Birthdays for the Dead. Stuart MacBride

      Tough. She could wait.

      I let the phone ring through to voicemail, then tried again.

      ‘Mmmph? Lo?’ Not quite words, mumbled and fuzzy.

      ‘Dr McDonald, sorry to wake you, but—’

      ‘Ash … No it’s fine, I’m awake.’ A yawn. ‘Urgh … What time is it?’

      ‘We’ve found another body. Might be Sophie Elphinstone. We’ll talk about it in the morning. Sorry to bother—’

      ‘Sophie Elphinstone?’ Dr McDonald sounded a lot more awake. ‘Is she … Did he decapitate her?’

      More shuffling from the doorway opposite.

      ‘He ripped all her teeth out instead.’

      ‘Isn’t that interesting: he decapitates his third victim, Lauren Burges, but he doesn’t decapitate his second or his sixth. Hannah Kelly and Sophie Elphinstone get to keep their heads …’

      ‘Maybe he goes through phases, and—’

      ‘It’s almost as if he’s experimenting. The normal pattern is to keep doing the same thing over and over, getting better at it every time, refining it, building up the fantasy, but it’s …’ A pause. ‘It’s as if he doesn’t really like what he does – he cuts Lauren Burges’s head off, but he can’t bring himself to do it again.’ A strange clicking sound came from the earpiece, as if she was banging the phone off her teeth. ‘When they examine the remains tomorrow, we need to get them to look for patterns of wounding – map the correlation points, see what else he’s tried and discarded.’

      ‘Yeah … OK.’ I hung up, slipped the phone back into my pocket and stood there watching a rat rip a hole in a bin-bag. He doesn’t really like what he does. Bollocks – if he didn’t like it, he wouldn’t keep doing it.

      More shuffling from the other side of the alley.

      ‘Oh, grow up.’ I turned my back on them and hauled the door open. ‘I don’t care, OK? Shag who you want, where you want.’

      Whoever it was cleared their throat behind me. ‘How long have you known?’

      I stopped, one hand on the door, the music from inside getting louder. Licked my lips. Didn’t say anything.

      ‘Ash?’ Footsteps on the tarmac. ‘How long have you known?’

      I glanced over my shoulder and there he was: DI Shifty Dave Morrow, sausage fingers fidgeting with his jacket buttons.

Tuesday 15th November

       10

      ‘What? No, I can’t hear you …’ I peered into the gap between the bread and the glowing orange elements – the toaster hadn’t burnt it yet – my mobile pinned between my shoulder and ear, while I dumped teabags into mugs with my other hand. The kettle rumbled and rattled on the working surface.

      Cold this morning. The window was a fogged-up slab of dark grey.

      On the other end of the phone, Rhona yawned again. ‘I said, there’s been a complaint down the station.’

      ‘What time did you clock off yesterday?’

      ‘Didn’t pass my sergeant’s exams so I could be DC my whole life. Got to put in the hours or you don’t get the promotion. You told me that.’

      True, on both counts. The kettle clicked, then went silent. ‘Yeah, but if you fall asleep on the job, or screw something up because you’re knackered, you can kiss three stripes goodbye.’

      Boiling water into the mugs. Two slices of slightly overdone toast on a plate.

      ‘It was that cow Jennifer Prentice: said you beat up her photographer yesterday.’

      ‘Surprised she waited that long.’ A scrape of butter, followed by raspberry jam.

      ‘I told Dougie I’d take a look. You know, do some prelim before Professional Standards get hold of it?’

      Two sugars in one of the mugs, then a good splosh of milk in both.

      ‘Where does she get off making accusations like that? So what if you thumped some paparazzi dickhead, sure you had a good reason, right?’

      ‘Something like that.’ Out in the hall, the sound of muffled snoring rattled the living room door. So much for Parker making himself scarce. The steps creaked under my socks as I climbed upstairs.

      ‘Yeah, well don’t worry: I’ll have a word with him. Make sure he has another go remembering what happened.’

      The bedroom was dark, the smell of musk and spice with a faint tinge of bleach. I put breakfast on the chest of drawers, then hauled the curtains open. Condensation made dewy spider webs in the corners of the window. Pale blue fringed the horizon, but Oldcastle was a mass of darkness sprinkled with pinpricks of yellow and white.

      ‘Guv?’

      Susanne’s policewoman costume hung on the back of the wardrobe door. Not the utilitarian workaday UK bobby’s uniform, but a sort of fantasy New York Police Department job, with ra-ra-style skirt and leather corset; a hat, handcuffs, and knee-high black PVC kinky boots finishing off the look.

      ‘Guv? You there?’

      ‘Do me a favour: tell Weber you’re off following up on the door-to-doors this morning, park the car somewhere quiet, and grab a couple hours’ sleep. Don’t let that prick Smith saddle you with anything.’

      I could hear the smile in her voice. ‘Thanks, Guv. And don’t worry about Photography Boy, I’ll sort it.’ She hung up.

      The mattress groaned as I sat on the edge. ‘Susanne?’

      ‘Nnnnnngh …’ She was flat on her back with one arm draped over her eyes, bleached blonde curls draped across the pillows – tumbling over the side of the bed. A small bruise on the fake-tan flesh of her wrist.

      ‘Susanne!’

      The arm twitched, then she peered out at me, one side of her face scrunched up. ‘Time is it?’

      ‘You getting up?’

      One hand fumbled about on the bedside cabinet, grabbed her iPhone and took it back for a good squinting at. ‘Urgh … It’s seven in the morning!’

      ‘Tea and toast?’

      The phone went back on the cabinet and she burrowed under the duvet until nothing was visible but that mass of golden curls. ‘Fuck tea. Fuck toast. Seven in the morning …’

      ‘Raspberry jam, your favourite?’

      ‘Fuck raspberries. Come back to bed.’ She curled up, on her side, back turned towards me. ‘Bad enough I had to spend the night in this craphole.’

      I stared at the ceiling for a couple of breaths. Susanne was Page Three pretty, with … phenomenal breasts, thighs of steel, and an arse you could crack walnuts with. Energetic and flexible. Insatiable and pneumatic. Doesn’t understand what I’m talking about half the time. Because she’s twenty-one and I’m forty-five – more than halfway to a single room with satin lining and a screw-down lid.

      By now I should be living in a nice house in Blackwall Hill, with a lovely lawyer wife and two gorgeous daughters who worship me, not having to sweet-talk my stripper girlfriend into staying the night in the tiny mouldering council house I get for free because it’s not fit to rent out.

      I put a hand on the shape beneath the duvet. ‘I’ve got to go. Work.’ Trying to sound enthusiastic. ‘See