Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

I got the pen back out. ‘Who to?’

‘ Like I said, I’ve not spoken to everyone yet, so could just be locker-room bollocks. You know what these guys are like. ’

‘ Who , Noel, before I come up there and divine it from your entrails.’

‘ OK, so word is Boxer’s been flogging stuff to that psychiatrist bloke off the telly. You know: the one who caught the serial guy butchering those wee boys in Dundee? ’

Dr Frederic Docherty.

‘This “Boxer” — I want a real name, and an address, and a contact number.’

‘ How do I know his address? I’m not his- ’

‘Find out and text me.’ I hung up. Looked across the car to Alice. Grinned. ‘Better and better.’

The wind tried to rip my door off when I clambered out into the slanting rain. It battered icy nails into my face and neck as I limped around to the driver’s side and shooed Alice across into the passenger seat.

She scrambled over the handbrake and gearstick, taking Bob the Builder and my phone with her. ‘This is … interesting .’

‘Thought it might be.’ The engine growled into life, drowning out the rain for a moment until the diesel warmed up. ‘Put your seatbelt on.’

She did what she was told. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Breaking and entering.’

Overhead lights made pools of grey on the concrete floor, the bulbs not quite strong enough to banish the gloom.

I checked the number plate against the note again, just to be sure. Not that the hotel car park was stuffed with blue Volvo estates, but better safe than sorry. Docherty’s car sat in the corner furthest away from the entrance, passenger-side tight into the wall, leaving plenty of space between it and the next bay. Trying to make sure no one would dent or scratch the bodywork.

Nice try.

My crowbar squealed along the driver’s door, curling off twin strips of paint, exposing the metal beneath. Oops.

The place was nearly empty — most of the guests would be away at work or attending conferences, or doing whatever it was tourists did on a rainy Wednesday lunchtime in Oldcastle — leaving just a handful of hatchbacks and one Range Rover Sport, all parked near the door that led back into the hotel.

Alice shuffled her little red shoes, glancing back through the grid of pillars towards the entrance. ‘I’m really not sure we should be doing this, I mean I know the whole “making his wife pretend to be a murder victim” thing is creepy, but-’

‘You read the reports from Social Services.’

‘Yes, I know, I just…’ She wrapped her arms around herself. ‘What if we’re wrong? What if it’s not him?’

I took hold of her shoulders and gave them a squeeze. ‘He’s got to keep his abduction kit somewhere. He can’t leave it in his room, or housekeeping will find it. He can’t leave it at the station, not even Docherty is that egotistical. So it’s either wherever he takes the girls, or it’s in the car.’ The motorcycle gloves I’d liberated from the traffic office were a bit bulky, but they’d do. The crowbar slapped into the leather-clad palm of my other hand. ‘Anyone coming?’

‘No.’

‘Good.’ The crowbar crunched through the driver’s window, spattering the front seats with glittering cubes of glass. All four hazard lights burst into life, the horn honking, alarm screeching. I ran the crowbar around the edge of the window, clearing the remnants away, before reaching in and pulling the lever to release the bonnet.

Limped around to the front and hauled the thing open, then jammed the crowbar’s forks in under the battery cover and shoved. The red terminal snapped away from the battery and everything was silence again. Five seconds. Not exactly a record, but not bad either. Helps when you don’t have to worry about driving the thing away afterwards. ‘Anyone?’

‘Ash, what if he’s not the Inside Man, we-’

‘Is anyone coming?’

A sigh. ‘No.’

I pulled open the car door and leaned across the seats. Popped open the glove compartment. Maps, half bag of Fox’s Glacier Mints, and the vehicle’s service book. Nothing in the passenger footwell, or under the seat. Nothing in the door pocket either.

The storage compartment between the seats was empty, too. ‘If he’s not the Inside Man, we sod off out of it and no one’s the wiser. He gets back tonight and thinks someone’s vandalized his car. Look on it as payback for him being a dick.’

Driver’s side: a neoprene folder full of CDs — a mix of country-and-western and Phil Collins — sweet wrappers, sunglasses. My gloved fingers brushed through cubes of safety glass under the seat. Found a hard edge. Something there… ‘Hold on.’ I got grip on it and pulled.

A blue folder stamped ‘PROPERTY OF GREATER MANCHESTER POLICE’.

It was full of crime-scene photographs. All women. All lying where they’d been discovered. And not one of them had an easy death. Shootings, stabbings, stranglings, beatings, throats cut, bodies ripped open. Blood and bone and suffering. The last eight in the pile were Inside Man victims.

I handed them to Alice. ‘Still think it’s not him?’ Then opened the back door.

An orange carrier-bag sat behind the driver’s seat, full of something. I peered inside. Tissues — all scrunched up, and a suspiciously bleachy smell.

Alice looked up from the photos. ‘What is it?’

The carrier-bag went back where it came from. ‘Think the technical term is “wankerchiefs”.’

A frown. Then her top lip curled. ‘Ew… He’s been sitting in his car masturbating to photos of murdered women?’

‘Told you.’

I searched the Volvo from nose to tail. Even had the rubber floor-mats up and the spare wheel out. Nothing.

‘Ash?’

Had to be here somewhere .

Somewhere accessible from inside the car. Somewhere he could get to it easily. But where? I knelt on the concrete floor and went back under the seats, inching my fingers along the glass-strewn carpet.

Couldn’t feel a damn thing in the motorcycle gloves. I stripped the right one off replacing it with the last of my blue nitriles.

Alice’s voice was a hissing whisper: ‘Ash!’

There — a little cylinder. Pen top? I teased it out and sat back.

You wee beauty . It was an orange syringe cap. The same kind I’d… Yes. Well, far too late to do anything about that now.

It wasn’t exactly an abduction kit, but it was a start.

Put it back, call Jacobson, tell him to get a search warrant, and-

She grabbed my sleeve and yanked. ‘Someone’s coming!’

Sodding hell.

I grabbed the crowbar. ‘Knew we should’ve worn ski-masks.’

No point trying to hide — if the place had been packed with cars, we could have slipped away between the vehicles. But it wasn’t.

Dr Docherty marched across the concrete, overcoat billowing out behind him. ‘WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?’

The hotel manager was at his heels, all wringing hands and shiny bald spot. And behind him : Rhona. She scuffed along at the back, mouth pulled down at the edges, hands in her pockets.

He’d brought reinforcements. Of course he had. Little sod must’ve got a lift to the station this morning, how else was he going to get back here?

‘GET AWAY FROM MY BLOODY CAR!’ Face flushed, eyes wide.

I let the crowbar’s tip clank against the floor and leaned on it. ‘Where are they?’

He stopped four feet away, arm raised, finger pointed at the middle of my chest. ‘Detective Sergeant Massie, I want that man arrested! He’s broken into my car, and… WHAT DID YOU DO TO THE PAINTWORK?’

A little squeal from the manager as he surveyed the damage, and the hand-wringing intensified. ‘While the Pinemantle Hotel carries out every reasonable safety precaution I have to remind you that we’re, unfortunately, unable to accept any liability for damage-’