A Song for the Dying. Stuart MacBride

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      Another poke or two. ‘Why’s there nothing about the abduction site?’

      Cooper found his voice again, only a whole octave higher than normal. ‘I tried to stop him, sir, I did, I told him not to disturb you.’

      ‘Nnngh…’ Jacobson rubbed his face with his hands. ‘Time is it?’

      I poked him with the rubber end again and repeated the question.

      He peered back between the seats at me, face all puffy and pink. ‘They haven’t found it yet, that’s why, now can I—’

      ‘One more question: who’s following us?’

      His mouth hung open for a moment. Then he narrowed his bloodshot eyes and tilted his head to the side. ‘Following us?’

      ‘Three cars back. BMW – black, four-by-four. Been with us since Perth.’

      He looked at Cooper. ‘Really?’

      ‘I… Er…’

      ‘Take the next right. That one: Happas.’

      Mirror. Signal. Manoeuvre. Cooper pulled the Range Rover into the turning lane and we rolled to a halt. Waited for a gap in the Dundee-bound traffic. Then pulled smoothly across the dual carriageway and onto the country road. Trees hulked on either side of the potholed tarmac, jagged silhouettes in the darkness.

      Jacobson peered back towards the rear windscreen. Then smiled. ‘That’s prison for you. Paranoia is…’ The smile faded. He faced front again. ‘Keep going.’

      Through a patch of forest, the pines sharp and silent, then out into bare fields, cast grey and black in the light of a clouded moon. Stars twinkled in the gaps. Farm windows glowed like cats eyes off to either side.

      Cooper cleared his throat. ‘They’re still there.’

      I passed the folder back to Jacobson. ‘Of course they’re still there. Where else are they going to go? We’ve not had a turn-off yet.’

      A thin band of trees loomed like a wall in front of the car, then past into more fields. We drove through farmland bordered by another line of pines, then Cooper took a left. The headlights behind us did the same. Then a hard right.

      Through a tiny village, to the junction. Left at the primary school. And we were heading back towards the A90. Soon as we were through the limit end, Cooper put his foot down, the Range Rover’s engine bellowed, smearing the fields past the windows.

      The car behind us did the same. Keeping pace as the needle crept up to eighty.

      I clipped in my seatbelt. No offence to Cooper, but he looked about twelve years old. ‘Either whoever’s tailing us is really crap at it, or they don’t care if we see them or not.’

      ‘Hmm…’ Jacobson shoogled his shoulders in the seat again. Settling in. ‘In that case, it’s either those dicks from the Specialist Crime Division, or your halfwit Oldcastle mates. Keeping an eye on the competition.’

      I checked back over my shoulder as we roared through the underpass, then left. The tyres screeched, the back end kicking out for a moment, then we surged up the slip road and onto the dual carriageway north again.

      One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six…

      The other vehicle’s headlights appeared behind us again, falling into place three cars back.

      Specialist Crime Whatsits, Oldcastle CID, or something much, much worse.

      Cooper pulled the Range Rover up to the kerb, opposite a boarded-up pub on the eastern fringes of Cowskillin – where it merged into Castle Hill.

      No sign of the black BMW.

      ‘Right,’ Jacobson turned in his seat and pointed a hairy finger at me, ‘you go in there and you wait till I get back from this sodding press briefing. Remember, you’re on an investigative team now, not sharing a shower with some hairy-arsed rapist from Dunkeld. Try not to hit anyone.’

      I clunked open the rear door and eased out onto the pavement. Bloody right foot ached, like the tip of a red-hot knife was being slowly driven through the bone. That’s what I got for sitting in the one position in a warm car for nearly two hours. The walking stick had to take a bit more weight than normal. ‘What makes you think I won’t just do a runner?’

      He buzzed down his window and winked at me. ‘Honesty, integrity, and the fact that there’s a GPS locator built into your ankle tag.’ He popped open the glove compartment again and came out with a little plastic box fitted with an antenna. Pressed a button on the matt black surface. It bleeped. ‘There you go: all paired up. Now, if you try to tamper with the thing, or it registers a gap of more than one hundred yards between it and the one your sponsor’s wearing, all hell breaks loose.’

      ‘Sponsor?’

      He chucked the remote into the glove compartment. ‘Go inside and all will be revealed.’

      I closed the car door, limped away a couple of paces. Cooper indicated, pulled out from the kerb and drove off into the night. Leaving me all alone with my bin-bag. And my ankle monitor.

      One hundred yards.

      So what was to stop me going inside, battering my ‘sponsor’ unconscious, hotwiring a car, chucking him in the boot, and heading off to pay Mrs Kerrigan the kind of late-night visit that would’ve given Jeffrey Dahmer nightmares? They could send me back to prison for as long as they liked after that. Who’d care?

      Not like I’d have anything left out here…

      I creaked down and picked up the bin-bag, hoisted it over my shoulder.

      The Postman’s Head nestled between a closed-down carpet place and a vacant bookshop with ‘FOR SALE OR LET’ signs in the window. Behind it, the granite blade of Castle Hill reared up into the dark-orange sky – winding Victorian streets lit by period lanterns, the remains of the castle at the top bathed in harsh white spotlights. From down here the ruins looked like a bottom jaw, ripped from its skull.

      An old-fashioned wooden sign hung outside the pub – a severed head wearing a Postman-Pat-style hat. Sheets of plywood covered all of the windows. The paintwork was peeling off the door.

      It sat opposite an abandoned building site, the chipboard barrier smeared with graffiti and warning notices. A sign with a faded artist’s impression of a block of flats: ‘LEAFYBROOK SHELTERED ACCOMMODATION OPENING 2008!’ The padlock and chain dripped rust smears down the painted wooden gates. Probably hadn’t been opened for years.

      A spot of water landed on the back of my hand. Then another one. Not big drops, just tiny flecks. A prelude to drizzle. Can’t remember the last time I actually felt the rain on my face… I stared up into the sky. Clouds heavy and dark, reflecting the streetlights’ sodium glow, a faint mist of rain growing heavier with every passing second.

      The wind got up too, whipping down the street, rattling the corrugated metal fence running down one side of the road, fluttering the ‘CONDEMNED ~ WARNING KEEP OUT!’ notices stuck to it. Creaking the postman’s severed head sign back and forth.

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