All That's Dead

by Stuart MacBride

  She stood in the kitchen doorway, looking down at King and Haiden. ‘What a cocking mess.’

  Now there was an understatement.

  Then King sat back on his haunches, shook his head, and stood. ‘He’s dead.’

  Logan closed his eyes, massaging the ache growing in his forehead. ‘Sodding hell.’ So close. If they’d kicked the door in five minutes earlier, they might have saved Haiden. Instead, they were all royally screwed.

  When Logan opened his eyes again, King was wiping his bloody hands on his shirt.

  He stood there, staring down at Haiden’s body, then huffed out a shuddering breath, picked up the wheel brace, face a sickly green-grey colour as he turned and stumbled out through the door, into the sunshine.

  Couldn’t blame him: someone dying in your arms like that? Wasn’t easy. Didn’t matter how much of a scumbag they’d been …

  Steel sighed. ‘Aye, Kingy’ll be off spewing his ring again.’ She leaned against the kitchen door frame, half-hanging into the room, frowning at Haiden’s naked corpse. ‘It true they were brother and sister?’

  ‘Mhari can’t have gone far – Haiden would’ve been …’

  Wait a minute, was that an engine revving? It was – coming from the front of the cottage.

  Logan marched for the battered-open front door, just in time to see the Audi’s four wheels spinning on the grass, then grabbing hold. The car shot forward with King in the driving seat. ‘Hey!’ He ran outside, waving both arms above his head. ‘COME BACK HERE!’

  But the Audi didn’t come back here, it roared away up the track, leaving nothing but a trail of dust behind.

  ‘Damn it!’ Logan hurried inside.

  Steel was thumbing away at something on her phone while Tufty had his head buried in an Oor Wullie annual. The pair of them standing about like the useless sods they were.

  ‘King’s nicked my car!’ He jabbed a hand at Steel. ‘Give me your keys.’

  She didn’t even look up. ‘Aye, that’ll be shining.’

  ‘Oh for … He’s up to something! He was asking Haiden where the bodies were, then he rushed out of here and stole – my – bloody – car!’

  ‘Pffff …’ She stuck her phone in her pocket. Then pointed at Tufty. ‘You: Oor Wanky, secure the locus. Pretend you’re a crime-scene manager, or something. No one in or out, access log, blah, blah, blah.’

  A grin. ‘Cool.’

  Steel cricked her head from side to side, flexing her shoulders as she sauntered for the door. Cracked her knuckles like a concert pianist. Nodded at Logan. ‘Well, come on then. It’s hot pursuit time.’

  Keys out, she slid behind the wheel of her MX-5, Logan scrambling into the passenger seat as the engine started with a throaty growl.

  ‘Right.’ Steel flicked open the car’s roof catch. ‘Before we do this, can you confirm to me that you’re commandeering this vehicle for the benefit of Professional Standards in the pursuance of an ongoing investigation?’

  Seriously?

  ‘Will you put your foot down?’

  She pressed a button on the dashboard, and the folding roof whirred down. ‘And that any damage sustained by my vehicle will be covered and remediated by Police Scotland at their expense?’

  ‘Yes, fine. Whatever. Now go!’

  A grin. ‘Hold tight.’ The Mx-5’s engine bellowed, the rear end slithering from side to side, wheels spinning, like a terrier winding up, then the tyres gripped and the wee car shot forward, hammered between the parked patrol cars, and out onto the dirt track. ‘YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAW!’

  Fields flashed past the car windows, much faster than they seemed to when Logan was driving. The dust King had kicked up in the Audi was thinning, caught by the offshore breeze, which at least meant they could see where they were going. But, given the way Steel was driving, maybe wasn’t such a great idea.

  Logan gritted his teeth, holding onto the seatbelt with one hand and the seat with the other as she threw the car into a warren of tight bends at ludicrous speed. He closed his eyes. Maybe the inevitable crash would hurt less that way?

  She shouted at him, over the roar of the engine. ‘Don’t be such a Jessie!’

  OK. OK …

  He forced his eyes open, dragged out his phone, brought up his contacts list, and called King.

  It rang twice, then: ‘What?’

  ‘What the hell are you playing at? You stole my bloody car!’

  ‘I’m doing my best, OK? You heard Hardie – I’m treading water with sharks here. I can’t afford to screw this up!’

  ‘Then don’t be stupid! We’ll—’

  ‘This is my last chance, Logan. I need this.’

  ‘You can’t charge off without …’ Logan pulled the phone from his ear and frowned at the screen: ‘CALL ENDED’. Oh no you sodding don’t. He poked the icon to redial.

  The MX-5 slithered around a hard right, shoving Logan against the door as the phone rang.

  ‘Dear God, what now?’

  ‘What did Haiden tell you? Where are Matt Lansdale and—’

  What sounded like a horn blared out from King’s end. ‘Jesus!’

  ‘Where are—’

  A screeching noise.

  ‘Do you want me to crash your car? Is that what you want?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Then stop calling while I’m driving!’

  The MX-5 fishtailed as Steel wrenched them into a sharp left, leaving the tarmac for a moment as they flew over a bump.

  Logan jammed his legs against the walls of the footwell, holding himself in place. ‘Don’t be a …’ Complete silence from the other end. When he checked the screen, there it was again: ‘CALL ENDED’. He scowled across the car at Steel. ‘Bloody King keeps hanging up on me.’

  She hurled the car around the next bend. The road stretched ahead of them, long and straight. No sign of Logan’s Audi. ‘Ah …’

  ‘Please don’t tell me you’ve lost him!’

  ‘I’ve no’ lost-lost him, I just … don’t know where he is. A wee bit.’ Steel hammered it along the straight, worrying at her bottom lip, her frown growing deeper with every small side road they passed. Whin and broom crowded in on either side of the MX-5, blocking out the world.

  ‘We’re slowing down.’ Logan turned in his seat. ‘Why are we slowing down?’

  ‘Could’ve turned off anywhere.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake!’

  She raised herself in her seat, peering over the top of the windscreen. ‘Can you see him? I can’t see him.’

  ‘AAAAAAARRRGH!’ Logan stabbed a finger down on the redial button.

  It rang as the MX-5 drifted to a halt. Then, ‘You’ve reached Detective Inspector King. I can’t answer the phone right now, so please leave a message.’ Followed by a hard electronic bleeeeeep.

  ‘WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU?’ He hung up and sat there, seething at the gorse-flamed drystane dyke sitting next to the passenger door.

  Steel poked him in the shoulder. ‘Do we feel better now, after our little outburst?’

  ‘No.’ Difficult to imagine what would make him feel better at this point, though forcibly inserting his size nine boot up DI King’s rectum was probably a good start.

  ‘Out.’ She pulled on the handbrake. ‘Go stand on a wall and see if you can see him.’

  Maybe both boots.

  Logan climbed out of her car.

  The roadside verge was a narrow strip of dry yellow grass, followed by a deep ditch, then the drystane dyke with its crown of Day-Glo-yellow flowers and spiky thorns. About ten foot down the road was a patch of bare stone and he scrambled up onto it.

  Fields stretched away on either side of the road, irregular shapes and sizes that followed the features and contours of the land, instead of some ordered grid. On the right, the land fell away to the sea; a thin line of woods to the left; the little granite houses of Cruden Bay, straight ahead. Could see for miles from up here … But there was still no sign of Sodding King and Logan’s Sodding Audi.
<
br />   Lots of whin and broom, though, the thieving git could be parked up almost anywhere, hidden behind a clump of it. They’d have to search every single road and track to be sure.

  Deep breath. ‘AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGH!’

  All emptied out, Logan slumped. He clambered his way over to the car and crumpled into the passenger seat.

  Steel patted him on the leg. ‘Look on the bright side, Laz: maybe Kingy’s wrapped your car around the arse-end of some teuchter’s tractor and right now he’s little more than a big blubbering sack of bloody mince in a fancy-pants suit.’

  He glowered at her. ‘You’re not funny.’

  ‘No’ my fault the man’s a dick.’ She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, frowning. ‘Honestly: sodding off like the Lone Ranger. Supposed to be a team, here.’ As if that had ever stopped her from doing all the crap she’d got up to over the years. A sigh, then she released the handbrake and set off down the long straight road again at a less hell-for-leather pace. ‘Come on, we’ll have a wee search for him. He’s got to be somewhere.’ Steel shook her head. ‘But between you and me: see operation King-Logan? It’s a sodding disaster.’

  Yeah, he was well aware of that.

  Logan got his phone out again and called Control.

  ‘Air Ambulance ETA is five minutes.’

  ‘You can cancel that – victim’s dead. Better get the Pathologist, Procurator Fiscal, and duty undertakers out instead.’

  ‘Oooh, OK. Will do.’

  ‘And while you’re at it, ping the GPS on DI King’s Airwave handset. I need to know where he is, and I need to know now.’

  Steel slowed at the next side road, peering off down the track, then speeding up again.

  ‘OK, system says DI King is at Divisional Headquarters. Do you want me to patch you through?’

  Logan covered his eyes. ‘Oh for God’s sake.’ The silly sod had left it behind, at the station.

  ‘If you need DI King, we can probably still find him through GPS. Which pool car does he have?’

  Gah …

  ‘He’s not in a pool car, he’s in my car.’

  Bloody Detective Bloody Inspector Frank Bloody King.

  ‘Sorry. If he calls in, I’ll tell him to give you a shout.’

  It wasn’t easy forcing the words out between gritted teeth, but Logan did it anyway. ‘Thank you.’ Then he hung up and put his phone in his pocket. Straightened the seam in his police-issue itchy trousers. Took a nice deep breath. And bellowed a scream into the passenger footwell.

  Steel sniffed. ‘Yeah … Kingy has that effect on me too.’

  40

  Frank parked halfway down a narrow lane. Brambles loomed on both sides, hemming the car in. He opened the door and clambered out.

  Yeah … Logan wasn’t going to be very happy when he saw what had happened to his beloved Audi. A deep gouge wormed its way along the driver’s-side wing, through the door, and off to the rear wheel arch and panels, ringed with bright scrapes of raw metal where large chunks of the paintwork had come off. Dents in the wheel arches. A big one in the bonnet. And, let’s be honest, the exhaust sounded like a smoker’s lung and the engine wasn’t much better.

  He reached in, turned it off, and plucked the wheel brace from the passenger seat. Creaked the door shut and limped down the lane – every step making his right knee and ribs hiss – keeping low to avoid being seen.

  At the end of the lane he hunkered down behind a low wall and peered around the corner.

  The two-storey house was nearly buried by the weight of ivy growing up the dirty granite walls – green tendrils reaching up beneath the eaves and into the roof. Poking out through holes in the tiles. Probably looked impressive at one point, with its bay windows and portico, but not now it’d decayed to a crumbling wreck.

  A rusty grey Transit van sat next to it, its bodywork slowly succumbing to green and black mould. Marooned in a sea of brambles. Didn’t look as if it’d moved in years.

  Right. He tightened his grip on the wheel brace and limp-jogged across the tussocked grass to the front door. Flattened himself against the wall. So far so good. If he could—

  His phone launched into its generic ringtone.

  Sodding hell …

  He fumbled it from his pocket, fast as possible before it started ramping up the volume. The words, ‘INSP. MCRAE’ filled the screen. Of all the stupid times to call.

  He hit ‘IGNORE’.

  And just to be safe, switched it off as well. Stuffed it deep in his pocket.

  Trying to get him killed.

  Honestly.

  Frank stood on his tiptoes and peeked in through the nearest window.

  A bedroom – collapsed metal bedframe and the decayed remains of what used to be a mattress. Holes in the walls and ceiling. No sign of a knife-wielding maniac.

  The window on the other side of the door was too buried in bramble-barbed-wire to look inside. Which left only one option: the door.

  He crept up the stairs.

  Huffed out a breath.

  This was definitely the right place – no one installed six shiny Yale locks on an abandoned building unless there was something inside they wanted to hide. The wood was wasp-eaten and bloated. Probably wouldn’t take much to boot it in. But then Mhari Powell would know he was there and going by what she’d done to her brother, that wasn’t a great idea.

  A brass plaque sat above the letterbox, the metal pitted and stained: the words ‘RENFIELD HOUSE’ half consumed and obscured by verdigris. Someone had a sense of humour, naming their house after Dracula’s bug-eating minion, when Slains Castle was just over the hill there. Oh yes, Whitby might claim Bram Stoker wrote and set the whole thing down there, but that was the English for you, wasn’t it? Always stealing what was rightfully Scotland’s.

  He reached for the door handle. After all, you never knew your …

  The door swung open as he touched it.

  Six Yales and not one of them locked.

  About time his luck changed.

  Frank slipped inside.

  Gloomy in here, even with the evening sun beating down outside. Cool too. The air tasted grey with dust and mould, the sharp mucky scent of rodents. A hole in the plasterwork showed off the room he couldn’t look into from outside – a fusty kitchen with sagging units and a broken table. Straight ahead: a bathroom with black-and-white tiles littered with jagged chunks of collapsed plaster. A staircase off to one side, reaching up to the first floor, the wood rotten and treacherous, untouched beneath a thick film of pristine dust.

  Which left the cupboard under the stairs and—

  He froze.

  Was that singing?

  It was – a woman’s voice with no accompaniment:

  ‘And so we came to Branxton Hill, and raised our pikes on higher ground,

  The guns they roared the archers shot, but dirty weather spoiled the lot,’

  It was coming from down the corridor, on the right.

  He inched his way over, sticking to the wall.

  ‘The wind and rain fought harder still, but King James’ courage, well renowned,

  He led the charge at Surrey’s flank, panic spread through English ranks,’

  There was a door at the far end, its paintwork blistered and peeling. The singing was coming from the other side.

  ‘Vengeance ours, this day, would be, for Henry’s bloody treachery,

  Vengeance ours, praise God we’d see, another Scottish victory.’

  He stuck his ear against the door.

  ‘We bathed in blood, the fields ran red, the English foe we routed,

  A slash of blade, and on we rushed, Surrey’s men would soon be crushed,’

  OK, she definitely hadn’t heard him coming – wouldn’t be singing away to herself otherwise. He raised the wheel brace, took hold of the door handle, and burst through into what was probably once a living room, looking out over the cliffs towards the sea. Should have been bright in here, with the sun blaring down outside, but somehow it made
the room gloomier. The view through the broken windows like a vision from a past life.

  ‘The cowards ran, the battle fled, as we our war cries shouted!

  And brave King James he spurred us on, the English ranks their courage gone.’

  What?

  There was no one here, just five chest freezers, three of which were smeared with dried blood, one of which was switched on, all of which had words spray-painted on them in bright-red gloss. The stomach-clenching scent of rotting meat. The droning buzz of great big shiny bluebottles. And the singing, of course.

  It was coming from a mobile phone, perched on top of the chest freezer with ‘WALLACE’ on it.

  ‘Vengeance ours, this day, would be, for Henry’s bloody treachery,

  Vengeance ours, praise God we’d see, another Scottish victory.’

  He picked the phone up, slid his thumb across the screen to open it. Wasn’t locked.

  ‘But the Devil’s luck, upon us come, with—’

  Frank hit pause. Why would Mhari record …

  Oh.

  Something cold and sharp pressed against his throat.

  The room hadn’t been empty after all – she’d been hiding behind the door. And now she was right behind him, holding a massive hunting knife.

  Her breath was warm against his ear. ‘Drop the weapon.’

  He did and the wheel brace clattered against the filthy floor. Returned the phone to the chest freezer’s lid. Kept his voice level and in charge. ‘OK, let’s not do anything we’ll regret.’

  ‘Why would I regret anything? I’m not the one about to get my throat slit.’

  Don’t think about that. Don’t think about it. You’re in charge. She’s not going to kill you. You’re going to live through this.

  She killed her own brother.

  King swallowed. ‘It’s not too late to—’

  ‘How did you find me? This place? How?’

  ‘I … Haiden told me. Before he died. Look, this isn’t—’

  ‘I should’ve slit his throat too. Still, I won’t make that mistake again.’

  The knife pressed harder into Frank’s neck.

  Yeah, she was definitely dangerously unhinged, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t salvage this. Calm breaths. Sound like you’re still in charge, damn it. ‘Come on, Mhari, I’m not your enemy here. You’ve seen the papers, right? I was in the PASL when your dad was in charge. We were friends.’