Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

A couple of the strip-lights clicked and pinged, flickering in the dusty gloom. From somewhere deep inside the archives, hidden behind the metal shelves packed with boxes, came the sound of a murmured conversation.

I limped deeper into the maze.

Left. Right. Left again — PC Simpson appeared around the corner, flinched and staggered to a halt, eyes wide.

He leaned on one of the shelves, puffing. Belly wobbling with each breath. ‘You trying to give me a heart attack?’

‘She here?’

He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Next right, keep going past the poll tax riots, and right again. And be nice to her, OK?’

Then he squeezed past and disappeared into the darkness.

She was exactly where he said she’d be.

Alice sat, cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by open file boxes, leafing through a stack of forms, shoulders trembling. A sniff. Then she ground the palm of her hand into her eye socket. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be, he’s a-’

‘Detective Superintendent Knight’s right.’

‘He’s a dick. And so’s Docherty.’

Another sniff. ‘I don’t have a grasp on the case. Dr Docherty said the Inside Man was after his old victims and I said no. But he was, wasn’t he? Dr Docherty was right and I was wrong.’

I hooked my cane on a shelf and squatted down in front of her. ‘What if he got it right because he did it? Because he abducted them?’

She looked up at me, eyes all pink and puffy. ‘What am I doing here, Ash? I’m out of my depth. I’m useless and horrible and I shouldn’t be on the case, and if Henry and Dr Docherty couldn’t catch the Inside Man what…’ Her shoulders trembled. ‘What chance did … did I … ever have?’

‘Come on, don’t do this.’ I leaned forward and pulled her against me. Her hair smelled of hotel shampoo and stale Jack Daniel’s. Her forehead hot against my neck. I gave her a squeeze. ‘Shhh… It’s just the PTSD talking, like you said. Maybe you should have some of that MDMA? Go play a violent video game, or something?’

‘I shouldn’t be-’

‘You’re the cleverest person I know; you shouldn’t be doing yourself down like this.’ I pulled away, brushed the hair from her face. ‘Docherty’s a prick, that’s all there is to it.’

She sniffed and nodded. Heeled the tears from her eyes again. Managed a little smile. ‘Being hungover doesn’t help…’

I sat on the ground, stretched my legs out. Pointed at all the files and paperwork. ‘So where do we go from here?’

Simpson lumbered out of the shadows, with a mug in one hand and a green paper towel in the other. ‘Here.’ He handed them both to Alice. ‘Tea. And some gingersnaps.’

She held the mug against her chest. ‘Thank you, Allan.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Where’s mine?’

‘You’re not upset. And I’m not a bloody teaboy.’ He nudged the archive box next to me with his boot. ‘I hope you’re going to put all this back where you found it, Henderson. Place is bad enough as it is.’

‘Like it’d make any difference. Your domain’s a disaster area, Simpson, you should be ashamed of yourself.’

He leaned his elbow against a shelf. ‘And don’t get me started on them tossers from Operation Tiger-Sodding-Balm.’ Both hands came up, elbows jammed into his sides, fingers wiggling as his voice jumped up half an octave. ‘“Oh, we’re the Specialist Crime Division, we don’t need to sign things in and out, we’re so sexy!” Tossers. Come on, is it really that hard to check the damn box out, then check it back in again? What’s the point of having procedures if no bugger pays any attention to them?’

I leaned back, drummed my fingers on the lid of a file box. ‘Who’s been messing with the boxes? All of Knight’s team? Just some of them?’

Simpson puffed his cheeks out. ‘Let’s see… I’ve caught that DI Foot down here rummaging through stuff more than once, and DS Grohl…’

‘What about Dr Docherty?’

‘Pffff… He’s the worst of the lot. Soon as the MIT got called in he was down here digging about like a kid in a sandbox. No respect, any of them.’ Simpson straightened up. ‘Anyway, some of us have work to do.’ He turned and stamped off into the maze. ‘And make sure you put everything back where you got it.’

I swung the Suzuki around the roundabout and into Shortstaine. Into the rows of identical cookie-cutter houses in pale brick and pantiles. Cul-de-sacs and twee road names. Labradors and 4×4s.

Alice slapped a hand down on the papers in her lap, holding them in place. ‘I know he’s in a position to skew the profile away from himself, but-’

‘And he’s always talking up the letters. He had unsupervised access to the archives. Every time you disagree with him, he tries to make it look as if you don’t know what you’re talking about, or he buries your opinion.’

‘That doesn’t mean he’s the Inside Man.’ She smiled at me, squeezed my arm. ‘It’s sweet, but you don’t have to make him a suspect, just because he was mean to me.’

‘I paid his room a visit last night, while you were bringing up your dinner. No sign of him. Bed was still made.’

She turned over another sheet, ‘Well … maybe he’s got a lover in town?’

‘He’s got panties and a bra in his suitcase. Lipstick and earrings too.’

Left onto Camburn View Avenue — the woods loomed between the houses, their tips catching the sun as it struggled through the dove-grey clouds.

‘That doesn’t mean he can’t have a lover.’

I glanced across and she shifted in her seat.

She shrugged. ‘What? Transvestites need love too.’

Right into Camburn View Crescent. A pair of patrol cars sat a third of the way down the road, the SEB’s dented Transit van parked between them.

‘Thought you’d be banging on about him having identity disorder issues and putting on a fake face.’

She frowned as I pulled in behind the second patrol car. ‘Well, the need to adopt a different personality would fit in with the revised profile. And the persona he displays professionally fits the power-obsessed narcissist exposed in the letters…’ A hand drifted up to fiddle with her hair. ‘Are we really considering him as a viable suspect?’

‘Thinking about it.’

More twiddling. ‘What do we know about his childhood?’

‘Social Services got called in twice. Once for wilful fire-raising, and once because they thought his parents were beating him. Wife divorced him for something sexual, don’t know what yet.’ But him wearing women’s underwear probably featured in there somewhere.

The frown deepened, pulling wrinkles around her eyes. ‘Arson’s a typical indicator of psychological problems, and if his parents were abusive… Can we see the reports?’

I opened the door and climbed out. My breath fogged in the shadow of the homes. ‘Someone’s working on it.’

She stuffed all the papers back into her satchel and followed me down the pavement to the cordon of blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape. The same plukey officer from Monday was guarding the line. His eyes goldfished, and he snapped to attention. ‘Guv.’

‘No sausage roll today, Constable Hill?’

His hand flinched up and wiped imaginary crumbs from his fluorescent yellow waistcoat. ‘Sorry, sir.’ He licked his lips. Then pulled up the tape so Alice could duck underneath.

I nodded towards the house. ‘They find anything yet?’

He leaned in and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘One of those little plastic baby key rings. It was in the back door.’

Another constable made us sign in before she’d let us into the house.

Inside, almost every surface was covered by a thin patina of silver or black dust, clear rectangles marking where prints had been lifted with tape. The lock was intact, no splintered wood.