A Song for the Dying. Stuart MacBride

going to be … awesome!’

      I blinked at the ceiling. It wasn’t the right shape, the light was all wrong. Why the hell was …

      A breath shuddered its way out of my chest and the thumping in my ears faded, slowed. Another breath.

      Right. Not in a cell any more.

      ‘We’ve got the news and weather coming up – spoiler alert, it’s going to be a wet one – but first here’s Halfhead, with their Christmas single “Sex, Violence, Lies, and Darkness” …’ The sound of distorted piano and mournful guitars oozed out of the radio alarm clock’s speakers.

      The lead singer’s voice was like barbed wire dipped in molasses. ‘Bones in the garden, they sing like an angel …’

      I rolled over and checked: quarter past six. What was the point of getting out of prison if you couldn’t even have a lie-in? Bloody Jacobson.

      ‘The shadows are sharp and they burn deep inside …’

      Morning prayers at Force Headquarters. That was going to be fun. Perhaps I’d get lucky and not have to break anyone’s jaw …?

      Keep it calm today. Nothing rash. No lashing out. Nothing that could get me sent back to prison before Mrs Kerrigan could meet with that unfortunate accident.

      ‘Her body is cold, her voice hard and painful …’

      No hitting anyone. Eyes on the prize.

      Come on, Ash. Up.

      In a minute.

      I spread out beneath the duvet, taking up the whole double bed. Just because I could.

      ‘A knife-blade of bitterness, spite, and hurt pride …’

      Then the pressure in my bladder had to go and spoil everything. Groaning, I levered myself up, swung my legs out of bed, sighed. Rolled my right foot in small circles from the ankle. One way, then the other. Flexing the toes. Making little blades of hot iron grate along the bones – scraping away beneath the puckered knot of scar tissue the bullet left. A metaphor for my whole bloody life, right there.

      ‘Sex, lies, and violence, a love filled with sharpness …’

      No point putting it off any longer. Up.

      I limped over to the chest of drawers.

      ‘Stoking the fires to stave off the darkness …’

      A brief search turned up a couple of big towels in the third drawer. I wrapped one around my waist, grabbed my cane, then unlocked the bedroom door as the song headed into an instrumental break. All minor chords and misery.

      The sound of someone murdering an old Stereophonics tune rattled down the corridor, with a boiling kettle as backup. Shifty poked his head out of the living room and grinned at me. His eyes were all shiny and bright, despite the fact he’d put away enough champagne and whisky last night to fill a bathtub. He’d even shaved. ‘Hope you’re hungry, we’ve got enough here to feed a family of six. Breakfast on the table in five, whether you’re there or not.’ And then he was gone again.

      ‘Morning, Shifty.’ I tried the bathroom door handle. Locked.

      Alice’s voice came from inside, the words all muffled and rounded as if she had her mouth full. ‘Hold on …’ Then some spitting and a running tap. The bathroom door opened and there she was, wearing a fluffy bathrobe, a towel wrapped around her head. A cloud of orange-scented steam billowed out behind her. ‘Are you not dressed yet, only we’ve got the morning briefing at seven and it’s—’

      ‘What happened to the hangover?’

      ‘Coffee. Coffee’s great it really is and it’s just, like, pow first thing in the morning and I think I got up in the middle of the night to drink some water, I was having the strangest dream and I was in a car crash and there was a dog and I’m chasing someone into the train station only it turned into a rock concert and there was a woman in a blue tracksuit and everyone was all sweaty, isn’t that weird?’ She squeezed past, and opened the door to her room. Froze on the threshold. A crease formed between her eyebrows. ‘Maybe it was the pizza, probably shouldn’t eat a quattro formaggio that close to bedtime, only it wasn’t really bedtime was it, it was a slightly late dinner, and I like cheese, don’t you, it’s—’

      ‘OK.’ I held up a hand. ‘No more coffee for you.’

      ‘But I like coffee, it’s the best, and Dave brought this little metal teapot thing with him that you put on the cooker and coffee goes in one end and water in the bottom and you get great espresso—’

      ‘Shifty says breakfast’s in five minutes.’

      ‘Oh, right, better get dressed and really you should try his espresso it’s terrific, it—’

      I slipped into the steamy bathroom and locked the door behind me.

      Alice leaned in close, her voice cranked right down to a whisper. ‘So it wasn’t a dream?’

      The briefing room must have been given a coat of paint recently, the cloying chemical smell still coiling out of the walls. Uniform and plainclothes had arranged themselves in a semicircle of creaky plastic chairs around the table at the front of the room, the distance between them marking out the individual tribes. Front left: the men and women who’d have to go out and patrol the streets. Front right: the boys and girls from the Specialist Crime Division, looking prickly in their sharp suits. Behind them: Oldcastle CID, looking like a riot in a charity shop. Everyone with their pens out and notebooks at the ready.

      And at the rear of the room: Jacobson’s Lateral Investigative and Review Unit, all in a line: Jacobson, PC Cooper, Professor Huntly, Dr Constantine, and Alice. I’d grabbed the seat next to her, on the outside. Right leg stretched out, walking stick hanging on the back of the chair in front as the duty sergeant monotoned his way through the day-to-day assignments.

      ‘… car thefts up fifteen percent in that area, so keep your eyes peeled. Next, shoplifting …’

      I shifted in my seat. ‘Of course it wasn’t a dream, you wanted a bedtime story so I told you one.’

      Alice looked up at me. ‘You did? That’s so sweet.’

      ‘About how the Inside Man got away.’

      ‘Oh.’ The smile slipped a bit. ‘Still, it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it. So you really did round up all the people in blue tracksuits?’

      I nodded. ‘Rhona got all nine of them. Two hours earlier and there would’ve been dozens – the whole sodding football team came down to ride on the bikes. The Super checked everyone’s stories and alibis. Nothing.’

      She glanced at the front of the room.

      The duty sergeant was still droning on: ‘… break-in at the halls of residence on Hudson Street …’

      ‘What about the train to Edinburgh?’

      ‘Just missed it at Arbroath, but they were waiting for it at Carnoustie. No one in a blue tracksuit. But the in-carriage security camera caught someone matching the description getting off at the first stop.’

      ‘… to remember, that just because they’re students it doesn’t mean you can treat them, and I quote, “like workshy sponging layabouts”. Fitzgerald, I’m looking at you …’

      ‘It was him, wasn’t it?’

      ‘We put out an appeal, got an ID, and did a dawn raid. Turned out it was a religious education teacher up to do the charity cycle.’

      ‘Oh.’

      Professor Huntly leaned over, glowered past Dr Constantine, teeth bared around a hissing whisper. ‘Will you two shut up?’

      ‘… Charlie went missing sometime between half eleven last night and six this morning.