The Coffinmaker's Garden

by Stuart MacBride

  The chin came up again. ‘No comment.’

  ‘Just like old times.’ I took a step back and made a show of examining the roof, then the walls on either side. ‘Place looks ready to fall down round your ears. Crime really didn’t pay for you, did it? What, they didn’t have a retirement package waiting when you got out of prison? A nice golden handshake to say thank you for keeping your mouth shut?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Dropped you like a radioactive jobbie, didn’t they? And I thought loyalty was supposed to go both ways?’

  Her eyes hardened. ‘No comment.’

  ‘There you are, sent down for killing Neil Stringer, on their orders, and I bet they didn’t even bother picking you up from prison when you finally got released. Bet they stopped taking your calls. Bet they ghosted you. Like you were nothing to them.’

  ‘No – comment!’ Both words squeezed out through gritted teeth.

  ‘Stuck out here, waiting for your craphole house to fall into the sea. An irrelevant, useless old lady.’

  Helen stiffened, as if she was about to take a swing … then licked her lips. Blinked. Let her shoulders drop. ‘I know what you’re doing.’

  Mother huffed out a breath. ‘I’m glad someone does.’

  ‘You think if I kick off, you can do me for assaulting a police officer. Drag me down the nick and fit me up for whoever got buried over there.’ Pointing in the vague direction of next door’s garden. ‘Well I’m not stupid and you can bugger right off. Go on, and take your fat bitch with you.’

  Mother’s eyes bulged. ‘There’s no need to be so rude!’ Fists curled, trembling.

  A voice peeped up at my shoulder: ‘Hello?’ And there was Alice, slipping into the gap between Mother and Helen MacNeil, the hood on her jacket thrown back, nose a Rudolf-shade of pink. She had Henry’s lead in one hand, the other held out for Helen to shake. ‘I’m Dr McDonald, but you can call me Alice if you like, because it’s easier when everyone’s not standing on ceremony, isn’t it, and I like your T-shirt – is that Crowley’s Ghost, I used to listen to them all the time, there’s a lovely urgency to proper death metal, isn’t there – anyway I was taking Henry for a walk and I heard raised voices and thought maybe I could help?’

  Helen MacNeil stared at her.

  Alice handed Henry’s leash to me. ‘Excellent, right, now: Ash, DI Malcolmson, could you give me and … Helen, isn’t it? Yes, so if you can give us a moment – if that’s OK with you, Helen – and we can have a chat, you and me, two girls together, and see if we can’t find a way to be all friendly about things and really work as a team, right?’ She turned a full-strength smile on all of us. ‘Great, let’s do it!’ Clapping her hands as she advanced on the door.

  Helen’s face went a bit pale as she backed away, looking as if an articulated lorry was bearing down on her, but Alice followed her in anyway.

  Thunk, the door closed behind them, leaving Mother, Henry, and me outside in the rain.

  A shuffle of feet, then Mother cleared her throat. ‘Are you sure your wee friend’s safe in there? Like you said, Helen MacNeil’s reputation isn’t exactly—’

  ‘You mean the organised crime, loan-sharking, enforcement beatings, general mob violence, and involvement in at least three murders, two of which we couldn’t pin on her?’

  ‘That kind of thing, yes.’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s not Alice I’m worried about. Helen MacNeil doesn’t stand a chance.’

  3

  ‘Well, this is nice, isn’t it?’ Alice patted the arm of the saggy couch she was sitting in, smiling around at a living room that had all the warmth and charm of a decomposing corpse.

  In addition to the two horrible couches; horrible armchair; horrible painting of a wee girl holding a balloon, above the horrible china dogs on the mantelpiece; horrible Anaglypta wallpaper; and horrible brown carpet; a large multigym took up a good third of the space. But unlike any normal person, the stainless-steel bars and weights weren’t draped with washing and furred with dust. The thing shone, the scent of metal and WD40 almost strong enough to mask an underlying grubby taint of mildew.

  God knew how she’d done it, but Alice hadn’t just managed to get us all invited inside, she’d even talked Helen MacNeil into producing four mugs of tea. And a couple of biscuits for Henry, too.

  The wee lad sat at my feet, crunching away on his Hobnobs, tail thumping against the armchair’s side, as Helen wriggled backwards along a black leather bench until her head and shoulders were under the metal rod of a loaded barbell. Hissing as she lifted it off its metal pegs and bench-pressed what had to be about sixty kilos.

  ‘So, Helen,’ Mother had a sip of tea, grimaced, then put the mug back on the coffee table, ‘if you had nothing to do with the body buried next door, who did?’

  ‘See, the trouble with most people is they bulk up in prison for protection.’ The weights went up and down again. ‘No one messes with you when you’re solid muscle.’ Another rep. ‘Then they get out and it all turns to flab.’

  ‘Tell us about your next-door neighbour …’ She checked her notebook. ‘Mr Gordon Smith?’

  Another rep. ‘No comment.’

  Alice leaned forward. ‘Please, Helen, I know it can’t be easy, helping the police after everything that’s happened, but if—’

  ‘You useless buggers didn’t help me when our Leah went missing, so why should I?’ The barbell made another trip. ‘My granddaughter disappears and you tossers didn’t even bother your arses sending someone round.’

  I looked at Mother; she just shrugged.

  OK.

  Good to see Oldcastle Division was every bit as useless as it’d always been. You’d think any competent police officer would have run a PNC search on someone before trying to interview them.

  ‘How long ago was this?’

  Helen clunked the barbell back on its support pegs. ‘Don’t pretend you care. None of you police bastards ever do.’

  ‘We’re not police. Well, DI Malcolmson is. Alice and I work for the Lateral Investigative and Review Unit: think the A-Team meets New Tricks, only with civilian experts bailing the local cops out when they cock stuff up. Like this.’

  That got me a slightly outraged stare from Mother.

  Tough. Truth hurts.

  ‘So when did Leah go missing?’

  ‘Friday, ninth of October. Walked out of here to go shopping, never came back.’

  What was that … five weeks ago? So too recent to be our skeletonised remains. Well, unless he boiled her down, of course.

  ‘How old was she?’

  Helen wriggled out from under the bar and sat up, wiping the sweat from her face with a holey tea towel. ‘Eighteen. Which means your lot did bugger all.’

  ‘Eighteen’s old enough to make her own decisions.’

  ‘Leah wouldn’t run away! She wouldn’t do that to me. Not after her mother …’ A deep breath. Silence settled into the room as Helen wiped the tea towel across her eyes again. ‘She wouldn’t.’

  That was the thing about missing people, though – no one they left behind ever believed their loved one was unhappy enough to disappear without a word.

  ‘OK.’ Trying to sound like I actually cared. ‘You give me her details and I’ll see what I can do.’

  Alice sat forward. ‘You should get a tracker app on Leah’s phone. For peace of mind. I’ve got one on Ash’s, haven’t I, Ash?’

  ‘Can we not do this, right now?’ I turned back to Helen. ‘I promise I’ll chase up whoever’s looking for your granddaughter, OK?’

  A nod. Another breath. ‘Gordon Smith was the best neighbour you could ever have. Him and his wife, Caroline, were like grandparents to my Sophie. Then when she … After that, they looked after Leah for me, while I was inside.’ Helen picked at the holes in her tea towel. ‘Broke her heart when Caroline died. Bowel cancer, four years ago. Took eighteen months.’

  ‘And where is he now?’

  ‘Gordon? End of September, the council co
me round and condemn his house. Poor old sod’s been living there for fifty-six years and some spotty Herbert with a clipboard tells him he’s got three weeks to get out. Oh, and not only does he get bugger-all compensation, he’s got to pay for their contractors to tear down his home and ship it off to landfill somewhere? How’s that fair?’

  ‘Yes, but where is he?’

  She draped the tea towel over the pull-up bar. ‘Gordon wouldn’t hurt a fly. Everybody loved him and Caroline. And how do you know your dead body wasn’t there when they moved in? Got nothing to do with him.’

  ‘Indulge me, Helen: where’s your sainted next-door neighbour?’

  A pause as she frowned at me.

  ‘And before you try “no comment” again, I’m tired, I’m soaked through, and I’m in no mood to fanny about. Where – is – he?’

  ‘His brother’s got a croft on the Black Isle. Gordon said something about staying there till he figured out what to do.’

  ‘There we go, that wasn’t difficult, was it?’ I stood. Nodded at Mother. ‘And that concludes our hand-holding duties. You can take it from here.’

  ‘Actually,’ Alice put her hand up, ‘if he had to pay the council to tear his house down, why is it still …?’ Pointing at the wall nearest next door.

  ‘He told them to stuff their landfill charge. Sixteen grand? They try getting sixteen grand out of me, I’ll break every bone in their bodies.’

  Another grimace, then Mother levered herself to her feet. ‘Helen, if Gordon Smith was like a grandad to your girls, any chance you’ve still got the keys to his house?’ Frown. ‘And you wouldn’t happen to have a pair of bolt cutters, would you?’

  ‘Are we certain this is a good idea?’ Alice turned on the spot, breath making a trail of white that glowed in the light of her phone’s torch app. ‘I mean a hundred percent, definitely, shaky-boots, cast-iron certain, because it feels like a really risky thing to be inside a condemned house on the edge of a crumbling cliff during a massive storm …’

  Mother’s real torch drifted across the pile of furniture heaped up in the living room. Didn’t look as if Gordon Smith had bothered taking any of his stuff with him. When he left, he heaved it all in here and left it in a big mound of sofas, sideboards, a double bed, a Welsh dresser, dining table and chairs, medicine cabinet, spare bed, wardrobes, what looked like a wicker laundry basket. All piled up, higgledy-piggledy, as if he’d been planning an indoor bonfire but forgotten to set fire to it.

  Rain crackled against the window, no sign of anything through the dirty glass but blackness. As dark outside as it was in.

  ‘What if the house falls down while we’re here?’ Alice huddled closer as wind screeched across the roof. ‘Or the whole thing ends up in the sea?’

  ‘You’re right. Here,’ I held out Henry’s lead, ‘take the wee lad and go wait in the car.’

  That got me a pout. ‘Bit sexist. Just because I’m a woman, I have to go wait in the car?’

  ‘It’s not because you’re a woman, it’s because you’re a whinge. And DI Malcolmson’s a woman, aren’t you, DI Malcolmson?’

  ‘Last time I checked …’ She opened one of the wardrobes – a heavy mahogany job that lay at forty-five degrees, propped up on the back of a dusty floral sofa – and peered inside. ‘Women’s clothes. The dead wife’s?’

  ‘And I’m serious: go wait in the car.’

  Alice shook her head. ‘If it’s safe enough for you, it’s safe enough for me.’ Then raised her fist. ‘Smash the patriarchy.’ And followed Mother out into the hall again.

  Why did every single woman in my life have to be a card-carrying nutjob?

  Ah well, can’t say I didn’t try.

  My walking stick made hollow thunking noises as we did a quick sweep of the house.

  Bathroom: empty, a darker square of wallpaper where that medicine cabinet had sat above the avocado-coloured toilet. Master bedroom: nothing left but the carpet. Spare bedroom: same again. Dining room: more nothing. Kitchen: empty, all the doors hanging open on the units, exposing bare shelves. A small utility room led off it: either the washing machine and chest freezer were too heavy to shift, or Gordon Smith didn’t think they’d be flammable enough for his bonfire that never got lit.

  I levered the lid up on the freezer: better safe than sorry …

  Nothing but a thin layer of rancid greasy water. No dead bodies in sight.

  Mother pointed her torch down the far end of the dog-legged corridor. ‘You want to try that one?’

  Alice crept over, turned the handle – the howling wind got a lot louder. She stuck her head and her phone arm in through the gap for a moment, then shoved the door shut again. ‘Garage. Nothing in there, either.’

  ‘Hmph.’

  So, that was all the doors taken care of, but there had to be an attic, right?

  My phone’s torch wasn’t half as good as Alice’s but I played it around the hall ceiling anyway. ‘There we go.’ A hatch, set into the plasterboard, about six foot in from the front door. ‘Alice, can you grab a chair from the living room?’

  ‘Urgh … You know the only thing that’ll be up there is spiders, don’t you? Spiders and dust and fibreglass insulation, all itchy and sneezy and creepy-crawly, so bags I don’t have to be the one who goes up there.’

  ‘What, you expect the man with a walking stick and buggered foot to do it?’

  Mother shrugged. ‘Don’t look at me: they never make these hatches big enough for normal-sized people.’

  Alice slumped. Groaned. Then scuffed her way into the lounge and sulked back out again dragging one of the wooden dining-room chairs behind her. Thumped it down beneath the hatch. ‘It’s because I’m a girl, isn’t it?’

  ‘Up you go, Monkey Girl.’

  ‘Should’ve gone and waited in the car.’ She clambered up onto the seat, wobbled a bit, then shoved at the hatch, forcing it up on squealing hinges. ‘If I get spiders in my hair, I’m suing Police Scotland for mental cruelty, PTSD, and punitive damages.’

  ‘Stop milking it.’

  Another slump, then Alice grabbed the edges of the hatch and pulled herself up into the attic. Sat there, black jeans and red shoes dangling in the mildewed air over our heads.

  ‘Anything?’

  Her muffled voice filtered down from above. ‘Filthy up here. And cold! And … Aaaahhh … Aaaaaahhh …’ A high-pitched squeaky sneeze. ‘Dusty! Horribly dusty.’

  ‘What about boxes, or suitcases, anything like that?’

  ‘No, it’s all dust and fibreglass insulation and SPIDERS! OH GOD, THEY’RE SODDING HUGE!’ Her legs kicked and squirmed, then she dropped from the hatch, arms at full stretch, hands clinging to the edges, feet swinging as the chair clattered over onto its back. ‘AAAARGH!’ Alice let go and crashed to the hall carpet in a tangle of limbs and chair legs. Then lay there, making spitting noises as she wiped at her face.

  ‘Well, that was dignified.’

  ‘I hate you both.’

  Mother’s face soured. ‘That’s that, then. No further forward than we were half an hour ago.’

  Alice accepted my hand, scrambling to her feet and scowling. ‘Honestly, they were this big!’ Holding her hands about a foot apart. ‘Now can we get out of this spider-infested horror show before the house falls down?’

  Might as well.

  ‘Come on then.’ I chucked the chair back into the living room where it bounced off the pile, setting loose a little mahogany avalanche of furniture. That medicine cabinet crashed into the floor, the doors flying open as the mirrors shattered; a wardrobe keeled over, jammed against the double bed; and a coat stand timbered down, the curled crown snapping off as it battered into the rug. BOOOM …

  Henry jumped about two feet in the air, scuttling away from the living room, hackles up. Barking at the pile of furniture.

  The echoes faded away, but the pall of dust – kicked up by the falling pieces – lingered in the cold dark air.

  Hmm …

  Mother wafted a hand in fron
t of her face, spluttering the dust away. ‘We’ll get a lookout request sorted, see if N Division can find the brother’s croft and get Gordon Smith picked up.’ She opened the front door and a scream of wind shoved its way into the house, bringing with it the hissing roar of the sea as it gnawed on the headland only thirty or forty feet away.

  Alice followed her out, muttering about spiders and lawsuits.

  Leaving Henry and me alone in the darkness, with nothing but the weakening light from my phone for company.

  I raised the rubber tip of my walking stick and jabbed it down again, into the hall carpet. It made the same hollow thumping noise it had when we’d searched the place. Henry barked at that too.

  Might be nothing, but still …

  The hallway was completely carpeted, as were both bedrooms and dining room. Linoleum down in the bathroom, kitchen, and utility room. Which left two options.

  Down to the end of the corridor – shouldering open the door through to the garage. A row of empty shelves ran along the rear wall, a pegboard opposite the door, with black marker outlines where tools were meant to be. Spattered spray paint making a crime-scene outline of a workbench that wasn’t there any more. A concrete floor, littered with leaves blown in through the sagging up-and-over door. With the front door open, the wind whipped straight through the house, sparking the fallen leaves up into an angry ballet of whirling greys.

  Hard not to picture the waves crashing against the cliff, less than a dozen feet away. Eating them.

  Henry looked up at me, a whine rattling at the back of his throat.

  Yeah. Good point.

  I got out of there fast and shoved the door shut again, killing the wind tunnel.

  One place left.

  By the time I’d returned to the living room, Alice was standing in the hall, arms folded, crease between her eyebrows, mouth turned down. ‘Can we please go now? Before the house falls into the sea?’

  ‘Give me a minute.’

  She took the proffered lead and frowned down at the wee man. ‘Your dad’s got a death wish.’