A Dark So Deadly

by Stuart MacBride

  Callum’s thumb hovered over the first one.

  Might be a better idea to just delete them, rather than sit here reading all about how it wasn’t her fault and he had no right to judge her …

  ‘So you can imagine how awful it was when we started losing him, yeah? How painful it’s been watching Alzheimer’s eat Ray. How this horrible disease is consuming the guy we all loved.’

  The male presenter sat forward and oiled out a sympathetic expression. ‘But you decided to do something about it, didn’t you?’

  Callum selected the first message:

  What the hell is wrong with you?

  How could you DO that to Reece?

  I’m at the hospital because of

  YOU!!!

  ‘Yeah, so me and the lads got together and we said, “We can’t just let this happen to Ray!” So I got onto the organisers of the Tartantula music festival, in Oldcastle, and told them, how about we do some sort of benefit …’

  The second message wasn’t much better:

  You broke three of his teeth!!!!

  I used to know you, Callum, but I

  don’t now. You can’t come back

  from this. Know what? NEVER come

  back again.

  ‘… came up with the idea of getting all these modern bands to join in and help us raise money for Ray’s care and, you know, to help research into Alzheimer’s too. And these young guys have been great, it’s going to be a terrific gig.’

  Number three:

  I can’t believe I ever loved you.

  ‘The feeling’s mutual.’

  ‘And if you can’t get up to Oldcastle on Sunday, don’t worry: we’re gonna record the whole thing and it’s gonna be this great live collector’s edition CD thing and on downloads or whatever it is you kids do these days.’ Another laugh.

  Callum deleted the lot, then added her mobile number to his phone’s barred list.

  ‘And every penny’s going to—’

  He killed the TV with the remote and slouched back to bed.

  Dotty’s voice cracked through the kitchen like a whip. ‘You’re up!’

  Callum didn’t look up, just stayed where he was: slumped at the small table, wrapped around a bitter mug of milky coffee while his stomach growled and gurgled. ‘Why did you let me drink so much?’

  ‘Don’t look at me. According to Hedgehog you’d had about half a bottle of whisky by the time I got there. Not to mention all the beer. You owe him about seventy quid and an apology.’

  Seventy quid?

  Oh God …

  A groan broke free and Callum sagged even further. ‘What happened to my bike?’

  ‘You left it at the Bart.’ A warm hand rested on the small of his back. ‘I know this sounds terrible, but you know what it’s like with a murder enquiry, so …?’

  He wouldn’t be taking a couple of days off after all. ‘Mother wants me back at work.’

  ‘Ah. No.’ Deep breath. ‘They want you to come in and formally identify your mother’s remains today. I know they’ve got the familial DNA match, but they still need someone to come down the mortuary and confirm that it’s her. Sorry.’

  Of course they did.

  He straightened up. ‘Yeah.’

  Dotty wheeled Keith back towards the door. ‘How’s the hand?’

  He held it out.

  ‘Ooh. Right.’ She made a hissing noise. ‘We probably better get you to A-and-E first.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to go to A-and-E?’ Dotty manoeuvred her wheelchair in front of him, blocking the corridor.

  ‘Let’s just get this over with.’

  Clearly, whoever built Castle Hill Infirmary hadn’t given a toss about the bowels of the building looking like what bowels usually contained. Down here, in the sub-basement, they didn’t bother with all that fancy terrazzo flooring, calming paintings, and institution-green walls. The floor was concrete with a scuffed line of black paint down the middle, the walls brick and breezeblock. And instead of a fancy-pants suspended ceiling with moon-surface tiles, bundles of cables and pipes snaked their way through the gloom. Because putting in enough lightbulbs to actually see by was just pandering to people. Much better to leave the corridor looking like something out of a horror movie.

  It was warm down here too, the air heavy with the weight of the building above, thrumming and ticking and clicking with distant hospital sounds.

  ‘Callum?’

  He blinked. Puffed out a breath. ‘I’ll get the hand seen to when we’ve finished. Promise.’

  A nod, then Dotty spun her wheelchair around and squeaked off down the corridor. ‘We’re thinking of getting a carryout tonight. I fancy a Thai, if you want to join us?’

  Callum limped after her. ‘Dotty?’

  ‘What, you don’t like Thai food?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Nah,’ she let go of Keith’s rim and waved a hand over her shoulder, ‘it’s only takeaway, no biggie.’

  ‘And not just for taking me in last night, for everything. You were the only one who didn’t treat me like a deep-fried jobbie when I joined the Mob.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I need someone to raid the vending machines for chocolate, don’t I? Not like Wanky Watt the Wrinkled Willy-Wart is going to do it.’

  The corridor took a sharp right, only a single working lightbulb to deflect the darkness. A sign on the wall was barely visible, ‘MORTUARY →’.

  ‘Maybe you should give him a chance?’

  ‘What, Watt? I’d rather give him a boot up the backside.’

  ‘He risked his life yesterday for a nasty wee scrote who’d tried to kill him. And it wasn’t an automatic, gut-reaction, jump-straight-in thing, either: I could see him thinking about it. He knew it was stupid and dangerous, but he did it anyway.’

  ‘Hmmm …’ She followed the little black line. ‘He’s still a moaning dick, though.’

  ‘Oh, totally. But wouldn’t you be if you were him? If you had to wake up with that face every morning?’

  A pair of double doors loomed up on the right, lit from above by a small fluorescent tube that buzzed and flickered. They’d mounted metal bumper plates on the dark-green wood – presumably to protect it – the surface covered with dents, gouges, and scrapes. Unlike living patients, the dead didn’t mind if you used the trolley they lay on as a battering ram.

  Dotty let Callum do the honours. He held one side open as she wheeled herself inside, then followed her into that familiar dark-brown reek of human waste and disinfectant. Each breath hung in the air, like a ghost, before dissipating away into the cold.

  The mortuary looked about two hundred years overdue for a makeover. Its floor was covered in black tiles, cracked and uneven, the walls with filthy ivory-coloured ones, stained like a smoker’s fingers. Three stainless-steel cutting tables sat in front of a wall of refrigerated drawers, the other walls lined with metal work surfaces. Glinting in the harsh overhead light.

  A tall man in pale-blue scrubs and white wellies worked a mop along the floor tiles, pushing a mini tidal wave of grey-beige water around. Ponytail dangling behind him, high forehead almost as shiny as the cutting tables.

  Only one of them was occupied.

  The body was huge and tallow pale. Naked. On its back. Thick bloated arms and legs. Dark wiry pubic hair like a mini forest, nestling at the end of a gaping wound that stretched all the way down from his collar bone. Skin peeled back, front of the ribcage removed, torso hollow and glistening. Beard like a bear, but blotchy and yellowed around the mouth. Thick bands of bruises around his wrists and ankles.

  The only other person in the room was leaning back against one of the work surfaces, poking away at his phone. Blakey looked up as the mortuary door clunked shut behind them, scowling around that big plastic guard thing taped over his ruined nose. A nod. ‘MacGregor. Hodgkin.’ Then back to his text, or game of Angry Birds, or whatever.

  Dotty parked herself in t
he middle of the room. ‘Come on then, DS Blake, where’s your organ grinder?’

  Blakey kept on poking. ‘Conference call in the office.’

  A half-glazed door sat off beside the sinks, the glass frosted like a public lavatory. The word ‘PATHOLOGIST’ graced a brass plaque with ‘PROFESSOR MERVIN TWINING CBE’ printed across a laminated sheet of A4 beneath it. The sound of muttered voices was just audible over the chilly drone of the fridges.

  ‘Callum?’ Blakey stopped poking, but kept his eyes on the screen. ‘I was sorry to hear about your mother.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Dotty wheeled herself over to the opened body. ‘Who’s your boyfriend?’

  Silence.

  ‘In your own time, Blakey, we’ve nothing better to do.’

  He pressed a couple of buttons then put his phone away. ‘Fat Archie Benton. Bunch of public-minded citizens decided they didn’t fancy their children sharing a tower block with a convicted kiddy-fiddler, so they invited him round for drinks to talk it over.’

  Dotty wheeled Keith on a slow lap of the remains. ‘Very nice of them.’

  ‘Don’t think Fat Archie would agree. They pinned him down, jammed a funnel in his gob and treated him to all the bleach he could drink.’

  A clunk and rattle from the office door and Teabag stepped out, flicking the dark floppy hair out of his eyes. ‘Detective Sergeant Hodgkin!’ He gave Dotty a smile, making the dimple in his square-jawed chin deeper, light glinting off his little round glasses. He smoothed down the top of his purple scrubs, then leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. ‘To what do we owe the honour?’

  ‘Professor Twining.’ She reached up and put a hand on Callum’s arm. ‘We’re here about the female remains that came in yesterday?’

  ‘Ah yes, the severed head!’ His smile grew. ‘Completely fascinating. Let me show you.’ He strode across the cracked black tiles to the wall of refrigerated units. Opened a door and rattled out the stainless-steel drawer inside. A small body bag sat on the surface, the kind used for children. He scooped it out and placed it on one of the empty cutting tables. ‘Here we go.’

  The zip hissed open, then Teabag pulled the plastic sides down, exposing the contents.

  The breath solidified in Callum’s throat. Spread down into his chest like setting concrete.

  After all this time.

  They’d closed her eyes. Which somehow made it … better. Better than the thought of her lying in that plastic bag, with her eyes open, staring into the darkness, in a mortuary drawer, buried deep beneath Castle Hill Infirmary. Her skin was impossibly pale, the freckles looking as if they were fading away. Someone had washed her hair, or at least cleaned the gunk out of it, leaving it like silk. The hideous stump of her neck: wide and purple and gaping.

  Callum swallowed something bitter. Stared.

  ‘Now, the truly interesting bit is this.’ Teabag snapped on a pair of blue nitrile gloves and picked her head up, turning it over and brushing the hair away from her ear. ‘The remains were covered in some sort of gelatinous residue. Took us ages to figure out what it was.’

  Dotty looked away. ‘Actually, Professor—’

  ‘If you freeze any sort of meat for long enough, it’ll end up with freezer burn. Doesn’t matter if you put it in a bag or not, if there’s any air in there the meat will eventually dehydrate and oxidise. I’m sure you’ve seen it yourself lots of times: sausages, joints of pork, steaks, they go all pale and gritty looking?’

  Twenty-six years …

  ‘That’s why producers put an ice glaze on prawns. But ice sublimates, so over extended periods the water molecules will migrate to the coldest spot, leaving the remaining surface exposed, and you get freezer burn again.’

  All that time, while he was being shuffled from care home to care home, there she was. Hidden away in someone’s freezer.

  ‘However, if you’re smart about it, you can get round that by preserving your severed head in aspic before freezing. That’s what the residue was: aspic. Isn’t that fascinating?’

  Dotty’s hand tightened on his arm. ‘Callum? Are you OK? You look pale.’

  ‘We had to clean it out of the aural, nasal, and sinus cavities with a syringe. Every available orifice was full of it. That’s why the remains are so well preserved.’

  All those years …

  The room went grey around the edges, all colour focused on the head in Teabag’s hands.

  ‘Callum?’

  ‘Something like this takes practice. Skill too – you’d probably have to fill all the cavities one at a time and let them set before doing the next one, or the aspic would just ooze out.’

  Locked away in the frozen darkness …

  ‘I suppose if you had a big enough bucket you could do it all at once, but you’d have to make sure you didn’t leave any air pockets. Not easy.’

  All that time …

  Behind him, someone coughed.

  ‘Constable MacGregor?’ That was Powel’s voice. Wonderful. Because things weren’t bad enough. ‘Callum. I … I can only imagine how difficult this is.’

  The words wouldn’t come out, blocked by the knot of barbed wire twisting itself at the base of his throat. Callum swallowed and tried again: ‘What happened to her earrings?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but we need you to formally identify the remains.’

  ‘They were in the photograph. Tiny shell earrings. One blue, one pink.’

  ‘Is this your mother?’

  ‘WHAT HAPPENED TO HER BLOODY EARRINGS?’

  Silence.

  He looked up, and there was Powel, staring at him with a look of utter pity on his bruised face. Left cheek all puffy and purpled at the side of his mouth. A scab on his split lip.

  Powel nodded. ‘They’re in evidence. Don’t worry: they’re safe, nobody’s stolen them.’

  At least that was something.

  Callum closed his eyes and let out a shuddering breath. ‘It’s her. It’s my mother.’

  39

  The curtain clattered on its rail and Powel stepped into the little treatment booth. ‘We need to talk.’

  Callum eased his right hand into his jacket sleeve, taking it slow. When he’d finished, a wodge of fibreglass cast poked out of the end. They’d left his thumb free, but all four of his fingers were imprisoned to the tips – partially curled as if he’d been caught in the act of cupping something. ‘You’re pressing charges.’

  Of course he was.

  ‘You chipped two of my teeth and knocked a crown off.’

  ‘Good.’ Callum stood. ‘You deserved it.’

  Powel stared at him. Then looked away. ‘Possibly.’

  ‘And this’ll be the perfect opportunity to get rid of me, won’t it? Polish off your little vendetta.’

  A sigh. ‘It’s not a “vendetta”, Constable MacGregor. I don’t know how you managed to fool Professional Standards, but you took a bribe and—’

  Callum barked out a laugh. ‘No. No I didn’t.’ He fumbled with his jacket zip, not easy using just a thumb and a wodge of fibreglass. ‘She didn’t tell you, did she?’

  ‘This has nothing to do with Elaine.’

  ‘You’ve got no idea what she talked me into.’

  That pulled a half-smile onto Powel’s unbattered side. ‘If this is about International Women’s Day, it—’

  ‘I didn’t take a bribe to cock up that crime scene, and do you know why? Because I wasn’t the one who cocked it up. But Elaine couldn’t take the blame, could she? Noooo. Not when she was pregnant. With all that baby stuff to pay for? We couldn’t afford it without her maternity pay.’

  Powel’s smile died. ‘You’re genuinely trying to pin this on her?’

  ‘I threw my career in the septic tank to protect your child. It wasn’t even mine!’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. This isn’t—’

  ‘Every bloody day! I turn up for work and get treated like filth, so your bloody baby can hav
e a fancy stroller and a crib and everything else.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Callum, listen to yourself. You lost, OK? Lying to get revenge won’t change anything.’

  He paced to the end wall, then back again, barely three steps. ‘And you want to know the really funny part? I can’t even go to Professional Standards and tell them what actually happened, because that’s how completely Elaine’s screwed me. I took the blame for her, I lied to an internal enquiry. FOR HER!’ Jabbing his broken hand out in the general direction of Flanders Road.

  ‘Callum, don’t—’

  ‘Ask her. Ask Elaine.’ Another laugh burst free, tasting of bile and betrayal. ‘Mind you, she hasn’t told the truth for at least nine months, why would she start now?’

  A trolley squeaked past in the corridor outside.

  The hospital PA system crackled into life: ‘Please keep your personal belongings with you at all times.’

  Someone in the next cubicle wailed out in pain.

  Powel pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Let’s park this for now. OK?’

  ‘And what about the flat? I suppose you expect me to just hand it over?’

  ‘I didn’t come here to fight with you, Callum.’

  ‘Because that’s not happening. I’ve paid the mortgage for three years on that place. My name’s on the title deeds.’

  ‘I came to ask about your mother.’

  All the air went out of Callum’s lungs. He settled on the edge of the treatment table, broken hand clutched against his chest. ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’ve been reviewing the original investigation. Not that there’s much left in the files after the Great Clear-Out of Ninety-Five. Why they treated it as a case of child abandonment is beyond me. Who abandons a wee boy, and the family car and caravan?’ He sniffed. ‘Is there anything you remember from that day? Anything at all? Doesn’t matter how trivial or insignificant.’

  ‘I was five years old.’ Callum fumbled his wallet out and opened it. Showed Powel the photo of the four of them, grinning for the camera, all T-shirts and sunburn. Took a deep breath. ‘We’d just spent two weeks on a caravan site outside Lossiemouth and on the way home I needed a pee …’

  Steam coated the café windows, turning them nearly opaque. Little rivulets of water trickled across the back of the words ‘THE TARTAN BUNNET’ – vinyl lettering stuck to the glass in an optimistic arc. The red-and-white checked plastic tablecloth was scarred with ancient cigarette burns, and sticky to the touch.