Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

Twenty to five, and we were still stuck here, the clock’s minute hand sweeping ever closer to Paul Manson’s appointment.

Alice leaned forwards, elbows on her knees. ‘It’s perfectly understandable. You’re only looking out for her, aren’t you? She does all these stupid things and you’re the one who has to clean up the mess. She needs to learn, doesn’t she? Needs to do what she’s told, when she’s told.’

He kept his head down.

The HR Manager, Sarah, narrowed her eyes. ‘I’m not comfortable with this line of questioning. Darren has already told you that he didn’t assault Jessica McFee. I don’t see why you’re fixating on this.’ Playing the lawyer.

Alice placed both hands, palm up, on the table. ‘And if she steps out of line, it’s only understandable you should give her a slap every now and then. For her own good? It works with dogs, doesn’t it? Why should women be any different?’

‘I can assure you that not only did Darren excel in our gender-parity training, he’s one of the hospital’s Equality Champions. This is completely inappropriate and-’

‘Come on then, Darren,’ I picked up my walking stick and poked him in the chest with the rubber end, ‘tell me about this hit-and-run.’

He shrank back into his seat. ‘It was dark. I was crossing the road and a car came out of nowhere and hit me. Didn’t see it.’

Another poke. ‘Where?’

Pick. Pick. Pick. ‘Just down from the chipper on Oxford Street.’

‘When?’

Nothing.

So I poked him again. ‘When — did — it — happen?’

‘Ow! … I don’t know.’

‘Please stop poking him.’

No chance. ‘I checked the Police National Computer — there’s no record of you being run over on Oxford Street, or anywhere else. What, you decided it wasn’t worth reporting? Accidents will happen?’

He kept his eyes down. ‘Didn’t think there was any point. You know. Cos I didn’t see the car or anything…’

‘Right.’ One more poke for luck. ‘You got flattened by a car. Your leg’s broken, arm too. You look like you’ve spent an hour being a trampoline for skinheads, and you didn’t think it was worth reporting?’

‘Detective Constable Henderson, if Darren says-’

‘You see, Darren, you told your boss here you were hit on a zebra crossing, but there’s no zebra crossing on Oxford, is there?’ This time I aimed the rubber tip at his ribs and he winced. Recoiled in his seat. Wrapped a hand around the impact spot. So I did it again, going for the other side instead. Same result. ‘The only person in a hit-and-run who doesn’t go to the police is the driver. Take off your shirt.’

Sarah stiffened. ‘All right, I think we’ve been patient enough. That’s completely-’

‘There wasn’t any car, was there? Take off the damn shirt.’

She stood. ‘I’m going to have to ask you to leave. If you want to conduct some sort of strip-search, you can do it under caution at the station. Until then- What are you doing?’

I lunged across the coffee table, grabbed two handfuls of his shirt and yanked. The buttons pinged off like tiny bullets, the tails wrenched out of his trousers. His tie dangled over the purple, scarlet, and yellow mess of his chest. Bruises covered both sides — not in a hard line like you’d get from a car bonnet, or a bumper but haphazard and patchwork. And right in the middle of his stomach was the perfect negative image of a bootprint.

‘Strange tyres on that car. Looks more like a size nine than a Dunlop radial.’

Sarah jabbed a finger at me. ‘I’ll be making a formal complaint to your superiors. How dare you subject a member of my staff to this humiliating-’

‘Oh, grow up. He wasn’t in a hit-and-run, someone beat the living hell out of him.’ I put my stick down. ‘Why did you lie, Darren? Who’s got you so scared they can do that to you and you don’t even report it?’

He bit his bottom lip, the one good eye glistening in the light. ‘Nothing happened…’

‘Really?’ I rapped my cane on the coffee table and he flinched. ‘Is that why you’re after a shotgun licence? Bit of revenge?’

She pulled out her phone. ‘I’m calling security. You’re both-’

‘No!’ Darren grabbed her arm. ‘Please. No. I… I don’t want to make a fuss. Please?’

She stared at him for a moment. ‘Are you certain this is what you want?’

He lowered his eyes and went back to picking at his cast. ‘Can I get a glass of water, or something?’

Sarah placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Of course you can.’ She scowled at me. ‘And no more questions.’

Darren Wilkinson licked his lips and blinked as the door clicked shut behind her. Then gave a little shuddering sigh. ‘I … never meant to hurt her.’

Alice patted him on the arm. ‘You need to-’

‘It was…’ He cleared his throat. Stared at the coffee table again. ‘Sorry, you first.’

‘No: what were you going to say?’

‘Jessica… She wasn’t like…’ Another sigh. ‘She wanted me to hit her.’ He dug his thumbnail into the lining of the cast, gouging out a tuft of white. ‘I don’t mean “she was asking for it” in a misogynistic way, I mean literally. She literally asked me to hit her. I just wanted to be like normal couples, holding hands, walks in the park, but…’ He puffed out his cheeks. Hacked out another tuft.

I stared at him. ‘Aye, right .’

Silence.

‘It’s OK, Darren. What happened?’

‘The first time, I thought she wanted me to spank her. You know, just a bit of fun? And I know it enforces gender stereotyping and patriarchal dominance, but she told me not to be so bloody wet. She didn’t want spanked, she wanted me to hit her.’

‘And did you?’

His eye came up, wide. ‘No! Of course I didn’t. I don’t believe in the physical subjugation of women or any of that outmoded sexist crap… But she wouldn’t let up, she kept badgering me and then she was hitting me and screaming in my face…’ Darren turned away. ‘And I did it. I slapped her, I didn’t mean to, it just… And that was it — she was…’ A cough. ‘You know.’

Alice tapped her fingertips on the coffee table. ‘She became sexually aroused.’

‘Sometimes I think she … confused violence with love. Like they were the same thing. And that’s how it went. She … needed it to feel wanted and valued and I…’ He bared his gap-filled teeth. ‘I hated myself.’

There were thousands of excuses — things abusers told themselves to justify pounding the crap out of their other halves — but that was a new one.

While he was scrubbing the tears from his bruised face, I pulled out my phone and flicked through to the photo that Jessica’s flatmate, Liz Thornton, had sent me. Held it out to Darren. ‘Do you recognize this man?’

He blinked at it a couple of times, then sniffed. ‘He’s the pervert who went through their bins, isn’t he? I chased him once. Jessica and me were going down to the car park — it was someone’s leaving do that night — and he was fiddling with the mailboxes. You know, like he was picking the locks or something? So I shouted and he ran and I chased him.’

‘Did you see his face?’

Darren shook his head. ‘It was dark. He ran off into the woods and there was no way I was going to follow him in there and end up getting knifed or something.’

I put the phone away again. ‘So who beat you up?’

‘I can’t…’ Deep breath. ‘I fell down the stairs.’

‘And somehow managed to stamp on your own stomach on the way down?’ I leaned back. Stared at him until he dropped his gaze and went back to digging the lining out of his cast. ‘You get beaten up on Thursday night. And on Friday you text Jessica McFee and tell her you never want to see her again.’