Now We Are Dead

by Stuart MacBride

  Tufty tried a jaunty, friendly rat-tat-a-tat-tat knock. ‘Mrs Galloway?’

  Steel nodded at the door. ‘She got family? Maybe she’s staying with them?’

  ‘Got a son, but he’s in P.R.I.S.O.N.’ Spelling it out nice and quiet. ‘Drugs. Very sad.’

  One last go. ‘Come on, Mrs Galloway, please open the door! Pretty please?’

  Steel sidled over to the neighbour. ‘Haven’t got a key, have you?’

  ‘Give us a second.’ And she disappeared.

  Steel sniffed. ‘I still say there’s something wrong with your bumhole if it produces smells like that.’

  ‘You’re just jealous.’

  ‘If smells like that came out of me, I’d be straight down the doctor’s demanding—’

  ‘Here you go.’ The neighbour appeared again, a toddler balanced on her hip. Holding out a key with a little rubber bone as a fob.

  ‘Thanks. We’ll take it from here.’ Steel gave her a smile, took the key, then slipped it into the lock. Twisted. Pushed. Whistled. ‘Wow …’

  Tufty peered over her shoulder.

  The hallway was a complete and utter tip. If a tornado had touched down in here it couldn’t have made more of a mess. Pictures torn from the walls. Coats and shoes hurled around. Holes gouged in the plasterboard.

  Steel backed up a step. ‘You better go first. In case it’s dangerous.’

  Oh that was fair. Because detective constables were a hundred percent more disposable than detective sergeants, weren’t they? Even saggy old wrinkly ones.

  He squeezed past and crept down the hall, feet crunching on broken glass from the picture frames. Scuffing through a duffle coat. ‘Mrs Galloway?’

  A door led off to one side. Tufty pushed it open: bathroom. The medicine cabinet lay in the middle of the floor, its contents spilled out like pill-bottle confetti.

  Another door opposite: bedroom. The mattress was up on its side, blocking the window, its underside exposed and slashed, nylon fibre guts hanging out in long dangling swathes.

  One door left, at the end of the hall.

  Sobbing filtered through from the other side.

  Tufty eased it open. ‘Mrs Galloway?’

  It was a living room, or at least it used to be. Now it was more like a day at the dump. Even with the curtains closed, the devastation in here was obvious. Broken furniture lay sprawled across the floor. The smallest member of a nest of tables poked out of the smashed screen of an old-fashioned cathode ray tube TV.

  That sobbing was coming from a little old lady, sitting on the floor in the corner, surrounded by her wreckage, rocking back and forwards with one hand clasped against her chest and the other clenched over her eyes.

  He squatted down next to her. ‘Mrs Galloway, are you all right?’

  OK, so it was a stupid question, but what else was he supposed to say?

  Steel picked her way through the debris and pulled the curtains open.

  Light flooded in.

  Mrs Galloway flinched back into the corner. ‘Aaaaaaagh …’ Almost every visible inch of skin was covered in dark purple bruising, already starting to yellow and green around the edges.

  Steel’s face darkened. ‘Who did this?’

  Mrs Galloway perched on the edge of an armchair, curling away from the sunlight. The room didn’t look a lot better with the furniture the right way up, but at least they’d made the effort. Even if it had taken that idiot Tufty ages to sort it out.

  Roberta hunkered down at the side of the armchair, placed a hand on Mrs Galloway’s knee. It was like squeezing a lump of bone, but hot – a bone that been left too long in the oven. ‘Shh … It’s going to be OK. You tell me who did this and we’ll take care of it. OK?’

  Mrs Galloway just shook her head.

  ‘You’ll feel better with a nice cup of tea in you. Then we can all go take your wee dog out for a walk. You’ll like that, won’t you? Bit of fresh air?’

  A gulping noise, then Mrs Galloway blinked at her. Mouth trembling. An acre of pain and longing in those watery bloodshot eyes.

  Cup of tea, cup of tea, la, la, la, la, cup of tea.

  Tufty turned the cold tap and filled the kettle.

  At least the kitchen hadn’t been trashed. Everything clean and tidy. All nice and easy to find. So now three china mugs sat in a row, each with a budget-brand teabag in it. He stuck the kettle on to boil.

  Sniffed.

  Funny smell in here, though. Sort of meaty and gritty. Maybe a bit burnt?

  Now: milk and, indeed, sugar.

  The fridge was bare, except for a can of dog food – the top covered with tinfoil. Which had to be the only food in the place. All the other cupboards were empty. Well, except for the crockery and pots and pans and things. Not so much as a digestive biscuit.

  He wrinkled his nose again.

  Maybe it was the dog food?

  He peeled back the tinfoil and sniffed.

  Smelled like mystery meat mixed with BO and manky socks, AKA: dog food. So nope.

  It had to be coming from somewhere though.

  He had a peek in the bin while the kettle boiled.

  Nope.

  Tufty did a slow three-sixty. Maybe …

  A microwave sat in the corner, by the toaster. That’s where the stink was coming from. There were dark stains underneath it too, spreading out along the worktop. Brown and sticky looking. Yeah, definitely the microwave.

  He reached out and opened the door.

  Oh shit.

  He shut it again.

  Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

  It took two goes to get his voice to work. ‘Sarge?’

  Roberta leaned both hands on the windowsill and stared out at the day. Look at it. All bright and shiny. Green on the trees, blue in the sky, sunlight sparking back off the windscreens of passing cars. And out, past the rooftops and the wiggly streets, the North Sea was a hazy shade of sapphire, a couple of cheery-coloured offshore supply boats waiting their turn to come into harbour.

  She clenched her teeth tighter, jaw trembling with the pressure.

  How? How could anyone do that?

  How could any human being—

  ‘Sarge?’

  She looked back, over her shoulder. Tufty stood in the kitchen doorway with a bin-bag dangling from one hand. There was something in it – no’ big, but heavy enough to pull the black plastic tight.

  Mrs Galloway covered her eyes. ‘I … Please …’

  Roberta took a deep breath. Turned to face the window again. ‘What was its name? Your wee dog.’

  ‘Pudding. Had him … since he was a puppy.’

  Tufty’s voice was soft and gentle. ‘There isn’t a scrap of food in the house. When did you last eat?’

  ‘What kind of dog was he?’

  ‘Yorkie.’ Mrs Galloway dragged in three or four jagged breaths. ‘He’s … he’s a Yorkshire terrier.’

  Roberta nodded. Turned. Tried very hard no’ to growl it out: ‘So someone kicked their way in here, beat the crap out of you, and did that to your dog. And you won’t tell me who it was?’

  ‘I … can’t.’

  ‘Do you want them to get away with it?’ Getting harder and sharper with every word.

  Tufty shifted the bin-bag behind his back, where Mrs Galloway wouldn’t see it. ‘Come on, Sarge, maybe this isn’t the best—’

  ‘Do you want them to do this to someone else? To someone else’s dog?’

  Mrs Galloway shrank into her armchair, hand over her eyes, tears running down her cheeks. ‘Please. I … I just want to be left alone.’

  II

  Steel stormed out of the flat and into the corridor, slamming the door behind her.

  Tufty shuffled his feet. Cleared his throat. ‘Sorry about that, she gets a bit … involved.’

  Mrs Galloway just kept on sobbing.

  ‘Right. Yes.’ He shuffled backwards towards the lounge door, keeping himself between her and the bin-bag. ‘Don’t worry about Pudding. We’ll take good care of him.�
�� Poor little thing. ‘Anyway, I’d better … you know.’

  He let himself out.

  Steel was pacing up and down the corridor, face like a ruptured haemorrhoid, mouth moving like she was chewing on something bitter. She marched straight past him to the window at the end of the corridor and turned back again. ‘Screw this. I’m no’ letting this one go. Not a chance in sharny Satan’s shiny hell!’

  She marched the three steps to the neighbour’s door and hammered on it. ‘A wee dog.’

  The neighbour opened it and frowned across the hall. ‘She OK?’

  ‘Course she bloody isn’t! Who did it? I want a name.’

  ‘He wasn’t well, you know: Pudding. Had to have this operation. Really expensive.’

  Steel jabbed a finger at Mrs Galloway’s door. ‘Someone killed her dog. Who?’

  ‘How’s an old lady like Agnes supposed to afford something like that? Vets think we’re all made of money.’

  That stopped her. Steel narrowed her eyes. ‘She borrowed the cash, didn’t she? She borrowed it from someone who doesn’t do credit checks, they break your legs.’

  ‘He was a lovely wee dog.’

  Steel leaned in, dropping her voice to a theatrical whisper. ‘So tell me who it was.’

  And at that, the neighbour’s face set like cement. ‘Mrs Galloway had a wee dog. I’ve got a wee boy. And I’m saying nothing more than that.’

  Tufty pulled away from Cairnhill Court, driving nice and steady, but Pudding’s bin-bag still slithered across the back seat when he turned onto the main road.

  Steel scowled back through the rear window at the tower block as it faded into the distance. ‘I want this bastard, Tufty. I want him really, really—’

  Her phone launched into its Eighties cop-show tune.

  She sighed, then answered it, stabbing the speaker button. ‘This better be important!’

  DCI Rutherford’s voice crackled out into the car. ‘I don’t think I quite got that, Sergeant.’

  Steel slumped in her seat and mouthed a very rude word. ‘DCI Rutherford. Sir. Thought it was someone else.’

  ‘I see … Well, I need to know how you’re getting along with returning those stolen phones. The Chief Superintendent wants to put out a press release.’

  ‘Working on it as we speak, Boss.’

  Fibber.

  ‘Good, good. Well, keep me informed. I expect to see some real results ASAP on this one.’

  She forced a smile. ‘Will do.’ Then hung up. Sagged even further into the passenger seat. ‘Sodding fudgemonkeys.’

  Tufty checked the sign fastened to the corridor wall: ‘WILDLIFE CRIME OFFICER’. He shifted his grip on the bin-bag and knocked.

  ‘Come.’

  OK.

  The room was about the same size as his bathroom back at the flat. Only without the bath, Mr Einstein, sink, or toilet. Or tiles. Instead it had a row of five filing cabinets that took up one entire wall. Opposite them was a desk, crammed in under the window, leaving just enough space for a saggy office chair that you probably had to wheel out into the corridor if you wanted to open the filing cabinets. A stack of box files filled the last available corner, beneath a whiteboard covered in tiny blocks of perfect handwriting.

  A young woman sat at the desk, poking away at an antique computer – beige with a state-of-the-ark monitor that took up nearly a third of the available space. The Wildlife Crime Officer turned and looked up at him, a little row of creases between her eyebrows. Dishwater-blonde hair in a loose half-ponytail thing. Glasses. Cute, in a fellow-police-officery, mutual-respect, let’s-not-have-any-sexual-harassment-in-the-workplace kind of way. Quirky smile …

  The smile slipped a bit.

  Oh, yeah, he was probably staring like a creepy person.

  Tufty cleared his throat. ‘Hi.’

  Not a bad start. The smile was back at least. ‘Can I help you …?’

  Was it getting hotter in here?

  ‘Erm, Stewart. I mean, Detective Constable Quirrel.’ Definitely getting hotter. ‘Or “Tufty” if you want? You know, to my friends? Ahem.’

  Nowhere to sit, so he stayed where he was.

  ‘And what can I do for you, Constable Quirrel?’

  ‘Oh, right. Yes. Reason for visit.’ He held up the black plastic bag. The weight inside set it swinging. ‘I’m kinda new here. We found an old lady’s Yorkshire terrier, and I …’ A shrug. ‘Look, I know this is going to sound daft, but is there a council cemetery for people’s pets or something? She’s not got any money and someone killed her dog and …’ He licked his lips. ‘Name was Pudding. The dog’s name, not the old lady’s.’ The tips of his ears were ablaze. ‘Sorry. I didn’t know who else to ask. Because you’re the Wildlife Crime Officer …’

  And babbling like an idiot was a great way to make a first impression.

  She looked from him to the bag and back again.

  Now would probably be a good time for a meteor to hit the earth and wipe out all life on the planet.

  Then she sighed. ‘Poor wee thing.’

  Not entirely certain if she was talking about him, or the dog.

  The Wildlife Crime Officer pointed to the stack of file boxes. ‘There’s a chair under there. Why don’t you dig it out and tell me all about Pudding?’

  Definitely the dog then.

  Every single desk in the CID office was a spaghetti-nightmare of phone-charger cords and extension leads. Barrett had his clipboard out again, checking that everything still in its original packaging was correctly entered and cross-referenced before loading it into a plastic crate marked, ‘RETURN TO PHONE SHOPS’. Lund scrolled through the contacts on an old Sony, tongue poking out of the side of her mouth.

  Harmsworth was hunched over his desk, forehead an inch from the wire-strewn surface, face scrunched up in obvious mental distress, a big Samsung job pressed to his ear. ‘Yes, we’ve recovered your mobile phone … No, it’s right here … No, I know it is, because I’m talking to you on it.’

  The woman on the other end of Tufty’s phone sighed. ‘OK, OK, I’ll come in tomorrow and pick it up. Happy?’

  ‘That’d be great.’ You ungrateful lump of lumpiness. He hung up and slid it back into its little brown cardboard box. Scribbled ‘OWNER COMING IN TOMORROW’ on the form printed onto the outside.

  Look at them all, working like a proper team. All pulling together for the same goal.

  Made you proud.

  Even Steel was on the phone. Mind you, it wasn’t one of the stolen ones, it was her own, but it was the thought that counted. She swung her feet up on the desk and rubbed at her forehead. ‘I’m no’ asking you to clype on the Cosa Nostra, Bobby, I’m just asking who’s loansharking in Cornhill these days?’

  Harmsworth groaned. ‘No, I’m sure it’s your phone. That’s how I got your number, you saved it under “Home”.’

  ‘There must be someone, Bobby!’

  ‘Yes, I know that means you’re paying for this call, Miss, but— … Yes. I do understand that …’

  Tufty dumped his re-boxed phone in the ‘COMING TO COLLECT’ crate and wandered over to the array of mobiles charging on his desk. Picked a slabby Nokia smartphone at random, unplugged it from its lead, and powered it up.

  ‘Bobby … No, Bobby it’s— … Bobby! I’m looking for a scumbag who microwaves people’s dogs if they don’t pay him back. He’s no’ going to be easy to forget.’

  Lund settled back in her seat. ‘Hello? Who am I speaking to please? … Mr Morrison, this is the police, we’ve found your mobile phone …’

  The Nokia came to life with a binglety-bing. Wasn’t even locked. He poked at the screen, selecting ‘PEOPLE’, and scrolled through till he found the entry called ‘HOME’.

  He set it ringing.

  ‘Yes, I know … No, we just need you to come down to the station and pick it up, Mr Morrison.’

  A click sounded in Tufty’s ear. Then, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello?’ A man’s voice. Not a
ll that bright sounding.

  Harmsworth bounced his forehead off the desk. ‘I know money doesn’t grow on trees, Miss, but we’re trying to return your phone.’

  Tufty stuck a finger in his other ear and moved away to the opposite side of the office, by the whiteboard, where it was slightly less noisy. ‘Who am I speaking to?’

  ‘Look, is this some sort of PPI marketing nonsense, because—’

  ‘It’s the police. Was your phone stolen recently?’

  ‘Oh? You found my phone? Right. Well, don’t suppose it really matters now: got a replacement. Was due an upgrade anyway.’

  ‘If you come down to Queen Street you can fill in a claim form and get it back.’

  ‘But I don’t really need … Actually, you know what?’ Doing his best to sound super nonchalant. ‘There’s probably photos and things on there.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Sentimental reasons. That kind of thing.’

  Which probably meant filthy, filthy pics of his girl-and-or-boyfriend.

  ‘You’ll need proof of purchase and the serial number so we can make sure it’s definitely yours, otherwise we have to go through a whole big red-tape exercise to prove ownership.’

  ‘Right. Yes. I’ll pop down tomorrow-ish and pick it up. Thanks.’

  Tufty hung up and waved at the others. Pointed at the phone and gave them a big cheesy grin. Then wrote the words ‘DIY PORN!!!’ on the whiteboard in big red letters.

  Steel’s eyes widened. She got up from her desk and hurried over, still on the phone. ‘Yeah well, ask around, Bobby, and maybe those parking tickets will disappear.’

  Harmsworth pointed at the mobile in his hand and rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, I do understand that, Miss, but— … No … Yes.’

  Lund gave them the thumbs up. ‘Just come past tomorrow and that’ll be grand.’ She stuck the phone back in its little cardboard evidence box and dumped it in the ‘TO BE COLLECTED’ crate. Joined them at the whiteboard. ‘Come on then.’

  Tufty opened up the ‘PICTURES’ menu and a bunch of folders filled the screen. No names, just dates. He picked one at random and opened it. Flicked through the contents.