Stuart MacBride - Birthdays for the dead

I breathed out. Nothing there.

Alice opened up a web browser and started clicking away at things.

What are Drummond cleared his throat.

I have money.

I turned on him. You want to buy your way out of it? Flash a few grand and we ll forget all about your collection of kiddy porn? Seriously?

I can You want to be a DI again? I can make that happen. DCI even.

Ash?

I m going to throw your arse to the wolves, Drummond.

Come on, be reasonable.

Ash!

I grabbed the gun and ground it into his forehead. You want reasonable?

Alice tugged at my sleeve. Ash, you need to look at this.

She pointed at the laptop screen. A girl I didn t recognize was tied to a chair in a filthy basement room, her bare skin covered in bruises, head shaved, three gouges across her chest leaking scarlet onto her pale skin. The next image was the same again, only worse. In the one after that, her throat hung open and dark.

Alice double-clicked on the first image, filling the screen with it. I downloaded a program to find deleted files on the card

Little bastard. Little fucking bastard. I turned, stared down at Drummond, snivelling away on the study floor. You piece of shite.

I I didn t

Ash, I know her: she s one of the missing girls the Party Crashers are looking for.

You gave him their addresses!

It McKenzie was Blackmail. I didn t have any choice! I didn t know!

YOU HELPED THE FUCKING BIRTHDAY BOY! I grabbed Drummond by the hair again, banged his head against the desk. Open your mouth. He stared up at me, eyes wide and full of tears. OPEN YOUR MOUTH!

He did. I jammed the gun barrel inside.

Gllllk Hands up, palms facing out, whole body trembling.

We could ve caught him. We could ve caught the bastard years ago! HE S GOT MY DAUGHTER!

One second, I ll check for you. Hold music warbled out of my phone.

The back end of Drummond s BMW crept into his garage, reversing light glowing. I held up a hand and the car rocked to a halt.

Alice clambered out from behind the wheel and popped the boot lid.

Anything?

They re looking.

Hello, Assistant Chief Constable? Yes, Mr McKenzie isn t in today, he s putting his mother s house in storage poor dear has to go into a home. Dementia. I can take a message if you like?

I didn t. I called Rhona instead and asked her to do a PNC check on Frank McKenzie and his parents.

Is Is everything OK, Guv? Only Well, you didn t come home last night and I made curry and

Please, Rhona. I need those details soon as you can.

Oh OK.

Call me back. I hung up, stuck the phone in my pocket. You ready, Alice?

A nod.

Together we heaved ACC Drummond into the boot of his BMW: arms cuffed behind his back, face a mass of bruises and seeping red cuts. A knotted shirt acting as a gag. Alice dumped the laptop and tower unit in beside him, then went back through the door to the house for the CDs.

I reached in and slapped the filthy little bastard.

He blinked up at me with puffy, bloodshot eyes.

Listen up, Drummond if anything happens to Katie, I m parking this car in the middle of Moncuir Woods and setting fire to it. With you in the boot. The lid made a satisfying clunk when I slammed it shut.

And then Rhona phoned back. She read me Frank McKenzie s criminal record it was pretty much identical to the version Shifty Dave had reeled off outside Megan Taylor s house the other night then gave me an address in Cowskillin.

What about the mother?

Couple of complaints from the neighbours a few years ago: playing loud music in the wee small hours, standing in the back garden in her nightie screaming at the seagulls, that kind of thing. You want the address?

Christ s sake Please.

Mrs Dorothy McKenzie, thirty-two McDermid Avenue, OC15 3JQ.

I waved Alice towards the car. Rhona, I owe you a big one.

What s this all about, Guv? Do

I hung up and clambered into the passenger side of Drummond s BMW, jammed the walking stick into the footwell.

Drive.

The clouds were fringed with violent pink and orange as the light faded. Twenty past four on a Monday afternoon and McDermid Avenue was virtually empty. No sign of a removal lorry.

I climbed out, stuck the gun in my waistband, and hobbled across the road. Alice scurried along behind me. Number thirty-two looked like all the other buildings on the sandstone terrace three storeys high, bay window on one side of the panelled door.

No wonder the little bastard was always lurking about when we were here.

I leaned on the bell, but nothing happened it was dead. So I pounded on the door instead. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.

The room with the bay window was stripped bare, nothing left but dusty rectangles where pictures once hung.

Alice stood so close she was pressed against me. Shouldn t we call Dickie and the team? I mean we know it s him, we should get a SWAT team down here or something

You any idea how long it ll take to get a firearms team authorized and organized? I hammered on the door again. He s been in there all day, with Katie BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.

Well, I could phone anyway and they can back us up and

The door opened a crack and a single eye peered out. Frank McKenzie, face shiny with sweat, breathless as if he d been running. Go away. Go away, or I ll call the police.

Open the door.

I ve got nothing to say to you. This is harassment.

OK, OK. I held my hand up, backed away a step And lunged. My shoulder slammed into the wood and the door crashed open. I couldn t stop: my right foot wouldn t take my weight, bloody thing gave way and I thumped full-length on the hall carpet, sending up a cloud of dust. It was empty like the front room the only light coming from the open front door, making everything dark and grey.

McKenzie was flat on his back, hairy arms covering his head, legs flailing.

I hauled myself up. It wasn t Mrs Kerrigan, was it? You wrecked my house looking for this

He stared at the SD card in my hand. It I Scrambled to his feet. And he was off, running down the hall.

I limped after him, the cane thumping against the dusty carpet, the gun cold and heavy in my hand.

Alice barged past, going at full tilt, black hair streaming out behind her, red Hi-tops flashing in the gloom. Come back here!

McKenzie battered through the door at the end of the hall a glimpse of an old-fashioned kitchen and then out the back into the garden with Alice closing the gap.

Halfway down the hall I froze

Muffled screams came from behind one of the doors.

Katie.

It opened on a windowless corridor, the bare floorboards disappearing into darkness. A cord, hung from the ceiling I pulled it and an overhead strip-light blinked and flickered into life. The corridor took a right turn about four or five feet in, heading towards the back of the house. I limped up to the corner: another short length of corridor with a door at the far end.

Locked.

More screaming.

I braced myself against the wall, taking as much weight as I could on the walking stick, and kicked out with my left. Twice. Three times. On the fourth go the lock ripped its way free of the surround, and the door jerked open. The stench of rancid meat slithered out into the corridor.

Six stone steps led down to a large dirt-floored room, the walls covered with pink rockwool insulation. Not a basement at all, some sort of outbuilding. It was divided into small rooms by plasterboard-and-stud partitions that didn t go all the way up to the ceiling like the set of some twisted horror film. It was colder in here than outside; my breath fogged in front of my face.

I shoved my way into the middle room: where the screaming was coming from.

Megan Taylor froze. She was strapped into a wooden chair, legs fastened at the ankle with cable-ties, arms behind her back. Her eyes went wide, then the screaming got even louder.