A Song for the Dying. Stuart MacBride

the ‘CONDEMNED ~ WARNING KEEP OUT!’ notices stuck to it. Creaking the postman’s severed head sign back and forth.

      Sod this.

      I hobbled across the road, grunting with every step, and tried the pub’s door. It opened onto a small airlock. Light came through a pair of frosted glass panels in the inner doors. I pushed through.

      God knew when I was last in the Postman’s Head. Probably when we had to kick our way in to arrest Stanley-Knife Spencer. Took fifteen of us, six of whom spent the rest of the night in Accident and Emergency, getting their faces stitched back together.

      Place was a hovel then and it was even worse now. Two walls were stripped to the bare brick, batons of wood bristling with rusty nail-heads – some of them still clutching little chunks of plasterboard. The scarred bar stretched the length of the room, dotted with stacks of paper, the pump handles sticking up at random angles. A small pile of tools – screwdrivers, spanners, a hammer – lay next to a delicate china mug with the Rangers logo on it.

      Someone had heaped up most of the old wooden chairs and tables in the corner by a dead fruit machine, leaving a handful of them behind – arranged in a semicircle around a pair of easels. One held a whiteboard, the other a flipchart, both of which were covered in bullet-points and arrows.

      Head-and-shoulder shots of all seven original victims were pinned up by the toilets. Above six of them was a grainy photocopy of a handwritten letter. No white on the sheets, just grey and gritty black. They’d been copied so often that the handwriting was fuzzy, the letters bleeding into each other. A shiny flatscreen TV was mounted above the cigarette machine, little drifts of plaster dust on the floor below.

      No sign of anyone.

      I dumped my bin-bag on the nearest table. ‘SHOP!’

      A voice rolled up from somewhere behind the bar, thick and plummy. ‘Ah, perfect timing. Be a dear and pass me the adjustable spanner, would you?’

      A dear?

      I stepped up to the bar and picked the spanner from the pile of tools. Hefted it in my right hand, smacking it against the palm of my left. Good as anything for giving someone a concussion. Have to get to him first though.

      I put my good foot on the metal rail and levered myself up. Peered over the edge of the bar into the space behind.

      A long man lay on his back on the floor, crisp white shirt rolled up to his elbows, pink tie tucked into the gap between two buttons. Dust smudged the black pinstripe trousers, took some of the shine off the leather brogues. He raised a hairy gunmetal eyebrow at me – it went with the short-back-and-sides and military moustache. ‘You must be the ex-Detective Inspector we’ve heard so much about.’ He sat up and brushed his hands together, then held one of them out. ‘I believe you’re the chap who let the Inside Man get away?’

      Cheeky bastard. I didn’t shake it, stuck my chin out instead, pulled my shoulders back. ‘I’ve not crippled anyone for days, you volunteering?’

      ‘Interesting …’ A smile. ‘They never said you were touchy. Tell me, were you always like this, or did losing your daughter to the Birthday Boy do it? Did you get worse every time another card plopped through the letterbox? Seeing him torture her to death, one photo at a time? Is that it?’

      I tightened my grip on the spanner. Forced the words out through a clenched jaw, tendons tight in my neck. ‘You my sponsor?’

      Please say yes. It was going to be a pleasure caving his head in.

       6

      ‘Your sponsor?’ He laughed, letting it fade into a chuckle. ‘Oh, dear me, no. Tell me, ex-Detective Inspector, do you know anything about beer pumps?’

      ‘So who is?’

      ‘You see, I’ve never really had much to do with them before – more of a gin-and-tonic man myself – but I like to think I can turn my hand to anything. So, did you let him go on purpose, or was it just a bit of incompetence?’

      Right, that was it.

      And then a voice behind me: ‘Ash?’

      Alice. She’d ditched the suit for a grey-and-black stripy top and black skinny jeans, a pair of bright red Converse trainers sticking out of the ends. A leather satchel, worn courier style, at her hip. Her curly brown hair, freed from its ponytail, bounced as she charged across the room and jumped at me. Wrapped her arms around my neck. Buried her face against my cheek. And squeezed. ‘Oh, God, I’ve missed you!’ Tears damp against my skin.

      Her hair smelled of mandarins. Just like Katie’s used to …

      Something clicked deep beneath my ribs. I closed my eyes and hugged her back. And whatever clicked, spread out across my chest, making it swell.

      The git in the shirt and tie tutted. ‘You know, if you’re going to fornicate I’d really rather you didn’t do it here. Nip upstairs and I’ll get the video camera.’

      Alice pulled her head back, grinned at me. ‘Ignore him, he’s only trying to get a reaction. Best bet is to let him get on with it till he bores himself.’ She planted a huge kiss on my cheek. ‘You look thinner. Do you want something to eat, I mean I could get something, like a takeaway, or we could go to a restaurant, oh no we can’t, Bear wants us to wait here till he gets back from the press conference, I’m so glad you’re out!’ All done in a single breath.

      She gave me one last squeeze, then let go. Pointed at the guy behind the bar. ‘Ash, this is Professor Bernard Huntly, he’s our physical evidence man.’

      Huntly stiffened. ‘Physical evidence guru, I think you’ll find.’

      Her hand was warm against my cheek. ‘Are you OK?’

      I spared Huntly a glare. ‘Getting there.’

      He leaned on the bar. ‘Mr Henderson and I were just enjoying a robust philosophical exchange about his daughters and the Birthday Boy.’

      Alice’s eyes went wide. Looked from Huntly to the spanner clenched in my fist, and back again. ‘Oh … No. That’s really not a good idea. Trust me, there’s—’

      ‘You never answered my question, Mr Henderson.’ The creases at the corners of his eyes deepened. ‘Why did you let the Inside Man get away?’

      Alice prised the spanner from my hand and placed it on the bar. ‘Professor Huntly thinks being rude to people makes them reveal their true selves, I mean it’s nonsense of course, but he refuses to accept that reactions under stress aren’t indicative of our inner cognitive—’

      ‘Blah, blah, blah.’ Huntly disappeared back down behind the pumps again. ‘What’s your opinion of psychology, Mr Henderson? Airy fairy nonsense, or load of old bunkum?’

      Bunkum?

      Alice climbed onto a creaky barstool. Then pulled up the left leg of her jeans a couple of inches. A thick band of grey disappeared into a blocky plastic rectangle, about the same size as a pack of playing cards. My sponsor. ‘You’ll be staying with me, obviously, I mean it wouldn’t really work if you had to live on the other side of the city, what with the hundred-yards thing. I’ve got us a flat and it’s not great, but it’s OK and I’m sure we’ll be able to make it cosy …’

      That complicated things a bit. No way I was going to crack her skull with a spanner. Why couldn’t it have been Huntly?

      The breath hissed out of me, and my chin dropped an inch.

      Probably for the best. Keep a low profile. Be a team player. At least until Mrs Kerrigan was sprawled in a lake of her own blood.

      Alice patted the seat next to her. ‘Did Bear bring you up to speed on the details?’

      ‘Who the hell is “Bear”?’