The Coffinmaker's Garden

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘He’s refusing to hand over vital evidence that—’

  ‘Alice: step – aside.’

  ‘One last chance, Henderson: give me that phone!’

  ‘Oh for goodness’ sake.’ Mother appeared at my shoulder. ‘Mr Henderson, do you swear on your mother’s life-slash-grave that you’ll email the footage to John and me?’

  Alice nodded. ‘Of course he does.’

  ‘No offence, Dr McDonald, but I’d feel happier hearing it from the man himself.’ She poked me in the back. ‘Well?’

  ‘I’ll email you the footage, not this greasy wanked-up slice of pish.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Watt clenched his jaw.

  ‘You heard.’

  A disappointed grunt from Mother. ‘Oh let him go, John. We’ve got enough on our plates without a visit to Accident and Emergency.’

  There was some grumbling, too low to make out the actual words, then Watt stepped aside. Made a sarcastic ‘after you’ gesture.

  Prick.

  It was difficult, resisting the urge to give him a hard shoulder-barge on the way past, but with Alice bustling down the corridor right behind me, it wasn’t really doable. He’d have to take an IOU.

  My jacket had cooled down while we were in the kitchen, but it hadn’t dried out any, so it clung to my shoulders and back like the cold wet hands of the drowned as I pulled it on and hauled open the front door.

  Stopped dead.

  Helen MacNeil stood under the tiny porch, wrapped up in a thick waterproof, dripping as the wind clawed at her. Staring at me with puffy, bloodshot eyes. ‘You said you’d help find my granddaughter.’

  Of course I did. Because I’m far too soft for my own good.

  I held out the bolt cutters. ‘Thanks for the loan.’

  She tucked them under one arm, then dug into her waterproof and came out with a picture frame, about the size of a paperback book. Pressed it into my hands. Voice cracking over the words. ‘She wouldn’t run away, I know she wouldn’t, not after Sophie … Something’s happened to her.’

  Don’t look at Gordon Smith’s house. Keep your eyes on Helen MacNeil. Try for a reassuring smile. ‘She’s … probably staying with friends. There’s no need to—’

  ‘I spoke to all her friends, they haven’t heard from Leah in weeks.’

  Alice tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Ash?’

  ‘Not now.’ Back to Helen, softening my tone as she wiped a hand across her glistening cheeks. ‘You say Leah wouldn’t run away, why not?’

  ‘Because her mother left us.’ Helen turned her face away. ‘She left us.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean she—’

  ‘SHE TOOK HER OWN LIFE! OK? SHE KILLED HERSELF!’ And there was the Helen MacNeil everyone had always been so afraid of – those bloodshot eyes blazing, mouth a hard vicious line. The woman who could batter a rival firm’s drug dealer to death with a pickaxe handle. ‘And you promised you’d help!’

  Yeah, I kinda did.

  5

  Alice frowned at the rear-view mirror as the little Suzuki lurched its way out of Clachmara. ‘He killed her, didn’t he? Gordon Smith took Leah MacNeil down to his horrible basement and … did things to her.’

  ‘We don’t know that.’ The car lumped through another pothole. ‘Will you keep your eyes on the road! I’m losing fillings here.’

  The windscreen wipers’ squeal-thunk added a rhythm section to the blowers’ roar – enough condensation coming off all three of us to mist-up the windscreen and windows, the air heady with the grubby-animal scent of soggy Scottie dog.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell Helen—’

  ‘Because until we know for sure, there’s no point making things worse for her. “Oh, yeah, your granddaughter’s probably been tortured to death …”’ A lump twisted inside my throat. Wouldn’t go away when I swallowed. So I cleared it. ‘Right now she thinks Leah might come home. At least she’s got hope.’

  Alice nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Everyone always was, even after all this time. ‘Let’s just … change the subject.’

  ‘OK. Yes. Changing the subject it is.’ Alice shifted her hands on the steering wheel. ‘The photographs we saw in Gordon Smith’s basement are indicative of a collective personality. Putting them on display like that allows him to relive the hunt and the kill. Burying the bodies in the garden is about keeping them close. He needs to have them with him.’

  ‘Why would he—’

  ‘Gordon Smith’s house is right on the coast – well, even more so now the headland’s disintegrating – if you want to dump a body there’s plenty of places you could chuck it in the sea and off it goes. He’s burying them in the garden because he’s a collector, it’s the same deal with the photographs.’ Alice hunched forwards and rubbed her hand across the fogging windscreen, clearing a porthole. ‘He won’t have begun there, though. He’d want to keep them closer than that. In the house. I bet that basement wasn’t concreted when he moved in, he’s done that bit by bit over the years. Probably only started burying them in the garden because he’d run out of room.’

  ‘Thought that was Rose and Fred West?’

  The car thumped through yet another bloody pothole.

  ‘The question is, why did he leave his beloved photographs behind? Why not take his collection with him? He can’t take their bodies, but the photos would be easy enough …’

  ‘Your suspension’s going to be ruined, by the way.’ As we thunked into three potholes in a row.

  ‘He must have copies, I’d take copies if I was him, I mean think of the nostalgia value when you’re reliving past glories and flicking through the souvenirs of all the people you tortured to death, but he’s left his kill room behind, hasn’t he, so maybe that’s because he’s been told his house is going to fall into the sea any minute now and in a way that’s kind of sexy, isn’t it, knowing all this incriminating evidence is sitting right there, but no one can ever lay their hands on it, because A: they don’t know it exists, and B: everything’s going to be washed away in the next big storm.’ Alice nodded, agreeing with herself. ‘It’s all about risk, thrill, and control.’

  ‘You think that’s sexy?’ I shook my head. ‘You forensic psychologists are weird.’

  ‘And did Gordon Smith kill them on his own? I mean, it’d be really hard to hide that from your wife, wouldn’t it? You can’t turn your basement into a torture chamber and graveyard without your other half noticing, can you? How would you explain all the screaming?’

  I pulled out my phone. Five percent battery left. A quick scroll through my contacts brought up the one marked ‘SHIFTY’ and set it ringing. ‘Not our problem any more. It’s DI Malcolmson’s case, remember?’

  ‘I wonder if there was a drop in the murders after his wife died? Couples who kill tend to get caught before one of them drops dead of natural causes.’

  A hard Oldcastle accent barked out of the earpiece. ‘Detective Inspector David Morrow’s phone?’

  ‘Rhona? It’s Ash. Is Shifty there?’

  The voice softened. ‘Hey, Ash. The big man’s interviewing a nonce – you remember Willie McNaughton? Used to flog—’

  ‘Hardcore German porn to school kids, I remember. Listen—’

  ‘And now they can get it all, online, for free. That’s progress for you.’

  ‘Rhona, I need a favour. Leah MacNeil – her gran reported her missing a month ago. Has anything been done about it? And if not, can you get Shifty to kick someone’s arse for them till they do? I’ve got a recent photo, if they need one.’ After all, you never knew. Maybe she really had run away? Fingers crossed anyway.

  ‘Hold on.’ The broken-teeth rattle of Rhona battering the living hell out of her keyboard joined our symphony for windscreen wipers and blowers.

  At long last, the potholed horror of Clachmara faded behind us as Alice took a left onto a good old-fashioned crappy B road, heading back towards Oldcastle.

  ‘And while you’re at it, have a dig into what happened to her mum.�
��

  ‘You’re not shy, are you?’

  ‘Nope. And make sure …’ Silence on the other end. ‘Rhona? Hello?’

  The screen was black, and poking the fingerprint reader on the back did nothing to change that. Phone was dead.

  Alice glanced across the car at me. ‘Problem?’

  ‘Don’t have a phone charger in here, do you?’

  ‘Back at the flat. Anyway, as I was saying, normally when you’ve got a couple who kills, one’s dominant and one’s subservient: Rose to Fred West, Myra to Ian Brady. The dominant partner wants to kill, the subservient partner goes along with it to keep the love of their life happy. So what happens when one of them dies?’

  ‘The world becomes a much better place.’

  Wasn’t even the third week in November yet, and the big Winslow’s in Logansferry already had chocolate Santas, mince pies, and Christmas pudding for sale. An entire shelf dedicated to reduced Halloween tat. And a confusing array of mobile phone charging cables.

  Alice draped herself over the trolley’s handles, one red-shod foot flat on the floor, the other twisting back and forth on its toes, while she fiddled about on her phone. Face all pinched with concentration.

  Why did every bloody mobile manufacturer have to use a different cable?

  I picked one that should fit, then dumped it in with the Tunnock’s Teacakes, Quality Street tin, and multipack of pickled onion Monster Munch.

  She straightened up, eyes still glued to her phone, bumping the trolley forward with her hips. It wobbled away a couple of feet, then took an unprompted hard left into the memory cards.

  At least it gave me something to lean on while we hobbled around to the drinks aisle.

  ‘You still haven’t answered the question.’ Scuffing along beside me, like a teenager, using radar to avoid hitting anything while she concentrated on that little screen.

  ‘There’s Pizzageddon on Clay Road, and that new place by the station’s meant to be pretty good.’

  She had the teenager’s sigh down pat too. ‘No, not dinner – tomorrow.’

  This again.

  ‘Alice, can we please not—’

  ‘Apart from anything else, it’s our crime-fighting anniversary, isn’t it? Nine years to the day since we first teamed up to catch bad guys. We should do something to celebrate, that’s all.’

  ‘Ah …’ Forgotten about that. ‘Suppose it is.’

  She plucked a box of orange Matchmakers from the shelf as we passed, apparently without even looking at it. ‘See?’

  ‘Thought you were the one banging on about not eating properly?’

  ‘Don’t change the subject.’ A packet of jelly babies joined the rest of her five-a-day. ‘And then there’s Rebecca.’

  Sodding hell. ‘I told you I didn’t want to—’

  ‘You’ve never even visited her grave.’

  ‘That’s not—’

  ‘It’s been nine years, Ash.’ A shrug. ‘And I know the first two weren’t your fault, because of … well, what happened with Mrs Kerrigan being a vindictive cow, but it’s not healthy to continually avoid the subject.’

  I steered the trolley into the drinks aisle, beer and cider forming two walls of a boozy canyon on either side. ‘I’m not avoiding—’

  ‘Because sooner or later it’s going to come back and bite you, right on the—’ The phone in her hand launched into something jaunty and she gave out a small startled squeal, before poking at the screen and putting it to her ear. ‘Hello, Bear, how are you getting— … Yes, I know Lewis Talbot’s post mortem is happening now, but— … No, it isn’t, but— … Yes, but you don’t really need us, do you, Bear, I mean we can’t add anything to— … Yes, Bear.’ Her shoulders slumping more with every passing second. ‘No, I am happy being part of LIRU, honest—’

  I poked her in the arm and held out my hand. ‘Give.’

  She did what she was told.

  Detective Superintendent Jacobson’s voice rattled in my ear, wanging on about teambuilding. ‘… vitally important every member of the team is—’

  ‘What do you want?’

  A pause.

  ‘Ash? Why aren’t you answering your phone?’

  ‘Stupid thing’s run out of battery. And before you ask: no, we won’t be attending the post mortem. We almost died an hour ago, thanks to you, so you’ll understand if we’re not in the mood to watch someone fillet a wee boy who’s been dead for a month.’

  The visuals would be bad enough, but the smell? On top of everything else we’d been through, tonight? No thanks.

  Alice pointed at the shelves, pulled a constipated-frog face, then loped away towards the hard spirits.

  ‘Almost died? Helen MacNeil got violent, did she? Well, you’re supposed to be good at handling things like that, it’s—’

  ‘We found a kill room in her next-door neighbour’s basement. Whole place nearly got washed out to sea with us in it.’

  ‘A kill room? Now, that is interesting … Multiple victims?’ Difficult to describe the tone that’d come into Jacobson’s voice, but it was a cross between cunning and avarice. ‘I take it they’ll need our help interpreting the scene? After all, the Lateral Investigative and Review Unit is uniquely positioned to—’

  ‘There’s no one going anywhere near the scene. I wasn’t kidding about the place washing out to sea – the headland’s crumbling away underneath the property. Doubt it’ll last the night.’

  ‘That’s a shame. We’ll probably wrap up this child-killer case soon, and it’d be nice to have something high-profile to move on to. Still, can’t be helped.’

  Alice reappeared with a litre of supermarket vodka and a bottle of red wine clutched in her left hand, a twelve-pack of tonic and a bargain-basement brandy cradled in her right arm like a rectangular yellow baby and its alcoholic cuddly toy.

  ‘Now, about this post mortem—’

  ‘No.’ I turned the trolley when Alice had finished loading the booze, and pushed for the checkouts. ‘In addition to almost dying – I did mention that, didn’t I? In addition to that, we’re both soaked to the skin. And if you think we’re going to spend the next four to six hours standing in a freezing cold mortuary, catching our deaths, you can shove LIRU where, as Bernard would say, “the light from our nearest star is permanently occluded”.’

  ‘Ash, that’s not exactly—’

  ‘AKA: sideways up your hole!’

  Silence.

  The two old ladies in front of us tremored their way through emptying their trolley onto the checkout conveyor belt: supermarket whisky, white bread, cheese, bacon, cucumber, baby oil, and a jumbo-sized thing of toilet paper. Must’ve been planning one hell of a party.

  ‘Ash, please remind me: why exactly do I put up with you on my team?’

  I stuck the ‘NEXT CUSTOMER PLEASE’ plastic Toblerone down, at the end of the oldies’ shopping. ‘You want the official reason, or the real one?’

  ‘Ah … Perhaps we should—’

  ‘Officially: it’s because my twenty years policing the serial-killer capital of Europe looks good on your stupid brochures. Unofficially: it’s because you know sometimes corners have to be cut, rules broken, and heads smashed in, but you don’t want to get your hands dirty. You want plausible deniability so none of it blows back on you. And, more importantly, Alice won’t work without me.’

  She grimaced, then unloaded the vodka, tonic, wine, and brandy onto the conveyor belt, bottles and cans clinking and rattling.

  ‘Have we finished having our sulky tantrum? Because if we have, we might hear me say, “Take the rest of the evening off, Ash. You and Alice have deserved a rest, Ash. Come in fresh tomorrow, Ash.”’

  Should bloody well think so too.

  The last of the shopping went on the belt, to be bleeped through the till by a short man who’d never see seventy again, with a satsuma-orange fake tan and startled-Weetabix hair. The liver spots on his tiny hands trembling as he tried to get the Monster Munch to scan.

  �
��Had to promise Helen MacNeil I’d look into her granddaughter going missing.’

  ‘Unfortunate, but I suppose it won’t take up too much of your time.’

  Alice reached for her cards, but I waved her away.

  ‘I’ll get this lot. Call it an anniversary present.’

  ‘You’re getting me a present?’

  ‘Was talking to Alice.’ I pinned the phone between my shoulder and ear and went rummaging for my wallet. ‘And how long it takes depends on whether or not Leah MacNeil’s one of the bodies getting washed out to sea right now. If it is: not so straightforward.’

  ‘Well, do your best, and if you see an in for consultancy services …?’

  ‘You’re like a scratched CD, you know that, don’t you?’ Ah, found it. But pulling the thing out of my jacket pocket brought a cascade of grubby plastic rectangles with it – all pinned to a mouldy length of string. The Polaroids from the basement wall. The ones where the people being photographed weren’t on holiday any more. They skittered across the stainless-steel surface, caught in the supermarket’s bright lights.

  And the wee orange man on the till stared. Mouth hanging wider and wider.

  All those ripped open bodies. All the screams and pain. All the wasted lives.

  Damn things should’ve been easy to get back into my pocket – they were strung together, for God’s sake – but they wriggled and slipped through my fingers like dying fish as I scrambled to gather them up.

  The wee orange man mashed his palm down on the panic button. Rising out of his seat, eyes like pickled eggs against his pumpkin skin. ‘SECURITY! SECURITY! I NEED SECURITY HERE, NOW!’

  Great.

  A pair of huge women in black fleeces and combat boots thundered towards us, leaving the front door unthugged. Teeth bared. Fists curled.

  ‘Ash, what’s happening? I can hear yelling.’

  ‘I’ll call you back.’

  Brace yourself …

  6

  Thug Number One gave me a lopsided scowl from the other side of the dull grey desk. It wasn’t a black eye, yet, but it was working on it. Sitting there with her thick arms crossed, muscles bulging through the black T-shirt with ‘CASTLE HILL SECURITY LTD.’ embroidered on its left breast.