Stuart MacBride - Dark Blood

Julie pops open the back doors and they tumble Danby inside, hands fastened behind his back with thick black cableties, legs strapped together at the ankle, duct tape gag over that big hairy gob of his.

She ducks into the passenger seat and comes back with something tartan — a pillowcase from their room. She slips it over Danby’s battered head, then fastens another cable-tie around his neck, just below his chin.

Tony shifts his feet. ‘Are you sure that’s-’

‘Don’t worry, Darling, he’s not going to choke.’ She smiles. ‘You can ride in the back to make sure, if you like?’

Tony looks at the scarred, rusty metal floor of the van, then at the front seats. ‘Actually, I think-’

‘You can ride in the back.’ Julie’s not smiling any more.

Tony clears his throat. Stares at the ground for a moment. Then clambers up into the cold metal interior and pulls the doors shut behind him.

Julie and Neil get in the front.

The van slips out of the car park, windscreen wipers clunking back and forth.

OK, so it’s uncomfortable and cold in the back, but it’s nothing compared to what’s waiting for Danby, is it?

Always gotta look on the bright side…

Moonlight casts a cold white bar across the bed, shining though the gap between the curtains, turning the scratchy tartan blanket monochrome beneath his naked elbows. Hands together. Head bowed in prayer.

Our Father who art in heaven,

He can hear the old man swearing in the other room. Has to hurt, all that violence — the whipping, the biting, the punches.

Hallowed be Thy name,

A tear plops onto the blanket, swallowed by the darkness.

Can’t do this any more.

Don’t want to do this any more.

Thy will be done,

That’s the razorblade in the forbidden apple, isn’t it?

Richard stands, wipes his palm across his wet cheeks. His hand aches, the knuckles swollen and cracked, covered in bruises. Cradling it against his chest, he picks his way through the gloom to the window and stands there with the blade of moonlight slicing down his naked body. The skin so pale it looks dead.

Thy kingdom come,

He peers out through the gap in the curtains. There’s a car sitting in the snowy driveway, a new-looking people carrier. Richard doesn’t know if it belongs to the old man or not.

On Earth as it is in Heaven…

Doesn’t really matter, does it? Too risky to take it — people would know. The police’ve got them cameras now that photograph your number plate and run it against some sort of database.

Richard leans forward and breathes on the glass, turning it white, then draws on it with a finger: making a circle with a cross in the middle. It’s not a crucifix unless it’s got Jesus on it, you know? His Granny Murray would have tanned his backside for drawing graven images like, so it’s just a cross.

Empty.

Waiting for its sacrificial offering.

Crying condensation tears.

Moonlight makes it glow…and then the clouds sweep back in, and the moon’s gone, leaving the world to the shadows. Icy snow rattles the window.

Richard shivers, his pale, naked skin covered with goose pimples.

Let there be darkness.

DI Steel slumped back against the corridor wall, knocking a watercolour of Old Aberdeen squint against the burgundy wallpaper. ‘If you were a chubby Geordie bastard, where would you run off to?’

Logan peered around the doorframe into the hotel room. Three IB techs, all Smurfed up in SOC-white, were going over the room with fingerprint powder, cotton swabs, and sticky tape. There was a stain of cherry-red on the oatmeal carpet, by the end of the bed.

‘Did you get anything useful out of Urquhart? The van driver?’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘I’ve still no’ forgiven you for making me walk back in the bloody snow, you know that, don’t you?’

‘I said I’m sorry.’

‘So you should be.’ Sniff. ‘For some reason the silly sod thought he was looking at attempted murder, nearly peed himself to cut a deal. He’s giving us the whole smuggling operation from-’

‘Inspector?’ One of the IB techs, on their hands and knees at the side of the bed, dropped until their chest was resting on the carpet, one arm reaching into the space between the bed and the floor, round arse wiggling as they dug about. Logan recognized the view — Samantha. ‘Think I’ve found something…’

She beckoned one of the other techs over, a bloke with a huge digital camera slung around his neck. He lay down next to her, and took a couple of shots. Then Samantha pulled a small silver mobile phone out from under the bed.

She flipped it open in her purple-gloved hand and pressed a couple of buttons. ‘Last call was made at five to eleven last night, from “home”: think it’s a Newcastle number. Lasted twenty minutes.’

Steel stuck her hand out. ‘Give.’

From the front, Samantha didn’t look much like herself, everything hidden by that baggy white suit, the hood covering her bright red hair, wearing a facemask and safety goggles. She hesitated for a moment, slipped the phone into an evidence bag, wrote the time, date, location, and other details into the appropriate boxes printed on the outside, then handed it to another tech with a clipboard. Who made some more notes.

Steel puffed out her cheeks. ‘Today would be nice!’

The Crime Scene Manager didn’t even look up. ‘Sounds like someone got out the wrong side of bed this-’

‘Pete, I’m warning you — my holiday’s been cancelled, my wife’s no’ speaking to me, and I’ve got itchy bits — don’t screw me about!’

‘Evidentiary procedures exist for a reason, Inspector.’ He went back to making notes.

Logan looked up and down the hall. ‘Have you checked the tapes from the lobby and the lifts? I noticed the security cameras when-’

Steel smacked him one. ‘Course I bloody checked. Nothing. Must’ve taken the service lift, or the back stairs. Got IB looking for trace as we speak. I have done this kind of thing before, you know?’

Logan wandered off to the end of the corridor, opened the door marked ‘EMERGENCY EXIT’ and stared down the service stairs — bare concrete steps, plain walls. Sod carrying someone like Danby down that lot, be just asking for a hernia.

Someone cleared their throat behind him, and Logan sighed. ‘What now?’

‘Just wanted to say hello…’

Samantha. She had her SOC hood thrown back, exposing a wildfire eruption of scarlet hair, her facemask dangling on the elastic, just beneath her chin.

He pulled on a smile, leaned in and kissed her. ‘Hello.’

Logan nodded back towards the room. ‘Any ideas?’

‘Rough guess? It’s an abduction. If they wanted him dead, there’d be a big pink corpse in there…’ She ran a hand through her hair. ‘You see the papers today?’

‘What, “Tyneside Sex-Beast Strikes Again”?’

Richard Knox had attacked an old man living in Cove, just south of the city, and the Aberdeen Examiner somehow managed to secure a huge exclusive. Finnie hadn’t exactly been pleased. Especially when it turned out that Danby had gone missing too.

‘Actually…’ A little wrinkle appeared between Samantha’s neatly plucked eyebrows. ‘You know what? It’ll wait.’ She leaned in and planted a soft kiss on his lips.

‘Now I’m really starting to worry…’

She looked away. ‘They found that kid’s suicide note: the art student. He’d posted it on Facebook. Got a two-page spread in the Examiner, printed the whole thing. Said he couldn’t live with the constant police harassment.’

Logan stared at her. ‘What bloody harassment? I interviewed him twice !’