Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

‘ This letter: you sure your journalist is on the up? ’

‘He’s a journalist.’

‘ Fair point. I’ll get it picked up anyway .’ The volume dropped, as if Jacobson had turned away from the phone. ‘ Cooper, tell him what you told me. ’

There was a scrunching noise, then PC Cooper cleared his throat at me. ‘ Hello? Yes, OK, so, Bad Bill, AKA: William Moore. I showed him both photos and he thinks he’s seen Jessica McFee with a tall, red-haired, IC-One male. Says he can’t be certain about Claire Young. She looks familiar, but that might just be cos she’s been in all the papers and on the telly. ’

So much for that. ‘Don’t suppose he’s got a security camera or anything?’

‘ Said he’s never really bothered. Said, who’s going to risk a cleaver in the head just to nick a bag of burger buns and some fried onions? Professor Huntly thinks it’s unlikely Tim would have taken Claire Young with him when he bought her last meal anyway. He abducted her on the Thursday night, she turned up in the wee hours of the Saturday morning, Huntly says Tim’s not going to rape her, hold her hostage, then take her out for Friday lunch. ’

Another ambulance roared past — this one heading the other way.

I checked my watch: ten to four. Have to get moving soon.

‘Did you-’

‘ So I asked how many, erm… ’ Pause. ‘“ Double Bastard Bacon Murder Burgers ” he sold between eleven a.m. and three p.m. on the Friday, and he became pretty abusive. ’

Moron.

‘It’s a burger van, not a three-star restaurant. Cash-in-hand — no receipts. Where was he parked on Friday?’

Silence.

‘Cooper?’

‘ Actually… ’

I gave my head a little dunt off the wall. ‘You forgot to ask, didn’t you?’

‘ Well, you said he’d be at the B amp;Q and he was, so I thought … you know, it would be his pitch .’ A cough. ‘ Or something. ’

‘The whole point of a burger van is that the damn thing’s got wheels. Go back and find out where he was Friday lunchtime.’

‘ Sorry, Guv… ’

So I was ‘Guv’ now? Well, at least that was something. ‘You did OK. Just got to keep your eye on the details.’

‘ Yes, Guv. ’

‘And get on to Control: I want a PNC check on one Darren Wilkinson, works in Human Resources at Castle Hill Infirmary.’

‘ Yes, Guv. ’

‘Off you go.’

Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and when I turned around, there was Noel Maxwell. He’d thrown an orange Parka on over his scrubs, bright white Nikes shuffling on the damp pavement. He grinned, making the little soul-patch thing twitch. ‘How’d that Prednisolone work out for you, OK?’

Jacobson’s voice came back on the phone. ‘ Come on then: you’re the one who insisted shoe-leather was the way to making connections. What did you find out? ’

‘Hold on.’ I pulled the phone from my ear and pressed mute. ‘Did you get it?’

Noel glanced back over his shoulder. Then dropped his voice till it was barely audible. ‘This is, like, industrial grade, OK? I mean it’s not-’

‘Did you get it or not?’

Another glance. As if he wasn’t acting shiftily enough already. He slipped his hand into his pocket and tugged out the corner of a brown envelope. ‘You got the cash?’

I counted out sixty quid from what was left of the hundred Jacobson had subbed me, and handed it over. One five-pound note and a handful of change left.

He had another glance about, then slipped me the envelope. Didn’t weigh much. I ripped open the flap.

His eyes went wide. ‘Don’t do that here!’

‘Yeah. Trust isn’t exactly high on my agenda today.’ Two syringes sat in the bottom of the envelope: clear, with orange caps on the needles. A folded sheet of paper lay with it, covered with small print.

‘Just make sure you read the instructions, OK? Stuff’s dangerous…’

That was the point.

‘How long?’

A shrug. Another glance. ‘Depends on body mass. Big fat bloke: three to four hours. Give a whole dose to a wee kid and they’re never waking up.’ A blush. ‘You know. If you were that way inclined.’

I popped the envelope into my pocket. Then stopped. Frowned.

‘Who else have you been flogging medical supplies to?’

Noel’s mouth flapped open and closed a couple of times. ‘I … don’t know what you’re talking about, selling medical supplies, why would I do that? I’m only doing you a favour cos I know you from the old days.’

‘Anaesthetics, antihypertensives, disinfectants, sutures, that surgical glue stuff?’ The kind of things needed to hack someone open and stitch a plastic baby doll inside them.

He shook his head. ‘Nah, you’re thinking of someone else, I don’t sell hospital gear, I’m not some sort of dealer, I’m just a good guy helping out an old mate.’

‘Noel, I swear to God I will drag your twitchy arse from here to Dundee by the balls.’

He backed up, stuffed his hands in his pockets, pulled his shoulders forward, making himself smaller. ‘I don’t do that no more, honestly . I did, maybe, a few years ago, but you had that word with me and I straightened up my act. Straight as a bullet me. Dead, dead straight.’

I just stared at him.

He shuffled a bit. Hunched his back a little more. ‘OK, so I might have, you know, given someone a hand with their pain management. Couple things of morphine and a few packs of Amitriptyline, maybe some Temazepam, but they had multiple sclerosis and that. Honest.’

Silence.

‘Just trying to be a good citizen, you know? Help my fellow man?’

‘What about antihypertensives?’

He licked his teeth, making bulges behind his lips. ‘Don’t get much call for them. Opioids and barbiturates are the drugs du jour amongst Oldcastle’s bright young things… Not that I would ever, you know: good citizen, fellow man…’

I stepped in close enough to smell the fug of cigarette smoke and bitter aftershave wafting off of him. ‘You like us being friends, don’t you, Noel?’

He rocked from side to side, hunching up even more, looking up at me like a nervous orange crow. ‘We’re friends, course we are… Why wouldn’t we be friends?’

‘If you want it to stay that way, here’s what you’re going to do: you’re going to speak to all your fellow good citizens and you’re going to find out who’s been filching surgical supplies from the stores. And then you’re going to tell me.’ I gave him a smile, keeping it nice and cold. ‘And you’re going to do it by this time tomorrow.’

He got smaller still. ‘What if I can’t? I mean, you know, obviously I’ll try my best, but what if I try and try, but no one’s saying anything?’

When my hand landed on his shoulder he flinched. Blinked at me.

I gave the shoulder a squeeze. ‘Let’s not find out, eh?’

The woman from Human Resources gave us a smile that didn’t make it any further than her cheeks. She towered over Alice as she ushered us into a pair of fake-leather seats. Her skin was pale as milk, dark hair long at the sides and hacked into a severe fringe at the front. ‘Darren will be joining us shortly, he’s on a call at the moment.’ She clasped her hands in front of her. ‘Now, what’s this all about?’

The clock on the wall behind her read twenty past four. Should still be OK if we did this quickly.

I settled into the chair, stretched my right leg out. ‘I’m afraid that’s between us and Mr Wilkinson.’

A sign, screwed to the middle of the open door, marked this as ‘SOFT MEETING ROOM 3’. Lemon-yellow walls, a couple of framed prints, a whiteboard on one wall, and a flipchart on a stand by the door. Six, low, fake-leather chairs and a coffee table scarred with cup-ring acne. It smelled of sweat and desperation.