Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

‘Ash Henderson is looking for my daughter. While he’s doing that, he’s under my protection.’

‘I’ll kill ye and everyone yez’ve ever loved!’ Getting louder with every word.

I circled her with the gun. ‘You and me have unfinished business.’

‘I’LL TRACK THEM DOWN AND I’LL-’

Wee Free smashed a fist into her face.

Her head snapped back, rolled from side to side. Then she shook it, and glared up at him, blood dribbling down her chin. ‘You better feckin’ kill me right now, cos if you don’t…’

He smiled. ‘I know how it works. You see, you and me, we’re the same. We just fight on different sides.’ A wink. ‘What do you think, Mr Henderson?’

‘She has to die. Right here. Right now. And I’m going to do it.’

Wee Free glanced over to where Shifty lay, flat on his back in the rain. ‘What happened to the fat naked guy?’

‘ She did. Tortured him, gouged out his eye.’

‘And you want to kill her for it?’

I threw my arms out. ‘Do you think ? She’s a vicious, nasty, murdering piece of filth. Leave her alive and she’s not kidding: she’ll come after both of us. She needs to die.’

Wee Free sighed. ‘That’s not very Christian of you, Mr Henderson. Leviticus 24:19, “And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him — breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.”’

Mrs Kerrigan’s face was candlewax-pale. ‘Matthew 5:38, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, but I say unto yez, that ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”’

I jabbed the barrel of the gun against her forehead. ‘Bible study’s over. It’s-’

Wee Free’s fist hit me like a car crash. Yellow and black blobs burst across the inside of my eyes, followed by a deafening hiss and thump as I hit the wet tarmac. Dear Jesus…

‘We’re talking, Mr Henderson. Don’t interrupt.’

Pressure on my right wrist. My fingers were peeled back, one-by-one, from the handle of the gun. Then the pressure was gone and I was left with the grinding feel of rusty metal working itself loose beneath the skin of my cheek. He didn’t need a lump hammer — his fist was hard enough on its own.

I blinked away the spinning dots, lying on my side in the rain.

Wee Free slipped my gun into his pocket. Then grabbed Mrs Kerrigan’s hair again. ‘I’m disappointed: quoting scripture for forgiveness? That’s beneath you.’ He gave her head a little shake. ‘See, I’ve been doing my research, I know what you’ve done. And it’s time to atone for your sins.’

She bared her teeth. ‘I’ll see you in Hell .’

‘Probably.’ He glanced at Shifty. ‘But you’ll have to squint.’ Her gun barked in his hand. ‘Let us pray.’

There was a moment’s silence, then the screaming started. Mrs Kerrigan’s eyes bugged, mouth twisted around bared teeth, sitting on the wet tarmac rocking back and forth, both hands wrapped around her right ankle. Blood dripped from the hole in her shoe.

‘AAAAGGGHHH!’

‘Told you I’d done my research.’ Wee Free tossed the gun away into the darkness. ‘“Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” You had someone shoot Mr Henderson in the foot, and now you’re reaping what you’ve sown.’

‘CHRIST AND FECKING… AAGGHH!’

Rain pounded against the tarmac, sparking in the 4×4’s headlights, battering me down with it.

He bent and picked up the lump hammer again. Twitched it towards me, then the stolen Jaguar. ‘I think it’d be best if you got back to work, don’t you?’

‘JESUS! AAAGGHH BASTARD!’

I grabbed my walking stick and levered myself to my feet. Stared down at the wailing figure curled up at his feet. ‘We have to kill her.’

‘Eye for an eye.’ Wee Free nudged Mrs Kerrigan with his boot. ‘That’s next.’

‘She’ll come after you, and she’ll come after me. She’ll go for our families…’ Oh God — Alice.

I turned, hobbling as fast as I could, straight through puddles, past the Jag. Making for the passageway between the warehouse and the shipping containers.

If she’d done what she was meant to — ran for it — we were all screwed. Soon as she crossed the hundred-yard mark, the alarm would go up and Jacobson’s firearms team would hot-foot it over here. Where all the blood and bodies were.

Shite.

I yanked out my phone and powered up Sabir’s app. The thing took a moment to load, then pinged, slow and steady, the screen amber. Wherever she’d got to, it was no more than sixty-six yards away.

I stopped. Cupped my hands into a loudhailer. ‘ALICE!’ Took another couple of steps towards the containers. Towards the hole we’d made in the fence. ‘ALICE!’

The screen went from orange to yellow, the pinging slowed.

Further, into the darkness. ‘ALICE!’

Green.

A shape lay in the gap between two of the containers.

Joseph.

He was on his back, one arm up above his head, legs bent. The pickaxe handle lay beside him, the thick end smeared with thumb-sized blots of red, just visible in the gloom.

I checked my phone. The screen was green. She was near.

‘Alice?’

Two steps further into the darkness between the containers, the rusting metal walls not much more than shoulder-width apart. The smell of burnt plastic and mould. Another two steps. Then two more.

‘Oh no…’

She was on her side, curled, knees up to her chest, little red shoes sticking out at twenty to nine. One arm draped across herself. A line of blood ran sideways across her forehead. Her satchel lay open beside her, the lump hammer notable by its absence.

Bastard.

I knelt beside her, brushed the damp hair from her face. ‘Alice? Can you hear me?’

Two fingers in the dip behind her jawline… There — a pulse.

Breath hissed out of me. My head curled forwards until it rested on her shoulder. Thank God.

Then something dark burrowed into my chest.

I stood, marched back to where Joseph lay and slammed my good foot into his stomach a couple of times. Nothing. Grabbed the pickaxe handle. ‘You rancid little shite.’

Pick a leg, any leg.

The impact shuddered up the wood and into my hands. Once. Twice. Three times. He didn’t even grunt, just lay there as I shattered the bones.

One more kick for luck, then I dumped the pickaxe handle, scooped Alice up in my arms and hobbled back to the car park, right heel thumping against the ground with every step, knives of dirty ice shredding through the bone and tissue.

By the time I’d made it to the car, there was no sign of Shifty, or Mrs Kerrigan. But Paul Manson was still stretched out on the ground, face up, the bullet holes in his chest and forehead glistening like mini black holes.

Wee Free stood where I’d left him, holding the lump hammer in one hand and my gun in the other. He jerked his chin up. ‘She all right?’

I lowered Alice into the Jaguar, laying her along the back seat. ‘She’s alive.’

‘Good.’ He walked over and nudged Manson with the toe of his shoe. ‘Take this with you. I’ve got enough bodies.’

The door clunked shut. I pulled my shoulders back. ‘Where’s Shifty?’

‘The fat naked guy? I’m keeping him. You get to keep the dead accountant, and the girl. And then you get out there and you find my daughter.’

My mouth was full of sandpaper. ‘I’m not leaving without him.’

‘Jessica’s fifth birthday. We had the party in the hospital so her mother could be there. Smiling away with tubes in her arms and nose, barely able to lift her head off the pillow. And Jessica kisses her on the cheek and tells her she’s going to be an angel soon.’