If you’re suffering from the summer swelter, you might like me be slightly guiltily looking forward to the winter. Well, I have good news. Absolute Zero, a new anthology of cold-themed horror fiction is just around the corner, and I have grim little story in there called The Cold Case.
The Cold Case is set in Glasgow in 1960 during a period when Scotland was moving away from post-war gloom and starting to embrace modernity. Trolley buses had replaced trams and would all too soon be replaced themselves by the iconic Corporation buses. But not everything changes. The plot of the story explores the dehumanisation of the police officers who had worked on a shocking murder case several years before. A young woman’s body had been found frozen to the ice of the canal at Maryhill Locks. Her injuries as incomprehensible as had been brutal. How could anyone do something like that to a young lassie? There are some questions, it seems, that will continue to be asked forever.
Glasgow is a city with a fascinating history, not all of it pleasant – the 1960s especially were infamously dark times – but what originally sparked the idea for the story was a Boxing Day walk a few years ago that my partner and I took with our friend Elaine. It was actually a lovely walk on a frosty day, up through the Botanic Gardens and then following the canal up and around and back down through Maryhill. But I remember the canal ice was frozen solid and the resident swans hung back like sullen ghosts, and it just struck me how creepy that would be for a murder scene.
It certainly stayed with me. I hope it will for you too.
Absolute Zero is out now from all good stores or order direct from Dead Sky Publishing.
ayeahmur 