A Song for the Dying

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘I wasn’t trying to run away. I was stopping Ness’s morons from getting themselves killed!’

  Ness bristled. ‘My officers are not morons.’

  ‘Really?’ I grabbed my walking stick. ‘Well, if they’d been bright enough to treat Wee Free like a victim instead of a villain, I wouldn’t have had to break my hundred-yard tether. Cowering in the corridor like wee kids when they should’ve been talking him down!’

  She rolled her shoulders. Then sighed. ‘I will admit to being somewhat disappointed by the conduct of certain officers. Perhaps, as you have a rapport with Mr McFee, you should act as Family Liaison?’

  ‘No chance.’

  ‘I see. So it’s all right to shout the odds when it’s my team, but—’

  ‘One: I’m not a police officer any more. Two: I’m not on the main investigation so I don’t have all the facts. Three: I’m not qualified. It’s not just making tea and handing out chocolate biscuits, it’s—’

  ‘I can assure you that I’m well aware of a FLO’s duties.’ She frowned at me. ‘I understand you think the Inside Man might be one of us.’

  Not like Rhona to blab. ‘Do you now?’

  ‘That you think they’ve been tampering with evidence and screwing up the HOLMES data to protect themselves.’

  The smile disappeared from Jacobson’s face, eyes narrowing as he stared at me. ‘That’s one possibility the LIRU team is investigating.’

  Ness ignored him. Tilted her head to one side. ‘The way I hear it: back in the day, you were the organ grinder around here. Was one of your monkeys the Inside Man?’

  ‘They’re your monkeys now, remember?’ I stretched out my right leg, tested my weight on it. ‘Anything else gone missing?’

  Jacobson folded his arms, leaned against the wall. ‘Well?’

  She pulled out her notebook and flipped it open at the marker. ‘The lace trim from the bottom of the nightdress Laura Strachan was found in. A heart-shaped locket necklace from Holly Drummond. A sample vial containing the stitches removed from Marie Jordan in the operating theatre. The little doll key ring recovered from Natalie May’s abduction site.’ Ness put the notebook down. ‘In fact, there’s something missing from every Inside Man victim. Do you have anything to say about that?’

  I looked at Jacobson, kept my mouth shut.

  He bared his teeth. ‘Go ahead, Mr Henderson, we’re all on the same side.’

  OK: ‘He’s got access and he’s taking trophies.’

  Ness slipped the notebook into her pocket. ‘Mr McFee assaulted eight people today, six of them police officers. If they’re prepared to drop the charges, I’ll let him off with a caution. Otherwise he’s up before the Sheriff tomorrow morning.’ She turned on her heel. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a considerable amount of paperwork to sort out.’

  As soon as she was gone, Jacobson moved so he was blocking the door. He picked at his nails for a second. Then, ‘Was I being obtuse, in the car when I picked you up, Ash? Was I vague, or unclear in my meaning?’

  Here we go.

  ‘You see, I distinctly remember telling you that you reported to me. Not Oldcastle, not the Specialist Crime Division, not Santa Bloody Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the sodding Tooth Fairy!’ He thumped his hand on the desk. ‘What the hell did you—’

  ‘I didn’t report anything to anyone, OK? I’ve been digging through the archives. I’ve been trying to find out who was on the original HOLMES team. Someone must’ve noticed and told Ness.’

  He scowled at me in silence.

  ‘Look, do you think I want to go back to prison? The only reason I didn’t tell you about the missing stuff is there wasn’t time. I had to rush off and rescue Ness’s morons from Wee Free McFee. Then your morons tasered me!’

  Silence.

  Jacobson stepped away from the door. ‘You need to stay within a hundred yards of Dr McDonald for a reason, Ash. She keeps you out of trouble. She’s your guardian angel.’ He described a lazy circle with one hand. ‘You know, it might be a good idea for you to make yourself scarce for a bit. Let things calm down here. Maybe even stop rubbing people up the wrong way?’

  I scrubbed a hand across my face. Let my head fall back, till I was staring at the ceiling tiles. ‘We need to get Sabir to check who’d have access to hospital records and police evidence.’

  That little smile had returned. ‘Did you enjoy being tasered, by the way?

  ‘Funny. I’m laughing right now, can you hear me? Bastards didn’t even issue a warning.’

  ‘Look on it as a learning experience, Ash: this is what happens if you stray off your leash.’

  I poked my head around the door – no one there. Good. Meant I didn’t have to explain what I was up to.

  The traffic office was a small room on the third floor, lined with desks and filing cabinets, ‘SPEED KILLS!’ and ‘THINK BIKE!’ posters on the walls. The ‘BOX O’ STUFF’ sat where it always had: in the corner by the large steel locker where they kept the warning triangles and spare body-bags. I rummaged through the odds and sods that cycled their way between the various traffic cars and panniers. Helped myself to a couple of stickers and pair of biker gloves. Then headed upstairs to the conference room.

  The place smelled like a distillery. Alice sat at the far end of the table, folded over her Inside Man letters.

  No sign of Dr Docherty.

  I knocked on the table and Alice jerked up. Blinked at me.

  The words came out slow and careful, as if she didn’t trust them. ‘Why did you try to run away?’ Not quite drunk, but not far off it. ‘I don’t want to be left behind…’

  ‘How much whisky have you had?’

  ‘Spilled some when the alarm went off. It was loud, wasn’t it loud? I think it was really, really loud, then there was whisky everywhere, and it wouldn’t stop, and the door battered in, and these guys were there and they had guns and they were all, “Where’s Ash Henderson?” And I didn’t know…’ She made little wet smacking noises with her mouth. Frowned. ‘Do I feel hungry, or a little bit sick?’

  Had to admit, whoever was monitoring the ankle bracelets for Jacobson, they were keen. Prompt too. Which wasn’t good.

  Of course, the fact that we were in a police station when it happened probably helped the response time, but still…

  ‘How long was it? Between the alarm going off and them turning up?’

  Alice narrowed her eyes. ‘I think it’s a little bit of both.’

  ‘Alice: how long?’

  ‘Four, five minutes?’

  Sodding hell, that was quick. They must’ve been already geared up, ready to head out to make someone’s day special. No wonder Ness wasn’t happy about them being diverted.

  Still, as long as Alice and I stayed within a hundred yards of each other we would be fine. Unless they were recording all the GPS data – and they would be – which made abducting and murdering a mob accountant a bit more risky. But it was too late to worry about that.

  ‘Ash?’

  I blinked. Turned. ‘Sorry, miles away.’

  She pointed at her photocopies. ‘I said, these are hopeless. Did you get the originals?’

  ‘No. But I know who’s got the next best thing.’

  A life-sized oil painting of an old man glared down from the wall of the news room, dominating the rows of cubicles and their occupants. The words ‘Castle News and Post’ were picked out in large silver and bronze letters along the opposite wall, above a row of clocks all set to different time zones.

  Micky Slosser didn’t look up from his monitor, fingers barely pausing as they clicked and clattered across the keyboard. A big man with wide shoulders, thick sideburns, and frameless glasses. Dundas Grammar School tie at half-mast, the top two buttons open, exposing one end of a thick pink scar. ‘Bugger off.’

  I settled on the edge of his desk. Puffed a couple of breaths. Sweat trickled down the gap between my shoulderblades. Someone was hammering rusty na
ils through the flesh and bone of my foot. Then hauling them out with pliers and thumping them back in again.

  Well, I couldn’t let Alice drive, could I? Not until she sobered up a bit.

  It took some effort, but I finally managed to fake a smile. ‘Come on, Micky, that’s no way to treat an old friend, is it?’

  ‘Not dignifying that with a response.’

  ‘Are you refusing to cooperate with a police investigation? Obstructing the hunt for a serial killer? Seriously?’

  He gave the enter key an extra-hard jab. Scooted his chair back a foot. ‘After what you did?’

  Ah. I ran a hand around the back of my neck, catching a pad of cold sweat. ‘Len thought you—’

  ‘I don’t care what Detective Bloody Superintendent Lennox Murray thought. I wasn’t the Inside Man then, and I’m not the sodding Inside Man now!’ Micky grabbed an empty mug, ringed inside with brown tidemarks, and stood. ‘Still hurts when it’s cold.’

  ‘He was…’ Try again. ‘Len went too far some times. But only because he was trying to save lives.’

  Micky bared his teeth. ‘Oh, how noble of him.’

  ‘Yes, and I know he was wrong, but he’s not here, is he? They banged him up for it. And I’m asking you to help me catch a killer.’

  ‘Hmph…’ Then Micky limped off towards the recess at the side of the room where the fridge and hot-water urn lurked.

  I lumbered after him, jaw clenching every time my right foot hit the ground, cane trembling in my hand.

  Prednisolone my arse. The four I’d dry-swallowed on the way over here hadn’t even made a dent in it. ‘You made copies of the originals, didn’t you?’

  Alice appeared at my shoulder, flashing her whitest of smiles. ‘Alice McDonald, it’s an honour to meet you, Mr Slosser, I have to say that I’m a big fan of your weekly column. Slosser’s Saturday Sessions is compulsory reading in my house. And your work on the Inside Man case was revelatory, wasn’t it, Ash?’

  Revelatory? I stared at her.

  She took a breath. ‘Anyway, if you can let us have those copies of the letters and envelopes, that’d be great. Big assistance.’ Alice held her hands out, as if she was holding an invisible beach ball. ‘Huge.’

  Micky pursed his lips and leaned back against the working surface. ‘Did you know that before I printed the first letter they were calling him the Caledonian Ripper?’

  Her eyes went wide. ‘Really?’ Even though it was in the sodding briefing notes she’d written.

  ‘Oh yes: the News of the World gave him that nickname soon as Doreen Appleton’s body turned up. Well, it was pretty obvious that the kind of guy who’d cut a woman open and stitch a plastic doll inside wasn’t going to quit at just one, was he? Man like that needs a good nickname so people will know who we’re talking about when the next one turns up.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Then, one day, I get this letter from someone saying they’re the bloke who killed Doreen Appleton. Said the papers should stop lying about him being sick and evil, he was only doing what had to be done. That calling him the “Caledonian Ripper” was disrespectful and rude. And he signed himself, “The Inside Man”.’

  ‘Gosh.’ She stepped closer. ‘So, if it wasn’t for you, we’d never know his real name, I don’t mean the name he was born with, obviously we don’t know that, I mean the more important one – the one he picked for himself.’

  Micky nodded. ‘Exactly. You want a coffee?’

  I nodded. ‘Tea would be—’

  ‘Didn’t ask you.’ He thumped two mugs down, snatched a jar of decaf from the countertop. ‘I couldn’t run for two years, you know that, don’t you? Two sodding years.’

  I rested my thumping head against the wall. ‘Tell me about it.’

  He spooned out gritty coffee granules into both mugs. ‘Do you take sugar, Alice, or are you sweet enough as it is?’

  She actually giggled. ‘Two, please.’

  Micky lumped in a couple of heaped teaspoons. Then frowned. ‘You think it’s him again, don’t you? All that stuff at the briefings about not jumping to conclusions – you know it’s him. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here scrabbling about for copies of his old love letters…’

  I went for nonchalant. ‘Just tidying up a few loose ends.’

  He put the milk down. ‘What happened to the originals? You’ve got them on file, don’t you? All boxed up somewhere safe in the archives?’

  I sighed. Put in a shrug as well for good measure. ‘You know what they’re like. It’s all about jurisdiction and infighting these days, one big unhappy family choking on its own bureaucracy.’ Probably.

  ‘So what’s in it for me?’

  Alice put a hand on his arm. ‘It’s important.’

  ‘Hmmm…’ He filled the mugs from the urn and stirred. ‘How about we have a little reciprocity? My back’s very itchy.’

  ‘Well…’ She looked at me, then back at Micky. ‘How about I tell you where Claire Young’s last meal came from?’

  OK, so Jacobson wouldn’t be happy about it, but screw him. Swings and roundabouts. And when it got splashed all over the Castle News and Post tomorrow morning, we could just blame PC Cooper. There is no ‘I’ in team.

  Micky handed her a mug. ‘What is it, McDonalds? KFC?’

  I shook my head. ‘Nope: local establishment, lots of history.’

  He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a bit. Took a sip of coffee. ‘Suppose we could play up the “condemned woman’s final request” angle. “What would your last meal on earth be?” Get in a few local celebs…’ He limped off to his desk again. ‘What else?’

  ‘Don’t be greedy.’

  ‘You’re after the letters for a reason. I get first dibs on anything official that comes out of them. Twelve-hour lead.’

  ‘Maybe. Now let’s see the letters.’

  31

  On the other end of the phone, Jacobson made sooking noises. ‘And Ness and Knight are delighted with Alice’s work on the profile with Dr Docherty. So at least I’ve got one team member who’s doing what they’re meant to.’

  I glanced over to the passenger seat, where she was squinting at one of the photographs Micky had copied for us. Six full-sized, and six blown-up to double the original – cramped black handwriting spidering along the lines of a yellow legal pad. Another set with the envelopes. Her tongue stuck out of the side of her mouth, a crease between her eyebrows as she ran a finger back and forwards along the words.

  Outside, rain whipped down across the car park, battering the four-storey block of redbrick flats, the concrete central stairwell marked with: ‘SAXON HALLS – BUILDING C’. The other two halls lurked behind it, the three of them running in a diagonal line along the edge of Camburn Woods.

  A handful of cars were parked in front of the entrance, all of them occupied, windows cracked open to let curls of cigarette smoke escape into the downpour. Telephoto lenses, Dictaphones, and chequebooks at the ready. An outpost of the siege in front of FHQ.

  ‘I’ll tell her.’ I put a hand over the mouthpiece. ‘They say you did great on the profile.’

  She curled her top lip, not looking up from the letter. ‘Nothing to do with me, Dr Docherty ignored nearly every one of my suggestions.’

  ‘Oh… Well, he seems to be giving you credit, anyway.’

  ‘Is he now…’ Her mouth hardened. A highlighter was jabbed into the paper and dragged across a sentence. ‘How nice.’

  Back to the phone. ‘What’s happening with Wee Free?’

  ‘Four of the officers he spanked have dropped the charges; still waiting on the other three. And I’ve got Sabir going through the journal entries on the HOLMES data. He thinks he can get a user ID from the mess.’

  ‘Told you he was the best.’

  ‘And while we’re on the subject, don’t forget we’re having a team briefing this evening at seven. No excuses this time: you will be there.’

  Seven o’clock.


  If Huntly didn’t run his mouth there would still be time to deliver Paul Manson’s body to the dump site by nine. As long as we got everything prepared in advance.

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

  I slid the phone back into my pocket. ‘You ready?’

  ‘Hmm…? In a minute.’ She traced her finger to the end of the page, then sat back. Stared at the Suzuki’s roof for a bit. Frowned. ‘The more I read, the more I’m sure there’s something … off about these.’

  ‘What, other than they were written by a nut-job who likes impregnating nurses with plastic dolls?’

  She didn’t move, just sat there staring at the ceiling.

  ‘Alice?’

  ‘Power and control.’ She tucked the pictures into the large brown envelope, reached back and placed it in the rear footwell. ‘“A choir of power and control” doesn’t make any sense. I mean control is power, isn’t it?’

  I opened the door – grabbing the handle as the wind tried to rip the whole thing off the side of the car – and struggled out into the rain. Stood on my good foot and leaned back in to retrieve my cane. ‘Try to look like a journalist.’

  We hurried past the parked cars, both of us barely fitting under Alice’s little black umbrella. Rain sparked and thrummed against the black material.

  The security camera above the main double doors pointed down at the keypad, but someone had stuck a yellow smiley-face sticker over the lens. No wonder there was never any CCTV footage when someone got attacked.

  I thumbed the button for flat number eight. The names ‘MCFEE, THORNTON, KERR, AND GILLESPIE’ were printed on a plastic label next to it. No sign of Claire Young’s name on the board, so she had to be in building A or B.

  Nothing happened for a bit except the rain.

  A couple of posters were sellotaped to the glass – ‘SAVE OUR HALLS!’, ‘JUMBLE SALE IN AID OF SOMALIA’, and ‘HAVE YOU SEEN TIMMY?’ above a photo of a ginger cat with a white bib.

  Alice fidgeted next to me, her umbrella bucking and twisting in the wind as she glanced back over her shoulder at the hyenas huddled in their cars. ‘Eight years ago, did Henry say anything about the letters? Any suspicions? Anyone on the periphery of the investigation who used lots of pompous imagery in their reports, or when they spoke?’