Extract: The Dead of Winter by Stuart MacBride

This entry was posted on 15 March 2023.

It was supposed to be a simple delivery job for DI Victoria Montgomery-Porter and her sidekick, Edward Reekie - pick up a prisoner from HMP Grampian and take them to their new state-funded home - but life's never that straightforward.

 


 

0

I never really wanted to be a police officer.

 

Thick flakes of white drift down from a low, grey sky, adding their weight to the drooping branches of beech trees. Making the gorse and broom slump in surrender.

A burn gurgles, just out of sight behind knotted clumps of barbed-wire brambles.

A duvet of white smothers the forest clearing, snow robbing the shapes and colour from everything, leaving only the frozen ghosts of what lies buried beneath.

 

I wanted to be an astronaut, or a football player, or a rock star . . .

 

Everything is calm and still and crisp, marred only by a line of deep footprints and a smooth-edged scar where something heavy has been dragged through the drifts.

Then there’s the noises: the ping-and-clang of a pickaxe, chipping away at the frozen ground – a regular, methodical sound, an industrial metronome, marking out the time of death. Every blow accompanied by a grunt of exertion.

 

My big brother, Dave, he was the one meant to follow the family tradition and join up, but a drunk driver blew straight through the Holburn Street junction, and that was that.

 

*

 

The person swinging that pickaxe is tall, broad-shouldered, powerful. Hair pulled back from her flushed face. Mid-forties, give or take a year or two.

Her high-vis padded jacket hangs from the branch of a twisted Scots pine, like a flayed skin – one of the sleeves blackened with blood, more smears on the front. A second jacket, dark as coal, and a petrol-blue shirt are draped over another branch.

Steam rises from the shoulders of her burgundy T-shirt. You’d think she’d be wearing something a bit more … death-metal-like. You know: a skull and crossbones, or a snake with a dagger in its teeth, but her T-shirt features a cartoon black cat in a bow-tie and eye patch, posing with a gun like it’s from a James Bond movie.

The hole’s already waist-deep, a pile of dark earth slumping beside it. A wooden-handled shovel poking out of the heap, like a skeletal flag.

 

Dave swapped his police dreams for a wheelchair, and I swapped mine for a warrant card. Cos that’s what you do when your dad’s a cop, and his dad before him, and his dad before that.

 

A body lies off to one side, partly covered by a stained sheet, curled against the Scots pine’s hungry roots.

The body’s high-vis jacket is the twin of the one hanging from the branch, only there’s a lot more blood. Deep scarlet stains the jacket’s fluorescent-yellow back; it’s soaked into the grubby-grey suit underneath too. The jacket’s owner doesn’t look a day over twenty-four, but he does look very, very dead. His skin’s got that waxy, translucent, mortuary colour to it, where it isn’t smeared in dark red. More blood on his shirt, and on the cheeks of his sharp-featured face. Bags under his closed eyes. Short brown hair and a matching Vandyke ...

 

Strange the way things turn out, isn’t it?

 

The muscled woman in the cartoon-cat T-shirt stops swinging the pickaxe and stands there for a moment, head back, breath fogging above her as the snow falls. Face pink and shiny.

 

*

 

Sorry – where are my manners? The lady doing the digging is one Detective Inspector Victoria Elizabeth Montgomery-Porter, North East Division.

Some people call her ‘Bigtoria’, but never to her face.

 

She tosses the pickaxe out of the hole and grabs the shovel instead. Muscles bunch and writhe in her thick arms as she digs, the shovel’s blade biting into the loosened soil, before flinging it onto the pile.

 

She’s not the worst boss I’ve ever had. And yeah, given what’s happened, that’s pretty hard to believe. Sometimes events just get away from you and before you know it: there you are, in the middle of a remote, snowy glen, digging a shallow grave.

 

The shovel growls as Bigtoria stabs it into the ground, stones and dirt adding their mouldy-bread scent to the peppery ozone tang of falling snow.

 

I, on the other hand, am Detective Constable Edward Reekie. And I guess you could say I’m having a very bad day.

 

One last shovelful gets added to the pile before Bigtoria scrambles out of her pit, then stomps over to the body, scoops her hands in under its armpits and drags it back to the hole.

 

It’s weird. I know I should be angry about it – furious even – you know, being the dead body and everything? But mostly I’m just cold.

 

Bigtoria tumbles Edward into the pit. Stands there, staring down at him for a moment, head on one side. Shovel held like an executioner’s axe. Then she grunts. Grabs her high-vis from the branch.

 

You’d think she could manage a few words, wouldn’t you? Express a bit of sorrow and guilt. Maybe beg my forgiveness? A sodding apology wouldn’t hurt.

 


‘Should never have agreed to this.’ Like she’s the one lying at the bottom of a shallow grave.


 

But Bigtoria doesn’t say a thing. Instead, she pulls a mobile phone and a child’s walkie-talkie from her jacket pockets. The walkie-talkie’s shaped like a clown’s head, complete with jaunty red nose and big beaming smile, and it’s dwarfed in her huge hand.

 

Have to admit, this isn’t exactly the funeral I thought I’d end up with. I’d kinda hoped for more mourners, maybe a few tears, some inspiring speeches about what a great guy I was. Distraught wife, two-point-four inconsolable children, and a heartbroken golden retriever.

 

She chucks her emptied jacket into the shallow grave. It lands on Edward’s body, hiding his bloodied, dirty face. Followed by the bloodstained sheet he was wrapped in.

 

And it’s not like I wanted a massive mausoleum – a nice headstone would’ve done.

 

A shovelful of dirt and gravel patters down on the jacket. Then another one. And another.

 

After all, it’s not like any of this was my fault.

 

An electronic twiddling noise bursts into life somewhere nearby. It’s a cheap one-note-at-a-time

rendition of that olde-worlde circus theme tune: Yata, yadda yadda, yata yaaaaaa da.

There’s a pause, some swearing, then a bleep as Bigtoria presses the clown’s nose. She barks into it, hard and sharp as the pickaxe’s blade: ‘What?’

A distorted voice crackles out of the walkie-talkie. It’s an old man, sounding every bit as cold and sharp as Bigtoria, but where her accent is posh-girl Scottish, his is gravelly Glaswegian. Redolent with tenements, whisky, and putting the boot in. ‘Is it done?’

‘God’s sake. I’d get through this quicker’ – she’s getting louder with every word – ‘if you didn’t keep checking up on me’ – till she’s roaring it out – ‘EVERY BLOODY MINUTE!’

Silence falls with the snow, settling into the landscape. Now the only sounds are the babbling burn, the jagged cawing of a distant crow, and Bigtoria’s breathing. In and out like angry bellows. The man’s voice sounds again. ‘Just get it done.’

There’s a snarl. A sigh. And another shovelful of dirt clatters down on Edward’s body.

Bigtoria keeps filling in the shallow grave. ‘Should never have agreed to this.’

 

Like she’s the one lying at the bottom of a shallow grave.

 

On and on the earth rattles down, till there’s nothing left but muffled death.

 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Probably better if we start at the beginning ...

 


 

— the beginning—

(AKA: before it all went horribly wrong)

 

1

‘... so stay tuned for that.’ The cheery DJ’s voice crackled out of the pool car’s speakers, turned down till it was barely audible. ‘You’re listening to Carole’s Cavalcade, it’s ten forty-five on a lovely Tuesday morning, and we’ve got some excellent tunes coming up ...’

That weird creaking squeak was back – getting louder every time Edward tapped the brakes. Which wasn’t exactly reassuring.

The Vauxhall’s dashboard was as filthy as the rest of it: a grey fur of dust, streaked by the occasional finger. That was the trouble with pool cars: no one ever cleaned the bloody things, did they? Just added to the mess and left it for the next poor sod to deal with. Only the next poor sod never did. And on and on and on it went.

A parade of never-ending grubbiness and passing the buck.

That was a metaphor for your modern Police Scotland right there.

Bigtoria filled the passenger seat like a grumpy bear, squinting out through the windscreen, phone clamped to her ear. ‘Yes, uh-huh ... No ... Not a chance.’

Which was nearly as many words as she’d said to him on the journey from Aberdeen. Because why speak to the lowly Detective Constable when you were a lofty DI?

‘So, let’s get this party back on track with Stereoface and their brand-new single, “Dancemonkey!” Cheerful music burbled out of the car’s stereo. Not bad. Not great. But not bad.

Gave him something to hum along to, anyway. Tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as a bland slice of the north-east slid by. With only the chimney sticking out the top of Peterhead Power Station to break the monotony – trailing a line of bright white steam across the sapphire sky.

A sneaky peek to the left.

Bigtoria was still at it. Squinting and scowling. Radiating brooding menace. Because detective inspectors loved that kind of thing, didn’t they: like they’d seen one too many crime dramas on TV and decided that was the look for them. ‘I don’t care what he says, the man’s an idiot . . . Yes . . . As mince, that’s how thick he is.’

 


“I was meant to be having a cushy Tuesday: checking CCTV and drinking tea. Not my fault DC Guthrie got bladdered and fell down the stairs like he was some sort of half-arsed stuntman.”


 

Hadn’t even cracked a smile when Edward pointed out they were twinnies today: both in machine-washable grey suits with matching white shirts. Yup, no doubt about it: going to be a long day.

‘. . . Uh-huh . . . Hold on, I’ll check.’ She transferred her glower from the landscape to Edward. ‘We were supposed to be there an hour ago.’

He shrugged. ‘All due respect, Guv, I wasn’t the one who jackknifed an artic lorry full of tatties all over the A90.’

‘Still got a five-hour drive ahead of us, and if I’m late for rehearsal tonight, it’s you I’m blaming. Now’ – spelling it out, like he was thick as mince too – ‘when – will – we – get – there?’

Edward checked his phone, sitting in its little plastic mount fixed to the air vent, with the satnav app running. ‘Five minutes? Give or take. Going as fast as I can.’

She harrumphed at him. Then back to her phone: ‘You hear that? . . . Yes . . . OK. I’ll let you know if we get anything.’

The outskirts of Peterhead loomed in the middle distance – all warehouses and business parks, with a smattering of beige and brown housing estates in the background.

Edward took a right at the roundabout – a circular hump of weeds, wedged in between a garage, a McDonald’s, and the loneliest-looking KFC in the world – then a sharp left, following the signs to Her Majesty’s Prison and Young Offender Institution, Grampian ‘ <- Visitors’. Into a quiet rural street fringed with trees and acned with potholes.

Bigtoria hung up and turned the brooding scowl up a notch. ‘They want us to grill him about the Abercrombie shooting as well.’

‘Never heard of it. Who’ s—’

‘So far that’s the Mintlaw Post Office raid’ – counting them off on her fingers – ‘the Fraserburgh bank job, the Huntly arson attacks, the Gerald Freebairn murder, the disappearance of Emily Lawrie, and now Wayne sodding Abercrombie.’

The trees gave way to a bland housing estate – all service-station-coffee bungalows with brown pantile roofs.

‘Yeah.’ He slowed past the forbidding pink-granite mass of Burnhaven School. ‘No idea who any of those are.’

‘Hmph . . . Before your time.’ A frown creased her forehead. ‘Before my time, to be honest. But unlike some people, I did my homework.’

Oh come on!

He tried for a smile. ‘Lowly DC, remember? We’re “not paid to think” till we make sergeant. And even then the jury’s out.’

Nothing. Not so much as a smirk. She just sat there, face like a skelped arse as four rows of quaint old-fashioned houses appeared, with glimpses of the North Sea shining between their grey granite ranks.

‘OK . . .’ Try again. ‘And how am I supposed to do homework when no one told me I’d be sidekicking you till ninety minutes ago?’ He took a hard right at the ‘HMP & YOI Grampian’ signs, down the hill, towards the half-empty car park. The North Sea lurked past the last row of parking spots, glittering in the sunshine and dotted with the jolly coloured blobs of offshore supply vessels.

Most of the original Victorian and no-longer-used-as-a-prison prison was hidden away behind a high granite wall on the left of the road, but there was no hiding the newer bulky lumps that made up HMP Grampian. Its boundary wall was probably even taller than the old prison’s but the buildings were much, much bigger. More like a collection of airport Travelodge hotels than a correctional facility.

Edward followed the arrows on the tarmac towards the ugly Co-op-on-an-industrial-estate-style Family Centre and Help Hub. ‘I was meant to be having a cushy Tuesday: checking CCTV and drinking tea. Not my fault DC Guthrie got bladdered and fell down the stairs like he was some sort of half-arsed stuntman.’ Adding a wee humorous image at the end there, to dial back the petulant whine a bit.

She sniffed. ‘As if.’

Well, it wasn’t a smile, but it was a start.

‘Totally: who’d hire Guthrie to be a stuntman? Guy’s got the coordination of a—’

‘I meant it’s “as if”, not “like”.’ Glowering across the car at him. ‘“Fell down the stairs as if he were some sort of stuntman.” Didn’t they teach grammar at your school?’

Why? Why did he bother?

Detective inspectors were all the sodding same.

He pulled in round the back, parking sideways across the long bay marked ‘MOTORBIKES’, and climbed out into the crisp sunshine. Ears nipping in the wind, the razor-sharp chill turning his breath into a thin pale fog.

No sign of his resident grammatical pedant, DI Victoria ‘As If’ Montgomery-Porter. So he opened his door again and peered in at her. ‘Guv?’

She looked back at him, face like concrete. ‘You’re the one who made us late, you’re the one who goes to check.’

He straightened up and clunked the door shut.

Then rolled his eyes and bared his teeth.

Flicked the Vs at the car roof, turned on his heel, and stomped off towards the main entrance. Which, let’s be honest, had all the architectural charm of a shopping centre crossed with an airport departures lounge. But it was a thousand percent nicer than Detective Inspector Victoria Montgomery-Porter.

 

Extracted from The Dead of Winter by Stuart MacBride, out now.

 

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