at the car’s roof. Hiding Bob. ‘I don’t like the way he keeps staring at me. It’s creepy. Can’t we put him in the boot?’

‘You don’t put your lucky mascot in the boot.’

A woman’s voice, harsh and warbling, cut over the guitar. I switched the radio off. Stared out at the six-foot wrought-iron gate securing number twelve from the road.

Alice cleared her throat. ‘Can we please talk about what Mrs Kerrigan-’

‘There’s nothing to talk about. If we don’t do this, she kills Shifty. End of story.’

‘Please.’ Alice’s fingers trembled in her lap. She tucked them under her arms. Holding them still. ‘We … I can’t kill someone.’

‘You don’t have to: that’s my job.’ My official phone rang in my pocket. I pulled it out and hit the green button. ‘What?’

Jacobson sniffed. ‘ Where the hell are you? ’

Great. Just … great.

Time to toss him that nugget.

‘We’ve been chasing up a couple of leads. You need to get someone round to Bad Bill’s Burger Bar with photos of Claire Young and Jessica McFee. Probably find him parked outside the B amp;Q in Cowskillin. The last thing Claire ate was from there.’

‘ You’re sure? ’

‘It’s called a Double Bastard Bacon Murder Burger, AKA: double cheeseburger with bacon frazzles. No one else is mad enough to make them.’

A scrunching noise came from the other end, muffling Jacobson’s voice. ‘ Cooper — get your backside over here. Got a job for you .’ There was some muttering, too low to hear, but probably Cooper getting his orders.

Alice tugged at my sleeve. ‘We should tell him.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘We need help!’

And Jacobson was back. ‘ Good work, Ash, I’m impressed. Initiative, I like that .’

Good.

‘I want to talk to everyone who lives in the same halls as Jessica McFee. Might take a while, but I think it’s worth a go. And if there’s any time left, we’ll get stuck into her colleagues too.’

‘ I don’t think so: any old plod can talk to witnesses. The Lateral Investigative and Review Unit is meant to be about insight, outside-the-box thinking, and applied knowledge. Not shoe-leather. ’

‘Well, my applied knowledge says this is how we make connections. We gather information. We rattle people. We jog their memories. He’s got access to hospital drugs and patient records — he’s in there somewhere.’

Silence.

I wiped a hand across the glass again, making it cry. Teardrops of condensation dribbled down onto the rubber beading.

The light flickered on above the door of number twelve.

And then a sigh came down the line. ‘ Fine. But I want regular updates, and I expect you both back here at seven for the team debrief. While we’re at it: I need to speak to Dr McDonald. She is there, isn’t she? ’

Where the hell else was she going to be? I poked the button for speakerphone and held the mobile out. ‘Wants to talk to you.’

‘ Dr McDonald? ’ Jacobson’s voice echoed out into the old Jaguar. ‘ I’ve had yet another call from Detective Chief Superintendents Knight and Ness, wanting to know why you’ve still not met with Dr Docherty. ’

Alice licked the crack in her lip, setting it bleeding again. She cleared her throat. ‘It’s been-’

‘ He might be a pain in the backside, but they’ve made formal requests for your input. They’re testing the team and I will not have anyone letting the side down. So you will damn well go and cooperate. ’

Her bottom lip wobbled for a moment. Then she hissed out a trembly breath. ‘Yes, Detective Superintendent.’ Voice flat and dull.

‘ But any startling insights you get — you tell me first, understand? It all comes through me. No giving it away like a drunken teenager. ’

I nodded at the phone, curled my other hand into an aching fist.

She shook her head. ‘Yes, Detective Superintendent.’

Hairy little git.

I clicked off the speakerphone before he could say anything else, and held the thing back to my ear. ‘What’s happening with Sabir? He been through the HOLMES data yet?’

‘ Why don’t you phone him and find out? Believe it or not, Ash, my job’s to run the team, not your errands. I’m actually beginning to think you’re a half-decent police officer, don’t spoil it .’ Then click he was gone.

I slipped the phone back in my pocket. ‘Ignore him, he’s a wanker.’

Number twelve’s door opened and a big man stepped out — tall and broad, hair swept back from his head, black overcoat, dark-grey suit, pastel lemon shirt, stripy tie. Hooked nose, high forehead. Distinguished looking. I checked the photo Mrs Kerrigan had left on the flat’s mantelpiece. The name ‘PAUL MANSON’ was picked out in biro capitals on the back, along with his home address and a mobile number. Definitely him.

A woman popped up next to Manson, handed him a briefcase, then stood on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. A wee boy appeared next, wearing the blue-and-gold blazer of the Marshal School. Manson reached down and ruffled the kid’s hair. Then turned and marched down the steps and over to the Porsche parked on the gravel driveway.

‘Look at them. Like something out of a bloody toothpaste commercial.’

Manson climbed into the car, set it growling like an angry Rottweiler. He must’ve had a remote in there, because the gates clunked then swung open.

Alice licked her lips. ‘I… I don’t think I can-’

‘You heard what Mrs Kerrigan said: he’s a mob accountant. All this — the house, the clothes, the car, the private school — it’s all paid for with drugs and prostitutes and extortion and beatings and murder. That bastard, right there, is the grease that keeps the machinery turning.’

‘It doesn’t mean he has to die.’

‘It’s him or Shifty. Start the car.’

‘It’s OK, just ease up a bit, let him get another car ahead.’

Alice drifted the Jag to a halt at the roundabout, paused, then slid out into the stream of traffic.

‘There you go, you’re a natural.’

The river was a ribbon of concrete, following the road on the right. To the left, it was all Victorian sandstone, laid out in rigid geometric patterns. Prestige offices with double-barrelled names rubbing shoulders with Oldcastle’s only five-star hotel.

Up ahead, Manson took a left, into the Wynd.

Alice followed him. Keeping her distance. Not racing or crowding the target. Doing well.

She licked her lips. ‘Ash, we have to talk about-’

‘Concentrate on driving. There, next right.’

She turned onto a leafy lane, lined with yet more sandstone. Only this time the pillars looked like marble and granite. The Porsche pulled into a marked space at the side of the road.

‘OK, just go past it and take the next left.’

‘But-’

‘You drive, I’ll worry about Manson.’ I grabbed the rear-view mirror and twisted it, keeping him centre-stage as he climbed out of the Porsche and marched towards the building opposite. He was just starting up the steps when the Jaguar made the turn and he disappeared from view.