‘Callum?’
‘It was covered in cigarette ash and something I’m hoping was mayonnaise.’
‘She’s told Dr Jenkins she wants both mummies post-mortemed ASAP. Our bath body’s gone back into the fridge till they’re done. He’s starting the first one in fifteen minutes.’
‘Good for you.’ Callum dumped the paper towel in the bin and moistened another with disinfectant.
‘Well? Aren’t you coming? Thought you were SIO?’
‘What’s the point?’ He opened the wallet and started on the inside surfaces. Wiping the square of clear plastic covering the faded photo that took up the whole left-hand side: a happy family, all four of them grinning away at the camera, those bright summer colours faded to autumn tones of brown, orange, and yellow. Not quite in focus. Posed around a picnic table, blue sky, sea, and white sand just visible behind them.
‘So you’re sulking?’
‘Like you can talk.’ He dabbed away at the other side. ‘They’re never going to let me be Senior Investigating Officer for a triple murder. A detective constable running down a serial killer? No chance.’
Franklin shook her head. ‘You’ve been inhaling too much of that disinfectant, there’s only two murders, not—’
‘The mummies have been smoked. That’s probably to dehydrate and preserve them. And what do you do before you smoke something? You salt it to draw out excess moisture. You brine it.’ He wiped off a crusty smear of red that looked more like tomato ketchup than blood. ‘And what did we find floating in a bathtub full of brine?’
When he looked up, Franklin was standing there with her mouth hanging open.
One last go with the soggy paper towel. ‘Exactly.’ He wiped the wallet dry with a fresh sheet, then dug into his pocket for the cash he’d begged out of the building society yesterday. Slipped it into the slit where the lining was hanging out. ‘Our victim was a work in progress.’
‘Sodding hell.’
‘And God knows how many more bodies he’s got out there.’ The plastic window was cool beneath his fingertips, its surface scratched in a few places, enough to blot out small sections of the photo beneath. All four of them, just out of focus, smiling their last recorded smile together. ‘Mother’s going to have her work cut out holding onto the case, never mind me. They’ll fly in an MIT from Strathclyde and we’ll be back where we started – low-level drug dealers, loan sharks, and pimps.’
Franklin peered over his shoulder. ‘Whose are the ugly kids?’
Cheeky sod.
He pointed. ‘That’s my brother Alastair and me.’ Two little boys with matching haircuts and freckles. ‘We were five. Mum and Dad at the back.’ Mum with her long pale-blonde hair and heart-shaped face, kind blue eyes. Dad with his dark curly mop-top, dimpled chin, and big broad smile. The whole family was dressed for the beach in shorts and flip-flops. T-shirts with cartoon animals on them. A fox for Alastair, an owl for Callum, a cat for Mum, a dog for Dad. Sunburn for everyone. ‘Two weeks on a caravan site just outside Lossiemouth.’
Franklin gave a low whistle. ‘You’ve got an identical twin?’
All those years ago …
— Callum —
‘Da-ad, he’s touching me again!’
Dad just sighed and turned the radio up, singing along with Mum. Both of them belting it out at the top of their voices as countryside slipped by the car windows. Green fields beneath a dark-grey hat of clouds.
Sitting in the back seat, Alastair grinned his gap-toothed grin. Then reached across and poked Callum again.
Rotten little bumhead.
‘Da-ad!’
Dad didn’t look around. ‘If you two don’t cut it out, I’m going to pull this car over. That what you want? You want me to pull over? Because you know what’ll happen if you make me do that.’
Alastair stuck his tongue out. His shaggy bowl-shaped haircut was paler than usual, more freckles on his nose and cheeks. A cartoon fox on his brown T-shirt. Tartan shorts and grass-stained knees. Bare feet all sparkly with sand, just like Callum’s.
The song on the radio finished, Mum joining in right to the very end. She put her hand on Dad’s leg. ‘I love that one.’
The man on the radio sounded like he’d eaten a whole nest of bees. ‘An oldie, but a goodie – Jimmy Perez and the Mareel Boys, with their breakthrough hit, “Mothcatcher Blues”. For an extra five bonus points, name the year that topped the charts.’
Mum snorted. ‘Easy: 1986. Give us a hard one, Scotty.’
‘Da-ad?’ Callum leaned forward and tapped him on the shoulder.
‘And don’t forget we’ve got – and I’m mega excited about this – the one, the only, the Krankies! They’ll be here in fifteen minutes to tell us all about Monday’s heee-larious episode of K.T.V. It’ll be fan-dabi-dozi!’
‘What did I tell you, Cal?’
‘I’m Scott Kennedy and you’re listening to the Golden Oldies Quiztime Special on Castlewave FM …’
‘No, but I need to go wee-wee. I really do.’
‘Now then, my little Quiztronaughts, who was the lead singer on this hit from two years ago? It’s the Bangles, and “Eternal Flame”.’ Some sort of horrible old-people music jingled out of the radio – weird pings and things, with a woman being all soft and soppy over the top.
‘We’re half an hour from home, so you’ll have to tie a knot in it.’
‘But, Da-ad, I’m bursting.’
Mum shook her head, setting her pale-yellow hair swinging. ‘Told you it was a mistake to buy him that tin of Fanta. It goes right through—’
‘Don’t start.’
‘I’m just saying.’ She pointed through the windscreen at a lumpy blocky building at the side of the road. ‘Look, there’s a public toilet. Stop.’
‘I’m not stopping.’
‘Fine. Well, you keep on driving, David MacGregor, and when Callum wees himself, you can clean it up.’
The lady on the radio sang about easing the pain. Which would’ve been nice, because right now there was a big balloon of pee swelling up in Callum’s insides, sending stabby twinges all through his tummy right down to the end of his willy. ‘Please, Dad?’
‘All right!’ Dad thumped his hand on the steering wheel. ‘All right, I’ll stop. You happy now?’
‘David, please, for once can we not—’
‘No. That’s perfect. I’m stopping.’ The car pulled into the lay-by, bumping and rolling along the holey road, caravan lurching away behind it. ‘There.’
Mum didn’t sing along with the lady on the radio: she just sat there, in the passenger seat, with her arms folded, staring out of the window.
Dad’s voice was stretched and twangy, the way it went before someone got spanked for being naughty: ‘Alastair, do you need a wee too?’
‘No, Dad.’
‘Callum?’
‘I’m sorry, Daddy.’
‘Get out, Callum.’
He scrabbled with his seatbelt, pulled on his flip-flops, and pushed the door open. Hopped down onto the car park’s holey surface.
The toilets were a low grey rectangle, sitting in front of a line of trees. Filth streaked the walls and the guttering sagged in the middle. Someone had sprayed ‘TORY SCUM OUT!’ across the Ladies. There weren’t any outside doors, instead a bit of wall was missing at both ends of the building, open and gaping. A cave, full of shadows and horrible smells.
Up above, the sky was dark as an angry cat.
Mum nudged Dad. ‘Don’t just sit there – go with him.’
‘He’s not a baby, Nicola. If he wants to go to the toilet he’s damn well big enough to go on his own.’
Callum wiped his damp palms on the legs of his shorts.
Maybe he didn’t need to go after all?
Maybe he could hold it in all the way home?
But that great big balloon just above his willy didn’t want to hold it in. It wanted to pee it out, all down his leg if he didn’t—
The car horn blared, and he jumped. Turned.
Dad scowled at him through the driver’s window. Alastair grinned from the backseat.
Swallow. Turn.
You can do this, Callum.
You’re a big boy now. Big boys can go to the toilet on their own.
He took a deep breath and crept into the Gents. Into the gloom. Into the manky-vinegar stink of old wee.
White tiles covered the walls, the lines in between them all dirty and yellow. Thick scratch marks ran across the brown floor, like something heavy had been dragged from one of the cubicles. Four of them huddled along the left wall, one with its door all splintered and hanging off. Urinals on the wall opposite. Sinks at the back.
A dripping tap went plink, plink, plink.
Callum hurried across to the urinals, unzipped his shorts and stood on his tiptoes.
Nothing happened.
Come on. Come on. Come on.
‘Hello, little boy.’ The voice was big and heavy, thick and slimy. Like a huge slug. ‘You’re a pretty little boy, aren’t you?’
A thin stream of yellow piddle splashed into the urinal, wobbling up and down because Callum couldn’t stop shaking.
‘Such a pretty blond little boy.’
The Slug slithered closer, breath all heavy and panting.
‘Please, my dad—’
‘Shut up. Don’t spoil it.’ Closer. ‘Are you a good little boy?’
Callum stood there, with his shrivelled willy in his hand. ‘Please.’
‘Mmm, I’ll bet you are.’ The Slug was so close now his butter-minty breath washed over Callum’s face. ‘This is going to be our little secret. If you tell anyone, I’ll know. And I know where you live and I’ll come get you. I’ll kill your mummy and daddy and I’ll punish you. Understand?’
He nodded. Bit his bottom lip to keep the tears in.
‘Good.’ A warm slimy tongue licked its way up Callum’s cheek, slow and minty and wet. ‘Now you’re going to be very quiet and come with—
‘Nah, course Labour’s gonna win next year.’ A man stumbled into the toilets, voice echoing back from the tiles. ‘Stands to reason, don’t it?’
Callum flinched.
The warm sticky breath disappeared and the slimy slug trail on his cheek went cold. Now the only thing left was the plink, plink, plink of the dripping tap and the jaggy sour smell of wee.
He fumbled his willy back into his pants. Zipped up with shaky fingers.
‘They better win.’ Another man – dressed in the same checked shirt and scruffy jeans as his friend – long hair dangling down round his face, cigarette poking from the corner of his mouth. ‘Can you imagine another four years of these bawbags?’
No sign of the Slug.
Callum’s breath shuddered out. He sagged for a moment. Then scuffed across to the sinks and washed his hands. Scrubbed a wet hand across the cold patch on his cheek. Dried himself on a greying curl of fabric hanging from the towel machine.
Stepped over to the exit.
And froze.
What if the Slug hadn’t gone away? What if he was out there, just waiting for him? Waiting to grab him and take him away and punish him and he’d never see his mummy and daddy ever again and it would be horrible and …
The stabby pain was back. He hurried to the urinals, up on his tiptoes again, making little grunty noises as the wee went down the drain.
Then washed his hands again, cos Mum didn’t like widdly hands in the car.
Both the guys in the grungy clothes were laughing at some joke about two nuns and a donkey that made no sense at all. Peeing and peeing and peeing like they’d drunk a whole bathtub full of Fanta. They didn’t wash their hands either, just lit up cigarettes and sauntered out the exit with their hands in their pockets.
Callum wiped his sweaty hands on his shorts again.
Plink. Plink. Plink.
The sound of a car faded into the distance.
It would be OK. It would.
Dad would get angry about how long he was taking and come get him.
Then he’d shout at Callum, and maybe spank the back of his legs, but he’d scare the Slug away and everything would be OK again.
It would.
Callum swallowed.
Shifted from foot to foot in his gritty flip-flops.
Come on, Daddy. Come on …
It’d been ages now.
What if they’d got fed up, driven off and left him?
What if they’d forgotten he was here, in the toilets?
What if they never came back?
What if the Slug did?
Oh no …
Callum hurried outside.
Dad’s car and the caravan were still there.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
He’d never be naughty, ever again. He’d do everything Mum asked him. He’d tidy his room. He’d even be nice to Alastair the bumhead.
A rumble of thunder, off in the distance, mingled with the traffic noises from the road.
He ran fast as a rabbit to Dad’s car and grabbed the door handle. But it just clunked up and down. The door didn’t open.
Alastair must’ve locked it. Well, he was going to get a dead arm soon as Mum and Dad weren’t looking. It wasn’t funny: locking people out of the car when there was a horrible Slug slithering about trying to steal little boys like something horrid from a fairy tale.
Callum knocked on the window.
Tried the handle again.
Still locked.
Stood on his tiptoes, and peered in through the glass.
The bumhead wasn’t on the back seat. Or in the footwell.
‘Mum?’
She wasn’t in the passenger seat. And Dad wasn’t behind the wheel. The car was empty.
‘Hello?’
Another boom of thunder, loud enough to make him jump. They’d left him. They’d run away and left him.
How could they leave him?
Callum’s bottom lip trembled.
He backed against Dad’s car. ‘Dad?’
They couldn’t have left him. They couldn’t.
It wasn’t his fault he needed a wee …
‘Mum?’
And what if the Slug came back? A drop of rain burst against the lumpy tarmac.
What if the Slug was waiting for him?
‘Please …’
Another drop. Then another. And another. Thumping down on the car roof like the feet of a tiny monster. Soaking through his hair and his T-shirt.
Maybe …
Maybe they’d all gone for a wee too? But then he’d have seen Dad and Alistair, wouldn’t he? In the Gents?
Or maybe they were in the caravan?
The breath rushed out of Callum, replaced by a smile. Yeah, that was it: they were in the caravan making cups of tea.
What an idiot. Of course they were.
Boiling the kettle on the little gas cooker.
He ran to the caravan’s door. Twisted the handle and climbed inside. Clunked the door shut behind him.
Only there was no one there.
The smile died.
Callum checked under the table, checked the loo, he even checked the cupboards.
No one.
‘Mum?’
A flash of white turned the caravan’s insides black-and-white, then the thunder roared, rain clattering against the roof. Callum blinked. Rubbed a hand across his eyes. Stared out through the window at the front of the caravan – where the folding table and the benches that turned into Mum and Dad’s bed were.
Someone was out there. A figure in the rain: big and hunched, moving with slow lumbering steps.
The Slug.
Callum ran for the caravan door and hauled the handle up, locking it. Backed away.
Another flash, followed by a deafening crash, like someone had jammed a metal dustbin over his head and battered it with a hammer.
He dropped to his knees and scrambled under the table. Curled up against the wall.
Don’t move. Don’t make any noise. Quiet and still as a mouse.
Outside, something scratched along the caravan’s walls. It started over by the chemical loo, grinding and squealing across the metal, working its way slowly around, behind him, and past to the caravan’s door.
Stopped.
Callum stared.
The handle twisted. Not far. Just a teeny weeny bit, till the lock stopped it. Twisted again. Then silence.
Maybe the Slug had given up? Maybe he’d gone away? Maybe he’d—
The whole door shook – banging and clattering in its frame.
‘No!’ Callum wrapped his arms around his head and bit his bottom lip till he could taste pennies. ‘Go away, go away, go away …’
Then the noise faded, leaving nothing behind but the battering drone of rain on the caravan roof.
The Slug had given up.
He had to.
The caravan was locked, he couldn’t get in.
A trembly sob rattled its way out of Callum. Safe.
And then that dark slimy voice crept through the caravan wall, as if the Slug’s lips were right up against it. ‘Your mummy and daddy don’t love you any more. They say you’re ugly and stupid and useless and they don’t want you. So they’ve given you to me.’
No. They wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t leave him.
They couldn’t …
‘You’re mine now, little boy. You belong to me.’ Scratching noises against the wall. ‘Now open the door and let me in.’
A hand on his arm. ‘Gah!’ Callum flinched.
Franklin frowned at him. ‘Are you OK?’
He let out a shuddery breath, looking down at the photo of the four of them in their holiday clothes. ‘What?’
She pointed at the photo. ‘I said, “You’ve got an identical twin?”’
He clicked the wallet closed and slipped it into his back pocket. ‘A long time ago.’
16
Hairy Harry loomed over the wrinkled body on the cutting table, humming away to himself. A huge breezeblock of a man, with rounded shoulders and a bit of a gut on him. He’d tucked the last six inches of his Victorian-style beard into the top of his apron. A blue-camouflage bandanna covered the top of his head, his long furry ponytail poking out the back of it. Hairy Harry’s voice was surprisingly soft and warm for someone who looked as if they ate live badgers. ‘Now that’s interesting …’
He reached into the open body cavity, coming out with a chunk of shrivelled black, holding it aloft like that baboon did at the start of Disney’s The Lion King. ‘Have you ever seen a liver look like that before, all dried out and wrinkly?’
Lucy shook her head and made another note on her clipboard.
‘Fascinating.’
They’d laid the body out on its back, not so much uncurling the limbs as snapping them off at the dry brittle joints. Legs and arms, positioned either side of the smoke-coloured ribs.
Franklin had her own arms folded, voice so low it was barely a whisper. ‘At least this one doesn’t smell as bad.’
Hairy Harry went back in, coming out with what looked like a dehydrated snake. ‘Well, well, well …’
Mother and McAdams stood off to one side, heads together, McAdams poking away at his mobile phone as she talked in hushed tones. Every now and then, she’d look up and stare at Callum. Then go back to conspiring with her poetry-spouting sidekick. Probably trying to figure out what crappy job to punish him with next.
‘Amazing, when you think about it.’ Hairy Harry stuck his gloved hands on the hips of his purple scrubs. ‘The only internal organs still attached are the heart and the lungs, everything else has been taken out, preserved, then put back in again. It’s almost impossible to tell cause of death from the soft tissue, because there isn’t any – it’s all like beef jerky.’
The mummy’s ribcage lay on a trolley against the wall, its covering of leathery skin too dried-on to remove like in a normal post mortem.
‘No external sign of trauma, other than the discolouration around the throat – which could just be pigmentation from the preservation, but looks more like ante-mortem bruising to me. And then there’s this.’ He held up a little jar full of tiny discoloured spheres and gave it a shake, making them rattle against the glass. ‘You’ll need to get it tested, but unless I’m very much mistaken, it’s silica gel. The kind of thing that comes in those little sachets they stick in bags, shoes, and handbags to sook up moisture and stop them going mouldy. His mouth was stuffed with it. More in the oesophagus, trachea, and sinus cavities. We’ll have to rehydrate the stomach to find out, but I’m willing to bet we’ll find some there too.’
Mother wandered back to the table. ‘Excuse me, Dr Jenkins, I have to borrow Detective Constable MacGregor here.’
Oh. That didn’t sound good. Whatever horror she and McAdams had come up with, it was about to spatter down on Callum’s head.
‘Please, it’s Harrison. And by all means. The young man’s a bit of a fidget anyway.’
Everyone’s a critic.
She pulled on a smile. ‘Thank you.’ Then headed for the exit. ‘Come on, Constable.’
Here we go.
Callum leaned closer to Franklin. ‘Try not to punch anyone else, OK?’ And followed Mother out, through the changing room, past the rows and rows of refrigeration units, across the reception area, and out into the rain.
She shrugged her shoulders up around her ears and hurried across the puddled tarmac to her battered Fiat Panda. Hurled herself in behind the wheel and beckoned at him from the safety of the car.
What would it be: door-to-doors in the freezing downpour? Digging into the archives for some obscure file that hadn’t been seen for three generations? Talking to small children about road safety? Or maybe she was just going to fire him?
He high-stepped between the water-filled potholes, collar pulled up against the rain, and clambered in the passenger side.
A furry penguin hung from the rear-view mirror, along with a yellow air-freshener that smelled of chemical lemons. Inside, the car was a mess. Mud, grit, gravel, and old magazines in the footwells; plastic bags, a collection of cardboard wine-carriers full of empties, and for some bizarre reason a quarter-size inflatable sheep with sunglasses, littering the back seat. Dust coating the dashboard like a furry blanket. The bottles clinked and rattled as he thumped the door shut.
Ooh, sodding hell: it was like climbing into a very filthy fridge. Cold air nipped at his ears.
Mother stuck her hands in her pockets, her breath fogging in front of her face. ‘Callum, Callum, Callum … What am I going to do with you?’
Oh great. She’d dragged him all the way out here for a bollocking. Could they not have done it inside in the warm?
‘Thought I told you not to lead our new girl astray? And what do I find? She’s running around assaulting detective sergeants on DCI Powel’s Major Investigation Team. Care to explain yourself?’
What? ‘How is this my—’
‘I had Powel on the phone this afternoon, and he wasn’t a happy hedgehog. Says after the assault you waded in and interfered with the victim – to wit one DS Jimmy Blake. Got him to change his story and say he slipped and battered his own nose to a wee bloody lump.’
‘All I did was point out that the whole thing would be caught on the mortuary’s CCTV system.’ A shrug. ‘For some reason, Blakey wasn’t keen on anyone seeing it.’
‘Right.’ Mother nodded. Then sighed. ‘Callum, I’m all in favour of sticking up for the team, I really am …’
‘But?’
‘But probably better get a copy of the footage. Just in case Powel or Blakey decide to make it disappear. Blackmail only works as long as you’ve got the negatives.’ She grinned, then dug a paper bag out of her fleece pocket. ‘Have a jelly baby. Hell, take two.’
He did. An orange and a yellow.
Mother shoogled down a bit in her seat and helped herself to a red one. ‘And when you get the footage, pop past my office with it. About time someone tried to introduce Blakey the Octopus’s nose to his rectum by first-class fist-express; I’m going to get some popcorn in.’
‘Yes, Boss.’ He popped the yellow baby into his mouth, chewed on its lemony sweetness.
‘I don’t know what to make of you, Callum, I honestly don’t. One minute you’re this vast pain in my backside, and the next you’re saving Franklin from herself.’
