Stuart MacBride - A Song for the Dying

‘Now I’m no’ saying he’s gay — I’m no’ saying he’s ho-mo-sexual — I’m saying he’s a big Jessie. No’ the same thing.’

‘Not this again …’ A crescent moon makes a scar in the clouds, glowering down at them as Kevin picks his way through the frost-crisped grass, breath streaming out behind him. Nipples like little points of fire. Fingers aching where they stick out past the end of his sleeve, wrapped around the torch. The legs of his glasses cold against his temples.

Behind him, the ambulance’s blue and white lights make lazy search beams, sending shadows creeping through the trees at the side of the road. The headlights glint back from a bus shelter, the Perspex blistered and blackened where someone’s tried to set fire to it.

Nick clunks the ambulance door shut. ‘I mean, seriously, look at him: could he be any more of a Jessie?’

‘Will you shut up and help me?’

‘Don’t know what you’re so worked up about.’ Nick has a scratch at his beard, really going at it, like a dog with fleas. Tiny flakes of white fall from the face-fungus, caught in the glow of his torch like dying fireflies. ‘Just going to be another sodding crank call, like all the rest of them. Tell you: ever since they found that woman with her innards all ripped up in Kingsmeath, every time-wasting tosser in the city’s been on the phone reporting gutted women. Listen to them, the bloody place should be knee-deep in dead tarts.’

‘What if she’s lying out there, in the dark, dying? Don’t you want-’

‘And do you know why Spider-Man’s a big girl’s blouse?’

Kevin doesn’t look at him, keeps his eyes on the grass. It’s thicker here, the broken-glass stems dotted with rusty spears of docken and dead thistles. Something out there smells musty, fusty, mouldering. ‘What if it’s real? Might be still alive.’

‘Aye, you keep telling yourself that. Fiver says she doesn’t even exist.’ His fingertips scrabble through the beard again as he kicks through a pile of crackling leaves. ‘So, Spider-Man: action is his reward, right? Total Jessie.’

Two more hours till the shift’s over. Two more hours of inane drivel and bollocks…

Is something sticking out from underneath that whin bush?

The long dark seedpods clatter like a rattlesnake as Kevin pokes at the branches.

Just a plastic bag, the blue-and-red logo glittering with frost.

‘See me? See if I save some hot bird from a burning building? I’m expecting cash, or a blowjob at the very least. When did you last see someone going down on Spider-Man? Never, that’s when.’

‘Nick, I swear to God…’

‘Come on, if it was you or me running about in our jammies, squirting random strangers with our sticky emissions, we’d end up on the sex-offenders’ register, wouldn’t we?’

‘Can you not shut up for, like, five seconds?’ The tips of Kevin’s ears burn, like someone’s stubbing a cigarette out on them. Cheeks are going the same way. He sweeps the torch beam back and forth. Maybe Nick’s right? This is a waste of time. They’re out here, sodding about in the freezing cold, on a Thursday night in November just because some rancid wee sod thought it’d be funny to report a woman’s body dumped at the side of the road.

‘He’s not a superhero: he’s a pervert. And a Jessie. Quod erat demonstrandum .’

A hundred and fifty thousand people have a stroke every year, why can’t Nick be one of them? Right now. Is that really too much to ask?

The hairy git stops rummaging in his beard and points. ‘Aye, aye, looks like someone’s been getting lucky. Found a right nest of condoms here…’ He pokes the toe of his boot into it, rummages. ‘French ticklers from the look of it.’

‘Shut up.’ Kevin chews at the skin on the side of his index finger, breath fogging up his glasses. ‘What did they say?’

Nick sniffs. ‘Woman, mid-twenties, possible internal bleeding, A-Rhesus negative.’

The tarmac scrunches beneath Kevin’s feet as he picks his way around the bus shelter. ‘How did they know?’

‘That she was here? Suppose-’

‘No, you moron, how did they know what her blood type was…?’ Kevin stops dead. There’s something behind the shelter, something person-sized.

He lurches over, feet slipping on the icy tarmac. But it’s only a hunk of carpet, the faded green-and-yellow swirly pattern, spotted with darker stains. Dumped by some dirty scumbag who couldn’t be arsed going to the council tip. What the hell was wrong with people these days?

It wasn’t like…

There’s drag-marks in the grass, leading away from the carpet.

Oh God.

‘And don’t get me started on Superman!’

Kevin’s voice cracks. So he tries again. ‘Nick…?’

‘I mean, what kind of pervert goes to work wearing blue tights-’

‘Nick, get the crash kit.’

‘-bright red pants over the top? Could he be any more, “look at my crotch, for I am the Man of Steel!” And he’s faster-’

‘Get the crash kit.’

‘-speeding bullet. What woman wants-’

‘GET THE BLOODY CRASH KIT!’ And Kevin’s running, slithering through the grass at the side of the bus shelter. Crashing through the whip-fronds of dying nettles, following the drag-marks.

She’s lying on her back, one leg curled under her, the other pale foot smeared with dirt. Her white nightdress has ridden up around her thighs, a yellow cross staining the fabric across her swollen abdomen — distorted by what’s been stitched inside. Scarlet blooms through the nightdress: poppies, dark and spreading.

Her face is bone-china pale, freckles standing out like dried bloodstains, coppery hair spread out across frost-sharpened grass. A golden chain glints around her throat.

Her fingers tremble.

She’s alive …

Six Years Later

The wall hit me between the shoulder blades, then did the same to the back of my head. An explosion of yellow light. A dull thunk deep inside my skull. A grunt broke from my throat. Then again as ex-Detective Sergeant O’Neil slammed his fist into my stomach.

Glass rippled inside me, tearing, shredding.

Another fist cracked my ringing head to the side, sending fire burning across my cheek. Not O’Neil this time, but his equally huge mate: ex-Constable Taylor. The pair of them must’ve spent most of their sentences in the prison gym. Certainly would explain how they managed to hit so bloody hard.

Another fist to the guts. Jerking me against the corridor wall.

I lashed out with a right, the knuckles screaming as they tore into O’Neil’s nose. Flattened it. Snapped his ugly, wedge-shaped head back. Painted an arc of scarlet in the air as the big bastard staggered away.

Right. One not so much down as on hold. A couple of seconds would be enough…

I threw an elbow at Taylor’s big round face. But he was fast. A lot faster than someone that size should have been.

My elbow cracked into the wall.

Then his fist smashed into my cheek again.

THUNK — my head battered off the wall. Again.

This time my elbow caught him right in the mouth, an electric shock charging up my funny bone where it mashed through his top lip and teeth. More scarlet in the drab corridor. It dribbled down the front of his prison-issue sweatshirt, spreading out like tiny red flowers on the grey fabric.