Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

I tapped the dashboard. ‘Park.’

She did, nose-in at the kerb beneath a bare rowan tree. Let out a long breath. Closed her eyes and folded over the steering wheel.

‘You did good.’ I reached across and rubbed her back. ‘Made me proud.’

‘I don’t feel well. My pulse is elevated, I’m dizzy. Headache. Stomach churning.’ Alice closed her eyes. ‘I can see him, squirming and shaking and bleeding and she’s gouging her thumb-’

‘There was nothing you could do.’

‘His eye…’ A shudder, then she wiped a hand across her face. ‘Thirty percent of people who witness a traumatic event go on to develop PTSD.’

I undid my seatbelt, stretched my leg out in the footwell. ‘You’re a forensic psychologist, you’ve seen much worse than-’

‘Not in real life! In photos, at post mortems, crime scenes. Never actually … happening .’ She took a deep breath, then shook. ‘You need a displacement activity, Alice, something to keep you occupied. You help people through things like this all the time, just treat yourself as any other patient. If it’s too raw to revisit, put some distance between you and it and let your subconscious frame it.’ A frown. ‘Or you could try playing violent video games. Or does that only work when you do it before the event? I don’t know, Alice, you should look it up on the internet…’ She blinked at me. ‘What?’

‘You’re talking to yourself.’

She stared at her fingers as they worked themselves into knots in her lap. ‘I don’t want to go back to the flat. I can’t stay there any more. Not after…’ Tears sparked in the corners of her eyes.

I rubbed her back again. ‘It’s OK. I’ll sort something out. We’ll get a hotel or a B-and-B or something.’

A little, sickly smile. ‘Tell me something about the Inside Man.’

‘Apparently we’re supposed to call him “Tim” now.’

‘No, something from the initial investigation.’

‘All right.’ I climbed out into the gloom, leaned on my walking stick. ‘Once upon a time there was a young man called Gareth Martin. Gareth hadn’t had the best of childhoods and spent a fair bit of time checking in and out of the local psychiatric ward. He set fire to a shop in Logansferry once.’ The car door clunked shut. ‘Jessops, I think it was.’

Alice got out the other side. Plipped the locks. ‘What if someone spots the number plate?’

A shard of light slashed through the low clouds as the sun finally made it over the horizon, leaving a scar of gold and scarlet across the grey.

‘Why do you think I nicked the car from an old folks’ home? No one’s going to notice it’s gone for weeks. And even then, they’ll probably think they just forgot where they parked it.’ I limped past, going back towards the street we’d turned off. ‘Four weeks after Ruth Laughlin was found, Gareth walked into the police station on Grigson Lane, covered in blood, put a plastic baby doll on the counter, and threatened the duty sergeant with a carving knife.’

We turned the corner onto Aaronovitch Lane. Brass plaques lined the street on both sides. Solicitor. Accountant. Stockbroker. Solicitor. Solicitor. PR Agency. Solicitor. And then the building Manson had disappeared into: number thirty-seven. ‘DAVIS, WELLMAN, amp; MANSON ~ CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS.’

A flight of marble steps gleamed in the early morning light, leading up to a black wooden door with a brass knocker set dead in the middle of it.

Crime definitely paid.

‘Gareth copped to all four murders and the three abductions too. Said he’d done it because his grandmother used to clean his genitals with bleach and caustic soda when he was five.’

Alice stopped at the foot of the steps. ‘The poor boy…’

‘All bollocks, of course: he’d read it in some crime novel.’

‘Oh.’ She stared up at the building’s windows. ‘Killing Manson is stupid.’

‘What other choice do we have? It’s-’

‘That’s not what I meant.’ She looked up at me. ‘If we kill him now, what do we do with him? Drive about town with his body in the boot till it’s time to hand him over, I mean we’re in a stolen car, someone’s going to notice, what if we get pulled over and they search us and they find him?’

‘Who says we’re going to drive-’

‘We can’t just hole up somewhere, we’re both wearing GPS locators on our ankles, if we don’t go speak to Jessica McFee’s colleagues like we told Detective Superintendent Jacobson he’ll know . And he’ll come get us, and we’ll have a dead body in the boot of the car and we’ll get arrested and I’ll spend the rest of my life in prison…’

‘That’s why we’re not doing it right now.’ I started walking again, straight past the accountants’. ‘Stand there too long and someone’s going to notice.’ I took a sharp left, hobbling across the road.

‘Oh, OK, sorry…’ She hurried to catch up. Scuffed along beside me, dragging her little red shoes along the damp pavement. ‘But if we-’

‘We’re not getting caught. OK, so we have to pretend that nothing’s going on: speak to Jessica McFee’s flatmates, meet with that dick Fred Docherty, go through the motions. Fine: we can do that. We come back at close of business and grab Manson on the way home.’ I paused beside the Porsche, grunted my way down to one knee, as if I was tying my laces.

The small triangular window behind the driver’s door had a bright yellow sticker in it: ‘THIS CAR SECURED WITH 24/7 GPS TRACKING’ I copied the firm’s name into my notebook — Sparanet Vehicle Security — along with the telephone number and the car’s registration.

Time to go.

I stuck out a hand and Alice helped me up, then fell into step as we headed off down the pavement.

She glanced back at the accountants’. ‘So what happened?’

‘What, with Gareth? Turned out he’d broken into the petting zoo at Montgomery Park and hacked a lamb’s stomach open to get the doll inside. That’s why he was covered in blood. Confession was as fake as his bleach story.’

At the bottom of the lane, we took a right.

‘Every year we’d get two or three people turning up at Force Headquarters claiming to be the Inside Man. And twelve months later they’d be back claiming to be DIY Dave, or the Blackwall Rapist, or Johnny Fingerbones.’

‘Does he still confess to things?’

‘His swansong was putting his hand up for a rape-murder. The victim’s husband found out where Gareth lived, went round, out of his face on antidepressants, and beat him to death with a cricket bat. Got eight years — diminished responsibility.’

Another right, heading back towards the stolen Jaguar.

Alice slipped her arm through mine. Held on as if she was about to be swept away by the current. ‘Do you think David’s going to be OK?’

No. But I pulled on a smile anyway, gave her arm a squeeze. ‘He’s going to be fine. Trust me. Shifty’s not as soft as he looks. We’ll get him back.’

Or whatever was left of him.

Alice pulled her shoulders up to her ears, and turned her back to the wind. Brown curls lashed and writhed around her head like angry snakes. ‘But I’m not hungry …’

The Old Castle visitor centre was shut, but Manky Ralph’s — a dirt-streaked catering trailer with four flat tyres — squatted in the corner of the car park. Better than nothing. And besides, the food wasn’t the reason most people handed over their money.

‘I don’t care.’ I held out two napkin-wrapped parcels and a polystyrene container of hot, sweet tea. ‘Eat those and drink that.’

‘But-’

‘This isn’t a discussion. Come on, you need breakfast. You’ll feel better afterwards.’