A Dark So Deadly. Stuart MacBride

Travis

      The Amazing Adventures of Ichabod Smith (1985)

       And if some motherf*cker gonna call the police?

       I’m-a grab my nine-mill and I’m-a make him deceased.

      Donny ‘$ick Dawg’ McRoberts

      ‘Don’t Mess with the $ick Dawg’

      © Bob’s Speed Trap Records (2016)

       2

      ‘POLICE! COME BACK HERE, YOU WEE SOD!’

      Only that wasn’t really right, was it? Ainsley Dugdale wasn’t a wee sod – he was a dirty great big lumping hulk of a sod, hammering his way along Manson Avenue. Ape-long arms and short legs pumping, scarf flittering out behind him, baldy head glinting in the morning sunshine.

      Callum gritted his teeth and hammered after him.

      Why did no one ever come back when they were told to? Anyone would think people didn’t want to get arrested.

      Squat grey council houses scrolled past on either side of the street, lichen-flecked pantiles and harled walls. Front gardens awash with weeds. More abandoned sofas and washing machines than gnomes and bird tables.

      A couple of kids were out on their bikes, making lazy figure eights on the tarmac. The wee boy had sticky-out ears and a flat monkey nose, a roll-up sticking out the corner of his mouth – leaving coiled trails of smoke behind him. The wee girl was all blonde ringlets and pierced ears, swigging from a tin of extra-strong cider as she freewheeled. Both of them dressed in baggy jeans, trainers, and tracksuit tops. Baseball caps on the right way around, for a change.

      Rap music blared out of a mobile phone. ‘Cops can’t take me, cos I’m strong like an oak tree, / Fast like the grand prix, / I’m-a still fly free … ’

      The wee girl shifted her tinny to the other hand and raised a middle finger in salute as Callum ran past. ‘HOY, PIGGY, I SHAGGED YER MUM, YEAH?’

      Her wee friend made baboon hoots. ‘HOOH! HOOH! HOOH! PIGGY, PIGGY, PIGGY!’

      Neither of them looked a day over seven years old.

      The delights of darkest Kingsmeath.

      Dugdale skittered around the corner at the end of the road. Almost didn’t make it – banged against the side of a rusty Renault, righted himself and kept on going, up the hill.

      ‘RUN, PIGGY, RUN!’ Little Miss Cider appeared, standing on the pedals to keep up, grinning as she flanked him. ‘COME ON, PIGGY, PUT SOME WELLY IN IT!’

      Her baboon friend pedalled up on the other side. ‘FAT PIGGY, LAZY PIGGY!’

      ‘Bugger off, you little sods …’ Callum wheeched through the turn, into another row of grubby houses. Low garden walls guarded small squares of thistle and dandelions, ancient rusty hatchbacks up on bricks, the twisted metal brackets where satellite dishes used to be.

      ‘COME ON, PIGGY!’

      The gap was narrowing. Dugdale might have got off to an impressive sprint start, but his long game wasn’t anywhere near as good – puffing and panting as he lumbered up Munro Place. Getting slower with every step.

      ‘HOOH! HOOH! HOOH!’

      He crested the hill with Callum barely ten feet behind him.

      The street fell away towards a grubby line of trees and a grubbier line of houses, but Dugdale didn’t stop to admire the view: he kept his head down, picking up a bit of velocity on the descent.

      The wee kids freewheeled alongside him, Little Miss Cider swigging from her can. ‘RUN, BALDY – PIGGY’S GONNA GET YOU!’

      One last burst. Callum accelerated. ‘I’M NOT TELLING YOU AGAIN!’

      Dugdale snatched a glance over his shoulder – little eyes surrounded by dark circles, a nose that looked as if it’d been broken at least a dozen times, scar bisecting his bottom lip. He swore. Then put on another burst of speed.

      ‘NO YOU DON’T!’

      ‘HOOH! HOOH! HOOH!’

      Closer. Eight foot. Seven. Six.

      Here we go …

      Callum leapt. Arms out – rugby-tackle style.

      His shoulder caught Dugdale just above the waist, arms wrapping around the top of the big sod’s legs. Holding on tight as they both crashed onto the pavement, rolling over and over. Grunts. More swearing. A tangle of arms and legs. Then something the size of a minibus battered into Callum’s face.

      Now the world tasted of hot batteries.

      Another punch. ‘GET OFF ME!’

      Callum jabbed out an elbow and connected with something solid.

      ‘HOOH! HOOH! HOOH!’

      ‘FIGHT, PIGGY, FIGHT!’

      Then the pavement battered off the back of his head and a fist slammed into his stomach. Fire roared through his torso, accompanied by the sound of a thousand alarm clocks all ringing at once.

      He swung a punch and Dugdale’s nose went from broken to smashed.

      ‘Gahhhh!’ Dugdale reared back, blood spilling down over his top lip. He lashed out blind, eyes closed, and that massive fist came close enough to ruffle the hair above Callum’s ear.

      Distance. Get some distance.

      A big black Mercedes slid past, the sweaty-sweet scent of marijuana coiling out from the back windows, a deep BMMTSHHH, BMMTSHHH, BMMTSHHH of hip-hop bass rattling the air. It stopped in the middle of the road, where they could get a good view of the fight. But did anyone get out to help? Of course they sodding didn’t.

      ‘KILL HIM, PIGGY, FINISH HIM!’

      ‘HOOH! HOOH! HOOH!’

      Callum scrabbled back against a rusty Volkswagen. Yanked out his handcuffs. ‘Ainsley Dugdale, I’m detaining you under Section Fourteen of the Criminal Procedure – Scotland – Act 1995—’

      ‘FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!’ The kids pulled up their bikes, blocking the pavement, making an impromptu brawl-pit in the space between the Volkswagen and a garden wall. ‘COME ON: KILL HIM!’

      ‘Shut up!’ Back to Dugdale. ‘Because I suspect you of having committed an offence punishable by imprisonment, namely the—’

      ‘HOOH! HOOH! HOOH!’

      ‘GAAAAH!’ Dugdale lunged, but not at Callum. He grabbed the wee girl by the throat and yanked her off her bike.

      Her tin of cider hit the deck and bounced, sending out a spurt of frothy urine-coloured liquid. ‘Ulk …’ Eyes wide, both hands clutching onto Dugdale’s forearm, legs pinwheeling and kicking at the air.

      Oh sodding hell. And things had been going so well right up till that point.

      ‘No, no, no!’ Callum scrambled to his feet. ‘That’s enough. Let the girl go.’

      Her wee mate hurled his roll-up. It burst against Dugdale’s chest in a little hiss of sparks. ‘LET HER GO, YOU DIRTY PAEDO!’

      ‘Come on, Dugdale … Ainsley. You don’t want to hurt a kid, right?’ Hands out, open, nice and safe. ‘You’re not that kind of guy, are you?’

      ‘PAEDO! PAEDO! PAEDO!’

      Callum hissed the words out the side of his mouth. ‘You are not helping.’

      Dugdale stuck out his other hand. ‘Money!’

      ‘Come on,