Birthdays for the Dead. Stuart MacBride

      ‘… where Assistant Chief Constable Eric Montgomery issued the following statement.’

      Dundee’s ACC sounded as if he had both thumbs wedged in his nostrils. ‘We want anyone who remembers seeing Helen, when she went missing in November last year, to get in touch with their nearest police station …’

      I turned the radio down to a dull buzz. ‘How should I know?’ The dual carriageway was a ribbon of red taillights, stretching all the way to the Kingsway junction. An illuminated sign flashed, ‘ROADWORKS ~ EXPECT DELAYS’. No shit. I hit the brakes. Drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Could take weeks.’

      ‘Oh for … What am I going to tell the Chief?’

      ‘The usual: we’re pursuing several lines of enquiry, and—’

      ‘Do I look like I floated up the Kings River on a mealie pudding? We need a suspect, we need a result, and we need it now. I’ve got half of Scotland’s media camped out in reception wanting a comment, and the other half laying siege to McDermid Avenue—’

      Traffic was barely moving, crawling along, then stopping, then crawling again. Why could no bastard drive any more?

      ‘—are you even listening to me?’

      ‘What?’ I blinked. ‘Yeah … not a lot we can do about it, though, is there?’ A hole opened up in the other lane, and I put my foot down, but the rusty old Renault barely noticed. Should have held out for one of the pool cars. ‘Come on you little sod …’

      A Tesco eighteen-wheeler thundered past into the gap, dirty spray turning the Renault’s windscreen opaque until the wipers scraped it into twin khaki-coloured rainbows. ‘Bastard!’

      ‘Where are you?’

      ‘Just coming into Dundee – by the Toyota garage. Traffic’s awful.’

      ‘Right, let’s try this again: remember I told you to play nice with Sergeant Smith? Well, it’s not a request any more, it’s an order. Turns out the slimy tosser was PSD in Grampian before we got him.’

      Professional Standards? Sodding hell …

      Actually, that made sense – DS Smith looked the type who’d clype on his colleagues, then get a hard-on while he stitched them up.

      The traffic lurched forwards another couple of car-lengths. ‘Why have we got him then?’

      ‘Exactly.’

      ‘Might be an idea if everyone kept their heads down for a while.’

      ‘You think?’ Silence on the other end. And then Weber was back. ‘Professional Standards. From Aberdeen.’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘Means they don’t trust us to police ourselves. Which – to be honest – is fair enough, but still, there’s the principle of the thing. We need a result, sharpish.’ A clunk and Weber was gone.

      Yeah, we’d get a result sharpish, because that’s how it worked. Didn’t matter that the official task force had been after the bastard for eight years: Weber needed a result to keep Grampian and Tayside from finding out that all the rumours about Oldcastle CID were true, so one would miraculously appear.

      I turned the radio back up, and some sort of boy-band crap droned out of the speakers.

      ‘Ooh, baby, swear you love me,

       don’t say maybe.

      Ooh-ooh – say we – can make it right …’

      The phone went again, its old-fashioned ringing noise a lot more tuneful than the garbage on the radio. I stabbed the button and wedged the mobile back between my ear and shoulder. ‘Forget something?’

      A small pause, then an Irish accent, female: ‘I think it’s yerself that’s forgotten somethin’, don’t ye?’

      Oh God … I swallowed. Wrapped my hands tighter around the steering wheel. Mrs Kerrigan. Sod. Why did I answer the bloody phone? Always check the display before picking up.

      ‘Baby, let’s not fight tonight,

      let’s do it, do it, do it right …’

      I cleared my throat. ‘I was … going to call you.’

      ‘Aye, I’ll bet ye were. Yez are late. Mr Inglis is very disappointed.’

      ‘Let’s do it right, tonight!’ Instrumental break.

      ‘I need a little time to—’

      ‘Do ye not think five years is enough? ’Cos I’m startin’ to think ye’re takin’ the piss here. I’m wantin’ three thousand bills by Tuesday lunch, OK? Or I’ll have yer feckin’ hole in flitters.’

      Three grand by tomorrow lunchtime? Where was I supposed to get three grand by tomorrow lunchtime? It wasn’t possible. They were going to break my legs …

      ‘No problem. Three thousand. Tomorrow.’

      ‘That’d be bleedin’ deadly, ta.’ And she hung up.

      I folded forwards, resting my forehead against the steering wheel. The plastic surface was rough, as if someone had been chewing at it.

      Should just keep on going. Drive right through Dundee and sod off down south. Birmingham maybe, or Newcastle: stay with Brett and his boyfriend. After all, what were brothers for? As long as they didn’t make me help plan the wedding. Which they would. Bloody seating arrangements, floral centrepieces, and vol-au-vents …

      Bugger that.

      ‘Let’s do it right, baby,

      let’s do it tonight!’ Big finish.

      A horn blared out somewhere behind me. I looked up and saw the gap in front of the Renault’s bonnet, goosed the accelerator and coasted in behind the Audi again.

      ‘You’re listening to Tay FM, and that was Mr Bones, with “Tonight Baby”. We’ve got the Great Overgate Giveaway coming up, but first Nicole Gifford wants to wish her fiancé Dave good luck in his new job. Here’s Celine Dion singing “Just Walk Away” …’

      Or better yet: run like buggery. I switched off the radio.

      Three grand by tomorrow. Never mind the other sixteen …

      There was always extortion: go back to Oldcastle and lean on a few people. Pay Willie McNaughton a visit – see if he was still flogging GHB to school kids. That should be worth at least a couple of hundred. Karen Turner had that brothel on Shepard Lane. And Fat Jimmy Campbell was probably still growing weed in his loft … Throw in another dozen ‘house calls’ and I could pull in a grand and a half, maybe two tops.

      Over a thousand pounds short, and nothing left to sell.

      Maybe Mrs Kerrigan would go easy on me and they’d only break one of my legs. And next week the compound interest would set in, along with the compound fractures.

      The car park was nearly empty, just a handful of silver rep-mobiles and hire cars clustered around the hotel entrance. I pulled into a space, killed the engine, then sat there, staring off into the middle distance as the rain drummed on the car roof.

      Maybe Newcastle wasn’t such a bad idea after—

      Clunk, clunk, clunk.

      I turned in my seat. A chubby face was peering in through the passenger window: narrow mouth, stubble-covered jowls, bald head dripping and shiny, dark bags under the eyes, blueish grey skin. Big round shoulders hunched up around his ears. The accent was pure Liverpool: ‘You coming in, or wha?’

      I closed my eyes, counted to five, then climbed out into the rain.

      Those