A Song for the Dying. Stuart MacBride

my life, ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to have babies. A family of my own to love and cherish the way my father never did for me.’

      I helped myself to a custard cream.

      ‘But the doctors said it wasn’t possible any more. The Inside Man took it away from me when he … When he ripped me open.’

      Cut to a posh-looking office, lined in wood, with a heap of framed certificates on the wall. A thin balding man sits behind a big oak desk. He’s wearing a dark-blue suit and a bright-red tie. A caption scrolls across the bottom of the screen: ‘CHARLES DALLAS-MACALPINE, SENIOR CONSULTANT SURGEON, CASTLE HILL INFIRMARY’.

      His voice is all public school pomp and barely concealed sneer. ‘Of course, when Laura came to me her insides were a mess. It’s a miracle she didn’t exsanguinate in the ambulance.’ A tight-lipped smile. ‘That means, “bleed to death”.’

      Really? Wow, hark at him with his posh-boy big words.

      ‘Luckily, she’d had the good fortune to be on my operating table. Otherwise—’

      Three short thumps broke in on Dr Patronizing’s monologue.

      Front door.

      Alice flinched. ‘Are you expecting someone, because I don’t—’

      ‘I’ll get it.’

      ‘—shudder to think. You see, her uterus was—’

      I closed the lounge door behind me. Limped across the hall’s stained floorboards, walking stick clunking with every other step. Peered out through the peephole.

      A bald head filled the lens with a swathe of pink and grey.

      I undid the four security locks and opened the door. ‘Shifty.’

      He’d obviously not shaved his head for a bit: a fringe of gunmetal stubble stuck out above his ears. More stubble shaded his collection of chins. Folds of skin drooped beneath watery bloodshot eyes. A bruise rode high on his left cheek. The smell of aftershave oozed out of him, mingling with the rotten oniony whiff of the day’s sweat.

      A couple of orange carrier-bags sat on the floor by his feet.

      Shifty blinked at me a couple of times, then a massive grin split across his face and he lunged, wrapped his arms around me, pinning my arms to my sides, and squeezed. Laughed. ‘About bloody time!’ He leaned back, lifting my feet off the floor. ‘How’ve you been? I’m gasping here. Any chance of a drink?’

      Couldn’t help but smile. ‘Get off me, you big Jessie.’

      ‘Oh, don’t be so repressed.’ One more squeeze, then he let go. ‘Thought we’d never get you out of there. You look like crap, by the way.’

      ‘Did you get it?’

      He reached into his crumpled jacket and came out with an envelope. Handed it over.

      OK. Unexpected.

      I tried again, nice and slow. ‘Did – you – get – the – gun?’

       8

      Shifty dragged a hand down his face, pulling it out of shape. ‘Alec wouldn’t sell it to me, said it’d be bad karma.’

      I opened the envelope. It was stuffed with creased tenners and twenties. Had to be at least three, maybe four hundred quid. Not bad at all. Shifty’s shoulder wobbled when I patted it. ‘That’s a lot of walking around money. You’re—’

      ‘Don’t be a divot. It’s for the gun. Alec won’t sell it to me, but he’ll sell it to you. He’s got bloody weird since he came down with Buddhism.’ One podgy hand went back in Shifty’s jacket and came out with a yellow Post-it note. He stuck it to my chest. A mobile phone number in scratchy red biro. ‘But it’s going to have to be tomorrow. Now are we having that drink or not?’

      ‘Tomorrow? I wanted—’

      ‘I know. It’s not that easy finding someone who’ll sell a gun to a cop, OK? Alec’s a pain, but he’s discreet.’ Shifty pulled his shoulders up to his ears. Let them fall again. ‘We’ll do her tomorrow. I promise.’

      Well, after two years was one more night really going to make that much difference? So she got another twenty-four hours, so what? She’d still end up dead.

      Fair enough.

      I nodded back towards the flat. ‘Tea?’

      ‘You’re kidding, right? Tea? When you’ve just got out of the nick?’ A wink. Then he dipped into one of the carrier-bags at his feet and came out with two bottles. ‘Champagne!’

      He followed me into the flat, standing in the hallway while I snibbed all the locks again then showed him into the living room.

      Alice was out of her chair, standing like a fencepost, all pulled in and straight. She smiled. ‘David, how nice to see you again. Is Andrew well?’

      ‘I know we said tomorrow, but I couldn’t wait.’ He loomed over her, leaned in, and gave her a peck on the cheek. Then plonked one of the champagne bottles down beside the laptop and started picking the foil cap off the other. ‘You don’t have any decent glasses, do you?’

      ‘Ah, yes, right, I’ll see what I can dig up, sure there’s something lurking in the cupboards …’ She pointed at the kitchen, then disappeared through the door.

      Shifty worked the wire cage off the cork, pacing as he did it. Never standing still. The floorboards creaking and groaning away beneath his feet.

      Silence.

      He stared at the laptop screen, where Laura Strachan was frozen halfway down a flight of stone steps, the pause icon overlapping her feet. ‘I … went round to see Michelle.’

      ‘Did you now?’ Two years, and not a single visit from her. Not so much as a letter.

      ‘She came to the door and she was all …’ He wiggled one hand beside his head. ‘You know? Hair all over the place, really pale and thin, bags under her eyes. Been drinking.’

      I sank back into my camp chair. Folded my arms. ‘So?’

      ‘She’s got the house up for sale. Big sign in the front garden. Moving down south to be with her sister.’

      Yeah. Well … she was a grown woman. Not as if we were married any more, was it? Could do what she liked. Didn’t have to tell me. ‘There a point to this?’

      ‘Just thought you’d … I don’t know.’ He stared down at the bottle in his hands. ‘Andrew threw me out. Apparently it’s not him, it’s me. Says I’m suffocating him.’ Those fat fingers tightened around the neck of the bottle, squeezing until their joints were pale as bone. ‘I’ll bloody suffocate him …’

      Alice appeared in the kitchen doorway, carrying three generic wine glasses. ‘Who’s getting suffocated?’

      ‘Shifty’s boyfriend’s chucked him out.’

      His bottom lip popped out an inch, then he shook his head.

      ‘Oh, David, I’m so sorry.’ She patted one of the camping chairs. ‘Here, you have a sit down and tell me all about it.’

      Oh God, here we go.

      ‘Maybe later.’ He twisted the cork in one meaty paw, pulled and – it poomed out from the bottle bringing a coil of pale gas with it. He filled two of the glasses, then dipped back into his plastic bag and handed me a can of Irn-Bru.

      Fair enough. I clicked off the tab and filled my glass with fluorescent-orange fizzy juice.

      Shifty raised his. ‘A toast –