A Song for the Dying

by Stuart MacBride

  When it hit a hundred percent my phone bleeped – a text message.

  1 app for ankl monitors, 1 filtered photo (×3). Still lookin fr pic match in systm.

  No sign of Ur new m8 in HOMLES DB.

  Yeah, he might whinge, but Sabir always came through.

  ‘Rule four: Paul Manson is scum. He’s got rich off the back of drugs, prostitution, violence, robbery, and murder. You don’t worry about him, you don’t feel guilty. Mrs Kerrigan is going to kill him whether we hand him over or not. He’s already dead.’

  I checked the attached photographs. They were all versions of the picture Liz Thornton had texted when we went to see her this morning – the Camburn Creeper, caught in the car park outside the nurses’ halls. Sabir had cropped out the Fiat the man was standing next to, zooming in on the face.

  In the first photo the features were slightly plastic, the skin tone rendered by algorithms and educated guesswork rather than nature. Wide forehead, round nose, bags under the eyes, long chin bisected by shadow. Photo number two took a different approach. The shadows under the woolly hat had turned into a pair of thick-rimmed hipster glasses, the nose thinner with a bend to one side, as if it’d been broken a couple of times. Photo three ditched the glasses, but swapped the shadow running from the bottom of the nose to the tip of the chin for a weird vertical soul-patch thing…

  Back to number two. Then three. Then two again. Put them all together and… A smile broke across my face.

  Alice shuffled over and stared at my phone. ‘What?’

  The smile turned into a grin and I thumbed out a reply:

  Sabir, no matter what anyone says, you are a sodding STAR!

  ‘What? What’s funny?’

  I stabbed up the contacts menu and dialled Jacobson.

  He answered with a sigh. ‘If you’re calling looking to weasel out of the team meeting, you can—’

  ‘Fancy arresting someone?’

  Alice tugged at my sleeve. ‘Who are we arresting?’

  ‘Jessica McFee was being targeted by a stalker, and I know who he is.’

  ‘Oh aye…?’

  ‘So, we can all sit about on our thumbs, talking about the investigation, or we can get off our backsides and do something about it.’ I limped back towards the stolen Jag. ‘Interested?’

  Dr Docherty’s voice oozed out of the car radio. ‘… an excellent question, Kirsty. You see, the man who’s committing these acts doesn’t see himself as an avenging angel, or the hand of God, he’s acting out of rage and loneliness…’

  Patterson Drive curled around the base of the cliff. Up above, the old battlements were visible against the heavy sky, crumbling stonework lit by coloured spotlights. The Victorian buildings of Castle Hill clung to the edge, like wide-eyed children, too scared to jump, staring down at the dirty sandstone tenements below.

  Wet cobbles burred beneath the Jaguar’s wheels. Windscreen wipers moaning and groaning their greasy arcs through the rain, passing commentary on Docherty’s interview.

  ‘… of course. But you see, Kirsty, a psychopathology like this is a lot more common than you might think…’

  ‘OK.’ I poked my mobile’s screen, closing the dialogue box with the instructions on it. ‘Here’s how it works: Sabir’s app uses our phones’ GPS to tell how far apart we are. Green is less than thirty-three yards; yellow covers from there to sixty-six; then it’s red; and if it turns blue and flashes, Jacobson’s goons are probably on their way. There’s a sort of optional Geiger counter ping as well.’ Would have been nice to have something that stopped the bloody things going off in the first place, but it was better than nothing.

  ‘… have to admit that I do have a certain degree of experience in this field, and that’s why I can say for certain…’

  I pointed, through the windshield and over to an alleyway that snaked off towards Kings Park. ‘Pull in there.’

  ‘… deeply damaged individual. But if you’re listening, I want you to know that we can get you the help you need…’

  Alice bit her bottom lip and did as she was told, slotting the car in behind a row of municipal wheely-bins.

  ‘… professionals. I’m even prepared to offer my own considerable expertise to facilitate your—’

  She killed the engine, cutting Docherty off mid-boast. ‘Maybe we should’ve swapped vehicles, what if someone—’

  ‘No one’s going to see it.’ And with Paul Manson bound and drugged in the boot, there was nothing incriminating on show. Well, except for the dent-buckled bonnet. I climbed out into the rain and waited for her to do the same.

  Alice locked the car, then huddled in next to me, slipping her arm through mine, keeping the umbrella above us. Stood there, staring down at the boot. ‘Are you sure it’s OK to leave him in there, I mean what if he—’

  ‘He’s not going anywhere. Three hours, remember?’ Plenty of time to get everything in place. ‘Soon as we’re done here, we pick up the Suzuki, drive both cars out to Moncuir woods, and dump yours there. All set for a quick getaway when we burn the Jag.’

  The cane’s rubber tip thunked against the concrete slabs as we made our way along Patterson Drive. Streetlights cast stepping stones of sodium yellow on the wet pavement.

  Dark ginnels led off to the right, cutting through the terrace to the next street. A smell of rotting garbage and old nappies. The sound of someone’s telly, up too loud, blaring out the news. Water gurgling from the mouth of a broken downpipe.

  She cleared her throat. ‘What if Mrs Kerrigan decides she’s not going to give David back? What if she keeps him and tortures him and we have to keep doing horrible things for her?’

  ‘I’m not going to let that happen.’

  With a little help from my friend, Bob.

  We passed by a window with the curtains open. A pair of middle-aged men slow-danced in candlelight, wrapped up in each other and the music. Next door boomed with country-and-western. The house after that…

  I stopped. Pointed. ‘Up there.’

  A big black Range Rover sat by the kerb, exhaust trailing grey wisps into the gloom. As soon as we drew level, the driver’s door swung open and PC Cooper climbed out. He’d put a stabproof vest on over his usual outfit, complete with baton, handcuffs, and airwave handset. Peaked cap in place, rain pattering off the plastic cover he’d put over the top.

  He pulled on a fluorescent yellow jacket. Nodded. ‘Guv.’

  ‘What did Bad Bill say?’

  ‘Friday lunchtime he was parked outside the castle. There was this big protest about the council trying to close Midmarch Library. Crowds, TV crews, the lot. Says he made a fortune.’

  I patted Cooper on the shoulder. ‘Good work.’

  Given the smile that burst across his thin face, you’d think I’d just offered his dying mum one of my kidneys. ‘Thanks, Guv.’

  ‘Soon as we’re done here, I want you on to the TV companies. We need all the footage they’ve got of the protest – not just the broadcast stuff, the bits they edited out too.’ I hooked a thumb towards the building we were standing outside. ‘If we’re lucky, Laughing Boy here’s been caught on film buying Claire Young’s last meal.’

  The smile got bigger. ‘Right, Guv.’

  A thunk sounded on the other side of the car, and Jacobson appeared, bringing a friend with him. Officer Babs towered at his shoulder, shoulders back, wearing a big grin.

  She hauled on a pair of gloves, working the leather down into the gaps between her fingers. ‘We ready?’

  ‘Thought you’d gone home.’

  ‘And miss all the fun? Nah.’ She slapped Jacobson on the back and he nearly fell over. ‘Bear decided to extend my contract.’

  He recovered, brushed some imaginary lint off the front of his leather jacket. ‘When I reviewed Mr Robertson’s record, I decided it would be best to proceed with caution.’

  I turned in place, giving the street a good once-over. Obviously ‘proceeding with caution’ did
n’t extend to asking Ness for some backup.

  Alice tugged at my sleeve again, keeping her voice to a whisper. ‘Who’s Mr Robertson?’

  Cooper led the way into the building’s hallway. A bulkhead light was fixed to the ceiling, the glass dome peppered with the bodies of dead insects. Its pale greasy light oozed across the scuffed walls and concrete steps. A pair of broken wooden chairs lay tangled in the remains of a wheel-less pram. Cooper straightened his cap and headed up the stairs, Jacobson stomping up behind him.

  I jerked my head at Babs. ‘You want the front or the back garden?’

  ‘Front.’ She rubbed her gloved fingertips together. Frowned. ‘No: back. People do runners out the back.’ Babs turned and lumbered down the hallway, disappeared into the gloom.

  The thump of a door closing, and Alice and I were on our own again.

  She twisted round, bending backwards to stare up the gap between the stairs. ‘So … Mr Robertson?’

  ‘Alistair to his friends.’ I steered her back out onto the street. ‘Rock-Hammer Robertson to everyone else.’

  ‘Is he…?’

  ‘Very.’

  She put her brolly up and we huddled beneath it. I propped the front door open with the tip of my cane, keeping it ajar.

  Alice closed her eyes. Blew out a breath.

  ‘It’s OK. Soon be over.’ One way or another.

  She squeezed my arm tighter. ‘I don’t want to die. What if Mrs Kerrigan—’

  ‘It won’t come to that. Rule number one, remember? You run away.’

  ‘I don’t want you to die either.’

  ‘Then that makes two of us.’

  Banging echoed down the stairwell and out through the open door, followed by Cooper’s voice. ‘MR ROBERTSON – THIS IS THE POLICE! OPEN UP!’

  Alice had a little shiver. Then a deep breath. ‘So, “Rock-Hammer Robertson”… Sounds nice.’

  ‘COME ON, MR ROBERTSON, WE ONLY WANT TO TALK.’

  ‘Once upon a time, there was a wee boy called Alistair Robertson, whose mummy and daddy loved him very much. They also loved to rob Post Offices. And one day—’

  ‘Does this story end with him battering someone to death with a rock hammer?’

  ‘Oh, you’ve heard it?’

  ‘MR ROBERTSON? I’M EMPOWERED TO FORCE ENTRY, MR ROBERTSON. DON’T MAKE THIS ANY HARDER THAN IT HAS TO BE.’

  ‘Why can’t any of your stories have teddy bears and fluffy bunnies in them?’

  I nodded. ‘OK. Once upon a time, there was a fluffy bunny called Alistair, and when Mummy Rabbit and Daddy Rabbit got sent down for eighteen years to life, he and his wee sister got put into care. There was a very nasty teddy bear working in the care home who liked to interfere with little girl bunnies…’

  A crash sounded upstairs. Followed by a thump. Followed by swearing, and then a high-pitched scream. More swearing.

  It didn’t sound as if Rock-Hammer Robertson was assisting Cooper with his enquiries.

  ‘OK.’ I put a hand on Alice’s back and gave her a gentle push towards the road. ‘I think you should go stand behind the car, don’t you?’

  She wrapped her hands around the brolly’s handle. ‘But—’

  Someone bellowed, and then there was a splintering crack. A crash. And chunks of baluster pinged and clunked down from the staircase above.

  ‘Now would be good.’

  Footsteps on the stairs. Thumping down. Getting closer.

  Alice backed away towards Jacobson’s Range Rover.

  The front door yanked open and there he was: Rock-Hammer Robertson. He froze on the threshold. His white shirt was torn at the collar. Little flecks of red stippled the fabric across his chest. He’d lost a lot of hair since last time – what was left was greying and shorn short. Sabir’s algorithms hadn’t done that bad a job, but they’d screwed up with the vertical soul-patch thing. It wasn’t facial hair, it was a deep scar that ran in a straight line from just below his nostrils, slashed through his lips, bisected his chin, and kept going four inches down his throat. A pair of Eric Morecambe glasses sat squint on his face.

  My hands ached themselves into fists as I gave him a smile. ‘Evening, Alistair. Remember me?’

  ‘Aw … shite.’ He slammed the door – or at least he tried to. It hit the tip of my cane and bounced, battering open again as he turned and legged it for the back door. He disappeared out into the wet night.

  I gave it a count of ten. Then another ten for luck.

  Alice shuffled up next to me. ‘Aren’t you going after him?’

  ‘No need. But we can if you like.’ I hobbled down the hallway, past the nest of broken chairs and the scattering of shattered balusters before pushing through into the back garden.

  Patchy grass filled the narrow gap between this row of tenements and the one behind, jaundiced in the light seeping out through curtained windows. A wooden fence enclosed an area not much bigger than three parking spaces, a crumbling shed slouched in the corner, a couple of washing poles standing sentry – their lines drooping under the weight of sodden towels, dripping in the rain.

  Rock-Hammer Robertson lay face down on the grass, right arm twisted up behind his back, kicking and swearing. Officer Babs had her knee between his shoulder blades and, as he struggled, she leaned forwards until he grunted and stopped.

  She grinned up at us. ‘Oh, I do like Oldcastle.’

  Jacobson sat in the armchair, a packet of frozen peas pressed against his right cheek. Cooper perched on the arm of the sofa, a box of fish fingers clutched to the side of his head and a wodge of toilet paper poking out of each nostril.

  Rock-Hammer Robertson stood in front of the two-bar fire, working his right shoulder around in small circles. Both hands cuffed behind his back. He nodded towards the hall. ‘You’re going to pay for that.’

  Jacobson glowered at him. ‘That a threat, Mr Robertson?’

  ‘Statement of fact. You owe me one door.’

  ‘You were given ample warning before we kicked it in.’

  ‘I was on the bloody bog! You’d have heard me shouting if it wasn’t for your idiot sidekick making all that racket.’

  The living room had striped wallpaper, a swirly rug, and arty black-and-white prints of people on bicycles either side of the fireplace. An old-fashioned roll-top writing desk sat in the corner, next to a bookcase laden with tatty paperbacks.

  The desk’s wooden top rattled up when I pulled it, revealing sets of small drawers on either side and a magazine-rack-style bit in the middle.

  Robertson bared his teeth at me. ‘Let’s see a search warrant.’

  ‘Don’t need one.’ I took a handful of paperwork from the centre section. Flipped through it: telephone bills, gas bills, council tax, electricity. Several of each, and all for different names and addresses.

  ‘I know my rights, and—’

  ‘Tough, because I’m not a police officer.’ I dumped the bills and tried one of the little drawers instead. ‘Members of the public don’t need a warrant to be nosey bastards.’

  The top one was a jumble of paperclips, elastic bands, a box of staples, and a stapler.

  He scowled at Jacobson. ‘You going to let him invade my privacy like that?’

  Jacobson peeled the packet of peas from his cheek and scowled back. ‘Where were you on Sunday evening, when Jessica McFee was abducted?’

  ‘Who’s Jessica McFee? Never heard of her.’

  I pointed at the wastepaper basket sitting beside the desk. A copy of the Castle News and Post stuck out of the top. ‘That’s funny, because she’s all over the papers. And…’ I picked a bill from the pile on his desk and waved it at him. ‘And you just happen to have Jessica McFee’s mobile phone statement in your desk. Isn’t that a fun coincidence?’

  He pursed his lips, frowned. Then stuck his scarred chin in the air. ‘I’m saying sod-all else till you get me my lawyer.’

  37

  The downstream monitoring su
ite was getting crowded. Ness and Dr Docherty sat at the desk, staring at the flatscreen TV mounted on the wall. Both of them had headsets on – the kind with a little microphone, as if they worked in a call centre – the cables snaking away into the console. Behind them, Superintendent Knight and Jacobson sat with their arms crossed, leaving just enough space for Alice and me to squeeze against the back wall.

  Twenty minutes in, and the smell of garlic, vinegar, and past-its-sell-by-date meat tainted the air, oozing out of someone who needed a stronger deodorant.

  On the screen, a line of numbers flickered away in the corner, marking time as Rock-Hammer Robinson no-commented his way through the interview.

  The camera lens was wide enough to get him, his solicitor, and the two interview-trained officers – one male, one female – onscreen.

  A hard Aberdonian accent crackled out of the TV’s speakers. DI Smith: ‘You’re not helping yourself, you know that, don’t you? We’ve got your—’

  ‘Stop right there.’ The solicitor held up a podgy hand that sparkled with sovereign rings. A gold chain disappeared into the sleeve of his shirt. He pulled his wide face into a frown. ‘My client has already told you that he didn’t abduct Jessica McFee. Move on.’

  Dr Docherty leaned forward in his seat, hands clasped in front of his chest, as if he was praying. ‘Millie: ask him about his relationship with his mother.’

  The detective on the left knocked on the table. She’d rolled her shirt sleeves up to the elbow, showing off forearms thick with muscle, a tattoo of Buzz Lightyear just visible on the right one. Brown hair cut into a sensible bob, tucked behind her ears. ‘So, Alistair, did you see your mum much, after she got sent down?’

  ‘I hardly see what my client’s mother has to do with—’

  ‘Mr Bellamy, if you wouldn’t mind keeping your obstruction of our investigation to every other question this will go a lot quicker.’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Stephen, do I really need to remind you how the law works in Scotland now? To wit: Cadder versus HM Advocate – 2010. Look it up.’

  Alice tugged at my shoulder. ‘We need to search for any outbuildings, or maybe he’s got access to some property we don’t know about, somewhere he could set up an operating theatre and—’