Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

I stepped out onto the weed-cracked tarmac.

Rain thrummed against the shoulders of my jacket, soaked through my hair as I hobbled around to the boot of the car and popped it open.

Paul Manson blinked up at me, his eyes wide, wet, and bloodshot. The washing line dug into his neck, making the skin around it swollen and red. ‘Mmmmmnnnffff, mmmnnnnphnnnn!’

Manson’s cheeks glistened above the gag.

Poor baby.

Still, got to love duct-tape. Both arms were stuck behind his back, and so were his ankles and knees. The tarpaulin crackled in the boot beneath him as he wriggled.

According to my watch it was ten to nine — just over three hours since he got the full dose of Noel’s drug cocktail. Well done Noel.

I leaned in and patted Manson on the tear-streaked cheek. ‘This is what happens when you steal from Andy Inglis. What the hell were you thinking ?’

‘Nnnffff! Nmmmnnnnph mmmffff!’

Yeah, that’s what they all say.

‘Should’ve thought about that before you went into business laundering money for organized crime. Murder, extortion, drugs, prostitution. You got any idea how much misery and suffering you helped create? How many ruined lives? Ever think about that while you toddle off home in your fancy sports car to your fancy wife and private-school brat?’

‘Nnnfff! Nnnnnggggnnn nffffffp!’

‘You deserve everything you’re going to get.’

‘Nnnnnnnnnnngh…’ He screwed his eyes shut, squeezing out the tears.

I patted him down, then pulled his jacket open and fished the bulging wallet out of the left hand side. Couple of credit cards, three supermarket loyalty cards, frequent flier programmes. Photo of him and the wife and kid grinning it up on a beach somewhere exotic with palm trees. A wad of receipts. And about two hundred and fifty quid in cash.

I fined him two hundred for being a scumbag, then stuck the wallet back where I’d got it.

‘Nnnngghnnnphhhnn…’

‘Let me guess, you’re sorry? You don’t want to die?’

‘Nnngh…’

‘So if I save your miserable arse you’ll rat on Andy Inglis’s operation, won’t you? You’ll detail every arms deal and drug operation; every bank account, offshore tax-haven. Everything. And you’ll do it in court too.’

The eyes flickered open, eyebrows pinched together. ‘Nnn, nnnmmmph nnnghh!’

I leaned in nice and close. ‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking she’ll have you killed if you talk to the police. Too late — why the hell do you think you’re here? She already wants you dead. Either you talk to me and end up in witness protection, or you don’t and end up in a shallow grave. No skin off my nose.’

Manson’s eyes scrunched shut again, his shoulders shook, tears rolling down his cheeks. Probably spent years thinking he was untouchable. Accountancy’s not exactly hands-on, is it? Not like robbing a bank or breaking someone’s knees. It’s all computers and numbers. Not like real crime.

Bastards like Paul Manson were all the same.

I pulled the envelope from my pocket and took out the last syringe. Popped the cap off. Gave the plunger a wee squeeze to get rid of any air bubbles, then reached in and pinned his head to the plastic sheet with my left hand.

‘Nnnn! Nnnnnn! Nnnngghnnmmmnnt!’

‘Oh, shut up. If you don’t look dead she’s not going to buy it.’

The needle slipped into his neck. I pressed the plunger. He screamed behind the gag. Twitched… And went limp.

Lay there like a big, ugly parcel wrapped up in duct tape with a washing-line bow.

No way I’d be able to get him out of the boot all trussed up like that.

I cut through the plastic line, untied the ends from his throat and ankles.

Much better.

Behind me: a rattle of metal on metal.

Over at the front gate, a man in a suit worked the chain out of the gap between the two sides, then let it fall to the ground. A big black BMW 4×4 rumbled behind him. Rain turned its headlights into two shimmering knives, reflected in the wet tarmac.

It was time.

The guy in the suit waited until the 4×4 drove into the warehouse car park, then shut and chained the gate behind it.

The car’s headlights swept across the chandler’s walls.

It pulled up in front of me.

Joseph got out of the driver’s seat. That left eye of his looked even worse than it had this morning — puffed up like a purple grapefruit. Blue and yellow bruises spread across his chin, and his bottom lip was swollen and cracked. He reached back into the car and when he straightened up again, there was a pickaxe handle in his hand. Not risking another kicking. His voice still had the gravelly edge only sixty-a-day or a kick in the throat gets you. ‘Mr Henderson, I trust we’re not going to have to revisit this morning’s … unpleasantness?’

‘Depends, doesn’t it?’

The guy who’d got the gate marched over, through the rain. He was just a silhouette against the lights from the cash-and-carry next door until he reached the car: Francis. A strip of pale pink sticking plaster stretched across the bridge of his flattened nose, both eyes racoon black. A swathe of bandages covered the top of his head; that tin of beans must’ve cost him a lot of stitches.

Good.

Water dripped from the end of his ginger ponytail, turned the grey of his suit to funeral black. He nodded in my direction. ‘’Spector.’ The word was wet, misshapen around the edge.

‘Francis.’

He produced a black umbrella from the BMW’s passenger side. Popped it, then opened the car’s back door. Held the brolly up as Mrs Kerrigan stepped down into the warehouse car park.

She stood there, beneath the brolly, smiling at me. ‘Mr Henderson, yez are here. Good for you.’ She pointed at the stolen Jaguar. ‘Do ye have a present for me?’

I didn’t move. ‘Where’s Shifty?’

‘Oh, yez are so masterful !’ She tilted her head at Francis. ‘Go get Mr Henderson’s little friend.’

A grunt, then Francis handed her the umbrella and disappeared around the back of the 4×4. Something clunked. There was some rustling. And when Francis returned he was bent over, dragging a body by the armpits. It was partially wrapped in clear plastic sheeting, streaks of burgundy and scarlet clearly visible against the surface. Naked.

Francis stopped, right in front of the 4×4’s bonnet, where the headlights glowed through the plastic. It was definitely Shifty. His face and body were covered in bruises and scabs, pale skin stained with his own blood. A patch of gauze was taped over the place where his right eye used to be.

‘He alive?’

Francis dumped the body, then squatted down and felt at Shifty’s throat. Stayed there for a bit. Then stood and nodded. ‘Still ticking over.’ At least three teeth were missing from the grin that followed. ‘Just.’

‘There ye go, Mr Henderson, one hostage. Your turn.’

Fair enough.

The Jag’s boot popped up. I leaned my cane against the bumper, reached in and grabbed Manson’s limp body by the lapels. Hauled him up, twisted him sideways till his torso was hanging over the lip. Took a handful of collar and belt, and tipped him out of the boot and onto the tarmac. Left him lying face down in the rain.

‘One mob accountant.’

She rose up on her toes, peered at Manson. ‘He dead?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Maybe he’s faking it.’

‘He’s a great actor if he is.’ I took hold of the duct tape holding his wrists together and stood, pulling both arms with it, raising his chest off the ground. Wrapped my other hand around his index finger and bent it back, hard. When I let go it pointed at ninety-degrees to the natural. So I did the same with the next finger. And the one after that. Finished off with his pinky. He didn’t so much as twitch, but it was going to hurt like hell when woke up in four hours. ‘Want me to do the other hand?’