Stuart MacBride - Halfhead

‘Where are they?’

The pathologist sniffed. ‘You see what I have to put up with, Jo? No “hello”, no pleasantries, no nothing. Man’s got no manners at all.’ He dug a hanky out of his pocket and made splattery noises into it. ‘Still, I bear it because I am a gentleman.’

He snapped his bloody gloves into a cleanbox, then wandered over to a large trolley, draped with a sheet.

‘Tada!’ George whipped off the cloth, revealing three rows of severed heads. Most of the skin was still wrinkled, the close-cropped hair making them look like mouldy prunes, but their foreheads were smooth and shiny. The barcodes perfectly clear.

Jo squatted in front of the partially mummified features, stroking one of the heads. ‘Wow: how did you manage that?’

‘Ah…’ He winked at her. ‘That would be telling!’

Will lent forward and sniffed. ‘Hand cream?’

‘Hand cream?’ George stuck his nose in the air. ‘Don’t be ridiculous , why on Earth would I use hand cream on severed heads? Hand cream…pffff.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It’s face cream. Been slapping it on since yesterday.’

‘George, you’re a star.’ Will grabbed a reader from the worktop behind them. There was something red and glutinous on the handle, but he didn’t notice until it was all over his hands. ‘Oh for God’s sake…’

The pathologist shrugged. ‘It’s strawberry jam. I dropped my sandwich.’

Will handed the sticky piece of equipment to DS ‘call me Jo’ Cameron and went to wash his hands. By the time he’d finished she was running the reader over the last head in the row. It made a reassuringly positive beep.

She nodded at him. ‘Got ID numbers on all of them.’

‘Right,’ he said, drying his hands on the back of George’s labcoat, ‘now we need some names. Get onto Services: tell them to run a match.’

‘Hoy!’ The little pathologist snatched his coat-tails away. ‘You’re very welcome, I’m sure!’

‘George, you know I have nothing but the utmost respect for your phenomenal professional acumen.’

‘Bollocks. Jo, it’s been a pleasure having you again, feel free to pop in any time.’ George bent and kissed her jam and face cream flavoured hand before turning to Will. ‘But you can bugger off and never come back.’

Services ran their operation-and most of the city-from an imposing tower of foamcrete, pink marble, and green glass. An unattractive wart that had gone slightly mouldy.

The elevator pinged, then the doors slid open. Twenty-seventh floor: Offender Management Department-South. Will and Jo stepped off the escalator into plush, beige carpeting. A medium-sized trundle case followed them, squeaking along on juddering caterpillar tracks as they made their way to the long, low reception desk. Six people manned the desk, all of them talking into fingerphones, the low murmur of their conversations barely audible through the sonic dampening. When a mousy blonde finally deigned to look his way, Will pulled out his ID and smiled.

‘Will Hunter: Network. I’d like to speak to someone in records please.’

‘I’m sorry, sir, but all those lines are busy right now.’ Her left eye faded from glossy grey to spider-veined pink, the iris shining, vivid and yellow as she took off her finger-phone.

‘I called earlier: case of severed halfheads need identifying. I have a list of the ID numbers, so if you could just-’

‘I’m sorry, sir, we can’t give out any details without formal identification taking place. All remains have to be signed over for identification.’

Will nudged the trundle case with his foot. ‘That’s why we brought them with us.’

‘One second.’ The receptionist slipped the blue plastic sleeve back on her index finger, then pointed at her own face. Her owl’s eye went grey again, lights flickering in the depths. ‘Steve? It’s Marjory, listen I’ve got some bloke from the Network here and he wants some halfheads ID’d…Yes…Yes, I told him that, says he’s got them with him…’ She swung her finger around, pointing at Will instead. ‘…Yeah, that’s what I thought too…’ And then she was pointing at herself again. ‘OK, thanks Steve.’

She dragged out a datapad and made Will sign half a dozen different forms in triplicate, then summoned a tattooed youth to take the trundle case away. As it disappeared through a door marked ‘Private’ she nodded at a small waiting area over by the floor-to-ceiling window. ‘If you’d like to take a seat someone will see you shortly.’ And then her eye went grey again, and she was off.

Will settled into a chair that was a whole lot less comfortable than it looked, Jo easing herself down beside him. From here they had a perfect view of Glasgow’s main transport hub-shuttles, Groundhuggers, Behemoths, all in the process ofcoming or going. Little one-person Bumbles vwipped through the air, following complicated holding patterns, twisting and turning like flocks of starlings as a huge blue Behemoth slipped its mooring and lumbered up into the sweltering morning.

Two minutes later it was just a distant silhouette against the dirty-yellow sky.

DS Cameron, stretching out in her seat. ‘How long you think we’ll have to wait?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

Fifteen minutes later they were still there.

Jo turned in her seat and scowled back at the reception desk. ‘All they’ve got to do is scan the codes into the computer. How hard can it be?’ She fidgeted. ‘Can’t you just stick your ID back under that frumpy wee cow’s nose and pull rank? You’re the sodding Assistant Section Director!’

‘Wouldn’t make any difference: Services are a law unto themselves. Far as they’re concerned they run the city. Everyone else is just window dressing.’

‘Hmmmph,’ Jo folded her arms and slumped back in her seat, ‘and there was me thinking it was just us Bluecoats that never get any respect. Joined-up government my arse. Tell you: I had my way we’d slap the bloody lot of them in the Tin for obstruction. Bunch of tight-sphinctered, penny-pinching, halfwit-’

‘Excuse me?’ DS Cameron’s favourite ‘frumpy wee cow’ was waving at them. ‘Someone from records can speak to you now.’ She pointed to a short corridor next to the lifts. ‘Booth number three.’

The cramped cubicle contained two seats and a narrow shelf bolted beneath the large screen mounted on the wall. Will and Jo squeezed in and closed the door. Thirty seconds later the screen flickered into life and the someone from records they’d been promised appeared: a man with a huge head, wild cloned hair and a trendy pixel tattoo that made abstract patterns as he spoke. ‘This going to take long? Only I’ve got a conference call in five minutes.’

Will tried not to sound as pissed off as he felt. ‘I just signed over seventeen severed halfheads for identification: I need names, postings and dates to go with them.’

‘And you are?’

‘William Hunter. Assistant Network Director William Hunter.’

‘How nice for you.’ He looked off the bottom of the screen for a moment, and the sound of a keyboard clicked out of the speakers. ‘One moment.’ The screen went blank.

Jo muttered something under her breath that would have made the Marquis de Sade blush.

Three minutes later he was back . ‘And are these the same halfheads that a…’ Pause. Frown. ‘Detective Sergeant Campbell enquired about this morning?’

‘DS Cameron. That’s right.’

The man on the screen sighed. ‘As we explained to DS Campbell, we can’t give out that kind of information over the phone.’

Will gritted his teeth. ‘We’re not on the phone, you are.’