The Coffinmaker's Garden

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘Saint Fraser of Ochenbrook.’

  ‘It’s sacrilegious. No wonder Pope Innocent the Twelfth excommunicated the lot of you … Aha!’ He stared at the grass where his toecap was, then pinned his brolly between his cheek and shoulder – freeing up both hands to snap on a pair of purple nitrile gloves. Bent and retrieved a used syringe, holding it aloft like a prize salmon. ‘Voila.’

  ‘That supposed to prove something?’

  A condescending smile. ‘That this place is being used for the consumption of drugs, my dear ex-Detective Inspector.’

  ‘Wow!’ I slapped a hand to my cheek. ‘You – don’t – say? A patch of waste ground in Kingsmeath being used by druggies? Shock, and indeed, horror! Who would ever have guessed?’

  Huntly’s eyes narrowed. ‘A chap could go off you, you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Every bloody park, kids’ playground, and bus shelter from here to Kings Drive is awash with people shooting up. Be more of a surprise if you found somewhere that wasn’t.’

  He dropped the syringe, rubbed his squeaky purple fingertips together. ‘Fine. Then you tell me what Gòrach was doing here.’

  ‘Found it!’ Alice’s voice wafted back to us, through the rain. ‘This is where Andrew died.’

  ‘Maybe Gòrach followed him in. Maybe he snatched Andrew off the street and brought him here. Or maybe he knew kids played here so he turns up, hoping some kid will happen past.’

  ‘Or maybe he’s already here, shooting up, and then he sees Andrew Brennan and decides to make his high that bit more dangerous?’

  ‘ARE YOU TWO COMING, OR WHAT?’

  I shrugged, followed the sound of her voice, damp grass clutching at my trouser legs. ‘If you can afford a car, or vehicle, why the hell would you come here to cook up? Why not go somewhere safe, secluded, warm?’

  Huntly lumbered along beside me. ‘Well, perhaps the good doctor is right and Gòrach lives locally? Or he comes back here to connect to his past …’ A frown. ‘To be honest, all this behavioural analysis stuff is somewhat beneath my skill level. I make deductions based on facts and realities, I don’t do speculative nonsense. What we know is that Gòrach was here and Andrew Brennan was here, and they can only have come through the gate we did, or the one by the improperly named church.’

  Alice stood in a small trampled circle of grass, frowning at the grubby remnants of a large teddy bear someone had cable-tied to a wooden fencepost. One of its arms was missing, the stuffing poking out of multiple holes in its legs. Its stomach spilling out into its lap. A handful of floral tributes lay scattered around it, as if tossed about in a fit of rage, the grimy cellophane wrappers of long-dead bouquets marking where people had paid their respects and not come back to clean them up afterwards.

  Henry let loose a whimper and Alice rubbed the fur between his ears. ‘Which house was Andrew Brennan’s?’

  Huntly consulted his phone. ‘That one, there.’ Pointing down the hill, to the back of William Terrace. ‘Mother, younger brother, Andrew, and a succession of the mother’s boyfriends. Three of whom are currently taking their ease at Her Majesty’s pleasure for extortion, aggravated assault, and domestic violence, respectively. The local numpties interviewed all of her beaux, but to no avail.’

  I tilted my head back, let the rain patter against my cheeks and chin. ‘Let’s say he knows Andrew. Let’s say he’s watched him play here in the past, what’s different about this time?’

  ‘Hmph. I’ll let the good doctor take that one.’

  Alice cleared her throat. ‘Well, I mean, you could look on it as a crime of opportunity, like I said this morning, because he’s always fantasised about it and the question then has to be why would no one know about the murder, because all it would take is someone looking out of their back window and they’d see you there, strangling a wee boy, wouldn’t it?’

  Huntly went back to his phone. ‘According to the report, the mother called the police when Andrew didn’t come in for his dinner. That was a little after five o’clock.’

  Back under my umbrella again, I nodded towards the skeletal trees and spiny bushes. ‘I checked the weather reports: eighteenth of June, the city was thick with haar. Down here, in the gloom? You’d be lucky to see your hand in front of your face.’

  Alice nodded. ‘Do you think I could talk to the mother, Ash? Would that be OK?’

  ‘Don’t see why not.’

  Huntly leaned on the bell, setting its high-pitched trill ringing on and on and on and on.

  The building must have been impressive in its day: a grand mid-terrace home with its garden out front, tiled entrance hall, and mahogany staircase, but carving the thing up into six small flats had turned its sweeping grandeur into a claustrophobic warren. The lighting wasn’t on in the communal stairwell, hiding things in the darkness.

  And still the bell trilled.

  Alice’s boxy wee Suzuki sat at the kerb outside, Henry’s nose pressed against the passenger window as the car slowly steamed up, marinating the interior in the stink of wet Scottie dog.

  Finally, a man’s voice grumbled through the door to Flat 1L, getting louder. ‘God’s sake, buncha bastards …’ Then the door burst open, revealing a tousle-haired bloke in his mid-forties with tattoos visible on his arms and neck where they poked out of a pink towelling dressing gown two sizes too small for him. Puffy eyes. Chin blue with stubble. A droopy moustache. Squint teeth on show as he bellowed at us. ‘STOP RINGING THAT BELL!’ Jabbing a hand back inside the flat. ‘YES, I WAS ASLEEP: I’M ON BLOODY NIGHTS!’

  Huntly took his thumb off the bell. ‘So sorry to wake you.’ Not sounding in the least bit genuine. ‘Is Mrs Brennan home?’

  ‘Why?’ The man tucked his chin in, creating a roll of fat around his neck as he looked the pinstriped tit up and down. Clenched his fists. ‘You some sort of lawyer?’ Making that last word sound as if it was code for intestinal parasite.

  Alice got herself between the two of them, and gave him a wave. ‘Hello, I’m Dr McDonald, but you can call me Alice, if you like, and we’re looking to speak to Mrs Brennan, because we’re trying to help the police find out what happened to Andrew and why it happened, and who made it happen, of course – that’s the really important thing, isn’t it – so if you can help us to help them, that’ll really help, OK?’

  The rolls of fat got deeper. ‘Mary’s not here.’

  ‘Oh, right, can we come in and wait, because it’s—’

  ‘What part of, “I’m on nights” did you not get?’ Closing the door on us. ‘She’s up the church. Been going there every morning since … you know, Andrew.’

  ‘Yes, right, well we can—’

  ‘Hang on.’ I stuck the tip of my walking stick in the gap, stopping the door from shutting. ‘What lawyers are these, then? The ones you were expecting.’

  He stared at his bare feet. ‘I need to get back to bed.’

  ‘Professor Huntly, would you be so kind as to lean on this gentleman’s bell again?’

  A raised eyebrow. ‘I hope that’s not a euphemism …’ But Huntly did as he was asked and that irritating trill rang out once more.

  ‘All right, all right!’ Our sleepy friend scrubbed his hands across his face. Sagged. ‘It’s Mary’s ex, Billy’s dad. The wanker who broke her arm and knocked out two of her teeth. He’s suddenly decided he wants visitation rights.’

  Huntly raised the other eyebrow. ‘But he’s in prison.’

  ‘Yeah, but he wants Billy to visit him there. And Billy’s only fourteen months, so Mary would have to go with him. And that means Charlie Mitchell gets to screw with her head again. It’s all about control with tossers like that.’ The man tightened his too-short pink dressing gown about his middle. ‘Now, if you don’t mind: bugger off so I can go back to sleep.’

  ‘What do you reckon to our sleepy friend, then?’ Water gushed down the gutters on Denholm Road, rain drumming on the roofs and bonnets of the cars, bouncing off the overflowing municipal wheelie bins, as we slogged our way uph
ill.

  Alice peered out from beneath her ladybird umbrella. ‘As a suspect? Possible, I suppose – clearing the nest, getting rid of any offspring sired by Mary Brennan’s former partners so he can repopulate it with his own, but it doesn’t really fit, I mean, why would he go after Oscar Harris and Lewis Talbot as well?’ She frowned. ‘Unless they were killed by someone else, but then we wouldn’t see such a clear progression of MO, would we, so on balance I don’t think it’s likely and anyway wouldn’t local police have interviewed him already?’

  ‘Ah, my dear Doctor,’ Huntly gave her one of his more patronising smiles, ‘you’re forgetting one very salient point: the local police are morons.’

  Bit harsh, but not necessarily untrue.

  The road curved around to the right, coming to a halt at a roundabout circled by shuttered shops. A lone newsagent’s was still operating, the sandwich board outside it proclaiming, ‘BOY’S BODY FOUND IN WOODS ~ PHOTO EXCLUSIVE!’

  From here, Banks Road climbed away on the left, an arched bridge taking it over the raised railway lines. And down below, in the hollow beneath both, lurked the dark grey lump of Saint Damon of the Green Wood. Its jagged spire barely reached road level, the roof done with semicircular slate tiles, like fish scales. Miserable gargoyles. Stained glass that looked as if it’d never seen sunlight or soapy water. A steep set of stairs curled away down into the gloom.

  ‘Well, that’s not depressing in any way, shape, or form, is it?’ Huntly peered over the railings that separated the pavement from the near-vertical drop to the graveyard, fifty feet below. ‘What a silly place to put a church.’

  A pair of stone pillars stood amongst the headstones, holding up the railway line, a vast bowed arc of steel allowing it to span the main body of the church, another set of pillars on the far side of its sharp pitched roof.

  Alice wrapped an arm around herself. ‘Can you imagine being buried down there?’

  Not yet.

  ‘Come on: less melodrama, more work.’ I opened the gate and led the way, descending the slippery steps. A drift of rubbish had built up at the base of the steep drop, empty crisp packets and plastic bottles mingling with wilting newspapers and takeaway containers, stretching out to touch the nearest gravestones.

  She was right about not wanting to be buried down here, though. Felt as if we were already halfway to hell, without being another six feet closer.

  Lichen covered most of the memorials, obscuring the names and dates. It stretched up the church walls too, joining the thick bank of rambling ivy that crawled across the façade, making those dirty stained-glass windows even darker.

  Alice and Huntly followed me through the heavy wooden doors, the three of us dripping on the flagstones, breaths fogging the air as the plinky-plonk-squawk of someone not very good practising on the organ filled the vaulted space. The same musical phrase repeated over and over, getting it wrong every time.

  ‘Dear Lord,’ Huntly hunched his arms in and shivered, ‘colder in here than it is outside …’

  Dark too – the only light came from clusters of candle stubs, flickering away in their wrought-iron holders, nowhere near enough of them to dispel the gloom. The cloying scent of incense not quite managing to cover the grubby taint of mould and damp.

  Down the far end, looming out of the murk, a twice-life-sized wooden Jesus cried in agony on his oversized cross, eyes screwed shut, mouth open, the blood of his wounds darkened and chipped by time. Ribs visible through the slash in his side.

  Rows and rows of hard wooden pews. A marble altar the colour of liver. A lectern decorated with dark metal skulls and bones.

  Saint Damon of the Green Wood: about as cheery and welcoming as a landmine.

  A woman’s head and shoulders were just visible over the pews, by the front of the church. Kneeling in prayer.

  She didn’t look up as I slid into the space next to her.

  ‘Mrs Brennan?’

  Her hair was dark as coal, pulled back from her face and tied with a black ribbon, giving her sharp features a crow-like edge. Bony hands working their way through a string of rosary beads, the fingernails bitten down to ragged stumps. Eyes closed, pale lips moving in silence.

  The photo in the case file showed a young woman who’d hung on to her baby weight, smiling away in Montgomery Park, by the boating lake, a baby on her hip and a wee boy at her feet – throwing chunks of sliced white to the ducks. A small happy family, enjoying a day out in the sun.

  But those days were long gone.

  The organist made another assault on the same passage they’d screwed up at least two dozen times since we’d arrived. Got it wrong again.

  And Mary Brennan kept working her way through the rosary.

  ‘Mrs Brennan, my name’s Ash Henderson. I’m part of a team who’re trying to help the police find out who hurt Andrew. Can we ask you some questions?’

  Her eyes screwed tighter shut. ‘I’m praying!’

  ‘That’s OK.’ I settled back in my pew. ‘We’ll wait.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake …’ She thumped her beads down on the shelf built into the back of the pews in front, the one supporting a row of mildew-blackened Bibles. ‘What do you want now?’

  11

  ‘You think I haven’t asked that every single day since Andrew … Since he …’ Mary Brennan dug a thumb into her temple, a menthol cigarette smouldering away in the other hand. Sheltering beneath the overhang of a gothic memorial to some silk merchant who’d passed away in the cholera outbreak of 1832.

  She took a drag on her cigarette, setting the tip glowing bright orange in the gloomy morning. ‘I ask for God’s guidance, I really do, and I want to believe that it’s all part of His holy plan and that Andrew’s at His side. And I tell people I believe in love and forgiveness. But what I really want is for the man who killed my baby to be tortured in hell for all eternity.’

  Alice shuffled her little scarlet feet, rain pattering on her ladybird brolly’s cheery red-and-black surface. ‘You don’t have anything to feel ashamed about, Mary, it’s natural to be angry. You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t.’

  ‘I want to wrap my hands round his throat, and squeeze the life out of him myself. An eye for an eye …’

  Yeah, we all knew how that worked out.

  My turn: ‘And you didn’t see anyone hanging around the place, before it happened? Anyone always walking their dog, for instance, or taking a bit too much interest in the waste ground? Maybe someone trying to get the place done up?’

  She glowered at me, through a fug of exhaled smoke. ‘Why do you lot always ask the same bloody questions? Why can’t you do it the once, then leave me alone? Why do you have to rake it all up, over and over and over?’ Cheeks hollowing as she dragged in an angry lungful of menthol. ‘How do you think it feels?’

  Yeah.

  The memorial’s black marble was cool against my back as I eased further out of the rain. ‘What about the people who go out there to take drugs? Would you recognise any regulars? Any names you could give us?’ Thankfully, Huntly had taken the not-so-subtle hint and kept his tactless arse in the church, but that didn’t mean his druggie theory wasn’t worth a go.

  ‘And you never answer anything, do you? You ask and ask and ask, and I get sod all back.’

  Alice wrinkled her nose. ‘It always looks so easy on the telly, doesn’t it? The detectives rock up, ask a couple of questions, there’s an ad break, then next thing you know the killer’s in handcuffs and everyone lives happily ever after.’ She squatted down in front of Mary Brennan, took hold of her free hand. ‘It takes a lot longer in real life, and we’re really, really sorry about that, but we have to find the man who hurt Andrew before he hurts anyone else. So I know it must be almost unbearable, but please: we need your help.’

  A shrug, but she didn’t take her hand away. ‘Local kids use it to drink the booze they’ve shoplifted … Now and then you’ll see someone smoking weed, cos you can’t do it inside or you’ll get kicked out of your flat. Ma
ybe a couple of junkies, but only when the weather’s good. There are nicer places in Kingsmeath than this.’ She sucked on her cigarette again, hissing out a cloud of bitter menthol. A hint of steel in her voice: ‘You think they’re the ones hurt my Andrew?’

  Alice shook her head. ‘We’re keeping an open mind, but it’s not likely. They might have seen who did, though. We can get someone to bring round a few mugshots, maybe you can recognise some of them?’

  Mary Brennan curled one shoulder up to her ear. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘OK.’ I took out my phone, called up the memo app and hit record. ‘Can you take us through what happened that day – Thursday the eighteenth – doesn’t matter what it is, anything you can remember could help.’

  Mary Brennan looked out across the rows of headstones, back towards the waste ground, with the railway line towering above it on thin metal legs. ‘It was …’ She licked her lips. ‘I wasn’t … good that day. Charlie’s lawyer came past the day before with the legal papers, you know? Wanting visiting rights to Billy. I …’ She bit her top lip. ‘So I woke up, Thursday morning, with a killer hangover. What right’s that bastard got to demand access to my Billy? Never bothered about him before, did he? Not when he could come home reeking of drink and beat the crap out of me.’ A shudder ran its way through her, ending with another furious puff of menthol smoke. ‘And now, all of a sudden, I’m supposed to take my Billy up to prison to visit his violent arsehole dad?’

  She gave a small bitter laugh. ‘Yeah, so: hangover like you wouldn’t believe. And Andrew’s begging me to take him to feed the ducks again, but I can’t … You try spending all morning throwing up and changing a toddler’s shitty nappy.’ Deep breath. ‘It was kinda cold and foggy, so I bundled him up in his duffel coat, wellies, and mittens, and stuck him out in the back garden. Was supposed to stay there, where it’s safe.’ Mary’s voice got quieter and quieter. ‘Only he didn’t, did he? And now I’m stuck here, every morning, praying for guidance and wishing I could kill the bastard who took my baby …’