The Coffinmaker's Garden

by Stuart MacBride

  I grabbed the handle above the passenger door as the wee Suzuki jeep thumped through yet another pothole. ‘Are you aiming for these things?’

  Alice hunched closer to the steering wheel, squinting out through the greasy arc of semi-clear glass. ‘Should be somewhere around here …’ She’d bundled herself up in a black padded jacket, a pair of rainbow-coloured fingerless gloves poking out of the too-long sleeves. Curly brown hair pulled back in a bun that jiggled and bounced in time with the jeep’s potholing adventures.

  Thump. Lurch. Bump.

  ‘Only, it’s OK if you don’t hit every single one of them.’

  ‘Is that it down there?’ She freed a hand for long enough to point at yet another post-war semi in unappealing shades of beige and brown. The only thing that distinguished it from its neighbours was every single light in the place seemed to be on, and it had an a snot-green rattletrap Fiat Panda parked outside.

  ‘Still say this is a waste of time.’

  ‘But we—’

  ‘Supposed to be catching a child-killer, not sodding about with some half-baked Misfit Mob is-it-or-isn’t-it case.’ I stretched my right leg out, rotating the ankle, setting it clicking. Always the same when the weather turned – scar tissue throbbed right the way through my foot, like some sadist was jabbing a soldering iron into the bones. ‘What’s the point of having uniform officers if you don’t give them all the pointless jobs?’

  Alice parked behind the Panda. Killed the engine. Sat there as the storm rocked our jeep on its springs. ‘It’s only temporary.’ A shrug. ‘Besides, it was this or attend the post mortem, and I really don’t want to watch another wee boy getting eviscerated.’

  Fair point.

  ‘Ash?’ She cast a sideways glance across the car at me. ‘Have you thought about what you want to do tomorrow? You know, as it’s—’

  ‘Can we not talk about this right now?’

  ‘It’s perfectly natural to feel—’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Which was a lie. ‘And we’ve got a job to do.’ I clicked off my seatbelt and turned, reaching into the back of the car. Ruffled the fur between Henry’s ears. ‘You look after the jeep, OK?’ He gazed up at me with his gob hanging open, wee pink tongue lolling out, nose all shiny and black like a fruit pastille. ‘Bite anyone who tries to steal it.’

  Alice groaned. ‘Stop changing the subject. Tomorrow’s a—’

  ‘Don’t interrupt: I’m arming the Scottie Dog Vehicle Defence System.’ Henry’s head got another pat, his grin widened. ‘Who’s a vicious little monster? You are. Yes, you are.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘For a forensic psychologist, you’re really bad at picking up on the subtle signals people give out, aren’t you?’

  A bright smile. ‘Oh, I pick them up fine, I’m just choosing to ignore them. For your own good.’

  ‘Lucky me.’ I grabbed my walking stick from the footwell. ‘Come on: we’ll do our civic duty then go grab a pizza or something.’ The wind tried to rip the door from my hand as I opened it – stinging needles of rain jabbing into my face.

  Alice clambered out the other side, head buried in the periscope hood of her coat. ‘Can we have a sitty-inny instead of takeaway for a change?’

  ‘Got a child-killer to catch, remember?’ Hurpling up the puddled driveway to the front door, where a small wooden overhang offered almost no shelter from the rain. The guttering was broken on one side, letting loose a waterfall to splash down the grubby harling.

  Her voice took on a distinct whiny tone. ‘I’m tired of everything we eat coming out of greasy cardboard boxes. Or plastic tubs.’

  ‘Stop moaning and ring the bell.’

  She did, leaning on the button till a harsh drrrrrrrrrrrrrrinnnnnnnnnnnnnnng sounded on the other side of the wasp-eaten door. ‘Forgotten what plates and cutlery look like.’

  ‘I think we should take another look at Steven Kirk. Haul him in and rattle his dentures till something falls out.’

  ‘And it’s not exactly healthy, is it? When did we last have a salad?’

  ‘I’m not buying his whole, “I was caring for my dying mother at the time” shtick. Once a nonce, always a nonce.’

  ‘Or broccoli!’ Alice made a thin keening squeaky sound from deep within her hood. ‘I miss broccoli.’

  ‘Not as if he couldn’t …’

  The door swung open and a greasy-looking bloke with floppy brown hair, a cheap suit, and ginger-pube beard scowled out at me. ‘Took your time.’ One of his eyes didn’t quite point in the same direction as the other, as if he’d put it in squint.

  ‘DC Watt. Nice to see your winning personality hasn’t deserted you.’

  A grunt, then he turned on his heel and marched down the hallway. The move showed off a palm-sized bald patch at the back of his head, complete with thick U-shaped scar, the skin dented inward around it, as if a section of his skull was recessed. ‘Mother’s in the kitchen.’

  Alice followed me inside and unzipped her padded jacket, revealing yet another exhibit from her black-and-white-stripy-top collection, teeny red Converse trainers squeaking against the damp linoleum as we made our way into a steamed-up room at the back of the house, redolent with the welcoming scent of mince and tatties.

  A heavily pregnant woman sat at the table, with a small boy on her knee, holding him close as he made a pig’s arse of colouring a triceratops in horrible shades of puce and turquoise.

  Mother’s wide back was turned towards us, frizzy Irn-Bru hair spilling across the shoulders of her black police-issue fleece. She’d pulled the sleeves up, exposing two large pale forearms clarted with tattoos of roses and thistles. ‘And you’re sure they weren’t animal bones, or something like that?’

  The pregnant woman rolled her eyes. ‘I should be graduating with a degree in forensic anthropology tomorrow, but I drank too much prosecco at my birthday party and here we are.’ Pointing at her swollen belly. ‘I know human anatomy, and those bones were definitely human.’

  DC Watt cleared his throat. ‘Sorry, Guv, but that’s the LIRU lot here.’ Pronouncing ‘LIRU’ as if it were a venereal disease.

  Mother turned and raised an eyebrow at us. ‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t Ash Henderson. Returned to the land of the living?’

  I nodded back. ‘Detective Inspector. You know Dr McDonald?’

  Alice scampered forward like an excitable spaniel, hand out for the shaking. ‘Actually, we haven’t met, DI Malcolmson, but please call me “Alice” – I’ve heard a lot about you, it’s a pleasure, and don’t worry, we’re not here to take over your case, we’ve only come because you said you needed our help, well, probably not our help, but Ash’s help anyway and I came along because he can’t really drive, what with his foot and everything.’ All delivered in one long machinegun breath. ‘And I was wondering about your nickname, why do people call you “Mother”, is that because you’re a nurturing influence, which I know is a repressive societal stereotype imposed on the female psyche by the repressive forces of a dictatorial patriarchy, “oh women are so nurturing and soft, they can’t possibly compete with men,” but sometimes that really is the case, isn’t it, well the nurturing bit, not the competition thing, and is that a pot of tea, I’d love a cuppa if there’s one going spare?’

  Mother’s eyebrow went up even further. ‘Is she always like this?’

  ‘More than you could possibly believe.’ I stuck my hands in my pockets. ‘Now, can we get this over with? Alice and I have a child-murdering …’ my eyes flitted to the small boy, staring up at me from his badly coloured dinosaur, ‘naughty man to catch.’

  ‘I dare say you do.’ Mother waved at Watt. ‘John, be a dear and stay with Miss Compton. Mr Henderson and I need to go check something.’ And with that, she was squeezing her way past me and out into the hall. Hauling on a large wax Barbour jacket. Pausing at the front door. ‘You don’t mind making a wee detour before we get down to it, do you?’ She didn’t bother giving me time to answer that. ‘No? Good. Come on then.’
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br />   She flipped her hood up and stepped out into the howling gale. Round shoulders hunched against the wind as she picked her way down the path, between the puddles.

  Alice pouted at me. ‘Do you think I made a bad first impression there, because I think I made a bad first impression and I really didn’t want—’

  ‘No point us both getting soaked. You stay here with DC Watt and the witness. Maybe, if you’re lucky, she’ll give you some mince and tatties. On proper plates. With cutlery.’

  ‘Be careful, OK?’

  ‘Promise.’ The horrible weather wrapped itself around me like a fist as I limped after Mother. Down the path and out onto the pockmarked tarmac. Struggling to keep up. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Well, we can hardly take a civilian’s word for it, can we? Even one who almost has a degree in forensic anthropology.’ She pulled out a torch, sending its beam sweeping across the gardens to either side as we made our way towards the end of the road. Raising her voice over the howling wind. ‘We used to come here when I was a wee girl. Every Easter, Mum and Dad would take a cottage down by the beach and we’d play in the dunes and build sandcastles and chase other people’s dogs.’ She stepped over a small picket fence and scuffed her way through wind-whipped clumps of yellowing grass. ‘I remember Clachmara was really pretty, till the old part fell in the sea. Still, that’s climate change for you, isn’t it?’

  She came to a halt at a line of chain-link fencing panels. Pursed her lips as she frowned at the gap between two of the segments – pulled tight against a padlocked chain – then down at herself, then back at the gap again. ‘Somehow, I don’t think this is going to work.’

  ‘A pregnant woman managed to squeeze through, remember?’

  ‘Not this bit, she didn’t. And besides, you’re in a rush to get back to catching your child-murdering naughty man, remember?’

  For God’s sake …

  ‘Fine: give me the torch.’

  I forced my way through to the other side, following the circle of white as it writhed through the long grass, leaving her in darkness.

  ‘Take photographs, we need evidence!’

  Rain soaked through my trouser legs, making the cold wet fabric stick to my skin. Seeped through the shoulders of my jacket. Ran down my face and the back of my neck. ‘“Oh, it’ll be a quick job,” he said, “a simple hand-holding exercise,” he said, “in and out in a jiffy,” he said.’

  And on I went, following the torchlight. Limping and stumbling through the tussocky remains of someone’s garden, grass dragging at my walking stick with pale wet tentacles. The house itself was reduced to a single gable end, the rest of it had been ripped away, leaving a jagged line of cliff face with the North Sea roaring beyond.

  Jesus, this was bleak.

  A gust of wind shoved me back a couple of paces. Punched another fistful of rain into my face.

  Sod this for a game of police officers.

  The torch’s beam slithered along the boundary between here and oblivion. Off to the left, the near-vertical cliff had given way: a thick spill of rock and earth that ran down into the battering black waves. That would be where the fishing boat had disappeared.

  Poor sods.

  Waves crashed against the ramp of fallen headland, tearing it away with foaming teeth.

  Its upper slopes reached down from the garden opposite. The house sat about a dozen feet back from the edge: a detached bungalow in sagging greys and manky browns. They’d tacked a wooden garage on the side closest to the sea, its up-and-over door hanging squint.

  I slid the light across the exposed slab of earth. Faint glimmers of white shone back at me. Yup, those definitely looked like bones.

  First couple of snaps on my phone came out as nothing but wobbly blurs, its flash nowhere near strong enough to illuminate anything, even with the torch’s help. The video setting was slightly better, zoomed in full, footage jerking about as wind tore at my back.

  Looked as if our heavily pregnant friend was right – what loomed out of the black soil was definitely human. A pair of empty eye sockets stared at me from a skull, tilted to one side, the jaw missing. Then another thumping from the North Sea sent a chunk of dark earth peeling off, taking the skull with it, tumbling and bouncing down into the crashing waves.

  A small rumble sounded beneath me, and the garden I was standing in lost another foot of mud and grass.

  Yeah, maybe not the best of ideas to hang about here any longer.

  Hurry back to the fence line and through to the relative safety of the storm-battered road.

  Mother peered out at me from her hood. ‘Well?’

  ‘One hundred percent human.’

  Her shoulders dipped. ‘Sod. Why couldn’t it have been a tasteless hoax? Or a stupid misunderstanding? Maybe a buried pet, or something?’

  ‘Never mind, leave it a couple of hours and it’ll all have fallen into the sea anyway.’

  ‘I knew this one was a poisoned chalice soon as I saw it. But I couldn’t go home early when everyone else did, could I? Couldn’t leave it for the nightshift to deal with. No, I had to be all stoic and dedicated.’ She sagged. Huffed out a long sad breath. ‘Take it from me, Mr Henderson, never ever answer the office phone two minutes before your shift ends. It’s always a disaster.’ Deep breath. Then a nod. ‘Suppose we’d better get Scene Examination Branch down here. Pathologist, Procurator Fiscal, search teams …’

  Wind howled through the chain-link, sending us lurching sideways until we leaned into it.

  ‘Good luck with that.’ I gave her the torch back. ‘Now, any chance we can get on with the reason I’m actually here, while there’s still some of me that’s not drenched?’

  ‘Sure you don’t want to hang around and help?’ Pointing the beam at the crappy green Fiat Panda parked outside the pregnant not-quite-qualified forensic anthropologist’s house. ‘I’ve got biscuits in the car.’

  ‘Still got a child-killer to catch.’ No one ever listened, did they?

  ‘Can’t blame a girl for trying.’ Mother swung the torch around, shining it across the street at the last house on this side of the fence, the one next door to where the body was buried. A semi-detached with sagging guttering and a lichen-acned roof. An old blue Renault rusting away by the kerb and a filthy caravan in the driveway. A light in the living room window. ‘Shall we?’

  ‘Still don’t see why you couldn’t have done this without me.’

  ‘Because Helen MacNeil won’t talk to me. And she won’t talk to John. And when I sent a uniform round to try, she came this close,’ holding up two fingers, millimetres apart, ‘to making him cry. Control says you and Helen have history, so maybe she’ll talk to you. What with your overabundance of charm and everything.’

  Sarcastic sod.

  Besides, the kind of history Helen MacNeil and I had wasn’t exactly the good kind.

  I followed Mother over to the house. The caravan acted as a windbreak, groaning on its springs as the storm pushed and shoved into the other side.

  She leaned on the bell for a second or five, then squatted down and levered the letterbox open. ‘Helen? Helen, it’s Flora, can you come to the door please?’

  No reply.

  She tried again. ‘Helen? Hello, can you hear me?’

  ‘Can we stop pussyfooting about?’ I whacked the head of my walking stick against the door, three times, nice and hard. Hauled in a deep breath. ‘HELEN MACNEIL, POLICE! OPEN UP OR I’M KICKING THIS BLOODY DOOR IN!’

  A tut from Mother. ‘The epitome of diplomacy, as ever.’

  Three more whacks. ‘I’M NOT KIDDING, HELEN, OPEN THIS DOOR OR IT’S—’

  The door swung open and a middle-aged woman scowled out at us. ‘All right, all right.’ The years hadn’t been kind to Helen MacNeil, each one of them carved into her heart-shaped face in deep spidery wrinkles. She hadn’t lost any of her bulk, though: broad of shoulder and thick of bicep, wearing a black muscle shirt with a pentagram and goat’s head on it. Short cropped grey hair. A lon
g sharp nose that had been broken two or three times since we’d last met.

  Helen clearly didn’t like me staring. ‘What the hell are you looking at?’

  Mother shuffled closer, trying on her big dimply smile. ‘I know you weren’t keen on talking to us before, Helen, but it’s really important we—’

  ‘Wasn’t asking you. Him.’ Pointing. ‘The lump with the limp.’ Her chin came up. ‘Think I don’t know who you are?’

  I nodded. ‘Helen, you’re looking well.’

  Her eyes narrowed, the wrinkles around them deepening. ‘Eleven years in HMP Bastarding Oldcastle – I missed my granddaughter’s birth because of you!’

  ‘No, Helen, you missed your granddaughter’s birth because you battered Neil Stringer’s head in with a pickaxe handle. And you’d have been out after eight years, if you hadn’t chibbed Ruth Anderson in the prison library too.’

  ‘Hmmph … Bitch was asking for it.’

  ‘Sure she was.’ I jerked my head towards next door, on the other side of the chain-link fencing. ‘You heard about the body?’

  ‘Alleged body.’ Helen folded her thick arms, muscles bulging through the freckled skin. ‘Fat Girl here said it was—’

  ‘Who are you calling fat?’ Mother pulled herself up to her full height, shoulders back, considerable chest out. ‘I’ll have you know—’

  ‘—don’t see what it’s got to do with me, and—’

  ‘—because big bones are nothing to be ashamed of! It’s—’

  I thumped my cane on the door again. ‘ALL RIGHT, THAT’S ENOUGH! Both of you.’

  Mother shuffled her feet. Turned her reddened face away. ‘Not fat.’

  Helen shrugged. Looked at the ground. Cleared her throat. Didn’t say anything.

  Better.

  ‘There’s nothing “alleged” about the body, it’s real.’

  ‘Still don’t see what it’s got to do with me.’

  ‘With your reputation? A dead body miraculously turns up next door: you really think we’re not going to connect the dots?’