A Dark So Deadly. Stuart MacBride

      ‘The Birthday Boy. You must’ve heard about that one: it was in all the papers. Sicko snatches girls just before they turn thirteen, takes photos as he tortures them to death, then turns the pics into homemade cards and sends them to the girls’ parents every year on their birthday.’

      She glanced across the car. ‘And it’s all because of the mercury?’

      ‘Meh, what do I know?’

      The lights changed and they pulled across the dual carriageway and into a curving street with a collection of cafés, hardware shops, a Sue Ryder and a British Heart Foundation, a newsagent, and finally the reason they’d come.

      Franklin nodded. ‘There we go.’

      The McKibben Dental Practice had a frosted shop window, presumably so you couldn’t see their victims writhing in agony, with posters either side of the main door depicting unfeasibly attractive people grinning away with unfeasibly white teeth. Franklin grabbed the nearest parking space, three doors down. ‘I can’t believe you’ve worked three serial killers.’

      He clambered out into the rain. ‘Go have a rummage in the archives at DHQ, there’s stuff in there that’ll make your hair curl …’ He bit his lip. ‘I didn’t mean that to be—’

      ‘I know what you meant.’ She locked the car. Followed him down the pavement to the dentist’s. ‘And yes, it is naturally this curly.’

      He shrugged. ‘I quite like it.’

      ‘Are you remembering what happened to Blakey the Octopus?’ Franklin pushed through the door and into a warm reception room with seats around the walls of a little waiting annex off to one side. The faint aniseedy tang of oral disinfectant tainted the air. A rack of magazines was mounted on the wall – all the issues considerably newer and classier than the ones Professional Standards had – surrounded by more posters of halogen-white teeth.

      ‘For your information, Detective Constable Franklin, I have a partner I love and she’s pregnant with my child. So don’t flatter yourself. I’ve got no intention of groping your backside or anything else.’

      An unfeasibly blonde receptionist showed them her unfeasibly perfect teeth in a broad smile. Her voice was unfeasibly cheery too, but nearly as shrill as a dentist’s drill. ‘Welcome to the McKibben Dental Practice, how can I help you today?’

      Callum flashed his warrant card. ‘I phoned earlier. We need to speak to someone about Glen Carmichael’s dental records.’

      ‘Boss? We’ve got a match.’ Callum switched his phone to the other hand and tucked the folder under his arm again. Rain dripped off the concrete portico that covered the shopping centre’s rear doors, darkening the steps down to the car park. ‘Took us three lots of dentists to get there, but according to the Leighton Road Dental Association in Blackwall Hill, our body in the bath is Ben Harrington. He’s the one in the photo with the auld mannie haircut, glasses, and walrus moustache.’

      Silence from the other end of the phone.

      ‘Boss?’

      The shopping centre car park was nearly empty, just a handful of old cars and a Shopper-Hopper bus picking up a load of OAPs with their wheelie trollies and battered umbrellas. Franklin was down there too, marching about in the rain, one hand making violent stabby motions in the air as she dumped a shedload of angry into her mobile.

      Mother’s voice sounded far away, muffled, as if she was talking to someone else. ‘You can shift Harrington from the suspect column to the victim one. No, he’s definitely dead.’ Then she was back. ‘He was a Blackwall Hill boy, and seeing as you’re in the neighbourhood …?’

      Oh joy. ‘Death message?’

      ‘Good lad.’

      ‘Dr McDonald wants access to the crime scene.’

       ‘Meh. The Smurf Patrol have finished with it, so why not? Make sure she comes up with something useful though.’

      ‘Do my best.’ He hung up.

      The Shopper-Hopper gave its diesel roar and pulled into the traffic.

      Franklin did another lap, jabbing away like she was trying to stab and bludgeon someone all at the same time.

      With any luck she’d get it out of her system and there’d be none left to batter him with.

      But just in case …

      Callum nipped back into the centre and grabbed a couple of fancy pieces and two takeaway teas from the Costa by the lifts. Hunched his shoulders and hurried through the doors, into the rain.

      By the time he reached the pool car, she was behind the wheel again, dripping and glowering.

      So much for getting it out of her system.

      He slipped into the passenger seat and held out his peace offering. ‘Here. Tea, milk no sugar, and … Tada!’ One paper bag. ‘Got a billionaire’s shortbread and a rocky-road brownie. You choose.’

      The frown didn’t shift. ‘What’s billionaire’s shortbread?’

      ‘Like a millionaire’s, but there’s bits of broken-up Crunchie in there too.’

      She went for the shortbread, chewing with her shoulders dipped as the rain thumped down on the car roof. ‘Not that it’s any of your business, but Mark is my partner.’

      Poor sod. Living with Franklin must be like trying to cross a minefield on a pogo stick every day. Blindfold. While sadists threw burning squirrels at you.

      Mark was probably up for a medal. Or beatification.

      Callum had a bite of brownie, sickeningly sweet, and washed it down with hot tea.

      Franklin cracked a chunk off her shortbread. ‘His work’s hosting a dinner dance for charity Friday night, and apparently I’m being unreasonable because I can’t tell him if I’ll be there or not. Doesn’t matter that I’m working a mass murder, no, the important thing is making him look good in front of his bosses.’

      ‘Actually, a mass murder is when you kill four or more people in the same location without much of a gap between …’ He cleared his throat. ‘Sorry.’

      ‘You’re all the bloody same, aren’t you?’

      ‘Sadly.’ A slurp of tea. ‘What’s he do, this Mark of yours?’

      ‘Investment banking.’

      And all sympathy for the guy died right there.

      She finished her shortbread. ‘It’s not my fault I got transferred to Oldcastle, is it? I mean, it’s not like I can commute here from Edinburgh. I’d have to get the five-thirty train every morning and I still wouldn’t be here in time for a seven o’clock start.’

      Callum balanced his tea on the dashboard and pulled out his notebook. Flicked through it. ‘Mother wants us to drop in on Ben Harrington’s parents and give them the bad news. Here we go: sixteen Brookmyre Crescent, Blackwall Hill. About five minutes away.’

      ‘And I am not giving up my career, just to play house in a flat in Portobello.’ She bared her teeth, nearly as white as the dental receptionist’s only with bits of chocolate stuck between them.

      ‘I can drive, if you like?’

      ‘Why do men have to be such selfish scumbags?’

      A young mother slouched past the car, face slumped in permanent disappointment, pushing a buggy with a screaming toddler in it. Rain trickled from the straggly ends of her lank hair.

      Callum had another bite of brownie. Kept his mouth shut.

      Franklin sighed. Threw back the last of her tea. Then started the car. ‘All I ever wanted to be was a police officer. I’m not resigning. Wouldn’t give Superintendent Neil Sodding Sexual-Harassment