A Song for the Dying. Stuart MacBride

never mind, he’s out now.’

      Not this again …

      ‘I didn’t see you visiting him every week.’

      Alice raised her eyebrows. ‘Didn’t you? Well, they don’t give members of the public access to the official—’

      A jagged Aberdonian accent cut across the room. ‘DS Massie, Brigstock: you heard the Super. Team meeting starts at eight, sharp.’ It didn’t look as if Smith’s people skills had improved any in the last two years. He made a big show of pulling back the sleeve of his grey Markie’s suit and checking his watch. Wrinkles stood out in thick stripes across his forehead. Big nose twitching. Close-cropped hair. A chin so small it was barely there.

      Brigstock’s face curdled for a second, then his voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Why did they have to make the sheep-shagging bastard a DI?’ Then louder: ‘Yes, Guv.’

      ‘Now, Sergeants.’

      Rhona didn’t move. Just stood there staring at Alice. ‘Yes, Guv.’ Then she turned her back. ‘Come on, Brigstock. And the rest of you – backsides in gear. You heard DI Smith!’ She shepherded the rest of the team towards the front of the room, where Ness was fiddling with her remote again.

      Smith stared at us, then marched over, back straight, shoulders back. ‘Do I need to remind you, Mr Henderson, that you’re no longer a serving police officer? You have no powers in Oldcastle, or anywhere else. And if I hear you’re throwing your weight around, I’ll come down on you like a ton of broken glass. Are we clear?’

      I took a step closer, shutting down the gap till we were almost touching. ‘You think you’re a big man because they made you a DI, don’t you? Think that makes you invulnerable. Well, that massive nose of yours will break just as easily as a detective sergeant’s.’

      He took a step back. ‘Threatening a police officer is a criminal offence and—’

      ‘DI Smith?’ Ness’s voice came from the front. ‘We’re ready to start.’ She pressed a button and the screen behind her filled with a map of Oldcastle, a red circle marking a patch of ground behind Blackwall Hill. She nodded at Jacobson. ‘Simon, your team’s welcome to join us if you like?’

      ‘I appreciate the offer, Elizabeth, but there’s a couple of things that need our urgent attention.’ He flicked his arm out and peered at his watch. ‘And if we don’t get a shift on, we’re going to be late.’

      ‘Can’t feel my toes …’ Dr Constantine stomped her feet. She had her scarf wrapped around her neck and mouth, woolly hat pulled down over her ears, Parka coat zipped up to her chin.

      Jacobson leaned against the waist-high wall, hands in the pockets of his brown leather jacket, breath streaming out in a line of fog. ‘It’s good for you. Builds character.’

      Kings Park stretched away on both sides of us, the grass crisp with frost. Blue shadows reached down from the granite wedge of Castle Hill, the ruined battlements jagged against the pale sky. A blade of sunlight pierced the gloom – serrated around the edges where trees gouged it – making the Kings River sparkle.

      The smell of onions frying in grease oozed through the cold air, thick and sweet and dark, spreading out from the burger van at the edge of the car park. PC Cooper had almost made it to the front of the queue.

      Huntly stood with his back to the rest of us, staring out across the river, arms folded, camelhair coat wrapped around him, polished brogues sticking out at ten-to-two. Sulking.

      Jacobson turned to Alice. ‘Well? What do you make of our Dr Docherty?’

      ‘He’s a lot shorter than he is on TV.’ She wrapped one padded arm around her padded waist, the other hand fiddling with her hair where it poked out from the hood of her Arctic jacket. ‘On the basis of what we know so far, it’s reasonable to be cautious and say this might not be the Inside Man. The papers are full of Laura Strachan’s impending “Miracle Birth” – maybe someone saw that and it sparked a fire inside them, I mean if you’re sitting at home full of rage and impotence and looking for some way to vent everything on a world that hates you, and then you see all this stuff about the Inside Man and maybe you think: that’s what I’ll do, I’ll be just like him only better, and it’ll make the angry things in my head leave me alone for a while …’

      She turned, eyes narrowed, mouth pinched. ‘But it’s not going to work because this isn’t my fantasy, this is someone else’s, but until I try I don’t know what I really want, and maybe there’s something about it that makes me feel powerful and in control and aroused for the first time in years and I take that one thing and I relive it over and over in my mind till it’s polished sharp, and I go out and I do it again, only properly this time.’ She let go of her hair, looked up at me. ‘I mean, if it was me, that’s what I’d do.’

      I nodded. ‘So you’re saying it isn’t him?’

      ‘That depends on the next body. If it’s someone else the MO will diverge as he experiments, trying to find his personal groove. If it stays consistent it’s probably him.’ She turned to Jacobson. ‘At the press conference Detective Superintendent Ness wouldn’t answer the question: did he send a letter about Claire Young?’

      ‘Well … yesterday was Sunday, so if he posted it after he killed her, it wouldn’t get collected till today, and it won’t be delivered till tomorrow. If we’re lucky, we’ll find out before the paper prints it.’

      Alice shuffled closer. ‘Superintendent, can I speak to the original survivors and review the victimology reports? I want to look at the Inside Man letters too. The photocopies in the case file are barely readable. I’ll need access to the originals.’

      He patted her on the shoulder. ‘For you, anything. And please, call me Bear.’

      Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have laughed. ‘Seriously? Thought that was meant to be a joke. You want us to call you “Bear”?’

      ‘Dr McDonald has pleased me by putting that jumped-up publicity-hungry TV tart in his place this morning. Bernard?’

      Professor Huntly kept his gaze on the water, still sulking.

      ‘You made the boy from SCD who asked about the phone call look like a moron. So you’re forgiven for yesterday.’

      Huntly raised one shoulder, stared at his shoes. ‘Thank you, Bear.’

      Jacobson poked me in the chest. ‘So far all you’ve done is limp about, taking up space and eating Sheila’s pizza. You can call me, “Sir”, “Guv”, or “Super”.’

      One step forward and I was inches from his nose, looming. ‘How about I call you—’

      ‘Ash …’ Alice tugged at my sleeve. ‘Remember what we talked about? Going to see the deposition scene? I think we should really go now, don’t you, I mean there’s a lot to get through today and we all want to do our best for the investigation so we can stay out of prison, don’t we? Please?’

      And miss a chance to rip the little git’s face off and …

      Don’t be so bloody stupid.

      Blink. Step back. Deep breath. ‘Right.’ I forced a smile into place and patted Jacobson on the shoulder. ‘Sorry, still getting used to not being inside. You know.’

      Jacobson tilted his head back, grinning up at me. ‘And you can take Bernard with you. He doesn’t drive.’

      Huntly cleared his throat. ‘Can we at least wait for my sausage sandwich?’

      ‘… quite ridiculous, surely it’s appropriate to observe a decent period of mourning.’ Sitting in the back seat, Huntly took another bite of his sausage buttie, tomato sauce oozing out of the roll and onto his fingers. He chewed, with his mouth turned down, as if it was full of ashes. ‘You didn’t see me jumping into bed with the first person I saw,