In the Cold Dark Ground

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘Too late. They’ve been.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Three of them: the guys with the Transit van.’ Logan leaned forward, scrunching himself around the phone. Making his stomach ache. Stoking the fires. ‘You pin your ears back, and you take notes: they attacked a friend of mine and they put her in hospital. If I get my hands on them, I’m going to make Jeffrey Dahmer look like Santa Bloody Claus. Are we clear?’

  Silence from the other end of the phone.

  ‘You still there? I want names.’

  ‘Yeah… Erm… The guys we’re talking about are only obeying orders, Mr McRae. They get told to rough someone up, they don’t ask why. They do what they’re told.’

  ‘I got the gun.’

  A sigh. ‘Look, I know where you’re coming from, but they’re only, like, minions, OK? They’re replaceable. Reuben’s got lots more where they came from.’

  Don’t punish the dog that bites, punish the owner.

  ‘I don’t care.’

  — Saturday Rest Day —

  blood on the snow

  28

  ‘…your nonstop Saturday love songs for the next half hour. So, let’s kick off Valentine’s Day with a bit of Lucy’s Drowning, and their big hit from last year: “The Circle of You”…’

  Logan gritted his teeth and fumbled a hand out from beneath the duvet. Thumped his hand down on the snooze button. Then lay there, shivering. A puddle of sweat sat in the centre of his chest, running in lukewarm dribbles down his ribs.

  God.

  Someone had swapped his heart for an angry rat – it scrabbled at his insides, digging its claws into his lungs. There was another one inside his head, gnawing away on his brain with yellowed teeth.

  Didn’t matter how expensive the whisky was, the hangover was just as bad as supermarket own-brand Sporran McGutRot.

  He rubbed a hand across his clammy forehead and blinked at the ceiling. Allan Wright, Gavin Jones, Eddy Knowles. AKA: Smiler, Mr Teeth, and Captain ABBA.

  Come on then, what was he going to do to them?

  What could he do to them?

  Oh it was all bravado and macho posturing last night on the phone, but now? In the cold morning light, with a raging hangover?

  ‘Urgh…’

  A third rat clawed its way into his bladder.

  Time to get up for a pee, some paracetamol, and about a pint of coffee.

  Revenge would have to wait.

  A puffball of white chrysanthemums scented the room, almost covering up the sickly hospital odour. They sat in a big plastic vase, at the side of Steel’s bed.

  She was propped up, with a cup of tea and a scowl. At least it looked like a scowl. Difficult to tell, what with all the bruising and swelling. The strip of white gauze covering her nose was almost fluorescent against the dark-purple skin that surrounded both eyes. One of them about the size and shape of a broken orange. ‘What are you looking at?’ Her pyjama top was a pale sky-blue, with happy penguins frolicking all over it.

  A couple of cards stood on the bedside unit – one was from a shop, all pink with ‘FOR MY LOVING WIFE’ on the front. The other was obviously handmade. It was covered in wobbly red hearts, bits of glued-on pasta, and enough glitter to choke a thousand fairies.

  ‘Happy Valentine’s Day.’ Logan unzipped his jacket and the hoodie underneath, then dumped the paper bag from the baker’s on the covers. ‘Got you some pies and stuff.’

  As if that was going to make up for last night.

  ‘Head feels like someone’s scooped everything out and replaced it with a fat kid on a pogo stick.’

  ‘On the plus side, you sound a lot better.’ He helped himself to a rowie. ‘Where’s Susan?’

  ‘Give me that.’ She snatched the rowie from his hand and ripped a bite out of it. Winced. Chewed. ‘They catch those scumbags yet?’

  ‘Early days. Feeling any better?’

  ‘I’m lying in a hospital bed, wearing penguin PJs, suffering a hangover you could sand floorboards with. How do you think I’m feeling?’

  The door opened and Susan shuffled in, carrying two plastic cups in a cardboard holder. She’d gone all countrified in tweed trousers and a checked shirt, like a slightly chunky Doris Day meets The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. ‘Logan!’ She crossed and put the holder next to the chrysanthemums, then wrapped him in a hug. It was warm and smelled of home.

  She frowned up at him. Then stroked the gauze taped across his throat. ‘Does it hurt?’ The wrinkles around her eyes deepened.

  ‘Stings a bit, but other than that.’ Shrug.

  ‘Stings a bit?’ Steel made a strange bunged-up snorting noise, then snarled another bite out of her breakfast, talking with her mouth full. ‘I could’ve died. Don’t hear me moaning on about it, do you?’

  ‘Yes. All morning.’ Susan’s hand was warm against Logan’s cheek. ‘You look tired.’

  ‘He looks like a wannabe drug dealer. A hoodie, for God’s sake. How old are you?’

  ‘Don’t be rude.’ Susan bent down and kissed Steel on the forehead. ‘And I’ve talked to the doctors – you can go home after you’ve seen the consultant. Isn’t that nice?’

  ‘Sooner the better. I’m allergic to penguins.’

  ‘Well I think you look cute.’ She stroked Steel’s rampant-weasel hair. ‘Do you need anything else?’

  ‘My fake fag’s out of liquid. And I want a Bloody Mary. And some chips.’

  ‘Chips? What happened to the diet?’

  ‘Sod the diet.’

  ‘No chips. Or vodka.’ Susan stood. ‘You want anything, Logan?’

  ‘Thanks, but I can’t stay. Going down to Aberdeen. Thought I’d clear some stuff out of Samantha’s…’ He cleared his throat. ‘Out of the caravan.’

  Susan’s hand was warm on his arm. ‘Stay and have a coffee. I know Roberta’s glad you’re here, even if she’s too rude and grumpy to say it.’

  ‘Hoy! I’m no’ rude and grumpy, I’m at death’s door.’

  ‘Keep telling yourself that.’ Another kiss, then Susan grabbed her coat and headed out the door. ‘Back soon.’

  As soon as the door swung shut, the frown faded from Steel’s face leaving it lined and sagging. ‘Pfff…’

  ‘Sore?’

  ‘Ribs look like a paisley-patterned map of Russia.’

  He dipped back into the paper bag and pulled out a pie. Handed it over. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She waved a hand at him. ‘Wasn’t your fault.’

  Yes it was.

  The coffee tasted like boiled dirt, but he drank it anyway, washing down the last of his rowie as Steel got gravy all over her chin. Sitting there, the picture of innocence, with two black eyes.

  There was no way she’d fitted up Jack Wallace.

  Deep breath. ‘Look, this thing with Napier…’

  ‘He’s a dick.’

  ‘I know, but—’

  ‘He hates me, OK? Man’s got terrible taste in women.’ She shrugged and got more gravy on her face. ‘I wouldn’t toe the line in a disciplinary investigation, so he thinks I’m dodgy. Thinks I play fast and loose with the rules. I’m no’,’ she made quote bunnies with her fingers, ‘“invested in the process”. Whatever that means.’

  Logan put the paper bag down. ‘What investigation?’

  ‘Nothing important.’

  He stared at her.

  She polished off the last mouthful of pie, then wiped her mouth with the corner of the bed sheet, leaving a thick brown smear. As if she’d had an embarrassing accident.

  The sound of a floor polisher whubbed in the distance.

  ‘OK, OK.’ A sigh. ‘It was four years ago. A junkie claimed the arresting officer dangled him off the fifth storey of the Chapel Street car park.’

  Oh.

  Logan sat back. ‘It was Magnus Finch, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. What matters is Napier’s had a wasp up his backside about me ever since, because he do
esn’t understand the word “loyalty”.’

  ‘Magnus Bloody Finch.’ He gritted his teeth. ‘He was selling heroin to schoolkids.’

  ‘Told you: doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Only they had to go to his squat to buy it. And they had to shoot up there too. He told them it was a safe environment.’

  ‘You got any more pies?’

  ‘A fifteen-year-old schoolgirl got raped. First by him, then by three of his coke-head friends.’

  ‘Laz, it’s—’

  ‘I didn’t dangle the bastard on purpose. I arrested him, there was a scuffle, and he nearly went over the edge. I just…’ Logan cleared his throat. ‘I made him give me the names of his accomplices before I pulled him back.’

  Steel pulled the paper bag towards her, and went pie diving. ‘Ooh, is that a bridie? No’ had one of them for ages.’

  ‘You were covering for me.’

  ‘It’s what family do.’ She took a bite, giving herself a pastry-flake smile. ‘Mmmm.’

  She’d started a four-year grudge with Napier for him. To protect him. And here he was investigating her.

  Way to go, Logan.

  Steel picked a bit of mince from between her teeth. ‘So come on, then: what about “this thing with Napier”?’

  He forced a smile. ‘Did you know his first name’s Nigel?’

  The Fiat Punto’s wheels bumped up onto the snow at the side of the road. Logan left the motor running for a bit as the snow drifted down onto the rutted surface.

  Trees surrounded the car, stretching off into the gloom on either side, lining the forestry road, their branches drooping with thick layers of white. Further in, there was nothing but grey.

  He killed the engine and climbed out of the car. Walked around to the passenger side and fished about under the seat for the polished wooden box. Snapped on a pair of blue nitrile gloves, pulled out the semiautomatic pistol and checked it. Magazine was full. Safety catch was on.

  Logan screwed the silencer into place, and slipped the gun into a carrier bag. Then he went back into the footwell for the cheap green cagoule he’d picked up in Banff. Pulled it on, and headed off into the woods.

  The oak and beech at the roadside gave way to ordered rows of pine, all standing to attention like soldiers on parade. Fifteen to twenty feet in, there was no sign of snow. It hadn’t managed to penetrate the canopy overhead, leaving his boots to scuff through drifts of discarded needles. Everything smelled of mushrooms and earth, and the bitter-tar tang of pine.

  He picked his way over fallen branches, around the towering shields of roots at the base of fallen trees, past drainage ditches and clumps of jagged gorse.

  Should be far enough from anywhere now.

  That was the great thing about Forestry Commission land: everyone stuck to the official paths, and there were none for miles around here.

  He stopped in the lee of a great fallen spruce – its flat pan of roots still full of dirt and stones – and pulled up the cagoule’s hood. Tightened the drawstrings. Then opened the carrier bag, reached in and took hold of the handgrip. Clicked off the safety catch with his thumb. Wrapped the bag’s handles around his wrist.

  Before, when it was him versus Reuben, one-on-one, shooting the fat bastard would’ve been murder. But now? After what happened to Steel? After the threats to Jasmine and Naomi?

  There wasn’t a choice any more.

  ‘OK.’ Logan raised the gun and aimed at the trunk of a wooden soldier, left hand cupping the right, pulling with one arm, pushing with the other. Then squeezed the trigger.

  Phut.

  It kicked, jerking up through thirty degrees, the plastic bag billowing out with the escaping gas from the explosion. A shower of bark burst from the tree, and the bag sagged around his hand – dragged down by the weight of the ejected cartridge.

  Another squeeze.

  Phut.

  The kick didn’t seem so bad this time. Another shower of bark. Another empty cartridge rolled about in the bottom of the saggy carrier bag.

  One last time for luck.

  Phut.

  The cartridges clinked against each other as he picked his way through the trees to the victim. Three bullets, all within a circle of about four inches. Good enough.

  Reuben was easily twice as wide as the trunk.

  Logan placed the carrier bag on the needle-strewn forest floor, there was a ragged hole where the bullet had torn its way through the thin plastic, but other than that, it was untouched. Blackened a bit by the gunshot residue, perhaps, but it was better in there and on the sleeves of the cagoule than all over him. He peeled off the cagoule, turned it inside out and wrapped it around the bag.

  The plasticky package went in another carrier, along with the discarded blue nitrile gloves.

  All set.

  Even with all the windows open, the place smelled of neglect. How long had it been – six months since he was last here? Eight? Something like that.

  Snow blanketed the thin strip of woods behind the caravan park, broken by the thick grey mass of the River Don where it wound its way between here and the sewage works, before twisting away under the bridge, off past Tesco’s and out of sight.

  The sound of traffic growled in through the windows – everyone crawling around the Mugiemoss Roundabout, getting ready to do battle with the Haudagain. Poor sods.

  Logan placed another armful of horror novels in the cardboard box. Stephen Kings mostly, with a smattering of H. P. Lovecraft and some James Herbert thrown in for good measure. The living room was full of the things: lined up on shelves, piled up in corners. Another trip turned up some Dean Koontz and Clive Barkers.

  He folded the box lid in on itself and printed ‘BOOKS’ across it in thick marker-pen letters. Carried the thing through into the hall and stacked it with the other two.

  Stuck the next empty box in the middle of the living room carpet.

  Right, videos.

  His phone rang between I Spit on Your Grave and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

  ‘McRae?’ He tucked it under his chin and grabbed Cannibal Holocaust and Night of the Living Dead.

  ‘Sergeant McRae, it’s Detective Superintendent Harper.’

  Wonderful.

  ‘Sir.’ Friday the Thirteenth Part III and The Thing.

  ‘You didn’t turn up for your shift today.’

  ‘That’s because I’m not meant to be on shift today.’ An American Werewolf in London and Student Bodies. They went in the box.

  No reply.

  Wolfen, The Howling, Videodrome, Children of the Corn, A Nightmare on Elm Street. Never let it be said that Samantha didn’t find a theme and stick with it.

  ‘Logan, I heard what happened last night.’

  Oh, so he was ‘Logan’ now, was he?

  ‘I know. Rennie called you.’ Razorback, Day of the Dead, Fright Night. The cases clattered on top of the ones already in the box. Not that anyone would want them down the charity shop. Who watched videos any more? Who even had a video player?

  ‘Anyway, I wanted you to know that we’ve got a guard on DCI Steel’s room. She’s going to be fine. And when they release her, there’ll be a car outside her house too.’

  Yes, Harper the Harpy was a pain in the backside – and an idiot for thinking this was anything to do with Malcolm McLennan – but at least she was looking after Steel. Had to give her credit for that. ‘Might be an idea to get that car outside her house soon as possible. They might go after her family. Maybe get someone to keep an eye on Jasmine at school?’

  In case Reuben decided to send another ‘message’.

  ‘Right. Good idea.’

  This time the pause went on for a while.

  Eaten Alive!, The Watcher in the Woods, The New York Ripper, Poltergeist.

  ‘Logan, I meant what I said. You and I: we got off on the wrong foot.’

  He dumped the videos in the box and settled onto the mildewed couch. ‘You’ve got a file on me
.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  The shelves were full of ornaments too. Dragons, and skeletons, and ankhs, and incense burners, and trolls. The tackier the better, as far as Samantha was concerned. As long as it was a bit gothic, she loved it. Logan reached out and picked a snowglobe off the windowsill. It was a replica of the graveyard in The Frighteners – mounted on a genuine chunk of New Zealand rock – where the snow was made from tiny skull-and-crossbones. He gave it a shake, making the crypt doors open and pale hands reach out. She’d been so chuffed when he’d bought it for her. Gave it pride of place on the mantelpiece, until she’d found that replica Jason Voorhees hockey mask on eBay.

  He dumped the original black-and-white version of The Haunting in with the other videos.

  OK, if Harper didn’t say anything in the next ten seconds he was hanging up. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six—

  ‘I’ve been following your career for years. The Mastrick Monster, the Flesher, Jenny and Alison McGregor, Richard Knox… It’s been very colourful.’

  ‘You still haven’t answered the question.’

  ‘All these dramatic high-profile cases; anyone would think you’d be a superintendent by now, chief inspector at the very least. Instead, you’re wearing sergeant’s stripes in some God-forsaken Aberdeenshire backwater.’

  His chin came up. ‘Maybe I like being a sergeant. Maybe I like Banff. Maybe I don’t want to be a glorified administrator, slash, project-manager, slash, HR stooge? Running investigations at arm’s length and never actually doing anything.’

  She laughed at him, then sighed. ‘When are you back at work?’

  Logan put the snowglobe down. ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Good.’ She hung up.

  God save us.

  He huffed out a breath. Then went back to the videos.

  ‘No, no idea. Hold on.’ Logan rested the box on top of the Punto, and opened the boot – keeping the phone pinned between his ear and shoulder. He slid the box of clothes in on top of one marked ‘ORNAMENTS’.

  With the passenger seat as far forward as it would go, and the back seats folded down there was probably room for another two boxes.