Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

Jessica’s flatmate. The one with the stalker ex-husband.

She popped another chip in her mouth, chewed, then leaned in closer and dropped her voice. ‘You always get nutters, don’t you? I don’t mean people with learning difficulties or mental health issues, I mean the kind of nutters who want to sniff your fingers when you come out of the Ladies. Once had a bloke in here who’d scream about abdominal pain, then soon as you got the bed sheets pulled back he’d pee on you.’ Another sniff. ‘You know: nutters.’

The queue for chips had dwindled to just one more nurse and then it was Alice’s turn, the four of us sheltering beneath the van’s awning. The air heady with the scents of fried batter, hot potatoes, and vinegar.

Most of the hospital was hidden from this corner of the car park, blocked out by the tomb of Victorian sandstone where they kept people like Marie Jordan. Drugged up to the ears and locked in a room with bars on the windows. The tower rose behind it, but only the top two floors were visible, lights glinting in the windows — grey and thin below, warm and gold on the penthouse level. Where the private patients went.

Bethany broke off a chunk of fish and crunched through the batter.

I nodded towards the hospital. ‘What about patients, anyone make any complaints?’

She swallowed. ‘About Jessica? God, no. She was completely brilliant with the mums and the dads. A total professional in every respect.’

There was a rustle of paper and the other nurse wandered over, face lined and creased as she stuffed in a couple of chips. Thin, with whippet-grey hair pulled back from her face. A small, puckered mouth full of sharp little teeth — chewing with her mouth open. She eyed me up and down, then turned to Bethany. ‘Who’s your boyfriend?’

Bethany grimaced for a moment, then replaced it with a smile. ‘I was just telling this nice policeman how professional Jessica is.’

‘Jessica? Professional?’ A snort. She bit the end off a battered sausage, chewing and talking at the same time. ‘You remember Mrs Gisbourne?’

‘Jean MacGruther, that is no way to talk of-’

‘That’s dead people. You’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead. Jessica’s not dead.’ Nurse MacGruther turned to me. ‘Is she?’

I opened my mouth, but Bethany got there first. ‘You saw what they said in the paper this morning, it’s-’

‘Rubbish. Police are trying to do their job. You think that’s any easier if we all stand about like mealie puddings, telling them everybody loved her?’ Another wodge of chips disappeared. ‘Have you spoken to Jessica’s boyfriend yet?’

‘Any reason I should?’

Bethany brought her chin up. ‘That was all a misunderstanding.’

‘Darren Wilkinson.’ Nurse MacGruther’s eyes glittered as she chewed. ‘First shift after Valentine’s Day, Jessica turns up with a shiner the size of a dinner plate. Proper beetroot and jaundice job. Course, they couldn’t let her deal with expectant mothers looking like that, could they? Had to spend the week doing filing and national statistics and things.’

A big theatrical sigh. ‘She explained that. They were playing tennis on Darren’s Wii, and they were a bit drunk, and it was a complete accident.’

‘And the cracked ribs? Were they an accident too?’

‘You know she-’

‘How about the time he knocked out one of her teeth? A molar, right at the back. That takes some doing — lucky he didn’t break her jaw.’

Bethany crunched through another bit of fish. ‘She was abducted by the Inside Man, not her boyfriend. He isn’t a serial killer, he works in Human Resources!’

‘Any bloke that beats up his girlfriend-’

‘She didn’t want to make a fuss, it-’

‘-ginger bastard. How can that-’

‘All right!’ I held my hands up and turned on the police-issue inspector’s voice that had terrified the two idiots in the patrol car yesterday. ‘I get it. He was assaulting her. She didn’t report it.’

They both backed away. Eyed me.

Bethany sniffed. ‘There’s no need to be like that, we’re only trying to help.’

Alice leaned back against the two-tone wall — institution green on the bottom half, scuffed magnolia above. ‘I shouldn’t have eaten all of those chips.’ She puffed out a breath, let her shoulders droop. ‘An hour of talking to midwives, with rampant indigestion… Well, not the midwives, I mean I was the one with indigestion, though I suppose they might have had as well, only no one mentioned it. How about you?’

Shouts and swearing echoed down the corridor, punctuated with the occasional scream. The miracle of birth.

‘I wasn’t there when Rebecca was born. A wee boy got savaged by a drug dealer’s dog, I spent the whole day tracking the bastard down. But I made Katie’s. She was … tiny. And all purple and screaming and covered in snot and blood.’ A small laugh tried to break free, but died before it could breathe on its own. ‘God, it was like an X-rated version of Alien .’ Back when anything was possible and nobody had to die.

A little rip appeared in the middle of my chest, making every breath sting. I cleared my throat. ‘So, did your hour of indigestion get you anything?’

‘Everyone I talked to is scared of the Inside Man. They don’t walk back to the halls unless there’s three or four of them. They don’t use the car park here any more, because there’s still no CCTV.’ She wrapped an arm around herself. ‘He’s turning into a mythological monster — a sort of cross between Freddy Krueger, Jimmy Savile, and Peter Mandelson…’ She checked her watch. ‘Are we going to speak to Jessica McFee’s boyfriend, because maybe we should, I mean if he’s been beating her up then he’s obviously got anger-management and-’

‘What time is it?’

She checked again. ‘Twenty to four.’

‘OK, we finish up with Jessica’s colleagues, then give the boyfriend a grilling. But I want to be out of here by quarter past at the latest, so we’re not late for our mob accountant friend.’

Alice’s head dropped, till she was staring at the tips of her little red shoes. ‘Can we not call him our “friend”, it’s-’

‘We’ve been over this. Him or Shifty, remember?’ I put a hand on her shoulder. ‘I know it’s hard, but- Crap.’ My phone trilled in my pocket. Still, it was about time Sabir got back to me with that ID. I hauled my mobile out and hit the button. ‘What kept you?’

‘ That you, Henderson? ’ Whoever it was, it wasn’t Sabir. Instead of the treacle-thick Liverpudlian accent, they had an Oldcastle burr.

I pulled the phone from my ear and checked the screen: ‘NUMBER WITHHELD’.

‘Who is this?’

‘ Some detective: it’s Micky Slosser. You were in my office this morning, remember? ’ A pause. Some rustling. Then he was back. ‘ Something’s just come in that you might find interesting. ’

Silence.

‘Really not in the mood to play, Micky.’

‘ One letter. Yellow legal paper. Signed, “the Inside Man”. ’

The sky was a smear of charcoal-grey. Blood seeped from the horizon as the sun gave up on the day, making glistening spatter-patterns on the wet roads.

‘What?’ I stuck a finger in the other ear and turned my back on the hospital entrance while an ambulance Dopplered past, its wail lowering as it faded into the distance.

On the other end of the phone, Jacobson tried again. ‘ Ness got everyone to drop the charges. Mr McFee’s a free man again. ’

‘Good for him. What about Cooper — did Bad Bill remember Claire Young or Jessica McFee?’