Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

Pretty obvious really.

He kept his head down.

‘It was her dad, wasn’t it? Wee Free McFee didn’t like some godless Dundonian rutting away on top of his daughter.’

Darren’s head snapped up, one good eye wide open. ‘No! It was nothing like that he never touched me it was an accident. I’m not pressing charges! ’

‘I’m sorry…’ Alice fiddled with her keys in the darkness between our stolen Jag and the scabby Renault parked next to it. Tried the button on the fob again. ‘It was working earlier…’

‘Give.’ I held out my hand and she passed the keys over.

The multi-storey smelled of rotting weeds, laced with a dirty ammonia tang. A puddle stretched most of the way across the concrete floor — ankle-deep by the lifts — empty plastic bottles and crisp packets marking high-tide with a dirty flotsam line. At least it was reasonably dry over here by the far wall. Even if the stairs had been used as a urinal.

Alice wrinkled her nose. ‘Maybe it needs a new battery, or we could-’

‘Or we could just do this.’ I stuck the key in the lock.

‘Ooh, I forgot about that…’

Kids today.

The boot creaked as I opened it. Nothing in there but a tartan blanket and a dog-eared ‘COLLINS ROAD ATLAS OF SCOTLAND’ twenty years out of date. I pulled out the blanket and dumped it on the back seat.

‘Ash, I’m sorry, I didn’t think it’d take that long and-’

‘Nothing we can do about it now.’

The stuff we’d bought at B amp;Q clanged and thumped as I dumped it into the boot, leaving the tarpaulin till last, spreading it out over everything else. Making a little waterproof pouch.

‘Maybe, if we hurry, the traffic won’t be too bad? Ash?’

I clunked the boot shut.

‘Ash?’

‘Maybe.’ I limped around to the passenger side and eased myself into the seat. According to the dashboard clock it was nearly quarter past five. Should have got out of there when we had the chance.

The Jaguar’s windscreen wipers squealed back across the glass, smearing the rain into scarlet arcs, catching the tail-light glow of the queue of traffic crawling across Dundas Bridge. Streetlights made orbs of sickly yellow. The sky tumour-dark.

On the other end of the phone, Chief Superintendent Ness went silent for a bit. Then, ‘ I see… And are we supposed to prosecute him for domestic abuse? ’

The car crept forward another couple of feet.

‘Jacobson said it was up to you. Darren’s got an alibi for when Claire Young went missing, and Alice says he doesn’t fit the profile. So, probably not the Inside Man.’

Alice’s voice was barely audible over the engine’s rumble. ‘Ask her about the letter.’

‘What about the letter? What did you tell Wee Free?’

A sooking hiss came from the earpiece. ‘ Mr McFee has been informed that we’ve received another letter from someone purporting to be the Inside Man. I wanted to persuade the News and Post not to run it, but Dr Docherty thinks if Tim doesn’t see his letter in print he’s going to think we’re not taking him seriously. Jessica McFee’s in enough danger as it is. ’

‘You giving Wee Free an advance copy?’

‘ Might as well: he’s going to find out tomorrow morning anyway. ’

Alice waved at me.

Right. ‘We’ll need one too.’

‘ Come into Division Headquarters and you can pick up a press pack. ’

‘Email it through. I’m following something up.’

There was a pause. ‘ What? ’

‘Ask Jacobson. My organ-grinding days are over, remember?’ Another trundle forward. More silence, punctuated by the groan of rubber on smeared glass.

‘ I see .’

We crept forward another couple of feet.

‘ Mr Henderson, let’s get something sparklingly clear: as you so eloquently pointed out earlier, you’re not a police officer any more. Do you seriously believe that you merit a personal briefing from the head of a major investigation? If you want to know what’s going on, you can get off your backside and turn up to the team meetings. ’

All one big happy family.

Up ahead, the traffic was thinning out, escaping the bottleneck of the bridge and the roundabouts on either end.

‘ I don’t care how big a wheel you were in Oldcastle CID — that means nothing to me. You want something? You earn it. ’

A clunk, and the line went dead.

I blew out a breath. ‘Think she likes me.’

Rain drummed on the Jaguar’s roof. Bounced off the bonnet.

Alice’s knuckles stood out pale around the steering wheel. ‘What if we can’t get there in time?’

‘We go to plan B.’

She looked at me. ‘We’ve got a plan B?’

I popped the back off the handset I bought, fiddled the sim card out and replaced it with one of the spare ones. Then dialled the mobile number biroed on the back of Paul Manson’s photo. Got my notebook out.

‘What’s plan B?’

‘Shhh…’ I pointed at the phone.

A prim voice came on the other end. ‘ Paul Manson, can I help you? ’

Time to drag out the Glaswegian accent Michelle always hated. ‘Aye, hello. Greg here from Sparanet Vehicle Security. I’m sorry, Mr Manson, but the system’s thrown an automatic alert about your Porsche Nine-Eleven. Nothing to worry about, just routine.’

‘ I beg your pardon? ’

‘Can you just confirm the car’s location? We’re showing it on Leith Walk in Edinburgh.’

‘ What? ’ Some scrunching noises. What sounded like a car door thunking shut. Then he was back. ‘ It’s right here outside my office, you idiot. Not Edinburgh: Oldcastle .’

‘Are you sure?’

‘ Of course I’m bloody sure, I’m sitting in it. ’

‘Oh dear… Well, sorry to have bothered you, Mr Manson. Drive safely.’ I hung up. Dropped the accent. ‘He’s just leaving now.’

Alice crawled the Jag forward, until we were a couple of car lengths from the Barnett roundabout. ‘What if he gets away?’

I held up a finger. ‘Plan C: we turn up at the meeting empty-handed, pretend we’ve killed him, then kill everyone else before they kill Shifty.’

She looked as if she’d just swallowed something bitter. ‘I don’t-’

‘OK.’ Another finger. ‘Plan D: we track down Mrs Kerrigan and we kill her before she can kill us. Rescue Shifty. Then disappear off into the night before anyone comes looking for us. Get that house in Australia with a dog and a pool.’

Alice shifted in her seat, craning her neck to see past the people-carrier turning right at the roundabout. She put her foot down, swinging the Jaguar out into the flow. ‘Why do all your plans have killing in them?’

‘Because I doubt baking Mrs Kerrigan a cake is really going to cut it. You saw what she did to Shifty.’

She took the second exit, onto Darwin Street. ‘There has to be a way that nobody has to die… How about plan E: we get in touch with all of David’s friends in Oldcastle Division and we turn up mob-handed, I mean there’s no way Mrs Kerrigan would hurt him with all those police officers there, would she, we could arrest her, and we wouldn’t have to kill Paul Manson, and it’d be like…’ Alice frowned at me. ‘What?’

I tried not to laugh, I really did. ‘You heard her: who knows how much of CID is in Mrs Kerrigan’s pocket? Two years ago I could’ve spotted them. Now?’

‘But-’

‘The only person we can trust for sure is Shifty.’

Alice drove the stolen Jag right up behind the Volvo in front. ‘But… Manson’s a mob accountant, OK? What if we got him to give Queen’s evidence and he went into a witness protection programme or something like that?’